Morale in the country has dipped after the US election but even if western support fades, the Ukrainian president promises a new plan
Maxim Tucker, Harry Yorke, and Caroline Wheeler
November 17, 2024
The Sunday Times
President Zelensky will unveil a ten-point “resilience plan” to his people this week in an effort to boost morale damaged by Donald Trump’s election win, a Kyiv adviser has revealed. The Ukrainian president wants to bolster the desperate mood in the capital ushered in by Trump’s re-election and also reassure citizens he can keep their country running given the prospect of the withdrawal of US aid.
Last month Zelensky presented his “victory plan” — a ten-point strategy for his western partners about what he needs to end the war — to mixed reactions.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky’s powerful head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said of this week’s intervention: “This is not a victory plan presented to an external partner, but a plan presented to our society — this is about the mobilisation of our economy and public sentiment.”
There is a general sense of concern in Kyiv that western support, without a strong America leading the charge, may ebb away. On Friday, Zelensky accused Germany of appeasement after Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, and President Putin shared their first telephone call since December 2022.
However, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to lobby President Biden at the G20 summit in Brazil this week for Ukraine’s right to use western-donated long-range missiles against targets in Russia. John Healey, the defence secretary, will announce millions of pounds of funding for military drones and new maritime capabilities for Ukraine.
The resilience plan will cover how Ukraine will prioritise investment in industry and how the energy sector will function as a freezing winter looms. The country’s infrastructure is regularly attacked by the Russian army, resulting in blackouts.
On Sunday morning Russia launched its largest missile attack since August, hitting power facilities across the country, including in the capital Kyiv. President Zelensky said around 120 missiles and 90 drones were involved in the assault, of which 140 were intercepted. “The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure across Ukraine,” he wrote on social media. “Unfortunately, some facilities sustained damage from direct hits and falling debris.”
Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, blamed foreign politicians for attempting to engage with President Putin. “This is war criminal Putin’s true response to all those who called and visited him recently. We need peace through strength, not appeasement,” he said.
It follows reports that Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, spoke to the Russian leader by phone on Friday for the first time since late 2022 and that Elon Musk, who has been nominated for a key White House role by the president-elect Donald Trump, has regularly spoken to Putin since 2022.
Ukrainians have been preparing for just such an attack for weeks with the onset of winter. “Taking into account the psycho-emotional state the country is in, we need to show clearly how we will prioritise investment in industry, how the energy sector will function, how we will communicate army mobilisation, strengthen physical defence — all the most painful issues relating to the country’s sustainability are being worked out,” Podolyak said.
The government also wants to increase arms production, with a view to decreasing reliance on western arms in the long term. It wants the installation of dynamic missile defences and safe shelters for every village. Another aspect of the plan will involve cultural heritage: Kyiv is trying to appeal to Ukraine’s large refugee diaspora in the hope that many will return. As with the previous victory blueprint, what is likely to be made public will be no more than a concise set of ten points — but each will have much more detail behind it. That victory plan had focused on appealing to western partners to secure trade routes, for help with prisoner exchanges, to impose penalties on the Kremlin for its aggression and to put pressure on Russia to stop its attacks on nuclear and other energy facilities. The government is also in consultations to update it so it appeals to Trump’s business instincts by articulating the benefits of an “investment” in defending Ukraine.
One expert paper submitted to the government for the updated plan emphasises Ukraine’s natural resources, which Zelensky is offering to open up to US companies. It outlines the perils of failing to preserve Ukraine’s natural resources for export to the West, highlighting the strategic importance of its lithium deposits to the development of American technology. If the resource, used in the development of batteries and electric cars, were to fall into Russian hands, it would be exploited instead by its allies China, Iran and North Korea, claims the paper. “Ukraine is a resource-rich country, holding mineral deposits essential for the production of modern semiconductors and batteries,” states the paper, written by Volodymyr Vlasiuk, the director of Ukrainian Industry Expertise,a state body of industry experts. “The country possesses 22 out of the 34 minerals identified by the EU as critical raw materials. In today’s global economy, such resources have the potential to fuel substantial economic growth — a reality that Ukraine’s major allies should recognise. What Ukraine might lose, Russia and China stand to gain,” the paper said.
