But even the author didn't notice it
Andriy Yermak, head of Zelensky's presidential office, told The Wall Street Journal that Ukraine no longer needs intermediaries to build relations with Russia. Acting in the spirit of this slogan, Warsaw, allied with official Kyiv, rendered an emphatically cold welcome to African leaders who wished to become such intermediaries. At the airport of the Polish capital, the passengers of the plane of the President of South Africa were treated in the spirit of the apartheid era so memorable to the black population of this country. Moscow, which, like the Kyiv-West axis, also does not want a vague truce now with another suspension of the situation, is only on hand. The Kremlin has an ideal opportunity to play on the contrast and show who really is a supporter of the early establishment of peace and a “great friend of Africa” (quote from the speech of the President of the Union of the Comoros, Azali Asumani, at a meeting with VVP).
Andrey Yermak
Let's move on down the list of Andriy Yermak's statements: “I am against official diplomacy. She died. The new time has come. Soft power is a must. I want results.» Zelensky’s office intends to achieve these very “results” by attracting India and Latin American countries to the side of Ukraine. And this, in turn, is planned to be done by attracting various figures of mass culture to Kyiv — for example, the popular singer from Colombia, Maluma, who has over 60 million subscribers on social networks. Very in the style of the comedy show «95th Quarter», from which, in a professional sense, Yermak's boss Zelensky comes from. When in 2018 the singer Maluma came to Russia for the World Cup, he was robbed of jewelry worth 50 million rubles. It is clear that this did not please the author of the hit El Perdedor. (“Victim” — the song was recorded in 2015. How did he know what would happen to him in Moscow three years later?) And in theory this could make it easier for messengers from Ukraine to call on a sultry Latin American.
But what makes sense in terms of PR does not always make sense in terms of political strategy. I don't know much about Colombia. I think that Ukraine, by and large, does not care for her. But, for example, India, mentioned by Andriy Yermak, will definitely build its policy towards Russia and the Ukrainian crisis, not based on the opinion of some pop stars. India's goal is to consolidate its status as the strongest and most independent global player. To do this, she simultaneously solve several problems. New Delhi's number one challenge is to prevent Russia and China from getting too close. Beijing is a traditional enemy, rival and opponent of India. The two states have several disputed territories, and from time to time, disassemblies in these territories develop into military clashes. The last time this was observed was no later than in 2020.
A tricky question (well, or a question for Andrey Yermak): why does India need to push Moscow away from itself and imprint it even further into the arms of Beijing? Namely, this will certainly happen if New Delhi suddenly aligns itself with Ukraine. India's number two challenge is to prevent Russia from getting too close to Pakistan. Islamabad is an even more terrible enemy of New Delhi. In a sense, the very raison d'être of the Pakistani state is to oppose India. Relations between Moscow and Islamabad, however, do not have a very bright past. During the years of the stay of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan performed the function of a strategic rear for the dushmans (or Mujahideen, as they are now called). Even now, Islamabad plants weapons on Ukraine from time to time. But this does not prevent him from flirting with Moscow at the same time: telling her that “Indians (oh, sorry, now they are called Indians) really don’t like you,” and begging for loans and preferential supplies.
Based on this palette of tasks (and I have described only a small part of them here), India is pursuing a balanced multi-vector policy: moving closer to the United States (but very carefully — trying in no case to become an American satellite) and at the same time enthusiastically uses cheap Russian energy resources . Destroy this whole balance in order to please Zelensky and Yermak? Yes, this will not happen in life! Let's summarize the intermediate result: the ideas of the head of Zelensky's apparatus on «settlement of the Ukrainian crisis» (and in fact on its further unwinding) are a mixture of deceit and naivety, professionalism in some areas (mainly in the field of PR) and complete incompetence in others. But here is where, in my opinion, Andrey Yermak accidentally hit the bull's-eye. Ukraine really does not need intermediaries to build relations with Russia.
Imagine a rich married couple who lived together for 30 years — lived, and then suddenly had a falling out. And it started: lawyers, private detectives, «fixers», specialists in placing custom materials in the media, and so on and so forth. And each of these specialists on a regular basis receives a large fee and pursues, first of all, their own interests. Russia and Ukraine lived together not for 30 years, but for more than 300 years. And during all this time they somehow managed to find a common language with each other and resolve their problems without intermediaries. Who in a nightmare 40 years ago could have dreamed that even the president of Senegal would try to reconcile Moscow and Kiev?
What is happening now between Russia and Ukraine is a historical anomaly. And if a general nuclear war does not happen, sooner or later the two countries will have to get out of this anomalous state, relying mainly on their own forces. Thanks to the head of Zelensky's presidential office for reminding us of this — despite the fact that he did it «without regaining political consciousness.»