In an effort to appear more “fair and balanced”, I wrote a very negative opinion piece about Vladimir Zelensky. Several people took me to task on some of my claims and the overall characterization. And, after some reflection, I have decided they are right.

My first impulse was to delete this post before anyone else had the misfortune of reading it. But that’s kind of, uh, pussy. Instead, I shrunk the shit out of the text to convey my shame.

Any accusations I can find as far as Zelensky selling weapons comes straight from the far right courtesy of Tucker Carlson and the rest of his ilk. I don’t need to entertain the claims of these “people” in order to be “balanced.” Perhaps it’s okay to just pick a side and tell the other to get shrunk.

Volodymyr Zelensky: The Patron Saint of Grift and Munitions Laundering

Once upon a time, in the sepia-tinged days of 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedic upstart, an outsider who rode a populist wave into the Ukrainian presidency by promising to root out corruption and end the kleptocracy that had defined his nation’s political landscape. The irony, of course, is that Zelensky now stands as a living monument to the idea that if you fight monsters long enough, you become one—or, at the very least, you learn how to cook the books in a way that makes the monsters jealous.

These days, he’s been elevated to the status of a pious wartime hero, a Churchillian figure with a hoodie and a perpetually somber expression. Western politicians and media elites gush over him with an enthusiasm usually reserved for Oscar-bait war films. But for all the dewy-eyed, starry-gazed fanfare, the inconvenient reality is that Zelensky has spent his time in office doing his best impression of a mid-tier mob boss, turning the Ukrainian war effort into a high-stakes black market flea market where NATO’s charity weapons get new homes faster than a golden retriever puppy on Instagram.

Yes, you heard that right. As the U.S. and Europe eagerly shipped over weapons and cash with the urgency of a millionaire’s kid trying to Venmo their coke dealer, reports have surfaced suggesting that not all of these generous gifts made it to the front lines. Some, it seems, found their way into the hands of international arms dealers, warlords, and various shadowy figures who would feel right at home in a Bond villain casting call. MANPADS, rifles, armored vehicles—you name it, there’s a decent chance it got ‘misplaced’ somewhere between a Kyiv warehouse and the highest bidder.

Of course, Zelensky is never held accountable for this. His handlers at the White House and the EU are too busy making sure his next check clears. Every time a scandal bubbles up—whether it’s disappearing Western aid, censorship of opposition media, or imprisoning political rivals—Zelensky just dusts himself off, does another inspirational photo shoot, and receives another billion in weapons and funding. If there’s a more lucrative racket on earth, it probably involves a multi-level marketing scheme and essential oils.

So, given all this, it’s beyond hilarious that people are now lining up to dunk on Trump over his chilly reception of Zelensky. Say what you will about Trump—and God knows there’s plenty to say—but at least he didn’t turn a European war zone into an eBay for stolen Javelin missiles.

Yet, somehow, if you dare suggest that maybe, just maybe, this sanctified war leader isn’t the second coming of George Washington, you’re immediately accused of parroting Kremlin propaganda. Never mind that Ukrainian corruption is as much of a staple as borscht, and that Zelensky’s government is functionally indistinguishable from the oligarchic circus that preceded it. The narrative must remain pure: Zelensky is fighting for democracy, and if you question him, you must be in the pocket of Putin.

This is the absurd reality we live in—where the great moral conflict of our time is framed as a choice between two alleged strongmen, one of whom spent four years in office rage-tweeting about low-flow toilets, and the other who managed to turn a foreign aid bonanza into a shadow arms market while making Time Magazine’s Man of the Year cover. And yet, somehow, we’re all supposed to believe that one of them is an existential threat to democracy, while the other is a paragon of Western values. Sure. Tell me another one.

At the end of the day, the biggest sin in American politics isn’t corruption, fraud, or incompetence—it’s not playing along with the script. Trump, for all his countless failings, at least had the indecency to treat Zelensky like the shifty, third-rate grifter that he is. But in a world where politics is just another branch of Hollywood PR, Zelensky has better branding. And in the end, that’s all that really matters.