It was the day when the assembled top diplomats of the Western world, in shiny dark blue suits and shiny suits, gathered in Brussels to show their unity and determination in the face of President Vladimir Putin’s aggression. And they did.
But it was President Zelensky, dressed in army green, who grabbed them by the collar via video link and plunged them nose into the mixture of blood and mud from the battlefield. The places where, a month since the war broke out, Ukrainians have been forced to bury their dead in ditches or backyards. The scene of inhumane scenes that Europe, Zelensky said, has not seen since the Second World War.
We are outside NATO in the ‘grey zone’, Zelensky said, ‘but we have been defending our shared values for a month. A month of heroic defense and of the darkest suffering, the unpunished destruction of a peaceful country.’ Give me 1 percent of your planes, 1 percent of your tanks, he said. “The worst thing during a war is not getting immediate answers to requests for help.”
Zelensky grapples with dire shortages of weapons against a much larger enemy who has no qualms about shooting at civilians. He struggles with closed-off cities in which fleeing civilians are fired upon, as well as food transports.
Show of impotence
The contrast between Ukraine’s struggle for survival and the political struggle of Western leaders wondering how much pain and risk they are willing to accept because of the war is stark. So great that the Day of Western Unity in Brussels was also unintentionally a display of what you could call impotence, or the limits of Western power.
The West is definitely not sitting still, as was emphasized all day on forums. Western countries have introduced unprecedented sanctions against Russia. NATO has the defense of its own territory in order. In addition to those in Poland and the Baltic countries, there are now also small multinational units in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. In June, NATO will decide to significantly increase its presence in the east on a permanent basis.
Many weapons are already being supplied by member states, said Secretary-General Stoltenberg (who will remain in office for an extra year because of the war), and that will continue. NATO will send detection and protection equipment against chemical, radiological and biological weapons. New announcements of arms support, also by a non-Nato country like Sweden, continue daily, the US and the EU have pledged large sums of money. But NATO has a responsibility, Stoltenberg said, that it won’t be a full-blown war with Russia, “we have to be honest about that.”
It almost sounded like an apology after Zelensky’s cry for help. British Prime Minister Johnson said he understands Zelenski’s appeal, but that delivery of tanks and warplanes is “logistically very difficult” at the moment. Hence the other weapon support that is directly possible and serves the same purpose.
Weapon deliveries and red lines
President Macron showed on a map at NATO headquarters the major contribution the French are now making to the alliance. It shows, he said, that his ‘Europe of power’ is a component of NATO, ‘not a substitute and not a competitor’. He didn’t say much about arms supplies and red lines. ‘I believe that strategic ambiguity and discretion are more effective.’ For the first time since the end of the Cold War, three of the four nuclear-armed French submarines have now set sail.
US President Biden said he had come to Brussels to ensure that the strong sanctions against Russia are sustained for a long time. “That’s what will stop Putin.” Macron and Chancellor Scholz also underlined that the sanctions are working. Macron hopes they will lead to a ceasefire, but new sanctions are possible “if necessary.”
Biden announced new US sanctions in line with European ones, saying his country will host 100,000 Ukrainians and free up $1 billion in humanitarian aid. Under Biden’s presidency, $2 billion in arms aid to Ukraine has already been decided — an “extraordinary effort,” Johnson said.
Further sanctions ‘not excluded’
A tightening of sanctions – according to the Baltic countries and Poland crucial to stop Putin – is not imminent. Germany does not want a direct import stop, Scholz said in advance. It would ‘plung our country and the whole of Europe into a recession’ and ‘hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk’. If Putin proceeds to a complete invasion of Ukraine, “which is not ruled out”, further sanctions are possible, according to Scholz.
The statements portray how Europe is struggling with the war. The arms support must be continued, Scholz also believes; but our limit is that we should not become co-belligerents, Macron said. Europe is willing to go far, but not too far, and countries do not agree on the definition of those terms. For example, the Western countries are more united than ever, but with a Russian president who relentlessly continues bombing, it is also further from home than ever.
It is much better than the weakness and division Biden said Putin counted on when he decided to attack Ukraine. But it failed to dispel the echo of Zelensky’s words in Brussels on Thursday: ‘Nato has yet to show what the alliance can do to save people. (…) The world is waiting. And Ukraine waits.’