Volodymyr the practicing philosopher says we need to think about simple things, including:
How to arm Europe to discourage Putin from repeating his trick of stability in exchange for war. If we do not arm Europe, then all the victims, all the humiliations will really be in vain, and war will return. The best guarantee of security for Ukraine is a Europe that can defend itself. If it defends itself, it will defend Ukraine.
How to preserve civil peace in Ukraine and prevent a new Maidan, much less a large-scale civil conflict, which would give Putin a chance to interfere in Ukraine without any war, turning it into another Georgia at best.
That sounds about right.
So far, the story has been about Donald’s submission to strongmen of the sort he aspires to be and would be except for the saving graces of his flabby ego. Another nagging distraction has been the pettiness of Ukraine’s Supreme Commander-in-Chief and his team of potent managers.
His face is tired, but he has been keeping fit, the calloused palms of his hands testifying to the 7am gym sessions he squeezes in after sleepless nights of military reports and explosions. He even occasionally laughs, subduing the angrier edges of his personality, in what appears to be a communications push ahead of the Munich Security Conference that starts on February 14th. — Economist, February 12, 2025.
Puhlease.
Ukraine’s piar campaign this week also included a Patty-Cake interview with Shaun from The Guardian.
It’s replete with self-aggrandizing accounts of events in Kyiv during the first days after the February 2022 invasion.
When they [Russian forces] were near Kyiv, they surrounded Kyiv and occupied 50% of our country, they issued an ultimatum. It was similar to [demands under the] Minsk [accords], but it was even tougher. They wanted to issue an ultimatum so that we would completely betray our national interests. That is, all these words: denazification, demilitarization, so that we would not have an army, so that their pro-Russian people would lead the state, a lot of things, so that we would recognize and give up territories legally and so on. So that the Russian language would be official. I said that this cannot happen, because here there is a violation of people's rights, the Constitution, complete treason. We will not go along with Putin's ultimatum. Everyone sent different messengers here. Many came and said that tomorrow we will be occupied, we must flee and so on. Many leaders called me and said that we must flee. There was pressure from different sides, there were people who wanted to kill us, there were shots and the like. Some people died here inside our office. There were other people who defended it, there was a landing of troops. In parallel with this, there were ultimatums, calls from different people," Zelensky said1.
That was then.
Asked yesterday if he supports Z ceding or exchanging territory to end the war, Donald replied: “He's going to have to do what he has to do, but his ratings are not very high, to put it mildly.”
US Defense Secretary Pete said in Brussels that it’s "unrealistic" for us to expect Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders and downplayed the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO.
Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt compared the decision to hold peace talks over Ukraine to the 1938 Munich Agreement, which sanctioned Nazi Germany’s annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia.
“It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started,” Bildt wrote on X. “Not even Chamberlain went that low in 1938.”
What exactly Donald’s negotiating team — Marco (State Dept), John (CIA), Michael (NSC) and Steve (Special envoy) — come up with/against at the Munich Security Conference over the next several days is anyone’s guess.
Actually, no. The making-shit-up playbook has been poorly conceived. There were no hit squads roaming the capital after Russia launched its invasion. No one was killed in the President’s Office, although we can’t rule out suicide. Z was warned months in advance of Russia’s invasion by land, sea and air. He failed spectacularly to prepare for it. The only reason we are still alive is because Ukraine’s top generals and ordinary citizens came to their own defense.