KIEV/BERLIN (own report) - Ten days before the inauguration of future US President Donald Trump, the debate about scenarios for ending the war in Ukraine is hotting up. The Biden administration and the majority of European governments have been seeking to drag the war out, not least by supplying ever new weapons and funding Kiev. Trump, who once declared his intention to end the war straight away is now talking about needing up to six months. Meanwhile, popular support for the war is clearly on the decline, both in Ukraine itself and in Western Europe. Surveys show that there are majorities in a number of countries in favour of moving quickly to negotiations. With regard to the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, politicians are increasingly demanding the complete expropriation of Russian central bank assets parked in Europe. Following the West’s anti-Bejing narrative, German politicians are also categorically against accepting Chinese assistance in rebuilding the ravaged economy. Beijing should “definitely not play any role in the reconstruction of Ukraine,” demands Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), Chairwoman of the Defence Committee in the European Parliament. Meanwhile, some observers expect to see elements in an exhausted post-war Ukraine develop a “hatred” towards the West as they realise NATO countries have not kept their promises to Kiev. Read more

BERLIN/PARIS/KIEV (own report) - Talks began yesterday, Wednesday, in Brussels on shifting Ukraine support away from the United States to the countries of Europe. The background to this scenario is US President-elect Donald Trump’s call for a swift end to the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. Trump says the burden of the war and its consequences should be borne primarily by Europe. One proposal is for the European states to provide a military force of some 40,000 soldiers for deployment in a future demilitarised zone. The buffer zone would be along the demarcation line between Ukrainian and Russian-occupied territories once a ceasefire has been concluded. The plan was discussed yesterday, 18 December, by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in talks with various politicians, including above all French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron has been advancing similar ideas for some time. Talks will continue this Thursday. Meanwhile, the Russian armed forces are advancing faster than at any time since the end of February 2022, while Ukrainian military personnel are deserting in ever greater numbers. Some estimates put the figure at more than 200,000 soldiers so far. Read more

BERLIN/KIEV (own report) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned from his trip around Western Europe, including Berlin, at the weekend without the hoped for PR success and without any real new pledges of support. Zelensky had already been duped by the American cancellation at short notice of the planned Ramstein summit. That was to be his major opportunity to promote his so-called “victory plan”. On his visits to London, Paris, Rome and Berlin Zelensky largely heard Western leaders only repeating long-standing promises. Ukraine not only finds itself increasingly on the defensive militarily, losing more and more territory; Zelensky’s government is also coming under growing pressure at home. There has been a significant rise in army desertion numbers. A sharp tax hike, which Ukrainian politicians admit is likely to be highly unpopular, has become unavoidable to help finance the war. “We will be hated,” is the prediction from President Zelensky’s party. Meanwhile, the Springer-owned online portal Politico advises in an opinion piece that a discussion of alternatives to war is long overdue. The media must face the question of the excessive burden of funding Ukraine’s war economy. Have the media, fallen into an “information trap”, “blinding us, leading us to overlook the scepticism needed when considering whether this war is winnable.” Read more

BERLIN/KIEV (own report) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Germany today, Friday, for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Ukrainian leader claims to have drawn up a plan for a ‘victory for Ukraine’ over Russia. Zelensky has sharply criticised Berlin’s announcement that it will not be providing any further billions in funding beyond the pledges already made to his country. He is likely to urge Scholz to step back from the decision. He also plans to lobby US President Joe Biden for new funds soon. Zelensky is now advancing the idea of a plan for Ukrainian victory. Developments on the ground, however, do not look good for Kiev. The Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region is failing, and the Russian capture of Pokrovsk appears imminent. The city is a logistical hub. Its loss would bring the Ukrainian armed forces much closer to defeat. At the same time, Russia is destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, so the country may be facing another mass exodus. This would deprive the economy of urgently needed workers but also cause growing discontent in EU countries as the war has negative impacts on their populations. Moscow is again saying it is willing to negotiate. Read more

BERLIN/WARSAW/KIEV (own report) – Germany’s close allies are blocking the investigation into the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. It has even been designated a “legitimate target”. If the attack was carried out with the clear intention of preventing the sale of Russian natural gas to Western Europe, then it was completely justified, stated Czech President Petr Pavel last week. Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, had previously said that anyone who had ever favoured the construction of one of the two Nord Stream pipelines should now “apologise and ... keep quiet”. Indeed, Poland has been undermining the investigations by German authorities for some time. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) now attributes the attack to a group of private individuals, including several Ukrainians. Yet verification remains far off. According to media reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and possibly also Polish officials were aware of the attack plans. Yet experts still have serious doubts as to plausibility of the official German theory. Despite strong arguments in favour of a state perpetrator, most likely the United States, Germany will not conduct its investigations in this direction. Read more

