Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to E.U. Leaders: ‘This Might Be the Last Time You See Me Alive’

Barak Ravid, reporting for Axios:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders “this might be the last time you see me alive” during a video conference on Thursday night, two European sources briefed on the call tell Axios.

The Pentagon has warned that Russia’s primary aim appears to be to encircle Kyiv and “decapitate” its government. […] Shortly before the call, Zelensky gave a televised address saying he was Russia’s “number one” target for capture or assassination, and his family members were the “number two” target. […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the Ukrainian military to perform a coup against Zelensky and then negotiate with Russia.

Meanwhile, from the annals of great American statesmanship:

He is “pretty smart,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday at a Florida fund-raiser, assessing the impending invasion like a real estate deal. “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” he said, “taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”

Historians called the remarks unprecedented. “The idea that a former president would praise the man or leadership who American troops are even now traveling to confront and contain,” said Jeffrey Engel, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, “is astounding.”

I’ve been glad every day for the last year that Joe Biden is president. Never gladder than during this crisis.

★ Friday, 25 February 2022