WEST VOWS CONTINUED UKRAINE SUPPORT
Nearly one year into the brutal and costly war in Ukraine, Western leaders pledged to remain steadfast in their support for Ukraine amid worries about whether their unity can survive what France’s president called “a prolonged conflict.”
As dozens of leaders convened in Germany, Ukraine’s president opened the annual Munich Security Conference with a warning against “fatigue” and emphasizing that speed is of the essence if his country is to hold off a renewed Russian onslaught.
“We need to hurry up,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine implored the attendees. He compared his country’s fight against Russia to the biblical battle of David and Goliath, saying that Western weapons would be the key to defeating “the Russian Goliath.”
He said that was why weapons deliveries must be accelerated. “Delay has always been, and still is, a mistake,” he said.
President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany each delivered speeches vowing that the West would not lose its patience, even as debate grows about the war effort’s scale, its cost and the economic damage it has done around the world.
U.S. and European officials have crowed in recent months about their unity against Russia, which has defied many predictions, including in Moscow, of infighting and capitulation. But the war is expected to last at least another year, and that unity will be tested. Few expect a sudden breakthrough by either side, and the cost of sustaining the Ukrainian fight against a larger foe is also expected to create new strains among allies.
Throughout the day, the leaders did their best to bat away any suggestions of impatience or disunity. Before his address, Scholz had told Christiane Amanpour of CNN that “it is not really a very good idea” to “discuss the question of when, in which month, the war will end.”
“The really important decision that we should all take together is saying that we are willing to do it as long as necessary and that we will do our best,” he added.
Unlike Scholz, though, Macron hinted at the prospect of an eventual negotiated settlement to the war.
While pledging that the West is “ready for a prolonged conflict” and saying the time is not right for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the French leader also used words like “dialogue” and “re-engagement” to describe some eventual interaction with Moscow.
They were joined at the three-day gathering of leaders, diplomats and foreign policy elites by Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and several members of the U.S. Congress.