Who is Volodymyr Zelensky?

Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

Amidst Russia’s impending Ukraine invasion last month while the rest of the world was panicking, there was one man with nerves made of steel who was as stoically calm and nonchalant as a monk meditating amidst an earthquake. Ironically, the Zen monk urging Western policymakers not to exaggerate the Russia invasion threat lest foreign investors and tourists flee the country was none other than the credulous president of Ukraine.

Either President Zelensky was too naïve to understand the consequences of the imminent invasion or he not only had forewarning but in fact had a vital role in orchestrating the Russo-Ukraine War during his three-year presidency in order to accomplish the top-secret mission assigned to him by his mentors in Western intelligence agencies.

Born to Jewish parents in a town in central Ukraine in Jan. 1978, his early life remains shrouded in mystery. Volodymyr Zelensky was groomed by covert CIA operatives in Ukraine since his student life while he was studying law at the Kryvyi Rih National University.

Instead of pursuing a legal career, he chose acting as a profession at the behest of his influential patrons to gain nationwide publicity, particularly through comedy television series “Servant of the People” in which Zelensky “prophetically played” the role of the Ukrainian president.

In fact, his production company Kvartal 95, which produces films, cartoons and television shows, was generously funded by deep pockets of Western security agencies. Comically exposing corruption and sleazy dealings of Ukraine’s politician and oligarch, the series “Servant of the People” aired from 2015 to 2019 and struck a chord with Ukrainian masses.

Western security agencies not only lavishly funded his obscure media organization but also introduced him to a clandestine cabal of illustrious Hollywood producers and directors adept in psychological warfare and public relationing. The media success of “Servant of the People” is attributed as much to the efforts of the employees of Kvartal 95 as to the skill of international media organizations specializing in global opinion-making.

Riding on the wave of media publicity, Zelensky won a landslide presidential election in 2019. Later, his political party, which he “coincidentally” named “Servant of the People,” won an overwhelming victory in a snap legislative election held shortly after his inauguration as president.

Since 2019, after being elected president through questionable methods, Zelensky has surreptitiously been working on a clandestine project to foment a crisis with Russia on a flimsy pretext. Not only did he scornfully rebuff the Russian proposal but he also let Ukraine’s security forces stage joint military exercises and naval drills alongside NATO forces in the Black Sea right under Russia’s nose. His reckless disregard for the suffering of Ukrainian masses and suicidally provoking Russia into an armed confrontation aside, he is merely a pawn in the grand scheme of things.

Despite his Jewish background, he didn’t hesitate in collaborating with Ukraine’s infamous Azov Battalion, officially part of the National Guard of Ukraine, that has been widely acknowledged as a neo-Nazi volunteer paramilitary force connected with foreign white supremacist organizations.

Azov Battalion was initially formed as a volunteer group in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang, and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) group. As a battalion, the group fought on the front lines against pro-Russia separatists in Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine.

A few months after recapturing the strategic port city of Mariupol from the Russia-backed separatists, the unit was officially integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014, and exacted high praise from then-President Petro Poroshenko. “These are our best warriors,” he said at an awards ceremony in 2014. “Our best volunteers.”

Biletsky interviewed by Ukrainian TV after a mission near Mariupol. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The unit was led by Andriy Biletsky, who served as the leader of both the Patriot of Ukraine (founded in 2005) and the SNA (founded in 2008).  In 2010, Biletsky said Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races].” Biletsky was elected to parliament in 2014. He left Azov as elected officials cannot be in the military or police force. He remained an MP until 2019.

These forces were privately funded by oligarchs – the most known being Igor Kolomoisky, an energy magnate billionaire and then-governor of the Dnipropetrovska region. In addition to Azov, Kolomoisky funded other volunteer battalions such as the Dnipro 1 and Dnipro 2, Aidar and Donbas units.

The Mint Press News recently reported [1]:

“Zelensky’s presidential bid in 2019, which saw him win 73% of the vote, was successful on the basis that he was running in order to combat corruption and create peace in the country but, as the leaked documents known as the Pandora Papers revealed, he himself was storing funds in offshore bank accounts. Zelenskyy’s campaign was at the time boosted and bankrolled by Israeli-Ukrainian billionaire Igor Kolomoisky – who was himself accused of stealing $5.5 billion from his own bank.

“Muslims seem to be a major issue for the Azov Battalion. The Islamophobia present not only in Azov, but also in the National Guard of Ukraine, came through strongly on social media as the official National Guard site glorified the Azov Battalion as they dipped their bullets in pig fat. The video was directed at Muslim soldiers from Chechnya who are fighting on the side of Russia and were described as orcs by the National Guard on Twitter.”

In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced they will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure from the Pentagon. In October 2019, 40 members of the US Congress led by Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully calling for the US State Department to designate Azov as a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO).

In Feb. 2019, The Nation Magazine published a detailed think piece: “Neo-Nazis and the Far Right are on the March in Ukraine” [2], elaborating Ukraine’s far-right militant groups’ xenophobic and white supremacist political ideology.

“Then-Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy cofounded and led two neo-Nazi organizations: the Social-National Party of Ukraine (later renamed Svoboda), and Patriot of Ukraine, whose members would eventually form the core of Azov.

“Even more disturbing is the far right’s penetration of law enforcement. Shortly after the Maidan coup in 2014, the US equipped and trained the newly founded National Police, in what was intended to be a hallmark program buttressing Ukrainian democracy. The deputy minister of the Interior—which controls the National Police—is Vadim Troyan, a veteran of Azov and Patriot of Ukraine.

