President Zelensky

[Gorpet]

Well, Damn the British has offered this man and his government a place in exile on the british taxpayer dollar.That sneaky Boris! And then the American President Joe was finally woke up and found out Boris was 24 hrs ahead of him and there were shockwaves through the Democrat party. Why, This man has the hard drives hidden somewhere that could topple the western governments.And what's really pissing governments off is,He's not leaving he say's i will go down fighting for my country. You fuc=ks prommised me when the time was right and enough money was laundered thru to your countries Ukraine and the families that carry your secret's would be accepted.Into yourNATO And for our collaboration you stab us in the back. Welcome President Zelensky to the game of Thrones.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by President Zelensky

I need ammo, not a ride!

Thems gonna turn out to be classic fighting words...no imho 'bout it!

[sublynx]

I hope Zelensky has made sure he can keep on leading the political resistance. If he gets cut off or killed in Kyiv, Ukraine needs a legitimate successor. Putin has it easier to try to sow confusion if Zelensky is dead, or even worse -prisoner. Ukraine needs to be ready to build a solid government-in-exile, if need be.

[Dowly]

Zelensky became president in 2019. There couldn't have been any promises to get into NATO since a country can't join if there are territorial disputes, which Ukraine has had since 2014.

[Jimbuna]

Similarly with the EU.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Similarly with the EU.

I see a wonderful future for the UK with markets at future Ukraine Russia and China (all out of Europe)

B.t.w.
does anyway know who Zelensky is? I mean the man Trump tried to bully?
Donald Trump was impeached over allegations he improperly sought help from Ukraine to boost his chances of re-election.

"The whistleblower admitted having not directly heard the call but said accounts shared by other officials had painted a consistent picture. For context, about a dozen people are reported to have listened in on the conversation, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The call occurred days after Mr Trump blocked $391m (£316m) in military aid to Ukraine. Critics argued this was used as a bargaining chip, but Mr Trump denied this."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49800181.amp

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by Catfish

I see a wonderful future for the UK with markets at future Ukraine Russia and China (all out of Europe)

B.t.w.
does anyway know who Zelensky is? I mean the man Trump tried to bully?
Donald Trump was impeached over allegations he improperly sought help from Ukraine to boost his chances of re-election.

"The whistleblower admitted having not directly heard the call but said accounts shared by other officials had painted a consistent picture. For context, about a dozen people are reported to have listened in on the conversation, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The call occurred days after Mr Trump blocked $391m (£316m) in military aid to Ukraine. Critics argued this was used as a bargaining chip, but Mr Trump denied this."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49800181.amp

You are a funny bunny. It's all coming full circle now and Trump is nowhere for the last year.This is totally a Joe Biden and Democrat's show. And they are scared . Zelensky has the evidence that could topple western government's.The world mafia aka the new world order want him dead.

[Catfish]

This has not much to do with Zelensky, but all with Trump.
Zelensky did not fall for Trump's offered bribe to accuse and smear other US politicians, which is why Ukraine did not get more of the stuff it now needs.

And scared? Who would not be scared of Putin's invasion which will probably not stop with Ukraine, and may involve dropping some nuclear bombs? I am not really afraid but you must be bat sh!t crazy to call Putin and his invasion "genious".
"This is genious. I'd say that's pretty smart. He's taking over a country -- really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in." (Trump)

"Walking right in" like Trump for a dinner?

[Cyborg322]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Zelensky did not fall for Trump's offer (or bribe) to accuse US politicians, which is why Ukraine did not get more stuff it now needs.

It looks that way. I think the current situation with the talks between Zelensky and Putin is ill advised its akin to the boxing match between UK Boxer Ricky Hatton and US Floyd Mayweather. A lot of heart self belief but ultimately outmatched in may ways. Putin will almost certainly use this to his advantage if indeed he agrees at all.

I'm starting to wonder who is advising who or has Zelensky given up taking advise from the US and Europe in sheer desperation as the death toll rises

[troopie]

You guys are obviously seeing some wildly different stuff to me. I'm just seeing a guy who is desperate to defend his country. Where's the conspiracy theory background info and references?

[Reece]

My thoughts exactly, we Aussies are in the dark here a bit.

[Skybird]

Originally I had posted this in the Ukriane thread, but it probably is more appropriately seated in this one.


Focus writes about Zelensky:




Selensky has long since become a hero, but will he survive this war?

This war can also be read as a battle between two men, and the question is how they will get out of it. Both of them - because the question of survival does not only arise for Volodymyr Selenskyj.

The question whether Volodymyr Selenskyj will survive Vladimir Putin's hunt for him can be answered simply: Yes, he can survive. If he wants to. He can call Joe Biden, he can call Emmanuel Macron, he can call Boris Johnson - and maybe he could even call Olaf Scholz.

If he wants to get out of this hell, he can get out of there. But he doesn't want to. The reason is obvious: Selenskyj is no longer the citizen, the popular ex-satirist who went into politics to be elected president in free elections.

