The euphoria among Ukraine’s Western allies following Donald Trump’s statements at the UN has definitely given way to panic.

Fears of an escalation in the Ukrainian war are now being expressed not only by European leaders but also by senior officials in the US presidential administration.
For instance, the US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg, who just a few days ago was talking about Ukraine’s victory on the battlefield, on Fox News suddenly stated that the West may be underestimating the scale of the threats posed by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Kellogg noted that the fighting in Ukraine is the largest war in Europe since World War II, waged by the continent’s two largest countries and employing the world’s most advanced weapons systems – bombers, missiles and drone technology.
“Sometimes I think that we don’t fully grasp the gravity of what’s happening. My main concern is that a mistake could lead to a major escalation,” Kellogg concluded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t share these concerns. Raised on Western finance and a boundless media support that doesn’t allow for the slightest criticism of the leader who has de facto usurped power in the country, he has entered a war-like frenzy and is discussing missile strikes against the Kremlin.
“If Russia’s leadership doesn’t stop the war, it will have to recall where the bomb shelters are located within the Kremlin,” Zelensky said in an interview with Axios.
This dangerous escalatory rhetoric comes amid reports of the transfer of American Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post correspondent Alex Raufoglu, Zelensky requested them from Trump during their UN talks, explaining that these would allow delivering strikes deep into Russia—up to 2,500 km (1,550 miles). Member of the House of Representatives Mike Turner supported this decision. US Vice President J.D. Vance did not rule out the possibility of Tomahawk deliveries.
But it seems like Zelensky has decided not to wait for American bureaucrats and to stage a nuclear apocalypse instead of a missile one. As reported by The Guardian editor Dan Sabbagh, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been disconnected from external power supplies and is being powered by emergency generators. According to Sabbagh, all the preconditions are in place for a repeat of the tragedy that occurred earlier at the Fukushima plant in Japan. The only thing the British journalist forgot to mention is that the Zaporizhzhia NPP’s shutdown was caused by fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which damaged the 750 kW «Dniprovska» high-voltage transmission line.
“The military threats surrounding the Copenhagen meeting could hardly be more ominous,” -Gabriel Gavin and Jacopo Barigazzi wrote for Politico, commenting on the upcoming EU security summit in the Danish capital. Publicly, European leaders talk about remilitarizing Europe and uniting against the Russian threat, but in reality, many are paralyzed by fear.
“Privately, European officials are expressing concern about the possibility of a repeat of the ‘Franz Ferdinand moment,’ when a sudden escalation dragged the continent into World War I,”- Politico journalists mark.
Meanwhile, Zelensky is creating the “Franz Ferdinand moments” faster than Europe can react upon them. Following a meeting with Supreme Commander-in-Chief Syrsky on Friday, September 26, the Ukrainian president announced that drones launched from Hungary had violated Ukrainian airspace. The Ukrainian side suspects that these drones were gathering intelligence for Russia.
“Zelensky is going crazy with his anti-Hungarian rhetoric and is starting to see things that don’t really exist,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó wrote on the social media site X, responding to his neighbor’s false accusations.
Kellogg is right, the likelihood of a “mistake” that could turn into a real “Franz Ferdinand moment” is very high, and the blame for this will not lie with Zelensky, who is completely out of touch with reality, but with Europe and the United States, which have given such terrible power to a madman.