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.

You must have noticed in our previous editions that the media from around the world cannot help looking for similarities, differences or links between the war Russia launched against Ukraine and the latest attacks committed by Hamas and Israel's violent reaction in Gaza. In order to avoid double standards, newsrooms are forced to decide which words to use in their pieces: should they say "war" or "conflict"? When can the word "genocide" be invoked? Discussions are so important and tensions high that AFP felt the need to publish a statement to explain their use of the word "terrorist". 

Geopolitics is polarising against a backdrop of horrific images, and civilians, humanitarians and journalists are the victims of killings in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza. 

We devote this week’s edition to journalistic and opinion pieces from across Europe that put the two deadly conflicts in their sights. We hope it allows you to broaden your point of view and escape the national media bubbles. 

I leave you with a cartoon that we think successfully describes a feeling many have shared in the past weeks:

Cartoon by Heng Kim Song (Singapore), more of his work is on Instagram and Facebook. His work was shared by Cartooning for peace.

Sarah-Lou Lepers

Editor of this week's edition

Bulgaria

A lesson from Ukraine and Israel: "both reason and strength will prevail"

A commentary in the Bulgarian version of Deutsche Welle compares the Russian war on Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel to the philosophical clash described by Plato in his Republic. In that ancient Greek dialogue, Socrates - who represents civilization - refutes his colleague Thrasymachus' theses on how "justice is the advantage of the stronger". "This time too, as in the past, Socrates will defeat Thrasymachus, as happened 2,400 years ago. But not only with the weapons of reasoning, but with the help of what Thrasymachus respects most: strength". (Deutsche Welle)

France

Diplomat: Gaza conflict "Gift from Heaven" for Kremlin

A collective article by Le Monde’s experts on Russia and Ukraine explores "How Russia uses the conflict in Gaza to weaken support to Ukraine". They report how western diplomats consider it a "gift from heaven" to the Kremlin, as the Russian leadership can point at "double standards" in the west’s positions on international issues. For example, it’s difficult to avoid comparisons between Russian bombs on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and Israel’s decision to black-out Gaza. Putin didn’t condemn the Hamas attack on Israel, nor qualified it as a "terrorist" act, and even compared Gaza’s siege to Leningrad’s blockade by the Nazis between 1941 and 1944. In the meantime President Emmanuel Macron’s entourage denounced the "total cynicism" of the Russian position towards Hamas. (Le Monde)

Also, a few days after Hamas’s attack, France 24 published a debunking article from The Observers about allegations that Ukraine delivered weapons to Hamas. (France 24)

Germany 

Ukrainian Jews: "finding safe ground nowhere in sight"

Berliner Zeitung interviews Jews in Berlin. It presents Olena Ioffe – a Ukrainian refugee in Berlin, who worries about the safety of her husband and friends in Zaporizhia, and her relatives in Israel. Lars Umanski, born in Ukraine and raised in North Rhine-Westphalia, reveals his family’s choice to migrate to Germany in the 1990s over Israel, as his father wished to shield his sons from war. These are words that have taken on a prophetic meaning after three decades. According to the Central Welfare Office of Jews in Germany, nearly 50 percent of the Jewish population in Germany has Ukrainian roots. As wars are raging in both countries the author concludes: "For people of Ukrainian origin and Jewish faith, finding safe ground under their feet is currently nowhere in sight". (Berliner Zeitung)

Hungary

PM Orbán on ceasefires: yes in Ukraine, no in Gaza

"We clearly support Israel's right to self-defence," prime minister Viktor Orbán's staff wrote on X (former Twitter) on 7 October. Yet, in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the Hungarian government demands an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, pleading for the need to protect human life at all costs. In the case of Israel, the government's communication did not suggest that Israel should not go to war with Hamas. (Hvg) 

Hungary voted no to the proposal of the resolution at UN General Assembly calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, even though when it comes to the war against Ukraine, the government has consistently argued that the bloodshed must stop and that negotiations must replace fighting. (RTL)

Italy

Tools on social media to ensure news reliability "weakened"

How has the role of social media changed in the war in Ukraine and Gaza? The editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Il Post, Luca Sofri, asks. "Since much of the information is circulating via sharing by social network users, the responsibility of the platforms has increased considerably," he writes. Referring to an article in the New Yorker, Il Post’s newsletter on media and information, Charlie, highlights the different roles social networks are playing in the two wars. On one hand, the war in Ukraine was the first TikTok war, with soldiers and civilians sharing videos from the field. But during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the owner of X (former Twitter) weakened the tools that assure the reliability of news. Facebook has reduced the promotion of news and TikTok "is planning to give users what they want", and not verify the news. The author underlines how social media companies are disinvesting from checks on journalistic information. (Charlie, Il Post)

Spain

Gaza "the second front of Russia’s war"

Is Gaza a second front in the Russian-Ukrainian war? How can it affect US and EU support for Ukraine? Harvard's professor of Ukrainian history Serhii Plokhy talks about how the Ukrainian determination not to capitulate changed the world order in 2022, and how an anti-Western movement is hatching across the world (and also in Israel). An interview published by El Mundo.  

Fighting a militia in an urban conflict, such as in Gaza, or facing "the second army of the world", such as in Russia, with all kinds of weaponry, defensive systems and drones, is very different. That's why the vocabulary of weapons, and especially tanks, varies from one war to the other. Calibre, design, defensive system and type of terrain must be suitable for the given conflict, from the Leopard 2 sent to Ukraine to the Merkava IV deployed by Israel on the Gaza border, shows a video analysis by El País.

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

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