Late Tuesday, Qatar formally announced a deal between Israel and Hamas that would temporarily pause fighting in Gaza to facilitate a prisoner exchange of at least 50 Israeli and dual-national hostages for the return of 150 Palestinian prisoners, among other elements.

Implementation of the deal is still being finalized, but it looks like a serious diplomatic breakthrough, though decidedly not a resolution to the conflict. The deal was so sensitive that even as the agreement appeared imminent, senior White House officials were reluctant to confirm until the Qatari government officially announced anything.

Qatar got the spotlight here because of its role as mediator through weeks of painstaking negotiations. The United States played a role, for sure, as did Egypt. But Qatar was a key intermediary.

Even before this most recent war between Israel and Hamas, the very tiny, very rich Gulf state had carved out a bit of a reputation as a diplomatic broker, especially in hostage negotiations. This has been a deliberate gambit on Qatar’s part, which has cultivated and managed pragmatic ties with the region’s main players — becoming a kind of middle man between parties that otherwise do not get along. It’s a key US ally, hosting an American military base critical to US operations in places like Syria and Iraq. Qatar also has ties to Islamist groups, including Hamas, whose political arm has an office in Doha.

This has given Qatar leverage — and, most importantly, access. The United States and Israel do not negotiate directly with Hamas. That has made the Qataris an indispensable go-between. “You have to talk to Hamas to get anything done,” said F. Gregory Gause, professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M. “The Qataris are there to help you out — and they’re there to remind you that they’re helping you out.”

Qatar’s role in this conflict extends beyond this week’s deal. In late October, Qatar helped negotiate the release of a couple hostages held by Hamas, and it may be helping to tamp down a wider regional conflict, given its good relations with Iran and open channels with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Qatar played a role in mediating the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, and has supported Gaza, including financing salaries for Hamas civil servants through the sale of fuel to the group — with the okay of Israel, in part because Israel saw it as a stabilizing measure.

Qatar’s diplomacy isn’t limited to the realm of Israel-Hamas, either. Qatar served as an intermediary between the US and the Taliban before the two ultimately negotiated a peace deal directly, in Doha. Qatar’s open lines with the Taliban helped facilitate evacuations from Afghanistan after Kabul’s fall in 2021, and even after. And Qatar has increasingly become known for its skill in hostage negotiations, even outside the region. It recently helped broker a deal to get Russia to return four Ukrainian kids to their families.

“It wants to be influential, diplomatically, and it does understand that, obviously, it’s not a regional superpower that can dictate things,” said Bessma Momani, a political science professor at the University of Waterloo. Yet maintaining these delicate ties — and working those connections — is a very good way for Qatar to advance its interests, and its security. That approach comes with some risks, but, at least right now, they don’t outweigh the upsides for Qatar.

Qatar finds “a way to be helpful and resourceful in specific, niche areas that can have outsized influence,” Momani said. “That’s their strategy.”

How Qatar deployed its strategic diplomacy to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas

After Hamas’s October 7 raid in Israel, where it also captured about 240 hostages, Qatar approached the United States and the Israelis about the potential release of the hostages. According to senior White House officials, this led to the establishment of a channel to work on these negotiations. That working group, or “cell,” as a White House senior official termed it in a call with reporters Tuesday, eventually helped secure the release of two American citizens held hostage by Hamas on October 20. The release served as a kind of test case, and the success of the operation opened up the potential for a wider deal to get many more hostages released. “Qatar really could deliver through the cell we had established,” the senior administration official said.

Weeks of intense diplomacy followed, with the deal often teetering, including over Hamas’s initial refusal to present proof of life. But eventually Hamas agreed, Israel’s government adopted the deal, and Qatar made it official.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued Wednesday, and any prisoner exchange is not likely to start until at least Friday, an Israeli official said. This will be a complex, careful, slow process, and the potential for something to go sideways persists. Maybe the only thing predictable about any of it was Qatar’s involvement.

Hamas’s political wing has maintained an outpost in Doha since 2012, relocating there from Syria after the outbreak of civil war. This Hamas office has come under a lot of scrutiny in the wake of the October 7 attack, but Qatar had welcomed that office with the backing of the United States. At that point, the US had also been relying on Qatari intermediaries to deal with the Taliban.

“With these groups that we, the US, do not engage with directly, it’s better to know where to be able to reach them through intermediaries, should the need arise,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “It’s better to have them in a friendly partner state such as Qatar, than, say, in Afghanistan or in Iran, or in Syria, where they cannot be reached by a third party, if necessary, at a time of crisis.”

The Israel-Hamas war is that type of a crisis, one where a line to Hamas would be very, very difficult for Israel and the United States to establish, but also very, very essential. It goes both ways, too: For Islamist groups like Hamas, Qatar is a conduit to governments and superpowers.

For Qatar, being friends with everyone is a delicate geopolitical balancing act. It can host a US military base, but it can also share an oil field with Iran. It can keep close ties to Islamist groups that America and many of its regional partners do not like at all. But because it’s been able to leverage these connections, it gets to keep doing what it’s doing.

“It’s about basically trying to maintain working relationships with all parties, and then working those relationships in times of crisis to try to de-escalate complex situations that could otherwise have serious repercussions for security instability, not just in Qatar, but in the region,” Ulrichsen said.

Mediation is a pillar of Qatar’s foreign policy, so much so that, as Ulrichsen pointed out, the resolution of international disputes is actually in its constitution. But Qatar is also a small country in a volatile region. It doesn’t have all that much except a lot of oil and gas money — which, to be very fair, is not an insignificant part of this story. This is a helpful entree to power politics, especially if you can, say, fund a global media outlet like Al Jazeera to promote your worldview, or be there with your hydrocarbons if an entire continent is in an energy crisis.

But overall, Qatar believes that if it can demonstrate its utility in the region — and around the globe — that’s something of an insurance policy in case of insecurity and threats. The same thing goes for hosting a superpower’s military base. Being useful to other countries, and raising its global stature, also helps the world overlook some other troubling aspects about Qatar, including its poor human rights record.

“Qatar is trying to carve out a global role,” Gause said. “We saw that with the World Cup. We see that with Al Jazeera. We see that with all these mediation efforts, and we see it with the Islamist strategy, and we see it with the American airbase. It’s all an attempt to make Qatar relevant and make Qatar necessary so no one will say, ‘Why do we need this little place?’”

So far, this is mostly working for Qatar — and maybe for the rest of the world, too, depending on how this latest deal unfolds. It is not a totally risk-free strategy though. It was tested in 2017, when Saudi Arabia and other states boycotted Qatar over its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Then-President Donald Trump jumped in on the side of Saudi Arabia to accuse the Qataris of funding terrorists, too. US diplomats rushed to undo the damage, but the regional boycott ended up lasting about three years. Qatar’s close ties to Islamist groups could one day elicit more pressure from, say, Washington; its position still comes with reputational risks.

It is also likely that Qatar — like many other countries — wanted to find some pathway to de-escalating the violence and horror in Gaza. This deal is not a resolution, but a temporary pause, hostage exchange, and humanitarian access are first steps. As Vox’s Jonathan Guyer pointed out, the truce is an opening, not the end point. “More diplomacy is needed now. Four days of pause isn’t enough.”

That is likely the next test for Israel, Hamas, the United States, and, so it seems, Qatar.

The first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolded in a rush: Russian tanks rolling through streets, tens of thousands fleeing, bombs over cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Mariupol.

Mariupol, in particular, became a symbol of the brutality of Russia’s invasion — mostly through the work of a team of Ukrainian journalists from the Associated Press, who were the last international reporters left in the city.

Together, they documented the Russian siege of Mariupol, a city otherwise cut off. Only a sliver of what those reporters captured was published at the time, but what did became some of the defining images of the early days of the Ukraine war — children killed in air strikes and pregnant women, covered in blood, evacuating a bombarded maternity hospital.

Mstyslav Chernov, an AP videographer and member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team, shot 30 hours of footage in Mariupol before he and his colleagues escaped the area through multiple Russian checkpoints.

