Is the West getting ‘Ukraine fatigue’?

The US has privately urged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to signal a willingness to negotiate with Russia in order to prevent the withdrawal of Western aid to Ukraine, sources claim.

According to The Washington Post, Washington’s call for peace talks was “not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table”, but rather “a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fuelling a war for many years to come”.

“Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” an unnamed US official told the paper, as the conflict fuels steep hikes in the cost of food and energy across the world.

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What did the papers say?

Amid growing calls for Zelenskyy to ditch his ban on talks with Vladimir Putin, “analysts warn a potential victory of critical voices in this week’s American midterm elections could fracture the West’s staunch support for Kyiv”, said Al Jazeera.

“People are beginning to view Ukraine as Russia’s Afghanistan 2.0 – a war that drones interminably on, prompting fatigue,” wrote Russian-born former investment banker Lubov Cherunkhin in an article for Politico. The “resultant ‘so it goes’ mentality” risks the onset of “international quasi-acceptance of ongoing events”, warned Cherunkhin, who is married to Putin’s former deputy finance minister.

Back in May, Zelenksyy told Axios that while global support for Ukraine was crucial, he feared that the world would eventually get “fed up” as the conflict dragged on. The Ukrainian leader voiced his worries after analysis by media monitoring platform NewsWhip found that digital engagement on issues relating to Ukraine had dropped dramatically in the three months after the invasion began in February.

“As attention wanes, so will the pressure on world leaders to help Ukraine and punish Russia,” warned Axios.

Now, with the war showing no signs of ending, that prediction appears to be proving correct.

In the US, which is by far the largest donor to the Ukrainian war effort, recent polls show significant falls in support among Republicans for continuing to finance Kyiv’s military at current levels. With Republicans projected to win the House in today’s midterm elections, GOP leaders have suggested that a policy change may be on the cards.

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House, said that “people are going to be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank cheque to Ukraine”.

Similar messages are emerging from across Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the effects of the war on the availability and cost of food and fuel have been felt most sharply.

Scottish National Party MP Anum Qaisar warned the Commons last month that “as this war morphs into a protracted conflict, the creep of Ukraine fatigue into the UK public is an increasing danger”. Qaisar cited statistics which showed that “in the midst of the hike to UK prices, the UK public’s support for continuing economic sanctions against Russia has fallen from 73% in March to 41% in this month”.

The SNP politician called on the UK government to combat “Ukraine fatigue” by launching a public campaign to explain why the UK was supporting the war-torn country and what people here could do to help.

What next?

International support for Ukraine appears to be waning just as Russia’s invasion enters “an ominous new stage”, wrote experts Dennis Soltys and Alexander Motyl in an article for the Atlantic Council think tank.

With Putin directly threatening the civilian population amid Russian defeats on the battlefield, Kyiv’s international partners must “show the kind of patience that will allow the Ukrainian military to wear down Putin’s invasion force and liberate the rest of the country”, argued Soltys, a retired Canadian professor of public policy, and Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “This may take longer than expected and could lead to growing Ukraine fatigue in Western capitals. Nevertheless, it is both morally and strategically the right thing to do.”

Cherunkhin made a similar argument on Politico. The reality, she wrote, is that “today’s economic hardships and the war are inextricably linked”. Governments across the globe are struggling to tackle escalating refugee crises, the looming threat of recession and higher food and energy prices – all problems at least partly driven by the conflict in Ukraine.

The war “will continue to impact us all until Russian forces are withdrawn or expelled from Ukraine”, Cherunkhin warned. “Western war fatigue in Britain, and elsewhere in Europe, must be resisted, not only for the sake of Ukraine but for the restoration of transnational economic health and international rule of law.”