European Countries, and the UN, Take a July Vacation From Ukraine

Europe’s six largest countries failed in July to make any new military pledges or other relevant commitments to helping Ukraine eject Russia from its territory, the first month that has happened since Moscow launched its invasion in February. This is according to newly released data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and comes at a time when Ukraine is gearing up for a major counter-offensive against Russian forces in the occupied Kherson region. The Kiel Institute’s data, slated for release today, cover 40 countries with an emphasis on Europe; the half dozen said to be coming up short in terms of support for Kyiv include Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Poland.According to a report in Politico, the findings back many Ukrainian officials’ contention “that major European powers are not keeping up with the military aid coming from the U.S., and that having led the charge, big-hitting Britain and Poland may be running out of steam.” The head of the institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker, Christoph Trebesch, told Politico that “despite the war entering a critical phase, new aid initiatives have dried up.” While pledges for another $1.5 billion in aid were made at a Ukraine donor conference at Copenhagen last week, that amount “is meager compared to what was raised in earlier conferences,” he said.The findings come as 19 retired American generals and former security officials have called on Washington to ramp up arms supplies to Kyiv, and without delay. By only “providing aid sufficient to produce a stalemate, but not enough to roll back Russian territorial gains, the Biden administration may be unintentionally seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.” That open letter, under the title “US must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late,” was published in the Hill and signed by the likes of the former supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, and three former ambassadors to Ukraine. Earlier this month, the AP reported that the Biden administration said it would be shipping its biggest yet direct delivery of weapons to Ukraine as “it prepares for a potentially decisive counteroffensive in the south against Russia, sending $1 billion in rockets, ammunition and other material to Ukraine from Defense Department stockpiles.” For the authors of the open letter, though, that is not enough and delivery needs to speed up. The letter reads in part, “The Biden administration should move more quickly and strategically in meeting Ukrainian requests for weapons systems. And when it decides to send more advanced weapons, like HIMARS artillery, it should send them in larger quantities that maximize their impact on the battlefield.”“Beyond this,” it continues, “Ukraine needs more short- and medium-range air defense to counter Russian air and missile attacks.” Russia has routinely fired missiles at civilian targets in and around Ukrainian cities.There are also growing signs that efforts to give a lift to Ukraine by punishing Russia economically are flagging. The headline of a new Reuters report sums it up: “Action Wanes at UN to Isolate Russia Almost Six Months into Ukraine War.” In that report, the UN director at the independent International Crisis Group, Richard Gowan, said, “As the war has dragged on, it has become harder to find meaningful ways to penalize Russia.”The report cites EU inaction on the human rights front, too: “The European Union mulled a plan in June to appoint a UN expert to investigate human rights violations in Russia,” but “it shelved the idea over fears nearly half the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva might oppose it.”All of that is to the detriment of Ukraine — which has branded Russia a terrorist state and would like to see the country ejected from the UN altogether — and to the probable satisfaction of Russia, which of course can wield its veto power as a member of the Security Council to shield itself from sanctions. According to the Reuters report, the Russian mission to the United Nations in Geneva said that Western states “know all too well that it’s impossible to isolate Russia since it’s a global power.”A trilateral meeting of the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, with President Zelensky and his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan, in Ukraine today may yet galvanize the war effort. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was not invited to the meeting at Lviv, in the western section of Ukraine near the border with Poland. Ahead of the meeting, Russian missiles struck the Kharkiv region, killing at least five people. The number of wounded was not immediately known.

European Countries, and the UN, Take a July Vacation From Ukraine

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