“We have to admit that keeping the EU countries excited will be a big challenge. We have awakened the West, so we cannot let it fall asleep again,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last week amid the war in Ukraine which in a few 24 hours ends the year of conflicts. Morawiecki was referring to the danger that the West, due to fatigue, will at some point stop supporting Ukraine against aggressive Russian revisionism.

Central European, Baltic and Nordic leaders, including Morawiecki, view the Russian invasion of Ukraine differently than their Western European counterparts, writes Jamie Dettmer in Politico.

Countries that in the past were called upon to fight Russian or Soviet aggression are now much more concerned about what is happening in Ukraine.

“They see their future as inextricably linked with the future of Ukraine, and the victory of Russia – partial or not – as their defeat, and not just the defeat of Ukraine. For these countries, a new frozen conflict cannot be anchored there, and negotiations cannot follow that could give Russian President Vladimir Putin the opportunity to regroup and return…” explains Dettmer, echoing an opinion Ivan Krastev also expressed a few months ago via an article. which he published in the New York Times. According to this article, Eastern Europeans fear the return of their countries to Russia’s sphere of influence in the event of Ukraine’s defeat.

Various intra-NATO approaches to how the war in Ukraine might end are now coming to the fore again against the backdrop of the Munich Security Conference, which takes place over a three-day period February 17-19 in the Bavarian capital.

In view of the absence of delegations from Russia and Iran who were not invited to the Conference this year, all eyes are now riveted, on the one hand, on China, which will be “present” this year in Munich (using the opportunity of its move to Germany, the leading Chinese diplomat Wang Yi will even make a mini-tour of Europe in previous days), and on the other hand, the Western allies have yet to see if they can “join” by adopting a common line against Ukraine.

So far, the West has shown remarkable consistency in the face of Russian aggression, which will no doubt be emphasized over and over again at this year’s Munich conference.

However, over the past twelve months, there have also been a number of disagreements on the western front. Controversies that may have been overcome… but how long will they be overcome if they haven’t disappeared?

“It was January 26, 2022, when the then German Defense Minister announced that Berlin would send 5,000 helmets to Ukraine … A lot has happened since then, the Germans have carried out a series of preliminary but successive shifts, sending Ukraine not only helmets but also anti-tank, anti-aircraft, self-propelled guns… armored fighting vehicles Marder and tanks Leopard 2“, – we wrote to “K” in January last year, asking when exactly the “Leopards” would arrive in Ukraine, how many of them would arrive there and how they would affect the development of events on the field.

“From tents to tanks,” the Associated Press noted in its own analysis a few days ago, noting the consistent shifts that have taken place over the past twelve months in the boundaries of NATO support for Ukraine’s (increasingly larger and stronger military) allies.

However, divisions remain within the NATO camp: Eastern Europeans (the Baltic states, some Central European countries, etc.) are now demanding that Western fighter jets be handed over to Ukraine in addition to Western-made tanks, thus facilitating a request that, however, Western Europeans are currently rejecting.

The fear of Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki and many others is that if an opportunity for a compromise settlement of the Ukrainian crisis arises in the coming months and is accepted by Moscow, Western Europe, much to Kiev’s annoyance, will rush to seize it. Warsaw, etc.

By the way, Andriy Zagorodniuk, the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine, recently calculated that if the Russians manage to capture all of its territory Donbass (i.e. eastern Ukraine) in the coming months, then they will announce the end of the Russian “special forces operation”, opening the way to peace negotiations. Kyiv has made it clear that it does not accept this. But what will Westerners do… in view of 2024, with a note that 2024 is the year of presidential elections… in the USA, but also in Ukraine.

“Ukraine: Polls … in 2024 may decide the outcome of the war in 2023,” we wrote in “K” at the beginning of the year.

Realists, Optimists and Revisionists.

In his own analysis of opposing schools on the end of the war in Ukraine, Ivan Krastev divided Europeans into “realists”, “optimists” and “revisionists”. “Realists” see compromise not because they morally desire it, but because they understand that there will be no room for anything else. The “optimists” see a clear military victory for Ukraine, which will be accompanied by the restoration of Ukrainian territories currently under Russian control, including Crimea. And the “revisionists” see … the collapse of the Russian Federation.

What could be done in practice? American sources (and America is the country that has given Ukraine the most military aid) have hinted that we cannot expect major changes on the ground in 2023 in favor of Ukraine.

Chief of the General Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Miley, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and others. they have hinted that it will be very difficult for the Russians to lose by 2023 the territories they currently hold within Ukrainian borders.

The countries of Central Europe (“optimists” and “revisionists” Krastef), on the contrary, fear a new “Munich betrayal” with an eye to the historical precedent of the “Munich Agreement” concluded by the Chamberlains, Mussolini and Daladier with Hitler in Munich in 1938, then allowing Germany to take away part of Czechoslovakia…

These different intra-NATO approaches are expected to “clash” in… Munich in the next two days.