Skating on thin ice
Some thoughts on the overall situation in Ukraine (plus many recommendations what to read & listen) and an update on our flurry of pre-holiday activity here.
Christmas used to completely stress me out when my kids were younger and it sort of occurred to me overnight that I was now responsible for a whole month of festivities and gifts and events and cooking and that I would enjoy none of it and December just feels like a huge burden to the average busy mom who is already pretty stressed in a non-December month. But ever since I started to do this “volunteer work” for lack of a better term, stress is more of a zen concept, something you grow accustomed to, and I learned only very recently, at the tender age of 47, to actually say “no” and believe me, it is a game changer.
So I would not say I am stressed this Christmas. I am not. And yet I have not purchased a single roll of wrapping paper nor a single gift. I am very pleased with how our holiday activities for Ukrainian kids in the Vienna area have been developing, almost organically. We have two “masterclass” parties led by volunteers planned for younger children at the end of December, and now two different ice skating events for older children, both in January. I performed a little experiment a few weeks ago and wrote three ice rinks asking for free tickets. It took some time, but eventually two of them responded with 20 free tickets each. This has allowed us to invite more children and subsidize skate rental, as in the meantime we also raised a holiday event budget of €800 via Cards for Ukraine. Thank you! I have a huge Google sheet of kids names and ages, moms’ Telegram contacts, dates, times and places. I am looking forward and also kind of scared at the same time. Normal event planner feelings.
You all were so generous in your holiday donations that we ended up well over budget, and Mario suggested to me a fabulous idea, which PCs für Alle is helping us to execute. We raised an additional €1700, which we will put towards (at a discount, thanks to this connection) €50 gift cards from a local chain store which specialises in children’s toys and stationary. The hard part will be choosing which 38 families (by our calculation) we will gift the cards to, so that they may play Santa for their own kids. My first instinct is to say the children should be 12 and under, because no matter what anyone says, Christmas and toys has a very special meaning at a young age, especially when it is all anyone in your school class is talking about. My second instinct is to support single mom families, and my third is to make sure we have geographic diversity and reach kids living well beyond Vienna. I am still thinking of how to choose, perhaps asking the moms to write little notes in German, a few words about their kids and their new life in Austria. Maybe those would be interesting for our generous donors to read. Christmas giving is not just about the act of giving, but the connecting of people, the coming together, the putting the smile on someone else’s face. I will only announce this program to my Telegram chat once I have the gift cards in hand. As I said to Mario, I hate “playing God” and making these choices is tough, so I have a bit more time to think about how to do this most fairly.
I was so lucky to receive another 12 €50 Hofer cards recently, and these I have specifically earmarked for pensioners and asked them to come forward and ask me if they could use help. Older Ukrainians, unlike parents of children, do not qualify for any additional social payments, and most cannot work due to their age and health conditions. They end up spending a lot of their very small state support (€260 per month) from Austria on medicine and the like. Not everything is covered by health insurance, as one 64 year old man wrote me just now. He is living in a Vienna dorm. It is interesting when you reach out and say “who needs help” the first to write are not always the neediest. There are those who write you all the time, and just because they are loud, does not mean they should be prioritised. It is pretty awful you have to say things like “we already helped your family more than once” but I know it would be unfair NOT to say those things. So you learn by doing. You try your best, and accept that you will never make everyone happy.
This morning I was also busy with:
Looking beyond Austria, I have been thinking a lot and trying to read more now about the current situation within Ukraine. As I heard on this podcast last night (it is an hour but I do recommend it — first time I heard in English what I have been hearing from ordinary Ukrainians for some time), “politics have now returned to Ukraine” in the sense that ordinary citizens are upset about corruption within the government during the war, they are upset there will be no election in 2024, and they are not all so in love with Zelensky’s government as some western voices would like to have the world believe. In this episode, Ukrainian political scientist Serhiy Kudelia very astutely describes the political climate within Ukraine at the moment. It is actually quite remarkable how he does this sitting in Texas, but it really does match what I have been hearing from Ukrainians here when I ask about the situation in Ukraine.
I would also recommend this BBC piece about the election question in Ukraine, as it is not nearly as simple as to say “we are at war therefore we cannot hold a vote”. Many Ukrainians are not happy about this. They do not believe their government has done enough to root out corruption at the highest levels, and are not happy with not being given a voice in the political life of the country (ostensibly) due to the war. The tensions between the Zelensky administration and Zaluzhny’s military are more and more obvious to the average voter, and as Professor Kudelia explains, public trust is highest in the army, followed by civil society and volunteers, only then followed by the state / bureaucracies / government, with parliament coming in dead last. He emphasises that the trend is negative. The initial patriotic feelings which brought the country together like glue at the beginning of the war have subsided as a more realistic take on the future outlook sets in. Over the last six months, that outlook has worsened, he argues, and this matches exactly with what I have been hearing.
When I was in Kyiv in August, the mood wasn’t exactly depressed, but everyone universally accepted the war would be a long one. Now, the mood feels depressed. I took a poll amongst my Telegram group here in Austria, and a majority now say they do not plan to return to Ukraine. This was certainly not the case at the beginning, not even during the first year of the war. But things change and time moves on. Many Ukrainians observe that war or no war, many of the inherent problems of abuse of power and corruption within the system continue, while soldiers have to crowdfund for things as simple as vehicles to take them to the front.