The result is the AP and Frontline documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol, which recounts, day by day, the story of a city under relentless bombardment. The film shows Mariupol’s unraveling, the chaos and confusion that consumes people when they’re isolated and trapped. It also shows how Mariupol survived, how its residents — angry, terrified, heartbroken, exhausted — adapted to almost unfathomable horror. In one scene, Chernov asks a worker who is piling bodies in a mass grave, what he is feeling.

“I don’t know what I feel right now,” he says. “What are people supposed to feel in this situation?”

That question is the subtext throughout the film, and is accompanied by one asked explicitly over and over again: Why? The question is a perpetual one, in Ukraine and elsewhere. Nearly two years into war, Russia continues to bombard towns and villages, often far from the front lines. In Israel, Hamas murdered at least 1,200 people in a brazen attack and took scores hostage; since then, Israeli strikes have killed more than 13,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. In Sudan, the United Nations officials said last month that the power struggle there has killed more than 9,000 in six months.

The documentary does not leave you with a clear answer to why this happened in Mariupol or anywhere else. But it is an intimate, visceral look at how the victims of war confront that question and try to make sense of what is happening around them. Ahead of the documentary’s premiere on PBS stations on Tuesday, November 21 (check local listings; it’s also available to stream on YouTube, Frontline’s website, the PBS App, and on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel), Vox spoke to Chernov in New York City about the documentary. We talked about how war coverage can and can’t influence public opinion and policy, almost two years after the siege of Mariupol, and almost a decade after he first started covering the conflict in 2014.

Our conversation, edited and condensed for clarity, is below.

What was most evocative for me about 20 Days in Mariupol was the sense of isolation. Mariupol was the front line, but the people there were cut off and had such a limited perspective — at one point, people didn’t know who to blame for the bombing, Russia or Ukraine. I wonder how you thought about that when filming.

People would see the press sign on the helmet and would go, “Tell me the news.” You were like a walking radio station in the city, everybody would come and say, “Hey, what’s the news? Is Kyiv still there? What’s with Kherson — I have relatives there.”

At that moment I thought: If this is a bigger story of the city, a big theme of that story would be misinformation, misinterpretation, and isolation. 

For me, it’s not only a military siege, but an information siege — and its effect on a modern society. That was an eye-opening experience. In just, let’s say, three, four days, when the city was cut off from all the telephone lines, from the internet, this society just collapsed. I’ve never seen anything like that. People started to panic, to loot. They started to get confused whose fault it is, who’s bombing them. That’s a very sad but very important demonstration: What is happening to modern society when you suddenly cut off all the connections between people?

It’s destructive. More destructive than just leaving people without food or water. That confusion you see in the film — and the reason why I felt it was so important to show it — it’s because I feel this is an illustration for [what] the absence of connection and communication does to people. 

When you were filming, did you have in your head that this would become a documentary?

I was trying to film everything already because since the siege started and no one was there, I just gave myself a word to record everything: “Don’t even turn off the camera.”

But after the maternity hospital bombing, I thought, “Okay, well, it just went to a whole new level of importance.” The symbolism and significance, not just from a journalistic perspective, but also from a historical perspective for Ukraine, and probably for the whole world because like Volodymyr [a policeman in Mariupol, featured in the documentary] kept saying it would change the course of the war. I did not really believe that, but we’re always hopeful.

I felt that moment [the maternity hospital bombing] changed the way I looked at this story. I thought, “Well, if I survive, if I will be able to get everything out, I will definitely want to tell everything together.” And then misinformation started — all these versions were thrown in from Russia. They’re fake, they’re not fake. They’re real, but they were only soldiers or it was Ukrainian bombs. The classic way that Russia deals with big events, they throw in a lot of competing theories, and people just get lost. 

So I understood that even to try to explain to people how it really was, you just need to show everything. Thinking about how it will be told and what it will be, that was only when we actually left the city and broke through 15 Russian checkpoints, 100 kilometers of occupied territory.

Volodymyr, the police officer you mentioned, insisted that if people saw this footage, it might change the course of the war. You indicated you thought he was maybe being a bit naive. How do you think about it now?

I’ve given up hopes for big changes made by journalism since 2014.

My conflict journalism career started in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine, and then they shot down the [Malaysia Airlines] airplane MH17. It was the first big tragedy — and still is, probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of people, lying everywhere in fields, burning bones and plastic. Just some of that made it to the news.

But because it was so horrifying, I was so sure this is going to stop everything. Many countries [would] get involved because many, many different citizens were on that plane. I thought they’re going to start a conversation, a ceasefire, an investigation. They see Russia did it. Of course, nothing happened. At that moment, I said, “Okay, if we can even make any change at all, ever, it’s going to be something that happens immediately.”

We shot during the [Mariupol] hospital bombing, and we were able to send it. With those images, NGOs, and the Mariupol mayor’s office in exile, and other politicians, started negotiating a humanitarian corridor, which eventually resulted in the opening of the humanitarian corridor — too late, but it was open. Partially it happened because they had those images. If nine or 10 or 100 lives were saved because of that, that’s all I need.

And then again, when the film was made and it went to Ukrainian cinemas, I’ve seen hundreds of Mariupol residents coming in and seeing it.

Really?

There were several screenings just filled with people from Mariupol. I was really worried. I was thinking, “Oh, we’re going to traumatize these people. They don’t know what they’re walking in for.”

But as hard as it was, when they came out and we started speaking, I realized this was like a start of a collective treatment of this trauma because they’ve experienced, again, what happened to them. But in a safe environment, and together, as a community. They came out and they said, “Well, now we are sure that Mariupol is not going to be forgotten.”

That’s when the second, overarching purpose of this thing came. They feel that all this noise will just make everyone forget about Mariupol. Now they at least have something to hold onto. That memory in the form of film is important for them.

I imagine to be able to see even as horrible an experience as that in Mariupol, reflected back to you, you get to know that it really existed.

I’ll give you an example. There’s this sentence in almost the end of the film, when Volodymyr offers to get us out to the city. He says, “If everyone saw what happened to Mariupol, that will at least give some meaning to this horror.” But that’s not the end of the sentence. The ending of the sentence was “because worse than dying, can only be dying without meaning.”

There is, at least, some meaning. There’s at least a lesson to be learned, somehow, even if we failed to learn some lessons, maybe the next generation.

Because, I keep thinking: Why did this happen? This is a question which we see Marina is asking when her [18-month-old] son Kirill dies. I think that’s the biggest question I felt. Why? I don’t understand why. They don’t understand why.

When I think a lot about this, why, I think partially international society and Russian society — part of Ukrainian society, for that matter — has allowed all these tragedies to happen, has been unprepared for such aggression. Maybe because we didn’t record enough. Maybe we don’t have enough horrifying footage and photos and analysis investigations from the Second World War, the war when the Soviet Union attacked Finland or Afghanistan, so many wars.

We live in a time when all wars are unfolding live, and the whole world is watching it unfolding almost in real time, except Mariupol. That’s an exception. But everything is recorded now. Maybe if we make sure that everything’s recorded, then people who come afterward will not make the mistake we are doing now.

You shot the film, so you know, but it’s so hard to watch. As I watched it, I thought some version of: We still refuse to learn any lessons from this kind of tragedy. War is brutal and horrible, and yet it happens all the time, and the world creates justifications for it, too.

This is not in the film, but just after Volodymyr says this is going to change the course of the war, the thought that I had right there, when he was telling me this, is, “Why the hell should the lesson be someone dying? Why do we need to even start thinking about changing things because someone died? What kind of thinking is that? That we only start acting when we see a dead child? This is really the wrong kind of motivation.”

Then again, I’m a journalist. I can’t really even imply that I’m on a mission to change the world or I want to change the world. I barely can keep up with the duty to keep informing people. Trying to change the world is just unrealistic, coming back to your previous question.

Then why do it?

