Russia Might Be Going Broke Over Ukraine War

 

When commentators talk about whether the Russians or the Ukrainians are winning the war between their two countries, much attention is paid to the Russians gaining territory, even though Russia was only able to gain about 0.7 percent of Ukraine’s territory in the entire year of 2024, at an estimated cost of 420,000 Russian soldiers killed, wounded or captured.  But less attention has been paid to the engines of war, the economy.  At first, it seemed that economic sanctions placed on Russia by the United States, Europe and Japan were not having much impact on Russia’s economy.  In more recent times, however, Russia’s economy does seem to be having difficulties.

Here is the Financial Times with an article on this topic.

Russia’s War Economy is a House of Cards

The reality is that the financial underpinnings of Russia’s war economy increasingly look like a house of cards — so much so that senior members of the governing elite are publicly expressing concern. They include Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of state defence giant Rostec, who warned that expensive credit was killing his weapons export business, and Elvira Nabiullina, head of the central bank.

Putin’s privatised credit scheme, meanwhile, is storing up a credit crisis as the loans go bad. The state may bail out the banks — if they don’t collapse first. Given Russians’ experience of suddenly worthless deposits, fears of a repeat could easily trigger self-fulfilling runs. That would destroy not just banks’ but the government’s legitimacy.

Putin, in short, does not have time on his side. He sits on a ticking financial time bomb of his own making. The key for Ukraine’s friends is to deny him the one thing that would defuse it: greater access to external funds.

Some analysts say that Ukraine is suffering from a manpower shortage that is severe enough to cause a collapse in Ukraine, leading to a Russian victory.  While this is possible, a higher probability might be assigned to a Russian economic collapse.  Without an economy strong enough to produce the weapons the Russian military needs to sustain the fight, Russia’s ambitions will never be realized.

Ukraine’s economy is struggling under the weight of the war as well.  However, many European nations are purchasing Ukrainian weapons and donating those weapons to Ukraine, essentially providing huge subsidies to Ukraine’s burgeoning military-industrial complex.  Ukraine was able to successfully target a Russian helicopter with a sea drone, the first time in military history this has happened.  Ukraine has also been able to target Russian oil refineries hundreds of miles into Russia.

The debate within Europe and the US as to whether Ukraine should be allowed to use US or European weapons to hit targets in Russia might become less and less important as Ukraine’s capability of hitting Russian targets with Ukrainian weapons increases.

We don’t know if Europe’s largest land war since 1945 will end this year, in 2025, or not.  But if we keep an eye on the Russian economy, we will have a better sense of how the war is going than merely observing the front line.

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  1. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    All that Russia need do is obtain a sugar daddy like the United States and they won’t have any greater financial worries than Ukraine. Russia had a $2 Trillion GDP in 2023 compared to Ukraine’s $160 Billion. Perhaps someone could explain how Russia would be more impacted than Ukraine from this war. It seems unlikely to me. However, ending this war in 2025 would be absolutely spectacular for the entire world, not to mention the two main antagonists.

    • #1
  2. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    This war just does not make sense to me. If the lives and wealth were invested in resource development and manufacturing, how much better would things be for both countries? I hope that our negotiator-in-chief can help these nations find a win-win deal that doesn’t become a lose-lose deal for us.

    • #2
  3. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    Isn’t Russia already in a demographic crisis?  How can an economy thrive if there aren’t any workers?

    • #3
  4. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    cdor (View Comment):

    Russia had a $2 Trillion GDP in 2023 compared to Ukraine’s $160 Billion. Perhaps someone could explain how Russia would be more impacted than Ukraine from this war. 

    Europe and Japan have been providing Ukraine tons of financial assistance and Europe has been subsidizing Ukraine’s burgeoning military industrial complex.  Also, the United States, Europe and Japan have placed lots of economic sanctions on Russia.  Ukraine has some of the world’s strongest economies holding Ukraine up.  Maybe China could do the same for Russia.  But North Korea and Iran, Russia’s closest allies, seem incapable of proving the kind of support Japan, Europe and the US are providing to Ukraine.   

     

    • #4
  5. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Both sides are learning some rueful lessons about the limits of their power.  It turns out Russia was more self-sufficient than we thought, or hoped. Exclusion from the SWIFT bank clearance system didn’t bring them to their knees. They managed to create substitute name brands of formerly popular western products. 

    On the other hand, for 20 years Russia boasted that they had the power to make western Europe freeze in the dark. That also turned out to be a myth. Sorry, RT–they aren’t reduced to eating their household pets. 

