MSC24 ends with ongoing indecision for Ukraine

It was just around noon on the first day of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) when news of the death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny popped up in the smartphone notifications of the participants from all over the world.

The best-known challenger to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a prominent opponent of Russia's war against Ukraine had died in a prison camp in Siberia. The news would set the tone for all three days of the 60th Munich Security Conference, even if the organizers tried to maintain a more diverse focus on other crises around the world.

Putin and Trump

In the corridors and cafes of the labyrinthine MSC venue, the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, conversations revolved around two people who weren't even there: Putin and former US President Donald Trump.

One of them, Putin, was even able to claim a victory, the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, over the weekend.

The other, Trump, is, through his supporters in the Republican Party, blocking a vital aid package of $60 billion for Ukraine put forward by US President Joe Biden. In Munich, US Vice President Kamala Harris made it clear that she and Biden were still trying to get a majority in the US House of Representatives, where the Republicans have a majority. So far, the aid package has only passed in the US Senate.

"The stakes of your fight remain high for your country and for the entire world," Harris told Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the conference, her words likely aimed primarily at a domestic audience in the US. "It is in the strategic interest of the United States to continue our support," Harris said at a joint press conference with Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy asks for US weapons

During talks with US senators, the Ukrainian president stressed that  Ukraine was dependent on new weapons and ammunition from the US.

His military needed "additional artillery systems and ammunition, long-range weapons, electronic warfare equipment, and air defense," Zelenskyy said afterward on X (formerly Twitter).

But whether US President Biden can actually organize a majority in the House of Representatives to support aid to Ukraine remains unclear even after this conference. On the third day of the MSC, when most of the heads of state and government had already left, Republican US Senator and Trump supporter J.D. Vance from the US state of Ohio said that the problem in Ukraine was "that there is no clear endpoint."

Europe must ramp up defense

Vance argued that the US would not be able to produce as many weapons as would be needed either in war or as a deterrent, given the many conflicts in the world, including in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and "potentially a contingency in East Asia."

However, during the weekend in Munich, outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also made it clear that there was no point in focusing only on the problems of US aid to Ukraine. In view of the threat from Putin's Russia, Europe's defense industry must increase production — for Ukraine but also for its own European armies.

Shortly after the news of the death of her husband in a Russian prison camp, Yulia Navalny also had some succinct words for Russia's President Putin, whom she blamed for her husband's death. "You will be punished for what you have done to our country and my family," she said in Russian at the MSC. "That day will come soon," she warned.

Of all the debates and talks at the weekend's MSC, it was Navalny who sounded most decisive about the necessity of aiding Ukraine and rearming Europe to deter Russia.

This article was originally published in German.