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A “failed tour” where the “Ukrainian dictator” failed to “sell his peace plan and the second Peace Summit to sponsors” — this is how Russian propaganda and anonymous Telegram channels portrayed Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S.
In late September, the President of Ukraine visited the U.S. to participate in events at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly and to hold bilateral meetings. On September 24, during a session of the UN Security Council, he called for “forcing Russia into peace as the sole aggressor.” The next day, addressing the General Assembly, Zelenskyy warned of the danger of Russian strikes on Ukrainian nuclear power plants during winter, reminding the audience that the first point of Ukraine’s Peace Formula is nuclear security. On Thursday, September 26, he held meetings with representatives of both the Democratic and Republican parties in the Senate, but Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican member of the Congress Mike Johnson, refused to participate. Instead, Johnson sent a letter to Zelenskyy demanding the dismissal of Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, for allegedly interfering in his country’s electoral process, criticizing the fact that Zelenskyy visited a military factory in Pennsylvania (a key swing state in the upcoming election) without Republican representatives.
Zelenskyy also met at the White House with President Biden and Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized Zelenskyy in his campaign speech on September 25 for supposedly refusing to “make a deal” to end the war with Russia.
“A Concert Stage for Zelenskyy”
Russian government officials and state-controlled media claimed that Zelenskyy’s visit “did not achieve significant success” and indicated an “exhaustion” of international support for Ukraine. They alleged that the Ukrainian president had come to the U.S. once again “with a begging hand” while asserting that the West’s military support “only prolongs the conflict” and will not help Ukraine achieve victory.
Official media, such as the Russian Channel One, once again raised the issue of Zelenskyy’s alleged “illegitimacy,” derisively calling him “expired” and claiming he had turned the UN Security Council session into a “concert stage.” The West, they argued, would “soon realize the price it will have to pay” for supporting Ukraine—described by state propagandists as a “suitcase without a handle.”
Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s representative at the UN, suggested that President Zelenskyy attended the UN General Assembly’s high-level week to “convince the West to raise the stakes in the conflict with Russia.”
Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, responded to Zelenskyy’s calls for “forcing Russia into peace” at the UN by saying, “Forcing Russia into peace is impossible. Russia is a proponent of peace, but only under conditions that ensure its security foundations and fulfill the objectives set for the SMO [‘special military operation’].”
Maria Zakharova, the official spokesperson of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated the propagandist trope that Zelenskyy is not an “independent figure” and that the West’s and Zelenskyy’s initiatives for peace negotiations are “myth-making and lies”:
“What the West proposes, and what Zelenskyy articulates, once again does not constitute negotiations.”
Zakharova’s immediate superior, Sergey Lavrov, wrote that now, “The West has moved to ‘microphone diplomacy,’ and its interest is to Ukrainize the agenda and glorify Zelenskyy.”
Pro-Russian Telegram channels disseminated claims that Zelenskyy’s speeches failed to impress the global community, allegedly suggesting a gradual loss of international support for Ukraine. Anonymous channels also argued that further aid to Ukraine was not in the U.S.’s best interest and predicted that, eventually, the conflict would rest solely on Ukraine’s shoulders.
One anonymous channel, with over 200,000 followers, speculated that almost no one attended Zelenskyy’s UN speech, “The hall was practically empty, with only a few people present, probably Latvians and Estonians, and one negro, killing time until the buffet opened.” However, upon reviewing the broadcast of the speech, it is evident that delegates were present in the hall.
In contrast, the Russian delegation sought to demonstrate broad support from its allies on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly—Maria Zakharova’s Telegram channel was filled with numerous photos of Sergey Lavrov’s meetings with diplomats and delegations from countries like Nicaragua, Cuba, and Hungary.
Among a set of 1,778 messages from September 25, 2024, provided by TeleZip/Mantis Analytics, 14 different pro-Russian Telegram channels mentioned protest rallies allegedly accompanying Zelenskyy’s speech at the UN. These anonymous channels interpreted the demands of the protestors in their own way, focusing on a banner that read “Fuck Ukraine!” In a channel with nearly 240,000 followers, propagandists emphasized that “American taxpayers no longer want to donate to some country that few people in the United States can easily identify on a map.”
In all these messages, the same video was circulated, showing up to six participants holding three posters. However, the same footage also shows other rallies taking place nearby, such as a protest demanding that Chinese authorities cease persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, as well as other demonstrations with a significantly larger number of participants. Despite this, propaganda insisted that everyone present was there to voice opposition to the Ukrainian president’s speech.
In 18 messages from the analyzed batch, the Ukrainian President was called a “dictator” whose tour to the U.S. had “failed.” In one of the large anonymous channels with over a million followers, readers were told that Zelenskyy had “failed to convince sponsors to support the second forum on the Ukrainian crisis, which he wanted to hold in November.” This narrative echoed that of official representatives of the Russian government, like Maria Zakharova, who labeled Zelenskyy’s trip as that of a “dependent” politician. They also used the misleading term “Ukrainian crisis” to describe Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A variation of this narrative is the claim that “Zelenskyy failed to sell his victory plan because of the Kursk escapade”—this topic appeared in seven messages within the analyzed set. In an anonymous Telegram channel with over 127,000 followers, it was claimed that Zelenskyy was “wasting American money on PR” [referring to the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation in the Kursk region], which, according to the authors of the post, is reflected in the retreat of the Armed Forces in Donetsk region, will hurt Democrats and benefit Trump. This narrative suggests that the U.S. had expected Zelenskyy to present a “realistic plan to end the war,” and as a result, there would now be an effort to “ultimately discard” the Ukrainian president.
