Irish Examiner view: Support for Ukraine may be drying up

Tánaiste Micheál Martin laying flowers at the Memory Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine in Kyiv, while there to participate in a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council. Picture: Irish Embassy in Kyiv

Even as EU foreign ministers met yesterday for an unprecedented gathering in Kyiv, the government and people of the country must have been closely monitoring events elsewhere which seemed to indicate wavering international levels of support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

First up there was the near-miss in Washington DC where Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sagely joined forces with Democrats to find last-minute votes to prevent a government shutdown being forced by the minority Maga element of his own party in Congress.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, the bill agreed in the House of Representatives excluded continued funding for support.

That McCarthy’s position is now under threat from the extremists within his own caucus is not something which will particularly worry Kyiv, but the potential drying up of the well of dollars is a considerable concern, even if US president Joe Biden has tried to reassure the country by saying he will work hard to restore funding in the short term.

Then came the news from Bratislava that the Slovakian general election had been won by controversial former prime minister Robert Fico on the back of a pro-Russia campaign platform. This result came amid further disquiet in the US and Europe over the billions in aid being sent to Ukraine.

Mr Fico’s assertion that “not one bullet” would be exported from his country to support the war against Russia was a shock to Kyiv as Slovakia had been among the first to send armaments and also donated its entire fleet of ex-Russian MIG fighter jets to bolster Ukrainian defences.

Although Mr Fico’s populist Smer party won 23% of the vote in the election, he will need to find a coalition partner in order to enter government, so the tone of his rhetoric could well be watered down if he is to take office.

Ukraine could also become a focus of the forthcoming October 15 election in Poland where the governing hard-right Law and Justice party is fighting a rearguard action against liberal opposition led by former European Council president Donald Musk. The country has already closed its borders to cheap Ukrainian grain.

The gathering of many of Europe’s top diplomats in Kyiv yesterday was intended to have a bolstering effect on seemingly vacillating support for Ukraine. How much longer that collective support will remain unwavering now seems questionable, but for Ukrainians the presence of so many EU politicians and diplomats in their country yesterday was some small crumb of comfort.

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Fentanyl poses risk to Irish lives

There is a certain irony in the fact that, as the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs is set to announce its recommendations on the potential relaxation of drug laws in this country, a former assistant garda commissioner issued a dire warning that fentanyl will cause more damage than heroin ever did.

The words of Pat Leahy, following on from those spoken by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in this paper, that Ireland must brace itself for an inevitable surge of fentanyl in the coming months and years, are deeply worrying.

With gangs only too aware of the potency of this synthetic opiate and its appeal to drug users and — by now — fully aware of its chemical make-up, and potentially ramping up industrial-scale laboratories in which to make it, the threat to Irish lives from fentanyl is stark.

The drug, along with similar opiates, has taken 75,000 lives in America alone last year as a result of often accidental overdoses. Incrementally, were it to gain a foothold in Ireland, thousands will lose their lives here too.

Fentanyl is not like heroin in that it is a “classless” killer and not restricted to areas of social depravation, and that makes the threat from it to be far greater than anyone can imagine. Accidental overdoses have taken the lives of such as rock stars Tom Petty and Prince, along with tens of thousands of normal everyday folk, including one-year-old Nicholas Dominici who died last week after being exposed to it in a Bronx creche.

This drug is a killer. Ireland had better be prepared to deal with its deadly fallout. It is easy to suspect we are not ready.

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Freedom of speech

The suspension last week of a small Kansas town’s police chief for his involvement in a raid on the offices of the local newspaper — an act which set off global alarm bells about press freedoms — signals something of a conclusion to a very curious affair.

Mayor David Mayfield confirmed at the weekend that police chief Gideon Cody had been suspended after he had led a raid two months ago on the Marion County Record in which computers and other electronic devices were seized.

That raid sparked a storm of questions from news organisations and freedom of speech advocates who viewed it as a heavy-handed abuse of power, especially so when it emerged that one of the computers seized contained details of an investigation by the Record into Cody’s activities.

That the owner of the Record, Joan Meyer, who was also the mother of the editor, Eric Meyer, died a day after police had searched her home, as well as the newspaper offices, had added further to the controversy.

Initially Mr Mayfield declined to act to suspend Cody, saying he would not do so until a state investigation was completed. Late last week he suspended Marion’s police chief, despite the fact that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s inquiry into the raid is ongoing.

Time will undoubtedly provide us with more answers, but for now it would appear that Cody got rather more than he bargained for when he tackled a small-town newspaper fulfilling its editorial remit.