The citizen Selenskyj has become the hero Selenskyj, who every day wears a green T-shirt and stands before his people and the world as fearlessly as he is vulnerable, to give courage, to campaign for help, to ask for weapons and to fight for accession to the European Union. In short, history has placed Selenskyj in a place that leaves him only one choice - to make history now.

It is, by the way, may I be forgiven for this know-it-allism, once again the refutation of all materialistic theory, according to which the "conditions", "make" history. According to which the "having" determines the "being".

Not much remains of this whole leftist, essentially Marxist narrative. What remains is the nearly 150-year-old phrase of the Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke: "Men make history." That it can also be women is, of course, clear to everyone today. In the current situation, however, it applies either way to Selenskyj's adversary.

The fact that a Marxist system of all things produced a macho man like Putin may be understood as a special punch line. But it was the same with Stalin - to whom Putin refers - and against Lenin, because he gave too much freedom to the "Russian" republics, first and foremost to Ukraine.

Putin can be imagined as a strong man. At least, that's the image he projects to the world. With a naked upper body on a horse, or apparently death-defyingly descending into an icy lake. These images unleashed a tremendous power, not only at home, but also in the West.

Putin still draws on this power today. But the secret service man, like all good secret service men, is an illusionist. The picture he has painted of himself over the years shows not himself, but how he wants to be seen by the world:

As a revenant of Ivan the Terrible or one of the other Russian imperialists who have been walking over corpses for centuries. (The one exception, Mikhail Gorbachev, portrays Putin as a traitor to the people).

In any case, this painted picture prevents a different perception of Putin: what if those biographers are right who paint Putin not as a daredevil, but as a cautious person? From which the existential question arises:

How dangerous is a scaredy-cat on nuclear weapons?

Or as historian Valery Slovoley, for years employed at a Moscow cadre school and dismissed a year and a half ago, put it in the "taz": "He is incredibly afraid of ending up like Gaddafi in Libya or in the dock."

In extreme situations, people need heroic symbols of identification. In England, this was Winston Churchill, perhaps not Hitler's strongest rival, but his fiercest. What Churchill was for Hitler, Selenskyj is now for Putin: a ridiculous figure, an actor. That is how Putin perceives him.

Which also just shows what a bad historian Putin is. The last ex-actor who then made it to statesman is partly responsible for the end of the Soviet empire: US President Ronald Reagan.

Selensky grew into a role that he did not choose: That of the intrepid fighter for good against evil. This may be too black and white for the finicky, but what other conclusion can be drawn from the current situation?

Evil is the unscrupulous, the nefarious, the devious. Putin, the liar. In one sentence: Nothing is good about Putin.

There was nothing good about Stalin either, who subjugated Russia for a quarter of a century, had people murdered in camps, and is responsible for millions of deaths from starvation. And to this day is revered by far too many Russians, Putin leading the way.

In the Eastern West, Russian leaders have long been perceived as Putin is today - from bitter experience. Russian leaders put down the uprising in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968).

That is why these countries fled from Russia's threatening grip to the free West the first moment they could. They were united by the lesson that they had better not trust Russian potentates.

This is now Selensky's drive. Western leaders are now learning this lesson, long internalized by the Ukrainian, within days, after years of illusion about what Eastern European historian Karl Schlögel brutally debunkingly calls "Russian kitsch."

Life now holds the following options for Selenskyj: He becomes the hero who stops the Russians. This is the only positive option. Which is opposed by two negative options:

The Russians kill him, which Selenskyj says he expects. Or they force him to sign the surrender. In the first case, at least, Selensky would become a martyr for his people.

The fourth variant: Selenskyj goes into hiding at the last moment and wages a guerrilla war against the Russian occupiers. The history of the struggle of democrats against autocrats also has an example of this.

France's General Charles de Gaulle led the resistance against Hitler and after his downfall became first the president of the French transitional government and then the founder of the Fifth Republic - France as we know it today.

In any case, Selenskyj has already achieved one thing, beyond his personal success, which has since been recognized internationally: In the West, Ukraine is no longer perceived as an appendage of Russia. Instead, it is seen as a country in its own right, with its own history and a brave population.

Selensky has won the war of images. But more than that, as an individual he has managed to positively change the world's perception of his entire country.

A national hero.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by troopie

You guys are obviously seeing some wildly different stuff to me. I'm just seeing a guy who is desperate to defend his country. Where's the conspiracy theory background info and references?

Originally Posted by Reece

My thoughts exactly, we Aussies are in the dark here a bit.

Zelensky was pressed by Trump to publicly say that Biden's son Hunter Biden had some shady business in Ukraine, to denigrate Biden and so help Trump's election. Further above in this thread Gorpet again citing Trump's accusations that Biden's son had shady "deals" with ukrainian economy or such, all debunked, still echoed (like Hillary, eMails, wrecked election, only democrats doing shady stuff, deal with potentates, raped children, pizzagate, and so on)
At least i guess this is what he drones about, not sure.

