30.01.2025

Notes on the war

With Donald Trump’s second term and talk of a negotiated settlement, Volodymyr Zelensky’s political career seems to be rapidly heading towards its failure. Jack Conrad warns that in the immediate term this will likely benefit the far right

Writing about the life and times of the Liberal Unionist, Joseph Chamberlain, his admiring biographer, Enoch Powell, famously wrote: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”¹

This quote, often misquoted as “all political careers end in failure”, is particularly apposite when it comes to Ukraine’s president. Few politicians have had careers as peculiar, as spectacular, as celebrated as that of Volodymyr Zelensky.

In just five years he went from playing a fictional high school teacher on 1+1 TV’s Servant of the people sitcom, a character who suddenly finds himself elected president; to being a real-life president; to being a wartime generalissimo feted by parliaments, prime ministers and heads of state throughout the western world.

But now, with Donald Trump back in the Oval office and Vladimir Putin saying he is open to peace talks, Zelensky’s astonishing political life as Ukraine’s leader is probably reaching its end point.

Only a few months ago he was intransigently insisting that Ukraine wants “everything back”. That is, the whole of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - and Crimea too. In other words, complete Russian capitulation. An uncompromising stance which owed less to a steely will and deep inner convictions, more to geostrategic calculations being made in Washington DC by Joe Biden and his administration.

Emboldened by Ukraine’s unexpected military resilience, the US was quite prepared to beach the core economies of the EU, waste countless Ukrainian lives and spend billions of dollars to pave the way for regime change in Moscow. The 46th president was perfectly candid on this score. The “butcher” Putin - he blabbered and burbled in a revealingly off-script moment - cannot be allowed to “remain in power”.²

Now we have the 47th president and Zelensky has changed his tune. He has suggested that abandoning the dream of territorial reconquest could be done in exchange for quick Nato membership. Given that this option is simply not on the table, what Zelensky is really admitting is the likelihood of Ukraine conceding territories as part of a Trump-sponsored trade-off with Russia. That can be either de facto or de jure … we shall see (not that we should count on a peace deal being agreed - that would be monumentally stupid).

As an accidental politician, heading an artificial party which achieved an unprecedented absolute majority in the Rada, as a president operating in wartime conditions where martial law rules, we would, though, expect nothing else from Zelensky. He has no political backstory, no seriously worked out world view, no body of self-willed rank-and-file party members needing to be persuaded or who can hold him to account. An actor, a comedian, a chancer, his spectacular political rise testifies not to a charismatic, spellbinding personality: rather a desperate, traumatised, economically wrecked Ukraine, in which a scriptwriter’s invention can ‘fool most of the people, some of the time’. Zelensky romped home with a 73% landslide in April 2019. Unhappy the land that is in need of such heroes!³

Fashioned, coached and cleverly marketed by the Ukrainian-Cypriot-Israeli oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky - who gained control of 1+1 in 2010 - Zelensky was understandably seen as his creature. But, as Kolomoisky’s shameless money laundering and grand-scale embezzlement schemes saw him sanctioned by the US, Zelensky distanced himself somewhat.

Despite that there can be no doubt whatsoever that Kolomoisky financed Zelensky via his PrivatBank, the largest private bank in Ukraine, to the tune of $41 million through a whole web of offshore accounts. As a result Forbes magazine credits Zelensky with a net worth of $20-$30 million.⁴ Frankly, that is the sort of sum you might expect for a successful TV producer and screen actor, even in a relatively poor country such as Ukraine.

There are, though, other reports of Zelensky being worth $596 million and enjoying all the trappings of the super-rich: three private planes, five yachts, eight luxury cars and 15 mansions and villas.⁵ With an official salary of just $780,000, surely, if those reports are reliable, there can only be one explanation: corruption.

However, there are good reasons to believe that such stories are scurrilous. Probably Russian psyop propaganda. Nonetheless, a large majority of Ukrainian-Ukrainians think Zelensky is “responsible for corruption”.⁶ Note, Ukraine ranks near the top of the global league table in terms of corruption (beaten in Europe only by Bosnia-Herzegovina and Russia).⁷

Pawn sacrifice

It was the February 24 2022 invasion that made Zelensky into a global phenomenon. Not that he became his own man. No, Zelensky became a US pawn in its proxy war with Russia (and, as we have consistently argued, ultimately against China). Promoted by Biden as the modern David who dares fight the brutal Russian Goliath, Zelensky is now about to be sacrificed by Trump (who will not have forgiven him for his cameo role in the Democrats’ 2019 impeachment inquiry).