Allowing Russia to take territory from Ukraine would encourage the Kremlin and its allies to seize natural resources in other countries, leading to conflicts elsewhere, Podolyak said. He is optimistic Trump will eventually realise it is in his interest to support Ukraine. In an interview with the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, Zelensky said: “It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to their citizens.”
Even if Zelensky can persuade Trump to stare down Putin, the Ukrainians will still have problems to navigate. Many of Ukraine’s battlefield successes have relied on freely sharing intelligence with the US, but Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, has been accused of being a Putin apologist. Kyiv previously included her on a list of “enemies of Ukraine”.
Frontline commanders are complaining that even the billions of dollars promised by President Biden are not materialising on the battlefield because of difficulties with US bureaucracy and logistics in getting the aid to Ukraine in a timely manner, resulting in needless casualties and battlefield setbacks in the eastern Donbas region. Russian forces are reported to be massing for a fresh offensive in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.
Pressure is increasing on America to allow the use of western long-range weapons in Russia. Using UK and French-made Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles to strike enemy military bases and assets on Russian soil has been a longstanding demand by Zelensky.
Kyiv has already put Storm Shadow, a cruise missile with a 155-mile range, to devastating use against Putin’s Black Sea navy and in occupied Crimea and believes that extending their use to inside Russia is vital to achieving the aims of its victory plan. The Biden administration has refused to consent, fearing it would provoke Russian escalation, with the UK, France and other allies unwilling to press ahead without America’s support.
Grant Shapps, the former Conservative defence secretary, has reiterated his calls for Starmer to act unilaterally. “We do not need to wait for Biden and we need to stop pretending that that is something that’s required before we act,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster. “Frankly, we just need to get on and do it. The Americans will come on board. We are binding the hands of our Ukrainian friends by saying, we won’t let you hit Putin’s war machine back. That is wrong. And we need to make sure now that those permissions are given.” His comments were echoed by General Sir John McColl, a former deputy supreme allied commander of Nato, who told the programme: “We should as quickly as possible move to allow Storm Shadow to be fired into Russian territory.”
Although Starmer will lobby Biden this week, and his government is donating drones, Britain is now facing growing questions over its commitment to Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials told The Guardian that since Labour entered office the UK had not supplied any additional Storm Shadow missiles, even for use against targets in Crimea and other occupied territories inside Ukraine.
Defence sources have suggested that Labour’s reluctance to do so is likely to stem from the fact that UK stockpiles have reached a level below which military chiefs are not prepared to go, because a certain number must be kept in reserve to protect the UK’s own interests. Others believe that the MoD is concerned that handing Ukraine further Storm Shadow supplies now, before a decision has been reached on permission for their use in Russia, could mean they are not used as effectively as they could be in a few months’ time.
An MoD spokesman said: “We do not comment on operational stockpiles, however, the UK’s support for Ukraine is ironclad and the prime minister has been consistently clear that his government will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. One of the prime minister’s first decisions in office was to commit to spending £3 billion on support for Ukraine every year. Since then, the prime minister has met President Zelensky six times, including hosting him at No 10 twice, and meeting him at the European Political Community meeting in Hungary last week.”
Maxim Tucker was Kyiv correspondent for The Times between 2014 and 2017 and is now an editor on the foreign desk. He has returned to report from the frontlines of the war in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February. He advises on grantmaking in the former Soviet countries for the Open Society Foundations and prior to that was Amnesty International’s Campaigner on Ukraine and the South Caucasus. He has also written for The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, Newsweek and Politico.
Harry Yorke is the deputy political editor at The Sunday Times. His reporting on Richard Sharp and Boris Johnson’s £800,000 loan led to the BBC chairman’s resignation and was shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism. He has previously been shortlisted for young journalist of the year, political journalist of the year, scoop of the year and he was named winner in the politics category at the 30 To Watch: Journalism Awards 2021.
Caroline Wheeler is the political editor at The Sunday Times. She has broken numerous agenda-setting stories on the Covid pandemic, including Boris Johnson’s plans to introduce tougher restrictions for Christmas 2020. Caroline exposed Operation Yellowhammer, the government’s secret contingency plan for a hard Brexit, and the revelation that Theresa May would opt for a snap general election in 2017, a decision that would wipe out her parliamentary majority. Caroline has also covered the NHS contaminated blood scandal for 20 years, since she was a junior reporter in Birmingham.