To be honest Zelensky is probably pretty happy about the opportunity to get out of dodge, i would in his shoes. This is finally his chance to get out before things get bad. He will end up in some private mansion in Spain or Miami tucked away and live the rest of his life in luxury while those left back in Ukraine will be searching for who to point the finger at as western funding dries up and you're left with a poor country that has damaged infrastructure and you have all these other states trying to extract whatever natural resources you have left. What a sad outcome, feel bad for the Ukrainian people. Most never signed on for this BS but will suffer regardless.
Goom already made a succinct summary of what happened to previous US proxies.
Just looking at how its shook out over history
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu in south Vietnam escaped his country, settled in Boston and lived quietly for 40 years and died of natural causes
Ngô Đình Diệm didn't fare so well and like Malopox said, caught a CIA bullet during their coup
Pepe San Roman who led the bay of pigs invasion was captured and imprisoned, but released by Castro a year later and settled in Miami and lived quietly for 30 years and died of suicide
Lon Nol who we backed in Cambodia, escaped the Khmer Rouge and settled in Fullerton California and lived quietly for 5 years and died of natural causes
Osama Bin Laden, who we backed in Afghanistan OOOooooohhhhhhh right
Anastasio Somoza Debayle fled the Sandinistas and escaped to Miami with a lot of Nicaragua's national treasures, but Carter denied him asylum and he settled in Paraguay and was assassinated a year later
Hamid Karzai and his family still live in Kabul and the Taliban respect him enough, while Ashraf Ghani fled during the fall to Uzbekistan and settled in Dubai and has been there since
I think its far more likely Zelensky settles in the west somewhere. Russia isn't about to storm Kiev and take him by surprise, and while there's a strong potential for a power vacuum after US support dries up that results in a coup by Banderites seizing control, even in that scenario its more likely Zelensky survives to flee to the west and starts driving ubers in Philly.[/QUOTE
He did unfairly forget Saddam Hussein though:
I think you have unfairly forgotten the fate of late Saddam Hussein who has been a crucial middle eastern ally in 1970-1990 including fighting communism as well as a disastrous proxy war against Iran. Military industrial complex made a shitload of money supplying WMDs, chemical weapons and materiel for that proxy war.
https://i.imgur.com/QfEd1y9.gifHis reign ended when USSR collapsed as his services against communists were no longer needed. His mistake was also destroying WMDs and chemical weapons after he used them against Kurds as he was unable to hand said weaponry over later on while US knew how much and what they sold to him. Scott Ritter famously was the guy that raised alarms that Iraq has no more WMDs and chemical weapons, but alas.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/09/wikileaks-april-glaspie-and-saddam-hussein/ He furthermore misinterpreted US Ambassadors April Glaspie’s comment about Kuwait and invaded it to stop the theft of Iraqi oil (confirmed by UN at the time) only to be publicly made an enemy number one even though he immediately offered full and immediate surrender to the Americans. It’s exemplary that his genocidal excesses were overlooked when he was an ally, but were thrust forward into the spotlight once he became of no use. The rest as they say is history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8BGpohOupQ