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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Photo: Umit Bektas / REUTERS
I recently heard something strange from a distant acquaintance who knows about my involvement with Russia and Ukraine.
She spoke to me and I noticed that she was looking for the right words: "Zelensky demands so much from us," she then said.
And added: "But we worked everything out with our own hands..."
I looked puzzled, I didn't understand the meaning of her words at first.
But a few days later, a liberal-minded, somewhat older gentleman explained almost the same thing to me in other words: He bothers, he told me, that the Ukrainian president is so demanding of us.
Wasn't he a rather colorful figure and the leader of a country with many problems?
Somebody like that has to be more reserved.
So far I had only heard doubts about the Ukrainian leader from Moscow.
The word "doubt" in this context is too trivial.
Because buckets of dirt are poured out of Russia about Zelenskyj every day, and with hate and deviousness that are breathtaking.
A recent report by the state agency read that there are actually only four scenarios for Zelenskyj's future, and at best a fifth.
The first was the Saddam Hussein method (capturing and executing after a court decision), the second the Nicolae Ceausescu method (arrest and execution without trial), the third the Osama bin Laden method (execution without trial) and the fourth the Hitler method (suicide to avoid justice).
Good,
French readers are said to say that Zelenskyi is "the worst leader in history".
The Kremlin's propaganda is known to be ingenious, which is why it likes to foist such demands on others.
The absolute favorite among the various methods for this has become the citing of Western media - preferably French, because such sources are more difficult for the Russians to check.
The Ria Nowosti news agency recently quoted readers of the newspaper Le Figaro as saying.
In other words, on closer inspection it was not readers of the »Figaro«, which is a respected national daily newspaper, but users of its website, which makes a big difference.
As is well known, anyone can express themselves on the Internet, and how do we know whether the quoted users with their pseudonyms are not Russian social bots?
Russians can impersonate French users in French media,
"The readers of 'Figaro'" (according to the Russian headline) refer to Zelenskyi as the "butcher of Ukraine" who commands a "whole army of killers".
He's bombing civilians in Donbass while the West looks on with criminal equanimity.
Negotiations with Russia would make immediate progress once Zelenskyy was gone.
more on the subject
Dramatic situation in the Donbass: is Ukraine losing the war in the east?By Oliver Imhof
Zelenskyj was "the worst leader in history" was the title of another text from the same agency, without this thesis having been substantiated with facts.
Apparently things weren't that bad with Hitler.
Everyone "on the net" laughed at Zelenskyy's words that Ukraine would win.
The reactions ranged from “What do you smoke?” (Lighthouse Nwa) to “You're an idiot” (Hood Trophy) to “Zelenskyj is a puppet” (Truth Fighter).
Others agreed he was mentally ill.
Putin's deputy head of the Security Council and ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently described the Ukrainians as "freaks and scum" who must go, could not have put it better.
Putin's propagandists regularly take the floor themselves.
Zelenskyy has not been the real President of Ukraine for a single day, according to a recent text entitled "The Rise and Fall of Zelenskyy".
This should perhaps be reminiscent of Brecht's opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, in which the main character Paul (Zelenskyj?) is sentenced to death and the city of Mahagonny (Kyiv?) then descends into chaos and fire.
The former actor Zelenskyj only plays one role as president, which is why the territorial integrity, indeed the entire existence of his country is now under a question mark.
There's something about that: accusing the Ukrainian President of destroying the country that you're currently bombing.
Is it envy of the communicator Zelenskyy?
Again and again in the comments, Zelenskyy only needs two things to lead Ukraine: his smartphone and an iPad.
Just an actor, nothing more.
Behind it, envy of the communicator Zelenskyj is also revealed.
On the fact that despite the bad situation, he achieved approval ratings of 90 percent - more than the Russian President among his followers.
To the fact that in the daily video messages he talks directly to his people, so to speak, while Putin receives subordinate military and civil servants somewhere off-screen to give them new orders.
And that he - Zelenskyy - even dares to go almost to the front line, like these days, to talk to soldiers and residents there.
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Chancellor Scholz in Lithuania: He's had enoughBy Martin Knobbe, Vilnius
How much the Russians are disturbed by Zelenskyy's frankness could be seen last month when the Ukrainian addressed the Cannes Film Festival with a video message.
Sustained applause greeted him there, many of the festival guests stood up, some with tears in their eyes, because Selenskyj found the right words there too.
It was reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film »The Great Dictator« - an appeal to the world for democracy, peace and humanity.
Chaplin meant Hitler with his film, Selenskyj applied that to Putin: "I am convinced that the dictator will lose this war and that we will win it," he said in Cannes.
Many in Germany are not comfortable with the Selenskyj euphoria – including in the government
That was too much for Moscow.
Again the French were used as an echo chamber and the headline was: »The French call Selenskyj's appearance in Cannes a disgrace«.
He was compared to the ubiquitous Big Brother from George Orwell's »1984«, they quoted the alleged French - because he appeared in the media so often.
