{"id":296177,"date":"2024-10-06T07:04:52","date_gmt":"2024-10-06T07:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=296177"},"modified":"2024-10-07T11:24:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T11:24:31","slug":"ukraine-faces-its-darkest-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=296177","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine Faces its Darkest Hour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Hall, Christopher Miller and Henry Foy \u2013 FT.com Oct 1, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

In a command post near the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, soldiers of the Separate Presidential Brigade bemoan the dithering in Washington about whether Kyiv can use western missiles to strike targets inside Russia.<\/p>\n

If only they were able to fight \u201cwith both hands instead of with one hand tied behind our back\u201d, then Ukraine\u2019s plucky troops might stand a chance against a more powerful Russian army, laments an attack drone operator.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by video monitors showing the advancing enemy, the battalion\u2019s commander says his objectives have begun to shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I\u2019m thinking more about how to save my people,\u201d says Mykhailo Temper. \u201cIt\u2019s quite hard to imagine we will be able to move the enemy back to the borders of 1991,\u201d he adds, referring to his country\u2019s aim of restoring its full territorial integrity.<\/p>\n

Once buoyed by hopes of liberating their lands, even soldiers at the front now voice a desire for negotiations with Russia to end the war. Yuriy, another commander on the eastern front who gave only his first name, says he fears the prospect of a \u201cforever war\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am for negotiations now,\u201d he adds, expressing his concern that his son \u2014 also a soldier \u2014 could spend much of his life fighting and that his grandson might one day inherit an endless conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the US turns off the spigot, we\u2019re finished,\u201d says another officer, a member of the 72nd Mechanised Brigade, in nearby Kurakhove.<\/p>\n

\n
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Ukrainian troops on the front line. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Ukraine is heading into what may be its darkest moment of the war so far. It is losing on the battlefield in the east of the country, with Russian forces advancing relentlessly \u2014 albeit at immense cost in men and equipment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is struggling to restore its depleted ranks with motivated and well-trained soldiers while an arbitrary military mobilisation system is causing real social tension. It is also facing a bleak winter of severe power and potentially heating outages.<\/p>\n

\u201cSociety is exhausted,\u201d says Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the Ukrainian parliament.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is under growing pressure from western partners to find a path towards a negotiated settlement, even if there is scepticism about Russia\u2019s willingness to enter talks any time soon and concern that Ukraine\u2019s position is too weak to secure a fair deal right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost players want de-escalation here,\u201d says a senior Ukrainian official in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration is aware that its present strategy is not sustainable because \u201cwe are losing the war\u201d, says Jeremy Shapiro, head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cThey are thinking of how to move that war to a greater quiescence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most threatening of all for Kyiv is the possibility that Donald Trump wins next month\u2019s US presidential election and tries to impose an unfavourable peace deal on Ukraine by threatening to withhold further military and financial aid. Trump repeated his claim last week that he could rapidly bring an end to the war.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s staunchest supporters in Europe may wish to keep it in the fight but lack the weapons stockpiles to do so and have no plan for filling any void left by the US.<\/p>\n

Kyiv confirmed it was laying the groundwork for future talks in spectacular fashion when its troops seized a swath of Russia\u2019s Kursk region in a surprise cross-border incursion in August. Zelenskyy said the land would serve as a bargaining chip.<\/p>\n

And last week, in an attempt to shape the thinking of his allies, Zelenskyy visited the US to market his so-called \u201cvictory plan\u201d, a formula for bolstering Ukraine\u2019s position before possible talks with Moscow. Zelenskyy described it as a \u201cstrategy of achieving peace through strength\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stepping into the maelstrom of the US election campaign, he held separate talks with President Joe Biden, vice-president Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, Trump, to make his case.<\/p>\n

At one point, Zelenskyy\u2019s US mission veered towards disaster after he was criticised by Trump for resisting peace talks and censured by senior Republicans for visiting a weapons factory in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania accompanied only by Democratic politicians. But in the end, he persuaded Trump to grant him an audience and salvaged his visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not a triumph. It was not a catastrophe,\u201d the senior Ukrainian official says of Zelenskyy\u2019s US trip. \u201cIt would be naive to expect the applause we got two years ago,\u201d the official adds, referring to the president\u2019s address before Congress in December 2022, for which he received multiple standing ovations and declared that Ukraine would \u201cnever surrender\u201d.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Yet the Ukrainian leader left Washington empty-handed on two central issues: US permission to use western weapons for long-range strikes on Russian territory; and progress on Ukraine\u2019s bid to join Nato. The Biden administration has resisted both, fearing it could encourage Moscow to escalate the conflict, potentially drawing in the US and other allies.<\/p>\n

