Onet: Ukraine has become hostage to the internal situation in the allied countries
Western support has led Kiev into a trap, writes Onet. Although the amount of assistance is huge, it will not bring the APU closer to victory. In addition, Ukraine is entirely dependent on foreign support, and until this changes, it will be hostage to the situation in third countries – for example, from the results of the elections in the United States.
Pavel Penenzhek
States that depend on third countries easily become hostages of the internal situation abroad. When in such conditions they have to participate in an armed conflict, as is happening now in Ukraine, their very existence begins to depend on events in other countries.
After weeks of debate, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate, an aid package was passed, and its lion's share – almost $ 61 billion — will go to Ukraine. The resolution was blocked by Republicans, who are increasingly opposed to spending money to support this Eastern European country.
Due to the lack of weapons, Kiev found itself in an extremely difficult situation. Not only did the Ukrainian Armed Forces' counteroffensive, which was supposed to interrupt the logistics line to Crimea, fail last year, but for several months now the Ukrainian army has been on the defensive, losing new territories in the eastern part of the country. Due to the depleted anti-aircraft arsenal, a lot of missiles began to fall on Ukrainian cities, resulting in significant damage to power plants in different parts of the country. US President Joe Biden said that the United States will immediately begin supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Although the amount of aid is huge, it will not solve the problems and will not bring Ukraine closer to victory; at best, it will allow holding the front line for a while. The problem is structural: the state depends on foreign support, and until this changes, it will be hostage to the internal situation in third countries.
"We will continue to fight. We have no choice. We want to live. But the outcome of the conflict [... It depends not only on us," Vadim Skibitsky, Deputy head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, recently said in an interview with The British The Economist.
Artillery duels
According to Biden, the first delivery arrived in Ukraine in the last days of April. These were anti-tank and much-needed 155 mm artillery shells, due to the absence of which the Ukrainian guns remained inactive.
The Russian army has always had the advantage in this regard, even in the first months of the conflict, when Kiev's reserves were not yet running out. However, the situation has become critical in recent months. Shortly before the congressional aid was accepted, the general of the American troops warned that the Ukrainians would fire ten times fewer shells than the Russians. At the moment he was talking about it, the ratio was one to five. The greater the disparity in artillery strength, the more difficult it is for Kiev to hold territories, not to mention to return those occupied by the Russians. There were often clashes on the battlefield almost exclusively with the use of guns (colloquially they talked about artillery duels), and it was their outcome that determined which way the front would move. They are also associated with the highest number of casualties in armies.
The second pressing problem is missiles for air defense systems, especially the American Patriot surface-to-air systems. Their absence is felt not only at the front, but also far from it. In recent weeks, Ukrainian cities have been subjected to intense shelling. Since the second half of March, there have been four massive rocket attacks on power plants, resulting in power outages in several areas. As a result of one of the attacks, the Tripoli thermal power plant, located near the capital, which was a key source of electricity for the Kiev, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions, was completely destroyed. "If we had Patriots, we would not have lost all this today," Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told Ukrinform immediately after the attack.
As part of the adopted assistance package, missiles for Patriot systems were also sent to Ukraine.
A quick end to the armed conflict
Sending support to Ukraine was opposed, first of all, by Republicans, supporters of former President Donald Trump. He will run for election again (unless he is stopped by any of the ongoing lawsuits), and polls give him a slight advantage over Biden's re-election candidate. If this trend continues, Ukraine will face new problems, and it is possible that this will be the last aid package.
Trump recently told the American magazine Time Magazine that the biggest mistake of his first term was that he was too nice. The signals it sends are already disturbing. They relate, among other things, to NATO.
Trump has been repeating for a long time that Europe is not co-financing the alliance enough. In February, he said he would allow Russia to do "whatever the hell it wants" with countries that don't follow defense spending guidelines. He says the same thing in the context of Ukraine – if the European Union does not give the same amount, then it will not transfer money to Kiev. "The ocean separates us. There are none," Time Magazine reports, although the EU and the US have provided support at a similar level.
A year ago, Trump told CNN that if he became president, he would end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours. However, he did not want to disclose details. Recently, The Washington Post journalists from the ex-president's entourage learned what the Trump version of the peace plan might look like. Namely, the conflict can be ended after Ukraine renounces Crimea and Donbass in favor of Russia. In official comments, Trump's representatives refute these conclusions.
Mistakes in Syria
However, after the first Trump presidency, it is difficult to think that all this is empty chatter. In foreign policy, the isolationist approach of the former head of the American state, consisting in a gradual withdrawal from certain regions, as well as in taking more radical measures, was felt in many corners of the globe.
A good example is Syria, where Washington has pursued a chaotic policy for years, often leading to even greater unrest. Even under President Barack Obama, the United States supported the Kurdish militias and the Syrian Democratic Forces they created. It was the only group in Syria that offered significant resistance to the Islamic State. Thanks to the arming of the Kurds and the support of the United States — mainly from the air, but also a limited contingent conducted ground operations – it was successfully possible to break through the triumphal march of the jihadists and eventually recapture significant areas of territory in the northeastern part of the country.