However, the very next day, another message from the same channel contradicted the previous claim, illustrating the propagandists’ tactic of overwhelming the audience with countless contradictory versions of events. The new claim was that Zelenskyy, having received “loans and new weapons,” allegedly had been given a Western mandate to “escalate tensions, possibly by attacking Belarus or Transnistria.” This rapid shift in the narrative was evidently in response to emerging reports that Russia was making changes to its nuclear doctrine.
Zelenskyy “Finally Chose a Side in the U.S. Elections”
Russian propaganda could not overlook the intricacies of Zelenskyy’s meetings with American officials, especially the reactions from other American political figures. Propagandists focused on the announced meeting with Trump, the demands from Republican representatives to dismiss the Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova and to scrutinize Zelenskyy’s visit to a munitions factory in Pennsylvania. At the same time, they downplayed statements from U.S. officials about continued support for Ukraine and announcements of new aid packages.
Even before Trump’s statements and those of his fellow party members, propagandists attempted to portray Zelenskyy’s visit as meaningless. One Telegram channel, which presents itself as “Ukrainian” and has over a million followers, commented on the visit to the munitions factory that supplies shells to Ukraine, “There are no concrete results, but there is a lot of hype and pretty photos... The American Ze-tour is showmanship in the face of global problems.”
Another similar Telegram channel (with over 400,000 subscribers) offered a more detailed assessment of the “futility of the visit.” According to the anonymous authors, the issue of Ukraine supposedly interested none of the main players in the U.S. anymore. “Biden is only interested in Ukraine if a real peace track is launched quickly, and it cannot be launched without Russia, which has already stated three times that it will not attend Zelenskyy’s second Peace Summit. For Kamala, the topic is electorally damaging because it gives Trump the Third World War card, and he has his own plan. Therefore, all this is not in favor of the Bankova [the Office of the President of Ukraine],” conclude the propagandists. At the same time, they acknowledge that Ukraine will still receive an aid package, statements of ongoing support, and “something symbolic in the context of strikes” (on Russian territory), but present this as insignificant.
Propaganda Telegram channels also criticized Zelenskyy’s “victory plan,” which was presented to American politicians during the visit. They extensively cited the American press, particularly the Wall Street Journal, which, according to their own sources, claimed that senior officials in the White House were “unimpressed” by the plan.
“The Biden administration is concerned that the Ukrainian leader’s plan for winning the war against Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy and is little more than a repackaged request for more weapons and the lifting of restrictions on long-range missiles,” a Telegram channel with over a hundred thousand followers quotes a WSJ article.
Soon after, Russian propaganda received ample “fuel” when Speaker of the House, Republican party member Mike Johnson, sent a letter demanding the dismissal of Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, due to her involvement in organizing the visit to the munitions factory in Pennsylvania. According to Johnson, who cited “lack of time” as his reason for not meeting with Zelenskyy, the visit to the factory was part of the electoral campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and thus constituted interference in the American elections.
Additionally, Republican candidate Donald Trump accused Zelenskyy of making “little, nasty aspersions” against him and refusing to “make a deal” with Russia. In the same speech, Trump elaborated on the war in Ukraine, stating, among other things, that “any deal, even the worst deal, would’ve been better than what we have right now.”
Propaganda Telegram channels seized on this narrative, claiming that “Zelenskyy lost bipartisan support in the U.S. in a single senseless trip, demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of international political processes by the President’s Office.” This was stated in a Telegram channel with over one million subscribers.
Another channel with a similar following wrote that Zelenskyy had supposedly “finally chosen a side in the U.S. elections,” supporting Kamala Harris and “publicly opposing Donald Trump.” The channel also referred to its own “insider information,” suggesting that Zelenskyy had promised behind-the-scenes support to Biden in exchange for continued military aid back in 2023. Another channel stated that Trump “had never been this harsh,” although he leaves the most aggressive remarks against Zelenskyy to his supporters or even family members. A quote from Donald Trump Jr.’s account on the platform X was cited:
“So a foreign leader who has received billions of dollars in funding from American taxpayers, comes to our country and has the nerve to attack the GOP ticket for President? And he does this right after a pro-Ukraine zealot tried to assassinate my father? Disgraceful!”
The focus on Trump supporters’ reactions, scandals, and issues related to Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S. serves as a convenient tool for propagandists to discredit Ukraine’s foreign policy in general. The internal struggle between Democrats and Republicans allows propagandists to often simply quote American politicians and media publications without adding anything original, thus creating an illusion of “objective” reporting and depicting a total diplomatic disaster for Ukrainian diplomatic efforts through the words of others.
However, despite the apparent issues in interacting with one of the major U.S. political factions, it should not be overlooked that, as a result of the visit, the Biden administration announced a new support package of $7.9 billion under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Furthermore, an expanded program for training Ukrainian F-16 pilots will be implemented, and new sanctions against Russia are being discussed.
Main page illustration by Nataliya Lobach.
