Zelenskyy’s True Colors – Top 3 Takeaways – March 3rd, 2025
- True colors. It’s during times of adversity that you truly know what someone’s made of. President Trump, for example, has faced more adversity and has overcome more adversity, than any president since World War II, and on a personal level, since Lincoln. We know what Donald Trump’s made of. You may love him, you may hate him, but there’s no leader in the world more battletested personally and professionally than Donald Trump. Now, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy on the other hand... While he’s faced significant adversity for over three years, based on Friday’s theatrics, it’s also clear what he’s made of. Zelenskyy is schemer who knows how to play one hand. A hand that was a winner when weak and feakless leadership was in place in the United States, and around the world, but a world class losing hand with real American leadership in place. Zelenskyy either isn’t especially perceptive, isn’t intelligent, isn’t strategic, or potentially all three. What happened on Friday was devastating. Not for Donald Trump. Not for the United States. Not even for the feakless EU. It was devastating for Zelenskyy and for Ukrainians. I’ll explain. Zelenskyy’s plan from day one of the war has been to wage a media campaign to encourage sympathy for Ukrainians and their plight in this war. For a while that was easy to do. Putin was (and is) evil. Innocent Ukrainians were (and are) slaughtered by his evil campaign. Zelenskyy played that hand to the hilt. Through December, Zelenskyy had brought in over $280 billion in foreign aid – a number that was nearly twice the size of the country’s annual GDP preceding the war. That’s worth repeating. Through the first two and a half years of the war, Ukraine – banked about as much in foreign aid as its economy was producing on its own. Money is relative. Many have become numb to hearing about hundreds of billions of dollars going out the door because our country is $36.5 trillion of dollars in debt. Those who’ve grown skeptical of Zelenskyy’s intensions as he canceled last year’s scheduled election (imagine for example if such a thing happened in the United States – what would people say?) the war continues down a clearly unwinnable path for the country, but one that Zelenskyy seems at peace fighting as a status quo of sorts. Why would that be?
- Why wouldn’t peace be his top priority – given that there’s no path for victory for his military? Only Zelenskyy can answer directly, however there’s surely no other way that Ukraine, a historically corrupt country – that just so happened to be firing prosecutors investigating a corrupt company, Burisma, that was paying off Joe Biden’s corrupt son, at Joe Biden’s specific direction... Zelenskyy was elected as a “reformer” but years later, the question, especially culturally, is whether he is really? How else in the world could Ukraine effectively double the size of its economy if it wasn’t for a steady supply of “free money” and weapons to continue to fight the war? Regardless, it’s crystal clear based on what happened Friday that keeping the foreign cookie jar open is more important to him than bringing the conflict to an end. What Zelensky had done for nearly three years was to travel from country to country seeking sympathy and, of course, money. His hand, that he’d played so well – and as a former entertainer – that he knows quite well, is to win over win over the media, win over public opinion and thus win over the politicians. Now, to be sure, many politicians that have contributed their country’s resources to the Ukrainian cause weren’t in need of any persuading...but in the case of many – especially to keep the support going for years – they did, and, do need an occasional boost. For example, at the onset of the war 72% of Americans supported aiding Ukraine’s effort in the war. Ongoing support has essential essentially halved. Preceding Friday’s showdown, the Pew Research Center showed that only 39% of Americans believe that ongoing aid to Ukraine “helps” the United States and 8% more Americans say that we’ve already done too much as opposed to having not done enough. Those who say the US has done too much are up four-fold from the start of the war. And notably, preceding Friday’s showdown, Zelenskyy’s favorability rating among American voters was only 47%, or lower than President Trump’s. And this represents the miscalculation that leads to Zelenskyy not being especially perceptive, or intelligent, or strategic, or potentially all three. The old hand, the old playbook, no longer works. Trump mentioned in Friday’s meeting during the showdown that Zelenskyy didn’t have the cards. This calculation of his is part of that deck.
- There was no win for him in the end the way he played his hand on Friday. First, the United States is no longer a country that’s effectively manipulated by its legacy news media that’s endlessly anti-Trump, and effectively anti-American. November’s election proved that to be entirely true. Second, regardless of the waning success of media manipulation, more Americans viewed Trump favorably than Zelensky. Who is the average American likely to side with? Their president that they voted for and whom they approve of more or the Ukrainian president they don’t like as much and who incidentally canceled elections to remain in power (which I bet you most US voters didn’t know about until this showdown)? Third, even if the legacy media still was able to successfully manipulate voters, and even if most voters liked Zelenskyy over Trump, it wouldn’t matter. Not that Donald Trump has ever governed based on polls, as feckless presidents often do, but even if he did, it doesn’t matter because this is it. He’s done. He’ll be our president for four years and then he’s done. He doesn’t have another election to win. And that takes us to the stupidity of Zelenskyy... If this were the final year of Trump’s presidency maybe you can pull that stunt and hope it plays. But where will Ukraine be in four years without the United States? How about Zelenskyy – would he even be in the country or become a refugee? Zelenksyy repeatedly said that he needed defense guarantees for a deal, that otherwise there couldn’t be peace because Putin couldn’t be trusted with a ceasefire deal; because he’d broken them previously. Trump said but he hadn’t broken them with him, which Zelensky didn’t want to hear. Here’s why. If Zelenskyy was really interested in peace he’d have taken the deal in a heartbeat. Why? Because if the US has boots on the ground in Ukraine in the form of miners and construction workers (and their security teams) doesn’t that in effect present itself as a defense guarantee? Is Russia going to break a cease fire with Ukraine that would mean attacking Americans on the ground? Of course not. What Zelenskyy is asking for instead, not just for resources anymore but for Americans and Europeans to step in and fight his war against Russia. He just hasn’t said so quite so explicitly. And as for the reason that he ran to the UK after being ousted from the USA? It’s the country that polls show as being the most approving of Zelenskyy in continued support for Ukraine. Another calculated move. But one based on an old playbook. Now what’s interesting isn’t how this plays in the US, but instead in Ukraine. I can’t imagine the average Ukrainian can be thrilled with Zelenskyy burning a potential path towards peace via a bridge he set on fire with President Trump and the United States. Don’t be surprised if he’s forced to come back to Trump’s table to take the deal that Trump has since taken off of it.