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Time wrote on Nov 1

Public support for aid to Ukraine has been in decline for months in the U.S., and Zelensky’s visit did nothing to revive it. Some 41% of Americans want Congress to provide more weapons to Kyiv, down from 65% in June, when Ukraine began a major counteroffensive, according to a Reuters survey taken shortly after Zelensky’s departure. [...]

“He deludes himself,” one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”

It's not clear who that adviser is, but anyhow it's been likewise reported by CNN quoting The Economist that Zaluzhny said “we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate” and “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough” in the war. Zelenskyy has sought to downplay that: "There are different opinions […] But this is not a stalemate."

What's the morale situation in Europe? Has there been a major change in mood there as well, with respect to providing more support for Ukraine, after the outcome of the summer offensive?

Please note that I'm not asking whether they support/prefer Ukraine over Russia. I'm asking if they (Europeans) think more/increased support is desirable, given the rather stalemate-y situation at the front.

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    BTW, there was a Q like that about Ukraine too, and the answer there seems to be 'no' politics.stackexchange.com/questions/82104/…
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Nov 10, 2023 at 8:17
  • Presumably you want poll results over time axis? Or do you want real actual happening support? Like value of equipment sent.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Nov 10, 2023 at 21:10
  • @NoDataDumpNoContribution: not [necessarily] that much work. Just if polls before the summer [in Europe] had much higher support for more help than those after, as the quote shows for US.
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Nov 10, 2023 at 21:13
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    Yes and no. NATO is deliberately withholding aid to slow down the war to give a much needed reprieve to Ukraine forces who were on the verge of being wiped out in their counter offensive due to unsound strategies. They do not expect the Ukrainians to make any advances in their current state. A new group of UA soldiers are currently being trained in the west. Just before US election season, the US and its allies will again start providing arms, including a few planes, and we'll see the next stage of war unleashed that will serve as the background to the US election.
    – sfxedit
    Commented Nov 11, 2023 at 20:45

2 Answers 2

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Even if all Europe would say, no, never anything more for Ukraine, this does not mean they would be immediately helpless on the field:

  • Most of the previously agreed support comes with long delivering schedules. Light Leopard I tanks are still coming in hundreds. F-16 aircraft are still to come next year.
  • Ukraine is being very far from being lost all or majority of the previously delivered weapons. Regardless how impressive it has been to destroy a single Challenger tank, what about the 13 more still remaining? Five heavy Leopard II tanks have been destroyed but there are about 40 more remaining.
  • Some help is still coming. Germany to double 2024 military aid to Kyiv.

Hence if some different situation may appear in the horizon, we are not yet there. And Russia is running out of resources too. At very least, they initially relied on professional army, now it is a trivial draft that may touch any family.

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  • Even Zelenskyy is quoted as saying in the Time piece though: "on the morning of Sept. 21 [2023...] The Democrats, for their part, wanted to understand where the war was headed, and how badly Ukraine needed U.S. support. “They asked me straight up: If we don’t give you the aid, what happens?” Zelensky recalls. “What happens is we will lose.”" But one has to understand what he means by that "“Freezing the war, to me, means losing it,” he says."
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 8:53
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Hungary objects for a long time now providing weapons and direct financial aid to Ukraine because of Ukraine's suppressive politics towards its ethnic minorities, including ethnic Hungarians of Transcarpathia region (but Hungary sends humanitarian aid). With the recently elected Fico government Slovakia has also changed to this position. Austria (EU member but not NATO member) and Switzerland (neither EU nor NATO member) did not provide weapons to Ukraine and do not plan in the future.

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    The change in Slovakia is interesting, but somewhat inconsequential. The rest seem to be 'like before', according to your answer, which is alas not based on any polls (besides the Slovak election.) Also, I'm not sure if the Slovak election result can tied to the fizzled Ukrainian counteroffensive that directly. It's quite possible the Slovak public were already against more help in January, for instance, but the 'lame duck' gov't didn't care.
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Nov 11, 2023 at 20:55

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