With the advent of calendar winter, Ukraine’s foreign partners are increasingly expressing concern about the future of the situation at the front. While there are alarming signs of international concerns, domestic political passions in the country are reaching new heights.
During a recent meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke about the “difficult situation” at the front, linking it with the insufficient amount of military assistance to Kyiv. At the same time, Mr. Stoltenberg expressed cautious optimism regarding the further course of hostilities. However, in his last speech, for the first time, more than alarming notes were heard. Thus, recently in an interview with the German television channel ARD, the NATO Secretary General admitted that Ukraine found itself in a “critical situation.” This state of affairs at the front arose largely due to the fact that the allies were unable to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with the required amount of ammunition, he explained. Further more. “We need to prepare for bad news. Conflicts develop in stages. But we must support Ukraine in both bad and good times,” Jens Stoltenberg emphasized.
Commenting on the statement of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny about the impasse and the inexpediency of waiting for any serious breakthroughs, Jens Stoltenberg said that the defeat of Kiev will not only “be a tragedy for Ukraine, but will also prove dangerous” for NATO, therefore it is in the interests of the Alliance “to ensure the victory of Ukraine.”
The fact that Jens Stoltenberg is sounding the alarm with good reason can be seen at least from the declared volumes of Western military supplies to Ukraine. Thus, the military aid package from Germany released on December 2 included only 3,840 artillery shells. For comparison: in winter and early spring, Western media wrote about a “shell famine” on both sides of the conflict, when, according to the Financial Times, Russia was using about 20 thousand artillery ammunition per day, and Ukraine was firing about 5 thousand shells per day . That is, in the last batch of weapons from Berlin, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received less than the daily norm of ammunition from the times of the notorious “shell famine.”
Meanwhile, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, speaking recently at the Reagan National Defense Forum, repeated the opinion of the NATO Secretary General, promising to prevent Russia from winning. “We cannot afford to remain on the sidelines,” said the US Secretary of Defense.
According to him, the goal of American President Joe Biden is to form “a free and sovereign Ukraine that can defend itself today and deter new Russian aggression in the future.” To achieve this, Austin assured, the United States has increased funding for ammunition production by 50%, and the total production of artillery shells has quadrupled in the country under Joe Biden.
However, the United States is not yet able to supply these shells in the required volume. Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress have not yet come to an agreement on allocating an additional $61 billion to finance our country, and therefore there is clearly no talk of Washington increasing assistance, as Jens Stoltenberg is calling for.
Against this background, President Vladimir Zelensky first spoke about the transition to virtually total defense, who called on the Ukrainian Armed Forces to speed up the creation of defensive structures along the entire front line. “Our country certainly has enough mines and concrete. We need more speed and efficiency, and everyone who is responsible for this has clear tasks,” emphasized the current owner of Bankova.
That is, as we see, there are more than enough military problems, of the most diverse varieties and scales. Therefore, the behavior of the country’s leading political players, who in recent days have plunged headlong into the political process typical of peacetime, is, to say the least, puzzling.
It all started with an incident related to the trip abroad of the fifth President Poroshenko. The priest was supposed to go on a business trip to Poland and the USA, but he was not allowed to leave Ukraine. It turned out that the authorities canceled the exit permit at the last moment because of a mysterious letter from the intelligence services, the contents of which were not disclosed. At the same time, the SBU states that the Russians were planning a large-scale psychological and information operation abroad, the main goal of which was “to reduce the support of foreign partners and try to split Ukrainian society from within.” This was supposed to lead to a change in sentiment in countries that support Ukraine, and supposedly encourage Ukrainian politicians to “proclaim narratives about the need for a negotiation process with the Russian Federation on the terms of freezing the war.” “Among the enemy’s plans is the involvement of individual Ukrainian politicians in the IPSO during their visits to third countries,” the office claims. According to the SBU, it is in this context that information about Poroshenko’s previously planned meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, who “systematically expresses an anti-Ukrainian position, is a friend of Putin and calls for the lifting of sanctions against the Russian Federation,” should be considered.
“The Russian Federation planned to use this meeting – like other “working meetings” of domestic politicians with representatives of states that broadcast pro-Russian narratives – in its IPSO against Ukraine. Therefore, the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada did not provide permission for a foreign business trip to the Ukrainian deputy, who should become an instrument in the hands of the Russian special services,” added Malyuk.