I wake up in the first floor of the hospital and there are people on the floor, just lying there, on mattresses because they cannot lie in wards near windows so the patients are on the floor. Some of them lost limbs. Almost no painkillers. They’re moaning and there’s a horrible smell, and someone is calling for a nurse, but the nurse is not there because she’s gathering snow to melt in the buckets to wash the floor. Doctors are running around, and it’s enough doctors just to keep up with the surgeries.

Then you think, “Okay, what should I just sit? That’s it?” No, you can’t. If there’s nothing to film, you grab a bucket of soup and start carrying it around the hospital, giving it to the patients. Carry a gurney or whatever, try to be useful. Having a camera, it’s trying to be useful. 

When such tragedy happens — it’s hard to especially here, in New York, in a very comfortable space — to give you an idea how important community feels, having all these people next to you. It’s extraordinary.

That’s the thing. When you say the film is hard. It’s emotionally very hard. It’s not because there was blood. But there’s a sense of loss. But if you look carefully, those people are never alone. There’s always some people still there to support. That’s extraordinary.

You said at the beginning of the conversation that people have forgotten Mariupol. What do you mean by that?

It’s a very natural way that the information field works. The world moves on to other conflicts, to other stories. Also, as a society, as individuals, because we are so well connected, we are bombarded by relevant and irrelevant events all the time. Our memory has a limited capacity, we have limited capacity of attention. We still have to live our lives. Naturally, people just forget.

Making a documentary is helpful to give enough context to make sure that misinterpretation will not take over. And also, there’s so much, so very little comes out of Mariupol right now.

It’s still under Russian control and people cannot leave and pass through the front line, correct?

They can’t. They can do that only if they get Russian passports and they don’t want to get Russian passports. So they’re stuck — like in jail with their Ukrainian identities. All that creates a black hole. You look at the map, you see Mariupol, but you don’t know what’s happening there. It will be eventually filled, so if we don’t make sure that the stories are there, then it will be filled with propaganda and false narratives. That is why every single shot matters. 

You see something like your documentary, and you think: How can this war continue? Russia will keep dropping missiles, and people will continue to die. On the other hand, you think of Mariupol, and you think the people there who are entirely cut off, who perhaps don’t want to live under Russian control. When it comes to a question of negotiation or a settlement to the conflict, how do you just say, okay, we’ll maybe carve up Ukrainian territory? I wonder if that comes up at all in your journalism, especially since you’re on the front lines and embedded with Ukrainian people who’ve now been at war for two years.

It does come up a lot. There is a lot of discussion within military and within Ukrainian society. I keep getting these questions all the time when I’m traveling with the film. It’s a very big question. It’s multilayered.

There are several thoughts which I can always try to express. There is a large misconception, which is fueled by Russian propaganda. One of the main narratives is: Stop sending weapons to Ukraine and the war will stop. It’s a simple thought, kind of logical, but it’s actually not, because in the position of however many or few weapons Ukrainians have, they cannot stop fighting because they are fighting for their survival. If they just stop fighting, Russia will just go forward. And again, Bucha, Mariupol, Kherson, Izium, mass graves, war crimes, torture, kidnapping children — all this is going to repeat itself again. If the world stops giving weapons, Ukrainians will keep fighting.

I can understand that the world has limited resources and limited attention. So the second thought comes in. A large portion of Western society — Western European, US politicians —don’t really understand that Russia, right now, lives in a state of war with the West. Just think about this for a moment: The core idea for the majority of the Russian population, and for the whole Russian establishment, is the idea that they live in a state of war with the whole West. And the West doesn’t know about it. It’s like your neighbor is at war with you, and you don’t know about it. That is a really weak position, and it’s a really vulnerable position, because it inevitably will lead to worse endings situation.

And the third thought — for example, I overheard a conversation, a German politician speaking to a Ukrainian. “Well, just give up the land and we’ll stop the tragedy.” What would your country do if a fifth of your country was invaded by Russia, and your children are kidnapped, thousands of people die, would you just forget about it? No one would. If Russia invaded the US, would it be even possible to consider? “Okay, let’s give them Las Vegas and there will be peace.” It’s just impossible to imagine. It is also an absurd thought to Ukrainian society. 

I’m just giving you opinions that I’m hearing on the ground. This is not my journalistic opinion. These are thoughts that emerged over time when I was speaking to military and to civilians.

Two years into this war, what do you see for the future?

I have a hopeful answer for you, at least about Mariupol. After Mariupol, Bucha, and Kharkiv, I briefly went to Rome for [a] media conference. I love Italy, I love Rome. I just kept looking at this vibrant, beautiful city with happy people, with tourists and parties and good times. I kept looking at it, and I couldn’t enjoy it at all. This feeling of disconnection and I thought, at some point, “Why are these people even enjoying their lives when a couple thousand kilometers from them someone is dying to try to protect their values?”

But anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that I had a friend next to me, we’re driving and I said, “Look, I just can’t look at these parties, these happy people. I’m sorry. It’s very hard for me because I keep thinking about the burned-down Mariupol, skeletons, the buildings and people buried in the craters of shells, mass graves.” And he said: “Do you know how many times Rome was burned to the ground? And look at it now.” He said the same thing is going to happen to Mariupol, sooner or later.

Nothing’s permanent, either. I guess that’s the scary part.

Humans are amazing at coming back to life. Rebuilding. This would amaze me always, wherever I go, whether it was Iraq or Aleppo in Syria, also destroyed by bombs, commissioned to be reconstructed by the same people who destroyed it. The same thing is happening to Mariupol, too. But everywhere, Nagorno-Karabakh and Gaza, everywhere. You think people can’t recover from that. And here they are, just emerging from ashes.

In late October, as the war in Gaza intensified, all 27 European Union leaders reiterated their condemnation of Hamas’s attack on Israel and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself. They also expressed “gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza’’ and emphasized the need for aid access, “including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs.”

This was supposed to be the EU’s unified stance on the conflict in the Middle East. Reaching it took five hours and was seen as so sensitive phones were kept out of the room, according to a report in Politico.

That same week, at the United Nations, Europe split on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. Countries like Spain, Ireland, and France voted for it. Germany and Italy, among others, abstained. Austria, Hungary, and Czechia all voted against. Despite Europe’s best efforts, its divisions were on display.

“It is these divisions which make it hard for the EU to take a strong, united common position,” said Martin Konečný, director of the European Middle East Project (EuMEP), an independent, Brussels-based organization. “They can agree on a position on paper, but it’s kind of a minimum common denominator, and it doesn’t allow the EU to very forcefully push for something.”

Europe, as a whole, has been traditionally seen as seeking a balanced approach to Israel and Palestine, in part because it has had to navigate different public debates and different national sensitivities. At times, this has generated more nuanced discourse, but not necessarily cohesion or authority to influence the outcome of the conflict. Europe does not offer Israel the kind of security or military aid the United States does, and so does not have the same kind of leverage as Washington there. It also lacks the full trust of Palestinians in a way that exists in many parts of the Muslim world. 

[Related: Everything you need to know about Israel-Palestine]

Those realities existed before Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israeli civilians but are now exposed amid the current war in Gaza, where Europe may be sidelined from the diplomatic debate but not from the war’s broader fallout. In recent weeks, protests and marches calling for a ceasefire have swept through European capitals. The continent has also seen a troubling spike in antisemitism. Not unlike the United States, the war is splitting Europe’s left, like France’s socialists and the United Kingdom’s Labour Party. (Even if the UK’s not officially in the bloc anymore, the country faces similar dynamics.) Some see Europe as having squandered its position as an honest broker, especially in the Global South, as its more muddled position on Gaza contrasts with its unequivocal condemnation of Russian attacks against Ukraine. 

The Middle East in chaos — especially if this spirals into a larger regional war — is something Europe wants to avoid. Europe still has influence, especially as an economic power, yet at this stage, the EU is struggling to find its footing. Its big test will be whether it will continue to stumble along or potentially find some meaningful path to help mitigate the crisis.

“We have the different sensibilities within the EU, about Israeli and Palestinian concerns, so there the EU may have an advantage over other international players,” said Alexander Loengarov, senior affiliated researcher at the Institute for International Law at KU Leuven in Belgium. “The US is seen as just typically siding with Israel, and many Muslim countries are seen as just siding with the Palestinians. There may be a role for Europe to play.”

