The priorities of the West
Zelensky’s European trip to replace cancelled Ramstein summit a failure – also in Berlin. More discontent in Ukraine. Even online newspaper Politico now criticises “unquestioning” Western media.
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.”
US campaigning has priority
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s trip to several Western European countries last week ended without the PR success he had hoped for. The cancellation of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Germany, which meant the cancellation of the Ramstein Summit, had already made the political priorities of the West quite clear. The summit was planned to demonstrate unwavering Western support for Ukraine, albeit mainly on a symbolic level. The extensive release by the West of weapons for longer distance attacks on Russian territory, as demanded by Kiev, was yet not planned, at least according to some analysts. However, even a PR opportunity in Ramstein must take a back seat in Western politics when domestic election campaigning demands the US President and his Vice President are seen to stay in their own country. As a face-saving exercise for an embarrassed Zelensky, the Ukrainian president was invited to receptions with the heads of state and government of the UK, France, Italy and Germany, as well as the Pope.[1] However, there were no new pledges of material support. Earlier promises were reaffirmed, with only London rumoured to be considering the dispatch of a few military trainers to western Ukraine.[2]
More and more desertions
The military situation in Ukraine that has been deteriorating noticeably. Following the fall of Vuhledar, Russian armed forces are continuing to advance in eastern Ukraine. According to Ukrainian media reports, they also attacked the Zaporizhia region again at the weekend. Moreover, important setbacks are being reported from the Russian region of Kursk after the Ukrainian incursion. The mood in Ukraine itself is clearly deteriorating, as german-foreign-policy.com has reported.[3] Even the high number of desertions has surged. In 2022, the Ukrainian judiciary charged some 9,000 men for refusing to do military service or fleeing the front, but in 2023 this figure had already risen to 24,000, and this year the number of cases has skyrocketed to around 51,000, long before the end of the year.[4] Not all deserters reject military service in principle. For some, the anger is directed at the lack of any limits on the time spent on duty at the front. Even if the problem of mass desertion were to improve, there are simply not enough potential recruits. Kiev is now considering a further lowering of the recruitment age.
The population is shrinking
Moreover, demographers are warning of dramatic consequences of the war.[5] Ukraine’s population, which was over 52 million at the beginning of the 1990s, has already shrunk, depending on which estimate is taken, to 35.8 million including the territories controlled by Russia and to 31 million excluding that region. Forecasts do not rule out the possibility of the country’s population falling to around 28 million by 2041, and just 25 million by 2051. The further reduction of the compulsory military age below 25 years would impact negatively on the generation that is demographically needed to father and raise children. It was with this in mind that the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army and current ambassador to the UK, Valery Salushnyi, warned at a conference on 3 October that if Ukraine was to survive “in twenty to thirty years” the younger generations would have to remain as intact as possible. “These people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five are the ones who will save our country,” Salushnyi was quoted as saying.[6] An alternative to drafting the very young is the push by Ukrainian and Western politicians to arrange for the forced recruitment of the many men of military service age who have fled abroad.
‘We will be hated’
Another source of discontent in Ukrainian society is the announcement of the biggest tax rise since the start of the war, as passed by the Ukrainian parliament last Thursday. Intended to cover some of the military costs, income tax will increase from 1.5 per cent to 5 per cent, and a tax on bank profits will be retroactively doubled to 50 per cent, while other financial institutions will face a rise from 18 to 25 per cent.[7] All in all, the tax measures should help to provide an additional 12 billion US dollars for the armed forces this year, according to Kiev sources. This is causing growing resentment across Ukrainian society. The population is already facing extreme hardship as a result of the war. And many Ukrainians assume that a significant proportion of any new funds will seep into corrupt channels. Even influential members of the Ukrainian ruling party admit that the tax rise is very “unpopular”. “They will hate us. But we have no other option,” explains Oleksiy Movchan, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from President Zelensky’s party, “It’s about our survival in this war.”[8]
Unquestioning
In view of the dramatic situation and growing speculation that the burden of the war in Ukraine will gradually become too heavy for the West – a problem exacerbated by an explosion of fighting in the Middle East and growing tensions with China - the Springer-owned online portal Politico recently published an insightful opinion piece touching on the role and function of the media in the Ukraine war. Politico recalls that, in the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003, the “American and British media” were “far too unquestioning of Western officials’ claims that Saddam Hussein … possessed a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.” Although very much pro-Western, the editor points to a problem of insufficient media scepticism: “alternative voices and embarrassing questions are all too often crowded out.”[9] The media, it concludes, is “now in danger of repeating this very same mistake, as we very quickly dub those who question Western strategy as defeatists or accuse them of advancing Russian propaganda.”
Being blinded?
Obviously with a view to the increasing considerations in Western government circles of the advisability of delaying too long before moving to ceasefire negotiations as the Russians make steady advances, the Politico writer wonders if all this media coverage “is blinding us”.[10] The necessary scepticism is lacking when it comes to questions such as whether it is really realistic for Kiev to regain all the lost territories. And should there be more questioning of the widely published view that the Ukraine war is “the first stage of a broader Russian master plan launch a land attack on NATO”. “There are certainly credible and cogent arguments to the contrary,” Politico concedes. One argument is that, no matter whether Russia loses or wins now, it will most likely emerge weakened from the Ukraine war and NATO will be far superior militarily. “The problem is, we’re not hearing these counter-arguments enough in mainstream Western publications,” writes the Springer-owned online portal, which was itself free at any time to disagree with the official line of Western governments over recent years. The fact that such an organ is hinting at a change of course now that these very governments are beginning to speculate about ending the war speaks volumes.
[1] Eckart Lohse, Matthias Wyssuwa: Ein Bild des Krieges. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 12.10.2024.
[2] Larisa Brown: UK could send troops to Ukraine on training mission. thetimes.co.uk 10.10.2024.
[3] See: Mittel zum Zweck.
[4], [5], [6] Zelenski ultima la creación de un Ministerio de la Unidad para salvar a Ucrania del desastre demográfico. elpais.com 10.10.2024.
[7], [8] Constant Méheut: Ukraine’s Parliament Approves Biggest Tax Increase of War to Support the Army. nytimes.com 10.10.2024.
[9], [10] Jamie Dettmer: Are we asking enough hard questions about Ukraine? politico.eu 20.09.2024.