Doubtless, perhaps unfairly, a majority of Ukrainian-Ukrainians hold Zelensky responsible for the failure to achieve the war’s stated objectives: that is the recovery of every inch of lost territory. That was never going to happen, though. But Zelensky had to play his part and he made a good fist of it too. He lied to his fellow Ukrainians, he lied to the professionally gullible western media, he lied to anyone who cared to listen to him. Millions fell for the BS.

However, facts are facts. Despite a partial general mobilisation, a huge casualty toll and the delivery of an impressive range of Nato hardware, Putin’s forces, though performing far below expectations, are well dug-in in the territory they hold and were not going to be sent packing by Ukraine’s much weaker army.

Again perhaps unfairly, Ukrainians blame Zelensky for what is, in their eyes, the sell-out being brokered by Trump. But imagine if Zelensky defied America and ordered his army to keep fighting despite the odds. The flow of arms, money and technical assistance would instantly dry up. Without real-time satellite information, SAM missiles, military instructors, artillery shells and a constant supply of spare parts, Ukraine’s fighting capacity would thereby rapidly degrade. Well before that, plummeting morale could easily see its troops deserting front-line trenches en masse.

Despite Mark Rutte, Nato general sectary, and his generous offer in Davos, that the European Union could foot the bill for US arms deliveries, that beggars the key question. It would only happen if Trump wanted it to happen. Sir Keir’s ‘100-year partnership’ treaty with Ukraine is certainly inviting British humiliation at the hands of a Trump who shows not the least hesitation in pushing ahead with some kind of ‘land for peace’ settlement with Russia. William Hague, former Tory leader, soberly offers the opinion that “Trump’s Ukraine plan will expose our weakness”.⁸

Trump’s Truth Social messaging could not be louder or clearer:

I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR … Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries … Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to ‘MAKE A DEAL’.⁹

Tanking

The fact that Zelensky is Jewish - ie, widely seen as other, foreign, alien - provides that additional frisson in what could easily become Ukraine’s version of the ‘stab in the back legend’ (Dolchstoßlegende) that eventually saw the fall of the Weimar republic in 1933.

The far right, including the high command, insisted that the German army had not suffered defeat on the battlefields of 1914-18, but instead had been betrayed on the home front by communists and social democrats. Almost instantly, the idea was given an anti-Semitic twist, not least by Adolf Hitler and his chief ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg.

Here, despite Zelensky’s 73% landslide, is something I have argued from the beginning, and nowadays only a fool would discount. After all, Ukraine has a long, horrible and deeply ingrained history of anti-Semitism. Indeed Stepan Bandera is venerated as a hero, especially in western Ukraine. A fascist and, in the early 1940s, a Nazi collaborator, Bandera independently oversaw a horrendous series of pogroms, in particular against Poles (well over 100,000 died). There are statues, bridges, squares, postage stamps and an annual holiday in his honour.

Prior to Zelensky’s election, the influential pundit, Alexander Paliy, wrote that the president of Ukraine should always be Christian.¹⁰ Zelensky himself does nothing to challenge anti-Semitism head-on, instead joking that “the fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults”.¹¹ Conceding a 20% territorial loss after the army had fought successfully for three years can though only but fuel the growth of the most absurd conspiracy theories.

Either way, there can be no disguising Zelensky’s fall from grace. Having soared with the Russian invasion, his opinion poll ratings now show him tanking. Owen Matthews reports in The Spectator that as few as 22% of Ukrainians would vote to re-elect him for a second term (with just 16% marking him as their first preference). According to the Social Monitoring Centre in Kyiv, “about 60% would prefer Zelensky not even to stand at all”.¹²

Leading the pack to be the next president, on a commanding 42% of the poll, is general Valery Zaluzhny - sacked as chief of Ukraine’s general staff in February 2024 and now effectively exiled as ambassador to London. Zelensky trails far behind and is only a few percentage points ahead of the third-leading possible, Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence, general Kyrylo Budanov, who is on 18%.

