A video showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a heated exchange with US President Donald Trump and Vice President J D Vance in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb 28 was disseminated and watched by a worldwide audience.
Having enjoyed support from Western Allies over the past three years in the war with Russia, cocky Zelensky played tough with the American President, like he was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has a lot of clout from the overpowering Jewish lobby.
In the new scheme of things, Ukraine is expendable, but Zelensky still thinks that he is indispensable. Ukraine is just a pawn in Trump’s Russian reset in the shifting sands of geopolitics.
The changing landscape in Ukraine began to unfold in November 2013 when Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych decided against a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union, and instead chose closer ties with Russia.
This led to months of violent street protests known as the “Revolution of Dignity” with many believing that they were orchestrated and funded by the American Central Intelligence Agency. By February 2014, Yanukovych was voted out of office and he fled to Russia and lived in exile.
Russia and Ukraine were the two largest populated countries in the former Soviet Union and being neighbours, many people in Ukraine are of Russian ethnicity or could speak Russian, especially in the eastern and southern regions, with the overwhelming majority in Crimea.
Armed conflicts started after the overthrow of Yanukovych in February 2014 and later Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.
Eight years later, on Feb 24, 2022, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, which wanted to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). This could lead to the US stationing its missiles right at Russia’s doorstep and that would be an existential threat, forcing Russia to invade Ukraine.
It was the US that renegaded its commitment in 1990 to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” in exchange for the reunification of Germany. But in 1999, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were included and followed by 13 other nations.
Although Ukraine last reapplied for NATO membership in September 2022, it has yet to be accepted as a member. And so the war in Ukraine is fought in proxy using weapons and funds supplied by NATO, with Ukrainian and Russian forces in the battleground and citizens suffering collateral damage.
On Feb 25 at the United Nations’ marking the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, the US twice sided with Russia instead of its NATO colleagues. After three years of steadfastly supporting Ukraine, the US made a sharp turn and voted against a general assembly resolution to condemn Russia.
The US also filed its own resolution at the Security Council that did not explicitly blame Russia for the conflict and called for an end to the war on neutral terms. But this did not sit well with Zelensky, who needed the war to go on and continue mustering support from Western Allies to shore up his popularity and power.
Over the past three years, he was behaving like a prima donna among Western Allies that rallied to offer support to Ukraine. However, Donald Trump at his presidential address on Jan 25 said “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier”.
Fearing that he could soon lose crucial support from the US, Zelensky decided to act tough. At the White House meeting, he could have expressed himself better speaking in Ukrainian or Russian. Even so, his body language was all wrong and ugly, made worse by being quarrelsome.
He is determined to beat the Russians into submission and then negotiate for peace from a stronger position. Clearly, he was not willing to compromise or want a ceasefire, even though tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have already been killed and hundreds of thousands wounded.
Although he kept claiming to fight for his people, he prefers to let more Ukrainians die or suffer instead of kowtowing to Russia or the US. Interestingly, kowtow is a Hokkien word absorbed into the English dictionary. It means to kneel and touch the ground with the forehead in submission.
Those bent on wanting to be dead right or fighting for rights at whatever cost would lead many others to their death. And after the fighting stops and wars have ended, many people would realise that the sacrifices made for the sake of ego or dignity were for nothing after warring sides prefer to forget and live harmoniously, trading with each other.
The views expressed here are strictly those of YS Chan from Kuala Lumpur.