Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gives his end of year press conference. December 19, 2023.
In what reads like a eulogy for his presidency, The New York Times seems to pin the blame for the failures of the Ukrainian war effort on Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Jeff Childers explains on his Substack (Coffee & Covid 2025), that the NY Times is attempting to scapegoat the current Ukrainian president:
It was going according to plan, the Times sadly said, “until it wasn’t.” The problem wasn’t the Russians, the Americans, or even the slowly draining numbers of trained Ukrainian military forces. No, the problem was one spotlight-hogging Vladimir Zelenskyy. With two y’s, for you’ve got to be kidding me, squared.
“Zelensky was hoping to attend the United Nations General Assembly,” the Times reported. “A showing of progress on the battlefield would bolster his case for additional military support. So the Ukrainians upended the plan at the last minute — a preview of a fundamental disconnect that would increasingly shape the arc of the war.”
The NY Times continued later, pointing out that Zelenskyy refused to follow Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin’s suggestion that he (Zelenskyy) draft Ukrainian men between 18 and 25. They write:
Mr. Austin would later recount how he contemplated this manpower mismatch as he looked out the window of his armored S.U.V. snaking through the Kyiv streets. He was struck, he told aides, by the sight of so many men in their 20s, almost none of them in uniform. In a nation at war, he explained, men this age are usually away, in the fight.
This was one of the difficult messages the Americans had come to Kyiv to deliver, as they laid out what they could and couldn’t do for Ukraine in 2025.
Mr. Zelensky had already taken a small step, lowering the draft age to 25. Still, the Ukrainians hadn’t been able to fill existing brigades, let alone build new ones.
Mr. Austin pressed Mr. Zelensky to take the bigger, bolder step and begin drafting 18-year-olds. To which Mr. Zelensky shot back, according to an official who was present, “Why would I draft more people? We don’t have any equipment to give them.”
“And your generals are reporting that your units are undermanned,” the official recalled Mr. Austin responding. “They don’t have enough soldiers for the equipment they have.”
Could the Deep State be abandoning Zelenskyy, looking for ways to push him out of office? Do they hope a new president can form better relations with President Donald Trump and convince him to continue supporting the war effort?
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