The catwalk in Washington of Zelensky, seduced and abandoned

Is Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Washington the runway offered as a sop while Washington is gradually scaling down its support for Ukraine? The more weeks that pass, the more we realize that Joe Biden's strategy of developing the political dialectic in the wake of the Democratic-Republican dualism actually appears to be the US Commander in Chief's useful justification for being able to politically manage the gradual reduction of support for Kiev by the USA.
Seduced and abandoned, Volodymyr Zelensky is supported by words, but for industrial reasons, critical supply chains and protection of the armed forces of the member countries of the Atlantic Alliance, supplies of NATO military assets are running out.
Starting with the American ones.
Zelensky's crisis in front of the USA The reality is that the war in Ukraine increasingly appears to be a nuisance for Washington.
The strategic objective of breaking down Russian-European ties and containing Vladimir Putin's Russia on the ground has, to a large extent, been achieved but the price is considerable: massive flows of weapons to Kiev, a system of sanctions that has created backlash also to the West, the substantial indifference or even revolt of the strategic "Global South" against the logic of the stars and stripes superpower and its allies on the dualistic division of the world between good and bad.
Zelensky found himself trapped in a problematic mechanism and the recent visit to the presidential enthronement of Javier Milei in Argentina responds to the attempt to gain credibility outside the West as a leader worthy of being listened to.
From this perspective, however, Biden has long shown that he believes Zelensky is not very controllable.
He tried to consolidate the bond between the US and Ukraine through ties with defense structures.
The "Americans" of Kiev were pragmatic exponents such as Olekseij Reznikov, the former Minister of Defense and "arms man" in the first year of the conflict, and Kyrilo Budanov, head of military intelligence (Gur), with whom the The USA have spoken directly with the intermediation of Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, and William Burns, director of the CIA.
Over the months, Zelensky has stripped these figures of the centrality traditionally reserved for them in the magic circle of Kiev, surrounding himself more and more with men in favor of all-out war, starting with super-adviser Mykahlio Podolyak.
Kiev is no longer a priority.
The administration has been limiting aid to Kiev for some time, fearing that an escalation of aid could lead to its uncontrolled use, perhaps against Russian infrastructure , undermining the red lines during the failed counteroffensive of the Kiev government.
Biden is better off with the political use of the Ukrainian context to mark the difference from the Republican Party, but in American strategic think tanks the explosion of the Israel-Hamas war and the maintenance of a state of tension between China and Taiwan has begun to raise doubts about the American inability to manage three war scenarios simultaneously.
From this perspective, Ukraine, precisely because it is both a less vital and potentially more complicated scenario for Washington, appears expendable as a front given that the minimum US objectives have been achieved.
And also considering the fact that there is no desire in the US to see Kiev in NATO, thus leading to the dramatic imbalance of the Atlantic Alliance towards the East.
Zelensky returns from the catwalk to Washington with few results.
And his visit has the effect of enhancing the entrenchment of the Republican Party, increasingly hostile to new weapons in Kiev according to the logic by which a Himars given to Zelensky is a Himars denied to Taiwan or to the defense of America.
“Although Biden has asked Congress to provide more than $60 billion in additional funds to Ukraine to continue the fight, Republicans have resisted the request and have called for tough new limits on immigration at the U.S.
southern border in exchange for approval of the spending law,” wrote the Financial Times.
“Last week a bill providing more funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan was defeated by Republican opposition in the Senate,” added the City of London newspaper.
Biden has no intention of using presidential power to override this veto and the choice to bring these issues into the field in such a divisive form into the election year shows the desire to prefer flag issues to real strategic analysis.
General Zaluzhny for after Zelensky? The feeling is that the USA is already looking to the post-war period, which will be complicated, and in perspective even to the post-Zelensky period.
The recent utterances on the possibility of peace with Russia by General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, chief of staff and hero of the successful counteroffensive of 2022 and of the defense of the homeland, have prepared the ground for the debate on the future of the country.
Formally, Ukraine will have presidential elections in 2024 and from many quarters, including his wife, Zelensky is under pressure not to run again given the shock sustained by warring leaders.
Remembering the privileged axis created between the world of Ukrainian defense and the American apparatus and given the field credentials acquired by man, it is plausible that Zelensky's hypothetical sacrifice as a political symbol is the emblem of the definitive change in US approach in 2024.
Well before a possible return to power of the Republicans and Donald Trump, therefore: the bogeyman of the Grand Old Party in a certain sense helps Biden, allowing him to play politically while having the comfort of always being able to find alibis for the most uncomfortable choices for the Democrats and their base.
In a game in which, as always, figures like Zelensky are more pawns than chess players.
And the president's unsuccessful trip to Washington only confirmed it.