Extract from ABC News
Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Anthony Albanese? That was our choice.
As a group of Australian journalists we were standing in the centre of Vilnius waiting for Prime Minister Albanese. He'd spent the day at the NATO conference and this would be his daily briefing with the travelling media.
But then a dilemma. There was a concert just down the road and word had gone around that the Ukrainian leader may show up at what was called Lenin Square when the Soviet Union ruled this small, enchanting country.
Hundreds of people were already at the venue but we noticed that hundreds more began rushing towards the square.
Something was definitely happening. We still had about 30 minutes before the PM was due to appear, so a huddle of the press pack led to a decision: President Zelenskyy may not turn up but the chance to see him in action was worth the try.
The only danger was that the Australian PM would walk across half an hour early to find a sole camera operator holding the fort.
As we arrived we heard the next guest being introduced: "President Volodymyr Zelenskyy!"
Children were on parents' shoulders, people were filming with their phones and we heard the unmistakeable booming voice of the Ukrainian leader.
For about 20 minutes he roused the crowd. What struck me was his complete lack of fear – this man would almost certainly be one of the highest targets in the world for an assassination.
Seeing him in person reinforced his power as an orator. He obviously trades on this both inside Ukraine and when he travels.
Zelenskyy has proved a curse for Russia. He has unified his country's 44 million people at the same time as travelling from Saudi Arabia to Italy, Germany to Turkey, with his shopping list of weapons.
While Ukraine's war effort is now much more than Zelenskyy, the Kremlin undoubtedly would feel that their task of permanently claiming the 20 per cent of Ukrainian land that it has taken would be easier were Zelenskyy not around.
So what is the "Zelenskyy factor"? How good a military strategist is he? And to what extent has he held the Ukrainian side together?
I asked four experts who observe Volodymyr Zelenskyy as closely as anybody and who focus on Ukraine and Russia.
Peter Tesch
Peter Tesch is a former Australian ambassador to Moscow and a former deputy secretary for strategy, policy and industry in the Department of Defence
How do you assess the performance of Volodymyr Zelenskyy?
He is consistently a very impressive figure. Initially seen by some as an unlikely figurehead, he has proven himself since February 2022 to be a resilient, tough and inspiring leader who commands respect and support at home and abroad. He has shown personal courage, including visiting the front lines. He has remained grounded and connected with his people and his soldiers. The contrast with Putin — an aloof denizen of bunkers and gilded halls — could not be starker.
How do you compare the ways that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have conducted themselves internationally?
Look at the UN voting results. Although I would like to see stronger support for Ukraine from outside the usual blocs, Zelenskyy clearly has the upper hand in the public opinion campaign. Putin unequivocally is the aggressor. Nothing he says is credible. Through its unprovoked aggression, Russia has trashed international law and debased its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and as an architect and guarantor of the system of international security.
It has shown that its solemn guarantees — in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, political independence and existing borders, were worthless. Bizarrely, the Kremlin has tried to paint its illegal actions and violence in Ukraine as solidarity with developing nations against "neo-colonialism".
Is it possible to say at this point how history will remember him – or does that all depend on the outcome of the war?
I remain optimistic that Ukraine will prevail even over the long term. Zelenskyy will be seen as a man who confounded his critics and rose to the immense task of rallying a nation and the international community to assert right over wrong.
Mick Ryan
Mick Ryan is a strategist and recently retired Australian Army major general. He served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a strategist on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff
Having seen him up close, how would you describe Volodymyr Zelenskyy?
He is actually shorter physically than I expected. But you soon forget that. He is energetic, funny and entirely focused on you when he speaks to you.
How important has he been in securing military support from other countries?
His speeches have become a key part of this effort, as has the very well-coordinated diplomatic and strategic influence efforts undertaken by the Ukrainian government. The Ukrainian ambassadors around the world, as well as the diaspora community, have been very important.
As a military man, do you regard him as a smart military strategist?
He has demonstrated the ability to listen to his military advisers and make carefully calibrated decisions that incorporate this advice as well as political imperatives. He is a very strategic leader who includes military, diplomatic, economic, human and informational imperatives in his decision making.
What are the major military or strategic mistakes that Russia has made?
Russia's key mistakes have been strategic. They assumed Ukraine would fold quickly, that its people would welcome the Russians as liberators, that the Ukrainian government would flee and that the West would not intervene. These are the original sins of Russian strategy and they drove every mistake at the operational and tactical levels early in the war.
