Ever since the war in Ukraine started, Americans have been told by their president that massive amounts of their tax dollars were needed to prop up the government in Kyiv because “democracy” was under attack by the dictator in Russia.
Yet this week, President Joe Biden’s top diplomat gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a pass on actually putting democracy into practice.
Antiwar.com reported that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently made a surprise visit to Ukraine and, in a speech on Tuesday, actually applauded Zelenskyy for postponing his nation’s elections.
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That’s a sharp contrast to Ukraine’s benefactor, which has conducted elections multiple times despite being in the middle of a war.
Antiwar.com noted that Ukraine’s presidential elections were supposed to be held in March, but they skipped. Now, Zelenskyy can remain in office even after his term ends on Monday.
Ukraine was also scheduled to hold parliamentary elections last October. They, too, were canceled.
The website noted that at one point, Zelenskyy clearly stated that he could hold the elections he wanted to.
Last year, he said elections were on tap if American taxpayers and those in other Western nations paid for them and if Ukrainian lawmakers agreed to amend the constitution, which now prohibits elections during martial law, which was first declared when Russia invaded.
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Yet Zelenskyy ditched the idea, and the U.S. and other Western nations have opted not to pressure Ukraine actually to allow its citizens to vote, Antiwar.com reported.
That is so, even as Biden and other leaders proclaim the fighting in Ukraine is a “proxy war” in the “fight for democracy.”
In his speech, according to the Post Millennial, Blinken said, “As soon as Ukrainians agree that conditions allow, all Ukrainians, including those displaced by Russia’s aggression, can exercise their right to vote.”
“People in Ukraine and around the world can have confidence that the voting process is free, fair, secure.”
“Indeed, the American people’s support for Ukraine has been consistent over the course of the war; it has never wavered,” he added. “Americans understand that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies.”
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Zelenskyy has more than a patriotic reason to maintain his grip on power.
Antiwar.com reported that earlier this year, a public opinion poll found that Zelenskyy would get crushed in an actual election.
A poll showed him losing 41-24 to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief who was recently named ambassador to Great Britain.
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