This time next year, Zelensky will be safely ensconced at a country mansion somewhere in Sussex. There he will be feted and visited by the likes of Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Sunak, Obama, Hillary Clinton, von der Leyen, Sean Penn, William and Kate, and Tony Blair et al. His memoir, ghost written, will see him embark on a promotional tour of the chat show and podcast circuit, during which he will be curated as the man who stood up to Putin and was betrayed by Trump. Lucrative Hollywood offers for the rights will follow. As part of this hagiographic carnival, Zelensky will be given an honorary knighthood by King Charles, accompanied by the usual trumpets and banquet. Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, investigators will uncover corruption under his premiership on an industrial scale. These findings will be summarily dismissed as a in the West as a fabrication, cooked up in the Kremlin. For the ordinary Ukrainian, left to pick up the pieces, heartrending stories of men being kidnapped from their families by Zelensky's conscription press gangs --- never to be seen again -- will be commonplace. These stories will be joined by accounts of war pensions denied, compensation payments for the loved ones of fallen soldiers declined, and as will details of widespread torture and abuse within the ranks. No lessons will be learned -- just as none were learned from previous failed military adventures in Afganisation, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. The circus will move on to the next, confirming that though the faces change, the game remains the same.