David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee and the former British foreign secretary, has claimed “the abnormal is becoming normalised” in Ukraine, as Russia’s war on the country continues and increasing weariness creeps into the global response.
Miliband, speaking to the Guardian during a visit to Kyiv, also said he was particularly alarmed by the looming US presidential election, after several candidates for the Republican nomination used a recent debate to call for a scaling back of US aid to Ukraine.
“It’s striking that the debate in the Republican party is going in a very isolationist direction. It’s not just President Trump who’s threatening to pull the rug from under Ukraine,” said Miliband.
He said it was clear that the current administration was trying to get “as much done as it can” this year and next, but that the looming election, with the possibility of the return of Donald Trump or another similarly unpredictable candidate, was impossible to ignore.
During the Republican debate in late August, Ron DeSantis said US support should be contingent on Europe “pulling their weight”, while Vivek Ramaswamy called aid to Ukraine a “disastrous” decision and the conflict a “no-win war”. At a rally in July, Trump called for military support to Ukraine to be made contingent on investigations into the business dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Miliband said: “It’s a big question on the global political horizon that must be factoring into war calculations in the Kremlin, and it also leaves Europe with some very hard questions.”
Away from the US Republican party, he said it was also a challenge to keep the focus on Ukraine in other western capitals, citing other conflicts that had attracted less attention as they became protracted.
Miliband said: “The reason for coming here is I can see the abnormal becoming normalised. The abnormal is war crimes, attacks on civilian infrastructure, the abnormal is 18 million people in humanitarian need, the abnormal is 6 million refugees, and it’s becoming background music in global affairs, rather than something that is a poster child for the age of impunity.”
Miliband was UK foreign secretary between 2007 and 2010, when Labour lost the general election to David Cameron’s Conservatives and he lost the subsequent Labour leadership election to his brother, Ed. He has run the IRC, an international humanitarian organisation headquartered in New York, since 2013.
The IRC has numerous projects inside Ukraine, offering healthcare, cash support and other services particularly to people living in hard-to-access areas near the frontlines as well as support for Ukrainian refugees living in neighbouring countries.
Miliband said that while much international focus has been on helping to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure, it was important not to forget the human element as well. He pointed to the Ukraine Recovery Conference, held in London in June, in which European governments pledged tens of millions of euros to support Ukraine’s reconstruction, but focused mainly on infrastructure projects.
“Our message is take care of the human side of the recovery. Relatively speaking, the human side is much cheaper than the physical infrastructure side.”
