Since February 24, 2022, a phrase has found its way into Western leaders' rhetoric: The war Russia is waging on Ukraine is "existential." The threat represented by a Russia that is altering borders and rewriting history is "existential." Yet how do you measure the existential nature of a conflict? Is this war a little existential? A lot? And for whom, apart from Ukraine? For Russia's immediate neighbors? For the rest of Europe? For the United States?
These are not just philosophical questions. They have practical and strategic implications, the full weight of which Ukraine is currently feeling. When a threat is truly existential, you do everything you can to ward it off.
Faced with the most difficult military situation since the first weeks of the massive Russian invasion, which began over two years ago, the Ukrainians and their closest allies are aware of just how little help they currently have, and are coming to doubt the "existential" nature of the Russian war for others.
"It's hard," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba replied gloomily about the situation on the battlefield to European experts and officials gathered at the Lennart Meri conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on May 18. "Send us everything we need, because we have proved over these two years that when our soldiers have everything they need, we succeed," he continued, adding: "Send us Patriot [missiles], send us artillery ammunition, send us armored vehicles, allow us to hit any necessary military target inside Russia, help us protect our skies, and you will see the difference."
Biden's team increasingly discredited
This is one of the major criticisms leveled at the US at the moment: Why hold back the Ukrainians and prevent them from attacking enemy military targets on Russian territory with the long-range weapons supplied to Kyiv, when the Russian army has no qualms about targeting civilians and destroying infrastructure that is vital to the Ukrainian population? The more the Russian army becomes offensive and murderous, the less justifiable this unequal battle becomes. American reluctance, after seven months of prevarication in Congress over the vote on the $60 billion (around €55 billion) in aid promised to Ukraine, has increasingly discredited Joe Biden's team among certain countries in northern and eastern Europe, even though they have traditionally been the most Atlanticist.
On Tuesday, May 28, the White House settled the debate within the Biden administration, in which Secretary of State Tony Blinken would have liked to give the Ukrainians a free hand: No, the presidential spokesman reiterated, there was no authorization to target Russian territory. Today, many Western experts are ready to admit it: For Washington, the war in Ukraine is not existential. "We told Israel that we'd defend it, we never said that to Ukraine," acknowledged a former American ambassador.
You have 50.04% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.