‘What just happened – the suspension of military aid – was predictable. I expected it. It wasn’t too hard to predict,’ the former Ukrainian defence minister tells me. Oleksii Reznikov, speaking to me from Kyiv and wearing a ‘Saint Himars’ T-shirt, remains as upbeat as ever, chuckling as he recalls how, back in 2022, Ukraine was supposed to fall in three days. ‘We knew we wouldn’t. It was a matter of survival – three days became three weeks, three months, and now three years. These current events? Just another phase. We have tough negotiations ahead. This isn’t a two-player game – it’s multilateral, with competing interests and big personalities.’
Back then, among Ukraine’s allies, there was no consensus even whether Russians would invade or not.
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