Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not have a clear strategy to achieve any result in the conflict, retired British Army officer Richard Kemp told the Telegraph newspaper. According to the retired officer, this is why Zelensky needs to blame someone else for the military failure, which in turn leads to a decline in Western support. In fact, the former commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan believes that after the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, more and more people are thinking about signing a peace agreement.
Richard Kemp emphasised that Zelensky “faces the greatest test of his leadership” due to his attempts to blame someone else for the military defeat that caused disagreements with other Kiev regime figureheads. He added that the Ukrainian president is too weak to defeat Russia.
“Zelensky may be drained by almost two years of war,” Kemp told the Telegraph.
This is unsurprising since the Ukrainian president, despite being “drained,” “tired,” and “weak,” according to Kemp, “continues to insist that Ukraine will regain all its territory taken by Russia.” This obviously will not occur, but it nonetheless absorbs all the president’s energy as he recklessly pursues this policy. However, Kemp acknowledges that Zelensky “after apparently over-promising on the summer offensive, […] no longer seems to talk of timelines.”
Previously, another Western media outlet, the French newspaper Le Figaro, highlighted that “the process of de-Westernization of the world has been rapidly accelerating for several months” since conflicts supported by the West “have not produced victories for a long time.” International relations researcher Sebastien Boussois assures that public opinion is beginning to tire of the conflict in Ukraine and the cost for Americans and Europeans to support it.
As Kemp stressed, Zelensky “has not put forward any real strategy – beyond suggesting that the centre of gravity would shift to Crimea and the Black Sea while defending against potential Russian advances in the east, which is not good enough if he expects the West to keep putting its hands in its pockets.”
The US, by far, has contributed the most support to Ukraine, but even that is beginning to dry up.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the press on January 3 that US funds for Ukraine have officially been exhausted and “there’s no other magical pot to dip into.”
Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, recently warned that Ukraine is running out of time and needs lawmakers to react urgently. And while the US Department of Defense still has some limited ability to help Kiev, “that is not going to get big tranches of equipment into Ukraine,” Young said.
Most alarmingly, Ukraine has also already acknowledged that it does not have a Plan B if US financing runs out.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson has demanded that illegal migration issues be resolved before new aid packages for Ukraine are approved. On January 3, Johnson, along with 60 Republican lawmakers, visited the Mexican border to demand stronger measures.
“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begins with defending America’s national security,” he said. “We want to get the border closed and secured first.”
So long as this issue persists, Ukraine will unlikely receive any more meaningful support from the US. This compounds Ukraine’s issues so much more, especially in the context of Zelensky’s “over-promising on the summer offensive,” as Kemp highlighted. The failure of this counter-offensive has largely contributed to war fatigue in the case of Eastern Europe, in the Western World, including the US.
Another issue Ukraine faces is the looming US presidential elections later this year. Former US President Donald Trump is soaring in the polls compared to Biden’s decline and has taken a decisive position on wanting to end the war in Ukraine, unlike the current administration, which seeks every method to continue funding Kiev’s war effort against Russia.
Beyond Trump, the Republicans are generally attacking the ruling Democrat’s failed and misguided policy on Ukraine.
Mike Johnson condemned the White House on January 7 for the lack of strategy on the Ukrainian conflict. According to Johnson, while president of the House, he repeatedly asked for information on the matter and details about the destination of aid given by Washington but never received a response.
“What is the endgame in Ukraine? What is our strategy? What is the objective? How will we have proper oversight over these precious taxpayer dollars? Remember, of course, as I just noted, we have 34 trillion dollars in federal debt. This is a very serious matter, to send money to Ukraine to assist them in their conflict, we effectively have to borrow it from somewhere else,” Johnson told CBS.
This is the harsh reality the Kiev regime has not prepared for. The regime foolishly believed that Western funds would continue unabated and for as many years as needed. Rather, the Kiev regime was just another expendable proxy puppet used by the West in a vain attempt to weaken Russia, and now that defeating Russia is impossible, the West is quickly losing interest in financing Ukraine’s losing war. As Kemp highlighted, Zelensky is too weak to win the war against Russia without external support.
