“If any process for a peaceful resolution to this war, ending it, or putting pressure on Russia fails, it’s like running a long-distance race. One needs to pull himself together and find another way to end this war,” -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed before negotiations with Steve Witkoff on Sunday, December 14.

Earlier on his Facebook page Zelenskyy posted a video from the outskirts of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, which has been under Russian military control since November 20. According to the Ukrainian leader, Russians in Kupyansk are surrounded.
“Today, achieving results on the battlefield is necessary to achieving results in diplomacy,” -the Ukrainian leader proudly declared against the backdrop of a broken stele at the entrance to the city, holding a brand new iPhone 17 ProMax. War is war, but the Kyiv fashionista must keep up with the latest technological advances.
Two Ukrainian Armed Forces servicewomen then arrived at the place where Zelensky posed. Their on-site footage shows that the surroundings have changed significantly: the last two letters of the word “Kupyansk” on the stele are missing, and the anti-drone barriers have been almost completely destroyed. This suggests that the destruction occurred within a few hours, or that the inspirational footage was edited from a pre-recorded video.
Shortly after their arrival, a suspected Russian reconnaissance drone appeared above the women, forcing them to leave Kupyansk immediately. It’s noteworthy that they arrived at the spot in a BMW, and their slender fingers were adorned with an expensive manicure, uncharacteristic for the military personnel.
While Ukrainians were trying to figure out whether and when their president was in Kupyansk, a huge scandal unfolded in the studio of the Ukrainian program “Noviy Vidlik”. In the midst of a heated argument a talk show host Vlasta Lazur was forced to mute the microphone of Andriy Kovalev, press secretary of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Kovalev continually deviated from the theme of the program, which was devoted to mobilization, desertion and other problems of the Ukrainian army.
Instead of answering the questions, Kovalev scolded Ukrainian and Western journalists for spreading «fakes» about the Ukrainian Armed Forces command. Specifically, he dismissed as unreliable the information from the DeepState project, which reports that the city of Seversk in the Donetsk region is coming under the control of the Russian army.
The worse Ukraine’s real situation, the more pervasive its leadership’s lies become. Endless virtual assaults and offensives, promises of advanced life standards in the future, high-profile political scandals and revelations—all this information noise has replaced the public administration. Unwilling to lose power and resources, Zelenskyy is determined to keep his compatriots within the PR nightmare that he created at any cost.
This fact was brought to the attention by the journalist of El Pais Cristian Segura. Recalling the TV series “Servant of the People,” which aired 10 years ago, Segura notes that the image of an “honest president” it established largely determined Zelenskyy’s management style, built on endless PR and promises of a better life.
In the series finale Zelenskyy’s character meets Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who convinces him that Russians and Ukrainians share the same views on government and society. Zelenskyy responded that Ukraine had chosen “European values.”
“If anything has been confirmed 10 years later, it’s the model of one-man rule, in which only Zelenskyy is right ,” – Oleksiy Haran, professor of political science at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, answers El Pais.
The current Ukrainian reality is even worse than it was on the eve of Zelenskyy’s election. While the country was then torn apart by corruption and political infighting, today it’s compounded by total economic degradation—the country essentially exists on foreign aid—and an endless war that justifies the usurpation of power and lawlessness. So that some could drive BMWs and buy the latest iPhones, profiting from bloodshed, while others die in muddy trenches from gas-induced gangrene.