Latest Russia-Ukraine War News: Live Updates
LONDON – The West agreed to Russia’s war against Ukraine faster and more stable than almost anyone had expected. But when war breaks out in a protracted conflict, one that can rumble for months or even years, it tests Western determination, with European and American officials questioning whether rising economic taxes will erode their solidarity over time.
So far, the cracks are mostly superficial: Hungary’s refusal to sign an embargo on Russian oil, hindering the European Union’s efforts to impose a ban across the continent; restraint in Paris with the Biden administration’s aggressive goal of militarily weakening Russian President Vladimir V. Putin; a beleagured President Biden who blames sky-high food and gas prices for a price increase in Putin.
In parallel with these tensions, there are further signs of solidarity: Finland and Sweden on Wednesday approached an accession to NATO, where the United Kingdom offers both countries security guarantees to protect themselves against the Russian threat. In Washington on Tuesday, the House voted 368 to 57 in favor of a nearly $ 40 billion aid package to Ukraine.
Yet Russia’s tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border just 76 days ago, a moment on the agenda of history’s eternal war. As the fighting continues, the cascading effect on supply chains, energy pipelines and agricultural crops will be felt more acutely at petrol pumps and on supermarket shelves.
Mr Putin, some experts say, predicts that the West will grow tired before Russia does so in a long twilight battle for Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, especially if the price of Western support for continued support is turbocharged inflation rates, energy disruptions, depleted public finances and depleted populations.
The Biden administration’s head of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, crystallized these doubts on Tuesday, warning senators that Putin was digging for a long siege and “probably expects the US and EU to decide to weaken when food shortages, inflation and energy the shortage is getting worse. “
On Wednesday, Mr. Biden traveled to a farm in Kankakee, Illinois, to claim that Putin’s war was due to food shortages and the cost of living pressure on American families, a silent sign of his steadfast support. for Ukraine – a policy that has won bipartisan support in Washington – could bear a political cost.
Mr Putin is facing his own domestic pressure, which was evident in the calibrated tone he struck during a speech in Moscow’s Red Square on Monday, neither demanding mass mobilization nor threatening to escalate the conflict. But he also made it clear that there was no end in sight to what he wrongly called Russia’s campaign to free its neighbor from “torturers, death squads and Nazis.”
On the ground in Ukraine, the fighting is showing signs of becoming a protracted battle. A day after Ukraine’s counter-offensive ousted Russian forces from a cluster of cities northeast of the city of Kharkiv, the region’s governor said on Wednesday that Ukrainian efforts had driven Moscow’s forces “even further” from the city, giving them “even less opportunity to fire on it” regional center. “
Ukraine’s apparent success in pushing back Russian troops outside Kharkiv – its second largest city, about 200 km from the Russian border – seems to have contributed to reduced shelling there in recent days, even as Russia makes progress along parts of the Donbas front line. region of eastern Ukraine.
That Ukraine would even end up in an ongoing battle, almost three months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion, is remarkable. Analysts pointed out that a protracted war would strain the resources of a Russian military that has already suffered heavy losses of men and machines. With that in mind, some argue that the Western world should push for its advantage by tightening the economic stumbling block in Moscow.
“I’m worried about Western fatigue,” he said Michael A. McFaula former US ambassador to Russia, “which is why the leaders of the free world should do more now to speed up the end of the war.”
The United States and the European Union, he said, should impose a whole series of devastating sanctions immediately, rather than rolling them out in escalating waves, as they have done so far. Western countries had come close to such an all-in strategy with military aid, he said, which had helped the Ukrainians keep the Russians away.
However, the interrupted negotiations on a European oil embargo show the limits of that strategy in terms of Russian energy supply. European Union ambassadors held another fruitless meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, failing to break the fierce opposition from a single member of the bloc, Hungary.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has a close relationship with Putin and has been at odds with Brussels, threw hopes of a show of unanimity in disintegration when he blocked the latest move, arguing that a ban on Russian oil would be tantamount to a “” atomic bomb “for the Hungarian economy.
Mr Orban has continued to resist, even after concessions that would give Hungary more time to wean itself off Russian oil and intense lobbying from other leaders. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, flew to Budapest to try to rock him while President Emmanuel Macron called him.
“We will only support this proposal if Brussels proposes a solution to the problem created by Brussels,” said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, adding that a modernization of Hungary’s energy sector would cost “many, many billions of euros.”
In Washington, Mr. Biden encountered minor problems in gathering support for military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The House’s vote for a massive aid package showed how the brutality of the war had overcome opposition from both the right and the left to American interference in military conflicts abroad.
And yet rising food and fuel prices, exacerbated by the war, pose a real threat to Mr. Biden. The price of food rose 0.9 percent in April from the previous month, according to data released on Wednesday. Finance Minister Janet L. Yellen said the administration was “terribly concerned about global food supplies”, adding that 275 million people around the world are facing starvation.
“Putin’s war has shut down critical sources of food,” Biden told farmers in Illinois. “Our farmers are helping on both fronts, lowering the price of food at home and expanding production and providing for the world in need.”
It remains to be seen whether the United States can increase agricultural production sufficiently to alleviate the shortcomings. But the visit to a farm came when Mr. Biden, under pressure over the fastest inflation rate in 40 years, tried to assure Americans that the White House takes price increases seriously.
While Putin is undoubtedly under much greater pressure – from growing casualties to the economic pain caused by sanctions – he is exploiting nationalist sentiments, which some analysts note will give him perseverance.
The Kremlin signaled on Wednesday that it could annex the strategically important southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, as the occupation authorities said they would prepare a formal request to Putin to absorb their region in Russia.
“They are motivated by powerful nationalism,” said Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist at Stanford University, “as they are willing to suffer extraordinary economic damage.” Still, he added, the Western world’s muscular response could be “a moment of turning in the self-confidence of democracies.”
For some Europeans, the United States may go too far. French diplomats with links to Macron described the emerging US policy as essentially arming Ukraine to the border and maintaining sanctions against Russia indefinitely. France, they said, wanted to push hard for negotiations with Putin because there was no other way to lasting European security.
Other analysts claim that the threat to Western unity is exaggerated. Finland’s and Sweden’s move to join NATO indicates not only that the alliance is shrinking but also that its center of gravity is shifting eastwards.
Even before he invaded Ukraine, Putin warned these countries that they would face “retaliation” if they joined NATO. During a visit to Stockholm, Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested that the United Kingdom’s mutual security declaration signed with Sweden – according to which both countries promised to come to each other’s help if they faced a military threat or natural disaster – would counteract this threat.
“Sovereign nations must be free to make these decisions without fear or influence or threat of retaliation,” Johnson said with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. The declaration “will allow us to share more intelligence, strengthen our military exercises and promote our joint development of technology,” he said.
Despite Germany’s ambivalence about shutting down Russian gas, it seems highly unlikely to reverse the course of its landmark commitment to increase military spending. On Wednesday, Germany began training the first class of Ukrainian weapons crews in the use of self-propelled howitzers in western Germany. The German military plans to donate seven of the heavy weapons to Ukraine.
“The Russians, because of their barbarism, continue to generate images and news that will help Western unity,” said Eliot A. Cohen, a political scientist who served in the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. “If the Ukrainians continue to succeed, I think people will cheer them on.”
The reporting has contributed by Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels, Roger Cohen from Paris, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Cora Engelbrecht from London, Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport from Washington, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia and Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin.