View from London: Europe’s kind words and bear hugs can't save Zelensky

Zelenskyy in Britain
Photo: Reuters

If bear hugs were army divisions and brave words cash euros, Volodymyr Zelensky would have ended his tour of European capitals this week the best-armed and best-funded leader in the world, writes ‘The Spectator’.

‘We stand with Ukraine,’ vowed Sir Keir Starmer after hosting a summit for President Zelensky and top European allies at Downing Street on Monday. ‘We support you in the conflict and support you in the negotiations to make sure that this is a just and lasting settlement.’

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that ‘nobody should doubt our support for Ukraine’ and that ‘the destiny of this country is the destiny of Europe’. French President Emmanuel Macron promised Europe has ‘a lot of cards in our hands’. Zelensky then went from London via Brussels to Rome where his staunch supporter Giorgia Meloni offered more hugs and Pope Leo gave his blessing.

No doubt, Ukraine enjoys the sincere support of Europe in its struggle to resist Russia. That’s not nothing. But, in practice, what has Zelensky’s latest tour to drum up support actually achieved?

The Pope commands no divisions, as Stalin famously (but probably apocryphally) mused.

Meloni recently postponed a government vote on further military funding for Ukraine while peace talks are ongoing.

Macron last week refused to disclose details of €18 billion (£16 billion) of Russian Central Bank Assets held in France on the grounds of banking confidentiality.

Merz has been a vocal supporter of a ‘reparations loan’ to Kyiv backed by frozen Russian assets in Belgium – but has also insisted that a large chunk of that money be spent on expensive German armaments.

Starmer’s plan for putting British boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a post-war ‘reassurance force’ are not remotely on anyone’s agenda.

As for other European countries not present at the London meeting, Hungary has just done a deal to continue importing Russian gas via Turkey, in defiance of a long-delayed European ban; its Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart.

The White House, eager to get a deal at apparently any cost, is reportedly pushing Zelensky and Europe to accept Putin’s demand for a Ukrainian withdrawal. But as Zelensky knows all too well, such a capitulation would provoke fury among the hard-line nationalists who currently control significant segments of Ukraine’s front-line forces.

Even if Zelensky were to order a withdrawal, it is entirely possible that these units would refuse to obey him. Radical nationalists have previously threatened Zelensky with death if he does a deal with Russia – most notoriously back in October 2019 when a referendum was planned on the future status of the rebel Donbas republics.

Zelensky has been betrayed in word by his one-time allies in Washington and betrayed in deed by his European friends who, despite their grandstanding, are so far unable to provide him with the money and the weapons Ukraine needs. At the same time, Zelensky finds his own credibility at home eroding under a brutal corruption scandal that has implicated some of his closest associates in a $100 million (£75 million) war profiteering scheme. Trump – who earlier this year described Zelensky as a ‘dictator’ – this week called for new elections in Ukraine, further undermining Zelensky’s position.

Zelensky finds himself in an impossible dilemma. Complying with the US peace plan to abandon the Donbas will lead to a political and military crisis in Kyiv. That leaves him with little choice but to defy both Trump and Putin. But even if Zelensky’s allies in Europe somehow come up with more cash to fund Kyiv’s ongoing war effort, there’s a catastrophic shortage of young Ukrainians willing to fight.

As Senator John Kerry told a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Vietnam war in April 1971: ‘Nobody wants to be the last man to die for a mistake.’ Prosecutors have opened a staggering 235,000 criminal cases for desertion from the Ukrainian army since the beginning of the war – including 176,000 absent without leave since November 2024. That means that more soldiers are on the run from the Ukrainian army than currently serve in the armies of Britain, France and Germany combined.

In this dire strait, Zelensky needs all the friends he can get. Crucially, however, he needs not just their friendship but their practical help with money and arms. But supporting Ukraine is not enough. The most crucial front of the endgame of the war is the battle to convince Putin that the cost of continuing the war outweighs that of continuing it.

In the absence of any realistic compellence strategy, then, all Europe has to offer Zelensky is kind words and bear hugs.

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