King Charles watches Ukrainian troops training in Wiltshire, the BBC reported on Monday. Around 20,000 Ukrainians are currently going through an intensive five-week course to help them prepare for combat against the invading Russian forces. ‘His Majesty watched as the me—mostly civilians—stormed a mock trench,’ the BCC enthused.
At an undisclosed location in Wiltshire, the King told one of the senior officers: ‘You are amazing, I don’t know how you do it. I am full of admiration,‘ he added.
Afterwards, with the help of a translator, King Charles took the time to chat with 20 of the Ukrainians. Many of them left their civilian jobs to join the army—one of the lucky men the King spoke to was a mechanic, another a teacher.
This is a clear message from the Monarch: his country stands strongly with Ukraine. The King’s openly political engagement confirms Hungarian Conservative’s previous analysis where we predicted that Charles III may very well become a ‘meddling’ ruler, unlike his predecessor, Queen Elizabeth II.
Joe Biden’s Visit to Ukraine
In the meantime, US President Joe Biden slipped into Kyiv for the first time since the start of the war, as CNN put it, to demonstrate his commitment to the country’s struggle.
The highly secretive visit—which took place as air raid sirens could be heard ringing out in Kyiv while Biden walked alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky around the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral—comes at a critical moment in the 12-month conflict, with Russia preparing for an expected spring offensive and Ukraine hoping to soon retake territory.
During the visit, Biden announced a half-billion-dollar new assistance, saying the package would include more military equipment, such as artillery ammunition, more javelins and Howitzers. And he said new sanctions would be imposed on Moscow later this week.
‘One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,’ Biden declared.
What Do These Visits Really Mean?
The rationale behind the high-level Biden visit was explained to English-speaking readers by none other than the liberal historian Anne Applebaum. The author, who—along with her husband, former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski—has been acting as a kind of mouthpiece for the Washington hawks for some time now, interprets the visits as a means of shaking up faltered Western public opinion. The gist of her article in The Atlantic is that the war is far from over, and the roughest part of the ride is yet to come.
It is worth noting that Applebaum’s piece in one of the main neo-con newspapers may in fact be not entirely her own endeavour, but a sort of commissioned reiteration of talking points in favour of the escalation of the war and the military industry.
‘Consciously or unconsciously, many still speak as if everything will soon return to normal, as if things will go back to the way they were. Defence industries have not yet switched to a different tempo. Defence industries have not yet raised their production to meet the new demands,’ Applebaum warned, adding:
‘He [Biden] is putting everyone on notice, including the defence ministries and the defence industries, that the paradigm has shifted and the story has changed. The old “normal” is not coming back.’
