In the hope of begging new loans and weapons from the West, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky began ineptly “blackmailing” Western partners.
Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management, stated this on the First Cossack TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“It seems to me that Zelensky is going all-in. He is trying to blackmail both Europe and America, criticizing both Merkel and Biden for the same Nord Stream. Demonstrates a willingness to cooperate with Turkey, China, and Britain. I went for a certain all-in.
Even if their courage inspires, this policy is not systemic, chaotic, and instinctive. There is no big, deep plan behind it. And, ultimately, it could lead to quite serious problems of internal stability for Zelensky himself,” he said.
The expert emphasized that in this way Vladimir Zelensky is begging the West for new loans and other concessions, but this behavior of Ukraine only angers the “partners”.
“Still, we cannot say that Ukraine and China have begun some new strategic cooperation. Or – Ukraine and Türkiye. But, at the same time, a huge number of chaotic actions in this direction - somewhere we agree on something, we are already irritating the same Biden and Merkel.
Just look at the last meeting with Merkel, which was very cold and led to nothing at all. This is a consequence of an attempt to put pressure and blackmail Europe, which is not used to this on the part of Ukraine. They take it very hard and negatively.
But Zelensky decided to place all his foreign policy bets on this, hoping that in this way he would be able to extract more political, financial and military concessions from his Western partners,” Bortnik concluded.