Ukraine, a few thoughts
A synopsis of recent media pieces plus some un-scientific insights into the mood amongst voters.
I have been thinking for a few days now about the recent media articles much discussed amongst western observers, first the Time cover story on Zelensky, written by a reporter who has been covering Ukraine for years and by all accounts has access to real sources.
Yet before I even read the story, I had seen online hints that the unnamed source within the president’s circle was none other than the infamous Arestovych, who has fallen out of favour with those governing Ukraine. Having now finally read the Time article, I don’t really find any of it controversial. It all rings pretty true. The exhaustion, the effort to fight corruption which every Ukrainian will tell you is still a huge problem, if not at the highest levels, certainly anytime anyone has an opportunity to enrich themselves in a little bit in the course of normal business. Zelensky and his team don’t face good choices at the moment. They need more western support than they are receiving right now to make real progress on the battlefield. They need more trained men than they have, and they face a population really wary of men being pulled off the streets of major cities by “olives” as the Telegram chats call military “recruiters”. The economy is in a bad place, many of the wealthy are waiting out the war under peaceful skies spending their money not in Ukraine, and most concerning — Russia appears geared up for a long war.
For me, the part that stuck the most was about the president and his team reportedly not wanting to hear opposing views, not wanting to even entertain a notion of what a negotiated peace might look like. Those are the questions I ask ordinary Ukrainians when we start to talk politics. One of the biggest questions on my mind at the moment is how much longer are the Ukrainian people willing to put up with war, and at what price? To which, of course, there is no single answer. I wonder when your raw talent is as an orator and communicator, and you play a certain role for nearly two years, it must be hard to imagine you might have to one day play a different role. And yet the role of the president demands just that. Leadership requires different roles for different times. I wonder, as Zelensky has emerged for so many as a symbol of Ukrainian strength, resistance, pride, if that blocks his and team’s ability to think about end scenarios other than total victory, which looks anything but a god given on paper, at the moment. It would appear, at least to the layman like myself, that time is on Russia’s side.
I came across this thread last night and it sums up really well what I was struggling to get my head around: general western exhaustion with the war in Ukraine (and the spending it requires), hoping for a path to a peace of some kind vs. Ukraine’s fight for its own existence, from which one simply cannot afford to become exhausted vs. Russia and Putin’s need for this war to continue, as now that he started it, he has no viable way of ending it without a clear victory, and no clear victory is in sight.
The other article many people are talking about (and I have seen floating around Ukrainian language channels in translation) is a piece in The Economist with Ukrainian commander in chief, General Valery Zaluzhny. A Ukrainian told me yesterday, when I asked about the chances of an election actually being held in 2024 in Ukraine, that perhaps one of the most popular figures in Ukraine is not a politician at all, but rather the country’s leading general. Which, if you look back at American history, isn’t all that surprising. In the interview, the general admits the battlefield is at a stalemate, it was a miscalculation that Russia could be pressured via loss of troops, he draws parallels with wars of the past, explaining why things are stuck, and blames the west for not delivering more of what Ukraine needed sooner, when it could have had a greater impact, before Russia had time to regroup and rearm. The interview is really the best summary I have seen yet of the military situation by the one person who knows it better than anyone.
The Economist also published an essay by the general in its entirety. It goes into much detail on how we got here and what it means (and interestingly was not edited before publication meaning it is really hot off the presses — I wanted to jump in and fix capitalisation mistakes as I was reading). General Zaluzhny concludes:
Another piece well worth your time is Tim Mak’s recent Substack on the “strained” mood in Kyiv. I really appreciate that he presents two countering points of view, one optimistic, one pessimistic, because this so reflects my own conversations at the moment. I approach the topic of the war and politics more broadly delicately. I understand Ukraine is a huge country and opinions vary massively, particularly when you take into consideration individual circumstances: home region, did loved ones die or serve in the army, how much has the war impacted their own lives. For many from the east, the war didn’t start now. It has been raging since 2014. They have come to terms with losing their homes to the Russians. They still have a bitter taste in their mouths over how the rest of Ukraine treated them when they fled: many from Donetsk and Luhansk reported having a hard time renting apartments and finding jobs the first time they found themselves refugees. They tend to have the most cynical views.
A young person from Kyiv told me he doesn’t know anyone who would be in favour of a negotiated “peace” now. And then there are people from western Ukraine who took the opportunity to go to Europe when it opened up, rented out their housing, and perhaps economically are doing better now than they were before the war. All of these things and dozens more can be true at the same time. In a country of 40 million, there will not be a unified perspective. To be fair, it is remarkable how patriotism and support for the national cause have lasted this long, at least with the outward appearance of a united front. But I sense cracks, although I cannot scientifically put my finger on them.
In a recent NBC interview, Zelensky says “we are not ready to give our freedom to this fucking terrorist Putin”. Most of Ukraine would agree with him. And yet I wonder how much those in charge really know about the everyday struggles for the average Ukrainian at the moment. I keep asking what people think about the 2024 election which in theory Ukraine should hold this year. The government appears to be explaining while elections are important they can also be problematic during war. There are logistical questions like how will soldiers vote if not at home and what to do with the millions of Ukrainians who left the country during the war. One suggestion I heard was to vote via DIA, the national digital government portal. This reminded me frankly of e-voting in Russia, enter your passport and then your vote and then believe your vote is anonymous (and then you woke up).
I am told even if there is an election (I suppose if I was a betting person I would still probably bet that Ukraine will decide not to have an election using the war as the argument against), there is no real political opposition at the moment. I know next to nothing about Ukraine’s politics, but what fascinates me is how fundamentally different they are from Russia, namely, there really does appear to be a wide cast of characters and financiers of those characters and therefore an actual democratic practice even if in the end there is talk about how much a vote in the Rada “costs” on a certain law. So democracy, adjusted for business interests. Lobbyists and PACs in DC do this too, simply in more eloquent, not so obvious fashion.
I am told at the moment there is no polling data in Ukraine, just in the way there is really only one TV station at the moment and it is broadcasting the party line. Ukrainians can believe in victory and support the war effort while at the same time feeling frustrated with Zelensky’s leadership and a general feeling that corruption and other ongoing problems didn’t get any better. I think it is fair that these two things can be true at the same time. Again, it is very hard to put a finger on any of this, because it all depends on who you ask, and everyone’s nerves are so frayed at the moment after two years of simply trying to survive in totally new circumstances with no advance warning and no time to prepare for such massive life changes. There is a national exhaustion, both mental and physical. As one Ukrainian told me bluntly “People want their old lives back: to see their relatives, to go to work, and take holidays abroad. To not die.”
Here in Austria, I am gathering my own thoughts for this upcoming event this Thursday. I was told yesterday many pensioners are now going every day for free lunch to Train of Hope after the government started to deduct the amount of their Ukrainian pensions (usually under $100) from the payouts they receive from the Austrian state (already tiny at €260 per month maximum). So we still have a situation in which elderly people still cannot afford to even feed themselves properly. This, nearly two years after the first refugees arrived here. In the TV segment which aired on Sunday, even the NGO lawyer admits Grundversorgung, the category of social aid Ukrainians were placed in, was never intended to take care of anyone for more than a few months. Unbelievable. And yet, nothing changes.
Ukrainians in Europe are asking more often and louder about their legal status here past March 2025. So far, three years of “blue cards” or EU temporary protection have not yet let to a permeant residency path or status. It is our understanding each state is working on its own plan (or not), but this lack of knowing, this uncertainty, it is really hard to live with. Ukrainians are learning German, working here legally, sending their kids to school, and after three years of this, what will Austria tell them? Go home? You can stay but only until the war is over? The existing legal paths for permanent residency often involve work permits which require a certain amount of language knowledge and a full-time job. They need a solution for Ukrainians that will be inclusive of everyone, as clearly the elderly, sick, mothers of very young children could not work. We hear murmurs out of various ministries here, but nothing concrete. I often wonder if anyone is thinking about it at all. Although 80,000 people is nearly 1% of the country’s population…
In the meantime, we keep answering day-to-day questions like how do I reinstate my health insurance and which trains does my Klimaticket cover. We continue to send out €50 cards when we have funding. I am on my way now to buy one more. I receive heartbreaking messages each day still, despite me saying that I am out of cards, from residents of those “hotels” where they are “fed” and receive only €40 per month. That part unfortunately got cut from the TV segment. I talked about that. I talked about it must be possible for Ukrainians to build independent lives, to take jobs and not immediately lose their housing.
