“Meeting with Congress, Zelensky Asks for More Weapons and a No-Fly Zone” reads a recent headline from the New York Times.

It does not take great strategic acumen to realize that trying to put up a no-fly zone over Ukraine – whose airspace is now controlled by the Russians – would inevitably lead to a direct clash with the military assets of the Russian Federation.

Zelensky is thus, in effect, asking that the United States – as well as other NATO nations – enter into a shooting war in Russia.

What Zelensky is doing, in reality, is calling for is World War III. Such a war could very quickly escalate into a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West. With both sides armed with thousands of nuclear warheads, this kind of conflict would result in a fathomless death toll and would almost certainly end the world as we know it.

Zelensky is effectively requesting that we commit suicide over Ukraine. It would be immense foolishness on our part to accommodate his ludicrous request given the fact that Ukraine is a poor, deeply corrupt country in which we have no vital national security interest.

We should not be at all surprised by Zelensky’s self-destructive recklessness and lack of judgment. He has demonstrated both of those in abundance ever since he took office, and now his people are paying a terrible price for his incompetence.

Conceited and foolish, Zelensky gave Putin the proverbial middle finger when the latter asked for accommodation and understanding. He even started talking about Ukraine obtaining its own nuclear weapons, replacing some of those it gave up in 1994 return for guarantees from Russia, the US, and Britain of Ukraine’s independence and existing borders in the Budapest Memorandum

Blinded by his own arrogance Zelensky completely misread Putin. So deep runs Zelensky’s naivete that he refused to believe that Putin would invade even though Russian armies stood assembled on his country’s borders, and he received reports from western intelligence services that an incursion was imminent. Rather than responsibly facing the gravity of the situation, the overconfident former comedian made light of those warnings.

When the incursion finally occurred, he was clearly surprised and shocked. His subsequent behavior further exposed his lack of judgment and puerility when in the days that followed, he bitterly complained that Biden and NATO were not coming to his aid. The inexperienced and gullible man that he is, he apparently believed that if his country was ever attacked, Western powers would promptly dispatch their militaries to fight the Russians in Ukraine, even though such military support was not explicitly promised in the Budapest Memorandum.

As a result of his wretched bungling, Zelensky’s country is now being wrecked. Tens of thousands of his fellow citizens have already lost their lives and millions have fled their homes.  Having wrecked his own country, Zelensky now wants to wreck the whole world by pulling the West into a nuclear war with Russia.

This foolhardiness is completely in character with his previous actions. In a way, his position now is rather understandable. Zelensky is now desperately trying to save his own skin and bury his mistakes in the rubble of a wider conflict. Even though Zelensky has shown himself to be utterly incompetent as a political leader, he remains a superb performer. A master comedian and entertainer, he surely knows how to work his audience.  (Watch, if willing, this clip from a 2016 performance in which Zelensky “plays” piano with his manhood.)

A consummate showman, after Russia’s invasion Zelensky embarked on a worldwide Zoom offensive in which he has been artfully tugging on the heartstrings of Western politicians and populations. So moving are his performances that even the official translators are reduced to tears. His presentations are complete with well-produced, emotionally moving videos depicting the suffering of his own people. Their suffering is indeed great, but it is Zelensky’s own incompetence that got them into their terrible predicament.

YouTube screengrab

In one of the most brilliant PR campaigns in recent history, the hapless architect of this tragedy has managed to recast himself as a global hero. Rather than facing up to his own ineptitude, Zelensky now wants to set off a worldwide conflagration.

If we listen to this heedless and dangerous man and get involved in a shooting match with Russia, we may easily find ourselves paying the same – or worse – price than Zelensky’s own people are paying even as we speak. Given how tense things already are, the prospect of our cities turning into rubble beneath rising mushroom clouds no longer seems a distant possibility.

Zelensky is trying his best to nudge us toward this scenario. We must not take his insidious bait.

It is enough that Zelensky has ruined his own country. We must not let him ruin the rest of the planet as well.

Vasko Kohlmayer was born and grew up in former communist Czechoslovakia. You can follow his writings by subscribing to his Substack newsletter ’Notes from the Twilight Zone’. He is the author of The West in Crisis: Civilizations and Their Death Drives.