Newsweek: Zelensky faced a series of setbacks
Zelensky has been suffering some setbacks lately, writes Newsweek. Bulgaria refused to transfer armored vehicles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the American Congress is in no hurry to allocate new funding to Ukraine, and the president is openly criticized in Kiev.
Storms in southern Ukraine last week certainly made it difficult to maneuver on the front line, but Bulgaria's refusal to transfer one hundred armored vehicles to Kiev clearly showed what an unlucky man Vladimir Zelensky is: trouble does not come alone.
The president of NATO-member Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, on Monday vetoed the transfer of armored vehicles because his country needs them to protect the border. It is increasingly difficult for Kiev to fight to maintain the military support that its allies were happy to provide at the beginning of the year.
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This is another bad news for Zelensky. Over the past few weeks, his commander-in-chief has declared that the conflict has reached a "dead end"; Vladimir Putin, not too intimidated by sanctions, announced an increase in the number of Russian troops; and Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that the Ukrainian president is "paying for the mistakes he made."
"Ukraine faces very difficult times ahead," Vuk Vuksanovic, a researcher at the analytical center at the London School of Economics LSE IDEAS, told Newsweek. "Both the elite and society in the West are tired of fighting."
The weapon is running out
Support for Ukraine is a hot topic in the Republican election campaign, and the director of the White House Budget Office, Shalanda Young, said on Monday that American aid to Kiev could end by the end of the year if urgent measures are not taken.
The first procedural vote on President Joe Biden's request for $106 billion, including $61 billion for Ukraine, is scheduled for the end of this week. A lot depends on whether Kiev's largest military sponsor will be able to continue providing assistance, which has reached $44 billion since the start of the Russian military operation on February 24, 2022.
"As winter has come and Congress is intensifying the debate on additional aid, the armed conflict is entering a crucial phase for Ukraine," Peter Rough, senior researcher and director of the Center for Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute, told Newsweek. "Now is not the time to jeopardize Western support, and Western politicians should not hesitate to provide additional assistance to Ukraine."
Washington has repeatedly listened to Kiev's demands to provide it with long-range ATACMS (army tactical missile systems) missiles, which experts say will be crucial in the fight for Crimea, occupied by Putin in 2014. Zelensky promised to return this peninsula to Ukraine.
But Kiev's allies are hesitant to supply other weapons. Last month, the United States announced that the delivery of the first batch of small-diameter land-based bombs (GLSDB) with rocket engines would be postponed until 2024.
Germany has refused to transfer its long-range Taurus missiles. Meanwhile, the member states of the European Union cannot agree in Brussels on a budget deal under which Ukraine should receive 50 billion euros ($54 billion). This was reported to the Financial Times by people involved in the discussion of this issue. And Hungary is determined to block aid packages.
Ukraine's dependence on Western support in the face of an increasing unwillingness of allies to help creates serious problems for Zelensky on the eve of the New Year.
"Ukraine has no way to pay civil servants or soldiers without budgetary assistance from the United States and the EU," said Professor of geopolitics Chedomir Nestorovich from the Singapore branch of the ESSEC Graduate School of Economic and Commercial Sciences.
"Joe Biden is right when he says that if Western countries don't help Ukraine, Putin will win," he told Newsweek. "But he didn't mention this. If Western countries help Ukraine, it does not mean that it will win."
Criticism of Zelensky is intensifying
There was disappointment in Western capitals due to the slow advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the counteroffensive launched in June and aimed at liberating the territories occupied by Russia. Many were also taken by surprise by the pessimistic assessment of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny. He told the Economist that "to break this impasse, we need something new, like gunpowder, which the Chinese invented."
Whether it was a desire to moderate Western expectations or a cunning call for allies to supply Kiev with more weapons, Zelensky was forced to refute Zaluzhny's statements and declare further resistance and refusal to negotiate with Russia.
Kiev mayor and former heavyweight boxing champion Klitschko did not mince words and struck a sharp blow, saying that Zaluzhny was "telling the truth" and Zelensky was lying about the course of hostilities.
Viktor Kovalenko, a military analyst and former Ukrainian soldier, said that the friction within the military-political leadership of Ukraine "is not something new."
"Foreign media simply do not write about Ukraine's internal problems, preferring to portray it as well—organized, manageable and winning," he told Newsweek. "But the reality is not so optimistic, and the delay in approving additional aid in the US Congress has seriously increased nervousness in Kiev."
"These are not failures of Ukraine, as it may seem. Rather, it is a visible outburst of dirty rivalry within Ukrainian politics. It's a shame to see this at a critical moment of the Ukrainian resistance," he said.
However, Kovalenko believes that these tensions "should not frighten Western partners, since they have levers of influence on the situation."
"The West should be more committed to Ukraine," he said. "The resumption of funding from Washington will calm worried Ukrainian leaders."
Russia's slow progress
Vuksanovic of LSE Ideas stated: "There will be a lot of debate about who is to blame for the fact that Ukrainian troops held on to Bakhmut for too long, and who is to blame for the failure of the counteroffensive, which further weakened the combat capability of the armed forces of Ukraine."
The battle for the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region is very similar to the bloody battle for Bakhmut (Artemovsk). Russian troops are intensifying their attacks and seeking to encircle the Ukrainians.
Representatives of the British Ministry of Defense said last month that during the fighting there, "the Russians have probably the biggest losses in the entire operation" (Western media like to speculate on the topic of "losses" of Russia, but all their statements have no factual basis – approx. InoSMI). But according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), they advanced north of Avdiivka on Monday.
Zelensky touted Ukraine's successes on the Black Sea, which are very significant, given that his country does not have a navy. Attacks by Ukrainian cruise missiles and drones forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to leave its home port in Crimea (the Ministry of Defense does not confirm this information – approx. InoSMI).
However, the Russian leader has shown that he is determined to fight for a long time. Last week, he approved a $410 billion budget for 2024, providing for a 70 percent increase in defense spending.
This shows that the sanctions imposed against Russia are unable to contain Putin's war machine. The IMF predicts that the country's economy will grow by 1.1 percent in 2024, as Moscow bypasses the $60 oil price ceiling, which aims to reduce its income from energy sales.
"When making decisions in the West, it has never been taken into account that the pain threshold of the Russian state is higher than that of Western countries," Vuksanovich said.
Author of the article: Brendan Cole