The subtle but revealing drama in European politics since October 7

In the wake of Hamas’s attack in Israel, a European commissioner named Olivér Várhelyi, from Hungary, went rogue, announcing the immediate suspension of aid to Palestine. The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, had to do damage control soon after, insisting that aid would not be stopped, while adding that there would be a review to make sure no funds were going to Hamas — even though the EU was already confident none were.

It was not the last time Borrell would do this sort of cleanup. His boss, EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, received pushback after she made an unscheduled trip to Israel in mid-October. Some reportedly bristled that she gave unequivocal support for Israel, and in expressing solidarity with Hamas’s victims, she had failed to urge Israel to follow international law in Gaza.

“The official position of the European Union with any foreign policy [issue] is being fixed — I repeat — by the [EU’s official] guidelines,” Borrell said soon after, adding that foreign policy is decided by the leaders of the EU’s 27 members.

This small rebuke was not nothing; von der Leyen is Madame Europe and has become something of a symbol of Europe globally, especially around Ukraine. Now her colleague was basically saying, “Actually, she doesn’t speak for the bloc.” 

All of these were signs of the divisions unspooling at all levels within Europe: within the EU’s leadership, among the governments of individual member-states, and within those member-states’ populations. That has left Europe scrambling to find some degree of unity — or to at least paper over debates and divisions that have exposed how marginalized European influence is in this conflict and find consensus.

As experts said, Europe has never had the kind of influence or leverage the United States or regional players have had over Israel and Palestine. Most of Europe’s influence has come in shaping the discourse, using its very specific moral position as a transnational project forged in the aftermath of conflict. “The Europeans have had a somewhat more balanced position than the US and have historically taken the lead before the US on some very important positions, such as recognizing the Palestinian right to self-determination in 1980,” Konečný said. 

Europe is a top international donor to Palestinian humanitarian and development aid. It has also sought to strengthen trade, technology, and security ties with Israel, especially in the aftermath of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. European courts have required produce from Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land to be labeled as such, but it has never used sanctions (perhaps the EU’s most powerful collective foreign policy tool) to stop the expansion of Israeli settlements. 

As experts told me, this kind of balancing has sometimes led to the perception among Israelis that Europe is too sympathetic to Palestinian causes, and a perception among Palestinians that it’s too strongly on the side of Israel.

A lot of this is shaped by Europe’s internal political dynamics. Germany, for obvious historical reasons, is more strongly pro-Israel. Ireland’s history of occupation and colonization has tended toward more solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

During the Cold War, support for Palestine and Israel fell along the East-West divide; many of the former Soviet bloc states still recognize Palestine as a state, even as some — such as Hungary and Czechia — have since become some of the most staunchly pro-Israel voices.

Some of this shift came after the fall of the Soviet Union, as these countries moved closer to the US and so mirrored Washington’s embrace of Israel. Some of it has strengthened in recent years as the far right rose in prominence and conservative right-wing leaders in places like Hungary have found kinship with Israel’s right-wing leadership in Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Before October 7, Europe was committed to a two-state solution, though it may have fallen off as a foreign policy priority for Brussels. Some of this has been influenced by larger geopolitical dynamics, including a war on the continent. But the US’s recent lack of engagement, along with efforts under previous and current administrations to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states, including through the Abraham Accords, also deprioritized the issue in Europe. 

Now the complexity and the brutality of the conflict, from Hamas’s attack and hostage-taking of Israeli civilians to Israel’s retaliation against Gaza, are revealing the tenuousness of Europe’s position. Europe, especially figures like von der Leyen, came out strongly and unequivocally for Israel. Europe, like the US, has begun calling for humanitarian pauses, but without much heft behind it. Europe is struggling, as the war continues and the civilian death toll in Gaza mounts, with how to effectively respond to Israel’s campaign.

Europe’s divisions are hindering its ability to act. That may still have unpredictable consequences.

Europe — not unlike the United States — is grappling with how its foreign policy toward Israel and Palestine is roiling domestic politics. The choices the bloc is making or not making about the conflict are shaping and exposing fault lines among and within member-states.

“I think that many of them are facing increasing internal pressure to moderate their stance and reflect more concern about the Palestinians, and where to go from from here,” said Gerald M. Feierstein, distinguished senior fellow on US diplomacy at the Middle East Institute and former State Department official. 

Protests in support of a ceasefire have occurred everywhere from Spain to Germany to France to Poland. Governments in France and Germany, both of which have large Muslim populations, have attempted to limit pro-Palestinian protests, citing both security fears and concerns over antisemitism — a legitimate and growing worry across Europe, if not always directly linked to demonstrations. The responses, though, have raised questions about limiting rights and liberties; Diana N., who works with Palästina Spricht (Palestine Speaks) in Berlin, Germany, said, especially in the early days of the conflict, people continued to demonstrate despite the risks and potential reprisals. (She asked to use her last initial only for personal security and privacy concerns.) 

That may come with future political risks. Europe’s current disarray could marginalize Palestinian or Muslim populations. Europe’s left has also struggled to navigate this moment, including in places like France and the United Kingdom. Already the Israel-Gaza conflict has tested fragile left-wing coalitions in places like France and Spain. Those on the left, in particular, fear this could become a campaign issue, especially for the European parliamentary elections next year, as a weakened, disorganized left could create an even greater opening for a resurgent far right.

Some politicians in places like Belgium and Spain — two countries that have tended to be more sympathetic to Palestinian rights — have become increasingly critical of Israel’s approach. “Bombing an entire refugee camp with the intention of taking out one terrorist, I don’t think you can say that is proportional,” Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said this week. 

This internal discord is also threatening to spill over into other areas, most notably Europe’s unity and message on Ukraine. Europe, and the West more broadly, have sought to rally the world to Ukraine’s side, especially in the Global South, where the fallout from Russia’s invasion has exacerbated fuel and food prices in places already struggling with poverty and instability. The perception that Europe spoke with clarity on Russian attacks on civilians but has not done so in regards to Gaza has, many observers said, undermined its credibility. “Neither the US nor the EU comes out particularly well,” Feierstein said. “Both will be seen as being pretty hypocritical, frankly.”

On November 8, Charles Michel, the European Council president, reiterated Europe’s position: Israel had the right to defend itself, but it must follow international law. A total siege of Gaza was not in line with international law. In the speech, Michel tried to link the conflict back to one where Europe is on more solid ground: He proposed purchasing Ukrainian grain and shipping it to the region, saying it’s “a strong gesture of solidarity and efficiency.”

Michel also said Europe had a “role to play in building peace in the region, through our diplomacy, our convening power, our common foreign and security policy instruments, and our role as a trusted global partner.”

Europe may seek peace, but it has little ability to get there. As some experts pointed out, Europe could lay out a diplomatic pathway and could be a potential broker, but it does not have the political clout to achieve that on its own. And even if it did, its internal divisions might make that impossible. When it comes to Europe, Diana N. said, “I don’t see that they’re ever going to walk in one direction because the positions are so different.”

In October, as the EU struggled for hours to come up with a unified statement, it also proposed an “international peace conference.” Spain had pushed for it, but few inside Europe or outside it think it has any meaning. And that may be Europe’s biggest challenge on Israel and Gaza: Right now, it is mostly words.

On Monday, the United States and China talked nukes — a rare bit of engagement that offers a teeny, tiny glimmer of optimism amid tensions between the two powers.

The arms control discussions, first reported by the Wall Street Journal last week, and confirmed by the White House National Security Council and State Department, come ahead of an anticipated meeting between President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping later this month.

These are the first such talks on nuclear arms control since the Obama administration. And while there is no real expectation of any major breakthrough, it’s still a big deal that the two countries are talking, and talking about nukes in particular — especially given China’s rapid nuclear weapons buildup, the lack of crisis communications between the US and China, and the escalating nuclear threats worldwide, most notably from Russia around the war in Ukraine.

