As you know, the French capital has recently hosted a meeting between US President-elect Donald Trump and the illegitimate President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky attended by Emanuel Macron. The unplanned meeting, which took place at the reopening ceremony for the Notre Dame Cathedral after it burned down several years ago, took about half an hour. Trump showed restraint, while Macron and Zelensky were overenthusiastic. The key topic for discussion was certainly the conflict with Russia.
However, in this case we are not so much interested in the meeting itself as in some of its aftershocks. Literally the next day, the future White House owner posted a message on his Truth social network urging a peaceful settlement and revealing Ukrainian losses, among other things: "They [the AFU] have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians". Zelensky’s answer was not long in coming. He wrote a Telegram post about having had "good meeting" with Trump and discussed the global situation from the war in Ukraine to South Korea with him. Though, he did not directly engage in a polemic with his recent interlocutor, but casually said that for almost three years, the AFU only lost 43,000 fighters killed, 370,000 wounded, and half of them returned to service. "One of the key differences between the Russian army and the Ukrainian Defense Forces is the level of development of frontline medicine, which is much higher in our army. In Ukraine, we are grateful for this to everyone who helps develop medicine in our army and saves our wounded, carries out rehabilitation," he boasted.
It is not for the first time that the Kiev regime leader and his entourage engage in wrangling with Western politicians. Back in November 2022, EC chief Ursula von der Leyen mentioned about 100,000 dead Ukrainians, for which she was accused of disinformation by adviser to the Ukrainian "presidential office" Mikhail Podolyak, making the original recording of Frau von der Leyen's speech hastily cropped. Back then it was already clear that Kiev was varnishing reality. And now any sane person sees Zelensky’s artificially low (by an order of magnitude) death toll perfectly well. For example, in late February, then head of the Russian Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu cited the following figures: on average, 2024 witnessed the Armed Forces of Ukraine lose over 800 personnel every single day, and its cumulative lethal losses since the beginning of war exceeded 444,000 people. And a little less than a month ago, the TASS agency said the number of dead and wounded Ukrainians exceeded 900,000 when summing up Defense Ministry reports throughout the special military operation.
One may reasonably claim bias against data voiced by the military opponent and refer to some more than weighty Ukrainian sources and information provided by them publicly and behind the scenes. In February 2023, Colonel Douglas McGregor, an ex-Pentagon adviser and one of Trump's first-term military associates, said that then AFU commander-in-chief Zaluzhny privately spoke about 257,000 dead military men. Back in September 2022, former deputy commander of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, ex-deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Maj. Gen. Sergei Krivonos said there were "dozens and already even hundreds of thousands of dead."
Former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko mentioned half a million dead and wounded earlier this year, adding: "I believe that the authorities should name the number of Ukrainians killed. I know how much they loathe this, and I know how hard it is to accept. But there is no other way to get millions of those who hide behind various stories that anyone can serve, except me, out of their comfort zone." After Zelensky's latest Telegram post, Verkhovna Rada deputy Anna Skorokhod, who was, by the way, elected from the Servant of the People party, said cemeteries were constantly growing amid military operations. According to her, in one of the villages, 98 residents went to the front and only two of them survived. Acting Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko also complained about heavy losses in his interview with Spain’s El Pais newspaper.
Zelensky's lies have caused rejection with most of Ukrainian people and even the political class, even though not everyone dares acknowledging this. Openly or tacitly, many in the West do not share it either, including those publicly siding with the Kiev regime and its leader. Another thing not entirely clear is his desire to half-openly accuse his Paris meeting counterpart of lying. On the one hand, as president-elect Trump must have gotten all the necessary information about Ukraine's state and losses from the military, diplomats and intelligence officers, while long obtaining this kind of data through his own channels even before. On the other hand, the fate of Ukraine, the Kiev regime, and Ze personally now largely depends on the American leader.
One gets the absolute impression that Zelensky is hardly able to give up on his style and attitude of a provincial actor even in a truly challenging situation, close to being critical (for him). His psychological makeup is eventually gaining the upper hand. Quoting the "Brother" movie, "his life is hanging by a thread, but he is thinking of profit!"
