Zelensky in New York

An Empty Sweatsuit's Deranged Speech to the UN

“What makes him despised is being considered changeable, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, and irresolute. From these qualities, a prince must guard himself as if from a reef. - Machiavelli [The Prince, XIX]

Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the United Nations General Assembly on September 19th.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky came to New York to address a meeting of the United Nations, amidst a laundry list of things going bad for Ukraine and increasing resistance in the United States and around the world to the policy of sacrificing his countrymen as if they are virgins the Aztecs would cast into a volcano. In a rambling and sometimes incoherent speech where the tinpot tyrant appeared as if about to explode from impotent rage, he tried to beg more support from an unenthusiastic, half-empty room. Amidst a myriad of lies, half-truths, and outright nonsense, all showing a complete lack of understanding of history itself, Zelensky transitioned into a strange rant about how the dastardly Russkies will weaponize extreme weather events and we cannot deal with climate change until there is a final solution to the Russian problem. He made much of how we need to restore the “credibility” of the United Nations, while himself refusing the assembly the respect of wearing a suit while addressing it; he is the last to get the memo that playing dress-up as a soldier is not working anymore. Anyone watching the speech who also has a mild grasp on reality [that is to say, excluding people with Ukraine flags in their Twitter handles] would assume that he knows his goose is cooked, though perhaps he was just on the wrong amount of cocaine. If I was him I would be nervous too, as Ukraine is facing a huge number of problems and scandals ranging from the failed offensive to firing the whole defense leadership for corruption to their psychotic American transgender spokesman threatening the assassination of foreign nationals on their home soil for dissenting from Ukraine support. Zelensky’s speeches to the United Nations General Assembly, and then to the UN Security Council the next day, have definitively shown what many of us have known all along: he is a deeply unserious person who does not understand how the world works and was never qualified to lead a troubled country facing serious problems. Even the President of Poland, once Ukraine’s strongest supporter, has said the nation is like a “drowning man” who will cling to anything to survive and will drown others with him. Much of the US leadership sees this as well with Speaker McCarthy refusing Zelensky’s request to address a joint session of Congress. Even Biden, still the country’s biggest Ukraine supporter, did not want to do a joint address with Zelensky after their meeting. How things have changed since Zelensky’s visit last December. One is left to wonder if there is anything left for the Ukrainians to do but to have someone bonk him on the head, tie him up, and throw him across the front line, and then choose a new leader to salvage what they can of this terrible situation.

President Zelensky’s September 19th speech to the United Nations General Assembly is one of the least reality-based statements on international relations I have ever seen from someone described as a “world leader.” It is perhaps only worth watching to see the extent which the media limited showing the small crowd and focused on Ukraine’s delegation watching their own leader’s speech, because it was otherwise impossible to leave the camera on a delegation besides the United States which looked reverent, or even interested. The Ukraine delegation themselves also looked pretty down, however. It is indeed, as Polish President Duda said, a figurative drowning man grasping onto anything, dangerous to any who come close. His mannerisms are that of a desperate man, one whom no sensible man would want to attach himself to. He is scared and irrational but remains in a position to do tremendous harm.

Zelensky began his speech by saying that “unity can prevent wars,” a curious statement for a few reasons. Of course, on a surface level it is obviously true that when people are unified they don’t go to war against each other and 3rd parties are less likely to go to war against them. However, that being the case, Ukraine could have just unified with Russia and avoided this whole thing; I’m not saying that was a reasonable thing to do just demonstrating how trite and meaningless that is as a statement. Perhaps more importantly, what provoked the war most of all was the fact that Ukraine was in a long-running civil war primarily stoked by ethnic tensions and people who didn’t want Russophone Ukrainians [of which Zelensky was until he became President, it should be mentioned] to be a unified part of Ukraine. It has been admitted by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Minsk Accords which had the goal of bringing the breakaway republics, now annexed into Russia, back into Ukraine under agreeable terms, were entered into in bad faith. It seems clear that by “unity can prevents wars” he seems to simply mean if the entire world was united against Russia it would have a deterrent effect, which is perhaps true but not any sort of reflection on how the world works. In short, he is relying on having a very stupid audience, and in his defense it has got him this far.

