Will the West really back Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’?
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Ned Temko Columnist
| London
Hurricane Milton upended many lives this week – including, unexpectedly, that of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy.
He had been looking forward to a meeting in Germany this weekend of Ukraine’s allies, where he was hoping to shore up what he fears is faltering international commitment to his cause. But the gathering was postponed when Joe Biden said he needed to be in Washington because of the storm.
Why We Wrote This
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy fears his allies’ commitment may be flagging. He lost an opportunity to rally them this weekend when an aid donors’ meeting was called off because Hurricane Milton is keeping U.S. President Joe Biden at home.
Part of the challenge Mr. Zelenskyy will face, when the leaders do eventually convene, is to convince them that he can meaningfully shift the course of a war in which both sides have taken enormous casualties and in which neither seems able to deliver a knockout blow.
It’s not just a question of more weapons. What Mr. Zelenskyy really wants is to reinforce the political message that resonated so powerfully in allied capitals in the early months of the invasion.
That message is stark: that the security of Europe and America itself would suffer if Russia succeeds in subjugating a neighboring country for having chosen to align itself with the democratic West.
And after the United States pledged to back Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” permitting Moscow to prevail would weaken trust in Washington’s word around the world.
It has become the forgotten war, overshadowed by the conflagration in the Middle East.
Yet Ukraine’s increasingly difficult battle against Russia’s invasion force – far from having gone away – is entering a crucial stage.
The next few weeks could go a long way to deciding how and when it ends.
Why We Wrote This
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy fears his allies’ commitment may be flagging. He lost an opportunity to rally them this weekend when an aid donors’ meeting was called off because Hurricane Milton is keeping U.S. President Joe Biden at home.
That’s because Russia’s troops have been pushing inexorably forward in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, while its missiles and drones have pounded towns, cities, and critical infrastructure across the country.
And Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urgently trying to shore up what he fears is flagging commitment from the United States and his other key Western allies.
He was dealt a fresh setback in that effort this week from an unexpected source: Mother Nature.
With Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida, U.S. President Joe Biden postponed a meeting this weekend in Germany of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group – the coalition of nearly 50 countries that Washington assembled to help arm Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
Leaders from key NATO allies, including Mr. Biden himself, were due to attend, and Mr. Zelenskyy was hoping to persuade them to provide the support he’s convinced is needed to turn the battlefield tide in Ukraine’s favor.
The meeting had taken on even greater importance after he failed to win a firm commitment from Mr. Biden to support his “victory plan” during White House talks at the end of last month.
Part of the challenge Mr. Zelenskyy will face, when the leaders do eventually convene, is to convince them that he can meaningfully shift the course of a war in which both sides have taken enormous casualties and in which neither seems able to deliver a knockout blow.
His plan reportedly involves persuading Washington to loosen its restrictions on Ukraine’s use of the long-range missiles it’s been given by the U.S. and Britain. Washington has long resisted taking that step out of concern that Russia might attack NATO’s European flank in response.
Being able to use the missiles’ full range could allow Ukraine to strike at drone and missile bases inside Russia, as well as disrupt supply lines to its invading troops.
The Ukrainians are also seeking weapons to outfit 14 new brigades that have been trained by NATO over the past two years.
They believe all that would allow them to build on their surprise August incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, where they still hold hundreds of square miles of territory.
It would also balance Russia’s widening coalition of military supporters. This week, there was a report that North Korea might send troops to fight in Ukraine. And Iran, a key supplier of drones for the Russian invasion force, is now also delivering ballistic missiles.
Yet what Mr. Zelenskyy really hopes to accomplish is to reinforce the underlying political message that resonated so powerfully in allied capitals in the early months of the invasion.
That message is stark: that the security of Europe and America itself would suffer if Russia succeeds in subjugating a neighboring country for having chosen to align itself with the democratic West.
Mr. Zelenskyy will argue that there is now a growing risk the conflict will end in just such a victory for the Russian president. That could happen with either with a negotiated settlement on Mr. Putin’s terms, or with open-ended warfare that will eventually devastate Ukraine without exhausting the capacity of a far larger, more populous, and rearmed Russia.
His immediate concern is that the world has shifted its eyes to the conflict in the Mideast.
That has pushed Ukraine down Washington’s list of policy imperatives, even as U.S. election politics have been making it harder for Ukraine’s message to break through.
The Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election, Donald Trump, has criticized the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine. He has voiced sympathy for Russia’s contention that it has a legitimate claim to Ukraine. And he says he’ll end the war within days of the election if he wins.
That helps explain the urgency of Mr. Zelenskyy’s efforts.
It may also explain why he’s been pinning his hopes on the broader allied meeting in Germany. For his message does resonate with European NATO members.
Britain, France, and those countries lying nearest Russia – Poland and the Baltic states – share Mr. Zelenskyy’s view of the peril in allowing Mr. Putin to win. They agree that Moscow might well then threaten other neighbors.
Their chances of persuading Washington to join a concerted new show of support for Ukraine may depend on an even broader international argument.
It is that after the U.S. made repeated pledges to back Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” permitting Russia to prevail would weaken trust in Washington among allies far beyond Europe.
In Asia, for instance, where China has vowed to “reunite” the island democracy of Taiwan with the mainland.
Elsewhere, too. Mr. Putin is due to meet Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, at the end of this week. And that may signal repercussions in the very part of the world that has been crowding Ukraine off America’s top-priority policy agenda:
The Middle East.