Formally, Zelensky’s five-year presidential term ended on May 20 last year. In practice, though, there will be no campaigning or voting while the war continues. In the meantime, Zelensky and his team rule through martial law regulations that bypass the Rada and have suspended all non-state broadcasting media.

Already a whole raft of parties have been declared illegal, not least Ukraine’s biggest opposition party, Platform for Life. Other bans include the Communist Party of Ukraine, Shariy, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, the Progressive Socialist Party, Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialists Party, and Volodymyr Saldo Bloc. Real or alleged pro-Russian TV stations and publications have been closed too. Workers’ rights have likewise suffered considerable restrictions. Even the Russian orthodox church has been suppressed in what amounts to a holy war.

Effectively that makes Zelensky a Bonapartist dictator, who would, discounting the US, have every interest in making the war with Russia permanent. But, of course, the US cannot be discounted.

In the meantime, popular disenchantment continues to grow. Despite the censorship people avidly follow online reports of government graft. Ministers make huge fortunes by demanding kickbacks, siphoning off foreign aid and handing lucrative contracts to friends and family members. Though Zelensky ran on an anti-corruption platform, everyone knows that politicians, bureaucrats, army tops, the police, the judiciary are still on the make.

Another source of discontent is the conscription squads. Zelensky insists that the army needs to enlist 500,000 out of about 3.7 million men of eligible age: ie, those between 25 and 60. However, where there were once volunteers, now there are press-gangs.

Each conscription squad consists of between four and six armed officers and they are understandably loathed. Brutal methods are employed and bribes are regularly extracted. There are plenty of videos showing them scouring public spaces, such as subways, bus stops, shopping malls and town centres. They check IDs at rock concerts, nightclubs and restaurants too. Suspected draft dodgers are shown being dragged away kicking and shouting and being thrown into waiting vans. Bystanders either actively come to their aid or shout ‘Shame! Shame! Shame!’ Many potential recruits choose to remain at home. There are media groups containing tens of thousands of members which exist to warn of the conscription squads and their current movement and locations. All evidence, surely, that the war is increasingly unpopular - something that the gung-ho social-imperialists in the west can hardly comprehend.

But it is the human cost of the war that remains the chief source of discontent with Zelensky. Losses, both civilian and military, remain a closely guarded state secret. Civil society groups such as Mediazona, Meduza, the Book of Memory and UALosses give a figure of 63,584 deaths (doubtless it is much, much higher).¹³

So far Zelensky has resisted calls - including from the Biden administration - to lower the minimum age for conscription to 18. Calls which the new Trump administration has echoed: “If Ukrainians have asked the whole world to be all in for democracy, we need them to be all in for democracy,” says Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security pick.¹⁴

Militarily, this is the only realistic way to meet the manpower shortage at the front. However, Zelensky has opposed all such moves, arguing that they would “harm Ukraine’s future prospects”.¹⁵ No less to the point, to agree to any lowering of the conscription age would further harm Zelensky’s future electoral prospects.

When the war comes to an end and the delayed elections are finally announced - and who knows when that will be - there will be plenty of blame to go around. Many far-right Ukrainians will blame Zelensky for any compromise with Russia. They will demand that the war continues till every inch of territory has been retaken. Others will blame Zelensky for not compromising at the very beginning of the war. They will blame the west for forcing Ukraine to fight instead of taking a deal on offer.

The Trump deal, drafted by general Keith Kellogg - now America’s Ukraine envoy - envisages freezing the existing thousand-kilometre line of conflict, effectively partitioning Ukraine, without giving Nato membership to Kyiv. One suggestion is that the buffer zone will be patrolled by European and British peacekeepers: and it will be European and British governments who are expected to foot the bill, not the US.

Negotiations would then follow. Trump, if he is reported accurately, would insist that Ukraine cede Crimea to Russia. Besides Crimea, the peace deal could well see Ukraine compelled to concede either the whole or parts of the Donbas - that or giving the two oblasts autonomous status within Ukraine. Trump is well aware that the majority of the population in Donetsk and Luhansk would be more than happy remaining Russian citizens. Zaporizhzhia and Kherson could be likewise conceded, divided or, conceivably, traded off in exchange for the Kursk enclave. That is Trumpian Realpolitik.