Another highlight of Zelensky’s speech was his frequent lie that Ukraine “gave up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal.” Ukraine only ever had a nuclear arsenal in the sense that Turkiye has a nuclear arsenal, which is to say, there were nukes on their soil but they lacked the ability to launch, deliver, or activate them. It’s true that there were agreements to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty when the Budapest Memorandums relating to the removal of those weapons were signed, but they have also been violated in multiple ways by all parties and anyhow treaties last until they don’t. The natural state of relations between different states is war and though unlike the ancients we don’t have the sense to put a a set number of years on every treaty, it is hardly some sort of unprecedented treachery to break a treaty after almost 30 years when you have made your grievances clear over a long period of time. Most importantly, absolutely no one thinks that the Ukrainians would be responsible enough to have their own nuclear weapons. In fact, Ukraine itself sold nuclear capable cruise missiles to Iran in violation of its own obligations under those agreements, though of course Ukraine supporters somehow blame that on the Russians because it’s a whole nation that doesn’t believe in accountability.

Zelensky went on to make strange claims about Russia “weaponizing” the nuclear power plants of other nations, because as always he wants you to believe the Russians are trying to blow up the Zaporozhye plant which they themselves control. He also accused Russia of weaponizing the food shortage on the global market, which is hilarious for a few reasons, most of all that Ukraine is in big disputes with Eastern European countries that are banning its grain from flooding their domestic supply and undermining their farmers. Further, far from trying to starve the third world, Russia has offered many thousands of tons of its weaponized assault grain to Africa for free and has no shortage of grain to sell; further not that much of Ukraine’s grain ever did go to poor countries, its most important use is as feed for European livestock. This “starve the world” shtick is just more misleading emotional bullshit, which is Ukraine’s sole remaining export besides trafficked women and misappropriated foreign aid.

Of course, we couldn’t get through such a speech without “won’t somebody think of the children!” moment. One of the more curious aspects of this war has been the insistence of Ukraine and it’s supporters that orphans should be abandoned in war zones instead of evacuated and put into care. They have gone so far as to criminally charge Putin for what could only be described as fulfilling Russia’s obligation to remediate the harm this war is having on children. According to Zelensky, putting Ukrainian children in Russian orphanages where they are spoken to in Zelensky’s native language of Russian is “genocide,” which would seem to make it clear that he knows there is no meaningful genetic difference between Russians and Ukrainians and they just speak extremely similar languages that branched apart some time ago. Further, Russia’s birth rate was roughly 1/4th higher than Ukraine’s as of 2020, so if anything these children are more likely to pass on their genetic material if brought up in Russia. The “gen” in “genocide” of course comes from a root word in Greek and Latin meaning things like “race” “birth” “produce,” while “cide” means “killer.” If the Russians were doing genocide it stands to reason they would be killing these poor children not evacuating them from a war zone and raising them in a society where they are statistically more likely to procreate than if they stayed in Ukraine. What really gets me though is Zelensky’s claim, “never before has mass kidnapping and deportation of children been part of government policy.” Clearly, Zelensky is not one of the men who thinks about the Roman Empire every day. In antiquity, taking children as spoils of war and selling them as slaves was common and Rome had this policy for hundreds of years. A clearer example would perhaps be the Ottoman Empire’s famed Janissaries, Christian children kidnapped and raised as an elite corps of fighters and also used to oppress the Balkans from whence they originated. Or perhaps most relevant to Ukraine, the Crimean Khanate- from whom Zelensky’s new Defense Minister descends- funded its entire state on slave raids which depopulated much of modern Ukraine, leading to the situation where it was recolonized by the Russians, creating the people who are now called Ukrainians. I think a certain Mr. Hitler also had a government policy that involved the mass deportation of children, but he is too popular amongst Zelensky’s constituency to bring up such things. It is clear to the reasonable among us that Russia is simply caring for children it finds in the war zone, but the idea that no state has ever had the policy of taking the children from conquered areas shows comically extreme dishonesty about history. The majority of UN members are surely aware that things of this nature have happened within their own countries. And once again, I’m no expert on international law but I am sure that Russia has a legal obligation to provide care to unattended children in areas its military occupies.

