In a recent interview, the commanding general of U.S. Army Europe (2014-2017), retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, said that Western engagement is not yet fully aligned with a Ukrainian victory in the war: “Unfortunately… our administration, the German government, and several other governments have not yet fully committed to helping Ukraine win.”
Several Western countries have clearly not heeded this important message and are planning a significant reduction in their military aid to Ukraine. Indeed, in the United States, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized the financial assistance provided by the United States to Ukraine and several political experts fear that if elected, he will significantly reduce this critical aid.
As for Germany, the second largest provider of military aid to Ukraine after the United States, it plans to cut this aid by almost half, from around eight billion euros to four billion euros, according to a draft 2025 budget approved by its government.
Canada’s 2024 budget is even worse in this regard, both in actual numbers and in percentage terms, as it provides for $1.6 billion Canadian over the next five years, about $320 million per year, or one-fifth of the military aid Canada provided to Ukraine in each of the first two years of Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
Rampart
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s contribution to protecting the West from Russia’s insatiable expansionism, which would otherwise have already triggered World War III, continues to be expressed in human sacrifices, while the total cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction and recovery was estimated, by the end of 2023, at US$486 billion over the next decade.
Ukraine has clearly defined strategic goals: to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to liberate all territories occupied by Russia, to ensure the return of Ukrainian children and prisoners of war, to ensure lasting peace, including by becoming a member of both the European Union and NATO, to obtain compensation from Russia for all the damage it has inflicted, and to rebuild.
All these strategic goals are fully consistent with international law and order, they promote global security and are in the primary interests of the West. To ensure their achievement, the strategic goal of the West must be to help Ukraine win this war.
Geopolitics
Once the West recognizes this geopolitical reality and fully commits to this strategic goal, it will provide Ukraine with the appropriate military assistance to enable it to effectively protect its airspace and reclaim the territories illegally occupied by Russia. The West will then also lift the self-defeating restrictions on how Ukraine can use weapons supplied by Western countries.
Moreover, the West would not continue its incremental or, as Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges poignantly put it, “drip feed” approach to frozen Russian assets abroad, as it has done with the provision of military aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s all-out war. Instead, the West would confiscate and transfer to Ukraine all of these foreign assets (and not just the interests derived from them) to support Ukraine’s war efforts and subsequent reconstruction.
Ukraine’s victory and real peace are achievable. The West just needs the political will to make it happen soon.