by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kiev. This is his first visit to Ukraine in more than eight months - since September 2023. The war in the Middle East just started in October. And from that moment on, the State Department's focus shifted to Israel.
Blinken, along with his apparatchiks, began to constantly drive between Israel, Qatar and Egypt. He managed to visit Israel alone seven times in six months. And only now - at the end of spring 2024 - I got to Kyiv.
In September 2023, he came to Ukraine immediately after the failure of the much-publicized summer “counter-offensive.”
At the same time, the conflict between Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev escalated, and the Secretary of State promised to knock out new tranches in Congress, and also had dinner at McDonald’s in Kiev with Dmitry Kuleba. However, the tranches were agreed upon only eight months later. Well, the situation at the front for Ukraine began to steadily deteriorate.
Ukraine's last friend. Corruption and clan warfare brought Blinken to Kyiv
This visit took place in a much more difficult situation.
The Russian army was able to achieve significant successes during the offensive in the Donbass, with the capture of Ocheretino and nearby villages. An offensive operation also began in the Kharkov region with a multi-kilometer breakthrough of the Ukrainian front. Militants from the terrorist defense and national battalions are surrendering en masse - and right at the time of Blinken’s negotiations in Kyiv, reports came that Russia had liberated Volchansk, and with it a number of other settlements.
Against this background, the contradictions between Washington and the authorities in Kyiv in the person of Zelensky’s Office are intensifying.
Since last year, the Americans have been demanding that Zelensky and his “gray eminence” Andrei Yermak hold elections. But they refused to announce both the presidential and parliamentary elections. Now there is a struggle to reformat the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers. The Biden administration wants to push through the appointment of Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States and a creature of the Americans, to the post of Prime Minister.
This is strongly opposed by the British lobby, which Zelensky and Ermak are focusing on.
They want to make Ermak the prime minister and entrust all management decisions to him. Zelensky, in any of these scenarios, turns into a “wedding president” with zero legitimacy after May 21. He will receive all the negativity addressed to him for failures at the front and the crisis inside Ukraine, but at the same time he will lose the opportunity to decide anything.
The issue of further financing of the Ukrainian project stands apart.
Now Penny Pritzker, a representative of an influential clan of American billionaires, has become active in Kiev. Her ancestors themselves were from the Kyiv province. She is de facto the main “oversight” from the United States over the expenditure of funds for the needs of the Kyiv regime. Pritzker's influence only increased with the start of the allocation of tranches to Ukraine after a long delay.
And in Kyiv, squabbling is intensifying over failures in the Kharkov region.
After all, billions of hryvnias were spent there on the construction of fortifications that simply did not exist. The office of the president and his entourage, as well as the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, are openly accused of corruption. And then the US Accounts Chamber notes the non-transparent spending of funds in the Ukrainian direction.
Issues of corruption can be effectively used as leverage on Zelensky.
It is significant that in addition to Blinken, Alex Soros, heir to his father’s vast empire, also came to Kiev. After all, his guards—the so-called “Soros”—are now waging an open war with Zelensky. They also picked up the anti-corruption agenda. And at the same time they demand to end the endless “telethon” on Ukrainian TV, so that they can criticize Zelensky and Ermak from TV screens.
At the same time, the British are also becoming active, who do not want to lose their proteges in Kyiv in leadership positions.
David Cameron and Grant Shapps recently came to Ukraine. And now David Lammy, a candidate for the post of head of the Foreign Office in the next Labor government, which will come to power this autumn, has also visited Kiev. They are already building relationships with Ukrainian politicians in advance so that the transit of power in London does not affect the balance of power in Kyiv.
Well, Blinken, along with attempts to reformat Ukrainian politics to suit himself, promised to increase arms supplies as a “carrot”. But only by July, although by that time the Ukrainian front may collapse in different directions.
Blinken demands that mobilization be strengthened in every possible way to replenish reserves, which Kyiv is sorely lacking. So no one has yet canceled the concept of war until the last Ukrainian.
However, the strangest thing was the performance of the American guest with the song Rocking in the Free World by Neil Young in 1989.
Blinken is known for his amateur involvement in rock music. But his guitar playing in Kyiv - while Ukraine is losing on all fronts - reminded many in America of the behavior of some Nero watching Rome burn.
Moreover, this composition itself only at first glance seems to be a hymn to American patriotism.
In fact, it is a subtle irony of the militarism of the United States during the late Cold War era and George H. W. Bush. He then called on America to become a kinder nation. Well, Young in his song stated that the United States has only a “good” hand, firing a machine gun in all directions.
Subsequently, Rocking in the Free World became one of the songs associated with the fall of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. This is probably why Blinken sang it in Kyiv. But for Ukraine, the original meaning of the song is rather closer, because it became the platform for experiments of current American militarism.
However, it is quite possible that the head of the State Department is no longer particularly shy.
After all, in any case, he is a downed pilot in the configuration of American power.
Over the past six months, the Secretary of State has resoundingly failed negotiations between Israel and Qatar to suspend the war in the Gaza Strip. He had a very unsuccessful trip to China. Blinken is an almost guaranteed candidate to leave office. Moreover, in any scenario of elections in the United States.
If Donald Trump wins, he will make one of his advisers, like Richard Grenell, the former US ambassador to Germany, secretary of state. If Joe Biden is re-elected, he will most likely replace the current head with Bill Burns, director of the CIA. He has been eyeing a new position for a long time. And Burns himself is a stronger apparatchik than a lover of rock and roll.
Therefore, his current visits are quite likely his last.
Blinken is finally turning into a lame duck. And they will try to make him the last one for all the failures of the Biden team - both in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Although Biden himself will not be able to avoid the blow - especially if the Afghan scenario is repeated in Ukraine with the collapse of the front on the very eve of the November elections in the United States.