The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO) rejects the faulty analysis offered by Professor Joe Siracusa, Dean of Global Futures at Curtin University, in his interview on Sky News on 22 April.
“Professor Siracusa has been out in the media talking down the importance of the huge package of assistance passed by the US House of Representatives over the weekend. He is utterly misinformed to state that ‘Ukraine is going to lose this war’, which is aligned with the propaganda coming from the Kremlin since day one of the full-scale invasion in February 2022,” said Stefan Romaniw OAM, Co-Chair of the AFUO.
“As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated , the US aid will mean the Armed Forces of Ukraine have an opportunity to ‘stabilise the situation and regain the initiative’. Defence experts such as Mick Ryan have assessed the situation and believe that with adequate support Ukraine will make meaningful progress.
“He recognises that Ukrainians have been fighting heroically, but is utterly misinformed to claim that Ukraine is losing 30,000 men a month — he should have been challenged on this in real time on air. Ukraine has continued to effectively defend large swaths of its own territory against huge numbers of Russian troops across the last six months while US assistance has been stalled in Congress,” said Mr Romaniw.
“For Professor Siracusa to counsel that now is the time for a diplomatic solution shows his poor understanding of Russia – a diplomatic ‘solution’ would simply amount to a temporary pause in hostilities, while the clock ticks down until Moscow again orders its troops to take Ukrainian territory and kill Ukrainians. It would give the Kremlin time to regroup and eventually to expand their ambitions to other free countries in Eastern Europe.
“A Russian victory in Ukraine will have catastrophic consequences for the global order. As a Dean of Global Futures, Professor Siracusa should be able to comprehend this reality and offer constructive views which recognise Russia as the aggressor whose actions are trashing the global rules-based order which Australia relies on.
Australia’s adversaries are watching closely what happens in Ukraine: analysing the durability of Western commitments; tracking how fast money and weapons are flowing after two years; judging whether governments are matching heady rhetoric with meaningful action. This is particularly the case now, with Russia sending an average of 100 missiles, kamikaze drones and guided bombs into Ukraine each day in 2024. So it’s important that Ukraine’s supporters help Ukraine to hold the line,” Mr Romaniw concluded.
