Season 2 Episode 5

Speakers: Jakub Parusinski & Justyna Gotkowska

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Jakub: Hello and welcome back to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World, a podcast from Message Heard and the Kyiv Independent. I'm Jakub Parusinski. Each week we're going to be analysing the undercurrents of the war in Ukraine, bringing you analysis from across the globe to explain its context and consequences as the war continues.

This week, we're turning our gaze from east to west to look at the evolving nature of Western support for Ukraine, from the U.S. to Germany and beyond.

Ukraine's ability to resist Russia has been unexpected and awesome to watch, and it relies a lot on the bravery of Ukrainian soldiers. But beyond that, western support has been absolutely critical to Ukraine's war effort.

Over the course of the war, we've seen an evolution in the types of weapons that Ukraine is asking for. A year ago, it was long range missiles called HIMARS. Now it's F-16s, American fighter jets.

We constantly come back to this idea of a Wunderwaffe, a wonder weapon that through its superiority can settle the outcome of the war. That idea is even present in the article that General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the head of Ukraine's Armed Forces, wrote for the Economist. He talked about technological progress as the way to overcome a stalemate and potential defeat.

But what was once a relatively unanimous support coming from the West is becoming more fractured. You have especially far right voices clamouring for lower levels of support for Ukraine or outright halting it.

And the voices that are asking for a peace deal with Russia are getting louder, whether real or imagined. In Ukraine, there is a growing fear that Western partners will put pressure on the country to settle with Russia to do a peace deal that will not actually provide security and stability, but will only allow Russia to re-equip, re-arm and attack again.

To discover more about these issues, we invited Justyna Gotkowska onto the show. Justyna is the Deputy Director at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Poland, known as OSW and Head of the Security and Defence Department.

It's those last two subjects that she focuses on, primarily looking at central and Eastern Europe, as well as Germany and the Baltic states.

Her work at OSW since the start of the full-scale invasion has been really fascinating and insightful. So, we were thrilled to have her on to learn some more about just how important Western support for Ukraine is and how it's been changing over the past two years.

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Justyna, welcome to Power Lines.

Justyna: Thank you for the invitation.

Jakub: Today we're talking about the evolving nature of Western support for Ukraine, and your work at OSW focuses on European and NATO security policy, especially on Europe’s eastern flank. So, has the prospect of a Russian invasion always been a threat, or is that something that appeared since 2014?

Justyna: I think that Russia has been perceived as a threat for Poland since 2014, and the annexation of Crimea, invasion in Donbas. And already then Poland started to seriously think through its security and defence policy.

Raise the budget, modernise the armed forces. But definitely 24th of February 2022 has been a last wake up call for the political elites, and especially for the society that the war can be very close to Poland and can also influence Poland directly.

And Russia can stage an aggression against a NATO Eastern flank country, if not in a couple of months, then in a couple of years. So, the fear at the start of the Russian invasion against Ukraine 2022 was real.

Then I think the situation calmed down with the Russian being not successful against Ukraine on the front.

But I think with the current situation, people start to worry that if the front will be freezed or if the Russia may be successful in Ukraine, militarily or politically sooner or later Russia, depending on the international environment, Russia may also start some aggressive operations against NATO countries on the Eastern flank.

Jakub: I think Russia has shown that it is an aggressive actor. It's a actor that does not respect the rules-based order, let's say, what other states would consider typical red lines. That's something that it wouldn't stop Russia decision making.

And as you mentioned, if it manages to “swallow” or deal with Ukraine, then it will look further west. Let's come back to that in a second. But one thing that the European states, especially the states on the Eastern flank, have done as part of their defence policy, is provide a lot of support to Ukraine to make sure that Ukraine is where Russia is stopped. How significant has the support been?

Justyna: Well, I think that if we consider the current situation, Ukraine is to a very large extent dependent on Western support of ammunition, spare parts, military equipment, and other types of weapons. And without Western support, we are risking that Russia may break the frontline in Ukraine.

So, Western support for Ukraine is crucial for Ukraine not only to win this war, if so decided by the decision makers in Washington and Berlin, but maintain the frontline.

