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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
What is the basis for Zelensky’s such unabashed confidence that Ukraine—and he—will not be allowed to lose?
That this is today the only instrument for containing Russia and preserving Western hegemony. I’m not talking about the United States—that’s in the past. Now it’s simply about domination by the Western imperative: a combination of currency, sanctions, legal, and economic rules. If Russia crushes Ukraine, it will crush the inviolable postulate about the advantages of the Western world, cultivated over the last 80 years. Everything measured by the standards of a Petersburg alley—couldn’t protect your girl from the bullies?—you’re a loser. So Zelensky is convinced that Europe and the States don’t want to be losers, and therefore they won’t abandon Ukraine.
But there is one systemic error in this theory—the values of the Putin and Trump worlds do not contradict each other; they correspond. Both are constrained by the so‑called Western primacy—a system of rules that prevents them from doing what they want. Moreover, Europe is seen as the source and guardian of the roots of that primacy and imperative. Therefore, its defeat (for Putin a complete defeat, for Trump a merely “technical” one) would be freedom of action. But for that to happen, Ukraine must lose.
The problem Zelensky doesn’t notice, or doesn’t want to notice, is that while Trump originally viewed Ukraine as part of Europe and wanted its “technical” defeat through the so‑called “spirit of Anchorage,” the option of a complete defeat—a knockout—is now being considered.
That would become a precondition for a sharp weakening of Europe, which Washington sees as a geopolitical rival—and an unruly vassal. Russia is also a rival, but weaker and technically lagging. Therefore, at this historical juncture, strengthening Russia through gains in Ukraine and Europe is viewed as collateral damage to achieve strategic goals.
Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Mearsheimer described Russia’s condition after the collapse of the USSR as unstable. They assumed that a Russia trapped between China and an expanding EU and NATO would follow one of three paths: become a vassal of China, become a vassal of the EU and NATO, or try to restore the historical borders of the Russian Empire, starting with Ukraine, Belarus, or Azerbaijan. Confined within borders that don’t match its history, Russia took the path of restoring the old borders. If it is not allowed to do that, Moscow will have only a path of rapprochement with Beijing left, and that is a strategic threat to the United States—far more serious than the defeat of NATO allies in Europe.
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