Irish Examiner view: Next phase of bloody combat is imminent

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's fighting forces need the extra weaponry they have requested if they are to delay or stop the onslaught

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of an EU summit at the European Parliament in Brussels. Picture: Olivier Matthys/AP

Within the near future, we will witness the next, terrible, phase of the Russian assault on Ukraine.

Recent combat successes presage heavier attacks incorporating increased troop numbers of between 350,000 and 500,000 which Vladimir Putin’s generals have been moving forward.

This explains, in part, this week’s urgent trip to London, Paris, and Brussels by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His fighting forces need the extra weaponry they have requested if they are to delay or stop the onslaught. This is unlikely to include the fighter jets Mr Zelenskyy wants, but there is an accompanying need for more armour, better air defences, longer-range missiles, and shells and ammunition.

It is the Kremlin’s calculation that these will not be provided in sufficient volume or quickly enough and that some Russian battlefield successes will place further pressures on European and Nato unity and patience. If those successes can be minimised, there is a thin chance of opening a dialogue, but no more than that.

The European summit was not only about Ukraine, but also how the West might manage another major consequence of Moscow’s war — the flow of refugees. 

There is no sign that this will stop soon, and little chance that the pattern can be reversed while bloody conflict stalks the continent.

At one level, given the mounting pressures on providing accommodation, it has prompted Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to reflect on how to secure EU borders to prevent human trafficking and the speed at which rejected asylum seekers — those with a story that “doesn’t stack up” — can be deported.

At another, we should heed the words of the former tánaiste, justice minister, and attorney general Michael McDowell, who writes that emergency legislation is required to “empower a specialist agency to acquire, lease, or take on compulsory licence property such as Baggot Street hospital, disused hotels, underused religious institutional buildings, vacant buildings, and the like”.

Pointedly, he warns that the administration of the International Protection Act of 2015 is buckling under the strain of migration posing as asylum-seeking and that the “system is broken and is being abused”.

Mr McDowell is correct that we face a crisis, and it is one that is likely to accelerate as the guns of war sound ever louder in the East. The EU must up its tempo in ensuring that the Ukrainians have what they need to defend their homeland. And we need robust powers here at home to ensure that those who are displaced through acts of bloody aggression can find safety and shelter as they arrive, as they surely will again in the months ahead. In 13 days, we will enter Year Two of the war. We have not yet reached the darkest hour.