    • #5
  6. DonG (¡Afuera!) Coolidge
    DonG (¡Afuera!)
    @DonG

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    Isn’t Russia already in a demographic crisis? How can an economy thrive if there aren’t any workers?

    Their Ponzi scheme is not as bad, since their old people don’t live that long.

    Russia has been an economic basket case for 100+ years.   Not that unusual in Europe.

    • #6
  7. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Some good analysis:

    on Russia’s tank stockpile:

    on Russian personnel losses:

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1876701569883816171.html

    • #7
  8. Misthiocracy has never Member
    Misthiocracy has never
    @Misthiocracy

    JoelB (View Comment):
    This war just does not make sense to me.

    IMHO: It’s all about Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine agreed to continue leasing the Sevastopol naval base to Russia.

    It’s Russia’s only warm water naval base. Its strategic value to Russia is virtually immeasurable.

    If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be no way that Ukraine could continue to lease the base to Russia. It would be simply absurd for a NATO member to have a Russian naval base.

    So, Russia annexed Crimea so that it didn’t have to worry about losing the base.

    Problem is, Crimea has no rivers, and very little rainfall. The peninsula depends almost entirely on the Crimea Canal for all its fresh water.

    The Crimea Canal is fed by the Dneiper River. The Dneiper River is in Ukraine. When Russia annexed Crimea, Ukraine closed the gates that allow water from the Dneiper River into the canal. Crops, livestock, and people need water. Crimea started to wither from dehydration.

    So Russia invaded Ukraine, advancing all the way to the Dneiper River.  Russia seized control of the gates.

    Everything about defending ethnic Russians in Ukraine is a sideshow. The real objective is continued access to the Dneiper River, so Crimea can continue to get fresh water, so Russia can keep its naval base.

    IMHO

    • #8
  9. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Misthiocracy has never (View Comment):

    JoelB (View Comment):
    This war just does not make sense to me.

    IMHO: It’s all about Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine agreed to continue leasing the Sevastopol naval base to Russia.

    It’s Russia’s only warm water naval base. Its strategic value to Russia is virtually immeasurable.

    If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be no way that Ukraine could continue to lease the base to Russia. It would be simply absurd for a NATO member to have a Russian naval base.

    So, Russia annexed Crimea so that it didn’t have to worry about losing the base.

    Problem is, Crimea has no rivers, and very little rainfall. The peninsula depends almost entirely on the Crimea Canal for all its fresh water.

    The Crimea Canal is fed by the Dneiper River. The Dneiper River is in Ukraine. When Russia annexed Crimea, Ukraine closed the gates that allow water from the Dneiper River into the canal. Crops, livestock, and people need water. Crimea started to wither from dehydration.

    So Russia invaded Ukraine, advancing all the way to the Dneiper River. Russia seized control of the gates.

    Everything about defending ethnic Russians in Ukraine is a sideshow. The real objective is continued access to the Dneiper River, so Crimea can continue to get fresh water, so Russia can keep its naval base.

    IMHO

    At this point, Ukrainians aren’t likely to be in the mood to give Russia so much as a glass of water, to say nothing of access to the Dnieper River.  This is a case where negotiation and trade work more effectively than attempting conquest.

    • #9
  10. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Misthiocracy has never (View Comment):

    JoelB (View Comment):
    This war just does not make sense to me.

    IMHO: It’s all about Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine agreed to continue leasing the Sevastopol naval base to Russia.

    It’s Russia’s only warm water naval base. Its strategic value to Russia is virtually immeasurable.

    If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be no way that Ukraine could continue to lease the base to Russia. It would be simply absurd for a NATO member to have a Russian naval base.

    So, Russia annexed Crimea so that it didn’t have to worry about losing the base.

    IMHO

    No – commonly cited by realists and Russian apologists, but not factually correct :(1)Novorossiysk is a Russian warm weather port in the Black Sea. It is the either the busiest Russian seaport or a close second. It was recently expanded by Russia and was home to the Black Sea fleet before the 2014 invasion. In fact, most of the fleet has returned there in order to avoid joining the Moskva in patrolling the bottom of the sea.

    (2) Russia had a lease for Sevastopol that lasted until 2042. Russia unilaterally terminated the treaty the week after invading Crimea in 2014.

