Zelenskyy and democracy: PJW

Is Volodymyr Zelenskyy a defender of democracy? Hardly.

All sorts of mixed signals about Ukraine. The place is horribly corrupt; Zelenskyy himself (as shown above) is hardly a believer in human rights, but at the same time, Russia is clearly violating Ukraine's sovereignty by invading, and innocent Ukrainians are dying. 

Should there be a no-fly zone? With the equipment coming into Ukraine from Europe and the States, I suspect the Ukrainians could impose such a zone themselves. From what I hear, a no-fly zone imposed by other powers could lead straight to World War III because it would entail actively shooting down Russian jets. No doubt the Russian pilots would deserve what was coming to them, but it's the consequences of shooting the pilots down that gives many people pause. Then there's the nuclear question. Ukraine is no stranger to irradiation: Chernobyl is located in the Kiev/Kyiv Oblast region. But would Putin go so far as to irradiate Ukraine further? If he did, would that force Europe and the US to get involved, and would that in turn instigate World War III if, say, China decided the time was right to hit Taiwan?

I don't know the answers to any of the above questions, but I think some dictator-states are carefully watching what's going on and realizing that the takeover of a neighboring country might not be as easy as when China took over pacifist Tibet. China, for one, has a large but fairly unimpressive military; storming Taiwan would prove costly for that reason alone, but the Taiwanese would also prove to be formidable if for no other reason than that they've got nowhere to retreat to: they defend their home or die. 

Then again, Taiwan could end up occupied like World War II France or 1910-era Korea. Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future. Meanwhile, the Russian offensive seems to be losing steam, and I saw a rumor that the Russian Ministry of Defense had a death statistic leaked: somewhere on the order of 10,000 Russian troops killed already. Other dictators take note: if you're a poor country despite having a massive military, things like supply chains and infrastructure actually matter, so you're better off not wasting your blood and treasure by doing something as stupid as invading a neighbor.

Anyway, if Paul Joseph Watson is right, we at least know that Zelenskyy is no friend of democracy. He might claim to be locking down Ukraine in the name of security (most losses of freedoms are in the name of security: remember the Dubya era?), but his crushing of all dissent and his silencing of disparate voices do not bode well for post-war Ukraine.