From Kyiv's perspective, Ukraine really depends on, on the decisions and political situation in Washington and Berlin and Germany, France, and especially Western Europe since the Eastern flank countries have given so much weapons away to Ukraine during the first year of war that it will be difficult for them.

And it is difficult for them now to provide Ukraine with more meaningful amounts of military equipment for its offensive operations. Of course, there are still deliveries of spare parts, ammunition, and some military equipment from the Eastern flank countries.

But this is in comparable with the situation in the first year of war where when the deliveries from Poland, from Czech Republic, Slovakia, Baltic states really helped Ukraine to survive and to fight back.

Jakub: I think it's worth underscoring for our audience just how drastic those decisions by Eastern European governments were, especially in the early months of the war. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it felt like a lot of the countries on the Eastern flank essentially emptied their stockpiles in a matter of months or certainly within the first year.

I mean, we have stories of sort of Poland leaving airplanes in the forest on the border with Ukraine without officially sort of moving them across. I think that's an important thing for our audience to realise.

A lot of the support has sort of come into falling into one or of two categories. There is what seems like the more mundane, more high in terms of scale, kind of basic equipment, artillery shells, armoured vehicles, the things that are a little bit less glitzy and glamorous that don't necessarily grab the headlines.

And then we have lots of different high-tech weaponry and that weaponry has evolved during the course of the war. Initially it was HIMARS, Abrams tanks, leopards, now ATACMS. F-16s.

What's sort of been more important, or how have these two played out? If you agree with this kind of dichotomy at all? Because it feels like there's two different things happening here. The Wunderwaffe and then the thing that Ukraine actually needs on a daily basis.

Justyna: Well, I think that Ukraine needs different kinds of equipment and weapons, so you cannot really say that one is more important than the other. So, with regard to the land forces, here I think the effort and the deliveries coming from the Eastern flank were crucial, especially in the first year of war, as I said.

Because they allowed Ukraine to refill the equipment that was lost to strengthen the capabilities, especially with regard to armoured heavy capabilities. Poland delivered Ukraine more than 350 tanks, that's a lot, more than 200 armoured personal carriers, more than 70 modern howitzers.

So, this equipment in the first months of war came, especially from the Eastern flank countries, former Warsaw Pact members who still had in stocks equipment that Ukraine and this other version used.

And this was very helpful because Ukrainian soldiers were quick to adapt them, not to operate this equipment and didn't need that much time for training.

We see this right now with the western heavy land equipment that we need to train Ukrainian soldiers on using this equipment in Europe. And simply delivering the equipment to the Ukrainians is not sufficient.

But not only land equipment matters, defence matters, and we see Germany concentrating, especially on them, defence systems providing Ukraine with modern weapons.

So, we have also the discussion right now about delivering Ukraine airplanes, fighter jets like F-16s that will take time. We have discussion about delivering the long-range missiles and these weapons are equally crucial because they allow to strike the backyard of the frontline and Russian occupied territories or in Russia and are crucial for Ukraine to diminish the ability of Russian forces to strike against Ukrainian military.

Jakub: How would you characterise the current state of the war? We've had the word stalemate thrown around a lot. I think maybe a bit incorrectly because the fighting is ongoing and it's quite intense, but certainly, we have Zaluzhnyi talking about positional war. The frontline is not moving.

What is the current situation in your view, and what's the kind of western support that is needed at this moment? 

Justyna: Yes. We have a kind of positional war. We have allowed Russia to fortify its positions we have delivered too late and too little for Ukraine to be able to regain more of its territory last year.

And I think these are the consequences of, in part, the failed western strategy, which was based on fear of escalation and use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine.

So, the deliveries, Western deliveries of military equipment for Ukraine came a bit late for Ukraine to use them on the battlefield, and therefore allowed Russia to gain time to fortify the positions, which makes right now very difficult as we see for Ukraine to break the front.

But at the same time, I would not call it a frozen front, no. And a stalemate, because all depends on us, on the West and on the quality and quantity of ammunition and military equipment we will be able to provide Ukraine in the coming weeks and months because I do believe that Ukrainians at this time are still able to make progress and conduct successful operations.

