Ukraine's allies have vowed to overcome a funding crisis caused by Hungary threatening to veto the European Union's $106 billion loan to Kyiv unless it restores Russian oil deliveries through a pipeline under its territory.
The diplomatic spotlight was on Brussels on Monday, when European foreign ministers tried to persuade Hungary and Slovakia to back off from threats to punish Ukraine for delays in resuming the flow of Russian oil through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline.
Speaking after a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers in the Belgian capital, the bloc’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas described Hungary’s position as “regrettable".
In a letter to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the EU Council President Antonio Costa said it represented “a violation of the principle of sincere co-operation”.
Mr Costa and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are due to visit Kyiv for the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of the war on Tuesday.
Kyiv said the Druzhba, which still carries Russian oil through Ukrainian territory to Europe, was damaged a month ago by a Russian drone strike and engineers are fixing it as fast as possible.
Slovakia and Hungary, which have the EU’s only two refineries that still rely on oil via the pipeline, blame Ukraine for the delay.
“It is up to Ukraine,” Mr Orban said. “Whether it restarts shipments on the pipeline or not, it is increasingly clear that we are facing open political blackmail here. The Hungarian government does not give in to any blackmail.”
Asked who was to blame for the stand off, Ms Kallas said it was Russia. “If Russia hadn't started this war, we wouldn't have these problems,” she said.
Britain is stepping up its backing for Ukraine with a new £25 million package of military, humanitarian and reconstruction support.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will also convene a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing on Tuesday alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, reiterating the landmark declaration in January to deploy British and French troops to Ukraine once peace is secured.
Russia's recruitment crunch
Amid the European political infighting are some glimmers of hope for Ukraine, after western officials reported that, for the first time in the war, Russia has lost more men than it can recruit over a three-month period.
Moscow is losing more than 35,000 soldiers in terms of dead and wounded each month and Ukraine aims to raise that figure to 50,000, using a new range of ground robots and attack drones.
More worrying for the Kremlin is that any drop in its supply of manpower will have a significant impact on its ability to launch a spring or summer offensive.
It might also force President Vladimir Putin into mobilising reserves, a move that be would be as politically dangerous as it would be unpopular.
“They can't recruit enough people, given the losses,” one western official said. “The Russians lost more men over last three months than they were able to recruit. That is really significant in their ability to generate enough forces in order to undertake a summer offensive.
“That manpower calculus is really significant operationally and tactically but also it starts to raise the issue of coercive mobilisation within Russia.”
Meanwhile, Al Carns, the UK Armed Forces Minister, said the “operational cost on Russia has been absolutely unimaginable”, with 1.25 million casualties. “That’s more than America in the entirety of the Second World War," he said.
He added that Russia had lost more than 4,000 tanks and 10,000 armed vehicles, and its Black Sea naval fleet “arguably destroyed by a navy [Ukraine's] which doesn’t have any ships”.
Mr Carns suggested that if Mr Putin began recruiting from major Russian cities, it would “start to fracture some of his political support”.
