Back in 2019, when Vladimir Zelensky won the presidential election in Ukraine, every news outlet in the world, including BBC, Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, CNBC, Sky News, CNN, etcetera were surprised to see a comedian has won the election with a landslide. Even the United States Congress has also termed his victory as victory of a comedian.
Al Jazeera in a commentary said, “Ukraine is on the verge of yet another revolt. This time, however, Ukrainians will not take their anger out onto the streets in another revolution; rather, it looks like they are getting ready to quietly rebel against the political elite and their corruption in the polling booths, as they vote for the next president on March 31.
“The ballot is a whopper, with the names of record-breaking 39 candidates on it. Even better, the leader in the race is the most unlikely candidate of them all: Vladimir Zelenskyy, a comedian with no political experience or governance expertise”.
Meaning, Zelensky was elected by the Ukrainian people as a silent revolt or revenge against the corrupt political elites, while they were not aware – Zelensky himself was a product of a club of corrupt elites and oligarchs in Ukraine.
And by now, Ukrainians are possibly realizing – by voting Zelensky into presidency, they actually have jumped from frypan to fire. A crook Zelensky, surely at advice of his masters at home and abroad has already declared to remain in power eternally. Although according to Ukraine’s legislation, the next presidential election must be held in spring of 2024, Vladimir Zelensky told BBC, he won’t hold the election until the end of the war.
According to Russian news agency TASS, “Earlier, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Tini Kox said that Ukrainian authorities must find a way to hold parliamentary and presidential elections on time. In response, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Alexey Danilov said that “no elections can be held” under martial law in the country. Former LPR Ambassador to Moscow Rodion Miroshnik earlier told TASS that in order to hold parliamentary elections on October 29, 2023, as required by law, Ukraine should not extend martial law after August 18, but announce elections and the beginning of the election campaign on August 28, which should last for 60 days. According to the country’s legislation, the next presidential election must be held in the spring of 2024”.
Meanwhile, according to King’s College London, “Professor Tim Willasey-Wilsey highlights that if Ukraine doesn’t defeat Russia in the coming six months, the West is likely to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate with Putin. But an acceptable negotiated outcome will be almost impossible to achieve. Following Putin’s recent diplomatic successes, the West can ill afford another foreign policy failure”.
It may be mentioned here that, while Vladimir Zelensky is frantically trying to get Ukraine included in NATO, secretary-general of NATO Jens Stoltenberg sounded reassuring robust when he declared that all the alliance’s members “have agreed that Ukraine will become a member” but he omitted to mention a timeframe. Similarly, Boris Pistorius, defense minister of Germany has dampened any elation with the words “the door is open a crack, but this is not the time to decide now”.
Vladimir Zelensky possesses finely tuned antennae. He knows that the United States and Europe are getting tired of supplying military hardware and cash to Ukraine and are anxious about its economic and political effects in their own countries. The West is also running short of munitions. The United States, which has provided 75 percent of the military hardware to Ukraine is shortly to enter another electoral cycle when Joe Biden or a new Democrat candidate does not want to defend an expensive war against a resurgent Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. Ideally Joe Biden will want the war finished by the end of 2023 before the US primaries begin in early 2024. Working backwards, that mean peace or ceasefire negotiations between November 2023 and February 2024 when the fighting will have stopped for the winter.
Assuming that the spring offensives will begin in the next few weeks, that gives Zelensky and Ukraine six month to win the war – which in my opinion is a mission impossible since attacking is more difficult than defending. Furthermore, its Western allies have equipped Ukraine for a defensive war. Even if all the promised Leopard 2 tanks arrive in time, there are not enough to punch a hole in Russian defenses and exploit the opening as espoused by generals like Heinz Guderian or Georgy Zhukov. And most importantly, the Western allies have not provided Ukraine with the air power to support such an offensive. Vladimir Zelensky’s pleas for F-16s have been met with marked reluctance by most NATO members.
According to defense analysts, it would be impossible for the West to cow-tow Kremlin within the timeframe of six months and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been very successfully keeping soldiers at high- morale while Moscow has sufficient stock of munitions and military hardware to give a befitting lesson to Kiev, once it begins offensives in weeks. For these factors, the United States and its Western allies will start putting tremendous pressure on Zelensky for a peace deal with Russia. However, even a vaguely acceptable settlement will be hard to achieve. The demandeur will be seen to be Ukraine and so, from the outset, Vladimir Putin will see no need to make any concessions. He will also be interested in delaying to see if Trump or DeSantis wins the US presidential election and whether he can get a better deal from them.
Quite how French President Emmanuel Macron, Germany chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden expect to shift Russian President Vladimir Putin from this position is hard to see. The West has very few levers to pull other than continuing the economic sanctions which Russia has successfully weathered for over a year. Vladimir Putin would not accept NATO membership for Ukraine and would doubtless threaten to restart the war if the West pushed the point. It is hard to see either Macron or Scholz holding firm on NATO membership.
All this spells danger for Joe Biden, and this Ukraine war will cost Biden’s ambition of getting reelected in 2024. In fact, Joe Biden’s involvement in the Ukraine war is going to cost heavily to the Democratic Party as well and during the 2024 presidential election as well as congressional elections, Republican Party candidates will succeed in getting an unexpected landslide victory.
Following the 2024 presidential and congressional elections in the United States, the entire political scenario will change, as Republicans would certainly take prompt initiatives in punishing Joe Biden and several key figures in the administration for corruption and misdeeds. Next American president may also ask accounts on the US military and cash aid to Ukraine. This will possibly become another major scandal where a dirty deal between the military industrial complex and Democrats – including Joe Biden would get exposed.
Despite the fact that Vladimir Zelensky is already showing signs of his ambition of becoming the eternal president of Ukraine, once the war ends or the martial law is lifted, he will start facing pressure from his political opponents. At one point he may be compelled to flee Ukraine and seek asylum in the West. As time passes, the situation will continue to turn adverse for him.
