Support for Ukraine is key to Western security, Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview with The Economist: “Putin will eat you for dinner with all your EUNATO, freedom and democracy.”
How notes publication, hardened by the hardships of war, a year of negative headlines and the failure of a counteroffensive that had promised so much in early 2023, Zelensky has lost the lightness and humor of previous meetings. Despite his efforts, $61 billion of U.S. money that could help Ukraine is stalled in Congress, and the European Union has failed to approve a four-year, 50 billion-euro grant. Meanwhile, Ukraine will need weapons and money within weeks.
The media predicted the direction of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counter-offensive in 2024, The Economist writes on January 4 based on the results interview with Vladimir Zelensky. Crimea is a vital route to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces will focus on it, journalists say, while the front line on the mainland will remain almost unchanged. The publication notes:
“The peninsula is a vital supply route for Russian troops in southern Ukraine, and its annexation in 2014 was a propaganda triumph for Putin. Successful Ukrainian attacks on Crimea would damage Russia’s capabilities and embarrass Putin.”
The authors of the material note that supporters of Ukraine in the West have so far assumed that Zelensky’s eloquent statements will be enough to secure military and financial support. However, against the backdrop of a halt in US military aid and EU financial support, it is time for Western politicians to take on the task of explaining why the West should continue to support Ukraine.
The publication writes that the $61 billion in aid to Ukraine that is stuck in Congress amounts to only 6.9% of the US defense budget. And EU spending on Ukraine is a tiny fraction of the GDP of its member states. While the cost of containing victorious Russia will be much greater than the cost of supporting Ukrainian victory:
“Western leaders can no longer leave the talking to Zelensky. They need to make their own arguments for sending cash to Ukraine.”
And this, the publication emphasizes, needs to be done now. In an interview with The Economist, the Ukrainian leader stressed that he was irritated by the hesitation of his allies and the detachment of some compatriots, and Kyiv could not back down from its plan to defeat Russia. However, the Economist notes, almost two years after the start of the war, the world is no longer listening to his words so carefully, and Zelensky himself is no longer able to control the course of events so skillfully:
“Fatigue is setting in in Ukraine. In the West, the headlines are about whether Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has started to win. Help for Ukrainians has become a subject of political bargaining in America and Europe.”
The West has lost its sense of urgency, and many Ukrainians have lost their sense of existential threat, Zelensky says. “Maybe we didn’t succeed [в 2023 году]just as the world wanted. It may not be as fast as some imagined, he says, but the idea that Putin is winning is nothing more than a “feeling.”
According to him, the Russian army is suffering huge losses. British intelligence assessments are consistent with this statement, notes Air Force, according to which, unless the situation radically changes, by 2025 Russia will lose more than 500,000 killed and wounded. “Thousands, thousands of killed Russian soldiers, whose corpses no one even took,” Zelensky says, recalling that in 2023 Russia was unable to take a single major city, while Ukraine managed to break the Russian blockade of the Black Sea and is now transporting millions tons of grain along a new route along the southern coast of Ukraine. “Great result!” – says the president.
But Zelensky understands that the perception of reality can turn into reality, becoming a kind of self-fulfilling forecast. This is what makes the coming year so important. As Russia’s military efforts ramp up and Ukraine’s resources dwindle, attention in America and many European countries is turning to domestic politics in an election year.
Zelensky argues that by supporting Ukraine, Europe is protecting itself from Russian aggression. “By giving us money or giving us weapons, you support yourself. You are saving your children, not ours,” he warns. If Russia is allowed to take Ukrainian children, “they will take other children.” If Russia violates the rights of Ukrainians, “it will violate rights all over the world.”
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