    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. Ukraine certainly wanted to join- just like almost every other nation in Europe that enjoyed the tender embrace of the Russians in the Cold War. But NATO was too chicken to expand for fear of angering Russia. But Putin managed to remove any reluctance by Finland & Sweden to join!

    • #10
  11. Misthiocracy has never Member
    Misthiocracy has never
    @Misthiocracy

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Misthiocracy has never (View Comment):

    JoelB (View Comment):
    This war just does not make sense to me.

    IMHO: It’s all about Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine agreed to continue leasing the Sevastopol naval base to Russia.

    It’s Russia’s only warm water naval base. Its strategic value to Russia is virtually immeasurable.

    If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be no way that Ukraine could continue to lease the base to Russia. It would be simply absurd for a NATO member to have a Russian naval base.

    So, Russia annexed Crimea so that it didn’t have to worry about losing the base.

    IMHO

    No – commonly cited by realists and Russian apologists, but not factually correct :(1)Novorossiysk is a Russian warm weather port in the Black Sea. It is the either the busiest Russian seaport or a close second. It was recently expanded by Russia and was home to the Black Sea fleet before the 2014 invasion. In fact, most of the fleet has returned there in order to avoid joining the Moskva in patrolling the bottom of the sea.

    (2) Russia had a lease for Sevastopol that lasted until 2042. Russia unilaterally terminated the treaty the week after invading Crimea in 2014.

    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. Ukraine certainly wanted to join- just like almost every other nation in Europe that enjoyed the tender embrace of the Russians in the Cold War. But NATO was too chicken to expand for fear of angering Russia. But Putin managed to remove any reluctance by Finland & Sweden to join!

    (1) is a very good counterfact, but (2) and (3) strike me as somewhat irrelevant.

    You and I may agree that NATO wasn’t going to admit Ukraine for a very long time (if ever), but if Russia disagrees then the original thesis that this war is all about Sevastopol still stands.

    • #11
  12. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

     

     

    • #12
  13. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

    And neither caused any problems or risks for Russia’s well-being.  

    • #13
  14. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Self-sufficiency is, on its own, a good thing for a nation. In the long run, though, lack of cheap Russian energy will be a drag on Europe’s economy. In the long run, isolation from the west’s economy is not good for Russia. Europe will want a pipeline again, but they’ll be much less eager this time to put a potential noose around their necks. Russia will want to do unhindered business again, but they’ll be much warier about allowing substantial amounts of money to be seized. Some tradeoffs are going to be made on both sides. 

    • #14
  15. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

    And neither caused any problems or risks for Russia’s well-being.

    Different kettle of fish entirely, as they say.

    • #15
  16. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

    And neither caused any problems or risks for Russia’s well-being.

    Different kettle of fish entirely, as they say.

    None of the fish from either kettle are going to jump out and attack Russia. 

    • #16
  17. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    Isn’t Russia already in a demographic crisis? How can an economy thrive if there aren’t any workers?

    They import them from Central Asia. 

    • #17
  18. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    Isn’t Russia already in a demographic crisis? How can an economy thrive if there aren’t any workers?

    They import them from Central Asia.

    At least that’s how it works in the movies and TV shows.  

    • #18
  19. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Next month is the 10th anniversary of Minsk-2, the February 2015 agreement that for a time stopped the war in Donetsk and Luhansk.  Everyone, emphatically including me, has almost forgotten about it. Now, the line is, Minsk-2 was always a bogus deal and Putin was going to invade no matter what. 

    Maybe. Or maybe we and the Ukrainians missed a chance to change destiny. I don’t know. It would be worth looking 2015 over, because if the agreement had been implemented, it would not have been a trivial moment. 

    • #19
  20. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Next month is the 10th anniversary of Minsk-2, the February 2015 agreement that for a time stopped the war in Donetsk and Luhansk. Everyone, emphatically including me, has almost forgotten about it. Now, the line is, Minsk-2 was always a bogus deal and Putin was going to invade no matter what.

    Maybe. Or maybe we and the Ukrainians missed a chance to change destiny. I don’t know. It would be worth looking 2015 over, because if the agreement had been implemented, it would not have been a trivial moment.

    This describes the Ukrainian objections to Minsk-II about as well as anything I’ve seen:

    https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/02/why-minsk-2-cannot-solve-ukraine-crisis.

    Basically, Ukraine would have ended up incorporating a separate Russian foreign policy into its government in Donetsk and Luhansk, and would have ended up paying for it, too.  That is a path to loss of sovereignty, and is the least that Russia will accept in any upcoming negotiations, too.  It would be a win for Russia, though maybe would put the completion of their win on a slower track than they were hoping for in February 2022.  

