for kyiv, the winter of all dangers – L’Express

“This threat is part of the war of attrition that has been playing out in Ukraine for more than a year, confirms Mathieu Boulègue, associate researcher at Chatham House. All civilian infrastructures are potential targets since they are, by nature, impossible to put out of range of strikes.” Their massive shelling has already cost kyiv dearly. According to an estimation from the Kyiv School of Economics (as of September 2023), the damage amounts to $8.8 billion. This forced Ukrainian homes to spend an average of thirty-five days without electricity last winter.

To avoid, as much as possible, a repetition of this scenario, the Ukrainian president has insisted in recent weeks on the need to “strengthen anti-aircraft defense to protect infrastructure”. If Washington and Berlin responded to the call by releasing a new tranche of aid on October 26 and 27 which will make it possible to transport precious missile batteries, kyiv’s needs remain considerable. And at a time when Israel is intensifying its land offensive against Hamas, after the bloody attack of October 7, the Ukrainian authorities fear that the attention of its allies, led by the Americans, will focus on the war in the Middle East. .

At this stage, the Jewish state would have requested, according to the American press, assistance of 10 billion dollars from Washington, including among other things 155 mm shells, ammunition for the Iron Dome and guided bombs. But at the same time, Washington already provides almost half of Western military aid to kyiv, more than 46 billion dollars since the start of the conflict.

“Will your support be less than now? And even during the electoral period in the United States, you see the challenges there”, anticipated, at the beginning of October, the Ukrainian president, speaking to the press, on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels. “Our partners tell us no, but who knows what will happen, no one knows.” Especially since after a Ukrainian counter-offensive with mixed results, Russian forces relaunched their attacks. And are today carrying out large-scale assaults around the town of Avdiivka, in eastern Ukraine.

“For Putin, the crisis in the Middle East constitutes a window of opportunity, underlines former ambassador Michel Duclos, now special advisor at the Montaigne Institute. It is an opportunity to immobilize the means and attention from the West elsewhere, in the hope of accelerating their possible disengagement in Ukraine.” Asked on October 19 about the nature of American support for Ukraine in the coming months, the Pentagon nevertheless said it was “confident” about the ability of the United States to “support both Ukraine and Israel, in regarding their defensive needs.

For Léo Péria-Peigné, arms and foresight researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, “we can fear that American resources will be shared to the detriment of Ukraine, but this should nevertheless remain limited as long as it there is no wider conflagration in the Middle East. Apart from certain specific areas, such as munitions, Ukraine and Israel have not necessarily the same equipment needs.”

However, questions about Western military support are not limited only to the state of American stocks. In Europe, the Twenty-Seven might, for their part, not be able to keep their commitment, made last spring, to deliver one million 155 mm shells to Kiev by next March. At this stage, only 30% of the promised ammunition – essential for Ukrainian artillery – has been sent, according to the agency Bloomberg. Worse, the firm orders placed with manufacturers would be insufficient to achieve the set objective.

On the other side of the front line, Russia has, for its part, “around 4 million shells” in reserve, according to Colonel Ants Kiviselg, head of Estonian military intelligence. To which would be added 300,000 to 350,000 shells, recently delivered by North Korea. Enough to last more than a year, at the current rate of 10,000 artillery strikes per day. Or allow the intensity to increase. “Today, the enemy bombed 188 settlements in 10 regions,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko denounced on November 1. This is the largest number of towns and villages hit since the beginning of the war. ‘year.”

Added to these crucial questions are uncertainties about the political support of certain allies. The election on October 25 of pro-Trump conservative Mike Johnson as head of the United States House of Representatives is bad news for kyiv. If Joe Biden asked Congress on October 20 to vote for an envelope of more than 105 billion dollars, bringing together aid to Ukraine and Israel, the elected Republican – supported by the right wing of the party – made it known that he intended to “dissociate” the two budgets, leaving the threat of a reduction in the funds allocated to Kiev looming.

“It’s a very clear risk,” says Tara Varma, visiting researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “And if the Americans significantly reduce their support, it will be up to the Europeans to grow in power.” Problem: dark clouds also hover over the Old Continent. The day after taking office, on October 26, the new populist Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico announced that he would put an end to his arms deliveries to Ukraine. A dead loss for Kiev, to which this country of 5.4 million inhabitants had already provided 680 million euros of equipment, including MiG-29 combat planes, portable missile launchers and an anti-aircraft defense system. S-300.

A week earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban drew criticism from his European counterparts for shaking hands with Vladimir Putin during a forum in China on October 17 – a first for a leader of the Twenty- Seven since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. “It was very, very unpleasant to see this,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was indignant two days later. “How can one shake the hand of a criminal who led a war of aggression, especially coming from a country that has a history like that of Hungary?”

Beyond the symbol, the proximity displayed with Moscow raises fears of future divisions in Brussels on the Ukrainian issue. During the last European summit, on October 26, the Hungarian leader opposed a proposal aimed at granting 50 billion euros in additional aid to Ukraine, as part of the revision of the community budget for the next four years – which requires unanimity of member states and will be decided in December. His Slovak counterpart, for his part, expressed his reservations. The head of the Kremlin can rub his hands. “This is godsend for Putin: any opportunity to see Europeans divide among themselves is a good one to take,” says Tara Varma, of the Brookings Institution. To the great dismay of Ukraine.