“In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation making two WWII paramilitaries—the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—heroes of Ukraine, and made it a criminal offense to deny their heroism. The OUN had collaborated with the Nazis and participated in the Holocaust, while the UPA slaughtered thousands of Jews and 70,000-100,000 Poles on their own volition.”

Notwithstanding, despite “heroically staying” in Kyiv and “valiantly mounting” the public-relationing offensive on the Western media while the city is being surrounded by Russian forces, there is no risk to Zelensky’s personal safety. The Washington Post reported [3] on March 5:

“The possible Russian takeover of Kyiv has prompted a flurry of planning at the State Department, Pentagon and other U.S. agencies in the event that the Zelensky government has to flee the capital or the country itself. ‘We’re doing contingency planning now for every possibility,’ including a scenario in which Zelensky establishes a government-in-exile in Poland, said a U.S. administration official.

“Zelensky, who has called himself Russia’s target No. 1, remains in Kyiv and has assured his citizens he’s not leaving. He has had discussions with U.S. officials about whether he should move west to a safer position in the city of Lviv, closer to the Polish border. Zelensky’s security detail has plans ready to swiftly relocate him and members of his cabinet, a senior Ukrainian official said. ‘So far, he has refused to go.’”

It’s obvious from reading between the lines the security detail of Zelensky not only includes operatives of Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU, but also highly skilled special-ops professionals of several Western security agencies, including the formidable CIA and NSA, who would whisk him away across the border to Poland as soon as it becomes clear the capital is about to fall to advancing Russian forces.

In fact, private military contractors in close co-ordination and consultation with covert operators from CIA and Western intelligence agencies are not only training Ukraine’s conscript forces in the use of caches of MANPADS and anti-armor munitions provided by the US, Germany and rest of European nations as a military assistance to Ukraine but are also directing the whole defense strategy of Ukraine by taking active part in combat operations in some of the most hard fought battles against Russia’s security forces north of Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas.

Famous for hosting CIA’s black sites where alleged al-Qaeda operatives were water-boarded and tortured before being sent to Guantanamo Bay in early years of the war on terror, in Poland alone the US military footprint now exceeds 10,000 troops as the majority of 15,000 troops sent to Europe last month went to Poland to join the 4,000 US troops already stationed there. The airfields and training camps in the border regions of Poland have a become a hub for transporting weapons and militants to Lviv in west Ukraine, which then travel to battlefields at Kyiv and in east Ukraine.

The Washington Post report further notes:

“During an official visit, a Ukrainian special operations commander told Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were shifting training and planning to focus on maintaining an armed opposition, relying on insurgent-like tactics.

“Ukrainian officials told the lawmakers that they were frustrated that the United States had not sent Harpoon missiles to target Russian ships and Stinger missiles to attack Russian aircraft, Moulton and Waltz said in separate interviews.

“As the Russian military struggles with logistical challenges — including fuel and food shortages — Waltz anticipates that the Ukrainians will repeatedly strike Russian supply lines. To do that, they need a steady supply of weapons and the ability to set improvised explosive devices, he said. ‘Those supply lines are going to be very, very vulnerable, and that’s where you really literally starve the Russian army.’

“‘You can’t ship them to Ukraine at the last minute and expect some national guardsman to pick up a Stinger and shoot down an aircraft,’ he said. Continuing a resistance campaign will require continued clandestine shipments of small arms, ammunition, explosives and even cold-weather gear. ‘Think about the kinds of things that would be used by saboteurs as opposed to an army repelling a frontal invasion,’ Moulton said.”

Clearly, planning and preparations are well underway to lure Russia into NATO’s “bear trap project,” a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western powers used Pakistan’s security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to “bleed the security forces” of former Soviet Union in the protracted war.

The impending fall of Kyiv in the face of Russian blitz is a forgone conclusion that even Western policymakers acknowledge that Ukraine’s conscript military and allied irregular militias are simply not a match for Russia’s professional security forces in regular warfare.

The tumultuous last three weeks since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 were only the prelude to a long and sordid saga of ensuing war of attrition mounted by myriad heavily armed militant outfits nurtured by Western powers against global and regional adversaries, as happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Zelensky is being prepared as a “charismatic savior” to lead a protracted and bloody insurgency against Russian security forces in Ukraine. Although cutting a dashing figure sporting military fatigues and urging compatriots to rise up in arms against “Russian invaders” in sentimental addresses while at the same time pandering to NATO patrons to provide military assistance and impose harshest sanctions on the Kremlin, what exceptional act of valor has Volodymyr Zelensky performed thus far? Has he ever been in the line of fire on the frontlines of the Russo-Ukraine War?

Taking advantage of gullible audience’s innate predilection for hero worship, the mainstream media is projecting Zelensky as a messiah waging a crusade against a rival power that dared to stand up to NATO’s further eastward expansion into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. The public-relationing rationale of live-broadcasting his hateful and violent speeches to the parliaments of Europe and the United States is as much to give publicity to an expendable stooge as to vilify and internationally isolate an arch-foe on the global stage.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Israel’s Links to Ukraine’s Thriving Neo-Nazi Movement

[2] Neo-Nazis and the Far Right are on the March in Ukraine

[3] U.S. prepares for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency

Featured image:  Zelensky in 2019, photo by President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons