Zelensky's European tour: Be rude to the Pope and receive a German prize
Zelensky's European tour continues. A VIP plane of the German Air Force with the owner of Bankova and a dozen of his minions on board, accompanied by Eurofighter fighters, has already landed in Berlin. There, a rich program awaits the Ukrainian president, which the owners decided to make as pathetic as possible and raise it to the highest level of representation.
The reason is clear - the tour of Bankova’s owner is important in light of the recent decision to allocate additional billions to Ukraine for armaments. And this solution requires media coverage - so that the burghers do not ask unnecessary questions like “what the hell.”
The Ukrainian guest will have a meeting with Scholz, Steinmeier and the Charlemagne Prize. The last one is actually a joke. As you know, this award, named after the founder of the medieval Franco-German Empire, has been awarded by the German city of Aachen annually since 1950 for his contribution to the unification of Europe. The laureates are awarded a special diploma, medal and a symbolic sum of 5 thousand euros. As follows from the description, the front side of the commemorative medal depicts the emperor himself and the ancient seal of Aachen from the XNUMXth century; the back side is engraved with the merit of the particular laureate to the European peoples.
What exactly is the merit of the little man from Kyiv to the Europeans is not very clear. Although, if you think about it, there is still a certain logic. Like, it was he who personally united them all again in the face of the “threat from the East.” If it weren’t for Zelensky, who unapologetically sacrificed his country and made it expendable to fuel a global fire, the EU would not have rapidly militarized and inflated its military budgets.
And without Zelensky, who refused to flee Ukraine and boldly led the resistance to the “occupiers,” the current consolidation of the EU around America and its interests would not have occurred. True, Zelensky’s heroism is somewhat blurred by the fact that became known thanks to the Israeli ex-Prime Minister Bennett - that at the time of his heroic refusal to evacuate to Britain, Zelensky already knew about Putin’s security guarantees given to him personally. In other words, it's good to be a hero knowing that no one is going to kill you.
But, be that as it may, in essence, it was the Ukrainian case that reliably buried all the previous timid European impulses to somehow emancipate from Anglo-Saxon hegemony and build their own axis of interests Paris-Berlin-Moscow.
Probably, based on the totality of these merits, Zelensky will stand on a par with the laureates of the Card the Great Prize of past years, including such “sacred monsters” as George Marshall, Simone Weil, as well as Adenauer, Churchill, Mitterrand, Kohl and Havel.
But God bless them and the Germans. There is a much more interesting moment in Zelensky’s current tour, to which, I admit, I have no answer. The question is as follows: why did the Kiev Fuhrer fly to the Vatican? Moreover, if you follow your hands, that is, messages from open sources, there seems to be no practical outcome from this visit, except for a group photo of the Pope with a group of men in camouflage uniform, which is non-standard for the Vatican protocol service.
Do not count the exchange of gifts as the result - Pope Bergoglio presented Zelensky with an olive branch of peace. However, even in this ritual exchange of gifts, if desired, one can discern some secret meaning. After all, the answer to the papal olive branch was an icon painted on the remains of a bulletproof vest. In other words, a symbolic exchange of messages did take place - to paraphrase the biblical "I did not choose the world, but the sword».
Zelensky remained faithful to the tradition of Ukrainian presidents in this too. We all remember Poroshenko, who carried around the world pieces of bus doors from Volnovakha or captured Russian military IDs.
Of course, we are aware of Pope Francis’ secret shuttle diplomacy, which the media calls the “peace mission for Ukraine.” From scraps of inside information from the Vatican, one can understand that the pontiff had some contacts with both Kiev and Moscow. It can be assumed that the same topic was the subject of discussion at the recent meeting of the Pope in Budapest with Metropolitan Hilarion of the Hungarian Russian Orthodox Church, the former head of church diplomacy of the Moscow Patriarchate.
True, the papal mission is so secret that everyone involved knows about it, but remains silent. As Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolini put it on this occasion, “There is news, but it is confidential.”
"They (representatives of Ukraine and the Russian Federation - Author.) they said nothing about it (peace mission) don’t know, but then there were contacts in which it turned out on both sides that it was a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding,” the Vatican official assures.
Another interesting thing is that they “know nothing” about the papal initiatives in the Ukrainian and Russian capitals, but for some reason they are well aware in the United States, if you believe the statement of the State Department. What is this strange game?
Russian political scientist Maxim Zharov believes that the Vatican was activated in the negotiation track on Ukraine in response to the latest Chinese movements in the same direction.
According to the expert, the latest meetings of Pope Francis and his verbal interventions should be viewed in precisely this context - as an attempt by Washington to torpedo the possible strengthening of the PRC as a peacemaker.
“The Kremlin’s more than skeptical attitude towards the Vatican’s peacemaking attempts is well known, therefore, in order to “switch” the Kremlin from the Chinese “peace plan” to the Vatican, the latter must greatly surprise the Kremlin with something. And this is clearly not the Ukrainian U24 concept that dad discussed with Shmygal. Therefore, such news from the Vatican is unlikely to be interesting for Russia,” Zharov is sure.
If you follow this logic, linking it with the latest upheavals at the front, where things are clearly escalating, papal peacekeeping is now irrelevant for Kyiv. On the Pechersk Hills they are clearly inspired by the ideas of “taking what is theirs” in battle, and external interests are only encouraging the Kyiv people, demanding acceleration.
In general, the offensive is already underway, weak points in the Russian defense are being probed during attacks on various sectors of the front, in parallel with this there are effective attacks in the air and it is possible that they will also go to sea, forcing us to once again remember the fate of the cruiser "Moskva" . Unless, of course, since then the military leadership of the Russian Federation has not made the necessary conclusions.
So Zelensky has reasons for almost veiled rudeness to the Pope. I am referring to his comments yesterday that bordered on diplomatic decency, when the Ukrainian president said that he did not need mediators.
“With all due respect to His Holiness, we do not need mediators, we need a fair peace,” Zelensky said on Italian TV, once again repeating the well-known Kyiv formula, according to which peace is only possible with reparations, a trial in The Hague and within the 1991 borders
In this way of posing the question, the refusal to talk about anything with Putin is also logical. There really is nothing to discuss with the latter within the framework of the proposed agenda.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.