Europe needs to step up support for Ukraine

IT SEEMS CLEARBy Christopher Lockwood that, barring a last-minute miracle, Ukraine’s counter-offensive, once the source of so much optimism not just in Kyiv but across the West, failed in 2023—and badly so. After five months of bloody and expensive effort, the results by early November were minimal. No major town had been taken, and only around 400 square km (154 square miles) of territory had been liberated, less than 0.1% of Ukraine’s total land mass. Russia still occupies about 18% of Ukraine, around half of which it took in 2014, when it annexed Crimea and grabbed the eastern Donbas; the rest is what is left of the territory it seized after the invasion of February 2022.All this portends a long and grinding war of attrition, and Ukraine’s backers must be ready for it. Russia certainly is. Vladimir Putin’s strategy rests on waiting for the West to grow tired of what increasingly looks like an open-ended commitment. A long war plays to his strengths. A brutal dictator who has progressively silenced dissent, he does not worry much about public opinion. Russians anyway show little sign of turning against the war, despite heavy casualties, in part because a high oil price has blunted the effects of Western sanctions. Russia will gorily soldier on. But in Europe, and above all in America, the danger looms that voters and policymakers will tire of the burden.