Costs and casualties are rising but Kyiv warns that the conflict with Russia is becoming normalised in people’s minds, at home and abroad
Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesUkraine’s war with Russia is heading towards its fifth month amid increasing local concern that dwindling media attention could lead to a gradual loss of western support just asThe anxiety reflects a growing normalisation of the conflict in which large parts of the country feel distant from the war in eastern Donbas – as it becomes clear that casualties are mounting and economic costs soaring.
Complaints include a lack of practical unit-level information-sharing with the west or points of contact to help with weapons training. There is also an absence of ways to find out what equipment might be available, and a need for practical help with the logistics transfer from munitions hubs in south-east Poland.They even wondered if there was a relative lack of urgency on the part of the country’s leaders.
There are more ominous reports about the situation in the occupied territories, where Russia has been trying to issue passports and where this week some officials in Zaporizhzhia were indicating there were plans to hold referendums on whether the territory should join Russia Oleksiy Arestovych, a high-profile military adviser to the president’s office, said media fatigue was unavoidable as the conflict drew on. “It was inevitable that the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial garnered more views and likes than the war. People are getting weary and tired, but we couldn’t care less. You don’t have to talk about us at all. Just give us the weapons,” he told theBut there was a real sense of relief in Kyiv circles that Boris Johnson survived Monday’s no-confidence vote.
Ukraine’s military tactic seems to amount to fighting hard and taking high casualties to slow down the Russian attempt to capture Sievierodonetsk and the rest of the Donbas region while hoping that newly promised western weapons – such as multiple rocket launchers from the US and UK – will allow its embattled forces to take back territory lost to the invaders.