Crystal balls
Trying to predict the future is a fool's game, but if you sit down and think, even for a brief moment, the potential scenarios are alarming.
This morning I received a message from a Ukrainian in Vienna, who had already read this news in translation. German media report, citing government sources, that if Ukraine were to fall, Germany alone could expect an influx of an additional ten million refugees from Ukraine. Yes, you read that figure correctly. Full article (in German) here.
I feel like we volunteers have been warning about the risks, but as new mass flows of people have not yet materialised, the authorities in charge, if you judge them based on those actions which are visible to the public, are not planning for any such scenario. In fact, they seem at the moment more pre-occupied with making things harder for those Ukrainians who are already here, which is a really cynical way of saying “go home” without actually saying it. On paper, you are open. On paper, you are providing support. In practice, that support can be reduced or stripped away from you at the whim of a bureaucrat.
I received a phone call last week inviting us to meet with some officials next week in one of the ministries responsible for the refugee response. This was a pleasant surprise given we sent a letter to them in 2023 and never heard anything. But in typical Austrian fashion, just when we had begun to forget that we had ever written in the first place, we were invited for a meeting. On a Friday afternoon, but better than nothing. So in preparation for this, I began asking my usual questions of “what are the most pressing issues on your minds right now”, and I received many of the usual answers: long-term resident status in Austria post-2025, what will be the criteria on which Ukrainians will be judged as having sufficiently “integrated” to qualify for this status, assuming there will be something on offer, questions about work, questions about school, questions about affordable housing.
A mom wrote me who lives in a village in Lower Austria, in organized housing where they are “fed”, and she receives only €40 per pocket money month from the state. She lives there with her child. She writes:
“How can we build lives in Austria when we are stuck, like me, a mom with one school-aged child, it is 60 km to Vienna, public transportation costs money, but we only receive €40 per month each. I do not receive any money from Ukraine. Our apartment is bombed out. We are from Kharkiv.”
What she doesn’t explain is she cannot take a full-time job because if she did, she would lose her housing provided by the state. You become stuck in this poverty trap you cannot work your way out of, at least not legally.
This was Kharkiv last night. A family of five died.
A pensioner wrote me, and confirmed what we have been hearing for months. I wrote about it, and my frustration over the say one thing and do another approach, here:
And here is the video from Mykolaiv. This was three days ago.
It feels like a very strange inflection point, where on the one hand authorities are expecting Ukrainians who have sought temporary protection in the EU to have achieved certain levels of language skills and found legal employment, while I have the feeling few of those sitting in official positions actually understand what it is like on the ground to come to a new country with next to nothing, receive only a bare minimum, not qualify for many of the social programs accessible to local residents about to fall through various cracks, and then expect them after two years to have made some great achievements. Now, some absolutely have, and huge respect. But others — others came here already old, sick, with problems in Ukraine. The governments offer no new solutions, while expecting some kind of magical results. Frankly, I think the speed with which most kids have learned a new language and their parents have attended German classes is remarkable. But you don’t wave a magic wand after completing the next level of German class and suddenly find yourself with a nice middle-class job in a nice middle-class apartment. It doesn’t work like that. And I wonder, just hypothetically of course, if they expect everyone to work their way up taking kitchen jobs and other manual labor that does not require language skills, or if there is some kind of a plan what Austria would like to do with the tens of thousands of highly educated, mostly women and children, who now call it home.
So that is on my mind, with no obvious answers. I will try to present three issues, because I understand any more than that, and our audience will stop listening. It is an election year in Austria, which means the chances of any real change are about the same as seeing a double rainbow in the sky. Technically possible, but highly unlikely.
This week I have also been in touch with, and wrote a long thread here, a Ukrainian mom whose child (11yo, in a wheelchair) was removed from her custody and taken into state care from a city of Vienna dorm in which there is already an NGO on duty. This was in March 2023. Mom says she is now ready and able to care for her daughter, and has handed over a paper stating she is no longer in agreement with her child living in the city’s “crisis center” for kids (for 11 months!), but she needs legal advice. The authorities, or at least the one person who is in charge of this case, are claiming now they never promised to return the child to her in 2024, that something was “lost in translation”. I told mom to go to the embassy, gave her NGO contacts who might provide legal advice, I urged her not to give up. But seriously, how does this happen? I understand there are moments when it is in the best interests of the child to be taking into custody, temporarily. But after nearly a year the child is neither back with the mother nor living with a foster family. I cannot get my head around it, and unfortunately I have no legal background to give any real tangible advice.
