Will the Israel-Hamas conflict sap support for Ukraine in the West?

As the Israel-Hamas conflict continues to unfold, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed concern about the potential loss of military support for Ukraine. 

During a "surprise" visit to Nato headquarters in Brussels, where defence ministers are meeting, Zelenskyy highlighted the danger of a dwindling focus on Ukraine "at a time when turbulence in the US Congress threatens to disrupt aid for Kyiv and the world's attention is drawn to the crisis unfolding in the Middle East", said The Guardian. 

"I want to be honest with you, of course it is a dangerous situation for people in Ukraine," Zelenskyy told reporters in Belgium. "If there are other tragedies in the world, there is only a certain amount of military support to share, and Russia hopes that support will be divided."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

He added: "There will be challenges with the American elections, and I talked to our partners and they said the support will stay, but who can tell that the support will stay, nobody knows."

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, pledged a new $200 million military package to Ukraine on Wednesday, and said both Israel and Ukraine would be supported. "We can do both and we will do both," he said at the Nato meeting. "The United States will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes."

What did the papers say?

Zelenskyy's presence at the Nato meeting "underscored growing concerns about cracks in what has been staunch international backing" for Ukraine as it continues its fight against the Russian invasion, said The Guardian. 

But while Russia "may welcome that diversion", said The Washington Post, "a broader conflict in the Middle East" could sever Russia's "already frosty relations with Israel, a former economic partner and a potential high-tech military supplier for Ukraine".

Despite a once "close relationship" with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin did not make any statements about the attacks until Tuesday, the paper added. Even then, the Russian president described the violence as "a clear example of the failure of U.S. policy in the Middle East" during a meeting with Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. Putin added that the US had never taken into account "the fundamental interests of the Palestinian people".

The war in Ukraine "has drawn Russia closer to Iran, Israel's most powerful regional rival and a key backer of Hamas, according to Western intelligence", said The Washington Post.   

"Sensing the threat that the West could be about to lose focus on Kyiv", Zelenskyy has been "playing up" Iran and Russia's increasing close allegiance, "casting the fight against Russia and the struggle against Islamist militants as one and the same", said Politico. 

"Israeli journalists who have been here in Ukraine, in Bucha, are now saying that they saw the same evil where Russia came. The same evil. And the only difference is that there is a terrorist organisation that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine," said Zelenskyy in his address to Nato.

What next?

Russia is likely to "exploit" the Hamas attacks in Israel to shape a narrative that suggests a decline in US and Western support for Ukraine, warned the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Russian state television and the pro-Kremlin blogosphere have already responded to the Hamas attacks with "thinly veiled glee", portraying it as a revelation of Western weakness and the beginning of a war that could diminish Western backing for Ukraine, said The New York Times.

Iran, too, might leverage the situation to "advance" several of its long-standing strategic objectives, including progress in its nuclear programme, the development of the Syrian defence industry, arms transfers with Russia, and the expulsion of the US from Syria, said the ISW in an additional report.

It is almost a "foregone conclusion" that the Hamas attacks on Israel will "reduce" the US's focus on Ukraine, said Politico, with Washington "absorbed" in the consequences of the ousting of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy by a group Republican hardliners who are also pushing to cut aid to Ukraine.

The US has "about $5bn left in funds to send new weapons to Ukraine", with Congress yet to approve additional funding for Kyiv, said the Financial Times. But despite concerns arising from Republicans removing financing for Ukraine from a government funding bill, signalling  possible decline in popularity among Republican voters, the Biden administration has been keen to reassure Kyiv of its commitment.

US officials "point to generally widespread support among Republican and Democratic members of Congress for Ukraine as a sign that the aid will eventually be approved", said the paper.