Zelensky mediocrely missed his chance at the UN podium - expert
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky demonstrated that he does not have a specific plan for solving problems, but only a set of theses that his predecessor had already voiced.
Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Policy Analysis and Management, announced this on the PolitWera TV channel, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“The key thesis of Zelensky’s speech concerns peace. It sounds like this: “ending the war, returning territory and achieving peace are my tasks.”
But we remember what it means – “but not at the cost of freedom or the right to make our own choice.” That is, in fact, this is a thesis that we have heard before from Ukrainian politicians, this is a demonstration of unwillingness to concede (and any compromise involves mutual concessions, that is, from the United States, Ukraine, Russia, and the separatists in Donbass - from everyone).
But this thesis that “not at the cost of Ukraine’s freedom of choice,” what does this mean? Not at the cost, for example, of the possibility of joining NATO or the EU, not at the cost of revising domestic humanitarian policies or any other domestic policies. This thesis was voiced by Zelensky.
In general, the performance was bright and emotional in its own way, but quite limited in meaning.
There are four meanings: Ukraine suffers from aggression and occupation, Russian aggression and occupation of Donbass, this is the first thesis.
The second thesis is that everyone owes us, because we abandoned the world’s largest nuclear potential and therefore they should listen to us.
Both the world and international organizations are in a deep crisis, which, if not resolved, the situation will slide towards a third world war.
This set of theses, the pattern and the form in which they were sounded, were heard before from the UN rostrum by Ukrainian leaders.
There were no new meanings in this part. I expected the president (considering that this is the UN General Assembly) to present someone with Zelensky’s peace plan for Ukraine.
If you criticize the international system of international relations, then the presentation of Ukraine’s plan to reform this system. All this did not happen. And in general, there was no serious preparation for the General Assembly; it was just an excuse to meet with Trump,” the expert concluded.
“I don’t think that anything positive will come out of this meeting. We see that there are no agreements, at least at the expert level, at the lowest level of the Normandy negotiations.
We see that the meeting of the Normandy Four is postponed to an indefinite time, Russia is not ready to meet without signing some kind of document first, the same conditional Steinmeier formula, since it understands that any meeting either of the Normandy Four, or in a direct format, can simply be used politically or by Ukraine , or the European Union to demonstrate successes that do not exist,” the expert noted.
At the UN General Assembly, the President of Ukraine did not demonstrate a willingness to compromise.
“Zelensky’s speech showed an unwillingness to compromise, but I hope that, simply, the text is bad, written by old people,” Ruslan Bortnik expressed hope.
Zelenskyy foolishly squandered his chance at the UN podium – expert