June 28, 2024
Ukraine in Focus
By Svitlana Morenets
The only conclusion Ukrainians could draw after the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is to prepare for the worst. Trump’s speech, full of his usual exaggerations, still won the debate against a stuttering Biden. Although both candidates focused on American issues, they spent a few minutes arguing about Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Trump accused Biden of being too weak to prevent the war, stating: ‘If we had a real president, a president who was respected by Vladimir Putin, then he [Putin] would never have… invaded Ukraine.’ Trump reiterated that he could end the war even before taking office (without saying how). According to him, Biden ‘encouraged Russia to invade’ through the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021 – an event Trump called ‘the most shameful moment in US history’. He also said that Putin’s demands for territorial concessions from Ukraine are unacceptable, but this war ‘would not have started if the US had a leader’.
Trump’s main argument is that the US is spending too much money helping Ukraine. He called Volodymyr Zelensky the greatest salesman in the world, adding that every time the Ukrainian President comes to Washington, he takes $60 billion with him. This statement is untrue: the $61 billion in funding to support Ukraine was approved once in a broader national security funding bill that took months to pass in Congress due to disputes over the southern border. Zelensky was in Kyiv when it happened.
In response, Biden noted that Putin would not stop at Ukraine and called him a war criminal. ‘He wants all of Ukraine,’ Biden said. ‘And then you think he’ll stop there? Do you think he’ll stop if he takes Ukraine? What do you think happens to Poland, Belarus? What do you think happens to those Nato countries?’ Biden asked if Trump would withdraw from the alliance, without receiving an answer.
Neither candidate offered any new insights on their stance regarding the war. Biden is committed to supporting Kyiv for ‘as long as it takes’, while Trump keeps mumbling about a peace deal he says he will magically reach within 24 hours of being elected. This week, two top Trump advisers have proposed a plan for Ukraine that would see military aid withheld unless it agrees to hold peace negotiations with Russia. Moscow would be warned that any refusal to negotiate would result in increased US support for Ukraine. It’s hard to imagine these negotiations working when both sides have completely opposing demands.
Putin recently proposed a ceasefire plan, under which Ukrainian forces would have been forced to withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions (most of which Russia hasn’t managed to capture completely), and to drop any Nato accession plans. Putin is either foolish or bold to think that Kyiv would hand over two large cities such as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which are home to more than two million people.
This debate was another victory for Trump. His promises to end the war quickly will appeal to many Americans tired of funding a distant conflict. During the six months without US aid before Congress approved a new package, Ukraine ran out of artillery shells and air defence interceptors, leaving Kyiv vulnerable to partial or total defeat. Ukraine’s only hope is that Zelensky will be able to change Trump’s mind before he cuts American aid. As the Ukrainian President said earlier, Trump is very welcome to visit the front line and see Russia’s definition of ‘peace’ for what it really is.
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Portrait of the week in Ukraine
- Ukraine has started EU membership talks in Luxembourg.
- Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Yurii Sodol, a top army general, amid public criticism about the number of losses and accusations of incompetence.
- The US, Israel and Ukraine are in negotiations about providing Ukraine with up to eight Patriot air defence systems.
- North Korea plans to send military construction and engineering forces to participate in ‘reconstruction works’ in the occupied Donetsk region next month.
- Denmark will stop training Ukrainian F-16 pilots by the end of this year as the country transitions to operating F-35 fighter jets.
- Washington is reportedly moving closer to lifting a de facto ban on US military contractors deploying to Ukraine.
- More than 1,000 Russian soldiers were reportedly killed or wounded on average each day in Ukraine last month.
- Shelling and fires near the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant destroyed an external radiation monitoring station, which could detect radiation release in an emergency.
- Only around 800 of about 20,000 children who have been abducted by Russia during the war have been returned to Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.
- The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian military commanders Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov for war crimes, including attacking civilian objects in Ukraine.
- Zelensky signed a law establishing English as an official language of international communication in Ukraine.
- Poland, Czechia and Germany asked the EU to help cover expenses for hosting refugees from Ukraine. Poland and Baltic states also called on the EU to build a defence line along the bloc’s border with Russia and Belarus.
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Wider reading on the war
My return to Ukraine – The Spectator
Putin is trying to annexe people, not just land – The Spectator
Donald Trump’s Ukraine peace plan trashed by experts – Newsweek
Does Ukraine have political opposition? – Kyiv Independent
Russia sends waves of troops to the front in a brutal style of fighting – New York Times
Quote of the week
‘I think that if I were North Korean military personnel management, I would be questioning my choices on sending my forces to be cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine.’
– Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder on the North Korean military announcement that its engineer units would join Russian forces on the ground in the Donetsk region next month.
The war in numbers
Number of Nepalis who may have joined the Russian army
3,000
A captured prisoner of war estimates
Pictures of Russian facilities taken by crowdfunded Ukrainian satellite
4,173
according to Ukrainian military intelligence
Strikes on Russian oil refineries, terminals and oil depots
More than 30
by Ukrainian drones, Volodymyr Zelensky says
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A note from the author: Thank you for your interest in this newsletter. I hope it helps you to understand my country – and the war – better from a Ukrainian perspective. If you enjoy the Ukraine in Focus newsletter, please forward it to someone you know: you can sign up here. My writing for The Spectator can be found here. All feedback is welcome: svitlana@spectator.co.uk
I watched this debate , Trump consistently is saying Biden is the worst president and it shameful , no one likes the U.S. . The border with Mexico and the amount of Immigrants illegally crossing. He says this over and over and over. Beating it into your head making you second guess your choice.
Biden on the other hand throws numbers or statistics out which will make any one glaze over with boredom.
As much as I hate Trump and don’t want to see him elected, I’d say he won last night, even though he had no data to back up his claims as usual. He stands defiant while Biden looked a bit slow and confused.
His stutter doesn’t help matters. He needs to relax and appeal to the people bs. Spewing facts.
Best Jab of the night , is when Biden says he’s the only one standing next to a convicted Felon.
This is just the beginning of the election process so we shall see how the Biden campaign makes adjustments to his speeches.
Trumps legal issues are still ongoing.
Ignore any type errors as I just got my eyes dialated and can’t hardly see .
Ow, I wish you all the best with recovery!
^B*rt
“Cheetos christ” failed to mention the botched Afghanistan withdrawal was largely due to the crappy deal he made with the taliban excluding the Afghan government.
Biden’s loss may be the best thing that could have happened. Newsom has been waiting in the wings, and he’s at least as strong as Biden in his support for Ukraine.
Newsome isn’t even running this go around so it’s either Trump or Biden.
You’re right Bill , I forgot to mention the pulling out of Afghanistan.
I guess you don’t follow the Newsom news, since you can’t even spell his name. There’s a rumor the Dem strategists have been prepping Newsom in case some disaster like the debate happened. There’s even a rumor that the debate was scheduled before the convention just so there would be time for that.
Good debate analysis:
“”Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know — I know how to tell the truth … I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done!” 👊”
— President Joe Biden
I don’t watch Newsom’s career. It’s been a rumor for years , and that’s all it is a rumor.
Should something happen to Biden the Vice President takes over. Kamala Harris .
I guess you wouldn’t know that with your head up Newsoms backside
The dems are not stupid enough to let Harris take the reins. Only you.
trumpkov was using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although he likely comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It’s similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience. Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.
There are ways to combat the Gish gallop—by calling it out for what it is, among other ways—but Biden retreated to trying to give the three pieces of evidence that established his own credentials on the point at hand. His command of those points was notable, but the difference between how he sounded at the debate and how he sounded on stage at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, just an hour afterward suggested that the technique worked on him.