“I is often asked. What are you willing to do for a cease-fire? That is a strange question. What are you, Ukrainians, willing to do for the lives of the people you love? I can assure you: I am willing to do everything so that our heroes no longer die, “said President Volodymyr Zenskyy in his inauguration speech in 2019.
Since the start of his appointment, President Zensky, in theory, has known what is expected of him. The large -scale Russian invasion followed. In the meantime, the most dangerous phase of the war seems to have arrived since the siege of Kyiv. In 2022, Zensky was able to count on unconditional support in the interior, and on the world’s most powerful allies. But now, on the eve of the fourth year of ‘The Great War’, he is no longer insured.
Putin and Trump threaten to close a deal over his head. Whether and how Europe will come to the rescue remains unclear. Zensky must be general, president, diplomat, crisis manager, policy maker and figurehead at the same time – while Russia still bombarded his country day and night with kamikazedrones and ballistic missiles.
It was Bidens foreign minister Antony shining who said at the end of 2022 that only Ukraine could determine when there would be peace conversations with Russia. That was taken over by the European allies. But Trump decided to use his power to order that the moment has come.
In one movement, even before the negotiations have actually started, the United States gave away two of Kyiv’s negotiating sheets this week. A line by a file with security guarantees in the form of a NATO membership, for which Zensky has been tirelessly arguing for three years. And away with the full withdrawal of Russia and the restoration of the internationally recognized limits of Ukraine.
In the meantime, Zensky is being financial: Trump wants the right to Ukrainian soil treasures, up to a value of $ 500 billion. He justifies this as payment for the support that Ukraine received and will receive. So far that was $ 71.4 billion.
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In the meantime it sounds soothing: nothing has been decided at all. There is no agreement yet. Even the American Minister of Defense Hegseeth came again on Thursday somewhat back to his words: he does not say that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO. Only that it is not a realistic outcome of the current situation on the battlefield.
Although several European states have expressed their relentless support for Ukraine, the fear has arisen that the bill will be politely pushed back and forth.
Pilgrimage
VolodyMyr Zensky (47) is the president who asked officers to hang in their office when he took office, but to think of their children when they made decisions. At the outbreak of the war with Nuclear Power Russia, he refused evacuation, and said, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
The originally Russian -language, Jewish man, originally an entertainer, from the industrial heart of Ukraine, was named as global hero. A symbol of good in the struggle between “good against evil, darkness against light, love for his country and his people versus Putin’s hatred for anything but power,” wrote The Guardian.
Western allies visited him in Kyiv as it was a pilgrimage. They were able to show courage by tracing in the armored train to the Ukrainian capital. By promising weapons.
Standing next to the Ukrainian president, his moral shine was able to shine on them. Biden was filmed in the February sun with Zensky for the Sint Michielsklooster, under the roaring sirens of the air alarm. Boris Johnson walked under army guidance by Kyiv. The then Prime Minister Mark Rutte even drove further east, to Charkiv.
But during this shiny display of solidarity, Zensky always remained the questioning party. They were his countrymen who lost their lives on the battlefield, the Ukrainian cities that were destroyed, he needed weapons. Aerial weather. Tanks. Aircraft. Grenades. Missiles. The faster, the more lives they could save. He never got enough.
In the meantime, Zensky is casting a shadow on the conscience of Europeans. He continues to seek the connection: “Nobody understands what war is until it comes to your house. I don’t want to frighten anyone. It’s coming. I only mention facts, “he said in an interview with The Economist This week. “Mathematics does not look good for Europe. Russia has 220 brigades, from 3,000 to 3,500 men. Ukraine has 110, Europe only 80. Do you understand what is happening? Europe will be occupied without Ukraine. ”
It is reminiscent of the fate of his predecessor, former President Petro Poroshenko. When that early 2018, with a battered EU flag, came from the front lines in the Donbas to the safety conference in Munich, he did not go a full room, although he was the only representative of a European country that was actually at war. “Ukraine is the sword and shield of Europe,” he said, when he asked attention to a war that Europe wanted to forget.
Tasting the peace
During the 2019 elections, Zensky blew the sitting president ‘Grand chocolate owner’ Petro Poroshenko from his seat by almost 75 percent of the votes. At the time, Ukraine also had enough of the man who had become the face of the unpopular war in the Donbas.
