‘Europe must defend itself’: shadow of war in Ukraine looms over security conference
On the top floor of Literaturhaus in Munich, the Ukrainian veteran Yuliia Paievska was asked to speak to the elite of the transatlantic security and political establishment, including Hillary Clinton and the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, as they lunched on a three-course meal, served with military precision.
“We are the dogs of war,” Paievska said as she introduced herself, explaining how she had started out as a volunteer and then worked as the chief medic at a hospital on the frontline during the siege of Mariupol. “I had children die in my hands, civilians, elderly. I do not know how you can forgive that. Thousands of soldiers have gone through my hands, thousands of civilians, streams of blood, rivers of suffering.”
She had herself been captured, beaten and tortured, and said every day had been a psychological and physical humiliation. Six operations later, she explained the voraciousness of war. “War, you know, it drinks our blood. It is never satisfied with our blood. It is always hungry. The more you give, the more she wants. But we made a commitment to our people, we swore the oath and we fight.
“In war, I understood to dedicate ourselves to what I love the most. I love my nation. I pray that none of you and your children will be forced to defend your own land just because Russians would decide that they have a right to your land.”
She haltingly ended with an appeal. “To stop the war, we need to kill the war. Give us weapons to murder the war. We will manage, just help us a little bit.”
It was a moment when those at the Munich Security Conference, a meeting of western politicians, defensive officials and academics, sensed what was at stake. It rephrased the question that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had put to the conference. In phraseology reminiscent of President John F Kennedy, he had said: “Please don’t ask Ukraine when the war will end. Ask yourself why Putin is still able to wage this war.”
With Alexei Navalny dead, the Ukrainians retreated from Avdiivka, the US Congress deadlocked over supplying a further $60bn in aid and the shadow of Donald Trump’s return to the White House hovering over any discussion, Zelenskiy’s question could not have been more pertinent.
Two historians who followed Paievska, Timothy Synder and Niall Ferguson, also focused on the west’s role in the conflict. “It is a world war in which only one country is fighting,” Snyder said. “It is shocking, given our economic preponderance, how slowly we have mobilised. It is a mistake of the 21st century that economic preponderance leads to military victory. We have not been creative and quick enough. Compare the improvisation of Churchill and Roosevelt.”
Fergusson was even more urgent: “The challenge is to convince certain people and politicians that this is a dire a need as people say. Only a small and dwindling minority of Republican voters think that the US is not doing enough.”
Throughout the weekend, the Ukrainian delegation faced a hard enough job in trying to pitch the fierce urgency of their plight without tipping over into defeatism. One French official noted the dilemma: “A year ago ahead of the counter-offensive we had too much euphoria, and now perhaps too much depression.”
The French talk down suggestions that Ukrainian morale, supply lines and logistics are so stretched there may be