Hey there, welcome. Please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. It’s just $9.95 a month or even better, $99 a year. PS: Follow us also on Twitter @talk_spy. Ukraine's president rebuffed US pleas to flee, an American associate tells SpyTalk
An American businessman with close ties to Volodymyr Zelensky says the Ukrainian president was “calm and businesslike” when they talked yesterday, even as Russian troops pressed on toward Kyiv and the volume of rocket attacks on the capital soared.
“He seemed reluctant to leave the country,” said the businessman, who has extensive projects in the country and asked not to be identified because of the fraught security situation.
Zelensky’s position hardened Friday when he posted a defiant video in which he said he and his government were “defending our independence” from the Russian invasion. “We are all here,” he said, surrounded by senior advisers and his prime minister. “Our troops are here, citizens are here. All of us are here protecting the independence of our country. “And it will continue to be this way.” On Thursday evening he told European Union leaders “this might be the last time you see me alive,” according to Axios. The American businessman, who called SpyTalk from the side of the highway just after he driven into Moldova from Ukraine, said Zelensky “asked me whether I knew of any unusual targets in the sanctions the Biden administration was preparing.” "It struck me as odd that he was not talking with OFAC or other Biden administration officials” directly about that, he said. They talked for about five minutes. Then Zelensky thanked him and said goodbye with, "I've got other things going on." Over the previous and weeks, Zelensky had engaged in an odd and disturbing public feud with Biden and NATO officials over intelligence predicting a massive Russian invasion. The businessman, who said he had flown with Zelensky to the annual Munich Security Conference and written the speech he presented there last week, struggled to explain the disparity. He could only agree with the assessment of others that Zelensky, a popular TV comedian before he was elected in April 2019, was trying to prevent mass panic and capital flight.
“He had established a kind of horizontal administration,” as opposed to hierarchal with layers of bureaucrats. “He liked to get information from people directly.” So the businessman rang up the new president. “I was having issues with the agricultural minister relative to a project I had going in northern Ukraine so I called him directly,” he said. Over time, they grew close. The American, who said he became an expert on sovereign wealth funds under the tutelage of the late Pentagon foreign policy guru Andrew Marshall, consulted with Zelensky on issues ranging from farming projects to manufacturing, to the future of Chernobyl and “his arms-length feud with [Rinat] Akhmetov,” Ukraine’s richest businessman, whom the president accused in November of plotting a coup against him with other oligarchs. Two days ago, Akhmetov and other oligarchs met with Zelensky and pledged their support to him, according to Forbes. Their patch-up may have come too late. “The tragedy of Zelensky is Shakespearean,” said his American friend, speeding down the highway to Chișinău, Moldova’s capital. |
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