i acknowledge that it's somewhat of a gloss on the facts, but in russia the narrative is that ukraine is preventing the east from succeeding, after it voted to leave, and this is fundamentally actually true, even if it ignores the attacks on kyiv and the rest of the country, who have not vote to secede and probably won't.

it's not dissimilar from the american civil war in a lot of ways, with zelensky playing the role of lincoln and the russians acting like the british empire, except, in this telling of history, the south secedes and rejoins the empire.

when you drop all the bullshit and look at the basic conflict, zelensky is fighting a war to prevent the east from seceding, which is fundamentally an attack on democracy. there's good reason to question his democratic legitimacy, and to question the democratic legitimacy of his position in the war.