Winter comes at a very difficult time in Ukraine. Front lines and Western support are freezing, and domestic politics have been in turmoil for a long time.
– Ukraine is now really in danger of losing the war, warns the Program Director of the Institute for Foreign Policy Arkady Moshes.
According to him, right now there is a danger that the front lines will lock in place and the armed support of the West will be exhausted. Russia would be allowed to gather its forces in peace and launch a new major attack in a few years, in which the entire existence of Ukraine, left alone, would be threatened.
Moshes already warned at the beginning of September Helsingin Sanomat’s opinion departmentthat Russia is ready to continue the consumption war, trusting that the West will tire first.
Now that seems to be happening.
Last week, the US Senate impeached the president Joe Biden administration’s billion-dollar aid package for Ukraine.
In the EU, Hungary and Slovakia, as well as the recent election winner of the Netherlands, are already openly campaigning to stop arming Ukraine Geert Wilders.
In addition, the influential German newspaper Bild reported a couple of weeks ago that Germany and the United States were quietly pressuring Ukraine to the negotiating table with Russia by limiting arms deliveries.
If power in the White House changes to the Republicans next year, and especially For Donald Trumpthere is still much colder weather ahead for Ukraine.
– This is a really, really difficult moment for Ukraine, says Arkady Moshes.
Internal disputes are tearing Ukraine’s leadership apart
In the leadership of Ukraine, there are two partly conflicting stories about how the defensive war is going.
The first story is represented by an optimistic president Volodymyr Zelenskyi. According to him, with the help of weapons from the West, Ukraine is about to beat Russia and liberate all occupied territories up to Crimea.
The newer and more cautious story is represented by the commander of the armed forces, the general Valerii Zaluzhnyi. In November, he wrote in The Economist magazine that received a lot of attention columnaccording to which the war is in a stalemate that cannot be resolved without significant additional support from the West.
– If the commander of the armed forces says that we are in trouble and the president says that he believes in victories, the messages sound too contradictory, says program director Moshes.
In recent days, several reports have been published in the international media about the deepening divisions between the leadership of Ukraine, personified by the popular wartime national heroes Zelenskyi and Zaluzhnyi.
– Politics has returned to Ukraine, Moshes says.
For he means that the unprecedented political consensus and coalescence created at the beginning of the war of aggression is weakening.
More mundane domestic politics is making a comeback, even though the autumn parliamentary elections were canceled due to the war and next spring’s presidential elections will be cancelled. In early December, the influential mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klytsko accused Zelensky of concentrating power for himself and expressed his support for General Zalužny.
Zelensky faces the harsh fate of Churchill
Zelenskyi’s situation is more difficult than before. He has to explain, among other things, why Ukraine’s counterattack has not progressed according to great expectations. Allies as well as our own citizens demand answers.
The president was scheduled to address the U.S. Senate before last week’s vote on the new aid package. Surprisingly, he canceled at the last minute, without giving a reason.
Moshes believes the cancellation is because Zelenskyi knew he would not get any more standing ovations from the senators.
– He would have been asked difficult questions about corruption, the concentration of power and how Ukraine has used the aid received from the United States so far, says Moshes.
Zelenskyi’s support is still high in Ukraine, but it is on the decline as General Zalužnyi support increases.
According to Moshes, some Ukrainians are getting tired of Zelensky and the mainstream media, whose overly optimistic declarations do not correspond to the reality of the war.
– The people want change. If change cannot be achieved at the front, it is wanted internally, says Moshes.
Zelensky has often been compared to Britain’s decisive prime minister during World War II to Winston Churchill. This is also done by Moshes, who reminds us that Churchill lost the election immediately after the end of the war – despite the fact that Britain was one of the winners of the war.
“The West must wake up”
Internal dividing lines weaken Ukraine’s will to fight, but despite them, the real threat still comes from outside, Moshes emphasizes. Ukraine can succeed in the war only with more determined support from the West. Current developments seem to be the opposite.
According to Moshes, the West has surrendered too much to the wishful thinking piloted by Zelensky about Ukraine’s possibilities and Russia’s weakness. In addition, the West does not have a strategy that outlines what it wants to achieve by supporting Ukraine.
– Everyone in the West should understand that the moment of truth is at hand. If Ukraine falls, anything can happen.
Moshes even means outright war between Russia and NATO.
When the fighting in Ukraine stops, Russia can gather its forces for an attack against a NATO country in up to six years, the German foreign policy research institute DGAP estimated in November. Its according to the report in this situation, a Russian attack on a member country of the military alliance is only a matter of time, for which NATO must prepare.
– A Russian attack on, for example, the Baltic countries becomes possible as soon as Russia believes that it can succeed, the report says.
Poland’s more recent assessment is even more gloomy. Head of the country’s national security agency, BBN Jacek Siewiera said at the beginning of Decemberthat NATO’s eastern member countries must be ready to repel a Russian attack within three years.
Although the war in Ukraine is still front page news in Finland, Moshes reminds us that this is no longer the case in a large part of Europe.
War has become commonplace. According to Moshes, the West mistakenly thinks that the locking of the front lines in their current positions would mean a long-forgotten war of positions, such as was fought in Eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022.
However, according to the researcher, this is not the case because the war is now so large-scale. The collapse of Ukraine is possible, and it would completely change the security situation in Europe.
– The West must wake up to this. Ukraine still has a chance if the West finally decides to increase aid. It’s not too late, but it’s only a matter of months.