I would recommend this recent FT magazine piece Ukraine: the new fissures in a society under strain which tries to take the temperature on the ground in Kyiv and Kharkiv, but of course when you base part of that temperature-taking exercise on an interview with a prime minister, you aren’t exactly walking away with the “man on the street” view. Nevertheless, an interesting read. I would also recommend this recent FT article on the challenges Ukraine’s military faces: manpower. Yes, it is really true that the average Ukrainian soldier at the moment is 42 years old. No, this is not sustainable. Meanwhile you have a context within Ukraine in which many men are upset that they are not allowed to leave the country and this expectation that they can theoretically at any moment be handed draft papers on the street. Some cities have been worse than others in this regard. Men have been heavily recruited in the countryside areas of western and central Ukraine, Kharkiv and Odesa are notoriously tricky, in Kyiv not so much, whether it is because it is the capital or because those who walk around are confident they have a reason not to be drafted, whether legitimate or purchased. There is a market and they say the going price starts around $5,000.
Today, Russia announced a defence budget for 2024 which is a 70% increase on 2023, which was already more than double 2022. The last paragraph of this report is worth translating:
«Все для фронта, все для победы», — говорил в сентябре, комментируя документ, глава Минфина Антон Силуанов. Он призывал не беспокоиться, что в казне не хватит денег. «Но на то, что запланировано, хватит. Нормальный, здоровый бюджет», — подчеркнул министр.
“Everthing for the front, everything for victory,” said Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov in September, commentating on the budget document. He said not to fear that the treasury might run out of money. “There is enough for what is planned. A normal, healthy budget,” the minister emphasised.
This week, Russia hit Kyiv with a huge wave of drones, the largest and longest strike since the war began, but due to air defences, the city was not badly damaged. Ukraine appeared to retaliate with a series of drone strikes within Russia. Photos circulated of a factory in Chelyabinsk on fire. You see the cars still driving on the road, and realise this too has become a new normal deep inside Russia’s industrial hinterland. Production facilities occasionally catch on fire or blow up. Today I read Putin’s daughter is now investing in drones. Also, as one does.
By the looks of it, Russia is definitely in this for the long haul. Although Russia being Russia, no one can predict what will happen inside the country going forward. Russia is consistent in that she always offers the world surprises. It has become increasingly apparent that Kyiv will be under increased pressure from its western allies to think about what a potential peace could look like, even if it is not imaginable that both sides would come to a negotiating table now. Frankly, I have a hard time imagining Russia ever coming to a table in good faith, but I also think DC and Brussels are both genuinely fearful of funding a forever war in Ukraine. The U.S. can ultimately turn inwards or prefer to focus on Israel and China, using domestic politics and its own 2024 election as an excuse, but Europe is going to have to deal with the war in Ukraine even if it is tired, and facing its own elections in 2024.
This opinion piece on the future of the EU with far right victories at the ballot boxes is also an important read. It is rather gentle, in fact. I would prefer a few more alarm bells and a few more sentences about the dismantling of democracy the likes of which we will see in Austria if the far right wins a convincing victory next year. For this reason, the remaining political parties are keen to delay the vote as long as possible. But just look at Orban and what an absolute pain he has become for the house of Europe and yet…they do nothing to oust him. So Putin smiles and thinks what he can stir up next.
I said to one of my kids that Serbia was due to join the EU one day, at least in theory. They just laughed. This child has not read a lot, if anything, about EU succession. It was just a gut feeling. One I couldn't really argue with.
The EU and NATO have to figure out what to offer Ukraine, but what Ukraine wants cannot be offered while the country is at war. Even at peace, some of the leaps would be huge. It’s a viscous cycle. I think there is a chance that this war, if it carries on, does real damage to the institutions Europe has come to rely on for its economic prosperity and security. As someone astutely noted today, many NATO countries fail to even spend the promised 2% of their budgets on defence spending. For the average European, war in Europe is still a very foreign concept, and Ukraine is still some place very far away, on TV screens and in newspaper articles. To me it feels very close, and I cannot understand why others fail to see this. We all like our bubbles, I suppose.
I shared this article a few days ago with the wish naive that EU refugee response authorities should read and be prepared: Ukraine Heads Into Winter With a Fragile Power Grid. Unfortunately, if Austria is any example, the EU is not prepared for a new wave of refugees. It is barely managing to house those who are already here.
One final note. I tweeted this out yesterday not really phrasing it with grace, but the meaning is there. It occurred to me over the past few months that some of the most prominent voices on Ukraine, the loudest public supporters, are not really presenting an honest picture. They repeat the adage “send more weapons” which while perhaps a valid argument, they ignore the many real problems brewing under the surface in Ukraine which must be acknowledged and discussed if one really wants to understand the full picture of a country at war whose economy contracted 30% last year. To be a cheerleader without critical thinking diminishes the message, imho.
I am left with the impression many “leading thinkers” forgot to keep talking to ordinary people. Like a Ukrainian I spoke with yesterday, whose parent is in occupied territory, has been for some time, and now hasn’t been in touch for three days. You start to think the worst. You call a friend from school. Says parents are in the same village, they all lost electricity, some rocket fell on something. It’s winter. Massive snowfall. Might get repaired in December. And then you realise why your dad can’t charge his phone. But you would still love to hear his voice, just to make sure he is ok. He was sick last week. And now you have lost contact…
This war is an individual tragedy for every family touched by it. I would argue on both sides of the front line, although I have no contact to the other side, and they have little voice or influence over their decision makers. Their men get sent to their deaths in exchange for a fat salary, and good luck collecting a payment if he dies — they declare him MIA so as not to pay out a death payment. Bureaucratic cynicism and opportunism knows no bounds, even in war.
Spend too long thinking about all of this, and you feel overwhelmed. I turn back to my phone and the cards to the elderly and signing up kids for ice skating, and it feels like you did your little part. One day at a time. As we have been. And I have learned to ask for help. I am recruiting Ukrainian moms to help me at the events. Shamelessly asking for volunteers. This too is a learning process.
Thank you for reading and for your continued support.