“US diplomatic signals go unheard in Ukraine,

” headlines an Atlantic Council blog by Oleksiy Honcharuk, President Zelensky’s first Prime Minister. Alarmed over the government’s bypassing of the Naftogaz Supervisory Board to switch CEOs, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cut his face-to-face meeting with Zelensky on May 5, from one hour to 15 minutes. “This strong signal was backed by equally firm rhetoric identifying domestic corruption alongside Russian aggression as the two key dangers facing today’s Ukraine,” Honcharuk wrote from Washington. “Ukraine’s actions following the Blinken visit create the impression that President Zelensky is looking to test the country’s Western partners and see how far he can go.”