Welcome to this edition of What about Ukraine?, a newsletter that helps you keep updated about what has been said recently about Ukraine in Ukraine, and in the international media.

Every now and then the subject of hypothetical peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia comes back in the headlines, but it’s not easy to understand what is at stake in such a process. An article translated from Ukrainian into English this week outlines three scenarios often suggested as potential solutions by Russian propaganda to stop the war launched against Ukraine. This is a unique opportunity for our English speaking readers to understand these hypotheses (presented as alternatives by Russia), in an analysis by two Ukrainian journalists.

Also in this edition, the tension around military recruitment in Ukraine is tackled by ARD correspondent, and El País’s correspondent in Kyiv focuses on the competition for enlisting soldiers among different brigades. Meanwhile, the French ministry of the army had to deny that it was recruiting French soldiers to send to Ukraine, after a fake recruitment website appeared.

In the rest of the EU, a political crisis in Bulgaria is leading to elections, which may impact the country’s support towards Ukraine, and a Russian low-cost supermarket chain opens dozens of shops in Hungary.

Have a good read.

Sarah-Lou Lepers
Editor of this week's edition

29 March is marked as a date of the second anniversary of the last negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. These were held in 2022 in Istanbul and, according to material recently published by The Wall Street Journal, the proposed accord would have weakened Ukraine’s army and defence system without providing any working mechanism to prevent Russia from further military escalation. 

Today, a Global Peace Summit is under discussion between Ukraine and Switzerland, with the expected participation of 160 countries working together on President Volodymyr Zelensky's 2022 Peace Formula. 

Meanwhile Russia’s officials and propaganda channels (like Russia Today and TASS) suggest different scenarios for Ukraine’s future, none of which includes territorial integrity or safety guarantees. Some of these scenarios are analysed by Ukrainian journalists Lesia Bidochko and Oleksii Siedin in a piece, translated by n-ost this week, like Finland’s post-WWII neutrality, the split Germany, or the Korean’s division following the civil war in the 1950s: 

About the ‘Korean scenario’, they write: 

"The Korean peninsula was divided into North and South Korea (...) between 1945 to 1950, and along the military demarcation line since 1953. Both parties were exhausted by the three years of war (the large number of casualties and the vast destruction of infrastructure didn’t justify further hostilities), so they agreed upon a ceasefire and a demarcation line. When it comes to Ukraine, any analogies with the Koreas are not entirely appropriate, because this is not a fight between two halves of a country, but an aggressor (Russia) trying hard to seize more Ukrainian land."

The piece was originally published by Detector media, an online Ukrainian media outlet, which focuses on monitoring and analysis of Ukrainian media landscape as well as analysis of Russian propagandistic narratives.

Translated by Tetiana Evloeva.

France

Ukraine has become a mirror of Franco-German differences 

Ukraine has become a mirror of Franco-German differences, reads an analysis in Les Echos. Olaf Scholz has chosen to walk a tightrope: doubling military aid to Ukraine while cajoling the pacifist fringe of the Social Democratic Party. Emmanuel Macron has made a major U-turn, moving from the desire "not to humiliate Russia" to the idea of sending troops in support. In truth, both share the conviction that it is vital to support Ukraine over the long term. But the two countries come up against differences in their institutions, with a French President who can play on a form of "strategic ambiguity" and a chancellor whose foreign policy is much more dependent on parliament than his French counterpart. (Les Echos)

No, the French Army did not launch a website to recruit French soldiers to enrol and fight in Ukraine, our French fellow Alexandre Horn, a member of Libération’s Fact-Checking team explains. A website claimed that France was recruiting "200,000 men to run operations in Ukraine" and had been created right after President Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that he was not "excluding" the idea of sending soldiers to Ukraine. The French Ministry of Defence denounced a "disinformation campaign" and the platform was suspended on 28 March. (Libération)

Corruption has not stopped with the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and Ukrainian journalists are continuing to investigate graft, despite martial law, explains an article by Le Figaro’s correspondent in Kyiv. Embezzling public contracts, inflating purchase prices and offering bribes are among the suspected crimes brought to light by Ukrainian journalists in the past months. But some journalists have been under pressure, like the team of investigative media Bihus, who were spied on by Ukrainian security agents. (Le Figaro)

Germany 

Documenting LGBTQ lives and fears in wartime

Accompanying LGBTQ individuals in Ukraine, photographer Sitara Thalia Ambrosio spent months immersed in their lives, and documenting their experiences. Intimate photos of five protagonists, featured in Die Zeit, shed light on the current struggles of the Ukrainian LGBTQ community: the fear of Russian authorities in occupied territories of Ukraine and of the strengthening of traditional gender roles in Ukraine at a state of war. Her photo book ‘Fragile as Glass’ will be published this month. (Die Zeit)

On Catholic and Protestant Easter Saturday, nearly 70 traditional Easter marches took place across Germany, where people gathered to rally for peace. Many protesters called for negotiations and diplomatic solutions to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as an end to arms deliveries, suggesting military and weapon support for Ukraine would not bring peace. Addressing these claims the German government emphasised the urgent need for further support for Ukraine and asserted that military support is crucial for European stability and security. (Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung)

There is a critical need for new soldiers in the Ukrainian army, reports ARD correspondent Rebecca Barth. Not only is there a shortage of personnel, but also a significant challenge lies in the supply of artillery ammunition. Older men undergoing an obligatory four-week training express physical challenges and acknowledge the absence of choice, while younger recruits, enlisted by a popular brigade, express their desire to avenge fallen friends. (tagesschau)

