After the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj stated that it risks diverting the attention of the world community from the war in his own country.
– There is a risk that international attention will turn away from Ukraine, and that will have consequences, the president said in an interview with France 2 earlier in October.
Tormod Heier, professor at Staff School, assesses the situation as follows:
– I think Ukrainian concerns are real. This is because the Biden administration’s recommendation to Congress last week, for more money for foreign operations, mentions Ukraine and Israel in the same breath. Thus, it seems that Biden sees the two wars as one, he says to ABC Nyheter.
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– Bad news for Ukraine
According to Heier, this is an advantage considering that US military spending will become clearer for Congress. But there is also one catch.
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Tormod Heier believes that Ukraine’s concerns are real. Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB
– The disadvantage is that signals are sent to the elected representatives that the two wars cannot be considered as isolated figures. This also increases the risk that one budget item may come at the expense of the other, Heier believes.
The professor believes that, seen from Ukrainian eyes, this will be experienced as the war between Hamas and Israel has become a competitor that can potentially “eat off the load”.
– Such an interpretation is bad news for a Ukraine which both feels that the offensive in Donbas has stopped, where the initiative has gradually started to return to Russia, and where new payments from the USA are sitting ever longer, says Heier.
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– The need is greatest in Ukraine
Senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy, Karsten Friis, does not believe that the war between Israel and Hamas will affect the West’s support for Ukraine to any great extent.
– True, the United States has canceled a planned shipment of artillery ammunition from Israel to Ukraine, but on the whole they are quite different wars that require different weapons. In Biden’s latest package for Congress, which includes support for both Ukraine and Israel, the vast majority still goes to Ukraine – because the need is greatest there, says Friis to ABC Nyheter.
He is nevertheless clear that there is a cognitive and political limitation even for a great power like the United States.
– If there are too many parallel crises, it tends to affect someone, says Friis.
2023-10-26 03:57:15
#Ukraines #concerns #real
