Two years ago in the late evening of February 23, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was frantically trying to reach Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone to get him to call off what Zelenskyy's military advisors were telling him was an imminent Russian military move against his country.
Putin never picked up the phone. And for the next 72 hours, Ukraine withstood Russia's initial onslaught with great skill and courage. Military experts in Europe were saying that Ukraine couldn't hold out more than a couple of days.
In NATO capitals, including Washington, leaders were telling Zelenskyy to get out of Kyiv. Resistance was futile, they told him. Fight the war from someplace safe.
The former actor, who actually played the president of Ukraine in a comedy series that ran for three years, rose to the occasion. He refused to leave Kyiv, recording a stirring message of defiance.
“We are here,” he said in a video, standing in front of the presidency building flanked by his top advisers. “We are in Kyiv. We are protecting Ukraine.”
Dressed in what would become his trademark olive-drab woolen shirt and camo pants, he presented the perfect picture of defiance and strength. The lines stiffened. The soldiers, by all reports, took tremendous heart from their president staying in besieged Kyiv.
According to a mesmerizing Japanese television documentary, there were at least 16 attempts or plots on Zelenskyy's life. "Ukraine under Attack: 72 Hours in the Presidential Office" gives us the untold story of the desperation, the hopelessness, and the courage of Ukraine.
Over the last two years, I have criticized Ukrainian corruption, Biden's needless provocations of Putin, our open-ended commitment to Kyiv, and the fact that even with world war staring them in the face, the rich, European countries still refuse to match the U.S. commitment to Ukraine's existence.
Will "Who lost Ukraine?" become the kind of political time bomb that destroyed the Democratic Party's electoral chances in 1950 when the GOP hammed them with the question "Who lost China?" This time, the parties would be reversed, and Republicans would be on the receiving end of the political fallout.
But even as NATO remains relatively strong, European allies are seeing dark clouds gather on the other side of the Atlantic. The more than $40 billion in military aid the U.S. provided to Ukraine has run out, and additional American funding for weapons for the war-torn country is stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives, facing opposition from an increasingly isolationist faction of the political right. European nations are trying to step up their own production and distribution of materiel, but it would take years to make up for a U.S. shortfall. Meanwhile, struggling with so-called “shell hunger,” Ukrainian troops have had to begin rationing their remaining munitions, providing Russia the opportunity for further advances. “Will Ukrainians survive without Congress’ support?” Zelensky said Thursday, repeating a question he received from a journalist. “Of course. But not all of us.”
Zelenskyy's gallows humor has gone a long way to bucking up morale in Ukraine. In the early days of the war, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi expressed worry about Zelenskyy when he tried to call him, but no one picked up.
“Next time, I’ll try to move the war schedule to talk to #MarioDraghi at a specific time,” Zelenskyy said. “Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to fight for its people.”
It's a different story now, of course. Morale is plummeting as supplies dwindle. One Ukrainian officer, whose call sign is "Captain Marine," expressed the weariness of a soldier who knows he's outmanned and outgunned.
“People back then were more motivated and most of the country didn’t know what real war is, and now we have so many casualties,” he said, adding that more weapons are desperately needed to defeat Russia. “We won’t win the war with just people, we have much fewer people than they have.”
The $61 billion in U.S. aid is not going to win the war. I wish Biden would be honest about that. The goal now is not to win an absolute victory but to create the conditions for a negotiated settlement that would leave Ukraine intact territorially and politically.
There have been whispers from Moscow that such a piece is possible. Both Zelenskyy and Biden need to hear those whispers and act on them quickly.