This is also a big deal because of what it signals about the balance of nuclear weapons in the world — who has them, how many, and what risks that raises. China has historically resisted nukes talks on a bilateral and multilateral basis because its arsenal is still a fraction of the US or Russia’s, and it fretted that such transparency would also impose limitations on its own capabilities. “On some level, this is a recognition that China is moving into the category that the United States and Russia — previously the Soviet Union — were in and are in with regard to their nuclear arsenal, and I think that is a significant historical shift,” said Jacob Stokes, senior fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

“They’re moving into that reluctantly — backing into it rather than shouting it from the rooftops,” he added. But it still is a signal that the nuclear balance among major powers is shifting, and the architecture around that needs to change, too.

Ambitions for these talks are pretty tempered — this is a bit like the diplomatic equivalent of the US and China dipping their toes into the water. Arms control talks in general tend to take years of painstaking diplomacy (see: the US and Soviet Union/Russia during and after the Cold War) and long-term investment.

Instead, these talks are a way for the Biden administration to gauge China’s nuclear ambitions, and potentially open channels, including for communications on things like missile tests, and laying the groundwork for discussions on mutual restraint and capabilities. According to US officials, these meetings are part of an ongoing effort to keep the lines of communication open with China, and to engage with Beijing on the issue of arms control and reducing strategic risk.

China and the US may be seizing a very small window to engage

These talks are also a signal of a small — and tenuous — easing in US-China tensions in recent months. After the spy balloon incident earlier this year, with relations at a nadir, the US and China have tentatively tried to find openings for dialogue.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Beijing in June to find some diplomatic openings, and his trip was followed up by visits from the likes of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Climate envoy John Kerry, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. (Also, take with it what you will, but Sen. Chuck Schumer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Henry Kissinger all had fairly recent meetings with Xi.)

These arms control discussions come as Biden and Xi are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, which begins next week in San Francisco. The exact details of the meeting are still in flux, but the two have an “agreement in principle” to get together at the summit. This anticipated Xi-Biden meeting has prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity, likely including these arms control talks.

And the timing for Xi and Biden to sit down now is narrowing. Hawkishness on China may be a rare instance of bipartisan convergence in Washington these days, but the Biden administration has appeared at least willing to tone down the rhetoric to reduce the risk of outright conflict with Beijing. But with the US presidential election about a year away, even that bit of wiggle room may evaporate; as the campaign heats up, it’s likely that so, too, will the China-bashing. Biden’s actions toward China will also be more closely scrutinized, which could make difficult even minor rapprochement.

The Ukraine war and the Israel–Hamas conflict are consuming a lot of the US’s diplomatic and foreign policy energy, so both the US and China may also feel that talking out of the spotlight might give them a bit more room to maneuver. Beijing, too, is facing a lot of domestic challenges, especially around its economy. US efforts to cut China from advanced technology and encourage other countries to decouple from China likely also make Beijing nervous. Plus, Taiwan has elections in January that could potentially shift its politics and relationship with Beijing, or keep Taiwan on a similar pro-independence path. All of this is converging to bring Biden and Xi together, and that is greasing the wheels for other discussions, including those on arms control — though whether anything will come from it is an open question.

The world isn’t doing great with arms control right now

These US-China nuclear talks are also notable because of the pretty dismal state of nuclear arms control globally.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has raised the specter of nuclear confrontation, and earlier this year Moscow suspended its participation in New START, the last remaining bilateral arms control treaty with the US that was already set to expire in 2026. The Biden administration has indicated it’s willing to work with Russia on nuclear risk reduction in a different format — something Russia hasn’t totally kiboshed outright just yet. But even that kind of diplomacy is unlikely to fully revive the formal US-Russia arms-control regime previously in place, one that put caps on nukes and included robust verification and data-sharing measures.

Meanwhile, the US and China don’t have all that much by way of arms control architecture, even as China continues to build up its nuclear forces and Beijing has been reluctant to open up deconfliction channels with Washington. A recent Pentagon report in October said China increased the number of operational nuclear warheads to more than 500 as of May, and that it plans to hit about 1,500 by 2035. That’s still just a sliver of what the US and Russia have — about 5,000 each, with around 1,500 warheads ready to be launched — but it’s undeniable Beijing is rapidly increasing its forces.

Russia’s saber-rattling and China’s nuke buildup mean the US is potentially facing twin nuclear threats from two adversarial countries. That has intensified calls, especially among Republicans, for the US to respond in kind, and expand its own nuclear arsenal.

The Biden administration has so far resisted this pressure. The US is proceeding with a likely more than trillion-dollar, multi-decade modernization of its nuclear forces, but the Biden White House has continued to emphasize the immediate need for arms control, risk reduction, and diplomacy — including with China and Russia — as part of its nuclear deterrence strategy. But achieving that, especially in such a volatile geopolitical environment, is a much harder task.

Yet these latest nuclear arms talks are at least a glimmer of goodwill, on both the question of arms control and on the US-China relationship. Any transparency on China’s nuclear posture would be a welcome development. Again, these talks are likely more an opening than anything else.

But even with nukes, you’ve gotta start somewhere.

Editor’s note, October 16, 9 am ET: Poland’s opposition appears poised for victory after a record turnout in parliamentary elections, according to early exit polls. If the results hold, this could unseat the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), which, in its eight years in power, has eroded democratic norms and the rule of law in Poland. The original story below was published October 14.

WARSAW, Poland — “We have been talking that these are the most important elections since 1989, which was the first partly free elections since the fall of communism,” Jakub Kocjan, a rule of law campaigner for Akcja Demokracja, a Polish pro-democracy organization, told me from his apartment in Warsaw, less than a week before parliamentary elections that may determine the democratic future of Poland. 

Behind him, a map of the European Union spans the wall. Another map, this one of Poland, hangs on the other side of the room. Kocjan sits in a desk chair, one leg extended and propped up on a bed. His foot is in a plastic boot, an old injury flaring up. 

“There is some point,” Kocjan says, “where there is no possibility to go back to democracy.”

For Kocjan, and for many other civic and pro-democracy activists, opposition party members, and some observers, this October 15 election is that point. 

Poland’s democracy is wounded, the consequence of eight years of rule by the right-wing populist Law and Justice Party (PiS). The party has captured state institutions and resources, dismantled the judicial system and constitutional courts, consolidated control over public media. The party has mainstreamed nationalism, which has put Poland at odds with the European Union and its members, like Germany and with other partners, most recently, Ukraine. 

The stakes of the election are undeniable: If PiS wins again and returns to power, it will keep Poland on this illiberal path: more undermining of the rule of law and the judiciary; more domination over the media and the state resources; more tension with European partners. Which is why these elections feel to many like the most important vote in more than 30 years.

“This time, many people are expecting the same — but more. Stronger, with the Hungarian path actually becoming a reality,” said Piotr Łukasiewicz, a former Polish diplomat and analyst for security and international affairs with Polityka Insight, referring to Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian consolidation in Hungary. 

Yet Poland is divided, and right now the elections are a bit too close to call — and that means, despite the odds, the democratic opposition has a chance to unseat PiS. PiS’s control of the media and state resources has skewed competition, but it has not eliminated it. Broad public frustration over the high cost of living has eaten away at PiS’s support, along with the rise of a more radical far-right party, the Confederation that has questioned Poland’s support for Ukraine, and is appealing to younger voters, especially men.

The opposition centrist Civic Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is promising to restore Poland’s democracy and improve relations with Europe. Civic and an array of other opposition coalitions on the left, center, and center-right, are pulling close in polls. It is a catch-all, diverse group, but together they may be able to get PiS out of power and try to begin unraveling the illiberal regime it created. 

None of this is a guarantee. PiS seems unlikely to win an outright majority, but it very much could still garner the most votes, enough to form a government, even if they have to seek the help of the more right-wing Confederation. Even if the opposition coalitions win enough seats to potentially form a government, it is likely to be a slim edge, under a very broad tent, and reliant on cooperation from many disparate groups, which may weaken its effectiveness. No matter who emerges, this parliamentary election could make Polish politics a lot more unstable. That may dislodge PiS for now, but make unpredictable what could replace it. 