Selenskyj was a “clown and only looking for applause until his last day.”
Of course everything wears out at some point, and so since the beginning of June Russia has found a new form of anti-Zelenskyj propaganda: It is now posting videos of captured and possibly tortured Ukrainian soldiers on the Internet.
The Ukrainians all only say one sentence.
It reads: »Our enemy is not Russia, but Zelenskyi.« So much for Russia and its unbridled hatred of Zelenskyi, who thwarts the Russian war aims with his resistance.
But back to us Germans and our view of Zelenskyj.
You could make it easy on yourself and say: Shouldn't the enemy of our enemy be our friend?
That would be too banal, sure.
And of course I know that many people don't feel comfortable with the Selenskyj euphoria.
They are bothered by the fact that he became a pop star in the first few weeks of the war.
That some compare him to Che Guevara or the Castro of the 1950s.
That his fleece jacket sold for £90,000 at Christie's in London.
And Poland is already selling a set of stamps with his portrait – for 4500 złoty (about 1000 euros).
You can think that's an exaggeration.
It can be recalled that Zelenskyy did little in the first years of his tenure, that the oligarchs continued to call the shots under him and that he did little to combat corruption.
But what does that tell us in the days since February 24th?
Nothing.
On this day, a country was invaded by a ruthless aggressor who is not so much concerned with Ukraine as with an attack on the West and its ideas.
This is not only about Ukraine, but also about us.
In almost four months, Selenskyj has achieved something that no one would have thought possible: he held Ukraine together under merciless rocket fire - a tremendous achievement.
So what do the Zelenskyj skeptics in Germany think?
First of all, there is the government, which day after day sows doubts about the Ukrainian president.
Not directly, but indirectly.
Distrust of the fragile democratic structures in Ukraine can be heard in their ranks.
From irritations about the Zelenskyj team and from how the "Zeit" wrote that Berlin had to "defend German interests against a discourse and sympathy superiority", which President Zelenskyj skilfully uses for his goals.
Selenskyj's goal should also be Germany's greatest concern
Yes and?
Zelenskyi's main goal at the moment is a win against Russia, which justifies the tone of his performances.
This goal should also be Germany's greatest concern at the moment.
Even Chancellor a.
D. Angela Merkel paid tribute to Selenskyj at her first appearance on Tuesday this week in the Berliner Ensemble: When the Americans offered to take him out of the country, someone said he didn't need a ride.
Such an announcement would probably not have been made in the former Ukraine, said Merkel.
Which should mean: Ukraine has made progress.
Showing military strength is the only language that Putin understands, added the ex-Chancellor.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the other hand, is delaying arms deliveries to Kyiv and claims that it is unlikely that Putin will use the oil and gas billions from Germany to finance his war - a misleading, if not outright pretend, statement.
The German head of government coolly "took note" of a Ukrainian invitation to visit Kyiv.
One can think of Scholz as the wrong man in this post at this time.
But shouldn't it be self-evident for the Germans themselves to take sides with Zelenskyi and his country?
Putin's thesis of the clash of ideas between Russia and the West also identifies us, the population, the societies, as opponents of the war.
It may be due to two things that this is not the case.
On the one hand, there is evidently a continuing condescension of many (West) Germans towards Eastern Europe.
Countries like Ukraine have been blind spots in their consciousness for decades.
They were fixated on Greater Russia, which, for historical reasons alone, needed to be satisfied.
Even after Putin launched the deadly war in the middle of Europe, this fixation on Russia does not seem to have diminished, perhaps even the opposite has happened.
The claims of the Ukraine mean nothing to many Germans, but those of the Russians do.
So we observe a paradox in this war: the aggressor gets more understanding from many Germans – more or less hidden – than the victim.
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The second reason for not taking sides with Zelenskyy and Ukraine is material. As the war continues, many Germans are becoming more and more aware of the dangers this war poses to them.
They hear about skyrocketing gas prices and watch the rising petrol prices at their gas stations.
Many do not realize that they have to sacrifice part of their prosperity to the small and, from their point of view, increasingly immodest Ukraine – a supposedly rather insignificant state that is in reality about twice the size of Germany and has a significant industry.
Because the Ukraine is part of that Eastern Europe which, like Hungary, Poland or the Baltic states, likes to whine against the spirit of the West and thus creates unrest.
Hasn't Angela Merkel repeatedly signaled to the Germans: I won't take anything away from you that you have worked so hard for, there will be no reforms, your standard of living will remain as it is?
Their policy was a policy of the status quo, the message was: you and us - we can remain as we are.
Olaf Scholz continues seamlessly here because he took this mentality into account from the outset in his wait-and-see attitude.
That is why German empathy for Ukraine and for Zelenskyy is limited.
The Ukrainian President and his 40 million compatriots are paying the price.
We too, by the way, at some point.
But only a few in Germany seem to understand that.
