How long to remember Ukraine?

«Then, Ukraine. Do not forget about Ukraine. Ukraine continues fighting. It will be on the agenda». – Josep Borrell.

On 23 October, before the start of the meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, journalists of leading publications did not ask the European Union’s head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, a single question about the military conflict in Ukraine. After his speech, where the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was mainly discussed, the head of European diplomacy was forced to remind them about the importance of this issue and called “not to forget about Ukraine”. For the first time since February 2022, the topic of hostilities in Ukraine was relegated to the background, completely overshadowed by the new escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Today, it has become obvious to even the biggest critics of the war that the new phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict is a far more important and dangerous threat for the countries of the West than the distant “hand of Moscow”. Events in the Middle East are far from being merely territorial, but an ideological or – civilization – confrontation in the context of the struggle for the future world order. The state of Israel, for many years a “showcase of the Western world” for Muslim countries, has fallen into the trap of having to respond to the horrific attacks of Hamas. The devastating bombing of the Gaza Strip was seen by many as a disproportionate response, as Israel effectively stopped distinguishing between peaceful Palestinians and Hamas militants.

From the United States, a wave of anti-Israeli protests of many thousands of people swept across Europe to the Australian continent. Obviously, this is a vivid result of the open Western migration policy, since the bulk of the protesters were former Muslim refugees, now full-fledged residents of Western countries. They showed that the Muslim “street” is no longer a force to be ignored.

Nevertheless, the war in the Gaza Strip and anti-Israeli rhetoric did not prevent the US president from announcing the formation of a “new world order”. “So, I think we have an opportunity to do things, if we’re bold enough and have enough confidence in ourselves, to unite the world in ways that it never has been,” Joe Biden said. The US is proposing a new democracy to replace the old one, but its principles are unlikely to satisfy the other players in the world. But where is Ukraine in the American “new world order”? How strong are the promises of the Western countries and Joe Biden personally in loyalty to friendship until the final victory of Kiev?

“This is the first time since February 2022 that the number one agenda on the list is not the war in Ukraine,” said British journalist Henry Foy on the Financial Times podcast.” –  said British journalist Henry Foy on the Financial Times podcast. He acknowledged that EU countries are paying much more attention to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, relegating the issue of supporting Ukraine to the background. According to Foy, this is because the West sees the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East as potentially a more serious threat to itself than Ukraine. The New York Times even admits that Kiev and Tel Aviv may start competing to receive arms and ammunition from the United States. For example, Washington recently decided to transfer to Israel tens of thousands of 155-millimetre artillery shells previously destined for Ukraine.

The government of Volodymyr Zelensky may experience a change of agenda in the West in the very near future. For example, the German magazine Bild quoted the German Defence Ministry as saying that it was concerned that the German Finance Ministry refused to include 5.22 billion euros in the draft budget for 2024, which was intended to continue supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

It is worth noting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict coincided with a series of statements about a growing shortage of weapons in NATO countries that could be transferred to Ukraine. For example, The Telegraph quoted a high-ranking military officer as saying that Britain no longer has some of the weapons Kiev needs. The newspaper quoted a British officer as saying that Ukraine needs air defence equipment and artillery ammunition, which the United Kingdom has run out of. In his opinion, Kiev’s other partners should intervene in the situation and take over some of the supplies. At the same time, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that Rome also no longer had the weapons and the necessary funds for their purchase for future transfer to the Ukrainian army. Against this background, the source said, the number of Italians dissatisfied with the continued support for Ukraine is growing.

Poland even openly refused to help Kyiv with weapons, insisting on its own need for them. Against the background of the crisis in Polish-Ukrainian relations due to the embargo on agricultural products from Ukraine, which Warsaw included among others, President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning man who can drown his own saviour. For this reason, the USA even asked Poland to explain its position.

The cooling of interest in the Ukrainian issue in the West is largely caused by Ukraine’s own diplomatic rhetoric. Recently, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Mykhaylo Podolyak, blamed Ukraine’s allies for the failure of the Ukrainian army’s summer offensive. He said long arms deliveries had hampered the military operation. “It was slow to unfold, logistics were worked out, there were a lot of approvals, and, in addition, we were then out of the delivery schedule,” Podolyak said. He admitted that Kyiv was promised to hand over the weapons in three weeks, but in the end the process dragged on for two or three months.

The war between Israel and Palestine will directly affect the course of the conflict in Ukraine. This process is inevitably associated with a shift of attention to a new hot conflict. Redirecting part of military and financial aid to Israel may be a forced measure for Washington. It now depends on whether the conflict will remain within the confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians, or whether it will develop into a new Arab-Israeli war that will involve other states in the region and the rest of the world.