The war with Russia is now going very badly for Ukraine. But Ukrainians must feel like the world, and not just Russia, is treating them badly.
At the beginning of July, the Russian armed forces took full control of the Luhansk region for the first time. And, though it is too early to tell if they will hold it, there are now unconfirmed reports that the Ukrainian front line defending Pokrovsk has collapsed and that the Russian army has broken through, rapidly advancing 6-10 km and cutting Ukraine’s supply lines. There are now even unconfirmed reports that Russian forces have entered Pokrovsk, which, if true, is a severe strategic setback for Ukraine.
But Ukrainians must feel that it is not just Russia that is pummeling them. Ukrainians must feel as though the whole world has abandoned them.
In the first weeks of the war, before all the loss of life and land, Ukraine was prepared to sign a peace with Russia that would have satisfied its goals. The U.S. and its Western allies—particularly the UK and Poland—encouraged them off the diplomatic path and pushed them into war with Russia with the assurance that they would be provided with everything they need for as long as they need it.
Ukraine needs more, and they need it for longer, but the promise has been broken, and Ukraine is largely on its own. The U.S. will no longer provide Ukraine with military equipment unless European countries buy it for them. But several European countries have opted out of the deal, and even if all of Europe was all in, not enough weapons can be made available on time to save Ukraine.
Ukraine provided the bodies the U.S. asked for in its proxy war with Russia, but the U.S. broke its promise to arm them. Now the Donabas is nearly lost, the Ukrainian armed forces is in real danger of collapsing, and Ukraine looks to be on the verge of losing the war the U.S. pushed them into fighting.
And it is not just the U.S. that has abandoned Ukraine, it is the entire NATO community that pretended to court it. Ukraine was pushed to fight to defend its right to join NATO and NATO’s right to expand where it wanted. As the U.S. State Department explained it, “each and every country has a sovereign right to determine its own foreign policy, has a sovereign right to determine for itself with whom it will choose to associate in terms of its alliances, its partnerships, and what orientation it wishes to direct its gaze.”
Ukraine was seduced with promises of an “irreversible path for Ukraine into NATO.” But at the recently concluded NATO summit, the issue of Ukrainian membership in NATO was not even on the agenda. The Summit Declaration contained not one word about Ukraine joining NATO and not one promise of an irreversible bridge.
Russia was not going to end the war without written guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO. But Russia did seem prepared to give Ukraine an open road to European Union membership. And Europe had courted Ukraine with promises of fast tracking their accession. But, like the U.S. and NATO, the European Union seems to have abandoned Ukraine.
Richard Sakwa, Emeritus Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told me in a recent correspondence that “a growing number of member states are growing uncomfortable with the idea of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.”
Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, promised in a recent social media post to “do everything” to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU. But Ukraine’s long time EU ambassador, Olha Stefanishyna, recently revealed that there is more than one country–not just Hungary–that have concerns about Ukraine joining the EU. Public support in some other countries, including the Czech Republic, is low. And Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, campaigned against Ukraine accession to the EU.
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