The Ukraine war has reached another potential turning point, as Ukrainian forces try to consolidate their capture of Russia’s Kursk region while Russian troops advance towards Pokrovsk on the eastern front and continue air attacks on Ukraine. Facing into winter, the Ukrainian government is redoubling its calls for additional arms from European and US allies. Although both sides have floated ideas about diplomatic negotiations, there are few signs these will transpire until there are more decisive events on the battlefields.
Ukraine urgently needs to reinforce its international support if it is to rebalance the disadvantages of scale it faces against such a large antagonist. The war’s prolonged duration since Russia’s illegal invasion in February 2022 has reinforced that disadvantage, despite Ukraine’s resourceful and courageous self-defence. Political support from European states, the European Union and the United States remains firm, as does the flow of military aid; but both elements face definite limits from growing divisions about the duration and character of the war.
Governments in Hungary and Slovakia, for example, take a different view to the EU majority and wider support varies across the continent. Uncertainty about the outcome of the US election, with Donald Trump promising to settle the war rapidly if he wins, has speeded up decisions on military aid; but differences persist in other areas like using Russia’s frozen international assets or deploying Nato weapons within Russia. As Taoiseach Simon Harris said after his visit to Kyiv last week, the world cannot allow the war initiated by Russia and its attendant brutality to become normalised. The EU’s commitment to eventual Ukrainian membership will help to ensure that.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government reshuffle is intended to refresh its energy and determination, although critics say it is more cosmetic than substantive. He faces considerable domestic resistance to conscription and other measures to prosecute the war, alongside more public discussion about the feasibility of peace talks and possible territorial compromises, which reinforce his search for more international military aid. That political balance between Ukraine’s military success and its public resolve will be severely tested in the coming winter months.
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The stage is not yet set for negotiations to end the war because both sides want to secure more military advantages ahead of any talks. It makes growing sense nevertheless to explore and prepare for them alongside the continuing military confrontations. Ukraine has successfully resisted Russia’s imperial attack on its sovereignty and deserves continuing international support to defend itself. The political leeway it enjoys from allies on the timing and direction of the war may also, in time, be shown to have limits.