London: In just 12 months Volodymyr Zelensky has gone from Time magazine’s Person of the Year to a man whose heroic aura, at home at least, is diminishing, and support for his cause internationally wavering.

He is facing poor polls and re-election prospects, and his political rivals have begun to openly criticise him, with Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko accusing the Ukrainian president of authoritarianism and even comparing him to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the 2022 Time Person of the Year, is facing wavering support domestically and with his international allies.Credit: Nathan Perri

His military leaders argue that the gap between constant boosterism, his rose-coloured-glasses approach, and the situation on the ground is no longer convincing.

It might be a slight exaggeration to say the West is now toying with the idea of letting Putin have Ukraine, but speculation continues that allies, including the United States and Germany, want Zelensky at the negotiating table, where a new quasi-border could be drawn with Russia, slicing up the occupied territory in the eastern Donbas region.

In reality, the falling international support has been a slow burn, with newly committed aid from the West dropping nearly 90 per cent in a year even before the United States and European Union failed this month to approve more funds.

Voters in the US and Europe, egged on by the pro-Putinist far-right and distracted by a new conflict in the Middle East, are getting bored with the war in Ukraine. And the West, after an 18-month hiatus, appears to be on the edge of resuming its 15-year appeasement of Putin’s aggression.

For almost 700 days in a row, Zelensky has given a nightly address to the nation, praising his troops, celebrating advances along the front lines and reaffirming resolve in the face of Russian aggression. His message is always “we’re moving forward”. He aims at maintaining optimism at home and abroad.

But Ukraine’s forces have failed to advance this year as much as leaders inside and outside the country had hoped for, and the front line now remains more or less static. Russia’s defensive capabilities and willingness to absorb huge casualties have proved formidable.