Zelensky’s 'Victory Plan' is a sign of defeat

After once warning that Western proxy warriors are willing to see "the demise of Ukraine" in order to bleed Russia, Zelensky faces the consequences of heeding their demands.

Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

In late March 2022, as Ukrainian and Russian negotiators made progress on a peace treaty to end the then-month-old Russian invasion of his country, Volodymyr Zelensky took note of an obstacle from afar.

“There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives,” the Ukrainian president told The Economist. “This is definitely in the interests of some countries.”

Zelensky’s assessment was confirmed the following month, when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson informed him that Ukraine’s chief Western sponsors opposed the agreement that Russia and Ukraine had drafted in Istanbul, and encouraged him to “keep fighting” instead.

For reasons that he has yet to explain publicly, Zelensky chose to side with Johnson and the cynical “interests” of the allied Western proxy warriors he had warned about just a few weeks prior. Having bowed to sponsors willing to preside over “the demise of Ukraine” for their goal of “exhausting Russia,” Zelensky is now facing the abandonment that he had foreseen.