The unity of the western alliance is being tested

LONDON-The West rallied against Russia’s war against Ukraine faster and stronger than almost anyone expected.

But as the war progresses into a protracted conflict, which could last months or even years, it is trying to resolve Western countries, where European and U.S. officials are questioning whether the rising cost of economy destroy your unity over time.

So far, the cracks are just fragmented:

Hungary’s refusal to sign Russia’s oil embargo, which hinders the European Union’s efforts to impose a ban across the continent; unrest in European capitals, with the Biden administration’s ambitious goal of militarily weakening the Russian president, Vladimir Putin; a wayward president Joe Biden blaming rising food and fuel prices on “Putin’s price increase.”

Along with those tensions are more signs of Western unity:

Finland and Sweden on Wednesday they came closer to joining NATO, and Britain offered both countries security guarantees to protect against the Russian threat.

In Washington, the House voted 368-57 on Tuesday in favor of nearly $ 40 billion for Ukraine.

Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border 76 days ago, a glimpse into the scheme of eternal wars in history.

As the battle continues, the flowing impact on global supply chains, energy pipelines, and agricultural crops will be felt more directly at gas pumps and on supermarket shelves.

Putin, some experts say, is calculated to be done by the West get tired leading Russia from a long twilight struggle in the disputed Donbas region of Ukraine, especially if the price of Western support accelerates inflation rates, energy disruptions, depleted public finances and a tired population.

The Biden administration’s director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, crystallized into doubts on Tuesday, warning senators that Putin was preparing for a long siege and “probably counts on the determination of the United States and the EU to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy shortages worsen.”

On Wednesday, Biden traveled to a farm in Kankakee, Illinois, to show that Putin’s war was to blame for lowering the cost of living for American families, an unspoken sign that his strong support for Ukraine, a policy that gained bipartisan support in Washington. —May have political value.

Putin faces his own internal pressures, which can be seen in calibrated tone which he delivered in a speech in Moscow’s Red Square on Monday, without calling for a mass mobilization or threatening to escalate the conflict.

But Putin also clarified that there is no end to what he calls Russia’s campaign to remove its neighbor from “torturers, death squads and Nazis.”

On the ground in Ukraine, the battle is showing signs of being a long -term battle.

A day after Ukraine’s counter-offensive toppled Russian forces from a cluster of towns northeast of the city of Kharkiv, the region’s governor said on Wednesday that Ukrainian efforts had pushed forces away from Moscow. of the city, giving them “fewer opportunities to shoot in the regional center.”

Ukraine’s apparent success in pushing Russian troops back from Kharkiv, its second largest city about 20 miles from the Russian border, appears to have helped reduce bombing there in recent days, even as Russia has move parts of the front line towards the Donbas. region of eastern Ukraine.

That Ukraine even found itself in such a position, almost three months after Russia launched a massive invasion, was noticeable.

Analysts pointed out that a protracted war would strain the resources of a Russian army that has already suffered severe losses in people and machinery.

Consequently, some argue that the West should press to its advantage by strengthening andl economic strangulation from Moscow.

“I’m worried about the fatigue of the West,” said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, “so the leaders of the free world should do more now to speed up the end of the war.”

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