I received this message yesterday and I think it speaks volumes. From a mother with one teen in Salzburg. This is all true. The system is basically designed in places like Salzburg which did not increase limits on how much Ukrainians living in social housing can legally earn + keeps rent permissible to receive subsidy at a ridiculously low level so that no one can take advantage of this help = subliminal message to Ukrainians is to stay on tiny benefits or better, pack up and go home.
“Good afternoon. Situation: I and my minor child live in social housing (such as a dormitory) and receive social benefits. I'm looking for an apartment and a job. But it turns out to be a vicious circle. If you find a job: the salary is €1,700 gross, for social housing rent they will begin to calculate €1,460 (€730 per person). That is, in fact, we are left without money (((. So we need to find an apartment first. But nothing works out here either: Firstly, our land only approves rental agreements for €330 “all inclusive”. Secondly, the contract is pending for 3 weeks. That is, it is quite problematic (almost impossible) to find an Austrian who agrees to wait about a month for Land Salzburg’s decision: whether it will be approved or not. And, in addition, he (the Austrian) still needs to be explained that the real monthly payment and deposit must be kept secret from Caritas. In addition, if, for example, a person pays rent for an apartment at the beginning of his stay, then Caritas has questions about where he got the money ? “Where did you get the money” - this is also about paying rent, which is more €330 euros, this is also about the three month deposit... The result of all this is the threat of deprivation of all social benefits. The first thing Austrians are interested in is whether there is work in Austria; one-room apartments are rented out to only one person. That is, if there are two of us, then it should be two rooms, and the price of such an apartment, even if it is far from civilization in the mountains (we already agree to any) tends to €800. During four months of searching, only one tenant invited us to view. But taking into account the fact that several potential employers came to him, the result was not in our favor. You should have seen his face when he heard all this crap about the contract and €330.”
In short — the best one can do is get a job, get off benefits, and rent an apartment on one’s own anywhere in Austria, but this is only possible if a family has enough of a savings cushion to pay three months deposit, first month’s rent, and wait until the first paycheck arrives at the end of the month. Social benefits are cut off immediately or families will be charged exorbitant rents to live in dorms or nursing homes. For a country which likes to complain about so many open jobs that no one wants to fill, this is economic policy madness. And yet…
I'm not an expert in Ukraine/Russian relations but what comes across from the history books, and even recent historical events like the Chetnya war is that Russia unless it believes in the utter hopelessness of winning it will not stop. The western powers have made a big mistake dragging their feet whereas their tactical delays have become part of Russia's long term strategy. The strains on the social systems of European countries like Austria would have been less severe had the west followed thru in a more timely way in its commitments. What was once considered institutional inertia is now being revealed as rot as various organizations have failed to lived up to their perceived mandate. UN troops should have been sent to Gaza, the leadership at Amnesty International is little better than an echo chamber for a 1st world view of that borders on patriarchal. The Red Cross...at the ground may still be doing good, but its leadership for a generation is too an echo of the management philosophy of corporations where the law of propinquity has become both the means and the end. Not all are bad at self deceiving themselves, but enough of them have been caught appropriating donations for non humanitarian purposes (like updating computer systems, leasing high dollar luxury condo's (United Way) to muddy the waters and feed the cause du jour driven 4th estate.
As for e-voting. Russia has long had a reputation for being a nation of 1st rate hackers. It is doubtful that any computer system is hacker proof. And, when a government or state is involved, it will utilize many vectors of approach. Ukraine has been hacked a number of times by Russia, it once brought down the power grid. And, Ukraine itself has hacked into Russia's telecommunication network and aired its own propaganda messages. Stuxnet was more than a virus, it was a strategy and Russia has always been very good at maximizing technology via theory vs throwing money at a problem.
I appreciate these reports, but as I read today's report I began to wonder if there was some sort of ulterior motive. I've noticed on social media lately a trend where a poster comes across as saying there are for Ukraine but then slowly transition into the view that supports Russia's aims.
Normally, I would keep silent, but it looks more and more like the future is going to be dominated by the likes of Musk/Orban/Trump etc and I could accept that but were it not for the fact that the Ukraine war has shown future dictators the need for them to have their own nuclear arsenal. How long before some glory seeking ass-hole pushes the button.