A group of former European leaders — including Carl Bildt of Sweden and Sanna Marin of Finland — visited Ukraine recently and picked up on the deteriorating mood. They wrote afterwards that ‘while Ukrainians will never stop resisting, without more military support, Ukraine can lose more territory. More cities might be captured’.

Off the record, some western officials are even bleaker, warning of a risk of ‘catastrophic failure,’ if the Ukrainian military is stretched to breaking point — and does not receive a significant increase in military and financial aid from its western allies.