These election results also matter for more than just Poland. They will reverberate across Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO). Poland is Europe’s front line in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a critical transfer point for arms, and a host of more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees. The future of Poland’s democracy may influence regional stability and its future support of Ukraine; PiS has picked fights with Kyiv, in part, to fend off the rise of the far right, and if PiS retains power, those tensions may persist, another nick in an increasingly fragile Western coalition as the war moves closer to its third year.

Poland is not alone in being framed as a last-chance election: Recent votes in Brazil, Turkey, and soon the United States and India, all carry similar stakes. One election isn’t enough to unmake polarization or fully fix a faltering democracy, but it may be the first step to healing the break. This is Poland’s test: not just whether it can save its own democracy, but whether it can be a model for Europe and the world that it’s even possible.

“There are two feelings that everyone has,” Kocjan told Vox. “First is a lot of hope because we really know that we have this chance, and we cannot waste it. Because it will be too late.”

The other, he said, was anxiety that even if the opposition won enough votes, it would be able to take control. “It is really hard to imagine,” he said, referring to PiS, “that they will simply give the power to the other party.”

How do you win an election you’re rigged to lose?

Warsaw, Poland’s capital and biggest city, is largely an opposition town. The campaign signs at bus stops or on street signs skew toward the opposition, Koalicja Obywatelska (KO), or the Civic Coalition. On Nowy Świat, a main thoroughfare in Warsaw’s Old Town — the part of the city reconstructed after World War II to look like it did before it was destroyed — many voters criticized the direction of the country, the state of education, health care, and democracy. “I really want to change what’s been there so far,” one Warsaw resident told Vox. “My whole heart is with the Civic Coalition, with the opposition party.”

Elsewhere, near the Wileński (Vilnius) metro station in the North Praga, an area by the Warsaw district that had the most PiS support in the last parliamentary election in 2019, not everyone seemed eager to vote for PiS again. A woman sitting at a stand selling socks said she’d had enough and would definitely not vote for Jarosław Kaczyński, the deputy prime minister and leader of the PiS party. She recently had to buy medicine. It cost too much for her, and yet, she saw plenty of people getting benefits who didn’t work for them. 

It reflected some of the fatigue around PiS. The right-wing party is socially conservative, but a lot of its popularity was built on its populist economic policies, which included generous welfare benefits like a child subsidy. PiS oversaw a period of growth, which they can’t take exclusive credit for, but their policies did benefit lower-income households, and so PiS became the party most trusted on economic issues. 

But the economic aftershocks of Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have raised Poland’s inflation to some of the highest in Europe and that has refracted onto PiS. PiS was popular as long as Poles felt things were improving, but now with the costs rising, support for PiS is flagging.

That did not necessarily translate to support for the Civic Coalition in this neighborhood though; one man said he’d take the current government over the opposition, but he’d prefer to clear them all out. Another woman said she wouldn’t vote because she didn’t like anyone. 

Some of this disillusionment is because, as high as the stakes of the election, voters are mostly dealing with the same cast of characters (if that sounds familiar). Civic’s leader, Tusk, was the Polish prime minister from 2007 and 2014 and is the former president of the European Council — that is, a guy who’s been around for a long time. “The Civic Coalition doesn’t look like a new offer,” explained Edwin Bendyk, chairman of the Fundacja im. Stefana Batorego, a pro-democracy organization, of some of the public’s hesitation around the party. Plus, media propaganda doesn’t help. Poland’s public media has relentlessly attacked Tusk, framing him as a European bureaucrat who is an agent of Germany, but also an appeaser of Russia. On Warsaw’s streets, residents repeated some of these attacks. 

Still, it all felt fairly typical for a week ahead of a major election: the motivated, the undecided, the disillusioned, the indifferent. This is the trickiness of an illiberal democracy. It isn’t a fully authoritarian state where elections are a farce. The PiS has chipped away at the rule of law and democracy but not destroyed it entirely, and the beats of the electoral system are intact. The outcome of the vote is still uncertain, though exactly how uncertain is hard to know because it’s difficult to quantify exactly how far the scales have been tipped. 

“The election will be free. It’s not fair because of the advantages that the government has. But it’s still more or less a functioning democracy,” said Adam Traczyk, director of More in Common Polska, a pro-democracy think tank. 

The PiS party was legitimately elected in 2015, and since then has used the levers of power to capture the state and its institutions. PiS has subverted the constitutional and judicial system. PiS painted judges as post-communist holdovers, acting against the people’s interests — in part because they had previously thwarted some of PiS’s legislation and agenda, and they, after all, PiS had a democratic mandate. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is stacked with PiS loyalists and is now neutered to the point of dysfunction.

In this, and other ways, PiS has fully captured the state, subverting it to its own political interests. This election has shown just how tilted things are. PiS has turned public media into state propaganda that relentlessly attacks the opposition. In this campaign, PiS has raised funds from state-controlled entities and its employees. A state-controlled oil and gas company owns a press company that publishes almost 20 regional newspapers and hundreds of weeklies and online sites; they refused to publish ads for certain candidates because of their “left-wing” values. The PiS party has approved benefit and pension hikes ahead of this campaign.

As a nationalistic party, PiS has also tried to hype up its base by fear-mongering around immigration, especially from the Middle East and Africa (though PiS itself was embroiled in a cash-for-visa scheme), and a meddlesome Europe that is trying to interfere in Poland. To motivate their supporters, PiS is staging a referendum it has little power to implement, with loaded questions like: Do you support “the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, according to the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?” 

PiS has also tweaked electoral rules, increasing polling stations in rural areas, places most likely to benefit PiS. It is likely PiS strongholds are already overrepresented since the country hasn’t updated its parliamentary count to adjust for potential population changes, and some estimates suggest cities — where the opposition tends to do well — are underrepresented. Right now, a record number of Poles — some 600,000 — have registered to vote abroad. Those will most likely favor the opposition, but they must be counted within 24 hours or they are disqualified, a rule PiS passed in January that notably does not apply to the rest of Poland’s votes. 

These baked-in disadvantages are why the opposition faces steep odds, and it explains some of the desperation they feel. “For the opposition, this is seen pretty widely as an election that if they don’t win this one they might not be able to win another one, that the systemic advantage of the government would be so strong,” said Michal Baranowski, managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, in Warsaw.

Tusk and the opposition have framed this election as the last chance to save Poland’s democracy. Jakub (Kuba) Karyś, chair of Komitet Obrony Demokracji (Committee to Protect Democracy), said he believed if the opposition did not win these elections, they would be the last ones.

“Having this government for the third time would be a disaster because they will continue to close up this authoritarian system,” Bendyk said. Poland was not authoritarian yet; there was still a free press, strong civil society, and thriving local democracy which Bendyk described as the immune system in the democratic resistance. But one by one, PiS would target these. “It’s quite easy to lay down rules to demand you can be penalized for different actions,” Bendyk said. “It can be difficult to do what we are doing now.”

In her office in Warsaw, Marta Lempart, leader of Strajk Kobiet, or Women’s Strike, a women’s rights and pro-abortion-rights group, was preparing to film videos to respond to different election outcomes. She has campaigned against PiS’s strict abortion laws. I asked how the organization’s work would change if PiS won again. “When they close the system,” Lempart replied, “our operations will be different because I will be in jail, obviously.”  

Can the opposition actually win? 

The opposition has an incentive to hype the stakes and make this election existential. But most experts and other observers Vox spoke to agreed that Poland would continue on this anti-democratic path if PiS captured power again. 

And, right now, the opposition does have a real, if tenuous, opening.

The cost of living concerns of the electorate are real. Beyond that, PiS is facing a challenge from its right, the radical, anti-establishment party Konfederancja, or Confederation. The group doesn’t really fit into neat boxes; it’s a wild mess of libertarians, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, antisemites, and incels. Confederation also has a strong anti-Ukraine strain, reviving historical grievances, criticizing the war and Poland’s support for it, and Warsaw’s welcome of Ukrainian refugees.

