A famous Hungarian proverb warns people against “cutting the branch beneath you.” The proverb is uttered when a person refuses to acknowledge that he is acting against himself.
As things stand now, that is exactly what Zelensky is doing — everything he can to get Ukraine from a bad situation to an even worse one. In practice, the situation in the neighboring country can now be described as catastrophic, and the Ukrainian president — although he did not originally imagine it — has done a lot to make it so.
Zelensky’s most self-harming act was to spectacularly break ties with Poland. Warsaw has spent a huge amount of money on helping Kyiv, about the same as it spends annually on upgrading its own army. In return, it has received nothing, not even a gesture. For example, in July this year, when a joint commemoration was held to mark the 80th anniversary of the Volhynia massacre — the mass murder of Poles by Ukrainian fascists during World War II — Zelensky refused to allow the victims buried in unmarked mass graves to be exhumed and given a proper final resting place.
However, the Ukrainian president has denounced Poland to various international organizations for imposing a ban on the sale of Ukrainian grain on the Polish internal market. Zelensky has not shown the slightest understanding of the Polish government’s position, which is facing elections in mid-October and is opposing the same foreign interference that Hungary faced last April.
But perhaps it is unfair to Zelensky to blame him alone for this ingratitude. According to the latest news, France and Germany have promised the Ukrainian president a facilitated and speedy EU accession if he succeeds in toppling the current conservative national government in Warsaw in the elections that are due to take place.
If Zelensky had any sense, he would realize that he is being led by the nose by the two major European powers. Membership of the EU requires the agreement of all the member states, and Poland, after what has happened, is hardly going to go along with that.
It does not seem that Zelensky understands the situation or is even slightly aware that the West is using him as a tool to interfere in the internal affairs of neighboring countries, or even to provoke them. We have now reached the point where it is safe to say that Ukraine has been pursuing an increasingly extremist policy since 2014, with the result that the country is raging with hatred of Hungarians, which reached its peak, at least so far, under Zelensky’s presidency.
All of this is a textbook example of the self-destructive behavior exemplified by the Hungarian proverb.