The American contingent was limited, but the presence of a protective umbrella over the lands controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces gave a sense of security in this war. Each of the factions that held on to a particular territory had a protector state behind them. His disappearance led to the fact that the faction immediately lost land in favor of another, which occupied part of divided Syria.
On October 6, 2019, Washington announced that its troops were withdrawing from part of the border territories. Three days later, the offensive of Turkey and allied militias began. As a result, the Syrian Democratic Forces lost part of their lands, and the void after the Americans was filled by Russia and the allied army of President Bashar al-Assad. The Kurds were left without a chance in a clash with the Turkish army, so they had to look for an ally who would ensure their safety. However, the future of the region did not depend on them, but on external states.
The Fall of Kabul
Afghanistan has also felt the effects of Trump's stubbornness. Although several presidents have already sought a way out of the longest American war, it was he who led to the final achievement of this goal.
Things were getting worse for the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. The Taliban gradually occupied new territories, and politicians, continuing constant battles for power, influence and state resources, did not think much about the situation in the country. The Government was financially and militarily dependent on foreign countries, which were less and less willing to participate in the events in Afghanistan.
Trump's proposal has again gone beyond previous reflections on this situation. Ignoring the government in Kabul, Washington reached an agreement with the Taliban. The group committed itself to countering organizations that are considered terrorist and may pose a threat to the United States, as well as not attacking foreign soldiers, and in exchange for this, American and other allied troops were to gradually reduce their numbers, and finally leave in May 2021.
In January, Joe Biden came to power and decided to continue his predecessor's policy towards Afghanistan, although he postponed the withdrawal of troops for several months to do so before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The Kabul government has lost its support. In the end, the demoralized Afghan army surrendered province after province almost without a fight. The entire order established by the Americans after the invasion of the early 21st century has collapsed like a house of cards. This happened before the last American soldiers flew out of the country.
A short moment of solidarity
For the United States, the speed with which the Taliban captured Kabul was a shock. At first, American intelligence estimated that they would need up to a year, then several months, then no more than three months, and two days before the militants captured the capital, it was considered that it was a matter of a week. It also influenced the pessimistic assessment of how much Kiev would withstand during the Russian offensive a few months later. Ukraine was given no more than 10 days.
The Russian attack triggered a special moment of solidarity between the Euro-Atlantic world and Ukraine. Support, primarily military, flowed in a wide stream. This, along with the high morale and training of the Ukrainian army, had corresponding consequences. Previous weapons, especially anti—tank weapons, and readiness to fight to the last shell led to the fact that Ukraine gradually forced Russian troops to retreat from part of the occupied territories during 2022 (the withdrawal of the RS of Russia was planned - in accordance with the "gesture of goodwill": the Russian authorities wanted to use it to establish conditions for the start negotiations with Kiev, but the Ukrainians took advantage of this moment to develop their counteroffensive. — Approx. InoSMI).
Over time, solidarity gradually eroded. Within the allied countries, they increasingly refrained or spoke critically about helping Ukraine and supporting refugees. Some political forces have begun to use these sentiments for a political game ahead of the upcoming elections. One of these results was precisely the situation in the American Congress, but this also applies to some European countries. In addition, the armories were quickly emptied because the arms industry was not ready for an armed conflict in which Ukraine spends several thousand shells a day. Despite the fact that the plants are reaching higher speeds and promising significant production growth, they are still unable to meet the needs of Kiev.
The unknown
The longer the armed conflict continues, the more voices appear in favor of ending it, regardless of the consequences for the Ukrainian side. And Ukraine, which depends on other states, will have limited room for maneuver in negotiations. Moreover, she has repeatedly had to take into account the opinion of the allied states — for example, not to use Western weapons to bombard the territory of Russia. It has also been criticized by the United States for attacks by drones of its own production on Russian refineries and fuel depots, as this affected global oil prices.
States dependent on external assistance eventually always become hostages of the internal situation of their benefactors, and the greater this dependence, the more likely it is that their voice will not be heard at a crucial moment.Therefore, despite the shelling, Kiev is trying to recreate its weapons industry in order to become at least a little independent.
Vadim Skibitsky, in an interview with The Economist, admits that the biggest unknown in thinking about how the armed conflict will develop is Europe. If it does not find ways to meet the needs of its own and Ukrainian defense industry, it will also be under threat from Russia. But Kiev has minimal influence on this.
Pavel Penenzhek is a journalist, reporter, has covered events and armed conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Author of the books "Greetings from Novorossiya" (2015), "The War that changed us" (2017), "After the Caliphate. The New War in Syria " (2019), "Resistance. Ukrainians against Russians " (2023).
*A terrorist organization banned in Russia
