Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark, speaks on the second day of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Saturday, February 17, 2024.
Bloomberg | Getty Images
MUNICH, Germany — The West is suffering a “colossal failure of imagination” in believing that Russia’s war in Ukraine will not hit them next, European politicians said amid calls for a doubling of transatlantic support for Kiev.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen criticized a waning sense of urgency among delegates at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday as Moscow’s wide-scale offensive enters nearly its third year.
“The sense of urgency is just not clear enough in our discussions,” Fredericksen said in a lunchtime session. “We have to accelerate and we have to scale.”
Fredericksen singled out Europe’s claims of production constraints as a reason for failing to provide more military aid to Ukraine, noting that the continent has existing stockpiles that could and should be shared.
“This is not just a matter of production because we have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defenses that we don’t need to use ourselves right now, that we need to deliver to Ukraine,” he said.
Denmark has now donated its entire artillery to Ukraine, Frederiksen said, urging other countries to do the same as the war marks its second anniversary on February 24.
“On Saturday there should be new deliveries,” he said. “Words will not solve this situation.”
He [Putin] he will draw Ukrainians into his army to attack us.
Radoslav Sikorsky
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland
Fredericksen’s sentiment was echoed by others in the room. The policymakers were speaking at the 7th Munich Ukrainian Lunch, hosted on the sidelines of the MSC by the Yalta Forum for European Strategy (YES) and the Ukrainian non-profit Victor Pinchuk Foundation. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said countries should give Ukraine “what we already have”.
The comments came hours after Ukrainian troops pulled out of the eastern town of Avdiivka, a longtime military stronghold, to escape a Russian encirclement. The fall of Avdiivka marks the biggest shift in the front line since Moscow captured Bakhmut in May and gives Russia a new base from which to launch regional attacks that can be presented back home as a moral success.
Russian forces are reportedly now in control a little further down one fifth of Ukraine internationally recognized territory. As they advance further into the country, seizing more territory and installing Russian leadership through fake elections, Ukrainian forces could eventually be forced to fight for Moscow, Poland’s foreign minister said.
“He [Putin] he will draw Ukrainians into his army to attack us,” Radoslav Sikorski said.
The dogs of war
Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkof said he believes politicians have begun to recognize the urgency of this reality, but that it is now up to them to convince their voters as well.
“We need to open the eyes of every citizen in Europe to understand that the life we enjoy, the life we want to be safe can disappear as it has happened many times in history,” Denkof said. “It is urgent.”
As the war has begun, public interest has shifted away from Ukraine and toward other global crises, including the Middle East, as well as domestic political and security concerns.
In the US, a new funding package is currently under way, which includes $61 billion for Ukraine held in the House of Representatives as lawmakers question the relevance of the Eastern European war to American interests.
A Ukrainian soldier of the 47th Mechanized Brigade prepares a Bradley fighting vehicle for combat, not far from Avdiivka, in the Donetsk region on February 11, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Genya Savilov | Afp | Getty Images
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday she hoped the bill would pass — likely in March — and insisted that “reality should have overcome” any hesitation in both the US and Europe to provide further ammunition to Ukraine.
“We have to do a much better job of convincing ourselves, convincing our countries, our governments, that we have to stand with Ukraine and make sure they win,” he said in Munich.
This urgency was also captured by Ukrainian soldiers who spoke at the event. One woman, a former college lecturer who went to fight on the front lines and was held captive for three months, moved many in the room to tears and drew applause as she described her people as “the dogs of war”.
“We are the dogs of war,” he said. “The more blood you give her [war]the more he wants.”
Colossal failure of imagination
Historian Niall Ferguson, meanwhile, criticized Western leaders for their “colossal failure of imagination” to see that they too could become these “dogs of war”.
“It’s like we can’t imagine it happening to us,” he said, invoking images of Europeans and Americans fighting during World War II. “Why can’t we imagine it?”
“We have to help our people imagine these dogs of war,” he continued. “Make these dogs of war visible to voters, visible to politicians.”
That responsibility is even more pressing as Russia steps up its psychological warfare, Clinton said, referring to what she described as Moscow’s “extraordinary” effort to influence minds and political decision-making.
A lunch meeting at the Munich Security Conference with the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander De Croo, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen and the Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov.
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“We’re seeing an extraordinary effort, a successful effort, I believe, to influence minds, to influence political decision-making, to make it difficult for political leaders in Bulgaria and elsewhere to really convince populations because they’re getting so many other messages through social media and other sources,” he said.
“We can’t just assume that this is an area that they [Russia] we’re going to dominate without giving them a fight and we’re not even in the same arena,” Clinton continued, noting that Russia already influences large swaths of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
“Their message about what this war is, who the aggressor is, what the consequences are, remains unanswered.”