We endlessly hear concerns about the abysmal capacity for concentration of Generation Z, said to stretch barely to the length of a TikTok video. But is the attention span of the Albanese government on international security matters much better? Following Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Australia, like the rest of the West, was generous in its assistance. We contributed $910 million worth, including 120 Bushmaster armoured vehicles, artillery, and howitzers. That has clearly been in our interests as well as those of Ukraine. The West needs to show the Russians they can’t get away with naked aggression; if they did, who knows what further adventures Putin would try in other parts of the former Soviet empire. Resistance to Russian aggression is also vital as China weighs up whether it might get away with conquering Taiwan.

Yet bizarrely, although Ukraine has a desperate need for military helicopters and has asked for them, the Albanese government has ordered the Army to disassemble and bury 45 recently-retired Taipan multi-role helicopters worth $900 million – yes, you read that right. Defence Minister Richard Marles hasn’t explained why we wouldn’t send the helicopters to Ukraine but at least – phew – we’ve been assured they will be buried in an ‘environmentally friendly’ way.

Mercifully the strategic gurus of Russell Hill aren’t in charge of Western policy on Ukraine. Yet their strange decision is probably symptomatic of a widespread Western loss of interest in what until recently was the world’s biggest story. Gradually, all those blue-and-yellow flags have been slipping from sight.

One reason for that clearly is another major international conflict that has elbowed the Ukraine war off the front pages. Another is the fact that Ukraine’s initial success in rolling back the Russians hasn’t been sustained over the past year. Ukraine’s Army chief General Valery Zaluzhny has acknowledged that his forces’ much-anticipated counter-offensive made hardly any progress and that there’s now a stalemate. It’s probably not surprising that, after US$67 billion in US military aid for Ukraine last year, many in the US Congress are hesitant about the further US$61 billion proposed by Biden.

Putin, ever the opportunist, has sniffed flagging Western support for Ukraine and has let it be known he’d be open to a ceasefire. And while, publicly, he continues to denounce the ‘Nazi’ regime in Kyiv, according to US officials he’s shifted behind the scenes, indicating he’d graciously accept a continued sovereign Ukraine headed by the Zelensky government. He seems to have judged he won’t succeed in defeating Ukraine anytime soon. A ceasefire would allow him to claim victory by locking in Russia’s territorial gains.

There have been influential Ukrainian voices, including Zelensky’s former adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, who argue that if Ukraine could get a deal involving EU and Nato membership in return for surrendering the occupied territories, it should grab it. But Zelensky rejects any suggestion of giving up on Ukraine’s stolen lands and says no peace is possible with Putin’s regime.

Might the US and Europe nevertheless put pressure on the Ukrainians to accept a deal? It still seems unlikely Nato membership would be acceptable to Moscow under any circumstances. But any deal would require Ukraine to receive cast-iron security guarantees – difficult given that Kyiv has previously received such guarantees and they proved meaningless. The issue of the 22 per cent of Ukraine occupied by Russia would be even more intractable. It’s hard to imagine a Ukrainian political leader surviving acceptance of their loss.

Biden has been Ukraine’s strongest military supporter and yet Washington has remained nervous about what it sees as the danger of provoking Putin. Unlike the UK, it has refused to give Kyiv the long-range weaponry that might shift the war decisively in its favour. Still, it’s hard to see Biden selling the Ukrainians down the river. Putin probably hopes that Trump, if he’s crowned the Republican candidate, might be more amenable to a deal. But Trump is fond of recounting how on his watch he deterred Putin from attacking Ukraine. There’s a good likelihood that Trump II on Ukraine might not be so different to Biden.

If America did end up letting Ukraine down, Europe would need to do more. The EU has done the decent thing and opened the way for membership negotiations. But its planned US$54 billion military aid package for Ukraine has been vetoed by Hungary. This episode has taught Brussels the important lesson that preaching about human rights selectively carries risks. After threatening ‘to bring Hungary to its knees’ because it won’t allow LGBT proselytising in schools, it shouldn’t have been surprised when Budapest itself used concerns about human rights – Hungarian ethnic minority rights in Ukraine – to block the aid package.

Military and political support from individual European countries remains strong nonetheless. Those showing the most solidarity are the fervently anti-Putin former Soviet empire escapees and other close Russian neighbours who know its ways only too well – the Baltic States, Poland, Finland, Sweden. Germany has also been a major disappointment for the Kremlin, having moved decisively since its Ukraine invasion from being Russian gas-dependent and Putin-friendly – and initially prepared to help Ukraine only with helmets – to now being its second-biggest supplier of military assistance after the US. Britain, Ukraine’s third-most generous source of help, has supplied £12 billion worth of military equipment – about the only thing the otherwise hapless Sunak government has got right in recent times. British Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles have been of vital help and one was a UK festive season present for Putin, sinking the Novocherkassk, a prized Russian navy landing ship docked in Crimea. London has further committed to supplying Ukraine with thousands of military drones including those with long-range strike capability.

2024 promises to be another gruelling year for Ukraine. With military aid drying up it urgently needs air-defence missiles and artillery shells, as well as the heavier weaponry it needs to push the Russians back. The West promised help to Ukraine in its struggle with Russia for ‘as long as it takes’. It would be shameful and damaging to our interests if we walked away from that – a message of which the Albanese government and its Defence mandarins clearly need to be reminded.