Odessa
Our conference here is about Black Sea security, where I am the guest of UK Friends of Ukraine. Its subject reflects one of Ukraine’s greatest, yet least publicised successes. Almost a third of the Russian fleet has been destroyed, mostly by sea drones. The rest is trapped in ports much further east. As a result, almost normal amounts of grain and other goods flow to the wider world. It says something not good about third-world politics that all 11 recipients of WFP relief in the form of Ukrainian grain, including Nigeria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gaza, support Russia in international forums.
Tony Abbott, the former prime minister of Australia, gives us a rousing keynote speech, praising Ukraine for ‘defeating the Russian fleet without a navy’. He is briefly interrupted by the air-raid app which some delegates keep on. ‘The air alert is over,’ announces its computer voice. ‘The force be with you.’ Is it? This is endlessly debated. On the one hand, US aid is starting to flow once more, and the Russians have had no breakthrough. On the other, Russian will is clearly stronger than that of those western allies who shy off talk of Ukrainian victory, preferring ‘a peaceful settlement’. The effect, though not the intention, is to assist Russian victory. Infirmity of purpose is infectious. A current worry, under-reported in the West, is that, of all the non-combatant countries bordering the Black Sea – Georgia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania – only the last is seen as reliable by Ukrainians.
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