Writing from a place of seeming heartbreak, yesterday Ukrainian author Andrew Kurkov mourned the fact that his country had been humiliated in the attacks on its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by Trump and Vance during the televised eruption that happened during the clearly staged ‘talks’ about rare earth minerals in the Ukraine being unceremoniously given to the US, supposedly to ensure US on-going support for the Ukraine’s continued resistance to the unprovoked attacks by Russia three years ago. However, Zelenskyy was supposed to agree to give the US access to $500 billion worth of minerals BEFORE the US would engage in discussion about security commitments. How stupid did Trump and Vance think Zelenskyy is? Or maybe they saw him as desperate enough to sell his country’s future to the US in return for possible protection from Russian control? Earlier in the week, Zelenskyy had already said he would not sell generations of Ukrainians into servitude for vague hints that a security deal might come out of it. But the US Administration paid no attention to that, so consumed were they by the ‘art of the deal’ which led to the eruption in front of (mainly right wing) news cameras.
The clear intent of the Trump team was, indeed, to humiliate the Ukrainian President into agreeing to a deal that was no deal at all. But it backfired. The ploy exposed the brutal monetisation of aid that has taken place under Trump. And it backfired more badly than that: Trump and Vance were laid bare as scheming, deceitful negotiators with only their own interests at heart. And this was done in front of those same cameras invited in to what was clearly meant to be a take-down of Zelenskyy and his country.
As Trump has jeeringly pointed out on other occasions, Zelenskyy is small of build and stature, barely standing higher than Trump’s well-padded shoulder. But that small man showed himself a giant as he faced off against two vicious opportunists to defend his people and their rights to be free of both Russian and American domination. So no, Mr. Kurkov, your President and your country weren’t humiliated at all in yesterday’s vicious attack, as almost worldwide support for the Ukraine in the last 24 hours has shown. As he left the White House alone after being summarily dismissed by the petulant Trump who had not gotten his way for once, dressed in simple black, President Zelenskyy had never looked taller or more dignified.
(1 March, 2025)
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