Hungary

Russian supermarket shut out of west restarts in Budapest

Russian discount supermarket chain Mere will open 20 stores in Budapest and its surrounding area this year. This could increase to as many as 200 stores, three years from now, according to trade magazine Haszon.hu. Sanctions and supply difficulties have forced Mere to close stores in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and the UK, and now it will focus on eastern Europe (Index). The question is how Mere will cope with the Hungarian government's policy of "mall stop", where new commercial units larger than 400 square metres need to be licensed by the government. "It will be interesting to see how enthusiastically [the leadership] supports or hinders Russian projects," Forbes comments. (Forbes)

The most renowned examples of Ukrainian art were rescued from the country before Russian missiles started hitting Kyiv in 2022, and are now touring Europe. In Madrid, the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum organised a major exhibition to present these works, which are now on display at the Belvedere in Vienna, which many Hungarian visitors are attending. "The heights to which Ukrainian art reached in the first third of the last century are in themselves almost miraculous," Hvg states. "It developed its diversity from realism to constructivism to futurism in an era when the country was going through one of its most critical periods in history." (Hvg)

Direct fighting has so far avoided Transcarpathia, the Ukrainian region with a Hungarian-speaking minority, but changing circumstances due to the war, such as rising prices and power cuts have led many Hungarian-speaking Roma to leave the western Ukrainian region and flee to Hungary. According to research by 444.hu, their integration is difficult, not only because there is no functioning state Roma strategy, or because the government has a uniform view of refugees from Ukraine, but also because they come from a different cultural background than the Roma in Hungary, which poses a challenge for professionals trying to help them. (444.hu)

Spain

Madrid rules out conscription

Compulsory military service is not being considered in Spain, "nor has it even been contemplated," said Margarita Robles, the Spanish defence minister. Doubts and debates arose after the Latvian president made a plea for a profound discussion on conscription in Europe, amid the new phase of the Russian invasion (El Mundo). In recent months, Latvia and Sweden have reinstated military service, while Denmark announced its mandatory enforcement for women. However, experts doubt whether these measures will stop Putin, because the "cold war recruitment model is obsolete" and experienced soldiers with specialised weaponry are needed, not thousands of inexperienced and unmotivated citizens. (El Confidencial)

The "competition" for recruiting soldiers in Ukraine is tackled by the correspondent of El País in Kyiv. In the Ukrainian capital, military advertisements for different brigades can be spotted on every street, featuring QR codes to browse job opportunities. While this form of advertising has been present since the onset of the invasion, its frequency has surged in recent months. The size of salary, the number of holidays, health insurance, equipment and training for at least two months are the main conditions considered important. Ukraine needs soldiers, and the brigades are competing for the best candidates. (El País)

Over the past year, Spain has boosted its acquisitions of Ukrainian sugar by 66 percent, a rise from 4,150 to around 7,000 tonnes. Despite the tariff removal in Europe causing a decline in the price of sugar across much of the continent, certain regions, including Bulgaria, Italy and Spain, have experienced price hikes. Recently, the EU reached an agreement to extend the free trade deal with Ukraine for one more year, although pre-war tariffs will automatically come into effect for the most sensitive products like poultry, eggs and sugar, if their import volumes exceed the levels observed in 2022 and 2023. (AgroNews)

Bulgaria

Political crisis: what future for Sofia's relations with Ukraine?

The coalition government led by Nikolay Denkov, in power since June last year, has distanced Bulgaria from its traditional pro-Russian policy and explicitly supported Kyiv. Due to political disagreements in the coalition, however, Denkov was forced to resign in early March and the country will now go to early elections. Among the direct consequences of the political chaos, Mediapool writes, there could be a delay in the new military aid package promised by Sofia to Ukraine, which together with ammunition and anti-aircraft systems could also include Mi-24 helicopters. Sofia's parliament could still approve the deal, but the lack of an incumbent government makes any political decision complicated. (Mediapool)

The legality of the procedures with which the TurkStream gas pipeline was built are called into question by new documents, made public after being hacked by Bulgarian hackers. Since 2021 TurkStream has been transporting Russian gas through Turkey and Bulgaria towards Central Europe, bypassing Ukraine, to Moscow's advantage. According to the documents, from the email account of the sanctioned Russian politician Alexander Babakov, in 2019 the then Bulgarian government led by Boyko Borisov broke public procurement rules to pass control of the infrastructure to companies linked to Russia, despite a Saudi consortium having won the tender. (Dnevnik)

In addition to providing Ukraine with military supplies, Bulgaria is also active in supporting Ukraine across diverse sectors. Last week, the outgoing government in Sofia contributed to the UNESCO emergency aid fund for Ukraine together with several other EU members. The contribution is small (40,000 USD), but symbolically important for Bulgaria, a country long considered politically close to Russia. The UNESCO fund aims to support Kyiv in the fields of education, culture, science and information in the context of Russia’s recent aggression against Ukraine. (Aktualno)

The Europe-Ukraine Desk curated this newsletter. This week's edition has been composed by our team all over Europe: Marika Ikonomu, Kornelia Kiss, Katarina Kukla, Sarah Lou Lepers, Oksana Mamchenkova, Francesco Martino, Antonina Rybka and Fermin Torrano.
Michael Bird was our proofreader. 

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