The West must keep faith with Zelensky

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky hands out the State Award to a soldier during a medal giving ceremony to Ukrainian servicemen who have been holding back a fierce and months-long Russian military campaign for the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut.

Time magazine and other publications have predictably crowned Volodymyr Zelensky as Person of the Year. What’s not to love about a quick-thinking everyman who gives the Russian invaders a bloody nose? These accolades represent something deeper, too: a sense that the Ukrainian leader is fighting a battle on our behalf, with our weapons and our training but without the loss of our blood. That’s our bond of trust with Zelensky — Ukrainians are suffering not only to rescue their country from extinction but also to save the credibility of the Nato alliance in its future dealings with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Yet there is a serious risk that western confidence in Zelensky will begin to flag in the coming year and that Putin will exploit the cracks. The Kremlin understands that Zelensky’s popularity in the West and his rallying power at home is the most formidable obstacle to Russian victory.

Zelensky, left, and French Fresident Emmanuel Macron embrace after giving a press conference in Kyiv in June.

Sowing doubt about Ukraine’s supreme commander has thus become Moscow’s non-military priority for the coming year.

Its starting point is an obvious one since Russia has contributed so deeply to the corruption of the Ukrainian political class. Zelensky rose to fame as a satirist of politicians on the take. In his 2018 presidential run he promised a crusade against the establishment and oligarchical power, much as the star of his successful comedy had done. That was overpromising, even naive. An internet brouhaha last week showed how easy it is to level charges of hypocrisy against him, even without Russian string-pulling.

Zelensky appears speaks in a video conference as the representatives of the Ukrainian people receive the 2022 European Parliament's Sakharov human rights prize during an award ceremony at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on December 14.

Olena Zelenska, the president’s wife, was in Paris as part of a mission to raise funds for Ukraine but allegedly also found time to do dollars 40,000 worth of Christmas shopping on the ritzy Avenue Montaigne. That did not chime well with the growing shopping lists presented by Kyiv for western military hardware. Her critics would no doubt have felt better if she had bought night-sight sniper goggles but they’re not exactly the usual offering of the avenue’s boutiques.

The Zelensky team is savvy enough to ride through that PR hiccup. It brushed off revelations last October from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that the group of television producers and screenwriters who now form his ruling inner circle set up a network of offshore companies in 2012.

Zelensky passed on his stake before becoming president. The whole project, say its founders, was an attempt to shield the earnings of a group of creatives from a crackdown by the pro-Russian, self-enriching former president Viktor Yanukovych.

Even so, there is a gulf between Zelensky’s pre-war record as president from 2019 — when he did not do much to reduce the influence of Ukrainian oligarchs, promoted a clique of showbiz loyalists and behaved like a bit of a diva — and his stellar, though not infallible, performance as a war leader.

Zelensky poses for a picture with a wounded Ukrainian soldier in a hospital during his visit to Kharkiv.

This has played to his advantage in that it led Putin to believe that Zelensky would be a pushover. Poor intelligence-gathering, poor counter-intelligence and underestimation of Zelensky’s powers of persuasion crippled the Russian war effort in the early months of the invasion. But it also prompted some of the Ukrainian leader’s miscalculations, notably his refusal to believe warnings from the United States that Russia was on the brink of invading at the beginning of the year.

When it eventually happened, in late February, he recovered quickly enough to stay in place and reassure the nation. His position towards the US, however, had to shift from resentment about its lecturing to pleading for President Biden to lead a cross-Nato support programme with all the risks of an extended war against Moscow.

Part of the Zelensky scepticism among Republicans is rooted in this moment. There are, of course, still Trumpians who nurture secret admiration for Putin’s Machtpolitik. But there are many other strands. Some see China, rather than Russia, as the primary enemy — a position that helps Republicans conjure up the spectre of anticommunism and unite on national security. Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who typically calls for restraint in eastern Europe and criticises aid packages for Ukraine, is against Kyiv becoming a de facto member of Nato but is hawkish about China. Most are alarmed about the money flowing towards Zelensky’s government and the possibility of the US being dragged into a nuclear exchange. The right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson megaphones: “Zelensky is now shaking down our cowardly Congress for more cash at the very moment our own economy and our own borders are collapsing.”

Zelensky inspects a residential building in Vyshgorod, damaged in a Russian missile attack.

It is not difficult to see a version of these views taking hold in parts of Europe. The choices are stark this winter. Can ammunition stocks be run down so that the Ukrainians can carry on shooting? How long can we afford to house refugees? Poland, with 1.3 million refugees, is dropping free access to public transport.

Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, is calling for an audit of the various strands of assistance to Ukraine — an accountant’s way of easing the way for cuts and recognition that British sympathies are waning at a time of inflation, industrial unrest and domestic anxiety.

That’s what Putin is counting on. Military commentators credit him with strategic patience. In fact, he is waiting for us to fall out of love with Zelensky. We can’t do him that favour. Whatever Zelensky’s weaknesses, his fight is a fight for the future of the international community.

The Times