So, the combination of ammunition delivery, new types of equipment, equipment to deal with the minefields that have been set up by Russia is needed. And this is a concerted effort, combined effort of different kinds of equipment that Ukraine needs now at this moment and will need in the coming months.

And I think this is right now put under question due to political developments in the West.

Jakub: So, I was about to ask you last time we had this period of preparing for the counter offensive. It was also a question of delivering various arms from the West of preparing soldiers, preparing plans.

Now again, we have this situation where it's a different combination of weapons and probably the plans are better, and you can see that people recognize the importance of training and so forth.

But if political will failed there, how are we doing now and what is sort of the big roadblock?

Justyna: The big roadblock is the political situation, especially in the U.S. and the difficulties to push through the Congress, the next financial package that will finance or shall finance the military support for Ukraine, financial support, and humanitarian support for Ukraine.

This is over a hundred billion U.S. dollars’ worth package combined with support also to Israel and to securing the U.S. south and border. And due to the situation in the House of Representatives, there are problems to adopt it in the Congress.

And the situation is politically difficult, and I think people in Washington right now don't really know how this story will end when and if and in what amount this financial package for Ukraine will be adopted.

So, there is no guarantee whether Ukraine can count and in what timeframe further military support from the U.S. and now the work is ongoing on resolving the situation in the Congress and adopting the financial package and making the support for Ukraine being granted for the coming months until the next U.S. presidential elections.

And apart from the situation in the U.S. we have a difficult situation in Europe, as I was talking about, the Eastern flank and limited possibilities for military deliveries for Ukraine, but also Western Europe, in my opinion, has not treated this war and Russian aggression seriously enough.

The arms industry production has not been sufficiently and quickly enough. We have problems with arms production that is too slow in Europe to make up for the possibly delayed or decreased U.S. deliveries. So, I think that we are facing very difficult weeks and months to come due to political problems in the West.

Jakub: Let's sort of get back to Europe in a second, but just sort of staying on the U.S., can you give us a bit of a sense of a timeframe? America famously gets wobbly when it comes to political decision making towards the end of the year. Frequently there are budget crises, there's a lot of other deal making that happens that gets in the way of sort of making clear and quick and efficient decisions.

What happens if we say have several months rather than several weeks of delay on this process?

Justyna: Well, since Ukraine depends on military deliveries from the West, and the U.S. provides the biggest bulk of these deliveries both with regard to ammunition and other equipment. And Europe will not be fully able to produce and deliver more equipment, more ammunition for Ukraine instead of the U.S. Ukraine might face a very difficult situation on the frontline.

Russian forces may break the frontline and Russian offensive might prefer to be successful. And we might face the situation with Russian forces advancing simply. And I hope the situation will not materialise.

I hope that the U.S. Congress will resolve the situation, but I'm not sure about the timeframe, and I'm not sure about the scope of the financial support that will be granted for Ukraine.

And Europe will face a challenge and situation to find a solution to the situation. Otherwise, we'll have a very fluid situation on the front with Ukrainian forces having difficulties with maintaining the frontline as it is now.

Jakub: There's a thing that I wanted to get back to that you mentioned, which is that the support package was raised initially in convergence with the package of support for Israel.

Now we're already quite some time over a month into the Israeli Gaza war. And perhaps I'm mistaken, but it does not seem like U.S. aid to Israel is something that would move the needle. I understand that they want it, and they need it, but the U.S. aid is not an existential issue for Israel right now. Or perhaps you see this differently. To what extent is this a threat for Ukraine?

Justyna: Well, I think this is not existential for Israel, but this is very political for the U.S. and as I understand the politics in Washington, this is an additional argument for the Republicans that might be questioning the help for Ukraine to adopt the package.

And therefore, the White House does not want to split it, would like to adopt a whole package, meaning financial help, support for Ukraine together with support for Israel and support for securing the southern border because it fears that it might be very difficult to push through the Congress and especially through the House of Representative support package for Ukraine only.

So, I think this is political tactics on part of the White House to have a combined package Ukraine, Israel, and the border. And it's not really so important for Israel to get additional military support from the U.S.

