Volodymyr Zelensky has been on his travels this week, leaving Ukraine for the first time since the invasion to fly to the US to meet with Joe Biden and address a joint sitting of Congress. The Ukrainian president impressed with his Churchillian tone, comparing his country’s defiance of Russia’s war machine to the fight against Nazism in the second world war. “Just like the brave American soldiers which held their lines and fought back against Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944, brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same … this Christmas,” he said.
This will no doubt have irritated Vladimir Putin no end, given he has always insisted his invasion of Ukraine was all about ridding the country of its “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”.
Putin has also been on his travels in recent days, popping across to Minsk to see his long-time ally Alexander Lukashenko. And, for a man who insists he won’t be the first to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the Russian president finds it hard to leave the subject alone for more than a few days at a time. He and Lukashenko briefed journalists about their scheme to adapt Belarusia’s Soviet-era nuclear-capable aircraft to carry “special warheads”. “Special”, in Kremlin-speak, can have decidedly sinister connotations (see also, “special military operation”).