A lot has been written about the change of command ordered by Ukraine’s president in the armed forces. I would like to share what I felt to be very useful, and very close to what I hear from Ukrainians themselves in terms of their take on the whole situation. Unfortunately, that means you need to listen to a podcast in Russian :) If you can, here is the link. The very short version is many see Zelensky’s firing of Zaluzhny as a political decision, as Zaluzhny may not have always done exactly what Zelensky wanted him to do, and he dared do things like publish op-eds in The Economist and CNN. It feels to some like removing a political rival (there are no polls but I could imagine Zaluzhny might have surpassed Zelensky in popularity by now) and replacing him with a career solider who does follow orders and has a, frankly, frightening reputation. The word “butcher” is used to describe the attitude towards soldiers.
Do read this extensive BBC Russia profile (translated from Russian, I read it in the original a few days ago) of the new head of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Syrskyi. What you may not know is his parents and brother live in Russia. The impression I got from the podcast and from reading here and there on Twitter from western journalists who have been reporting on Ukraine for a long time is that the new general does not have a good reputation amongst the men. You would think that would be a huge problem nearly two years into a war, especially when you are running out of ammunition and your allies’ commitment to finding you more seems shaky at best.
To be honest, to a layman looking in from the outside, this feels personal and not strategic.
CNN ran with a headline today “Outmanned and Outgunned”.
FT reports Ukraine faces ‘gap in the hose’ as western ammunition dries up.
“This is really as grave as we have been portraying it,” a US defence official said, noting that the US had run out of money to fund new weapons contracts for Ukraine or funds that would allow the Pentagon to take inventory from its stockpiles and replenish those stocks. “My take is that this is a very grim scenario,” the defence official said, adding that the Pentagon was particularly concerned about maintaining Ukrainians’ air defence systems and ammunition supplies.
I am not convinced Europe fully understands the graveness of the moment it finds itself in. The U.S. is self-obsessed with its geriatric presidential election, which has taken on a new level of ridiculousness I cannot even bring myself to comment on. We will see soon if it really matters who is president, or the country can keep on with business as usual and ignore the senior citizen White House. I think the jury is still out. Europe knows it needs to ramp up ammunition production, and to take the threat from Russia seriously (not matter what Putin says, in fact, better take what he says and believe the opposite to be true — he also famously said he would not invade Ukraine), but this is Europe. Nothing happens fast here. Europe isn’t great at fast. Europe is built on traditions it savours precisely because they never change. You have to imagine there are some sadistic plotters sitting in Russia looking at the whole hot mess and getting rather excited.
Some countries are paying attention. Denmark warned this week that Russia could potentially attack NATO and test the alliance within three years. It needed to be said and it is very good that someone finally said the quiet part out loud. For decades the existence of NATO has meant peace in (western) Europe. This may no longer be true if Russia achieves what it seeks in Ukraine and then looks westward.
It is important to remember it is a culture war. As much as nationalist Russia likes to hate America, it also has an inferiority complex. For this reason the whole Tucker “interview” fiasco was such a PR win for the Kremlin. A real American right-wing propagandist showing up and helping us share our geriatric version of crazy racist uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table with the world. Except this uncle has nukes. And a seemingly unlimited supply of men. And an “election” he will win. The only thing he has to do is stay alive. Russia is cracking down internally making sure no boxes are left unchecked. The “alternative” anti-war candidate was already refused to run, police are reportedly going door to door looking for journalists who reported on a protest by relatives of soldiers. Russia is even pressuring ageing rock stars in exile.
I will take Julia Ioffe’s word for it that this is on the only summary of the Tucker-Putin false history monologue on video which you need to read, by Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post:
Lately, I have been trying to avoid some of the big picture thinking, both because I have been focused on the micro, both in my own personal life and in helping Ukrainians here in Austria, but also because the scenarios — whichever direction you look — they aren’t great. In fact, they are all pretty gloomy. That is what is most worrying. Someone told me recently, “in the past, when we were younger, we used to think tomorrow will be better, now it feels like a win when tomorrow isn’t worse”.
To end on a positive note, I received this photo of gratitude today from a pensioner living in a Vienna “hotel” in which they are “fed” and receive €40 per month pocket money. He writes thank you and wishes you all good health. Thank you all for your continued support of Cards for Ukraine. Mario has ordered the next batch of €50 Hofer cards, and I will be sending more out next week when they arrive, prioritising the elderly.
