- While President Vladimir Putin framed the conflict in Ukraine as a civil war, the future support Volodymyr Zelenskyy desperately needs hangs in the balance. The West has serious choices to make, Sean Bell writes
By Sean Bell, Military Analyst, Sky News
The conflict in Ukraine is far from over but it’s little wonder Vladimir Putin is feeling emboldened.
Top of the agenda for this week’s two-day EU summit is discussions on Ukraine’s route to accession into the EU.
There are a number of key preconditions that Ukraine will have to satisfy before it can actually join the EU, but there appears a broad consensus that a strategy for Ukraine’s accession should be agreed.
However, Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban appears to be resisting any potential fast-track of Ukraine’s admission process, albeit this might simply be a political gambit linked to some EU funding for Hungary that has recently been frozen.
In addition, the EU is also looking to approve a €54bn (£46bn) financial aid budget to maintain the Ukrainian economy through 2024, and a separate military aid budget of €24bn (£20bn) to support Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia.
This has been a difficult week for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but today more than two-thirds of the US House of Representatives voted in favor of a defence policy bill governing a record $886bn (£694bn) in annual military spending and authorising policies such as aid for Ukraine.
Without ongoing western financial and military support, Ukraine would have struggled to maintain its war effort.
Meanwhile, Russia’s president has been hosting his first major international news conference since the start of the war with Ukraine.
President Putin used the platform to stress that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”, and sought to frame the conflict as a civil war.
Putin also claimed that Ukraine has “failed everywhere”, and a Russian soldier stated that “victory is close”.
Putin’s appearance undoubtedly reflects a growing confidence that the tide of the war is changing to his benefit.
Despite huge western military and financial support, Ukraine’s spring offensive has failed to live up to expectations.
Meanwhile, Russia’s military capability has been severely weakened by the conflict, so is no longer the threat to Europe that it was pre-war.
Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so the West has choices about the level of future support provided, and conflicting domestic priorities are clearly vexing western political leaders.
And, following the disappointment of Ukraine’s spring offensive, inevitably western leaders are asking whether this war is “winnable” for Ukraine, or whether a continuation of the fighting might result in greater Ukrainian casualties and therefore an increased risk that Russia might capitalise on Ukraine’s military fragility and look to expand its occupation.
Little wonder that Putin is feeling emboldened, albeit the conflict is far from over.