Frontline medics and soldiers near Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine tell World Affairs Editor Sam Kiley how Nato is far from ready for war with Russia – and is training for a bygone era
In 2014 most of the west assumed Ukraine was even more corrupt than Russia. We thought Russia had a functional corruption where the top brass got rich but they kept the military in more or less fighting shape, (similar to the US. The contractors get rich but the military can still fight like hell) but Ukraine they stole everything. The Ukrainian response to the little green men in the donbas supported this narrative. Western news outlets were reporting food drives by Ukrainian grandmothers to supply the troops because the central government under (Litvenyanko? The guy before Zelenski) was too busy building a palace on a lake to feed the soldiers.
We would have assumed any arms sent to Ukraine would be sold to African warlords. We only found out in 2022 that the Ukrainians had grit and the Russians stole everything not nailed down.
In 2014 most of the west assumed Ukraine was even more corrupt than Russia. We thought Russia had a functional corruption where the top brass got rich but they kept the military in more or less fighting shape, (similar to the US. The contractors get rich but the military can still fight like hell) but Ukraine they stole everything. The Ukrainian response to the little green men in the donbas supported this narrative. Western news outlets were reporting food drives by Ukrainian grandmothers to supply the troops because the central government under (Litvenyanko? The guy before Zelenski) was too busy building a palace on a lake to feed the soldiers.
We would have assumed any arms sent to Ukraine would be sold to African warlords. We only found out in 2022 that the Ukrainians had grit and the Russians stole everything not nailed down.