Stephen Bryen
The recent massive bombings on Ukrainian territory and advances by the Russian army are harbingers of the end game that will befall Ukraine unless that country can find a way out. One solution is to make Ukraine a flexible actor, meaning to insulate Zelensky. The best way to do that is a coalition government to carry the burden of negotiations with Russia.
Today we keep hearing from Zelensky and his cohorts that they can win the war without America, that they won’t yield even one meter of Ukrainian territory to the hated Russians, that they can buy American military equipment “on rental” or buy American hardware by using Germany as a front.
Does the Ukrainian leadership actually believes what they are saying?
My guess is they don’t believe any of it but are trying to reassure their people. But it is hard to be reassuring when missiles and drones are exploding everywhere and you are sleeping in a shelter or a cold basement.
Negotiations blunder
The great blunder came in on or about March 30, 2022. That is when Boris Johnson allegedly convinced Zelensky to back out of the peace deal agreed to by the parties in Istanbul. My own reading is that Johnson gave a sort of legitimacy to a Zelensky decision to walk away from a deal with Russia, fearing that his army would topple his presidency and maybe kill him.
Prior to that, as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reported, Zelensky was afraid the Russians would kill him, and Bennett secured a pledge from Vladimir Putin not to do so. But no such pledge was possible if the threat was from ultras in the Ukrainian army.
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