The political tides of war are shifting — and may be taking Ukraine with them

We have been warned — over and over again lately — that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an inflection point in history.

And while the soaring political rhetoric may have sounded good over the last few years, it's very likely that this week — after a cascade of events in Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and, yes, even Ottawa — we truly arrived at that turning point.

We just might not like where it's going.

Following the British victory in the war-scorched wasteland of El-Alamein in western Egypt in early November 1942 (and the concurrent U.S.-led invasion of North Africa), Winston Churchill stood before an audience at London's Mansion House for the Lord Mayor's Day Luncheon.

It was a watershed moment in a war that, up to that point, had been going very badly for western democracies and the Soviet Union — something we tend to forget in the haze of Second World War nostalgia and self-congratulation.

Churchill, the wartime leader to whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is often compared, recognized El-Alamein as an inflection point.

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning," he told his audience.

There may be no better way of describing where we find ourselves today.

As it turned out, Churchill was right. There were still a number of major inflection points to follow — the Battle of Stalingrad and D-Day among them. But the tide had definitely turned.

It's hard to walk away from the events of this week without the same vague sense that something critical has changed.

There's been a lot to take stock of: Zelenskyy firing his top military commander, the spectacular crash of the bundled U.S. military aid package, the solidifying gridlock in the U.S. Congress, public opinion polling in Canada that shows a growing number of Conservatives believe Ukraine is getting too much aid — and finally the propaganda tour de force of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson's interview with a rambling Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We're at an inflection point," said Dominique Arel, chair of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa. "But I would say the inflection is taking place in [the U.S.] Congress."

The replacement of long-serving Ukrainian top commander Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi with the older, Soviet-trained Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi is significant, said Arel, but it pales in comparison with the political machinations in Washington. He said "it's hard to see a way out" of the political stalemate in Washington as the U.S. leaves the impression it's on the verge of abandoning Ukraine.

The unblocking of 50 billion euros ($54 billion US) in European Union aid was a bright spot — one which Arel said signals that even though we're at a turning point, it doesn't mean we're headed toward catastrophe in the war in Ukraine.