- Paul Adams
- BBC foreign affairs correspondent
June 8, 2022
image source,Archyde.com
UK, France, US leaders show solidarity at G7 summit in March
With Russia making slow progress in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and military experts talking about a protracted war of attrition, is it about to start to crack in Western support for Ukraine?
Western countries are still discussing the best way to support Ukraine, and the level of sanctions and punishments for Russia. What do you think about Putin, who is sitting in the Kremlin and directing the war?
Before his eyes are Britain, Poland and the Baltic states, insisting on defeating Putin. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also pledged to ensure that Russia is “expelled” from Ukraine and that “Ukrainian territory will never be compromised”.
But on the other hand, Putin also sees differences in attitudes in France, Germany and Italy.
image source,Getty Images
German Chancellor Scholz is conservative on military aid to Ukraine with heavy weapons
French President Emmanuel Macron called for a ceasefire in Russia and Ukraine in early May and called on the West not to “fall into the temptation of humiliation or revenge”.
The next day, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said during a visit to the White House that Europe wanted to “envision the possibility of a ceasefire and credible negotiations”.
German Chancellor Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron spent 80 minutes on the phone with Putin over the weekend, trying to figure out how to allow Ukraine to export food from the Black Sea.
But Latvian Deputy Prime Minister Artis Pabriks criticized the position of some Western countries on social media. “It appears that some so-called Western leaders are seeking humiliation and are completely out of touch with political reality.”
different signals
Of course, regardless of the opinions of these Western leaders, it is the attitude of the US president that really matters to the Kremlin.
But on the war in Ukraine, U.S. President Biden has sent different signals at different times. In March, he called Putin a “war criminal” and seemed to want to change the regime in Moscow. The rocket system has a reserved attitude.
Former Russian Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev called Biden’s attitude “rational”, but the Kremlin said it was “adding fuel to the fire” for the U.S. military aid to another advanced rocket system in Ukraine.
image source,Getty Images
U.S. agrees to supply Ukraine with high-mobility multiple rocket system capable of hitting targets 45 miles away
Biden often blurts out speeches, so the attitude of the US government generally depends on the official US position issued by Secretary of State Blinken.
Speaking at a recent NATO foreign ministers meeting in Berlin, Germany, Blinken said the focus of the United States and its partners was “to keep Ukraine as strong as possible on the battlefield and at the negotiating table in order to deter Russian aggression and fully defend its independence and sovereignty.” .
It sounds strong, but how do you define “maintain as strong as possible”? What is the “complete defense” of Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty worth?
So, is the Western consensus on the war in Ukraine about to begin to crack?
Ian Bond, head of the foreign affairs government at the Centre for European Reform, said it took weeks of negotiations to finally reach a partial EU oil embargo on Russia, “the oil embargo shows how difficult it is to get it done. unanimous opinion.”
It can be seen from this that it is impossible for the EU to quickly agree on Russian gas. The Baltic countries and Poland hope that EU countries can achieve agreement soon, but Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has admitted that the next step to impose sanctions on “Vietnamese” It’s getting harder and harder to achieve.”
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the gas embargo was “not the subject of the next sanctions package”.
need more weapons
Ukraine says the West has promised a lot but done less.
The promise of the United States and Germany to provide multiple rocket systems and air defense radar systems is definitely good news for the Ukrainian military, which is under great pressure.
But Germany’s previous hesitancy over military aid to Ukraine, and the U.S. insistence that its aid weapons can only be used against Russian targets in Ukraine, raises questions about why the West is trying to limit Ukrainian military action while Russia’s military action is not. limit.
“There’s a deep calculation in it, like ‘we want Ukraine to win, but not too much,'” Bond said.
image source,Archyde.com
U.S. military aids Ukrainian Javelin anti-tank missiles
It is widely believed that when Putin started the war, he was confident that the West would not want to go into troubled waters, and that NATO members who had just withdrawn from Afghanistan and had not yet recovered from the embarrassment would not be involved in another new international dispute.
Recent reports from Moscow show another kind of confidence, that the gradual slow progress on the battlefield has led them to believe that “sooner or later Europe will get tired of constant support”.
This week, the British government warned that up to 6 million British residents could face power outages if Russia cut off gas supplies, and Russia is sure to increase its confidence when it learns.
If there is public pressure, will Western support for Ukraine suffer?
Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, told Congress last month that the danger exists.
“Putin may be waiting for the resolve of the United States and the European Union to soften,” she told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Food shortages, inflation, energy prices are all going up.”
image source,EPA
How long will the Western consensus on Ukraine last?
In addition to internal factors and the limitation of military aid weapons, the Western consensus on Ukraine has so far been maintained very well, which can be said to be extraordinary.
But the cracks that exist could still grow.
“If either side starts to gain a decisive advantage, then the problem becomes more of a problem,” Bond said.
“If Russia completely breaks through Ukraine’s eastern defenses and moves towards the Dnieper, then the question becomes how much territory Ukraine should sacrifice to reach a ceasefire.”
By the same token, if Ukraine starts pushing back against Russia, Bond said, “there will be voices in the West saying ‘don’t try to retake the Donbass that Russia has controlled since 2014.'”
It may seem too early to talk, but Ukraine and others reacted angrily when senior U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger said in Davos that Ukraine should consider ceding territory in exchange for peace.
There will also be an extremely painful debate on this issue.