The plans and intentions of Ukraine’s Western allies are so vague
Are the US, EU and UK offering Ukraine limited aid to defend its territory (as they seem to be actually doing) or are they indeed waging a proxy war to “defeat” Putin’s Russia (as they seem to be saying)?
Just as the Kremlin is doing, Ukraine’s Western allies are signaling their resolve to “defeat” Russia without actually articulating what that defeat means.
Over the last year, Ukraine’s stated goal of victory — recapturing all the occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, under Russian control for nearly a decade now — looks increasingly unrealistic.
It’s one thing to push Russian forces back to their positions before February 24, 2024 — however difficult that may be two years into the war — but it’s quite another to dislodge de facto Russian administrations from territories in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea that they have occupied for a decade.
But Ukraine’s Western allies are failing to reckon with these realities and, amid growing reluctance by right-wing parties in the US and Europe to shoulder the costs, are resorting instead to triumphalist rhetoric.
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Anna Arutunyan is a journalist, analyst and author specializing in Russian politics. She is the author of “Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers, and Moscow’s Struggle for Ukraine,” and co-author with Mark Galeotti of the upcoming “Downfall: Prigozhin and Putin, and the fight for the future of Russia.” The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
CNN 28 February 2024
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/28/opinions/ukraine-russia-war-define-victory-arutunyan/index.html
Europe Can Do More to Arm Ukraine
Ukraine’s main need is for NATO-standard 155 millimeter shells. Although allies transferred millions of rounds to Ukraine in the first year and a half of the war, existing supplies were quickly depleted.
Ukraine is estimated to need at least 200,000 rounds a month to keep up the fight against Russian forces
Bloomberg Editorial 29 februari 2024
If Ukrainian forces could expel the Russian invaders it would be a wonderful thing.
However, unless something completely unexpected changes, a war defined by territory is a war Ukraine cannot win.
Ukraine will emerge as the victor from this bloody conflict so long as it is a prospering, democratic Westward-leaning country.
The Economist 8 Ferbruary 2024
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/02/general-zaluzhnys-dismissal.html
Leaders should consider using frozen Russian assets to bolster Ukraine’s military, EU’s von der Leyen says
Ukraine’s allies should consider using profits from frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Kyiv, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, warning Europe must prepare for the risk of a wider war.
“There could be no greater symbol and no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live,” von der Leyen said in a reference to windfall profits of frozen Russian assets. “Ultimately this is about Europe taking responsibility for its own security.”
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called earlier this week on the world’s largest advanced economies to find a way to “unlock the value” of immobilized Russian assets to help bolster Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion and for long-term reconstruction after the war.
The EU, Group of Seven nations and Australia have frozen about €260 billion ($282 billion) in the form of securities and cash, with more than two-thirds of that immobilized in the EU.
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