See the program of the Ukrainian Week in London here
LONDON– At a security and defense discussion during the first day of Ukrainian Week in London, Ukrainian military officials and independent experts recognized the West’s moral commitment to defending Ukraine against Russia’s war. Not forgotten during an Oct. 8 panel was the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States and United Kingdom gave security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv surrendering its massive Soviet-era nuclear weapon arsenal.
Russia, also a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, violated international law and its own commitments by invading Ukraine in 2014, seizing the Crimean peninsula first and then attacking the eastern Donbas oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk, which the Kremlin still occupies today with 75,000 Russian troops or proxy soldiers along a 400-kilometer front that Russia controls.
When Russia’s war is framed as a challenge to the post-World War II rules-based order, it becomes much easier to persuade the West to shore up Ukraine’s military defenses with modern equipment, armaments and training. Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are among the nations that are training Ukrainian soldiers.
“Ukrainian armed forces are repelling Russian aggression by all means available,” said Major General Borys Kremenetskyi, defense attaché to the Ukrainian Embassy in the United Kingdom.
In eastern Ukraine, where 10,500 people have been killed and about 1.4 million are internally displaced, the military has brought Russian regular forces and Kremlin-backed fighters to a tenuous stalemate.
“The situation on the frontline is tense and difficult but under control,” Kremenetskyi added. “We still face about 35,000 regular Russian forces [inside Ukraine] and thousands of Russian troops with tanks and heavy weapons along our border.”
All the fighters in eastern Ukraine who are fighting the Ukrainian military fall under Russia’s command structure, according to Kremenetskyi, and at any one time, Russia also has at least 10 battle groups, amounting to at least 50,000 men, along the border and poised to invade.
“If we attempted an offensive into Donbas to take back our territory, these Russian soldiers would counter-attack,” said the major general.
Allies boost support
Last month, on a visit to the Ukrainian frontline, British Secretary of Defense Gavin Williamson said the U.K. would send Royal Marine commandos to the country for the first time and more Royal Navy ships to the Black Sea. The United Kingdom will also create a naval attaché as part of an expansion of the U.K. defense section in Kyiv.
Judith Gough, British ambassador to Ukraine, said that the United Kingdom would upgrade their defense commitments to Ukraine and talked of a strategic pivot to more naval-oriented focus.
She called the U.K’s commitments a vital part of helping Ukraine “withstand the Russian threat” and “pursue their own sovereign choice and direction” of moving closer to Europe and strengthening its democracy. She also praised the Ukrainian government for starting to enact important reforms for the country while simultaneously defending their territory against a powerful enemy.
“There aren’t many countries in the world that are trying to transform at such a pace while facing down such a threat,” she said. “The Ukrainian government that was elected in the wake of war in the east has not only survived, but has enacted an extraordinary number of reforms.” But she said that more needs to be done in fighting corruption to win the confidence of the Ukraine public.
In the fields of both political and judicial reform, as well as helping Ukraine defend itself, the U.K can be counted on even after it leaves the European Union. “Brexit will not affect the U.K.’s commitment to Ukraine – we’re leaving the union, not Europe, and there is no European security without a secure Ukraine,” she said.
She sounded hopeful about Ukraine’s future, noting that Russia “very well” knows the weaknesses of Ukraine, but is “not so brilliant at understanding the strengths of Ukraine.” But she said it will require stamina, noting that some demographers estimate that Ukraine might have as few as 37 million people left, down from 42 million before Russia’s war in 2014.
More material support needed
“It’s a very good sign,” said Captain Oleksandr Peresunko, a Ukrainian naval attaché in London, when asked about the upcoming Royal Navy deployments to Ukraine and the Black Sea. “We’re very grateful for the support and assistance we receive, but do we need more.” For instance, he said that Ukraine needs “counter-electronic warfare equipment and modern surveillance and communications gear and counter-air capabilities too.”
According to James Sherr, an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, the Russian Federation is testing Ukraine and Europe, and both must answer the challenge.
“Russia’s objectives in Ukraine have not changed,” he said. “They want to subordinate Ukraine or wreck it.”
Ukraine needs armed forces that can guarantee the survival of the state and it needs a state that is effective, capable and trusted by the people, Sherr said, adding that Ukraine should be “afforded all the assistance it needs, short of war.” Sherr says this matters because Russia has already “declared war” on international law and should be held accountable.
For Kremenetskyi, the major general, Ukraine needs above all the continued solidarity of its Western allies, whatever shape that takes. “We can’t stop Russia by talking to them, we need unity, power and strength,” he concluded.