US officials were unimpressed by Zelenskyy\u2019s \u201cvictory plan\u201d, which includes requests for massive amounts of western weaponry.<\/p>\n

An adviser who helped prepare the document says Zelenskyy had no choice but to restate his insistence on Nato membership because anything else would have been perceived as a retreat on the question of western security guarantees, which Ukrainians see as indispensable.<\/p>\n

Despite Washington\u2019s misgivings, the ability to strike Russian territory is also central to Zelenskyy\u2019s victory plan, says the adviser. While US officials have argued that Russia has already moved strike aircraft beyond the range of western missiles, Ukrainian officials insist there are plenty of other targets such as command centres, weapons caches, fuel depots and logistics nodes.<\/p>\n

Destroying them could disrupt Moscow\u2019s ability to wage war, show Russian leader Vladimir Putin that his objectives of seizing at least four whole provinces of Ukraine are untenable and disprove his conviction that the west will lose interest in supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia should not be overestimated,\u201d says Andris Spr\u016bds, Latvia\u2019s defence minister. \u201cIt has its vulnerabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Zelenskyy\u2019s victory plan restated old objectives, its real significance is that it shifts Ukraine\u2019s war aims from total liberation to bending the war in Kyiv\u2019s favour, says the senior Ukrainian official. \u201cIt\u2019s an attempt to change the trajectory of the war and bring Russia to the table. Zelenskyy really believes in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple European diplomats who attended last week\u2019s UN General Assembly in New York say there was a tangible shift in the tone and content of discussions around a potential settlement.<\/p>\n

They note more openness from Ukrainian officials to discuss the potential for agreeing a ceasefire even while Russian troops remain on their territory, and more frank discussions among western officials about the urgency for a deal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s new foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, used private meetings with western counterparts on his first trip to the US in the post to discuss potential compromise solutions, the diplomats said, and struck a more pragmatic tone on the possibility of land-for-security negotiations than his predecessor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking more and more openly about how this ends and what Ukraine would have to give up in order to get a permanent peace deal,\u201d says one of the diplomats, who was present in New York. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a major change from even six months ago, when this kind of talk was taboo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian foreign ministry said: \u201cNo territorial compromises were suggested, discussed, or even hinted at during any of the meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukrainian public opinion also appears to be more open to peace talks \u2014 but not necessarily to the concessions they may require.<\/p>\n

Polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology for the National Democratic Institute in the summer showed that 57 per cent of respondents thought Ukraine should engage in peace negotiations with Russia, up from 33 per cent a year earlier.<\/p>\n

The survey showed the war was taking an ever heavier toll: 77 per cent of respondents reported the loss of family members, friends or acquaintances, four times as many as two years earlier. Two-thirds said they were finding it difficult or very difficult to live on their wartime income.<\/p>\n

Life is about to get even tougher. Russia has destroyed at least half of Ukraine\u2019s power-generating capacity after it resumed mass drone and missile strikes against power stations and grid infrastructure this spring.<\/p>\n

Ukraine faces a \u201csevere\u201d electricity deficit of up to 6GW, equivalent to a third of peak winter demand, according the International Energy Agency. It is increasingly dependent on its three remaining operational nuclear power plants, the IEA noted. Were Russia to attack substations adjacent to these plants \u2014 despite all the obvious dangers \u2014 it could cause Ukraine\u2019s power system to collapse, and with it heating and water supply. Central heating facilities in large cities such as Kharkiv and Kyiv are also vulnerable.<\/p>\n

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Ukrainian recruits in Kiev. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Another source of tension is mobilisation. Under new legislation, millions of Ukrainian men have been compelled to register for possible service or face hefty fines. At the same time, many Ukrainians know of men who have been randomly stopped at metro or train stations, often late at night, and carted off to mobilisation centres, a brief period of training and then the front line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is perceived as abusive, worse than if you are a criminal, where there is at least due process,\u201d says Hlib Vyshlinksy, director of the Centre for Economic Strategy in Kyiv. \u201cIt tears people apart. The real enemy is Russia, but at the same time they fear a corrupt, abusive enrolment office doing the wrong thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Ukrainians have warmed to the idea of negotiations, a majority \u2014 55 per cent according to a KIIS polling in May \u2014 remain opposed to any formal cession of territory as part of a peace deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want peace but they are also against territorial concessions. It is hard to reconcile them,\u201d says Merezhko, the chair of the foreign affairs committee.<\/p>\n