After this, Zelensky proceeded to say some strange things about Russia having almost “swallowed” Belarus, a country which most definitely still exists and is not in anything’s real or figurative stomach, though it has been Russia’s satrap for decades. He also made an evidence-free accusation that Russia was responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria and everything else which happened there [100% of people who supported terrorists in Syria are on Ukraine’s side, so perhaps that worked on his audience.] He then said many seats in the UN assembly would empty if Russia succeeds, the reasoning of this claim being unclear to anyone but Zelensky, and even to him probably only after smoking crack; perhaps we’re meant to believe Russia would conquer half the world and they wouldn’t have UN Representatives anymore, though at most Russia wanted to replace the regime in Kiev with one that didn’t have a bunch of Nazis. Then, he got to his coup de grace, a bizarre rant about how we’re failing at climate change. He thanked God that evil people have not learned how to use climate as a weapon [though they’ve clearly learned how to use climate change policies as a weapon against public well-being, but don’t expect Zelensky to admit that.] He proceeded to say that the real reason this war needs to end is so that we can all come together and make the weather more gooder. Zelensky has perhaps picked up on something I realized some time ago, which is that the Democrats and their fellow travelers around the globe are so sure that we will all die from the temperature going up 1 degree that they don’t have the proper fear of nuclear war simply because they expect us to all die of climate change anyway so they would just as well go out all at once in a blaze of glory while supporting Liberal Democracy™ and the Rules Based-World Order™. Zelensky assures us though that the real risk is Russia weaponizing natural disasters, presumably by nuking the hurricanes, Trump style. More likely the concern is simply that Russia would provide humanitarian aid and generate goodwill within those countries from the assistance, perhaps the most cunning and nefarious plot in the history of international relations since Paris stole Helen. He then called an unspecified person or group of people in Moscow a “natural disaster” who decided to launch a war, a strange rhetorical choice amidst discussion of actual natural disasters, though perhaps he is trying to scam the world’s insurance companies into counting Russian bombing as an “act of God.”

To conclude, he admonished the United Nations that they had a chance to create the first instance in modern history where an attacked nation gets to end the aggression on its own terms. It is not clear what he perceives that to mean, but quite a lot of invading forces have been repelled in the modern era, and for example, I think the Taliban would tell you that “ruling Afghanistan” was their primary term for the invading force to leave. He then admitted to being aware of “shady dealings behind the scenes” in reference to people who would make peace, and used Prigozhin as an example of why not to trust Putin, which makes me lean towards thinking it was Ukraine or the West who sabotaged that plane in the first place. To all of the above-mentioned nonsense there was a largely unenthusiastic reception from a room with quite a lot of free space. With independent media banned in Ukraine and a regime determined to lie to the public, the Ukrainian media figured out that they could make his speech look more popular by showing footage of a different audience. Zelensky is such a popular speaker that even Zelensky is in the crowd supporting him! Go to :14 mark in this video:

Of course we have all known Ukraine was an amateur hour country for some time, but it is outright insulting that our government expects us to take these people seriously. For contrast, here is the actual audience of this speech, notice that Zelensky of course is not in the audience of his own speech:

Zelensky’s Security Council speech the next day was somewhat less deranged though worse insofar as it betrayed a complete lack of understanding of the nature, purpose, and function of the Security Council. He referred to Russia as “the state which is for some reason still present here.” That is at least less stupid than his periodic move of using a translator when someone is speaking Russian, his mother tongue. Of course the primary purpose of the UN and the Security Council are that states continue dialogue even in difficult situation and perhaps most of all that super powers don’t get drawn into a world war over shithole countries like Ukraine. He then touted resolutions which say Russia is “the only source of this war” which is true insofar as its their invasion, but it ignores the small detail that there was in fact an 8 year civil war within Ukraine before Russia’s 2022 invasion, not to mention the total of world events surrounding the decision. He also criticized “aspirations to compromise with killers” which is ridiculous as every government is based on violence and thus diplomacy is inherently negotiations between parties that are both killers, or at least would be if they considered it necessary. Peace is generally made between parties who were previously at war so this entire genre of bullshit is in fact an argument against diplomacy in any situation where it is genuinely necessary.

The part of the Security Council speech that really merits going into is Zelensky’s bizarre claim that Russia “illegally” occupies its seat on the Security Council through “backroom deals” after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has occasionally contested Russia’s status as the sole inheritor of the Soviet Union, but the Security Council seat is indivisible. The world agrees that the Russian Federation is the sole successor of the USSR, it is only Ukraine that is in denial about this and has their nonsense case for why Russia isn’t in the United Nations at all. Taking on the status as the successor to the Soviet Union came with a quite large amount of responsibilities such as making sure the world didn’t end from irresponsible care of Soviet weapons stockpiles. Russia also inherited all of the USSR’s foreign debt, which is not a trivial matter, especially given Ukraine’s chronic inability to pay bills. Most importantly, however, though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does represent the the end of the post-WW2 “Peace,” the entire UN and Security Council system is based on winning World War 2 and thus getting to set the post-war world order. The USSR was on the winning side, something Russia is very proud of. Alternately, the Ukrainians constantly glorify Nazi partisans such as Stepan Bandera while banning Soviet flags and “sympathizing” with communists. For example, here are some friendly Ukrainian soldiers recreating pictures of Ukrainian Nazi partisans:

The point is, Ukrainians are proud to have fought on the losing side of WW2 and suppress their past as part of the winning side, meaning they don’t even claim the heritage which gives Russia the Security Council seat. It’s impossible to imagine all the harms that would come from a country as corrupt, irresponsible, and broken as Ukraine having that Security Council seat, but to Zelensky and his ilk it is the most normal thing in the world to demand all of the privileges while accepting none of the responsibilities.

