Overheard an interesting conversation at dinner last night in Budapest between two expats. Both are strongly opposed to the Russian invasion. One, “A.”, said that he can’t bear that people think of Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero, given that Zelensky was revealed by the Pandora Papers release to be as corrupt as the Ukrainian leader he displaced by running on an anti-corruption platform. Indeed, as I checked later, Zelensky really is a rich oligarch who hides his fortune offshore.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy is an entertainer turned politician famous for television productions such as ‘Kvartal 95’ and ‘Servant of the People’, which also became the name of is real world political party. The problem in making such a transition is that the spheres of entertainment and politics both rely on virtuality.

The Western allies should announce that President Volodymyr Zelensky has been empowered to dial back or even withdraw elements of the unprecedented sanctions regime that has cut Russia off from the global economy.

It’s increasingly apparent that his room to maneuver has been severely circumscribed by the Ukrainian far right

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has, in the context of the tragic conflict now raging in his country, been propelled from the most unlikely leader of a country mired in corruption with a parlous economy into something approximating to Marvel superhero, doughtily defending Ukraine against an implacable Russian bear in the cause of Western values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and, well, by now we all know the script.

In an interview with Reuters, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman for decades, made a startling offer. Moscow could end the Ukraine war immediately, said Peskov, if four conditions were met.

President Zelensky, this is about the threat of a Russian invasion that President Biden is warning against.

Perceptions are likely growing in the West that Moscow is dispensing of empty threats and ultimatums on Ukraine

The Zelenskiy regime appears to have mastered no less than the authoritarianizing but still democratic Biden regime and the increasingly authoritarian Putin regime the postmodern art of artificial reality or ‘simulacra’ in politics. The simulacra in politics is compounding and is compounded by the all too concrete realities of war in Donbass and potentially Ukraine and its environs more broadly. The new case of simulacra is perhaps not surprising in that Zelenskiy spent most of his adult life living in dinosaur media unreality, specifically television acting. Zelenskiy’s television virtual reality was comedy; his political simulacra is becming tragedy.

The global probe of offshore accounts around the world strike at the heart of Kiev’s current government and power structure of a ruling class that rose to power on the promise of fighting corruption, including the television-star-turned-President Volodymyr Zelensky.