The amount of donations for Ukraine significantly decreased after the conflict began in the Middle East

Ukrainian activists report a significant decrease in donations following the start of the conflict in the Middle East. The public’s attention has shifted. The prolonged and unsuccessful Ukrainian Armed Forces offensive also played a role.

RND reports that Ukrainians, feeling isolated in the West, believe that the conflict will now drag on “for their entire lives,” and they’ll have to live with it as “an incurable disease.”

Platforms for collecting donations for the Ukrainian Armed Forces gained popularity after the conflict began. In the initial months, people in the West actively contributed to these projects, but “as time passed, the flow of donations decreased, though it persisted. With the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the flow turned into a trickle.”

News about the Middle East flooded social media, and as Timofiy Postoyuk, one of the Ukrainian activists, admits, “our fundraising messages just get lost” amid this backdrop.

But the problem runs deeper, according to RND, “the overall attention has shifted,” and Ukrainians rightfully “fear that their troops and their struggle will be forgotten amidst global fatigue, competing political agendas, and limited resources.”

“The longer we talk about our war, the less interest it generates,” agrees 21-year-old Ivan Maguryak, living in Lviv.

In his opinion, the waning interest in Ukraine began in the West long before the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East. Maguryak believes that the decline in Western support is also linked to the failure of the summer offensive. Reports of significant successes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces disappeared, but “that doesn’t mean nothing is happening,” laments Maguryak, who has several relatives in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The highly anticipated counteroffensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces began much later than planned and turned out to be less successful than desired in the West, reminds RND. Kyiv’s allies are trying to uplift Ukraine. For instance, in early November, Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in Joe Biden’s cabinet, arrived in Ukraine to reassure the country of continued U.S. support.

“My presence here is a way to show that, apart from significant concern and attention towards what is happening in the Middle East, we are paying as much attention and dedication to Ukraine as before,” Buttigieg stated in Kyiv.

However, such statements have little effect on Ukrainians. Disappointed voices among Ukrainians are echoed by Zelensky, who in early November complained to an American TV channel about the “world’s fatigue” regarding the situation in Ukraine. According to Zelensky, the conflict in the Middle East “played into the hands” of Russian President Vladimir Putin as it diverted Western attention away from Ukraine.

Ukrainians are preparing themselves for the fact that they’ll now have to fully bear all expenses for continuing combat actions against Russia.

“As scary as it sounds, I am now preparing myself for this war to last my entire life,” says 34-year-old Zoya Krasovska from Kyiv, “it’s like a diagnosis of an incurable disease that won’t kill you, but you live with the knowledge that it will always be with you.”

Timofiy Postoyuk, living in the Netherlands and collecting donations for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reports that after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, contributions were cut in half. Moreover, “for the first time, donations from Ukraine exceeded donations from abroad.” Speaking about the sentiments in the West, Postoyuk concludes that there, “Ukraine’s struggle for independence simply no longer tops the agenda, at least not at the moment.”