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The future of Ukraine and all of Europe will be uncertain if its allies simply give in to the aggressor’s blackmail, according to El Pais journalists.
“After two and a half years of war, Ukraine is approaching the limits of its capacity and faces a winter when strategic bombings will severely limit the power supply. Human losses are increasingly hard to bear, and the morale of the population is beginning to wane, despite their proven resilience. Externally, there is growing pressure for negotiations, where Ukraine may be forced to make painful concessions. However, it will be difficult for Zelenskyy to justify these concessions as anything other than preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty over its territorial integrity. This is why he referred to his demands to Joe Biden this week as the ‘victory plan,'” the article states.
To enter negotiations, Ukraine needs “something that changes the game enough to push Russia towards peace,” according to Zelenskyy’s recent statements. It seemed that the Ukrainian army’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aimed to do just that, as well as sway public opinion. However, this has not been particularly effective if the goal was to immediately bring Putin to the negotiating table. To force a shift in the situation, Kyiv is proposing a show of strength: it is asking its allies to allow it to strike Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the West. Additionally, Ukraine demands guaranteed military supplies, financial assistance, and NATO support, which it seeks to join soon, to defend the territory it currently controls.
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Zelenskyy’s tour, including his meeting with Trump, showed that it will not be easy. Voices within the Republican Party are publicly accusing him of interfering in the U.S. elections, and the sympathies of their candidate toward Putin, along with his reserved stance on Ukraine and its president—hypocritically masked during Friday’s meeting at Trump Tower in New York—became glaringly evident.
On the other hand, the White House’s initial response, generous in financial and military aid, remains ambiguous regarding the freedom to conduct strikes deep into Russia. The concern is not to either capitulate or escalate tensions. Preemptively, Putin has ramped up his nuclear threats in the event of an attack on Russian territory using weapons supplied by any other nuclear state—referring to Kyiv’s three allies: the U.S., the U.K., and France.
“The war, now at a stalemate on the battlefield, has reached the most mature and dangerous phase. The future of Ukraine and Europe as a whole will remain uncertain if its allies simply cave in to the aggressor’s blackmail. As with any peace negotiations, as Zelenskyy knows, each side will have to make concessions. But what cannot be abandoned is the security and preservation of a free and sovereign Ukraine,” the publication concludes.
Read also: Due to a lack of funds from partners, military aid to Ukraine is under threat – Bloomberg
