‘We Don’t Have Time to Wait Until Spring’ – Ukraine at War Update for Nov. 12

According to an article by a Bucharest news outlet on Monday, Russian propagandists now have turned their attention to Romanian elections, scheduled for late November. The Kremlin is attempting to influence Romanian voters, Digi24 said, as highlighted by Ukrainska Pravda: “through proxies and intermediaries, such as Russia-related or Russian-funded organizations and institutions, possibly including candidates.”

The Romanian journalists claimed that every Russian person in Romania is “under constant monitoring” by Moscow, as it is flustered about the country’s membership in both the European Union and NATO, the same national aspirations shared by much of the Ukrainian population leading up to Russia’s invasion of the country in February 2022.

According to the report, “a network of bots and trolls on social media” in cyberspace “is attempting to obtain illegitimate content to promote certain candidates, into which the Romanian police have also begun an investigation.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, US President-Elect Donald Trump’s team has signaled that Trump plans to forward an initiative to freeze Ukraine’s joining of NATO for 20 years as part of any potential deal with Moscow when he assumes the Oval Office in January 2025.

As explained by Ukrainska Pravda, the first round of Romania’s presidential election will be held on Nov. 24 and the second on Dec. 8.  Klaus Iohannis, the incumbent president, cannot serve a third term.

Other Topics of Interest

ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

‘Now is the transition phase that Putin has been waiting for,’ says German foreign minister

Germany’s foreign minister warned on Monday that Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin could capitalize on “the US post-election transition period to take advantage” of the balance of power in the war in Ukraine, AFP reported.

Top diplomat Annalena Baerbock urged Berlin to increase aid to Kyiv immediately and called on European leaders to follow suit.

“We don’t have time to wait until spring,” Baerbock told a press conference on Monday. “Now is the transition phase that Putin has been waiting for and aiming for.”

In his victorious presidential campaign, Donald Trump made it clear that, under his administration, the US would no longer be sending Kyiv the amount of military aid that Joe Biden’s administration and the Democratic-controlled Senate had done until now. Now that his party holds the presidency and both chambers of Congress, Trump appears likely to follow through on his promise to “end the war in a day,” meaning the new US president will offer both Moscow and Kyiv a deal that Trump believes is expedient and equitable.

Adding to the urgency of Baerbock’s appeal to European Union member states and German voters, German elections are expected to be called soon, following the collapse of Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left coalition last week.

“France has not forgotten, and will never forget, Bucha,” says French foreign minister

A day after he warned the worrisomely influential American billionaire Elon Musk not to “break democracy,” France’s new foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot (who took over that role from Stéphane Séjourné in September ) said on Monday that “France is ready to work with the new administration in an ambitious manner, because we believe that we have to give Ukraine the means to be able to push back against Russia.”

The South-African-born Musk, who is one of five American billionaires to have contributed more than $100 million each to Republican campaigns this year, is speculated to have had direct conversations with Putin as a result of his massive financial support for Trump, conversations that the founder of Tesla and social media platform X (formerly Twitter) denies.

In 2024, just ten American families, including the Musk family, were responsible for nearly $1 billion in campaign contributions, according to the group Americans for Tax Fairness.

Barrot was quoted by state media Ukrinform on Monday, at in his speech at the 7th Paris Peace Forum, as saying that “Faced with speculation on what the position of a new American administration will be, I believe above all that we should not decide in advance.”

“Let’s hope [that Musk] doesn’t do to American democracy what he did to Twitter. Democracy is a delicate treasure,” Barrot had said in an interview with Le Parisien when asked about the part Musk could play in the new Trump administration.

According to American news review, Politico:

“Barrot is familiar with Musk, having been France’s junior minister for tech when the Tesla owner completed the acquisition of the social media network now known as X [formerly Twitter] in 2022. That same year, Barrot said that he was ‘appalled’ by Musk’s handling of the platform.”

“I have no doubt that a strong relationship will be built between the two administrations and that we’ll be able to preserve the transatlantic unity when it comes to all the challenges of the war in Ukraine,” Barrot said at the meeting in Paris. “Working for the future of Ukraine is also imagining what a long-term and sustainable peace could be. France will also be fighting impunity. France has not forgotten and will never forget Bucha, and all the other crimes committed on Ukrainian territory for the last three years – in Irpin, Izium, Mariupol, and Olenivka. No violation of international humanitarian law and no war crime or crime against humanity will be forgotten. There will be no peace without justice,” he said.

In early 2022, Russian invaders slaughtered more than 450 Ukrainian civilians in the town of Bucha, about 20 miles northeast of Kyiv. According to local authorities, 458 bodies were recovered from the town, including nine children under the age of 18.