War fatigue, domestic politics, diplomatic gaffes: US, Europe tiring of supporting Ukraine against Russia?

Recent events in the US and Europe, both West and the East, added to surveys conducted among the populace of these regions don’t augur well for Ukraine. The mix of omens for Ukraine becomes darker when the internal political compulsions of these countries is considered. Ukraine itself has not helped matters, childishly attacking the likes of Poland on open forums, such as the United Nations General Assembly.

Opinion polls unfavourable for Ukraine

Surveys among Americans and major countries of western Europe have thrown up findings that indicate that people no more support measures to help Ukraine, especially military and monetary aid to help Ukraine fight Russia with the same enthusiasm that was seen earlier. These surveys were carried out by Bruegel. They evidence that people in countries such as Poland, Italy, Germany, France and Spain are slowly but certainly growing weary of financial aid to Ukraine.

Europe’s bills have grown on a number of counts, primary being the energy prices, directly attributable to the Ukraine-Russia war, which have added to the economic morass that global slowdown has slapped. The cost-of-living crisis is not over yet.

Domestic politics: ‘let’s take care of ourselves, first’

This leads to the next problematic point for Ukraine. The direct fallout of this crisis is an anti-Ukraine rhetoric that Opposition parties in these countries have amped up — ‘let’s take care of ourselves, first’. The narrative has started resonating with people as several significant European players and the US are heading for general polls to decide their next national leadership.

In the latest example of how internal political compulsions can wreck hitherto dominant policy stance on Ukraine is the US shutdown deal that has left Kyiv hanging out to dry. While President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was recently in Washington to drum up support for more aid, the compromise deal has dropped new funding for Ukraine amid solid opposition from hardline Republicans. Despite vehement exhortations from President Joe Biden, the wider message that has gone out to the larger world: not just Republicans, even Democrats can leave Kyiv in the cold owing to compulsions of domestic politics in the run up to the 2024 presidential elections.

“I want to assure our American allies, the American people and the people in Ukraine that you can count on our support. We will not walk away,” Biden tried to assuage Ukraine in an address from the White House.

Ukraine downplayed this. Simply, since, it cannot attempt to deal with the US with the same callousness as with Poland and Slovakia. Moreover, Ukraine has seen its aggressive, rather than sensitive, handling of these two countries has cost it dearly. Sentiments don’t rule diplomacy. Gaffes, more so public ones, in international diplomacy never bear desirable outcomes.

Diplomatic mess with Poland, Slovakia

Zelenskyy, speaking at the UNGA, angrily said aid from some of its allies as sheer tokenism; that they were not wholeheartedly with Kyiv’s war effort. This did not go down well with Poland and Slovakia.

Actually, all parties here played into Russia’s hands. Russia pulled out to the Black Sea Grain Deal and that created a lot of tension in Europe, especially eastern. The withdrawal meant that Ukrainian grain had to travel via land across Eastern Europe. This pulled the prices of grains in these countries down as a lot of Ukrainian grain landed in their domestic markets at cheaper rates.

As a concession, the European Commission, granted some protection to these countries by allowing them to cease import of grains such as wheat and corn. Effectively, Ukrainian grains could transit through Eastern Europe, but could not be sold or stored here.

This restriction, though was lifted in September, but several countries, including Poland, decided to stick to them. This angered Kyiv, which went on to lodge law suits against these countries with the World Trade Organisation.

It was in this backdrop that Zelenskyy lost it in the UNGA. Consequently, Poland first gave a dressing down to Ukraine’s ambassador in Warsaw, and went on to stop military assistance to Ukraine. Poland’s PM said he wanted to shore up his own country’s defences.

On the other hand, Slovakia’s populist party headed by ex-PM Roberto Fico that wanted to stop military aid Ukraine has won the elections and come to power.

Putin and Trump are bad news for Kyiv

Analysts, therefore, believe that the West might to tiring of supporting Ukraine and bear the humungous cost it puts on it. This, they believe, is also Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan—the long game, wherein he protracts the war longer and longer, with no end in sight. This would exhaust West’s patience and fray military and monetary assistance to Ukraine.

The Trump factor has further rounded this problem off to a seemingly bad end for Ukraine. Trump, everyone knows, is no fan of funding the war. His comeback is now being seen, domestically as well as in Europe, as a possible outcome of the US presidential polls, and this is generating bad vibes globally against Kyiv.

The author is News Editor, Firstpost. He tweets from @SiddharthaRai2. Views expressed are personal.