Jakub: Coming back to Europe now, we've had Geert Wilders that the far-right populist from the Netherlands coming out as the largest winner of the Dutch parliamentary elections, though that does not mean that he will be able to form a coalition. That's a different story.

There are risks in other parts of Europe. To what extent is that a threat, especially given the fact that Ukraine already has a enemy within the European Union, which is Hungary, which is clearly blocking any sort of support.

Orban gets emboldened when he has a “partner in crime,” to block deals with and veto deals with. Is that something that should be keeping Ukrainians up at night over the coming year?

Justyna: Of course, and I think this is the consequence of the strategy devised by Washington and Berlin batting on long-term or longer support for Ukraine or on Ukraine not winning quickly over Russia.

And we are faced with right now a need of long-term support, military support, financial support for Ukraine, which is difficult for European, Western European societies to bur.

And then in a situation where we have economic difficulties, when we have a migration crisis coming to Europe, again, not from the Ukrainian side, but from the Middle East, from Africa, we have right-wing parties coming into power, right-wing parties that are less supportive of Ukraine or would like to stop block or diminish the amount of Western help that goes to Kyiv.

So, we will have more and more problems within the Western camp in supporting Ukraine on many levels. So, the longer war serves Russia more than the West is more beneficial for Russia.

But we need in the West to understand the situation we are in, the stakes of this war and try to maintain, at least maintain if not increased support for Ukraine. And that will be increasingly difficult.

And 2024 will be a crucial year, in my opinion, for Ukraine because of the U.S. presidential elections of the turmoil, political turmoil that we are entering in the EU. And the question will be how much support Ukraine will get and hands whether it'll be able to maintain itself vis-a-vis Russia as it is doing now.

Jakub: So, you recently spent some time in Germany looking at how the situation is there. How, how does Berlin see this?

Justyna: I think that the discussion in Germany is very multifaceted. If you read the German newspapers, if you listen to German security and defence experts, they share the analyses and the recommendations on Western strategy that we have in Warsaw or across the Eastern flank.

So, Russia needs to lose this war. We need to maintain and increase our military support for Ukraine as quickly as possible. We need to deliver Ukraine a new quality of weapons.

We need to invite Ukraine to NATO in order to show Russia that the gamers basically strategically over, and that Russia will not be able to extend its sphere of influence over Ukraine also in the future.

And we need to open the accession talks with Ukraine in order to provide the country with a positive future perspective of the EU membership and a perspective for building the country in general.

But I think if you analyse the decisions of the German chancellery, chancellor Scholz and his advisors, I think that the outlook from up there is a bit different. I think that still the strategy that is largely shaped by the chancellery is governed and guided very much by the fear of escalation on part of Russia by Russia using tactical nuclear weapons.

It's guided by not understanding what is at stake, by thinking that Russia will be satisfied with a part of Ukraine, that we can have some peace negotiations and a solution that will allow Russia to occupy parts of Ukraine and that will allow the rest of Ukraine to become a sovereign country.

And then we can think about NATO membership and or EU membership. So, from the perspective of the German chancellery, as I see it, there can be a modus vivendi, a way to find a solution for shaping Eastern European security and European security in general with Russia.

And I think this is a very different analysis that we have here on Eastern flank, where we see Russia as an aggressive actor that wants to challenge the European security architecture and order, and that wants demise of the EU and demise of NATO and wants to extend its sphere of influence, not only over Ukraine, but also over parts of central and northern Europe.

I think that here we have a strategic difference and therefore we have strategically different responses and answer to this war. And these differences are then being shown in discussions within NATO, for example, on NATO's membership of Ukraine.

Jakub: You mentioned something that is a very specific phrase that Germany does not want Russia to win. That's not quite the same thing as wanting Ukraine to win. Is that a reflection of the nuance that the German chancellery is taking, and does that translate into perhaps the kind of support that it is ready to give the level of engagement?

Justyna: Definitely, you have this phrase and this narrative coming from the chancellery. You mention it, Ukraine cannot lose this war, and Russia cannot win that. And still the chancellery sticks to this narrative which is widely criticised by the German public, by the German media and the German experts because it does not state very clearly that Ukraine needs to win this war and Russia needs to lose it.