Broadly, Poles are still supportive of Ukraine and of Warsaw’s political and humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion, and Russia is too big of a security threat for a real pro-Russia party to thrive. But Confederation’s anti-establishment message is peeling off some disillusioned voters, especially from younger demographics. That has freaked out PiS enough that it has hardened its stance on Ukraine, an uncomfortable development for the Western alliance given Poland’s position on NATO’s eastern flank.

Together, though, PiS looks somewhat vulnerable. So the pro-democracy opposition is mobilizing. In early October, hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters attended a massive rally in Warsaw. Karyś, of the Committee to Protect Democracy, said his group has registered more than 27,000 volunteers so far to observe the polls.

The democratic opposition — both parties running and pro-democracy activists and civil society leaders — is a diverse group. They are unified to dislodge PiS, which gives the vote a bit of the feel of the 2020 US election: anti-Trump more than pro-Biden; anti-PiS more than pro-Tusk and pro-Civic. Kocjan, the rule of law campaigner, said people are trying to vote strategically; that is, if they live in a more conservative district, voting for the opposition party most likely to win, not necessarily the one they favor the most. 

In 2020, PiS oversaw a near-total ban on legal abortion, one of the most extreme in Europe. Lempart, leader of Strajk Kobiet, is trying to motivate voters on the abortion issue, especially younger voters, ages 18 to 25, to convince them they can get enough pro-abortion MPs elected, they can dismantle these restrictions.

She noted that many young voters are disillusioned with the current political establishment — something backed up by surveys — but the opposition wasn’t offering a positive message, just criticizing young people, telling them to vote and save the country or else.

Her organization’s approach was to give voters a clear deliverable. “We’re saying ‘it’s absolutely okay if you don’t feel anything, when you see the flag, when you hear the anthem, if you don’t care what happens, [if] the call to save the country just doesn’t appeal to you,” she said. But the Parliament needs 50 percent plus one to change the abortion laws. “If you go and vote for abortion, believe that then we can deliver,” Lempart said. 

Can Poland reverse its illiberal path? 

The radical far-right Confederation may end up the decider on Poland’s democratic future. PiS is still likely to win the most seats in parliament, though it seems unlikely to secure an outright majority. It may have to look to its rivals in the Confederation. The Confederation hates PiS because of its welfare spending; going into government with them would probably destroy their anti-establishment credentials. Still, PiS might just need to persuade a few opportunistic politicians to switch sides. 

And even if the opposition can pull it out, the path forward is likely turbulent and tricky. One wild and risky possibility is the far-right Confederation tolerating a minority government led by the Civic Coalition. And no matter what, PiS is unlikely to go quietly. Their allies are in the courts, including the ones that deal with elections. Their allies control the business interests. Their allies control the messages on public media.

“If the opposition really manages to win or has enough votes to form a coalition, it’s not that on the 16th of October, we will all be sitting and singing Kumbaya and everything will be fine,” said Maria Skóra, a researcher at the Institute for European Politics (IEP), in Berlin. “The thing is that Law and Justice will not give up their powers too easily.”

Which is why many activists, experts, and observers in Warsaw seemed to think the most likely outcome of this election is one of instability: a fragile, messy government that might not last very long. That instability still offers the chance of evicting PiS from some of the centers of power, but the consequences of that are just as uncertain. It might make it far more difficult to undertake any meaningful reforms, and the opposition in disarray could be replaced by an emboldened PiS or a radical right, maybe in snap elections next year.

Even if the opposition does take control, it is a prospect — but not a guarantee — of change. “We also realize that the democratic opposition parties are not angels,” Bendyk said. But, he added, “At least open the window for opportunity for changes.”

What that window looks like is hard to say because reversing an illiberal democracy hasn’t really been done. “You don’t have an example of a country where you had an illiberal regime, established over years, and then rolled back by a democratic, liberal government,” said Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office for the European Council on Foreign Relations. Because Poland isn’t a full-on authoritarian system, you can’t just start from scratch. If the opposition gets into power, it will be because it won an election, after all. “An illiberal regime, this is a different animal,” he added.

Experts and activists suggested the opposition might find some tasks easier than others: replacing people at the public media station, or disentangling some of the state-controlled businesses from the state. But for the judiciary and the courts, even experts are perplexed by some of the changes there. How to unravel that and restore rule of law will be a complicated, and maybe even doomed process. On top of that, Poland’s PiS-aligned president, Andrzej Duda, will be in power until at least 2025. He can veto legislation, which a divided Parliament probably won’t have the votes to override. 

“It’s the question,” Tracyzk said. “Do you want to do it quickly? Or create possibly even more chaos risking that every four years there will be chaos once again? Or do you want to try to do it kind of in a more democratic stable manner, knowing that it will take more time, knowing that you will not be able to fix all the things that quickly?”

The very high stakes of Poland’s election — for the country and the world

Yet Poland, if it has the chance, has to try. These elections are critical for global democracy but also for Europe and the rest of the world. The PiS party has challenged Europe and the supremacy of its rule of law, a perpetual and persistent problem from the bloc. PiS is picking fights with its neighbors, like Germany, at a time when Europe is trying to figure out its own future — on foreign policy, governance, and security. Tusk, a former European official, will almost certainly reset Polish relations with the EU, although he’ll be dealing with a long list at home. 

But the war in Ukraine looms over all of it. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Poland emerged as Ukraine’s ironclad supporter. Poland used this position to rally other EU countries, putting pressure on its partners, like Germany, to deliver tanks. It won some goodwill, including from the EU, and some saw it as a sign that Warsaw might become the new power center in Europe and of NATO.

That has since shifted. The Polish public remains broadly supportive of Ukraine and of hosting Ukrainian refugees, but inflation and inflammatory rhetoric, especially by the Confederation, has eroded some of that enthusiasm. As a result, the PiS party has turned Ukraine into an electoral issue, most notably with its dispute over Ukrainian grain.

Poland has said the transit of Ukranian grain into Europe is hurting undermining Polish farmers (who also happen to be an important voting bloc for PiS), and so it (along with some others) would defy a EU rule and continue banning Ukrainian grain imports. The spat culminated with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki saying last month that Poland was no longer giving weapons to Ukraine. This was a bit misleading; Poland continues to be a transfer point for international aid and weapons, but Poland itself is not sending more weapons, mostly because it has already given everything it has to give. But the damage was done.

“How can this Polish government go back and become an advocate again, and actually name and shame our bigger allies — Europeans, Americans, as well, to some extent — on sending more, or sending more advanced weapons?” Baranowski, of GMF, said. “We, as a country, just gave away a huge chunk of credibility that could have been used and was used successfully.”

As experts said, Poland is not about to break with the Western alliance; it still sees Russia as too big of a threat and the war as critical to its security. But as the war enters something of a standstill, Poland’s domestic politics could spill over and further strain the Western alliance, which is already under pressure, especially as the United States now struggles to approve Ukraine aid. And if the PiS party must work with the Confederation to stay in power, Poland’s tensions with Ukraine may only grow deeper. 

Although the PiS party has sold itself as the real protectors of Poland, if opposition wins they will continue support for Ukraine, and potentially offer a little relations reset. Beyond that, so much of the rhetoric around Ukraine support revolves around defending democracy — even as some of its supporters, like Poland, are not exactly living up to those values.

With Sunday’s election, Poland has the chance to rebuild its democracy, as it also defends the one next door. “Poland is the final buffer between the West and the East,” said Karyś. “It’s incredibly important for Europe and the world for it to be there.”

Western unity around Ukraine is starting to strain as the conflict grinds on with largely static front lines, and as the politics in the United States and Europe become more volatile themselves.

Last weekend, in the US, Congress avoided a government shutdown, but only after it dropped billions in Ukraine aid from its short-term spending bill. Now, lawmakers who back Kyiv are scrambling to figure out how they can get Ukraine more funding as a faction of the GOP digs in against it.

