Things Not Going Well for Ukraine

By Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax] Chronicle Herald

As we approach the second anniversary of the Ukraine war, things are not going well for that country.

The nation’s top military chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, has been dismissed amid reported tensions with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The acrimony had been building for months.

 “A reset, a new beginning is necessary” to revive the struggling war effort, Zelensky told the Italian media outlet Rai News Feb. 6. “I have something serious in mind, which is not about a single person but about the direction of the country’s leadership.”

Zelensky has the right to remove Zaluzhny. “But he needs to have a very good justification for that, a very good explanation which is understandable to Ukrainians,” remarked Oleksii Haran, research director at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation in Kyiv.

But it will be costly for the president. Two months ago, a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 62 per cent of Ukrainians trust Zelensky, down from 84 percent at the start of the war.

By contrast, the same poll found that trust in Zaluzhny was 88 per cent. The same poll found that 72 per cent of Ukrainians would view the firing of Zaluzhnyi negatively, with only two per cent seeing it positively.

At any rate, his departure is the most severe shakeup of Ukraine’s top military brass since the Russian invasion, as the country grapples with dire ammunition and personnel shortages following a failed summer counteroffensive. It also could hurt the morale of Ukrainian troops, who have been fighting grinding battles for nearly two years.

In January Ukraine’s security service uncovered corruption in an arms purchase by the military worth about $40 million. The SBU said defence officials signed a contract for 100,000 mortar shells in August 2022.

Payment was made in advance, with some funds transferred abroad, but no arms were ever provided. “Former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence and heads of affiliated companies are involved in the embezzlement,” it said.

Issues surrounding corruption have dogged Ukraine for years. President Zelensky cited the fight against corruption as one of his main priorities when he came to power in 2019.

The U.S. government has been pushing for overhauls to strengthen anti-corruption safeguards on the billions of dollars in financial and military aid Ukraine is receiving during the war. Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress are balking at repeated efforts by President Joe Biden to provide new funding of $60 billion and a restive Republican voter base is against sending new aid to Ukraine.

Even before the impasse in Washington, newly committed aid to Ukraine had dropped almost 90 per cent between August and October compared with the same period in 2022, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute.

Most men in Ukraine are banned from leaving the country under martial law that was declared after the Russian invasion two years ago. But many men who don’t want to fight in the war have taken risky journeys over the border into Moldova and other countries to avoid being called up to serve.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians liable for military service have crossed the border since the war began, perhaps more than the number of Ukrainian soldiers at the front. These refugees are not coming home any time soon.

Meanwhile, Russia’s military spending in 2024 will increase to 7.1 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and will account for 35 per cent of total government spending, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

There is something important we often forget: In their minds, remember, the Russians see themselves as fighting a defensive war against a NATO aggressor, and they will not give up, just as they didn’t against Napoleon and Hitler. 

A Feb. 5 article in Foreign Affairs by Mick Ryan points out that “Russia has significantly improved its ability to learn and adapt in Ukraine. Russia currently holds the strategic initiative.”

Today’s cheerleaders for war all sing the praises of Ukraine and dismiss any sort of peace as “capitulation.” On the other hand, the British journalist and commentator Peter Hitchens in an article published in the Mail on Sunday newspaper Jan. 27 described Ukraine as “a corrupt and ill-governed state.”

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between.