Zelenskyy on US tour – The most important days of his term are yet to come

The Ukrainian president spoke at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday for the first time since the start of the war. Other appointments will probably be more prominent in his agenda. After the UN meeting, Zelenskyj will travel to Washington DC to lobby for his cause.

Zelensky announced his tour on the X platform (formerly Twitter):

He will fight for his country’s future in the backrooms of the US Congress. It sounds grandiose, but it is the harsh reality. Large parts of American Republicans, who received him with a standing ovation last year, have turned away from Zelensky. Why? They think they have better chances in the presidential election campaign, which started a long time ago.

Putin and Trump are pretty much best friends
This is a real nightmare scenario for Ukraine. By far their most important ally could disappear into thin air after the US elections in November 2024, triggering a domino effect. Without the US, the rest of the Western world would probably also take a step back. Ukraine’s counter-offensive is therefore also a race against time.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his intraparty rivals for the presidential nomination are trying to outdo each other in their hostility toward Ukraine’s civilian population. There is talk of “proxy wars” and “waste of resources”. The Kremlin is monitoring the situation with good will. Recently, Vladimir Putin did not miss the opportunity to further warm up the mood.

The Imperialist attributes Trump’s justice problems to Joe Biden, whom Republicans are seeking impeachment: “Everything that is happening to Trump is a politically motivated prosecution of a political rival. That’s how it is.”

Zelensky’s rhetoric does not always help
How should Zelensky defend himself against this unholy alliance? Ahead of the general UN debate, he compared the Kremlin chief to Adolf Hitler: “They elected him and re-elected him and brought in a second Hitler,” he told CBS. If Putin is not stopped, he predicts a third world war.

In doing so, he may have struck the wrong tone and created counterproductive images in the minds of Americans who are increasingly fed up with the war. Support for arms supplies to Ukraine is crumbling. A CNN survey shows this impressively: a small majority of 55 percent of respondents are now against the American Congress making even more money available.

For Republicans this is even 71 percent. In the opinion of these people, the US had done enough for Ukraine’s survival.

Biden: cautious and revealing at the same time
Biden is much more careful in appealing to this group of voters and aims to paint a picture of a better future without Putin. In his speech to the United Nations, he called on people to unite. “No country can meet today’s challenges alone.”

The US president made it clear that history does not necessarily reflect our future and recalled his recent visit to Vietnam. “Adversaries can become partners, overwhelming challenges can be resolved and deep wounds can heal,” the 80-year-old warned. The United States sought a safer, more prosperous, and more just world for all people. ‘For we know that our future is tied to yours.’

Biden manages without brutal Hitler comparisons and world war scenarios and manages to illustrate the drastic consequences of a Ukrainian defeat better than Zelensky. In just a few words, the American president reveals what his Russian counterpart Putin relies on: short-sightedness in times that require perseverance.

The permanent crisis as an exhaustion tactic
“The Russians want to prolong the war and increase costs,” US military analyst Michael Kofman recently told “Spiegel”. The political will in the West should be exhausted. The tactic is already paying off.

Almost nothing depletes a society more than being constantly exposed to crisis. Putin delivers them in multiple versions – day in, day out. Imperialism is causing energy and food costs to skyrocket, driving people from their homes and fueling fears of war. Breaking this induced negative spiral requires long-term counter-perspectives that credibly convey that things can be better without Putin than with him.

This is currently not possible.

Rights on the rise
Right-wing parties gratefully accept the springboard that the autocrat offers them. In Europe this can be proven in figures. Right-wing parties are experiencing a real revival. What unites them above all in their nationalist approach is that they offer simple answers to complex questions, as the ‘Krone’ recently analyzed.

In this country, the Turquoise-Green coalition is chasing inflation and cannot find a credible answer to its dependence on Putin’s gas. The FPÖ now leads the polls with a clear lead (see tweet).

In other words, the party that left as a unit when Zelensky spoke to the members of the Austrian National Council at the end of March. The party that wants to lift sanctions against a warlord. The party that wants to enclose ‘Fortress Austria’, the party that wants to provide the ‘People’s Chancellor’ and be the ‘last bastion of normality’.

Trump the boogeyman
If Zelensky fails to win back a large swath of Republicans to his cause in the Washington backroom in the coming days, it could literally have an existential impact on Ukraine. Because Putin is betting that other faces will soon take a seat at the negotiating table.

Trump has already loudly announced that he could end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” if he were re-elected. He will do that without resistance within the party.

Then we will again live in a Europe in which national borders are being forcibly shifted – and we will be a blueprint for a certain Xi Jinping, who will eagerly follow this in Beijing.