‘Zelensky behaves like a dictator and denies reality’, – former presidential advisor Arestovych says

Former advisor to the Office of the President, Alexey Arestovich, has compared two covers of Time magazine: one with a large portrait of Vladimir Zelensky for May 2022 and the latest one featuring a small figure of the Ukrainian president turned away, which illustrates a generally negative article in the magazine about the situation in Ukraine.

According to the former presidential advisor, the change in tone and visual representation in Time is Zelensky’s own doing.

“First, someone behaves like a dictator and, instead of taking the normal path of accelerated development, chooses stagnation. Then someone fosters widespread corruption. Then someone fosters hatred for any opinion different from their own. And then, after a year and a half, autumn comes in relations with the West and with their own people. No matter how much you deny reality, it doesn’t go away”, – he writes.

“One of the stages of this denial of reality is an attempt to blame the damned Shusters for everything, instead of looking in the mirror. Simon Shuster (the author of the Time article) is an artist who has a keen sense of the moment of truth”, – Arestovich added.

As for the Time article itself, Arestovich described it as follows,

“Simon Shuster skillfully portrays an unpleasant and vaguely familiar image in his Time article: a dictator abandoned by all, wandering through the corners of a bunker, refusing to face reality and hysterically exclaiming about an imminent victory that he is incapable of achieving. An authoritarian leader afraid to speak the truth to him. No, this is not a direct parallel with Hitler. I spoke with Simon personally several times; he would never make such a comparison.”