The mood among Ukraine's Western backers has reportedly turned from sanguine and hopeful to "anxious and unmoored" in the past year, as Russian forces make gains on the battlefield and doubts rise over continued US aid to Kiev.
The turnabout in disposition was apparent as leaders from Ukraine and its benefactors gathered at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, the New York Times reported on Monday. The attendees assessed "confrontations they had not anticipated" when they held the same event in February 2023.
"The dourness of the mood contrasted sharply with just a year ago, when many of the same participants - intelligence chiefs and diplomats, oligarchs and analysts - thought Russia might be on the verge of strategic defeat in Ukraine," the newspaper said. "There was talk of how many months it might take to drive the Russians back to the borders that existed before their invasion on Feb. 24, 2022."
Comment: The trouble of group think where sceptical voices are ignored or drowned out. Many analysts in touch with reality said a year ago, that Ukraine was losing but there was no way in which believing their own lies could grasp that. Many still don't as to admit to having been wrong is just a place they can't go. The price of this delusional thinking will be more hundred of thousands of dead Ukrainians.
Comment: In 2007, President Putin made a speech at the Munich security conference where he warned the West of not responding to reality. That was not what the West wanted to hear and Putin was from then on clearly seen as an adversary. They never invited him back and continued to seriously underestimate him.
Here is the speech: