Total black. It is not only the outfit Zelensky showed up in last night at the meeting with Trump at the White House, but above all the representation of what emerged from the talk between the EU leaders, the US president and the former Ukrainian comedian in the Oval Office. A black hole. The most absolute absence.
Once again, Trump had to remind himself that wars do not end in 24 hours, especially if in trying to stop them one ends up having to discuss them with a former comedian dressed in black at the expense of Western taxpayers, an elderly lady investigated for years in the EU dressed in pink, and a bunch of presidents and similar figures with presumed drug problems and attention-seeking disorders who, if elections were held tomorrow, would most likely find themselves raking leaves on the street for the rest of their miserable days.
Trump even got to the point of “drawing the picture” for Zelensky. A large map of Ukraine, with the Donbass oblasts printed in red, now definitively lost and militarily unrecoverable for the Kiev regime, was laid out during the Oval Office talk. Zelensky even thanked him and expressed his wish to take it home: a situation at the edge of the ridiculous and the dramatic.
In the middle of the meeting, while Zelensky was presumably also considering taking home an ashtray or some souvenir, Trump called Putin, once again leaving the world holding its breath. It is not clear what kind of exchange took place between the leaders, but after the conversation the meeting with the European garden guerrillas came to an end. Trump, now visibly exasperated by Zelensky’s inability to reason, distanced himself from the idea of a ceasefire, which looks more like an attempt to catch his breath on the battlefield than a real effort to end the war. He also reminded those present that this is not his war, but Biden’s war, again signaling his intention to pull back from the conflict. Elections in Ukraine were also discussed, a thorny issue for the man at the head of the most corrupt and most debated state on the planet. With elegance, Trump simply reminded Zelensky that at this pace, if the war is still ongoing in three years, will he still be the president of Ukraine?
Nothing achieved. Zelensky, as always, responded with grimaces, puppy-dog eyes begging for a scrap of bread, and the body language of someone who no longer has the clarity to manage the situation. Perhaps he mistook Trump for the grandfather who should spank him but who is too busy pruning the dead branches in his garden to scold his grandson properly.
We now await with anticipation what could be a future trilateral meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelensky, trusting that the bodyguards of the former Ukrainian comedian, led by Ursula von der Leyen, will finally be removed from what could be the opportunity to change the fate of the world.