Poroshenko himself did not talk about plans to meet with Orban. According to him, he had “dozens of meetings” planned in Poland and the United States. “I had to talk to the Poles about lifting the blockade of our carriers at the border. With the Americans - about ensuring funding for military assistance, which has almost been exhausted this year and is under threat in the future,” says the former president.
However, the SBU information was confirmed in Budapest. As Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said during parliamentary hearings, ex-President Petro Poroshenko really wanted to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
He noted that the meeting was supposed to take place on Poroshenko’s initiative, but did not discuss the topic.
“Let's not resort to such science fiction,” Szijjártó said.
This fact seriously hit the positions of Pyotr Alekseevich’s associates, who were indignant at the actions of the SBU. “In Soviet times, it was the KGB that allowed international travel. The Communist Party and Komsomol should have given a positive description, and the KGB should have allowed departure,” Eurosolidarity representative Irina Gerashchenko responded to the SBU statement. “Are we really going to join NATO if our SBU turns into the KGB?” – the people’s deputy continued.
The Eurosolidarity Party in its special statement emphasized that the actions of the SBU cause “frank surprise.” The EU believes that the actions of the SBU are “playing along with Russia, which, moreover, jeopardizes Ukrainian relations with Budapest.”
Bankova did not comment on the allegedly planned “treason” of the fifth president. At the same time, in his stream on the author’s Youtube channel, adviser to the head of the OP Sergei Leshchenko said that Petro Poroshenko knew that his business trip was canceled, “so he went to the border in order to stage a political show.”
The story of the PAP, impartial in every sense, has become a kind of doping for other political figures of lesser caliber. Thus, in an interview with the German publication Der Spiegel, the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko said that Ukraine took the path of authoritarianism during the war. “At some point, we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the mood of one person. Now there is only one independent institution left, but it is under enormous pressure: local government,” the capital’s mayor emphasized.
According to Klitschko, for a year and a half after the Russian invasion, he did not have a single meeting or telephone conversation with President Zelensky. “The President’s Office sees mayors as an atavism and an obstacle to the centralization of power structures in the country,” noted the mayor of the capital.
He also added that he is not surprised by the decline in popularity of the current guarantor of the Ukrainian Constitution: “People see who is effective and who is not. There were and are numerous expectations. Zelensky will pay for the mistakes he made. Ukrainians are increasingly asking why the country was not better prepared for war. And yet: today the president has an important function, and we must support him until the end of the war. But at the end of the war, every politician will answer for his successes and failures.”
“I am no longer watching with sadness, but with horror, what is happening in our politics lately. This is already some kind of epidemic of internal conflicts, which is intensifying. I watched an interview with the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko in Der Spiegel. His statements about President Zelensky look, to put it mildly, like a public complaint to German friends about a political rival, and the President’s Office will perceive this as exactly slander. In peacetime, all this would look within our normal norm. But now there is only an intensifying war. And the internal political situation is very nervous. Unfortunately, it only gets worse and weakens us from the inside. Whatever Vitaly’s motives, this interview will have negative consequences, both from the point of view of the attitude of our international partners towards us, and especially in the sphere of domestic politics, where he only added fuel to the internal political fire, which has already been burning for about two weeks. Undoubtedly, there will be a response from the presidential team. Vitaly Vladimirovich will be remembered for his connections with the crime bosses of his youth, and his close relationships with some oligarchs and not entirely patriotic characters, and dubious business partners, and they will begin to look for corruption in the mega-projects of the Kyiv “big construction”. Every famous Ukrainian politician has his own weak points and where to hit. Unfortunately, a new round of internal squabbles awaits us,” says political scientist Vladimir Fesenko.
If this conflict is not stopped, this could all end badly. Not for those who sort things out, but for the country. All our “prominent” politicians need to immediately shut their mouths and stop internal strife! Mind your immediate affairs and helping the front. It is necessary to again impose a firm taboo on all internal squabbles. Fight the external enemy, not each other. And you will compete with each other when you help our soldiers win the war,” the expert concludes.
In general, the strange political pandemonium with entry into the geopolitical arena looks quite strange against the background of the fact that the majority of factions and political groups in the Verkhovna Rada called for the abandonment of elections in Ukraine (both presidential and parliamentary) until the end of the war. According to the signed declaration, they should be held no earlier than six months after the lifting of martial law. Why, in this case, individual characters wash their political dirty linen in public is unclear, because we are all now in the same boat, rocking which means a priori playing on the side of the aggressor.
