Horror Hour, Starring Ukraine’s Showman-in-Chief Another 20 million Ukrainians will flood into Europe if Ukraine “falls” in its war with Russia, warns Zelensky — Ukraine’s top entertainer turned geopolitical horror director. And who’s his target audience? Europe’s increasingly nervous political elites, whose approval ratings are sinking as anti-immigration sentiment rises and far-right populists gleefully cash in on the backlash. 20 (Twenty!) million more refugees! Imagine the horror! An unstoppable Ukrainian invasion of Europe — not with tanks, but with suitcases — sweeping Europe’s political establishment straight off Mount Olympus and into the electoral graveyard. That’s the nightmare Zelensky is selling them. Naturally, the script requires a suitably terrifying vision of Russian occupation: the Great Terror, the Gulag, the Holodomor — the full historical horror franchise. The same apocalyptic imagery Ukrainian wartime propaganda has been serving ordinary Ukrainians for the past five years, desperately trying to convince them that the trenches are preferable to whatever comes next. But Russia, I would argue, never intended to occupy all of Ukraine. That was never Putin’s strategic objective. He didn’t even physically eliminate Ukraine’s political leadership — unlike what the United States did in Iran. Russia can negotiate. The Istanbul talks demonstrated that. So have prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of the dead. Apparently, even in this war, diplomacy isn't quite as extinct as certain people would like us to believe. But why negotiate when fear sells so beautifully? Especially when a war can be turned into a lucrative business for Zelensky and his entourage — and into a convenient proxy war for his Western patrons, who get to strategically weaken Russia without having to bury a single one of their own soldiers. Here’s a radical proposal: Sit down. Negotiate. Make peace. Rebuild Ukraine. Give people a country they actually want to live in. Because right now, far too many Ukrainians seem to want just one thing: a ticket out. Especially men of military age. And no amount of presidential horror storytelling is going to make that inconvenient reality disappear.