Ukraine war: Selenskyj criticizes Russia – with a poem

Lyric rant
“Without you”: Ukraine’s President Zelenskyj settles accounts with Russia in a poem

Before he became President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyj was an actor and comedian – in short: an artist. Selenskyj has now used this talent to send a message to Moscow. “Do you still believe that we are ‘one people’?” asks the Ukrainian president in a poem shared on Facebook and Telegram. “Do you still think you can scare us, break us, make us make concessions?”

Russia didn’t understand anything, Selenskyj railed. If Ukraine had to choose between Russia on the one hand and gas, water, light or food on the other, the answer would be unequivocal: accept deprivation and be “without you”, without Russia. “Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as frightening and deadly for us as your ‘friendship and brotherhood’,” Zelenskyy writes.

In the poem, the Ukrainian president alludes to the power outages in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions. Kyiv blamed Russian attacks on infrastructure for the blackouts. Selenskyj described the Russians as “terrorists” who were not aiming for military targets, but wanted to leave the people of Ukraine without electricity and heating.

With gas, light, water and food – but without Russia

The attacks on the infrastructure are considered a presumed reaction to a successful counter-offensive by Ukrainian troops. Earlier, Ukraine had reported the recapture of at least 30 towns in the eastern Kharkiv region. According to this, the Ukrainian armed forces also succeeded in recapturing the eastern Ukrainian city of Kupjansk, which is important for the supply of Russian troops and which had already been occupied at the beginning of the Russian war of aggression.

Ukrainian officials praised the “amazing” pace of the counteroffensive. A Ukrainian army chief spoke on Sunday of 3,000 square kilometers that Ukraine had recaptured from Russian troops. President Volodymyr Zelenskyj had previously spoken in his daily video message of 2000 square kilometers of territory that had been recaptured. “In the past few days, the Russian army has shown us its best side – its back,” said Zelenskyy.

That makes him optimistic – at least that’s what the last lines of the poem suggest. “(…) we will be with gas, light, water and food… and WITHOUT you!” It says.

The Ukrainian President is considered a media professional. In his nightly video messages, Zelenskyy tries to motivate citizens and uses the channel to ask the West for help. He also repeatedly addresses Russian soldiers or their families with digital speeches and social media campaigns. His appeal: not to continue this war at Putin’s request.