Ukraine war: Now is not the time to wobble on support against Russia

It’s a mood in marked contrast to the mad rush just a few months ago when a coterie of global leaders, politicians and diplomats couldn’t get to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv fast enough for that photo-opportunity walking the city’s streets with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It’s perhaps no exaggeration to say that there was even a tinge of triumphalism around.

Back then of course the Russians were the ones being rolled back from around Kyiv and Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv. Ukraine had exceeded the expectations of many military and intelligence analysts hitting back hard against Russian forces and no doubt sending some of its generals home to think again.

So far so good, for politicians by and large like to be associated with winners and Ukraine for a moment at least was just that, the plucky underdog that had miraculously kept the rapacious Russians at bay.

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Forced back on its heels Moscow undoubtedly was, but it was only a short respite for Ukraine. Having been sent home to think again, Russian commanders have done just that.

Still smarting from a few sobering lessons born out of early over confidence, Russia’s whole concerted military might right now has been recalibrated and relentlessly brought to bear on Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Even as I write there are reports of Ukrainian troops pulling back in the face of a sustained barrage and advance in one of three key cities in that part of the country – Severodonetsk.

Ukraine’s recent setbacks on the battlefield have only added to the frustration and jitters in certain European countries like France, Germany, and Italy whose leaders lately have begun to make statements encouraging some sort of ceasefire and negotiated settlement. It’s as if after that initial flush of Ukrainian military success, patience is already wearing thin.

The problem here you see, is that politicians don’t like it when wars drag on, even if they are often responsible for pushing nations into them in the first place.

After all, voters at home might get restless, tetchy, not least if the economic impact of war in some distant place lands slap bang on their doorstep. It’s all much better if it’s over and done with quickly and we’re on the winning side.

I can’t help being reminded of those famous lines from Evelyn Waugh’s satirical novel Scoop about the newspaper industry. While briefing the Daily Beast’s hapless foreign correspondent William Boot, the proprietor Lord Copper, reminds him that the newspaper’s policy for the war is that the “patriots… must win quickly” and that “the public has no interest in a war that drags on indecisively”.

As far as Lord Copper is concerned, all that’s wanted is “a few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of personal bravery on the Patriot side …that is the Beast policy for the war.”

Until recently, Europe was united in its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that thankfully largely remains the case even if chinks in solidarity have occasionally revealed themselves.

On Tuesday, for example, leaders of the EU’s 27 member states agreed to ban seaborne Russian oil imports. But to placate landlocked countries such as Hungary, pipeline shipments will continue for now. Last month Ursula von der Leyen (below), the European Commission’s president, announced plans to ban all oil imports by the end of the year, but the recent row exposed deep divisions in the bloc’s ability to further target Moscow with economic sanctions which it will certainly have to do if the war continues for some time as many analysts now predict.

Unity is crucial here and it only adds to its erosion when people start accusing Ukraine of an unwillingness to negotiate with Moscow or cede territory to Russia as former US secretary of state Henry A Kissinger suggested they do to help end the invasion.

When your back is to the wall as it is for the Ukrainians again right now in the Donbas, it’s understandable that a certain edginess will begin to set in over worries that Western support is going soft.

No one wants to see a prolonged war, but until the Russian government abandons its goal of conquering new territory in Ukraine, there can be no prospect of real peace talks. There’s nothing the Kremlin would like to see more than Western nations tiring of supporting Ukraine.

If there’s two things Russian president Vladimir Putin and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov keep harping on about it’s the need to lift sanctions and the West’s supply of weapons.

Clearly these two things are not to their liking and that’s how it should be right now so long as Moscow continues to insist that its territorial ambitions in Ukraine trundle on.

“We’ll grind them down in the end,” one source close to the Kremlin reportedly told the independent Russian news outlet Meduza recently. “The whole thing will probably be over by the fall.”

It’s precisely because of such declarations and what’s currently happening in the killing fields of the Donbas, that Ukraine’s allies in Europe and America need to stand firm.

If they do so, stay true to their word and speed up the supply of weapons Ukrainian forces urgently need on the ground then the pressure on Zelenskyy’s government to make territorial or other concessions to the Kremlin will ease.

Many in Europe and the West are understandably wary of US President Joe Biden’s (above) decision to send longer range more advanced rocket systems to the Ukrainians. Assurances that the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), do not have the capacity to strike into Russia will be met with scepticism and do little do allay fears that such a move only leads to escalation of the war.

To be fair for Biden it’s something of strategic tightrope walk, for while no doubt Washington shares concerns over making a bad situation worse that’s exactly what will happen if the West does not stop the Russian onslaught in the Donbas.

While history might provide some reassurance that even the most volatile and complex of global problems can be resolved through concerted diplomacy, the situation in the Donbas requires immediate military support.

Now’s not the time for either a bout of the head staggers or going wobbly in our support of Ukraine just when it needs it most.