I think part of Zelensky’s cool reception from the world is the way all of the things he says about Russia on the Security Council look when you compare this to the US Invasion of Iraq- and say what you will about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it at last has some obvious connection to Russia’s national security. Zelensky argued that a state should be suspended from the Security Council when it “resorts to aggression” which is of course a non-starter for the world powers who occupy the permanent Security Council seats. They would never possibly agree to never attack anyone, and of course, the United States, his main sponsor, would be constantly suspended with that rule as they are always bombing various countries. He also advocated for “automatic preventative sanctions” every time a nation “reports” a threat. To those of us who are not drug addicts, it’s quite obvious that you can’t just have automatic international sanctions on countries every time someone chooses to make an accusation: this is the UN Security Council, not Youtube demonetizing Russell Brand. Basically, everything he has to say about how the Security Council should function would lead to constant conflict and remove any ability it currently has to reduce conflict. I’m beginning to suspect this TV comedian doesn’t have a great mind for international relations.

Zelensky’s uneven mental state is understandable. The much hyped Ukrainian counter-offensive led to little but mass death of his own men. As I wrote a few weeks ago, the Western proxy warriors made it quite clear they are ghouls who intend to blame Ukraine for everything. The great realist John Mersheimer published an article on September 2nd explaining the enormity of the offensive’s failure and, perhaps more importantly, the utter insanity of embarking upon it [incredibly, the only time in history a notably inferior force has tried to Blitzkrieg a superior force.] Now, the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh has published a piece which contains some grim information about the US intelligence’s view on the situation in contrast to the Biden Administrations zombie policy. It’s all very bad:

Beyond what Ames shared, Hersh ends with this line from his US intelligence source: “The truth is if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die any more, but this doesn’t fit the B.S. that is being authored by the Biden White House.” This is totally fair, being as I explained last month, American soldiers would never do what the US is demanding of the Ukrainians and then calling them cowards for not doing.

On top of this, much of the upper military staff has been removed for corruption. In August, every regional head of Ukraine’s draft offices were removed for corruption. In short, as all of the Ukraine skeptics said for a year, they were taking bribes to not enlist the rich and then going around rounding up poor people off the streets to fill recruitment numbers. Then, the Defense Minister himself was also fired for corruption. Now, this week, six Deputy Defense Ministers were fired, for unspecified reasons, but clearly corruption. Zelensky also arrested Ihor Kolomoisky for fraud, the very oligarch who funded his acting and political career. For all of this, the US government has refused to appoint an Inspector General to oversee Ukraine aid, despite that, or more likely because, they must be robbing us blind. Further, in an interview with The Economist, Zelensky insinuated that if Europe stops supporting Ukraine then Ukrainian refugees with commit acts of terrorism in Europe. On top of all of this there is the firing of “Sarah” Ashton-Cirillo, the psychotic American man in a wig who was inexplicably hired as a spokesman for Ukraine who released deranged Twitter videos including one threatening to assassinate foreign nationals on their home soil for not supporting Ukraine. Once again, the President of Poland is correct to say Ukraine is a drowning man, and Poland ending its arming of Ukraine is a massive policy shift.

This is what Zelensky was facing when he came to America to kick off his begging tour with that abysmal UN speech. He is not getting a warm reception from a bored and increasingly disgusted America. A poll has shown that an outright majority of Americans, 55%, oppose further aid to Ukraine. The only form of assistance which still has majority support is intelligence sharing, which America does with most countries towards whom we are not actively hostile. At the same time, one of our periodic government shutdowns is looming, and they were trying to force Ukraine aid in order for our government to continue to function, though the Pentagon somehow found a way to keep funding Ukraine even if we won’t pay our own employees. Rand Paul gave an excellent speech to the Senate pledging to block any expedited Ukraine aid, and went over many key points, most notably that Ukraine is extremely corrupt, has cracked down on the media and churches and ended elections, and is in no way deserving of our funding, especially given that we don’t have the money anyway:

It isn’t jut Paul though, he was but one of several prominent Republicans to sign a letter to the White House demanding an end to this madness. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has ultimately always gone along with Ukraine aid,even if after some hemming and hawing, denied Zelensky the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress. Things have changed a lot since he was the toast of DC last December. It also came out that the US is not going to be giving Ukraine ATACM long-range missiles [just before publishing, an anonymous source told the media that Biden would be providing a small amount of ATACMS.]

