It was already explained how “Zelensky’s Exclusive Interview With Indian Media Was A Lost Opportunity For Peace” since he made unrealistic demands of that country to sanction Russia instead of appealing to it as a mediator for brokering a compromise as the conflict’s dynamics trend ever more in Russia’s favor. This analysis will therefore look at the rest of what he revealed and read between the lines to show how worried he is about the direction in which the conflict is going despite his stubbornness to continue it.
His opening claim about how last week’s BRICS Summit in Kazan was a failure due to the Brazilian and Saudi leaders’ lack of attendance is contradicted by him then adding that the event served to supposedly divide the world into “West-plus and BRICS-plus”. He then tried stirring trouble between Russia and China by alleging that Putin rubbished Beijing’s vague peace proposals. Without realizing it, Zelensky showed how much he feared the gathering of so many non-Western leaders in Russia.
He then criticized UN Secretary-General Guterres’ attendance at the event as “surreal”, which implies that the optics of that world leader’s appearance there deeply bothered him since they undercut the false perception of unwavering global support for Ukraine at the highest international level. Zelensky still claims that there’s bipartisan support for his country inside the US Congress, but he deliberately ignores the fact that its composition might change by next week.
Zelensky later pumped Europe up in an obvious attempt to maintain its support in the event that the US’ approach towards Ukraine changes after the elections. To that end, he condescendingly said that China and India – the world’s two most populous countries – shouldn’t forget that Europe as a whole has five times the population of Russia and an even larger economy, adding that it even has twice the US’ population too. None of that is relevant but it suggests that he’s hedging his bets on the US a bit.
Repeating his policy of not wanting to freeze the conflict but to decisively end it on his terms is nothing but a platitude and unrealistic to any objective observer but segues into a discussion of his “Victory Plan”. Zelensky clarified that he doesn’t expect Ukraine to join NATO while hostilities are still ongoing but asked for an invitation to join right now “so that in the future nobody can change their opinion.” In other words, he fears a deal being reached between the US and Russia for keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
He also acknowledged that Russia does indeed continue to gain ground but said that this is only due to Ukraine wanting to minimize human losses. This implies that Ukraine is struggling to replenish its battlefield losses in spite of its forcible conscription policy and can thus be interpreted as a de facto admission that he’s losing the “war of attrition”. His last lie is that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk was a preventive move to stop a planned Russian offensive but is debunked by Russia being caught off guard.
Reading between the lines of what he revealed during his exclusive interview with Indian media, it’s clear that Zelensky knows how bad everything has become for Ukraine, thus raising the obvious question of why he lost the opportunity to appeal to India as a mediator for brokering a compromise pronto. The Global South doesn’t support him, the UN chief no longer fully has his back, the US’ policy might change at the presidential and congressional levels, and Europe might then follow suit if that happens.
One possible explanation is that Zelensky’s ultra-hawkish chief of staff Andrey Yermak has Rasputin-like influence over him and has thus convinced him to continue the conflict against his better judgement. The Ukrainian leader knows that things aren’t turning out how he wants and that they’re only going to get worse unless he either compromises or dangerously “escalates to de-escalate” such as by carrying out a nuclear provocation and/or invading Belarus, but both could backfire and leave him further in the lurch.
No matter what worst-case scenarios Yermak might be pressuring him to approve, Zelensky still hasn’t yet mustered up the courage to take those risks, though he also hasn’t mustered up the courage to defy Yermak by taking tangible steps to reach a compromise with Russia via Indian mediation either. The second option could lead to him losing power if he runs for re-election and loses or rigs the vote so blatantly to falsify his victory that it leads to enough of the elite and the population uniting to oust him.
He’s therefore trapped in a dilemma entirely of his own making, which keen observers can discern by reading between the lines of his exclusive interview with Indian media. Zelensky didn’t mean to show everyone how insecure and nervous he is, it just naturally came out throughout the course of their conversation. He knows that his time is almost up, yet he also can’t fully extricate himself from Yermak’s pernicious influence, ergo why he wasted this opportunity for peace against his better judgement.