And there is a difference in meaning, which is translated in the German strategy shaped by the chancellery. If we say that Ukraine cannot lose this war, we don't say Ukraine needs to win this war, we don't provide Ukraine with weapons that will allow Ukraine to win this war.

And therefore, you have this debate that's now is a months long debate about delivering terrorists long range missiles to Ukraine by Germany. That would put under question, for example, the Russian occupation of Crimea.

Germany does not want to do that, or the chancellery does not want to do that because it fears first escalation and second things that after all, we will need to find a solution, and the peace deal with Russia and this peace deal with Russia will be that Ukraine will have to give up maybe not only Crimea and Donbas, but parts of southeastern Ukraine to Russia for peace.

And I think, and I shared this analysis also with German expert, that this is a thinking and an analysis based on hopes based on illusions, that Russia may be an actor that we can deal with, that we can satisfy with some concessions.

I think this narrative, and this analysis question here on the Eastern flank very much, and even if Russia would be willing to go for such a peace deal, that would be tactics only that would discourage Russia from attempts to subordinate the all of Ukraine and to start renewed war after some time in the future.

Jakub: Yes, the vision is very much that Russia would use a peace deal to potentially just regroup, rebuild its logistics lines and then come back for more.

The fact that Germany or that Berlin perhaps has this appetite for peace talks or this readiness to believe in peace talks to come in on good faith, that's certainly something that carries weight. Even if it perhaps doesn't sway the other Western partners, no doubt it's, it has impact.

What do you think that means in terms of the shape of the peace talks? I mean, even in Ukraine there is a … I would say nobody is really talking about potential peace talks, but there is a growing appetite for de-escalation or containment of the fighting because it has taken a very brutal toll on so many people's families at this point.

And so, there starts to be a sense that, look, if we can get to some kind of deal where we do have a accelerated path to NATO, I think that's something that would make sense and is different from just a peace talk that is essentially a ceasefire for a couple of months or a couple of years and then we go back to fighting. To what extent is that something that's realistic?

Justyna: I don't think it's realistic due to several factors. The first one is there will be no NATO invitation and no NATO membership in such a situation because Germany, and I think the U.S. treat this option as a bargaining chip in future possible peace negotiations with Russia.

And I don't believe that in such negotiations, Russia would be willing to agree that it gets parts of Ukraine, Crimea, Donbas, Southeastern Ukraine, and the rest of Ukraine can join NATO and can join the EU.

This is not what Russia wants. Russia wants to subordinate the whole of Ukraine. Russia wants to go beyond that, and this is not the Russian goal.

So, therefore I think, think that this talk about peace negotiations is a bit illusional because from the Russian perspective, I'm not sure when Moscow observes what is happening right now in the west, in the U.S., in Western Europe, the difficulties with the continuation of military deliveries to Ukraine, the political turmoil both in the U.S. and in Germany, for example, starting the right-wing parties coming to power.

I don't see the incentive that Russia has for any real peace negotiations. If it enters such negotiations, that might be a very short pause and the war, and I think Russia would put really high expectations in such peace negotiations.

So, that would be tactical, and I really doubt that we would achieve a meaningful peace agreement with Russia that will provides the Ukraine in its current shape, security, and then the prospects for joining NATO and for joining the EU.

I think both Washington and Berlin are very cautious about NATO involvement in Ukraine and NATO's membership for Ukraine even in such a scenario.

Jakub: So, what could a piece negotiation just look like in practice? I mean, we're talking about a deal — well, first of all, it's probably not a signed deal because I can't imagine Zelenskyy coming and signing such an agreement after the political commitment and the personal commitment that he has made to victory.

So, it's most likely something that would be unsigned, perhaps signed by other parties’ security guarantees, which Ukraine had security guarantees before 2014 and before 2022.

So, it's curious how you could make them more tangible and then sort of closed or hidden clauses regarding the fact that there will be no NATO membership, even if that's something that isn't said out loud.

I'm sorry, I'm just thinking out loud. But is this sort of the format that is being imagined?