From both the US and Europe, support for Kyiv is still forthcoming, of course. But it is not quite the all-in, unequivocal support that characterized the first year of the war. In 2022, the shock of the Russian invasion, and Ukraine’s initial success in repelling Russian forces from Kyiv, then later liberating its territory, sharpened the sense of purpose among Western countries, and tamped down some of the competing political interests within them. They also eased some of the tensions that have long complicated trans-Atlantic and European relations.

That’s evident in Slovakia, where this weekend’s elections saw Robert Fico, a former prime minister and pro-Russian populist, become the frontrunner to lead after running a socially conservative, left-wing populist campaign that promised to end military aid for Ukraine. Meanwhile, in Poland, upcoming elections have heightened trade tensions with Ukraine over grain, and a far-right party that has questioned the ruling party’s support for Ukraine could be a kingmaker. The circumstances and dynamics in these countries are wildly different, but together they’re undermining the West’s unified front.

For Ukraine, fighting a grinding counteroffensive and trying to shore up longer-term support against Russia, this all looks a bit distressing. But the continuation of that ironclad Western unity was never guaranteed — and in some ways wasn’t a completely natural fit, especially in Europe, where politics, history, and economics sometimes made it difficult to neatly sort countries into pro-Russia or pro-West camps.

This is still very far away from a rejection of Ukraine’s cause. Together, these countries see Russia as a threat, and largely believe their security and geopolitical interests align with helping Ukraine. But economic and energy pressures, political opportunism, and electoral politics are becoming harder to overcome, especially as Ukraine’s counteroffensive remains without a major breakthrough. At least for now, Western policies toward Ukraine look set to stay much more fraught.

Slovakia is a “cold shower for Western unity” — but it’s also not time to freak out yet

In Slovakia, Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party won the most votes (a little more than 20 percent), promising to focus more on cost-of-living issues like the economy and energy, rather than on the Ukraine conflict. Fico promised to end military aid — “not a single round” — to Ukraine.

“We are prepared to help with the reconstruction of the state, but you know our opinion on arming Ukraine,” Fico told reporters after the election. He also said he would seek to start peace talks.

Fico did not win outright, so he will need to form a coalition with other political parties if he seeks to lead, and that may ultimately force him to temper his pro-Russia, anti-EU stance.

But the election result, said Teona Lavrelashvili, policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, “also indicates [the] starting of a cold shower when it comes to Western unity towards Ukraine.”

Slovakia is an EU and NATO member, and its previous government had been a strong supporter of its geographical neighbor, Ukraine. It was one of the first countries to deliver fighter jets to Kyiv, and the country is hosting more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.

Still, Slovaks have been divided on the war, including polls from earlier this year that show the public more or less evenly split on who is responsible for the war in Ukraine — Russia, or the West and Ukraine itself. In Slovakia, pro-Russian sentiment is not a new phenomenon; many in the public have traditionally held positive views of Moscow.

“Most Slovaks most likely made their decisions based on the economic concerns, including [Fico’s] voters,” said Alena Kudzko, vice president for policy and programming at GLOBSEC, a think tank in Bratislava. “But definitely this convenient explanation that [Fico] offered — meaning that if only we can stop the war in Ukraine, the situation in Slovakia will get better, and by the way, that is better for Ukrainians; they will stop dying — that definitely fell on propitious grounds in Slovakia.”

Fico has been viewed as a potential ally for Viktor Orban, the right-wing Hungarian leader who’s also sympathetic to Putin and has pushed back against the EU’s positions, including on Russia. European decision-making runs on consensus, so the more oppositional voices, the more complicated the politics will be.

But as experts pointed out, Fico is, above all else, a pragmatist. He served as Slovakia’s prime minister from 2006 to 2010, and from 2012 to 2018, before being forced to resign amid a scandal over a murdered journalist. In the past, he balanced Slovakia’s relationships with the EU and Russia.

That was a lot easier to do before Russia’s full-scale invasion, but it also means Fico is unlikely to go all in for Vladimir Putin. Slovakia, a country of about 5.5 million people, is deeply intertwined with the EU, and is dependent on the EU for its economy, its politics, and its security. “I think you can do slogans for billboards,” said Pavol Demeš, a visiting distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund and former Slovakian foreign ministry official. “But in real life, things are intertwined.”

Welcome to the new normal for Ukraine aid

Fico has promised no new military aid to Ukraine, but as experts point out, this doesn’t really mean much, since Slovakia pretty much delivered to Ukraine all it has to give. This is true for Poland, too, whose leaders said recently that Warsaw would cease sending weapons to Ukraine until it resolved a dispute over the transport of Ukrainian grain, which leaders say is hurting Polish farmers.

These promises, however, are an easy rhetorical flex when trying to win over skeptical voters, or prove you’re looking out for constituents’ economic interests.

The war in Ukraine did have economic fallout on the continent, and inflation and high energy prices are squeezing voters. That’s true elsewhere in Europe, where populist, far-right, and more pro-Russia parties are gaining ground, including in places like Germany. What is happening in Slovakia and Poland is likely a harbinger for more difficult politics to come.

“The Ukraine fatigue will be visible across the board in Europe,” Kudzko said. “Again, it does not mean that it’s not overcomable, or that it encapsulates in the majority of the population. But of course, after years of economic duress — which, by the way, started all the way back during Covid — the population comes to a certain level of fatigue.”

Looming around it all is what is happening in the United States. Washington has delivered more than $76 billion in assistance to Ukraine, including about $44 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion. As of September, the EU has committed about $88 billion in aid. Europe’s commitments to Ukraine now exceed those of the United States, especially for longer-term aid.

But you wouldn’t know that if you listen to some Republicans. A growing contingent within the GOP is questioning Ukraine’s counteroffensive progress against Russia, and where all this US aid money is going.

Congress averted a shutdown this weekend, passing a continuing resolution to continue funding the government — at least for the next 45 days, so lawmakers can once again engage in this showdown before the end of the year. But most notably, $6 billion in Ukraine aid was left out of this stopgap measure, leaving a question mark again as to whether the US will provide additional assistance for Ukraine this year.

That $6 billion was already a scaled-back version from the administration’s request for about $24 billion, and the omission of the aid package comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington and Capitol Hill in person to lobby for aid.

President Joe Biden is urging Congress to pass this Ukraine aid, and it does have bipartisan support. But the political jockeying over Ukraine aid is a symptom of the US’s broader political dysfunction, which is probably not reassuring to Ukraine, or any of its European allies, either.

And American support for Ukraine might get even more complicated. Ukraine skepticism is growing amid Republicans, including voters. The GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is chief among them. This strain in the GOP, then, is probably not going away, and may morph beyond battles over Ukraine funding into fundamentally questioning the US’s position on Ukraine.

Questioning aid for Ukraine — especially the utility, and the escalatory potential of weapons assistance — is justified, here in the US and in Europe. But in the past year, Ukraine’s supporters could more easily make the case for it: Ukraine was winning, defying the odds even, and Russia’s military was in complete disarray. The Western strategy looked like it was working.

This year has tested that. The war is not quite static, but Kyiv’s counteroffensive has failed to make substantial gains. While Ukraine has had success, selling a slow, expensive grind to the public is a lot harder than selling stunning military victories. And while governments tried to mitigate the pain the war created for their populations, that is harder to do the longer the fallout continues.

This is especially true in Europe, with war on the continent. Europe’s support is robust, but when it comes to weapons, EU arsenals can’t make up the shortfall if America drops out. And if overall American assistance lags, it’s not clear the EU can make up that shortfall — or if they will be able to make the political case to the public that they should.

That case is also getting harder to make in the US — to say nothing of the rest of the world, parts of which have been far more skeptical of the Western narratives around the Ukraine war. It comes at a precarious moment for Ukraine, which relies on this outside aid for assistance, and it is a boon for Vladimir Putin, who always has sought to exploit the cracks in Western unity and is likely looking to target US political divisions for Moscow’s benefit. These developments were not unpredicted — but what is, at least right now, is how they will influence the war still raging in Ukraine.