Will China Seal Zelensky’s Fate?

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's trip to Moscow doesn't bode well for a quick end to the war.

Adam Entous’ “blockbuster” New York Times report confirmed what only a few of us reported only weeks into the war, that Washington has been a co-belligerent in the war in Ukraine in all but name.

In a widely neglected article for the Asia Times on April 19, 2022, I reported that,

…US involvement goes deeper than arms sales and intelligence sharing. A Pentagon official who requested anonymity told me it is “likely we have a limited footprint on the ground in Ukraine, but under Title 50, not Title 10,” meaning US intelligence operatives and paramilitaries – but not regular military.”

In the same report I quoted Bruce Fein, a former associate attorney general during the Reagan administration, who described the behavior of the US and its allies as “systematic or substantial violations of a neutral’s duties of impartiality and non-participation in the conflict.”

If nothing else, Entous’ report demonstrates the troubling extent of our co-belligerency in a war against nuclear-armed Russia, and inadvertently revealed the depths of deceit to which Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken sunk to keep America’s involvement from public view.

Having started a war he clearly believes he was provoked* into fighting after being serially misled by France and Germany during the Minsk process (2015-2022) Russia’s Vladimir Putin is in no mood to compromise.

On March 27th, in a meeting in Murmansk with sailors from the nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk, Putin spoke about the state of the war, noting that:

We are gradually, not as quickly as some would like, but nevertheless persistently and confidently moving towards achieving all the goals declared at the beginning of this operation.

Along the entire line of combat contact, our troops have the strategic initiative. I said just recently: We will finish them off. There is reason to believe that we will finish them off.

Later on, Putin broached the idea of a new government in Ukraine “within the framework of the United Nations peacekeeping operations.”

“In principle,” he continued, “it would indeed be possible to discuss, under UN auspices with the United States and even European countries – and certainly with our partners and allies – the possibility of establishing a temporary administration in Ukraine.”

In Putin’s view, the Zelensky regime is, thanks to its ties, and indeed reliance on, avowedly neo-Nazi militias within the country, unable and unwilling to act as a serious interlocutor on talks to end the war. As has been widely reported, Putin's recent comments about Zelensky have angered Donald Trump.

Another sign that the Russians are in this for the long haul is their ongoing effort to strengthen their partnership with China. Today, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and assistant foreign minister Liu Bin met with Putin, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and presidential aide Yury Ushakov in Moscow. Among other things, it was confirmed that Chinese president Xi Jinping will meet next month with Putin in Moscow to mark Victory Day, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

In comments that ought to worry both Zelensky and Trump, Wang told the Russian media outlet RIA Novosti that while he viewed Trump’s push to end the war as “worth taking” he added that peace, in his view, was still “far away” and that “the causes of the crisis are extremely complex.”

He continued,

…We advocate eradicating the causes of the crisis through dialogue and negotiations, and ultimately achieving a fair, long-term, binding peace agreement acceptable to all parties involved.”

Trump’s dreams of a Nobel Prize will collide with a number of factors including China’s support for Russia; Putin’s view of Zelensky as illegitimate; and, not least, the reality on the ground—a reality that is starkly at odds with jejune narratives crafted by the Pentagon (then laundered through the New York Times) which claim Russia has lost upwards of 700,000 men and its economy is teetering on the precipice of catastrophe.

No evidence exists for such claims: In 2024, Russia’s economy grew by 4.1 percent, the EU’s economy grew by 1 percent; a realistic discussion about casualty rates can be found here.

In the end, Russia is winning the war and Putin’s demand for regime change in Kiev is one which Trump might accede to if he wants the fighting to end any time soon. If and when an honest account of this period is written, Zelensky will emerge not as the Churchill of his time but as Eastern Europe’s Diem; a vain leader held hostage to forces at home and abroad over which he has little control.

Notes:

* On numerous occasions in the lead up to the invasion, Putin spoke about the clear and present danger growing on Russia’s border with Ukraine, see: Geoffery Roberts’ classic ‘Now or Never': Putin’s Decision for War with Ukraine, link here: https://jmss.org/article/view/76584/56335?s=03

James W. Carden is editor of TRR and a contributing editor at The American Conservative.