Ukraine fears Western support will fade as media attention dwindles
Ukraine’s war with Russia is heading towards its fifth month amid increasing local concern that dwindling media attention could lead to a gradual loss of western support just as Moscow is making slow but steady gains on the frontline.
The anxiety reflects a growing normalisation of the conflict in which large parts of the country feel distant from the war in eastern Donbas – as it becomes clear that casualties are mounting and economic costs soaring. “It’s a very real threat, that people get tired psychologically,” said Lesia Vasylenko, an opposition MP with the liberal Holos party.
International media coverage has dropped markedly in the past two months, she added, and “as that number goes down further, there’s a very high risk of the support from the west going down”.
Ukraine has become increasingly dependent on western help as the war has continued, both in terms of weaponry and humanitarian support, and will need international aid money to help rebuild towns and cities destroyed by the Russians in the early phase of fighting. Its treasury is bare.
Russia, meanwhile, appears close to taking the shattered Donbas city of Sievierodonetsk, after a failed counterattack by Ukraine’s forces.
After weeks of silence about casualties, key Ukrainian presidential advisers have admitted in the past week that as many as 150 are being killed in fighting every day and 800 wounded.
Weapons supply remains top of the list of Ukraine’s demands. This week Kyiv admitted it had all but run out of Soviet-standard stocks. There is frustration with the pace of supply, and criticism of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government for not devolving operational decision making further down the chain.
Two military commanders, who asked not to be named, told the Observer that for all the president’s international achievements, not enough had been done to tackle the military’s post-communist bureaucracy, and that supplies of some key equipment, such as encrypted battlefield radio, were short.
Complaints include a lack of practical unit-level information-sharing with the west or points of contact to help with weapons training. There is also an absence of ways to find out what equipment might be available, and a need for practical help with the logistics transfer from munitions hubs in south-east Poland. [Continue reading…]