BRUSSELS — Ukraine’s sudden success on the battlefield is a boost not only to Ukrainians but to the county’s supporters in Europe, who face a difficult winter of soaring energy prices and inflation.
The Ukrainian military’s ability to use its Western-supplied weapons to great advantage against Russia will most likely increase the pressure on countries like Germany to give more sophisticated, heavier equipment like battle tanks — still a taboo in Berlin, analysts say.
“The Ukrainian counterattack demonstrates to people that it helps what we are doing — the money and the arms supplies, that it’s not for nothing,” said Sven Biscop, director for Europe of the Egmont Institute, a Brussels research institution.
“Nothing succeeds like success,” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst. “It’s important to be able to demonstrate that what we’re doing over the last months leads to positive outcomes.”
Those who favor strong sanctions against Russia, including Mr. Heisbourg, “have been hard-pressed to prove that anything good was happening to our side and that the Russians weren’t laughing all the way to the bank without having to relinquish any of their ill-gotten gains,” he said.
“But now it’s up to those who think sanctions are failing to prove that Russia is not hurting, because it is,” Mr. Heisbourg said. “And I think there will be a new willingness to provide aid to Ukraine.”
Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, said on Monday that maintaining the momentum on the battlefield is critical because “there is increasing support in Europe, I think, as they see this,” and an understanding that they need to supply more weapons and soon, he said.
After months of what appeared to be a grinding stalemate, “we’re liberating our country, which until recently, many of our partners thought would be impossible,” Mr. Rodnyansky told the BBC from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
While the economic hit to Europe will be hard this winter and perhaps next, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has already used one of his last economic weapons — a near-total cutoff of natural gas to Germany.
“But the problem is more with prices now than with quantity,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s International Affairs Institute. She noted that energy prices, while still very high, have come down slightly, in part because of the efforts of the European Union and its member states to sharply reduce consumption and build up reserves.
“Putin’s played his last card,” she said. “It’s done.”