Zensky only became really popular when Russia invaded full power, in February 2022. More than 90 percent of the population appreciated Zensky because he remained.
Confidence in him remained high in 2023. Zelensky baptized that on January 1 until ‘victory year’. “Let this be the year of return, the return of our people. From fighters to their families. The prisoners of war to their houses. […] Anyone who is temporarily occupied will be free forever. Back to normal life. ”
He promised ‘cherries in Melitopol’. As a gifted copywriter, he made sure that Ukrainians could almost taste the peace. Ukraine would go into the offensive and recover everything. After Ukraine had not only managed to stop the Russians around Kyiv, but in the autumn of 2022 the city of Cherson and the Karkiv region had been able to hurt the Russian army of their territory in a short time. The promise was believed.
Hangover
The hangover arrived in 2024. Ukraine recaptured no more than a few square kilometers near the village of Robotyne. At the beginning of 2024, Zensky’s approval percentage collapsed to 63 percent. Many Ukrainians held the president responsible. The armed forces, in which every Ukrainian now has a family member, friend or knowledge, was not blamed. 96 percent of the population supported the soldiers.
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“It is a tradition with us that the president is immediately blamed for every war event,” says the popular political-military analyst Alexander Kovalenko by telephone. “That was the case before the war, and since the war it continues.” Ukraine has a lively culture of political protest – witness the two folk revolutions this century. Among the latter, the pro-Russian president Viktor was chased away from Janukovich.
For some, Zensky has now become the problem. The extraordinary circumstances of the war caused an unnatural situation: a democratically elected president whose term has expired, controlled by a democratically elected parliament whose period has expired.
Elections are prohibited in Ukraine during the State of Siege. Even Zensky’s greatest political competitors agree that it is correct not to compete with each other as long as the population is under Russian fire.
Yet the Americans are urging elections. And like the Ukrainian online medium Pravda This week recorded from someone from the Zelensky team: “If elections become a condition for getting support, what choice is there? Then it would be quite possible that this will be an election year. ”
There are more signals that possibly elections are coming, analysts say. This week, sanctions were imposed on former President Poroshenko for each presidential decree-because of ‘national security’. Although Poroshenko is not a threat according to the latest polls in a presidential election against Zensky, his party has a lot of European solidarity to conquer more seats if it arrives on parliamentary elections, one of the analysts who speaks NRC. At present, Zensky’s party servant of the people has the absolute majority in the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.
Former Barrier Valeri Zaloezjny gauges a big 8 percent higher than Zensky. He embodies the confidence that the population has in the army. The four -star general was fired in the previous spring and appointed as ambassador in the UK. “Zaloezjny defended everyone as a hero. The impression was created that he freed the people in Cherson and Charkiv [tijdens het tegenoffensief in 2023]. It is that simple, and now it is very popular, “says Kovalenko.
Corruption
And then there is a matter that undermines internal stability: corruption. “Since last summer we have seen a true Renaissance of corruption in Ukraine,” says investigative journalist Joeri Nikolov by telephone. He is co-founder of the ‘Our Money’ website who examines suspicious government purchases and was threatened several times in the last year.
In 2023 there were also revelations of overpoing during weapons purchases, food and clothing purchases for the armed forces. The best known were expensive eggs and a bulk purchase of winter coats that were not suitable for the winter. Now Nikolov sees this phenomenon on a larger scale. He sees a sagging of the US attention for this problem as one of the reasons that the authorities are now taking less against it.
The population reacts indignantly with every revelation. And that is why revealing is now being opposed, says Nikolov. “My colleagues and I now seem to have become the enemies of the regime.”
When The Economist Zelensky this week early to the support he enjoys with the population, he replied: “There are people who are very patriotic, and there are people who are not.”
It is difficult to imagine that Volodyymyr Zensky knew in 2019 what he started. Although the words of his inauguration speech remain remarkable to this day. He said: “I am certainly not afraid of making difficult decisions. I am willing to lose my popularity, my viewing figures. I am willing to give up my position without hesitation. Only so that there is peace. But without losing our territories, that never. “
He continued: “History is unfair, that’s true.”
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