NEW DELHI: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing his toughest test since Russian war tanks rolled into his country on February 22 last year. Zelensky, who was recently in the U.S. capital to shore up American support for Ukraine, failed to secure the needed guarantees that Congress would continue to support the Ukrainian war effort. While much has been made of this, analysts argue that the West has been failing to keep up with Ukrainian demands for some time now.
As military analyst, Lt Gen Raj Shukla (Retd), former commander of Army Training Command (ARTRAC) pointed out in a recent interview to StratNews Global: “The Ukrainians are firing 100,000 artillery rounds per week while the West is only able to provide them with 100,000 artillery rounds per month. This is a key reason why Russia is winning the land war.”
The inability of the West to provide artillery along with the expectations that Ukraine should break through Russian defences and win the war quickly has frustrated Ukrainian analysts who believe that NATO seems to expect miracles from Kiev. Ukrainian sources in New Delhi stated that it was easy to lose track of the size of the operation. Pointing out that the Russia-Ukraine border is over 2,000 kilometres (1,974 km of land and 321 km of sea) the sources stated that it was important to place things in perspective.
“Ukraine has taken back 50 per cent of the territory Russia has seized so we are doing well. We also have to bear in mind that fighting is going on all across the border and a town which may be symbolically important may not be of as much significance strategically,” said sources. “The other problem that we face is that after the liberation of the Kharkiv region and Kherson city in autumn last year everyone has been expecting a “New Hollywood” from Ukraine. What they forget is that Russia had been preparing much better this time and that the gains we made were also because previously they had been preparing for a three-day war. Now they have experience and have mined huge territories which will take a big second operation to overcome. This operation will need lots of preparation.”
Carrying out such an operation is one part of the problem; the other is about wrestling away the global narrative from Russia. Ukrainian sources admit that while the West has been on its side, it has lost the war of the narrative on the Global South which it is trying to regain. India plays a key role here and ongoing efforts have been made to win over New Delhi. Emine Dzhaparova, Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister visited New Delhi on a four-day official visit in April this year to make Kiev’s case and more recently a Ukrainian delegation was in town for the same purpose. The delegation which was led by Dr Hanna Shelest, Director of Security Studies and Global Outreach Programmes at the Kyiv-based Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” says Ukraine has identified eight key countries—Australia, South Korea, Singapore, India, Qatar, Israel, Brazil and Canada—which it means to win over to its side.
Asked what was Ukraine’s message to these countries, Olha Vorozhbyt, a member of the delegation, stated that they would seek to dispel the notion that the ongoing war was a proxy war between Russia and NATO. “It is an existential war, and it should be borne in mind that Ukraine is a much smaller country than Russia but we are also defending the European countries from Putin. Though there are questions about Viktor Orban, all other EU states recognise Ukraine’s security is their security.”
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