Dalibor Rohac

Although Western support to Ukraine’s defence effort continues unabated, the honeymoon between Kyiv and even its staunchest allies is decidedly over. In a recent interview, President Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, said that Ukraine sees Poland as its close friend 'until the end of the war.' Then, he added, 'competition between the countries will begin.' The quote, which was immediately seized upon by Russian propaganda as evidence of a fracture in Ukraine’s key relationship, came off the back of a spat between Warsaw and Kyiv over the ban on imports of Ukrainian grain to Poland. The policy is due to remain in place until at least mid-September, even as Ukraine’s maritime export infrastructure is being destroyed by Russian bombing.

US president Joe Biden has been busy curbing expectations about Nato’s looming decision over Ukraine’s future membership. Starting the accession process at the summit in Lithuania this week would be ‘premature’, Biden said. Ukraine still needs to meet other qualifications for membership, ‘including democratisation’, the president added. Biden’s hesitation is misplaced. The Vilnius summit offers an opportunity for Nato to redress the historic mistake of the 2008 meeting in Bucharest. Back then, Nato failed to offer membership action plans to Ukraine and Georgia and thus invited Russian aggression – including the current war.

For Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, there is only one lesson to be learned from the compromise reached with the EU this week: blackmail works. With the deal, Hungary has managed to partly unblock EU pay-outs in exchange for lifting its veto on an EU aid package to Ukraine and a minimum global corporate tax rate. After the EU threatened to suspend €7.5 billion in funds for Hungary, Budapest vetoed the €18 billion aid package that the EU had prepared for Ukraine to keep its economy afloat during the war. Now, thanks to the compromise, the suspended amount of Hungary’s funds will be lower – only € 6.3 billion, or 18 per cent of the total amount that Hungary is set to receive. This is not a complete victory for Orbán.

Liz Truss's mind was probably elsewhere when she arrived in Prague for the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC) today. After precipitating a financial panic, backtracking on tax reform plans, and seeing her approval rating plummet to -37 within a week, the Prime Minister has a lot on her plate. It would be a mistake, however, for the PM not to seize the opportunity to strengthen the leadership role the UK is currently enjoying among much of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Nordic states. Despite its French DNA, the idea of an EPC is a sound one.

Today, Europe needs nothing more than a strong Polish leadership. Poland already counts among the largest providers of military and financial assistance to Ukraine, and Poles have admirably shouldered the burden of Ukrainian refugees flowing into the country. Diplomatically, however, Warsaw punches well below its weight in the EU. That is a problem in an age when the EU’s natural leader, Germany, has lost its way. Just two days into the exhumations in Izyum, which have exposed yet more alleged war crimes by Russian forces, Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz characterised the tone of his phone conversations with Vladimir Putin as ‘friendly’, notwithstanding their ‘very, very different, indeed widely differing views’.

Oddly enough, a visitor to Kyiv these days is unwittingly reminded of Israel, of all places. With sunbathers on the beach by the Dnipro, busy (though not completely full) restaurants and cafés, and hipsters and skateboarders, it is sometimes hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that this is a country at war. Yet the war is omnipresent. Each day is punctuated by air raids, mostly ignored by the locals. Roadblocks and checkpoints around the city are being fortified instead of removed in anticipation of another possible attack on the capital.

Poland is back. Not so long ago, the country was seen as an effigy of democratic backsliding, rather than a post-communist success story. In 2017, the European Commission made its first use of the Article 7 procedure against Poland over concerns about eroding separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary. On the campaign trail in 2020, Joe Biden warned about ‘what’s happening from Belarus through Poland and Hungary and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world’. In doing so, he placed the Polish government in the company of some of the worst dictators on the planet. But within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland managed to reclaim its place as a sober regional power.

Forget the 'commitment' of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ukraine’s sovereignty, the EU’s 'firm and decisive' support, and Liz Truss's vow to 'stand firm' with Ukraine. The hard truth is that the West has already lost, or rather abandoned, Ukraine. Even if it is not overrun by Russian tanks this winter, the Kremlin has a free hand to destabilise, threaten, and undercut Ukraine – including by intensifying the conflict in Ukraine’s east. After all, that war, initiated by Vladimir Putin, has been ongoing since 2014. And for all the tough rhetoric, countless sanctions, and the two bargains struck in Minsk, Russia continues to occupy Crimea and treat Donbas as its own territory.