KYIV — Two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s Western allies are still trying to have it both ways even as Moscow settles in for a long, attritional war, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO Wednesday.
“On the one hand, you’re an ally and you must help Ukraine in the war,” Podolyak said in an interview in the country’s capital. “On the other, you are trying to protect your market in a protectionist way.”
Relations between Kyiv and its European allies have been strained by weeks of protests by farmers in Poland and elsewhere against agricultural imports from Ukraine they worry will lower the prices of their products.
And now, EU countries are split over whether to extend duty-free imports of Ukrainian produce, with Poland and France pressing for tougher restrictions.
Podolyak complained that the debate over whether to reimpose the barriers, which were lifted after the Kremlin’s assault on Kyiv, was unworthy of Ukraine’s allies. He noted that European countries continue to trade with Russia even as the fighting drags on.
“For me, this looks strange,” he said. “You are simultaneously financing the defense of Ukraine, which is defending itself against Russia. Your companies finance the Russian federal budget, 42 percent of which goes directly to the war. So, you are both here and there at the same time.”
The Kremlin, he added, is preparing for a prolonged conflict and is stalling for time to make the war more expensive for Western countries and Ukraine.
“Russia is interested in a long war and in Western countries getting tired and saying, ‘that’s it, let’s look for some kind of compromise solution.’ But there’s no compromise solution in this war,” he said.
On Tuesday, Moscow claimed its troops had made advances in eastern Ukraine, adding to a string of gains since the capture of the city of Avdiivka last month. The Russian defense ministry said its troops had overrun the village of Orlivka.
Ukrainian officials are becoming disheartened about stalled military aid as stocks of ammunition — especially artillery shells — run perilously low, forcing frontline units to ration munitions as they battle to prevent Russian breakouts.
Podolyak expressed frustration at the West’s incrementalism, especially when it comes to supplying artillery shells.
Without additional supplies, Ukrainians will die in greater numbers “because there’s a lack of weapons to wage an effective defensive war,” he said. “It will be written in history how one nation, the most aggressive and bloodthirsty, came and killed because the West did not want to give additional shells.”
Earlier this week, during a meeting in Kyiv with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, Podolyak’s boss, President Zelenskyy, urged the U.S. Congress to urgently approve billions of dollars of military aid for Ukraine.
“It is critically important for us that the Congress soon completes all the necessary procedures and makes a final decision … which will strengthen the Ukrainian economy and our armed forces,” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying in an official presidential statement.
A $60 billion military aid package has been stalled for months on Capitol Hill with Republican lawmakers insisting any new funds for Ukraine must be linked to more action against illegal immigration along the southern border of the United States.
Podolyak said he was “still optimistic about the position of the United States” despite the political battles raging as the country gears up for a tough presidential election pitting President Joe Biden against former President Donald Trump.
He said he’s banking on U.S. lawmakers eventually understanding that backing Ukraine is essential. “Investing in Ukraine is an investment in America’s reputation, in its dominance, in its right to prescribe global rules and to make sure they’re not violated,” he said.
Likewise, he has not ruled out the possibility of Germany supplying the long-range Taurus missiles that Ukraine says it needs to target Russian logistics and supply lines.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week that supplying the missiles was “out of the question,” telling the Bundestag that the only way to deliver the missiles would be with German staff in support. “That is a line that I — as chancellor — do not want to cross,” he said.
But some in Scholz’s governing coalition are not taking that as the final word. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, for example, has called on her government to “intensively consider” dispatching the missiles to Ukraine.
Western powers must realize that this war is about more than just Ukraine, Podolyak said.
“This is a war about the rules under which you will live, we will live, Russia will live,” he added. “If Russia does not lose, then the rules will be a little different. Autocracy, violence, these will be the dominant forms of foreign policy manifestations.”
