Ukraine War Day #413: Duda Goes Beyond Thunderdome

Dear Readers:

Here is a thought experiment: Imagine you’re out there in the middle of Thunderdome, fighting for your very life against some brute dressed like a cross between a 1-ton gladiator and a million dollar drag queen. And this monster is creaming you slowly but steadily. You know you’re gonna die. Your best pal, goes by the name of Hyena, is in the bleachers, cheering you on. He sidles up to the ropes and whispers to you: “Nya, if you can just hang in there till the end of this round… Then I’ll sneak ya a new pair of super-duper boxing gloves with brass knuckles in ’em…”

Martha: “I said, What a dump!” George: “I heard you the first time, Martha.”

“Great!” you whisper back. “But what if I still lose, even with the knuckles?”

“Then I get to keep all your stuff.” And Hyena is licking his lips, thinking of all your fabulous stuff that you keep back in your tent. Like your water bottle and your can of benzine.

Then a tiny thought enters your tiny concussed brain: Hmm.. with friends like those… Maybe it’s in his best interest for me to lose… Not sure I can trust those knuckle-dusters…

And that’s your last thought before you keel over like a brick wall, after the big guy cleans your clock…

All of this is, of course, a very high-level philosophical metaphor for the dilemma facing Mr. Zelensky, as I review this brief newspaper story by reporter Valentina Grigorenko.

It seems (if one is to believe the blogger quoted in this piece, who relates this “news” without any footnotes or citations) that Mr. Zelensky visited Poland a few days ago to meet with his colleague, Mr. Andrzej Duda. Well, that part, the visit itself, is factual. But the rest of it, this is just what somebody is saying. “Another Baba told me,” as the Russian proverb goes…

But let’s play along: Say what you will about Duda, but, as things look now, he is likely to go down in Polish history as the national hero who returned Poland’s Eastern territories, including the city of Lvov. It seems that Zelensky and Duda made a deal: Duda will present Zelensky with a series of weapons sufficient and adequate for “one last chance” against the Russian army. However, there is a Plan B: Should the Final, Decisive, Counter-Offensive fail, then Duda gets to take the Western provinces. And it wouldn’t be the fault of the weapons, because they are gonna be super!

I mean, I’m just an idiot blogger myself, what do I know about military affairs? Nothing. But I do know that if I were a national leader at war, I would never utter the words, “If I lose…” I would say: “Of course I won’t lose! I will win! Yes I shall!” If you’re a leader at war, you can’t hedge your bets, you gotta just go for it. I mean, can you imagine Churchill intoning: “We shall fight them on the beaches… But if we lose the beaches, we shall hand over Cornwall…” [This is actually a bad example. Historians say that Churchill did rather hedge his bets, quite a lot! But I am just going with the inaccurate myth because that’s what people know…]

But anyhow, in case you don’t believe a word I am saying, here is my full translation of the major two paragraphs of this article:

TRANSLATION

Duda: “I can almost taste victory!”

The author of the Polish portal Niezalezny Dziennik Polityczny Marek Gałaś has written that, as per a deal made between Zelensky and Duda, Western Ukrainian territories will be returned to Poland. According to him, the deal was concluded in exchange for Poland offering “one last chance to the Ukrainian government.”

According to Gałaś, Zelensky was forced to agree to this term, due to his continuing lack of success [on the battlefield]. Other factors include the increasing pressure from the part of the USA; and the unhappiness of foreign governments, who are forced to continue pumping money into the Ukrainian government, without seeing any positive returns.

Aside from handing over the Western regions to Poland, Zelensky also agreed to sell major Ukrainian industries to Polish entrepreneurs, according to the author.