Justyna: Well, I don't believe in such a peace deal, first of all, so this is the first point.

Jakub: Neither do I, to be clear.

Justyna: Yeah. The second point is that I really doubt that Ukraine is politically ready for any talks on this. I don't think Russia is ready on her talks on a peace deal. If Russia will take up this idea that would be only a tactical instrument to influence the West.

And I think also the White House, I talked about Berlin that it sees as a possible scenario and a scenario that could materialise in this year, but I don't think that Washington thinks in the same way, or at least in Washington, you have different voices, different opinions, and I think the one that still prevails is one about the long war and they need to prepare for it.

The problem is the U.S. Congress and the situation in the House of Representatives and the problems with the new adoption of the new financial package for Ukraine, which influences the U.S. calculations, and which may be in some circles, therefore think that an attempt to forge or to make a deal with Russia could be worth trying.

Jakub: I mean, I'm not going to ask about the EU accession because that's something that I think in Ukraine, people do not realise just how much of an unmovable bureaucratic process that is. There are no shortcuts through EU bureaucracy.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see that this is something that can be accelerated. So, that also means that essentially the Western partners don't really have that much to offer in terms of positives for Ukraine. There is only the question of ensuring support or the lack of.

Justyna: Well, that's true. The accession talks between Ukraine and the EU will be difficult. I hope they will start at all. I think that the EU has to discuss also … I'm not sure whether within the EU, there is a clear vision on the accession of Ukraine and possibly other countries. Whether we stick to old procedures or whether we think about a new approach to enlargement policy.

I think that right now we focus very much on this traditional way of EU accession. But I think with the process being stalled or being delayed either by the unpreparedness within the EU or unwillingness of some countries to start this process or due to unpreparedness of Ukraine to enter and to go through this process, we might end up with discussions on some kind of stage accession, phased-in accession.

We are not yet there, but I can imagine scenarios where these discussions might come back.

Jakub: Final question. Do you think that if support ended, would Ukraine continue to fight? Does it have any alternatives?

Justyna: Ukraine, as it is dependent on weapons, munition, equipment from the West, in my opinion, it might face a defeat in this war, if the support from the West will stop.

I hope such a scenario will not materialise, but we might face a decrease of Western support to Ukraine, which will be equal difficult for Ukraine, but maybe the Ukrainians will be able to manage the situation.

Jakub: I mean the one thing that I will say is that based on what you're saying, it kind of looks like the strategy that Vladimir Putin took on, not initially, but several months into the war, which is essentially that look, as long as we keep up the level of aggression and just wait it out, we're more patient than the West.

Yes, they are united now, but their resolve is fickle. It can turn into sand; it can fall apart quite quickly. While that actually seems to have been somewhat correct, that is the weak part, the weak spot at least.

Justyna: Yes, Russia is betting on that, but at the same time, Russia is weak itself. Russia has problems to maintain this war. Russia have problems with ammunition, stockpiles with equipment. Russia will have economic problems due to sanctions. And in the long run, I think that we as the West are stronger than Russia.

I think we need to keep and maintain the support for Ukraine. And we need to understand that Russia, after all, is a weaker actor betting on us that we, due to democratic procedures, will stop the military support and other support for Ukraine earlier than Moscow.

But overall, I do believe that Ukraine, with the help of the West, can win this war in the long run. But the West needs to be united, needs to understand what is at stake, needs to maintain the support for Kyiv.

And in my opinion, in such a situation, there are good chances that we will wait out Russia since Russia is the weaker actor, but for that political will is needed. And I think this political will is currently lacking both in Western Europe and partly in the U.S. And this is the problem.

Jakub: Well, if history is any guide, Russia breaks very, very slowly and then all at once. So, let's hope that that happens sooner rather than later.

Justyna Gotkowska, thank you so much for talking to us on Power Lines today. It's been really fascinating. Thank you once again.

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Justyna: Thank you for having me.

Jakub: Thanks so much for listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World. And a big thank you also to Justyna for coming on.

We'll be back in two weeks when we'll be looking at the domestic scene in Ukraine, exploring the political tensions in Kyiv as we draw towards the end of the year.

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