From the Telegraph:
"Western indifference has hung Zelensky out to dry
Con Coughlin, Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor
With only weeks to go before the US presidential election, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky could be forgiven for thinking that, irrespective of the outcome, Ukraine’s fight for freedom is fast becoming a lost cause. For all the pain and sacrifice the Ukrainian people have endured in the two-and-a-half years since Russia invaded Ukraine, all the indications suggest that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s initial calculation that the West would eventually lose interest in the conflict appears increasingly valid...
Zelensky is demanding that the West intensifies its support so that Ukraine can improve its bargaining position by making further gains on the battlefield. In particular, he wants the Biden administration to lift its restrictions on the use of long-range missiles, such as the Storm Shadow missile systems, to attack targets located deep within Russia.US president Joe Biden has been reluctant to provide the necessary authorisation for fear of provoking the Kremlin into escalating the conflict...
Nor did Zelensky do much better when he met former US president Donald Trump at his penthouse in New York. Having initially indicated he was too busy campaigning to meet the Ukrainian leader, Trump eventually relented, only to dash Zelensky’s hopes by stressing that he regards Putin as a close personal friend...
Is is not just in Washington that Zelensky will have identified signs that support for Ukraine is waning.
Even though Sir Keir Starmer pledged to maintain British support for the Ukrainian cause during his meeting with Zelensky at the UN, it is arguably due to Starmer’s own incompetent handling of the Storm Shadow issue that the Ukrainians find themselves unable to use the missiles in the way they would like.
The air-launched missiles, which were originally gifted to the Ukrainians by the previous Conservative administration, have been used to great effect by Ukrainian forces to target key Russian military installations in places such as Crimea. Even though the missile systems rely on US tracking and guidance systems, Conservative ministers only informed the US that the missiles were being used, rather than seeking Washington’s permission to carry out the strikes.
Thanks to Starmer’s evident shortcomings as a global statesman, after becoming prime minister he set a new precedent of first asking the Americans for permission to use the weapons system, thereby allowing Washington to veto their use when it did not comply with the Biden administration’s policy objectives. The result is the Ukrainians now have stocks of Storm Shadow weapons, but cannot use them...
If Harris succeeds Biden in the White House, then Putin can assume that her administration will adopt the same risk-averse approach to the Ukraine conflict, one that, in effect, means the Ukrainians are limited in what they can achieve on the battlefield.
A Trump victory would, by contrast, most likely lead to Washington abandoning the Ukrainian cause.
Either outcome would not only be disastrous for Ukraine, but for the future prospects of the Western alliance."
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