The Irish Times view on the war in Ukraine: preparing for a prolonged conflict

It was easy to mock this week’s summit between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, respective leaders of Russia and North Korea and pariahs both. The former is unwilling to risk a visit to any country that might arrest him on a warrant from the International Criminal Court, the latter is not keen to venture abroad except very slowly by armoured train.

The two men toured a space launch centre, enjoyed a lavish lunch, and Kim promised Putin full support in his “sacred fight” against the West and its “imperialism”. Then they gave each other guns as gifts and Kim received a cosmonaut’s glove as a souvenir, before trundling off through the taiga forest to tour various military facilities.

US state department spokesman Matthew Miller said the sight of Putin “scrounging around” for North Korean arms, possibly in exchange for satellite and missile technology that could be subject to United Nations sanctions, exposed Russia’s struggles in Ukraine.

“Vladimir Putin launched this war thinking he was going to restore the glory of the Russian empire… and now a year and a half later, after losing tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and spending billions and billions of dollars, here he is begging Kim Jong-un for help,” Miller said.

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Ukraine misses no opportunity to laugh at Putin and the hubris that made his regime expect its invasion to be a walkover.

But Kyiv also knows that in a grinding war of attrition along a 1,200km frontline, anything that replenishes Russia’s arsenal is bad news, especially as western states continue to drag their heels over deliveries of vital weapons and ammunition.

“Moscow’s need to beg for help from North Korea is certainly a reason for jokes,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“Nevertheless, here and now, shells are shells. And Ukraine is taking the actions of Moscow and Pyongyang very seriously,” he added, saying the West should respond not with rhetoric but results of the ‘shells coalition’.”

The “shells coalition” is struggling to deliver, however. In March, EU states pledged to provide one million artillery shells to Ukraine within a year; they have so far supplied only about 224,000 ammunition rounds and 2,300 missiles – less that a quarter of their target.

Meanwhile, Russia has increased missile production and is able to make two million artillery shells a year, according to western officials cited by the New York Times. Russia is gearing up for a long war and Ukrainians are willing to fight it, but the West seems unable to grasp this reality and act accordingly. As Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba lamented this week about Germany’s months-long dither over provision of long-range Taurus missiles: “I don’t understand why we are wasting time”.