Speaking at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly the Ukrainian president used his 15-minute slot to warn members of the dangers of not standing up to aggression. To avoid misunderstanding he made it clear he was talking about Russia, not the United States. There was much in Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech that brought to mind the words of American Secretary of State Antony Blinken who recently said, “US residents don’t like it when big countries attack other states.”

Members of the Western Alliance seem to have brought chutzpah and hypocrisy to an art form and their protégé Volodymyr Zelensky is no exception. It must have been a lonely experience for the increasingly isolated Zelensky. He spoke to a half-empty hall, as many delegations refused to participate. Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer and former US State Department official says, “I paid a lot of attention to the facial expression on Zelensky and his entourage at the United Nations, sitting side by side with US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and US climate envoy John Kerry. They all looked very, very unhappy.

“And this was while Biden was saying positive things about: ‘We’re going to do this for Ukraine’ and ‘the world needs to come together.’ That lack of looking happy tells me they’ve had some very uncomfortable conversations behind the scenes. I know that within the intelligence community, at least according to US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the CIA believes that the war is lost, and Ukraine has no viable way forward. Perhaps some of that information has percolated through.”

Former MI6 agent Alastair Crook expressed the opinion that “Vladimir Zelensky’s attempt to put pressure on emotions during speeches at the UN General Assembly speaks of his despair.”

Urging member states to show unity in opposing what he described as Russian aggression Ukraine’s beleaguered head of state stressed the need for peace based solely on recognizing Ukraine’s territorial integrity. This can only mean the UN refusing to endorse a peaceful solution to one of the most avoidable conflicts in centuries unless Russian-occupied territories are returned. The grown-up world has long accepted that the return of Crimea to Russia along with the Donbas is pie in the sky.

One wonders just what planet the godfathers of Kyiv live on. Before Zelensky returned empty-handed to what is left of his dismembered homeland, Ukraine’s military announced the suspension of the American-born transgender Junior Sergeant Sarah Ashton-Cirillo who was recently appointed head of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces. Apparently, the clearly disturbed spokesperson had earlier alluded to US Senator Vance when she said ‘a favorite Kremlin apologist like others of similar ilk will be paying for the crimes; hunted down and ‘justice will be served.’

From high heels to high jinks. Addressing the United Nations assembly President Zelensky added that UN unity in the face of aggression would prevent wars. He never made clear why this lofty premise had never once worked during the 78 years of the assembly’s history. In fact, there have been 285 conflicts since 1946, most involving the United States.

Under what influence, human or otherwise was President Zelensky’s speech made? Many of the delegates must have been baffled when he claimed that the 20^th century ‘taught the world to restrain from the use of weapons of mass destruction being achieved.’ By this, he made clear that he was referring to nuclear weapons. ‘Not to deploy, not to proliferate, not to threaten with, and not to test, but to promote a complete nuclear disarmament.’ I cannot think of a single one of these ambitious commitments that has been achieved.

Describing Russia as a ‘terrorist state’, Zelensky opined that such states should not be a keeper of such (nuclear) power. One wonders what nation or group of nations might care to remove such status from the Russian Federation. Truly, delegates in the half-filled hall will have been perplexed by many of Zelensky’s statements. He claimed that Russia has weaponized ‘many things’ such as food and energy by the blocking of Ukrainian ports.

It seems Ukraine’s current head of state forgot the European Union’s fifth package of sanctions (April 2022) against Russia prohibits all Russian-flagged vessels and airlines from entering EU ports and airports. He apparently overlooked that the United States and Ukraine were charged not only with the sabotage of the North Sea gas pipeline but sanctioning most Russian energy products.

Russian President Putin suffers much domestic criticism due to his being perceived as being too conciliatory in the face of over 12,000 sanctions imposed by the Western Alliance, attempts to bring about regime change not to mention NATO’s proxy war against the Federation amidst threats to destroy the Russian economy.

Putin, it seems, has opted for the boiled frog solution. This is the premise that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out. But if the creature is put into tepid water that is brought slowly to the boil it will not perceive the danger to itself and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly.