Ukraine’s top general, Aleksandr Syrsky, should have his hands full: Russian forces have been advancing, slowly but steadily, for half a year. Hardly a day passes without news of this or that settlement falling to them (the next will be under the unusual name New York, also known as Novogorodskoe). And all the while, Ukraine’s forces are being ground down by a relentless process of attrition that the country cannot demographically afford, while its energy infrastructure has been degraded by a systematic Russian air campaign. Western aid, as before, may slow down these processes, but it cannot stop or reverse them.

And on the horizon, there is November, when Donald Trump will most likely take over as US president and confront Ukraine with the choice of either coming to terms, that is, largely Moscow’s terms, or losing American support, that is, collapsing. And, according to Hungary’s prime minister and a friend and messenger for the Republican, Viktor Orbán, Trump won’t even wait for his inauguration in January 2025 but move rapidly to end the war.

While thinking through the consequences of the next Trump presidency may be above Syrsky’s paygrade, the general does not shy away from the occasional sally beyond strictly military matters. He has most recently done two things that have little to do with poring over staff maps and issuing orders: He has met with the French propagandist Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL), and he has posted about the meeting on his Telegram channel.

The post itself was studiously anodyne, showing Syrsky and BHL standing somewhere among trees, the general in camouflage and the “philosopher” in his trademark I-am-an-urban-intellectual-from-Paris suit and open shirt; the general is making an energetic fist (athlete-style), the “philosopher” the sort of face you show when your buddy shows you his new super large flat screen TV. Syrsky’s text boils down too, in essence, thanking Lévy for the opportunity to “talk about our struggle” and for using his “artistic talent” to make the world know about Ukraine.

Despite Syrsky’s claim that “history is written now,” neither the meeting nor his post have received much attention. Western media, including in Lévy’s........

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