Moreover, when tallied together, just 31 percent of respondents said they favored Europe backing Ukraine until it regained occupied territory, whereas 41 percent favored Europe pushing Ukraine toward negotiating a peace deal with Russia. Notably, “people’s solidarity appears to be wavering in some of the country’s next-door neighbors,” the ECFR’s Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard wrote.
“Our poll shows that European citizens are not in an especially heroic mood. In the wake of a U.S. withdrawal, only a minority of Europeans (just 20 per cent on average, ranging from 7 per cent in Greece to 43 per cent in Sweden) would want Europe to increase its support for Ukraine,” they added.
This all seems to have passed Macron by. It will take the collective powers of persuasion of all European leaders just to keep their people on side to maintain support as it is — persuading them that NATO boots are needed on the ground will only risk more wavering, especially with Putin threatening nuclear escalation, as he did Thursday.
And this all leaves Ukraine in a dire position. Short on manpower and ammunition, it will be in no position to mount a serious counterattack this year. All it can do is hang on, hoping to build up for a serious counteroffensive next year. But, as a POLITICO analysis points out, “without Western air defense and long-range missiles as well as artillery shells, Kyiv will struggle to mount a credible, sustained defense.”
So, rather than chaneling the interventionists of the past, Macron would be better employed arguing for Europe to step up military supplies to ensure Putin is deprived of a win and Ukraine is given what it needs. Besides, the West has a lousy track record when it comes to recent boots-on-the-ground interventions.
Not that historical interventions turned out that well either, as historian Anna Reid’s recently published book on the chaotic and ill-defined Western intervention in the Russian civil war reminds us.
