The Ukrainian army entered Saturday, October 1 in Lyman, a strategic city in eastern Ukraine, in the Donetsk region, whose annexation the day before by Moscow was strongly condemned by kyiv and the West. Ukrainian troops also seem to be advancing in the south of the country. Western support for kyiv has so far been unfailing since the start of the war, but until when? Overview.
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In Italy, nuances in the declarations
In Italy, a new government will take office in a few weeks. This government is Atlanticist but within the right-wing and far-right coalition which won the general elections on Sunday 25th September, not everyone has the same position on the war in Ukraine. The latest official statements from Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi are not as clear cut as those from Giorgia Meloni. Matteo Salvini, for example, condemned all aggression, annexation and nuclear threat, but without naming Russia! He says the next government will have to work even more determinedly for peace and disarmament as Europe and Italy arm Ukraine. Silvio Berlusconi even made him pass Vladimir Putin for a victim who would have been pushed to go to war.
If two of the three members of the new ruling coalition express doubts, can the Italian position change? Silvio Berlusconi has just made up for it by affirming that it was necessary to follow the very firm Draghi line on the sanctions for example (while Salvini calls them into question). As for Giorgia Meloni, she has always been very clear since the start of the conflict and has never changed her position: she will continue to arm Ukraine to defend itself. She has already exchanged with Volodymyr Zelensky, to whom she again promised loyal support; she condemned the annexation of the regions by the russians. And then Giorgia Meloni does not want and cannot cut herself off from the European line on this point, her credibility and that of Italy are at stake. But there are therefore two downsides, her allies who should fall into line, c This is in any case what Giorgia Meloni hopes for, and then Italian public opinion, which is overwhelmingly opposed to sending arms to Ukraine while condemning Russian aggression.
Dear @ZelenskyyUa, you know that you can count on our loyal support for the cause of freedom of Ukrainian people. Stay strong and keep your faith steady!
— Giorgia Meloni ن (@GiorgiaMeloni) September 27, 2022
In the United States, the next elections may lead to an inflection
Joe Biden is taking advantage of a rare agreement between Democrats and Republicans to send ever more aid, military and economic, to kyiv. Since the start of the war, Congress has thus approved the release of 65 billion dollars to support the Ukrainian military effort. The United States are by far Ukraine’s main supporters. A new envelope of more than 12 billion dollars has just been voted in Congress. And once is not custom, it is quite easily, by 72 votes against 25, that the text passed to the Senate. Usually the debates are much fiercer, between Democrats and Republicans – since both camps have 50 seats. The elected representatives of both parties, since the start of the war, find themselves in their opposition to Vladimir Putin. With therefore, this result and its 65 billion dollars in aid released in 6 months, without causing too much latent debate on Capitol Hill. But that could change.
With the midterm elections, in just over a month the Democrats could lose the House, the Senate, or even both. The most radical Republicans, followers of Donald Trump, could also take up more space in the Capitol. However, for this very isolationist fringe of the party, unlike more traditional conservatives, Ukraine is not the Americans’ problem. Finally, another factor that could accentuate the debate around the aid sent to Ukraine is public opinion, which seems to be showing signs of weariness. According to a recent poll, a majority of Americans would thus like diplomatic solutions, and not only military ones, to be explored in order to end the war as quickly as possible.
In Georgia, government action divides elected officials
Georgia is traditionally allied with kyiv in its fight against the former colonial power that is Russia, but the debate over the war in Ukraine is raging. Basically, the discussions relate to the pro-Russian character or not of the action of the Georgian government. Part of the population and the political opposition believe that the ruling party, the Georgian Dream of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, is working to bring the country back into the Russian fold, while the 3.7 million Georgians are more three-quarters pro-Western.
The government pleads with him for caution, in the face of an aggressive Russia. Hence his refusal to associate the country with the sanctions decreed against Moscow. A controversy arose, a week after the start of the war, following the obstacles created by the government to prevent the departure of a few dozen Georgian volunteers to the front in Ukraine. Another controversy has also erupted in recent days with the massive influx of Russians fleeing military mobilization. The question was about whether or not to restore visas for Russian citizens. The opposition believes that this influx of perhaps 70,000 Russians, some of whom certainly leave after a few days, represents a security risk. She fears the entry into the country of Kremlin agents and in general that this mass which did not rise up against the invasion of Ukraine and only moved from the day it was concerned by mobilization, and well is not fundamentally anti-Putin and has invited itself into a Georgia which, let us remember, lost 20% of its territory in the early 1990s, due to the separatism of two provinces supported by Moscow .