Professor RIchard Sakwa, the UK’s leading scholar on Russia, was asked in an interview with EIR on February about the fact that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was portrayed by many as a “peace candidate” in the 2019 election, who wanted to make peace with the Donbas and with Russia.
Prof. Sakwa answered: “He certainly did present himself as the peace candidate, just like, by the way, Poroshenko did in the election of May 2014. He was putting himself forward, and the people believed him, as an oligarch and somebody with economic interests in Russia. My profound belief until recently was that both the Russian people and the Ukrainian people wanted peace genuinely, profoundly, because they are in effect one people—not one state—but having very many links.
“Poroshenko immediately betrayed that peace mandate, but Zelenskyy actually did try. He was elected in April 2019 with over 70% of the vote, an overwhelming landslide, because he did say, and promised, peace, which was very good. In the early years [of his Presidency] he tried to implement it, in particular, at the meeting of the Normandy format in December 2019, when he met with Macron, Merkel, and Putin in Paris. This was a very important meeting, and it really did seem as if the Donbas question could be resolved. So he did make an effort.
“However, even as these four were meeting, the militants were gathering on the Maidan and threatening Zelenskyy, even with a coup. Zelenskyy did follow up. His Chief of Staff did have some meetings, but all of that very quickly ran into the sand, because, effectively, the elected leader of Ukraine did not dare to stand up to the militants. This was in part one of the reasons for the frustration of the Kremlin leadership since 2020 and 2021. With the arming of this force, it became even worse: the failure of the peace movement, the failure to implement the Minsk Agreements, and then the increasing arming of Ukraine, and training. The British, of course, were in the forefront of this, with a major naval modernization contract, including modernization of the port not far from Odessa. It seemed as if time was running out, that peace was no longer on the agenda. And worse, that a more militant and more aggressive Ukraine was beginning to emerge.