What have been the smartest military decisions Russia has taken?
While Russia may not have received much external support in a physical sense, it has done a good job of ensuring the global south does not get involved in the war. Also, Russia's nuclear sabre rattling, from their perspective, has been successful. NATO has not intervened physically in the war and there has been no escalation to other areas.
Who are Zelenskyy's closest advisers?
There are strategic, political and personal advisors, and I could not provide a full list. However, people like General Zaluzhny, as well as his defence minister, foreign minister and national security advisor are quite important.
In the two years before the war, Zelenskyy was seen by some as failing to get his head around detail. Do you think he'll be considered a leader who rose to the occasion?
While the ultimate outcome of the war remains to be seen, Zelenskyy is already being favourably compared with Winston Churchill and his leadership from 1940 onwards. This is fair, although Zelenskyy's job is even harder. There were no Germans in Britain raping, pillaging and murdering his citizens when he came to power in 1940.
Zelenskyy, who is not part of any Western alliance system, has had to unify his nation, defend against a large invasion force, balance a range of competing national priorities (defence, the economy, civil defence, displaced population) while also seeking massive amounts of foreign military, economic, humanitarian and intelligence aid.
Matthew Sussex
Dr Matthew Sussex is Associate Professor (Adjunct) at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University
How would you assess President Zelenskyy's importance to Ukraine's war effort?
He's been crucial to leveraging international support for Ukraine in a way that, prior to the Russian invasion, certainly wasn't expected internationally, and probably wasn't expected domestically either.
I think he's come to personify Ukrainian resistance, both at home and abroad. He's also particularly active, visiting frontline troops in person, and visible at the scene of some of the Russian military's most egregious crimes – from Bucha and the sites of other massacres, to a flooded Kherson.
In contrast, Putin has cultivated a sense of detachment from the conflict, especially when it has become necessary to pin the blame for failure on others.
For Ukraine at least, this one is as much a war of narratives as it is of military conquest and defence. And whereas the Russian narrative about causes and progress has shifted markedly, it's instructive that the Ukrainian one has remained the same.
The fact that Zelenskyy remains on message while Putin lurches more and more towards the fantastical is a powerful indication of how the war is progressing for both sides — not to mention how their relative success and failure is perceived.
How important has Zelenskyy's profile been to securing support?
Extremely important. I hesitate to use the term "cult of personality" given that it tends to be associated with rather more authoritarian regimes, but I think Western publics particularly have taken to Zelenskyy in a way that I haven't seen for a long time. In my view that's because they see him as plainly spoken, determined and ultimately authentic – in contradistinction to their own carefully curated sloganeering politicians.
So Zelenskyy is creating two types of pressure on western governments to act: the moral argument that Ukraine is struggling against imperial aggression and the more pragmatic incentive that there is clearly domestic political capital in giving him what he wants.
Do you think for an international audience the war has been personified as Putin v Zelenskyy?
Certainly, although I think Putin has gone to great lengths to avoid that perception in Russia, where failure is blamed on internal scapegoats and the evil external machinations of the West – but never the tsar. A common tactic in authoritarian regimes, of course.
Zelenskyy has also changed the way he engages internationally. At first, he remained close to home as the leader of a beleaguered nation ("I need ammunition, not a ride"). More recently he's travelled much more extensively. It's a clever gambit that projects confidence, assurance and shows how broad his international support network is.
Do you think Putin underestimated Zelenskyy?
Most definitely. But he's also underestimated the desire of Ukrainians to resist, and the willingness of other nations to help him. By foolishly believing that Ukrainians would welcome the invasion, his actions have probably been the most powerful factor in mobilising Ukrainian collective identity and national sense of self since the collapse of the USSR.
But most recently it's also been interesting to note a bit of a shift in Putin's rhetoric. He now seems to acknowledge that the Ukrainian armed forces are much stronger than the way they were initially portrayed, and gave a lengthy list of equipment shortages in the Russian military that needed to be addressed by ramping up production.
Many Ukrainians say that before the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy was not into detail but a 'big picture' person. Do you think, given the nature of war, he must have had to get into the detail?
Of course. Wars require it, and most wartime leaders get drawn into that. Churchill was obsessed with minute detail, for instance, and often drove his advisors mad with new schemes. Ultimately as the overall captain of the ship of state it is important for Zelenskyy to have a clear idea of what "victory" looks like, what he needs to achieve that, and how to ensure Ukraine's security after the war.