That arrangement essentially mirrors the deal discussed by Russian and Ukrainian representatives in Minsk, Antalya and Istanbul back in March and April 2022. Those talks ultimately failed supposedly because Kyiv refused to budge on rescinding anti-Russian language laws and agreeing to neutrality. But it was the US which really scuppered the negotiations. As a loyal satrap, Boris Johnston flew to Kyiv to read the riot act to Zelensky on behalf of their mutual masters in Washington. His message was clear and unmistakable: fight, fight, fight.

So, many Ukrainians will blame Zelensky for three years of unnecessary war and tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths - to achieve what? Essentially the same deal that was on offer in 2022.

Far right

Politically Zelensky walks a tightrope. On the one side, there is the new global reality of Trumpism and doing a deal with Russia. On the other side, though, there is anti-Russianism and pandering to the rightwing Ukrainian nationalist forces who spearheaded the 2014 Maidan coup (organisations such as Svoboda, National Corps, Social National Party and Right Sector).

True, the far right is no longer represented in the Rada. Well, apart from a lone member of Svobada. Nonetheless, in the form of the Azov brigade - and its various permutations and offshoots - it has constituted the ideological spinal cord of Ukraine’s armed forces. It is what “everyone wants to join”.¹⁶

Because of the battle for Mariupol, not least its heroic last stand at the Azovstal iron and steelworks, the Azov battalion has become, in the Ukrainian nationalist imagination, something akin to the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.

Moreover, since 2015, Azov has integrated Nato’s command and staff management systems, adopting the alliance’s frameworks to improve operational efficiency. That and rigorous training gives it a particular edge on the battlefield and has earnt it an unequalled reputation.

There can be no doubt, however, that Azov founder and first commander, Andriy Biletsky, is an out-and-out Nazi racist. In 2010, he said that Ukraine’s national mission is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade ... against Semite-led Untermenschen”.¹⁷ True, Biletsky denies ever saying that, but such words are entirely in character. In a 2007 article, Biletsky stated that “Ukrainian racial social-nationalism” was the ideology of his Patriot of Ukraine outfit.¹⁸ Speaking as the ‘Main Commander of the Organisation’, at its February 13 2009 general meeting, he rhetorically asked:

How then can we describe our enemy? The general regime in power are oligarchs. Is there anything they have in common? Yes, one thing in common - they are Jews, or their true bosses - Jews - are behind them. Out of one hundred published richest people in Ukraine 92 are Jews, and some others of Tatar origin.¹⁹

Being in the eye of world public opinion since 2014 has seen Biletsky tone down his language. That said, he still rails against LGBT people and multiculturalism. Biletsky has described his ideology as “Ukrainian racial social nationalist”. Naturally, therefore, he opposes migrants from African and Asian countries.

Since 2016 he has been the leader of the National Corps and is today running in seventh place, with 6% of the poll, when it comes to being the next president of Ukraine.²⁰

Doubtless there are other Azov Nazis. The symbols, the salutes, the banners are impossible to ignore (except when it comes to the western media). However, most consider themselves followers of Bandera.

Whatever the exact far-right designation, Azov forces are undeniably highly motivated politically. Units rely exclusively on volunteers. Commanders come not from military academies: they rise through the ranks. Many of its fighters are in their early 20s. And in a recent interview an Azov soldier characteristically talked of his willingness to “fight to the end for our land”.²¹ Azov has recently started to recruit foreigners. Most have a reputation for being driven by far-right ideas verging on the fanatical.

So imagine for a moment (not hard to do), that Zelensky is forced into accepting Trump’s deal. Russia secures 20% of Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory and the country is effectively dismembered. The far right accuses him of national betrayal. Of serving his fellow Jews, not Ukraine. Now led by Mykyta Nadtochiy, Azov units march on Kyiv to much popular acclaim. The central demand is for Zelensky’s resignation and fresh presidential and parliamentary elections.

With Azov in control in Kyiv, elections are held. Naturally, unpatriotic candidates and parties are barred from running. Andriy Biletsky is declared president and Mykyta Nadtochiy vice-president. The Rada is dominated by the far right.

What Donald Trump would make of that is beyond me. They are, after all, ‘his kind of people’. But, as with Zelensky, the new Azov regime would have to recognise the same global realities … that or fight an asymmetrical war with Russia’s armed forces in the east and south, and risk total defeat and the incorporation of the whole of Ukraine into Putin’s neo-tsarist empire.

Liberal fear

Such a scenario is already haunting liberal minds. Speaking to the Financial Times, Oleksandr Merezhko - chair of the Rada’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party - warned that far-right forces pose a very real threat - and one that could stand in the way of any attempt to negotiate an end to the war. “There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation,” he said. “The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy.”²²

Although he did not name names, Merezhko’s words were clearly directed at the Azov movement. Dmytro Kucharchuk, a commander in the Third Assault Brigade, quickly responded by branding Merezhko a “far-left coward”. Another brigade commander, Maksym Zhorin, accused him of having no idea what he was talking about, but saying in no uncertain terms that, yes, negotiations on Russia’s conditions would always be seen as capitulation. “As for the right wing, they are the basis of the country’s security,” he added.²³

It is not hard to see why both men would feel that Merezhko had been talking about them. The Third Assault Brigade is effectively an offshoot of Azov (now absorbed into Ukraine’s National Guard as the 12th Azov Assault Brigade). And, of course, a much wider Azov movement has bloomed in the xenophobic atmosphere of war: publishing houses, children’s summer camps, martial arts competitions and urban vigilante forces.

And, though the far right is not alone in rejecting the very idea that Ukraine should cede even an inch of territory, it will be the far right that will chiefly benefit if that happens. The left fragments have already sold the pass. Either they have thrown in their lot with the Putin/FSB regime in the Kremlin (that being the case with the ‘official’ Communist Party) or there is a tailing of Ukrainian nationalism in the name of championing national self-determination.

Parallels with Weimar are easy enough to draw. But, of course, Ukraine cannot give birth to its version of the Third Reich. Empire, national independence, even neutrality are all chimeric. Small and medium countries are dependent countries. Switzerland and Ireland are dependent on the EU; Belarus is dependent on Russia; Brexit Britain is dependent on the USA.

What we fight for, though, is not country: it is class. The working class can, must be, constituted the fourth global power - a power that more than rivals, but conquers, the US, China, the EU and all the rest.

All power to the working class.

1. JE Powell Joseph Chamberlain London 1977, p151.↩︎

2. The Guardian March 26 2022.↩︎

3. Paraphrasing Bertolt Brecht - see M Ravenhill A life of Galileo London 2013, p69.↩︎

4. Forbes April 20 2022.↩︎

5. caknowledge.com/zelenskyy-net-worth.↩︎

6. www.kyivpost.com/post/20258.↩︎

7. tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-rank?continent=europe.↩︎

8. The Times January 27 2025.↩︎

9. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjw4q7v7ez1o.↩︎

10. www.jta.org/2019/04/21/global/ukraine-to-become-first-country-outside-israel-whose-president-and-pm-are-both-jewish.↩︎

11. www.jta.org/2019/09/24/politics/the-trump-ukraine-controversy-and-the-jews-involved-explained.↩︎

12. O Matthew, ‘The deepening unpopularity of Zelensky’ The Spectator December 7 2024.↩︎

13. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#:~:text.↩︎

14. www.afr.com/world/europe/trump-to-urge-zelensky-to-lower-ukraine-s-conscription-age-to-18-20250113-p5l3yc.↩︎

15. kyivindependent.com/ukraine-finalizes-draft-reform-to-attract-18-to-25-year-olds-media-reports.↩︎

16. cepa.org/article/the-elite-ukrainian-brigade-everyone-wants-to-join.↩︎

17. The Daily Telegraph August 11 2014.↩︎

18. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Biletsky#cite_note-44.↩︎

19. Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Association, October 1 2009: www.helsinki.org.ua/en.↩︎

20. The Spectator December 7 2024.↩︎

21. cepa.org/article/ukraines-azov-brigade-stops-the-rot-in-the-east.↩︎

22. Financial Times September 30 2024.↩︎

23. www.france24.com/en/europe/20241011-should-zelensky-s-government-be-afraid-of-far-right-groups.↩︎