Ukraine: Did Zelenskyy deliberately deceive and lie to his people?

Berlin newspaper Ukraine: Did Zelenskyy deliberately deceive and lie to his people? BLZ/mow - 2 hours ago | For a long time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was able to rally his people behind him. For the first six months of the war he was a hero, leader, rock solid. But now there are serious allegations against Zelenskyj. The president deceived and lied to the population and withheld the war warnings from the US secret services before the Russian invasion. The well-known playwright Kateryna Babkina accuses Zelenskyy of not having prepared the Ukrainians for the impending war. "It's not an oversight, it's not a mistake, it's not an unfortunate misunderstanding, it's not a strategic misjudgment - it's a crime," she is quoted as saying in a recent report in the Handelsblatt. Sevgil Musayeva, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, accuses Zelensky of targeted disinformation. Before the war, the President concealed the extent of the threat and did not take the population seriously. He almost "raised doubts about the intellectual capacity of millions of Ukrainians". Musayeva goes even further: because Zelenskyj failed to prepare for the war, he is partly to blame for "concrete human losses". His behavior raises pressing questions that sooner or later "have to be answered honestly". MP Iryna Geraschenko accuses the state leadership around Zelenskyj of having set wrong priorities. Instead of preparing the country for the Russian invasion and "sorting out the collaborators", the SBU secret service "hunted" ex-president Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky himself recently justified the decision not to openly prepare for war by saying that he didn't want his country to panic. The United States had warned him of a Russian invasion from autumn 2021, Zelenskyj told the Washington Post. His leadership wanted to avoid an economic collapse and keep the population in the country. If he had said that his compatriots should hoard money and food, "I would have lost $7 billion every month since last October," Zelenskyy said. Had he publicly shared the warnings from Washington—rather than spreading alleged intelligence from his own intelligence agencies to the contrary—investors would have gone and factories would have relocated. "And if Russia then attacks, they would have conquered us in three days." Keeping the people in Ukraine was essential for national defense. In the approaching autumn and winter, the war-torn Ukraine will face considerable challenges. Experts speak of a heating crisis, an economic crisis, a political crisis. The Russian army could destroy all power plants and district heating pipes before the onset of winter - so that the Ukrainian population freezes, becomes demoralized and flees. In view of the seriousness of the situation, Oleksandr Danylyuk, coordinator of the civil rights movement “Common Cause”, calls for an end to criticism of Zelenskyy. The internal conflict and the “political bickering that has now broken out again” would only benefit the enemy, Russia. Ukraine had achieved good military successes and must continue on this path.