In an article published under this title, Eric Denécé, the leader of Centre Francais de Recherche sur le Renseignement (CF2R), writes to condemn the demands made by Zelenskyy of the EU, urge a deeper historical understanding of the present crisis, and demand negotiations to secure peace.
After the EU announced a sixth set of sanctions against Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the EU for taking so long: “About fifty days separate the sixth ... from the fifth; it’s a situation that is not acceptable to us,” he said on May 31. This is just among the latest of the hyperbolic statements and insistent demands made by Zelenskyy.
On March 3, he claimed that if Ukraine were defeated, “Russia will go to the Berlin wall.” On March 13, Ukraine’s unicameral Verkhova Rada tweeted out a 40-second video montage of an aerial bombardment of Paris, to terrify the French population. The clip concluded with Zelenskyy announcing that “if we fall, you fall too.” On March 14, Zelenskyy hyperventilated that “If you don’t close our skies [i.e., commit acts of direct military aggression against Russia], it’s only a matter of time before Russian missiles fall on your territory.”
These bombastic remarks have helped shape an environment where, Denécé says, “for three months any objective analysis of this conflict has become impossible.”
He offers his own historical setting: “If the American leaders had not reneged on the promises made in Moscow, if NATO had not been constantly expanding, if France and Germany had been able to force Kyiv to respect the Minsk agreements, and if Zelenskyy and his clique had not listened to the disastrous advice of their American [and British—ed.] mentors, we would not be here.”
