"Zelensky's scandal." Big news from NYT!

[dpibel]

Being our periodic look at the NYT bullshit mill.

"Zelensky's scandal" is the subject line of the email version of the NYT feature linked above.

It starts with this drama:

“Is it possible to become president and not steal?” Volodymyr Zelensky asked before he became president of Ukraine in 2019. “It’s a rhetorical question, as no one has tried so far.”
Now his top advisers are tangled in a graft investigation. It threatens his popularity and his government — all while Russia advances on the battlefield and President Trump pushes a peace plan that favors Moscow.

It then spends seven paragraphs explaining a graft scandal that involves members of Zelensky's administration, kinda, maybe. At which point we support the subject line ("Zelensky's scandal" ) with the following:

Zelensky himself has not been directly implicated in the corruption.

Followed by a statement that Z's policies MAY have enabled the graft.

And we walk off with:

It’s an awkward situation for Ukraine’s supporters abroad. They saw a smaller nation stand up to a larger bully that wants to tear it apart. It’s difficult to cast the victim as virtuous, though, when its government is engulfed in a corruption scandal.

Are you goddamned kidding me?

The NYT wants to both sides Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a Ukranian graft scandal?

"See! They're not so virtuous! Maybe Russian was right to invade."

By way of attempted save, the final paragraph of this mess says that, rilly, we're not saying Russia invaded to save Ukraine from graft issues; it's just that the corruption makes it hard to be so self-righteous about the invasion thing. (Can't quote directly bec. 4-graf rule.)

You can't make this stuff up.