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It’s not long to winter, and this is going to be another tough one for Ukrainians. The war continues, but allied support is fraying. This week Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, and British foreign secretary David Lammy made a joint visit to Kyiv, after holding a joint press conference in London. Blinken spoke of their “resolute support” for Ukraine faced with ongoing Russian aggression, and Lammy said it was a critical moment for supporting Ukraine as we enter the third winter of the war.
Allied restrictions on Kyiv’s use of long-range weaponry was an important topic for the Ukrainian leader to discuss with Lammy and Blinken. Kyiv is currently restricted to using allied supplied arms to attacks on the Russian military in occupied Ukraine, rather than in Russia itself. The pressure on Ukraine is relentless. In the days before Lammy and Blinken arrived there were increased drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, including on Lviv, near the Polish border.
The US and the UK are two of the more committed backers for Volodymyr Zelensky at this stage of the ongoing conflict. But there’s rising opposition in some European nations, including in France and Germany, where far-right parties have proposed a more pro-Putin position.
In recent German state elections the far-right AfD party and the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance both did well, while arguing against German support for Ukraine, and for a more pro-Russia position from Berlin. Their electoral success is putting pressure on the German government to moderate its backing for Ukraine. And there have already been some signs that German chancellor Olaf Scholz might be moving away from his previous position on Ukraine. The demand to support Russia, over Ukraine, is particularly strong in eastern Germany, which formed part of the Soviet bloc until 1989.
Other political parties in nations which were once part of the Soviet bloc also want to stop further aid to Ukraine and argue for positions closer to Russia. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán spent months trying to block billions of euros of EU aid to Ukraine, before the other 26 EU leaders forced it through. Meanwhile, political leaders in Slovakia, Georgia and Azerbaijan (all former Soviet bloc nations) are edging closer to Russia.
This movement is undoubtedly a growing headache for Zelensky as he faces stark choices and a desperate need for support in the months ahead. Stefan Wolff delves into the expansion of the pro-Putin movement in former Soviet bloc countries and sees them as a sign of Europe, and indeed the world, in upheaval and where democratic values are being undermined.
Another major concern for Zelensky is the result of the US election, where despite Kamala Harris’s decent showing at the recent Democratic National Convention and on the recent television head-to-head with Donald Trump, the polls are still showing a very close contest.
Natasha Lindstaedt, a government and populism specialist from Essex University, felt that some of Harris’s winning shots in the debate were on foreign policy. Trump, the Republican candidate, has made it quite clear during the campaign that he doesn’t think US aid to Ukraine should continue at the same scale, if at all. He claims that he would be able to sort out a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine in a matter of hours. This kind of talk is a huge threat to Zelensky who has relied on US aid to help him defend his country, but will also hear Trump’s hints that the “peace settlement” would mean Ukraine giving up some of its territory to Russia.
All of this background is part of the reason why Ukraine’s troops recently moved into the Kursk region, potentially giving Kyiv some Russian land to negotiate with. Currently, Zelenksy has no idea if Trump will be elected. The US polls continue to suggest the result is very tight.
Vladimir Putin’s response to Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is unexpected for some. He has played down the invasion, and his message to the Russian people is that everything is under control. Jenny Mathers, an international politics expert at Aberystwyth University, believes he has deliberately missed an obvious opportunity to label Ukraine’s August 6 surprise offensive as the modern day equivalent to Operation Barbarossa, the second world war attack on Russia by the Nazis in 1941. Given Putin’s regular use of historical misinformation to magnify his version of why the Ukraine war was necessary, this might be a surprising choice for some observers.
Mathers believes that Putin has played down the Kursk invasion because he doesn’t want to frighten ordinary Russians further, and because he knows that many Russians oppose the war and don’t want to pursue the same military goals that he does. He promised them an almost-instant occupation of Ukraine, and the reality is a three-year war that shows no sign of ending. So would a rallying cry from Putin based on the Ukraine invasion into Russian territory produce more volunteers for the front line? Mathers believes it would not.
Meanwhile, there are signs that Russia’s military domination of the Arctic, and its use as a military centre for attacks on Ukraine, is starting to be eroded. A recent Ukrainian drone attack on the Olenya airbase south of Murmansk, shows they can now be reached by the latest technology, and the west has now started to respond to Russian military strength in the region. Meanwhile, western sanctions are undermining Russia’s ability to sell its LNG from its two Arctic centres. Russian plans to use the Arctic to fuel its war in Ukraine are being undermined, as Stefan Wolff details.
On the other side of the world, there are machinations that reverberate in Ukraine as well as the US, because as is so often the case the consequences of what happens in one nation is not confined to its shores. When the White House discovered a massive Russian disinformation plot to undermine the US election, US attorney general Merrick Garland said Russia was looking to create its “preferred outcome” in the upcoming presidential election, and to create pressure on US public support for military aid to Ukraine.
As Open University’s Precious Chatterje-Doody, an expert in disinformation, shows this is not the first time Russia has attempted to create a wave of disinformation with the potential to undermine an election. She describes five techniques that are well used by the Kremlin’s propaganda team. These include creating fake websites that mimic local news and working with local influencers, who may not know about the connection to Russian money, but whose views align with Russian objectives, such as undermining public trust in US media.
In the rest of the world
Outside the frame of the Ukraine war, another issue we’ve been looking at this week is the economic (and societal) cost of keeping millions of women out of the workplace in the Gulf states, or restricting their opportunities. Many Gulf countries still limit the role of women, for instance requiring male permission to launch certain businesses or even to get married, while societal expectations may promote women staying at home and not working. Women often attract significantly lower salaries than men.
Amr Saber Algarhi and Konstantinos Lagos, both economists from Sheffield Hallam University, say some things are changing. Bahrain and Qatar now allow women to be judges and Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on women driving in 2019. Women now make up the majority of university students in Gulf. The authors argue that there’s more to be done to widen opportunities for women in the region, and this will also benefit the local economies.
