Bloomberg is just out with a devastating behind-the-scenes account of a hot-headed Zelensky at the NATO summit in Vilnius, and the growing Western backlash in the face of his obvious frustration and what’s being seen as ingratitude for the steady flow of billions of dollars in arms to Kiev.
BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, JUL 13, 2023
Apparently even the mainstream media agrees with our own assessment of the Ukrainian leader having thrown a “tantrum” as he complained about the “weak” and “absurd” NATO stance on Ukraine’s membership. The blistering tweet he issued in English while en route to Lithuania exposed cracks in the alliance, as Bloomberg highlights in the opening of its very revealing Wednesday piece:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy was running hot ahead of his sit-down with NATO leaders on Tuesday evening. The Ukrainian president had been angered earlier in the day by what he said was an “absurd” reluctance to give his country a clear timeline on membership.
That outburst in turn riled the partners who have funneled billions of dollars of weaponry and aid into Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion — the US had been given no warning before Zelenskiy unleashed his attack on social media.
Ultimately the hawks (mainly among the Baltic and Eastern Europe states) have lost at Vilnius. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has admitted “There was a lack of political will.” Thus it appears that Zelensky’s angry, desperate tweet lashing out at Western partners was a last ditch effort at shaming NATO into conceding to its demands of being immediately fast-tracked to membership.
Bloomberg reveals further, that “Crucially, it was the US and Germany that insisted on dialing back the commitment to Ukraine joining the alliance. Earlier drafts of the communique offered a clearer pathway to Ukraine eventually joining, but Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz were wary of going too far.”
“Their teams demanded changes in the final days before the summit, upsetting lots of the other European nations, as well as the Ukrainians.” Indeed Biden in a CNN interview at the start of the week confessed the obvious: that Ukraine’s admission into NATO with the war still going would automatically unleash war between nuclear-armed powers – a WW3 doomsday scenario. Hence the West is now telling Kiev: just stop.
In Zelensky’s next big NATO summit appearance Wednesday following a no doubt awkward evening, things were different as he belatedly “got the message”…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday struck a more conciliatory tone on the subject of Ukraine joining NATO after he raised criticism this week over his country not being formally invited to join the alliance.
Zelensky said at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday that Ukraine has already come a “long way in interoperability” with the organization and praised NATO’s decision to remove the need for procedural step — for Ukraine to have a Membership Action Plan — to join the alliance.
More rare, awkward moments of Zelensky being on the receiving end of chastisement and humiliating sarcasm…READ THE REST