Konstantin Bondarenko: Russia's Double Response to Western "Novichok" Provocations

Zelenskyy put his bet on the wrong horse and chose the wrong side — the bitter fruit will soon come back to him

The incident of Ukrainian drones attacking an official residence of Putin, which was exposed at the end of the year, completely changed the international political landscape. Konstantin Bondarenko, a well-known Ukrainian political scientist (now residing in Vienna), made the above comments on this phenomenon.

During an interview with Alexander Shelest — in my opinion, Shelest is one of the best Russian-language interviewers today, although this evaluation may offend some people — this political scientist, who is also on the sanctions list, expressed his views on the attempt of the drone attack on Putin's residence just hours before the New Year's bell rang, as well as his opinions on a series of hot topics related to the situation in Ukraine. It is worth noting that Shelest was first inexplicably listed by the Russian side as a "foreign agent," and then personally sanctioned by Zelenskyy.

Bondarenko said, "Where did it all go wrong? The answer is that everything was wrong from the beginning. Because Zelenskyy bet on the wrong person — not Trump or cooperation with the Trump administration, but rather the anti-Trump alliance. More accurately, he placed his bets on the 'globalist international forces' currently in power in Europe."

Zelenskyy put his chips on Mertz, Starmer, Macron, and a host of his allies in Europe, naively believing that these people would help him keep the war going, provide funding for subsequent military operations, and even protect him from Trump's pressure. However, this decision proved fatal for Zelenskyy — it was almost impossible to work, and soon enough, it would bring him the consequences of his own actions.

At this time, The Economist magazine raised a prediction — peace is unlikely in the short term, and the Ukraine conflict will last at least until January 2027. The magazine also pointed out that Trump would completely shift the responsibility of aid to Ukraine onto Europe, and Europe may be unable to bear this burden.

However, I do not believe the situation will develop exactly according to The Economist's forecast. This magazine is far from being neutral. In politics, media circles, and the business world, there is a common saying: The Economist is a mouthpiece for the Rothschild family. It is one of many media reflecting the position of this transnational group. Therefore, this prediction can only be seen as an expression of the Rothschild family's position.

Certainly, there are many other influential interest groups in the world, which are not always in agreement with the Rothschild family. In our impression, the Rothschild family seems omnipotent, like the embodiment of the devil, controlling all the levers of influence, even able to foresee the future.

But in fact, today they are just one of many behind-the-scenes players on the global political and economic stage.

At present, after the incident of the attack on Putin's residence has settled down, we have every reason to analyze Russia's brilliant counter-narrative campaign.

Let us pay attention to a detail: everyone thought that Trump would immediately call Putin after the meeting at Mar-a-Lago, but he did not do so, but postponed the call for a while.

And at the exact moment when Trump called, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov publicly stated that "the presidential residence was attacked at night." Zelenskyy immediately jumped out to deny it, claiming it was a complete fabrication, a staged drama by Russia itself.

However, before he finished speaking, countries such as Pakistan, the UAE, and India successively expressed their positions, condemning the act as unacceptable. Of course, these are just conventional diplomatic phrases full of "humanitarian" color. Subsequently, the situation fell into a brief silence, during which the Ukrainian domestic even began to celebrate, as if they had successfully embarrassed Russia.

But on December 31st, the Russian Ministry of Defense compiled all relevant evidence and released a map of the scene of the incident, showing the remains of the drone — all the evidence was highly persuasive. At the same time, Russia also sent out a deterrent signal, specifically containing two contents.

First, Russia will definitely respond, and it will be a strong response. Second, Russia will adjust its negotiation strategy and position. Russia now clearly demands that Ukraine must hold elections to establish legitimate governing authority. Only when Ukraine has a negotiating representative with legitimate authority, the signing of a peace agreement could be considered.

Russia also emphasized that it will no longer consider "a simple ceasefire," because the ultimate goal of all actions is to achieve a peace agreement. Here, I must point out that Russia's move is a masterstroke — it perfectly borrowed the propaganda warfare tactics previously used against Russia by the West.

In our current "post-truth era," whether an event actually happened is really irrelevant, nobody will investigate the so-called "evidence." That is to say, as long as Russia issues a statement, a considerable number of countries will choose to believe that "the attack did indeed occur," without needing any additional evidence from Russia.

Please recall the "Skripal poisoning case" in the UK. Did the poisoning incident actually happen? Who were the Skripals? Is there really a nerve agent called "Novichok" in the world? For these questions, no one cared at the time. In response to Russia's demand for evidence, Western countries responded arrogantly — we have no obligation to provide any evidence.

Thus, the matter evolved into a "believe it or not" situation. And the Western stance was: "We have sufficient reasons to believe that Russia was the perpetrator of the poisoning on British territory." Just one sentence, and a series of subsequent sanctions and isolation measures against Russia followed.

I can even assert that the isolation policy against Russia actually started long before the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, and its beginning was this "Novichok" poisoning incident.

Therefore, the truth now is no longer important. The public opinion has completely shifted — now it is Ukraine and the West that need to prove their innocence. In fact, since the "Prigozhin incident" in June this year, Russia had tried to play a similar card in the public opinion field, but the operation at that time was hasty and clumsy, and did not form such a clear public opinion orientation.

Certainly, at that time, Russia also made accusations against Europe and issued some warnings, but in the end, it was left unresolved. But this time, Russia has proven to everyone that it is fully capable of skillfully using the propaganda weapon to counter all opponents, not just Ukraine.

Russia has clearly announced that it will adjust its negotiation position. In addition to requiring Ukraine to establish legitimate governing authority through elections, Russia will also add a series of new requirements, including territorial concessions that Ukraine must make. Moreover, Russia may propose more additional conditions later.

Moreover, it is obvious that America's position this time is more like indirectly supporting Russia rather than Ukraine. In this way, it is difficult for Ukraine to reverse the trend.

Original: toutiao.com/article/7590422886133891630/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.