BERLIN/KIEV (own report) - Following Berlin’s announcement that it would have to limit funding for Ukraine, Kiev is demanding direct access to Russian state assets frozen in the West. The German government recently decided against making any new spending commitments in support of Ukraine beyond the budget funds already earmarked for Kiev. The Western powers want to provide additional finance by syphoning off the interest accrued on the frozen assets of the Russian central bank kept in Europe. The Kiev government says this won’t be enough. It insists on seizing the assets themselves. The problem, however, is that such a move would set a dangerous precedent. Enabling the theft of foreign state property would have global consequences. The assets of Western countries held abroad would be at risk. The underlying problem driving this situation is that, despite enormous financial transfers, Ukraine remains effectively bankrupt. Hopes of a ceasefire and reconstruction were recently raised by statements from President Volodymyr Zelensky and the dispatch of his Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, to China. But they have since been dashed following Ukraine’s attack on Russian territory in the Kursk region. The attack has made talks impossible, diplomats are quoted as saying. Read more

BERLIN/BERN/KIEV (own report) - The Ukraine conference in Switzerland, announced with great fanfare in the West, turned out an abject failure on key points. A huge effort was expended on staging the event. More than 160 invitations were made but, despite diplomatic pressure, only 92 countries and eight international organisations managed to attend. The European Union alone appeared in three different guises (Commission, Council and Parliament) along with all the member states. The final declaration was signed by only 78 states. The heavyweights of the Global South – such as India, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia – refused to participate. The outcome falls well short of the conference goals pursued by Western governments. The so-called “peace summit” was designed to create an overwhelming majority in favour of Kiev’s demands, thus applying mounting diplomatic pressure on Moscow and placing Ukraine, politically, in a “position of strength” for any future peace talks. Last year, the West tried to achieve its goals on the battlefield through military aid, but the Ukrainian military offensive failed. Read more

BERLIN/KIEV (own report) – As Russia’s current offensive gains momentum in Ukraine, politicians in Berlin are debating the merits of deploying European soldiers on Ukrainian territory. Last week, Lithuania announced that it was ready to send military trainers to the war zone without delay and was only waiting for a request from Kiev. Estonia has said that it is prepared to demonstrate military presence of its own on Ukrainian territory as part of a hoped-for “coalition of the willing”. Its focus would be on air defence capabilities. In Germany, the direct deployment of German troops is, with the exception of a few hardliners in Berlin, not publicly advocated. This is partly due to the important state elections upcoming next autumn. However, politicians from the CDU, FDP and Greens are backing intervention proposals that envisage the stationing of air defence systems on Polish and Romanian territory that can shoot down Russian offensive weapons over Ukraine. Warnings that this step would be tantamount to entering the war are being played down. At the same time, discussions are taking place on post-ceasefire scenarios, which might see the deployment of EU or NATO troops in Ukraine. Read more

BERLIN/KIEV (own report) – Ahead of the meeting of G7 foreign ministers, beginning today on the island of Capri, there are frank warnings of a Ukrainian defeat on the battlefield. Alarm is being voiced both in Ukraine and in Western capitals. Kiev is “at great risk” of losing the war in the course of this year, declared a high-ranking British military officer at the weekend. Senior Ukrainian officers had previously warned that the Russian armed forces could soon be able to smash open sections of the front. A Russian advance into large parts of eastern and even central Ukraine is no longer ruled out. Experts criticise the way Western accounts have “talked up the situation in Ukraine from the outset”. The Ukrainian officers complain in particular that the impact of new Western weaponry is frequently overestimated – often based on a traditional bullishness and self-certainty. It is now clear, for example, that the Russian military has learnt how to eliminate Storm Shadow or SCALP cruise missiles, targeting them with a high hit rate. The G7 foreign ministers are now looking at options for preventing a collapse of the Ukrainian front. Foreign Minister Baerbock is proposing a worldwide “mapping of all Patriot systems” to secure faster supplies from third countries. Read more

BERLIN/KIEV (own report) – The first, almost successful, negotiations to end the Ukraine war began two years ago yesterday, on 28 February 2022. We have been reminded of this by a recently published study by a military expert: retired Bundeswehr Colonel Wolfgang Richter, a former military adviser to the German missions to the UN and the OSCE. Those talks opened a path to compromise in late March 2022. The deal would have centred on neutrality and EU accession for Ukraine, and Russian troop withdrawal. The talks brought an early peace “within reach”, argues Richter, who now works for the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). The main reason for their failure, apart from the “resistance” from Ukrainian nationalists, was the “massive influence exerted by representatives of Western governments”, who vigorously urged Kiev to continue the war. Moreover, the New York Times has reported on a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin for a freeze on frontline movements and a ceasefire as early as autumn 2022, and then again in September 2023. Kiev and the West have consistently rejected these offers. They insist on seeking to achieve victory at all costs. It is from this stance that Europe is now discussing the deployment of boots on the ground. Read more