Biden and his lackeys are still pretending to be confident, however. Perhaps Biden actually is, given that he has no idea what is going on:

One could argue that this is objectively untrue insofar as the support of the people has wavered. It’s also not clear what liberty and freedom he is talking about in a nation that doesn’t have elections, where a major Christian denomination is banned, real opposition parties are not allowed, and media has been consolidated under government control. After a face-to-face meeting with Biden, Zelensky only netted another $325 million in aid, which according to Rand Paul in the above video is under 36 hours worth of our usual Ukraine spending since the war began. Not much of a haul. The profoundly stupid former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, remains confident they will fight to the last Ukrainian regardless of circumstances:

It seems McFaul, whom we are meant to believe is one of the great American foreign policy minds of our era, is getting his ideas on international relations from Dr. Seuss, as he [or whoever he is quoting] basically just ripped off how the Whos down in Whoville still celebrated Christmas without presents and decorations.

Other people seem closer to understanding that it is over. For one, the German journalist “Jihadi” Julian Ropcke, one of the only pro-Ukraine sources who believes in the value of truth and that they have to be realistic about the situation to find success, seems to think it is over:

And then there is The Economist itself, one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in the media, as a magazine representing the British financial interests which profit from every global conflict. They say it’s “time for a rethink,” which roughly translates to “we’re fucked” in American English:

Of course, Russia can do this basically indefinitely, whereas majority support for Ukraine is gone in the United States and even collapsing in Poland and, contra-McFaul, it’s not like Ukraine can continue this on their own. Meanwhile, NATO is running out of ammunition to send if they still wanted to, with prices reportedly increasing huge amounts. At the same time, an Estonian official stated that Russia is producing ammunition at 7 times the rate of the West. Don’t worry though, we’re meant to believe Russia’s willingness to buy North Korean ammunition is a sign of desperation on Russia’s part, and not a reflection of the West’s inability to stop them because they’ve overused sanctions to the point of them being meaningless. In reality ammunition is probably the only thing North Korea produces enough of to export, and I’m sure they’re eager to trade. It is clear that Russia will not be first to run out of ammunition. Zelensky is right to be desperate, but one would think the professional actor could cover it and present himself as a leader who can win, though for as long as this has gone on he has used seeming harried as a sort of management technique towards the incompetent American gerontocracy.

Zelensky ultimately losing his luster was inevitable, though one would have expected it to happen sooner given that the man wears the drab olive clothing of a mid-20th century third world communist dictator. As with everything the Western leadership class does, they were working from a flawed premise and should have stopped this madness early on. Their disastrous post-Cold War strategy seems to be reaching its end, as they say, with a whimper, not a bang. Russia certainly seems less contained than if they wouldn’t have embarked on this strategy of strangling it. Zelensky’s incoherent speech to the United Nations followed by his meetings with Congress- but no joint address- all send a clear message that he doesn’t have another play. He at least got to meet with one person less coherent than himself in Joe Biden, so I suppose that is worth something. Zelensky may be able to impress the Democrats, who are one of the most reality-immune factions in the history of politics, but the American public sees that this strategy is bringing nothing but death, and that at great expense. Arming Ukraine will not bear any sort of fruit besides profits for arms manufacturers, and even so they’ve already created years worth of work for themselves replenishing stocks that have been destroyed in Ukraine. We can’t know what will happen, but one suspects this will not last much longer and this brutal money laundering operation will reach its ignominious end. Zelensky is looking like the fall guy, a big change in fortune from last year when they wanted us to believe he was some sort of action hero. I’m left to wonder if he will make it out of this alive. If he does, one can assume that as the President of a place like Ukraine he has a fortune in stolen money to retire on, courtesy of the US taxpayer. In many ways this situation would be comical if not for the horrific human cost. We are left to hope that the world doesn’t get blown up on his way out the door and that someone can be put in charge of Ukraine who is at least less actively insulting to our intelligence.

Thank you for reading! The Wayward Rabbler is written by Brad Pearce. If you enjoyed this content please subscribe and share. My main articles will always be free but paid subscriptions help me a huge amount [payment in misappropriated Ukraine aid preferred.] I have a tip jar at Ko-Fi where generous patrons can donate in $5 increments. Join my Telegram channel The Wayward Rabbler. My Facebook page is The Wayward Rabbler. You can see my shitposting and serious commentary on Twitter @WaywardRabbler.