When Zelenky did not follow Trump's "suggestions" in this infamous telephone call, as an answer he did not get as much economoc and military support as he had hoped.

[Skybird]

Possible that Trump would have aligned with Putin in this war. He admires Putin, wants to be like him, wants to have his totalitarian powers, wants to be seen as a tough and mighty buddy kicking doors in and slamming fists on tables while telling sexist jokes . What a big mucho macho ma-ma-ma-manly superman, hohoho!



The sad carricature of a human being. Sadder a sight only those are who even now still believe him.

[Skybird]

Tagesspiegel on the assassination plans against Zelensky:


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj has survived at least three assassination attempts in recent days, the Times reports. Two different groups are said to have received orders to kill Selenskyj: mercenaries from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group and Chechen special forces.

Both were thwarted, according to the report, by wartime opponents within Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). According to several media reports, Ukraine's Minister of National Security and Defense confirmed the assassination attempts.

On Saturday, the first attempt was made, according to the report: Ukrainian security officials said Chechen assassins were "eliminated" on the outskirts of Ukraine's capital, Kiev, before they could reach the president. According to Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Russian spies from the FSB, Russia's successor to the KGB, reportedly informed them of the plans - to condemn the invasion.

"I can say that we have received information from the FSB, which does not want to participate in this bloody war," Danilov said on Ukrainian television. The group is said to be the Kadyrov Elite Group, which reports to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Separate from the Chechen attempts to kill the Ukrainian president, Wagner mercenaries reportedly made their own attempts to overthrow the government. A roughly 400-man group is believed to have been stationed in Kiev since late January for the purpose, tracking the activities of 24 high-level Ukrainian targets, according to the Times. The force is considered Russia's notorious "shadow army."

The Wagner mercenaries were supposed to wait for the "Spetsnaz," a Russian special forces unit, to create a safe corridor for them out of Kiev so they could escape after the attacks were carried out. They would have carried out the attacks in the course of storming Kiev, which would have provided them with enough distraction. However, the Russian military convoy outside the city had difficulty making headway and slowed the attack significantly.

A plan apparently failed because the mercenaries reached the top ranks of the Ukrainian government on Saturday morning, after which Kiev imposed a 36-hour "hard" curfew and sent everyone indoors so soldiers could search the streets for Russian saboteurs, according to the Daily Mail.

In their previous attempts, the mercenaries were said to have already suffered casualties and were worried about how accurately the Ukrainians had anticipated their moves. According to the Times, a source close to the group said it was "uncanny" how well informed Selenskyj's security team appeared to be.

The mercenaries were tasked with a "very high-profile mission": the beheading of a head of state, a diplomatic source told the Times. "In terms of the impact on Russian politics, this would be perhaps the biggest mission they have carried out so far. It would have a huge impact on the war," the source continued. "It only takes one of them to get lucky and they all go home with a bonus," the Times was told.

A specialist on the Russian mercenary group Wagner said that the elite "Spetsnaz" troops would probably be more capable of taking out the president because they would have access to more equipment. According to the source, however, it would make more sense for Russia to rely on the Wagner force to take out the president. Unlike Russian soldiers, the Kremlin could deny any connection here.

The Wagner Group has already been in Ukraine since 2014, when Russian fighters in civilian clothes were sent to the Donbass to foment conflict. Most recently, they have also been active in Syria and the West African country of Mali.

Russia denies its links to the Wagner group. According to the Times, the Wagner Group is said to be led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. He is considered "Putin's chef," and owns several bot factories and an online army. In the wake of the West's sanctions against Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin is also on the list as a close friend of the Kremlin chief.

The group is said to be under intense pressure from Moscow to get its job done. It apparently wanted to eliminate the 24 targets on its list within a few days. Among them, according to a report in the Daily Mail, were the Ukrainian prime minister, the entire cabinet, the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, and his brother Vladimir.

The mercenaries are believed to have drawn up plans for another attempt before the weekend. One theory, as reported by the Times, is that the group was trying to determine Selenskyj's whereabouts in order to mark him with a laser. After that, the Russian air force could fly in and drop a bomb.

For the Ukrainian president, the attempted attacks are not news: He has heard warnings about them from U.S. officials for weeks, the Washington Post reports. In a video message on the night of Feb. 26, he contradicted rumors that he had already left the country. "I will stay in the capital, stay with my people," he said, adding, "According to our information, the enemy has declared me target No. 1, my family target No. 2." He also warned against Russian "sabotage groups."

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. government offered to help Selenskyj leave Kiev to prevent him from being captured or killed by advancing Russian forces. Selenskyj declined the offer, saying instead, "I need ammunition, not a ride."

The Ukrainian president, according to the Daily Mail, has surrounded himself with a trusted team and is constantly on the move with ever-varying communication methods to evade the henchmen. Several times a day, he checks in with his people via video message or social media to continue fighting the Russian invasion.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)