Over the past two years, the world has changed unpredictably, and these changes can be compared with the representation of Ukraine at the Munich Conference - the world's main security forum.
Two years ago, at the same event, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke in a suit, calling on world leaders to provide his country with security guarantees or at least provide a European perspective. At that time, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers stood on the border with Ukraine.
Many considered his words nonsense, but the past has shown that he was prescient: just five days after the conference, he was met with a full-scale invasion of Russia.
Last year, Zelenskyi opened the same conference via video link, unshaven and wearing a sweatshirt, which once again emphasizes the dynamics of changes in the world and in Ukraine.
The panel on which Volodymyr Zelenskyi's speech was broadcast was called "David on the Dnieper", in this name it quite symbolically reflected the biblical story about the struggle between the fragile David and the mighty Goliath. On the sidelines of the conference, they talked about Russia's strategic defeat. Zelensky expressed hope that by the next Munich, the war may end and he will speak at the conference live from the podium.
This year, Volodymyr Zelenskyi really spoke in Munich from the podium, but the end of the war is not in sight, and a slight unshavenness and a sweatshirt have become the usual dress code of the Ukrainian leader.
The panel with his participation was called much less ambitiously - "Ukraine in the world" - and the general mood of the speakers was rather alarming.
If last year Ukraine was the center of almost all discussions in Munich, now it was clear that the war unleashed by Russia is, of course, a big problem, but not the only one.
On the day of the opening of the Munich conference, it became known about the death of Oleksiy Navalny. Representatives of official Moscow were not invited to the conference, but this news in itself became an eloquent statement by the Kremlin on the topic of Russia's place in the modern world.
One of the main topics of the Munich Conference was the situation in the Middle East. The background for the discussions was the prospect of Donald Trump coming to power in the USA: his latest statements on the topic of international security worried many in Europe, which is slowly launching its defense capabilities.
Returning to Ukraine, the Kiev guests of Munich and their Western partners emphasized the speed of action. The new leitmotif of the conference was the words of Volodymyr Zelenskyi about the need to make maximum efforts to support Ukraine, namely to do everything possible, and immediately.
The reaction of Western politicians to these words was varied. There was not even a hint of peace negotiations, because, according to the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang Yi, there are no prerequisites for such negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow at the moment. The mention of the possibility of negotiations with the regime of Vladimir Putin caused disgust, especially in the context of the latest news from Russia.
Regarding aid to Ukraine, the position was different. For example, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called on European leaders to send aid in the coming days and weeks, stressing the need for ammunition and air defense systems. Republican US Senator John Ricketts, on the other hand, suggested that the southern border issue would take time to be resolved before aid could be provided.
The question is that this time time may turn out to be a luxury: during the conference it became known that Ukrainian troops had left Avdiivka, and one of the main reasons for this was the lack of Western weapons and ammunition in the Armed Forces. The US administration, which is the main supplier of arms and ammunition to Ukraine, has stopped providing any military aid to Kyiv since the end of December last year.
"Unfortunately, the situation where Ukraine finds itself in an artificial shortage of weapons, including artillery and long-range systems, allows Putin to adapt to the existing level of military conflict," Volodymyr Zelenskyi said at the conference. - This is a noticeable weakening of democracy, which over time can nullify the achieved successes."
The delay in providing aid to Ukraine led to serious discussions at the Munich Conference about the prospects for the situation if Russia wins the current war - discussions that were not possible last year.
"We, in Western Europe, have to convince the people and elites that restraining Putin after he conquers Ukraine will be much more expensive than helping Ukraine now. Putin will do to Ukraine what he did to Donbas: he will recruit Ukrainians into his army to attack us," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.
Sikorsky and American historian Timothy Snyder, speaking on the same panel, drew an ominous parallel between the current war in Ukraine and the atmosphere in Europe in 1938-39, when the international community was also watching "with deep concern" the events that eventually led to before the beginning of the Second World War.
“It is a very strange war in which only one nation is fighting... It is, in a sense, a world war, but it is a world war in which only one country is resisting... Poland held off the Wehrmacht for quite a while, but the rest of the countries entered the war within weeks, not in years. Yet. I don't think we appreciate enough what they do for us," Snyder added. At another panel, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg assured that no country in the Western world is under immediate military threat. "The world has become more dangerous, but NATO has become stronger," he said.
However, is it surprising that a politician who heads the most powerful military alliance in history and a historian who specializes in the history of Eastern Europe look at the same events but see different trends?
In short, the participants of the Ukrainian discussions in Munich noted that the third year of the Great War was a very difficult period for Ukraine.
The situation on the front line remains difficult: there is no talk of a new large-scale offensive yet, but 2024 looks like a period of defense. Russia continues to apply pressure across the front lines, eager to show some results on the battlefield, especially before the March vote for Vladimir Putin's new presidential term. The Ukrainian authorities are faced with an internal political challenge in the form of the need for mass mobilization and lowering the mobilization age. The amount of Western military aid, on which Ukraine largely depends, is constantly decreasing, and an additional factor is the presidential election in the USA.
The possibility of easing the financial situation for Kyiv may arise due to the use of Russian assets, frozen in the West, to restore the economy of Ukraine. However, there is still no political decision on this issue. Even Volodymyr Zelenskyi did not mention these funds and their possible transfer to Kyiv in his speech. Another participant at the luncheon, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, refused to comment on the possible confiscation of Russian assets, saying that this decision should be made collectively by Brussels after consultations with the "Big Seven".
"2022 was a time when everyone underestimated Ukraine, 2023 was when everyone underestimated our enemy. 2024 should be the moment of truth," said Viktor Pinchuk, opening the "Ukrainian Lunch" at the conference. However, the American general, former director of the CIA, David Petraeus, seeing Ukraine's prospects, was less optimistic: "When I commanded the operation in Iraq, I was often asked whether I was an optimist or a pessimist. I answered: neither that nor the other. I am a realist, and the reality is that everything is difficult all the time. But difficult does not mean hopeless."