Ian Parmeter
Ian Parmeter is a research fellow at the Australian National University and former counsellor at the Australian embassy in Moscow
He's a leader many people would not have heard of before the Russian invasion – how do you think he's grown in stature, and why?
Zelenskyy was very much an unknown quantity before the Russian invasion. Clearly the United States underestimated his capabilities and potential before the war – as demonstrated by the US offer to evacuate him at the start of the invasion, behind which lay Washington's apparent assessment that Russia would take over Ukraine quickly.
It's worth remembering that Zelenskyy was almost an accidental president when he was elected in 2019. It's unlikely he would have contested the election if he had not been cast as a comedian-turned-president in the popular Ukrainian television series Servant of the People. During the campaign he avoided serious interviews and discussions about policy, instead posting light-hearted videos to social media.
When he was elected, the BBC commented that pressure would be on him "to demonstrate that he knows what he is doing". His opponent in the election, billionaire Petro Poroshenko, whom Zelenskyy defeated by 73 per cent to 25 per cent, commented that "a new inexperienced Ukrainian president could be quickly returned to Russia's orbit of influence".
Zelenskyy was almost universally underestimated. Yet he grew with astounding rapidity into the job of leading Ukraine under the pressure of crisis. Ironically, if Putin had not launched his invasion, Zelenskyy might not have had the opportunity to show his mettle as a leader.
What is your assessment of how important he's been on the international stage in terms of garnering support for Ukraine?
Very few national leaders could have worked the international stage in the way Zelenskyy has. His excellent communication skills in global forums encompass the way he presents himself. His appearance is a statement – his signature olive green sweatshirt with the Ukrainian trident on the chest, cargo pants and work boots, complemented by uneven beard growth that suggests he's too busy to shave regularly. That image gives urgency to his appeals for more, and more sophisticated, weaponry and munitions.
He seems acutely aware that Western states backing him have limited attention spans, and he is constantly in the faces of their leaders to prevent any slowdown in provision of arms and training.
His ability to connect with Western audiences in English has been a bonus. He notes himself that his command of English was limited when Russia invaded but has improved markedly with practice. After his address to Congress last December Americans were reported to have commented on social media that he spoke English better than President Biden.
At this stage what do you think will be Zelenskyy's legacy?
If Zelenskyy is able to lead Ukraine to victory by fully achieving his declared war aim of forcing Russian troops out of the country, his legacy will obviously be that of a national hero. But an outcome less than that could mean a tarnished image, particularly if Ukraine is forced to compromise and accept Russian retention of part or all of Ukraine's eastern provinces and Crimea. Many Ukrainians would consider that a betrayal, particularly given the sacrifices they have had to endure throughout the war.
Zelenskyy's problem is that the outcome depends very much on factors he can't control. Ukraine's ability to counter Russia has been enabled by massive Western military, humanitarian, financial and training support. Estimates of the total amount vary, but research by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the UK House of Commons Library suggest that the total may now be over US$100 billion, with the US contributing around US$75 billion (of which nearly US$45 billion has been in military hardware) and the rest mainly from Europe, Canada and Australia.
How long can this continue?
Though leaders of NATO member states say regularly that the assistance will continue "for as long as it takes", how long is inevitably subject to domestic factors in contributing states.
Zelenskyy will need to be diplomatic to ensure the help keeps coming. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace objected to being presented with a "shopping list" on arrival in Kyiv in mid-July, commenting that Ukraine's western allies were "not Amazon" and Kyiv needed to show gratitude for what had already been given in order to persuade western politicians to give more.
In the US, aid to Ukraine is seen largely as a Biden administration project. Republicans are less enthusiastic. Both Donald Trump and his closest rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Ron DeSantis, have made ambivalent statements about continued support to Ukraine. A Republican victory in next year's presidential election could mean a significant reduction in US support.
There is also a question over Trump's ambiguous relationship with Putin. The 2019 Mueller report into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election provided evidence that Russia used a range of stratagems to help Trump defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The report demonstrated that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary militia, played a major role in this exercise through establishment of a "troll factory" (innocuously named the Internet Research Agency) in St Petersburg but able to reach into and influence US social media.
It seems clear at this stage that Putin is prepared to let the war continue at least into next year and possibly beyond in the hope of a change of US administration in 2024 accompanied by declining Western resolve. Zelenskyy's best hope is for the war to end in Ukraine's favour this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment