Zelenskyy explains civilizational difference between Ukraine and Russia

Obviously, Zelenskyy couldn’t have just one simple message. It was very good that the first 1.5 hours were dedicated specifically to security guarantees. Perhaps, however, it should have been explained better and clearer why this is important before negotiations.

Overall, Zelenskyy needed this conversation during the transitional period before Trump’s inauguration. After that, it would have been difficult to break through the information flow, primarily in the U.S., dictated by Trump and his team.

Zelenskyy tactfully tries to explain the civilizational difference between Ukraine and Russia. It’s a decent attempt to continue this difficult task.

To avoid repeating already circulated messages, I will say that the details were well thought out: compliments to Trump and Musk — these were more carefully considered than compliments to other leaders, even Trump’s.

Let’s be honest: after prolonged trolling from Musk on X, this wasn’t easy.

Phrases like "I pray that such a war never comes to you" also count as part of the arsenal for conservative and religious audiences.

Zelenskyy showed that for him, people are more important than anything else.

A lot of analogies and points about children, particularly his own children. This is also aimed at the conservative audience, where families often have more than one child.

The only problem with such a lengthy material is its duration. It’s unlikely this audience would watch it all. But such material can be well-cut, as Ukrainian media began to do yesterday.

A bit of organization: I think the request to make the podcast in Russian was more about technical aspects. He clearly wanted to release it earlier.

Friedman doesn't understand Ukrainian. Judging by how irritated he was by the translation and the need to wait for 3 seconds, he just wanted to have two tracks instead of three — in Russian and English.

On his channel, he spends a lot of time talking about the Russian language, even explaining its nuances to Joe Rogan.

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About the author. Vladyslav Faraponov, Head of the Institute of American Studies, analyst at Internews-Ukraine

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.