Ukrainian pundit on war fatigue, ammunition shortage and what’s next

23.11.2023, 20:27 exclusive.kz

Despite the war fatigue and delays with Western arms supplies, Ukraine is not ready to negotiate with Russia and is looking for a new war strategy, a Ukrainian political observer said.

Vladimir Fesenko of the Centre of Applied Political Research PENTA said the situation on the front is complicated – “there is a clear shortage of ammunition” and there is war fatigue both inside Ukraine and “among our partners”.

“We are entering a new, complex phase of the war,” he told Exclusive.kz in an interview.

Fesenko said the internal debates “around the question of what’s next are becoming more acute”, which is causing “an increased political turbulence, but mostly in the information space and social media”.

“There is no real political fighting,” he added, stressing that “there is no political crisis whatsoever in Ukraine”.

Fesenko strongly denied speculations that some of the aid provided to Ukraine by Western countries might have been embezzled, saying there is no such evidence, “not a single specific fact”.

“Ukraine is grateful for all the aid provided, without it we would hardly be able to resist a country that is much bigger than us in size and in terms of economic resources and so on,” he said.

“However, there are questions about the quality and timeliness of the military aid,” Fesenko continued.

“They are helping us not to lose the war. They are not helping us to win it. That’s the main problem in my view.”

Fesenko said Ukraine has in reality received only 60 percent of the military aid promised by Western countries. Regarding some specific types of weapons, Ukraine has got only 4 percent of what was promised, he said.

For example, he said the EU has supplied “far less than half” of the 1m artillery missiles that it promised to deliver in summer — because of a combination of political reasons and simply because “the stores turned out to be empty”.

Meanwhile, according to Ukrainian intelligence, he said, Russia has received 1m artillery missiles from North Korea.

“How can we mount an offensive without artillery support? Without support from the air?”

Fesenko added that the West had also failed to deliver all the tanks it promised, and it took a year for Ukraine to get Western countries to agree to provide F16 fighter jets.

“We needed those fighters last year, or at least this spring, before the counter-offensive,” he said.

He also said more than a half of the 5bn dollars in aid allocated to Ukraine by the US is yet to be provided.

“Now, we also have to bear in mind that a considerable part of the military aid being given to Ukraine stays inside the donor countries themselves – it is not all weapons and equipment going to Ukraine, but logistics, training and other expenses,” Fesenko said.

He added that despite the complications, the West remains committed to supporting Ukraine.

Fesenko said that inside Ukraine war fatigue is making some inclined towards negotiations with Russia, “but that is not a dominant view”.

“The key question now is about our further war strategy,” he said. “We are working on it together with our partners.”