Mark Kenny | Tanks, fighter jets and invisible red lines in Ukraine war

Biden's election in November 2020 is part of that, if only because unlike Republicans, Democrats remain firmly committed to elections as the sole means of obtaining legitimate power.

"Before I came to office, the story was about how the People's Republic of China was increasing its power and America was failing in the world. Not anymore," Biden said at his State of the Union Address, just days after the PRC had brazenly drifted a surveillance balloon across the American stratosphere.

"But in the past two years, democracies have become stronger, not weaker. Autocracy has grown weaker, not stronger. Name me a world leader who would change places with Xi Jinping. Name me one. Name me one".

Like so much in American politics, this last point was all rhetoric, it being unclear who had coveted Xi's job before now, as if that kind of thing were possible?

Of course, dominating any assessment of the current global power contest is an event that has done even more to revive democratic self-respect and rebuild international cooperation, what the White House terms Russia's "brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine".

The Washington Post on Saturday reported Biden will travel to Poland ahead of the first anniversary and will also meet with the Bucharest Nine, to "discuss our bilateral cooperation, as well as our collective efforts to support Ukraine and bolster NATO's deterrence."

Initially, NATO's approach was aimed at helping the smaller nation resist the might of Moscow.

But Ukraine has proved more determined and successful than originally expected. So much so Kyiv thinks exclusively in terms of total victory - rolling Russian forces back behind the 2014 border - i.e. from the Crimean peninsula also. Its strongest supporters in the West see this as the only acceptable conclusion also.

Inevitably, such a clear moral goal justifies all necessary means.

Hence, the graduation from medical supplies, assault rifles, bullets, personal armour and Bushmasters, to heavier weaponry and ordnance, mobile air-defence missile systems, drones, troop-training and more.

Ahead of an expected spring offensive by Moscow (a foretaste of which saw a barrage of some 70 missiles rain down on Ukraine on Saturday), Volodymyr Zelensky made his second international visit last week, revealing openly he would not return home empty-handed.

He had only just won a protracted argument over access to German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks.

After much hesitation, Germany agreed to supply 14 Leopards to begin with, while also freeing other European nations such as Poland to do likewise. The US will supply 31 of its enormous M1A1 Abrams as the latest part of its assistance and is reported to be about to add longer-range missiles to its package. Britain will supply 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks.

As big as this is, Zelensky knows it will be defensive rather than decisive. The purpose of his current charm offensive is to progress Ukraine's capabilities to the next level - fighter aircraft.

Perhaps dazzled by the moral weight and star-power of Zelensky's cause, a comparatively unloved British PM, Rishi Sunak, quickly agreed "nothing was off the table".

Yet some at least are beginning to wonder at what point the NATO countries and their like-minded supporters will demur.

Such debates are coming in future, says Sophia Gaston, head of Foreign Policy & UK Resilience at Policy Exchange - a think-tank linked to the Conservative Party.

An enthusiastic supporter of military support for Ukraine, she praised Britain's values-based leadership in providing vital defence assistance to Kyiv arguing this had burnished Britain's strategic leadership credentials in Europe in contrast to the quibbling tardiness of Paris, Berlin and Brussels.

However, she said, there is an awareness even in Whitehall the second year of this war may not be its last.

That may be in Moscow's interests as a vainglorious Vladimir Putin has no path to retreat anyway and is probably banking on fatigue from Western donor countries creeping in.

Gaston says the British people are solidly behind Ukraine but acknowledges so far the public case has been framed on moral grounds. This year that public positioning may shift to "the pointy end" of tactical and strategic considerations.

"There is an escalatory feeling here, because every time we send Ukraine new kit, they of course then want the next thing ... I do wonder where we're getting to with fighter jets because I think we're getting close to our own red line," she told me.

Those red lines, presumably, go to the difference between the defence of Ukraine on the one hand and weapons and resources that could operate in Russian territory, including Russian airspace.

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For the West, the moral delineations of the Russo-Ukrainian war (2022-?) are so absolute such nuanced debates have proved hard to initiate.

But might that change? Opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs Simon Birmingham expressed full support for military assistance to Ukraine on Thursday morning, but then offered this caveat: "Of course, such support should be always with the expectation that Ukraine would be willing to come to the table for peace talks and we should also be looking at the effectiveness of measures against Russia and how we can find other means to put additional pressure on Russia to make them come to the peace table, too."

It was a telling shift, even if it went largely unreported.