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com<\/a> T&Cs<\/a> and However, the KIIS survey shows the share of respondents opposed to any territorial concessions has dropped sharply from a peak of 87 per cent early last year. It also found that Ukrainians might be open to a compromise whereby, in return for Ukrainian membership of Nato, Russian maintains de facto control over occupied parts of Ukraine, but not recognised sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Other polls suggest Ukrainians are still confident of winning and will be disappointed by anything other than total battlefield victory. The biggest domestic problem for Zelenskyy might come from a nationalist minority opposed to any compromise, some of whom are now armed and trained to fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get into any negotiation, it could be a trigger for social instability,\u201d says a Ukrainian official. \u201cZelenskyy knows this very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation. The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy,\u201d says Merezhko, who is an MP for Zelenskyy\u2019s Servant of the People party.<\/p>\n

As the KIIS polling shows, making any deal acceptable that allows Russia to stay in the parts of Ukraine it has seized since its first invasion in 2014 will hinge on obtaining meaningful western security guarantees, which for Kyiv means Nato membership.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing for us is security guarantees. Proper ones. Otherwise it won\u2019t end the war; it will just trigger another one,\u201d says a Ukrainian official.<\/p>\n

\u201cLand for [Nato] membership is the only game in town, everyone knows it,\u201d says one senior western official. \u201cNobody will say it out loud\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009but it\u2019s the only strategy on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nato membership remains Ukraine\u2019s key goal, but very few of the alliance\u2019s 32 members think it is possible without a full, lasting ceasefire and a defined line on the map that determines what portion of Ukraine\u2019s territory the alliance\u2019s mutual defence clause applies to. The model floated by some is West Germany\u2019s membership of the alliance, which lasted more than three decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification with the east.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe West German model is gaining traction particularly in the White House, which has been the most sceptical about Nato membership,\u201d says Shapiro of the ECFR. \u201cThe Russians would hate that, but at least it could be some opening gambit for a compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even that would require a vast force deployment by the US and its partners that any US administration, Democratic or Republican, would probably balk at, given Washington\u2019s focus on the threat from China. One question would be whether European powers would be willing to shoulder more of the burden.<\/p>\n

And would Russia accept Ukraine\u2019s entry into the alliance, an alignment with the west it has been trying to thwart militarily for a decade? Many on both sides of the Atlantic say it is unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Russia would agree to our participation in Nato,\u201d says a senior Ukrainian official.<\/p>\n

Anything short of full membership is unlikely to be enough to stop the Kremlin\u2019s military aggression. \u201cEven if we get a Nato invitation, it will mean nothing. It\u2019s a political decision,\u201d adds the senior Ukrainian official.<\/p>\n

In what could be his last trip to Europe before standing down as president, Biden will chair a meeting of Ukraine and its allies in Germany on October 12.<\/p>\n

A western official briefed on Zelenskyy\u2019s talks in Washington said there were tentative signs that Biden might agree to advance the status of Ukraine\u2019s Nato membership bid before he leaves office in January.<\/p>\n

As he left the US this weekend, Zelenskyy said that October would be \u201cdecision time\u201d. The Ukrainian leader will once again plead for permission to hit targets inside Russia with western-supplied munitions, knowing that it is one of the few options for bringing hostilities to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about constraining Russia\u2019s capabilities\u201d and piling on pressure to get them to open talks, says the senior Ukrainian official. \u201cIt\u2019s a real chance if we are thinking about resolving this war.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years ago we were fed endless MSM reports about brave Ukraine facing up to big bully Russia. Today, if we hear anything at all it\u2019s a very different story. For the West, protecting Israel now takes priority. So according to one diplomat quoted by FT: \u201cWe\u2019re talking more and more openly about how this ends and what Ukraine would have to give up in order to get a permanent peace deal\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":261933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296177"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296211,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296177\/revisions\/296211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/261933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}