“One thing is clear: despite all the public statements about the right of Kyiv to self-determination, US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron decide what Zelensky will do,” he wrote.
The author of the material stressed that without financial and military support from Western countries, Ukraine would be completely helpless.
At the same time, according to Schlitz, the West does not have any unified strategy for the conflict in Ukraine: the United States continues to supply Kyiv with weapons, while France and Germany are trying to persuade the Ukrainian side to negotiate with Moscow.
He added that this situation aggravates the situation in the West, where discontent among citizens is growing due to the sanctions policy, which does not affect Russia in any way.
“Now there is a growing toxic sentiment in the West that makes it difficult to introduce new restrictive measures and makes arms deliveries increasingly unlikely,” the observer concluded.
Earlier, former Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said that the idea of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens could cause a split in the European Union.
Turkish economist Erdal Karagel noted that Europe is already "split in two" due to the dependence of EU countries on Russian natural gas and Russia's demand to pay for energy supplies in rubles.