Dividing the West

Energy and public relations drive further wedges in support for Ukraine

As I was sharpening the pencil to write about the Conservative leadership in the UK following Boris Johnson’s retreat, I was taken over by events (happens a lot) and here are some things that warrant some immediate attention.

That Vogue Thing

Yesterday social media was on fire following the release of an article and photoshoot about Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in Vogue. With good reason. Zelensky has been second to none in making his country’s case to the rest of the world and media coverage has been excellent. What Ukraine lacked in military strength it added in its public relations efforts. So fat this has worked well. Vogue however may be a step too far and Ukraine’s first couple may not have been getting the best advice in getting this organized. Why?

Support for the war effort is fraying. Not just over energy (see below), but generally in the ever deepening fracture between liberals and right-of-center groups in both the US and Europe. In particular the populist right has aligned itself with a skeptical anti-war voice or in some cases is offering outright support for Putin. Whatever their motivations, isolationism in the US or the idea that Putin is a champion of Christian values (which he most emphatically is not), the war critics are gaining mainstream ground. A cover spread in Vogue is all this group needs to substantiate their claim that the war in Ukraine is a left-liberal vanity project driven by the very sort of people that tend to read and appear in Vogue: media and entertainment elites. The images and tone come across as a romanticized version of war and take away from the urgent horrors on the ground. This is lost even on a lot of people in the US and Europe, so we can’t really fault team Zelensky for not having picked up these nuances. You do wonder however who told them that this media adventure was a great idea.

What we need team Zelensky to do is continue to spread the word in the most suitable media outlets. The west needs to unite against the Russian onslaught in Ukraine and every effort should be made to come together as one front. The Vogue photoshoot feels like a self-inflicted wound, albeit a small one. But it does highlight the fact that Ukraine needs more than just military and humanitarian support.

Energy

And that brings me to energy again. A reader sent me this link which basically argues that Putin has been slowly building up his energy network to Europe, in particular Germany, and is now playing with it like his personal toy. Tap on, tap off. Tap low, tap high, you get the drill. So that means Europe needs, in record time ahead of winter, to find alternative sources and start stockpiling energy reserves. It will also need to shift the burden away from consumers and ask businesses to pay their part and cut back.

Whichever way you go it does mean increased prices on all energy sources in an environment where recessionary pressures are already building up and where at the same time interest rate hikes need to dampen raging inflation. This is a pretty potent mix for not just a dark winter, but also for a new year full of uncertainty. It seems not everyone is paying attention to this as it is holiday season all over Europe, but there can be little doubt that some will and seek to exploit the political opportunity of a lifetime. The aforementioned populist right (strong in Germany, France, Italy and, yes, in The Netherlands) have been given another sharp instrument to beat up incumbent centrist and liberal governments. Where first immigration and then Corona helped shape a broad-based populist movement, it may now seek a decisive political breakthrough on the Russia-infused economic meltdown. I hate to bring it up once more, but the leader ahead of the curve is not sitting in any western capital, but in the Kremlin in Moscow.

Aid

Another thing I have been wondering about is how the war ravaged areas survive, in particular those close to the front lines like Kharkiv. A reader sent me this video and there is more background on how it came about on Matt Taibbi’s newsletter. The story is about how a group of four men engages to deliver food, aid and all sorts of supplies to those who could not leave the war zone and are in urgent need of help. Watch it and share, it deserves a lot more views in my opinion. It also has a lot more impact than a Vogue cover: