In the Munich Security Conference, embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once more took his well known song and dance routine to the world stage.
Zelensky has just replaced his top General – and political foe – Valery Zaluzhny, and very few days into the replacement’s Oleksandr Syrsky command, Kiev has lost the heavily fortified key Donbas city of Avdeevka.
Not a great start – and the overpowered and outmaneuvered Ukrainian forces seem to be ready to fold in many other frontline directions.
So now, the former comedian seems to be facing not only widespread war fatigue, but his whole fundraising routine has grown tiring for him and for many others.
German magazine Der Spiegel published an illuminating article called: Der Erschöpfte Präsident: The Exhausted President.
We read there that Ukraine may not be able to withstand Russian pressure and also that ammunition shortage unlikely to be resolved this year’.
Zelensky ‘tried to dispel doubts before all decision-makers in Europe and the United States – whether Ukraine could survive a war with Russia. And yet his despair cannot be ignored’.
The magazine notices his hoarse voice as a consequence of his endlessly being round and round on the fundraising – and frankly scare-mongering – carrousel.
In Munich, the heads of the intelligence services of the allied western nations was the difficult situation in which Ukraine’s army has fallen.
“‘At the beginning of 2023, the West and Kiev still pinned high hopes on the upcoming counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There was talk about the return of territories taken by Russia, perhaps even Crimea. A year later, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Ukrainians to hold the front’, writes Spiegel.”
Der Spiegel characterizes as ‘desperate’ the situation for the Ukrainian troops right now, which is not hyperbole at all.
Elsewhere on MSM we find them trying to be a bit more upbeat about Zelensky’s trip, and more willing to carry the water for his narrative.
AP writes about how we ‘warned’ allies Saturday that an ‘artificial deficit’ of arms for his country ‘risks giving Russia breathing space, highlighting the need for artillery and long-range weapons’.
A couple of big problems there: if a country does not produce weapons or ammo, it’s only ‘natural’ it won’t have enough for a peer-to-peer war with one of the world’s deadliest armies. There is nothing ‘artificial’ about it.
Also, to say that it ‘risks giving Russia breathing space’ seems to imply that Ukraine has Russia in its grips, which is hardly the case.
The Munich Security Conference is an annual gathering of security and foreign policy officials, so it’s the ideal forum for Ukraine to take their pleading game.
Barely holding the defensive against Russia, hindered by low ammunition supplies and a shortage of personnel, he need to convince the world that foreign taxpayers’ money is the solution of all problems.
Associated Press reported:
“’Ukrainians have proven that we can force Russia to retreat’, he said. ‘We can get our land back, and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin can lose, and this has already happened more than once on the battlefield’.
‘Our actions are limited only by our strength’, he added, pointing to the situation in Avdiivka. Ukrainian commander Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky said early Saturday that he was withdrawing troops from the city, where outnumbered Ukrainian defenders battled a Russian assault for four months, to avoid encirclement and save soldiers’ lives.
[…] ‘Dear friends, unfortunately keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war’, Zelensky said. ‘The self-weakening of democracy over time undermines our joint results’.”
One of the biggest copes was when he suggested that Russia has achieved little by conquering Avdeevka. ‘That’s what Russia has achieved. It’s a depletion of their army’.
It remains to be seen how many other cities Kiev will lose while still maintaining that Russia ‘achieved nothing’.
“’We’re just waiting for weapons that we’re short of’, he added, pointing to a lack of long-range weapons. ‘That’s why our weapon today is our soldiers, our people’.
Speaking alongside European and other officials later Saturday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that ‘all of us need much, much more artillery ammunition’ and stressed that production must be ramped up. He said that ‘drones became a real part of the game; they will solve some problems, but they will not replace artillery ammunition’.”
While Europe is scrambling to revive their military industrial complexes, the US sent to the all-important conference the nonentity VP Kamala Harris, who met Zelensky and said ‘it is in the strategic interest of the United States to continue our support’.
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