The US Government made Zelensky wait for his meetings at the White House and the Pentagon by more than an hour this time.

When he finally began his speech at 6:41 pm, he looked distant and agitated. His delivery felt stilted, as though he wanted to get it over with.

He later said he was exhausted from the persistent need to convince his allies’ help can defeat Russia.

“Nobody believes in our victory like I do. NOBODY,” Zelensky said.

It is only getting harder. Twenty months into the war, a fifth of Ukraine’s territory is under Russian occupation. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed.

Zelensky can feel during his travels that global interest in the war has slackened.

So has the level of international support.

“The scariest thing is the world got used to the war in Ukraine,” Zelensky says. “You see it in the United States, in Europe.”

Public support for aid to Ukraine has been in decline for months in the U.S., and Zelensky’s visit did nothing to revive it.

The counter-offensive proceeded at an excruciating pace and with enormous losses, making it ever more difficult for Zelensky to convince anyone victory is around the corner.

With the outbreak of war in [the neocolony], even keeping the world’s attention on Ukraine has become a major challenge.

President Zelensky feels “Angry.”

The usual sparkle, his sense of humour, his bawdy jokes, none of that has survived into the second year of all-out war.

Now he walks in, gets the updates, gives the orders, and walks out [like Adolf Hitler in April 1945].

Zelensky feels betrayed by the West. They have left him without the means to win the war.

But Zelensky’s belief in Ukraine’s victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic.

“He deludes himself,” his closest aides tell in frustration. “We are out of options. We are losing. But try telling him that.”

Zelensky’s stubbornness has hurt their efforts to produce a new strategy. One issue has remained taboo: the possibility of negotiating a peace deal.

Zelensky remains dead set against even a temporary truce. Because he will be left with this explosive force that can destroy him.

For now, he is intent on winning the war on Ukrainian terms.

Ukraine have ramped up production of drones and missiles to attack the Russian rear. The Russians have responded with more bombing raids, more missile strikes against the infrastructure.

Ukraine will not be able heat homes and keep the lights on through the winter.

Zelensky says: “A third world war could start in Ukraine.” That was his message in Washington.

His audience though has stopped paying attention.

The atmosphere had changed. Assistance to Ukraine had become a sticking point in the debate over the federal budget.

Congressional leaders declined to let Zelensky deliver a public address on Capitol Hill. His aides tried to arrange an in-person appearance for him on Fox News and an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Neither one came through.

Instead, Zelensky met in private with then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and lawmakers who grilled him behind closed doors.

“They asked me straight up: If we don’t give you the aid, what happens?” Zelensky recalls. “What happens is we will lose.”

Zelensky went further: “You are giving money. We are giving our lives.”

But Congress passed a bill to avert a government shutdown with no assistance for Ukraine.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have damaged power stations and parts of the electricity grid, leaving it potentially unable to meet spikes in demand when the winter temperature drops.

Blackouts would be more severe this winter, and the public reaction in Ukraine would not be as forgiving.

The cold will also lock down the front lines.

But Zelensky has refused to accept that.

An undisclosed senior general in charge of the counteroffensive will be fired, to ensure accountability for Ukraine’s losses at the front.

Some front-line commanders have begun refusing orders to advance. “We can’t win a war that way.”

At one point in early October, the political leadership in Kiev demanded an operation to retake the city of Gorlovka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that Donetsk has held and fiercely defended for a decade.

The answer came back in the form of a question: “With what? Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new soldiers?”

The shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. Ukraine does not have the men to man up weapons.

Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has refused to release official counts of dead and wounded.

According to U.S. and European estimates, the toll has long surpassed 100,000.

It has eroded the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years.

43 years old men in Ukraine are ill - “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”

Recruitment grounds to a halt.

Stories are spreading of draft officers pulling and beating up men off trains and buses and sending them to the front.

Those with means bribe their way out of service, often by paying for a medical exemption. Corruption within the recruitment system became widespread.

“People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow.”

From the earliest days of the Russian invasion, Zelensky’s top priority and his main contribution to the nation’s defence had been to keep attention on Ukraine.

It would become a lot harder with the outbreak of war in [the neocolony]. The focus of Ukraine’s allies in the U.S. and Europe, and of the global media, quickly shifted to the Gaza Strip.

On its own, Ukraine aid no longer stands much of a chance in Washington. The White House remains committed to helping Ukraine but bundled to [the Zionist regime].

Zelensky’s arguments about shared values no longer have much sway over American politicians or the people who elect them. Achieving that gets harder as global crises multiply.

Zelensky sees no option but to press on through the winter and beyond.

“I don’t think Ukraine can allow itself to get tired of war,” he says.

“Even if someone gets tired on the inside, a lot of us don’t admit it.”