     

    • #20
  21. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Self-sufficiency is, on its own, a good thing for a nation. In the long run, though, lack of cheap Russian energy will be a drag on Europe’s economy. In the long run, isolation from the west’s economy is not good for Russia.

    Putin has succeeded in getting the Russian economy to full employment.  On the other hand, from Russian Telegram, it looks like Gazprom is going to do some mass layoffs, with their workforce shifting from 4,100 people to 2,500 people, according to the 47news portal.  Gazprom is a majority Russia state-owned energy corporation headquartered in St. Petersburg.

    • #21
  22. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

    You think the change in Russia’s behavior had anything to do with that ???? Just maybe a little bit?

    (1)I might conjecture that starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 might lead to a change in NATO’s admission criteria.

    (2) The Swedes and Finns already would have meet any NATO standards so a MAP would be superfluous- but pre-2014 Ukraine didn’t. And that is part of the reasons Putin invaded- Ukraine had started down a path of serious reforms and Putin couldn’t tolerate the development of a successful democracy & innovating market system in Ukraine. First, it threatened him with a much more powerful Ukraine. Second, Russians might get the strange idea they could have a free & growing country rather than a dictatorship.

    Ironically, before 2014, Ukraine wasn’t much of a country- but Putin’s aggression has forged a sense of national unity and help to spur reforms. But Putin believed his own rhetoric and anticipated that Ukraine would collapse and the invasion would be a glorified parade (heck the Russian soldiers were rumored to have parade uniforms in their packs). Of course he seriously underestimated Ukraine.

    • #22
  23. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Next month is the 10th anniversary of Minsk-2, the February 2015 agreement that for a time stopped the war in Donetsk and Luhansk. Everyone, emphatically including me, has almost forgotten about it. Now, the line is, Minsk-2 was always a bogus deal and Putin was going to invade no matter what.

    Maybe. Or maybe we and the Ukrainians missed a chance to change destiny. I don’t know. It would be worth looking 2015 over, because if the agreement had been implemented, it would not have been a trivial moment.

    Any revisiting of Minsk II’s demise should include the following aspect of it:

    “France’s former president, Francois Hollande, who participated in attempts to settle the conflict in Donbass and in shaping the Minsk agreements in 2015 has confirmed the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement to the effect the agreements were needed for the sole purpose of letting Kiev gain time and build up military muscle for another conflict.

    “Yes, Angela Merkel is right on this point,” he told the Kiev Independent media outlet, while commenting on Merkel’s remark that the Minsk agreements allowed Kiev to gain time, but by no means prevented further hostilities in the Donbass. “Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture. Indeed, the Ukrainian army was completely different from that of 2014. It was better trained and equipped. It is the merit of the Minsk agreements to have given the Ukrainian army this opportunity.””

     

     

    • #23
  24. FrankTorson Member
    FrankTorson
    @FrankTorson

    On New Year’s Day, the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, said this to the people of Finland:

    https://www.presidentti.fi/en/new-years-speech-by-president-of-the-republic-of-finland-alexander-stubb-on-1-january-2025/

    Alexander Stubb on 1 January 2025

    “Finland’s support to Ukraine is steadfast. Ukraine is fighting for its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, just as Finland did in the Winter War and the Continuation War.”

    “Despite Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, there is no immediate threat of war against Finland.”

    “However, this does not mean that Russia has ceased to be the biggest threat to our security. It has been a threat before, and, unfortunately, will continue to be one in the foreseeable future.”

     

     

    • #24
  25. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    MiMac (View Comment):

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

    You think the change in Russia’s behavior had anything to do with that ???? Just maybe a little bit?

    (1)I might conjecture that starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 might lead to a change in NATO’s admission criteria.

     

    Again, a MAP was never an obligatory part in a country’s ascension into NATO.

    • #25
  26. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Next month is the 10th anniversary of Minsk-2, the February 2015 agreement that for a time stopped the war in Donetsk and Luhansk. Everyone, emphatically including me, has almost forgotten about it. Now, the line is, Minsk-2 was always a bogus deal and Putin was going to invade no matter what.

    Maybe. Or maybe we and the Ukrainians missed a chance to change destiny. I don’t know. It would be worth looking 2015 over, because if the agreement had been implemented, it would not have been a trivial moment.

    Any revisiting of Minsk II’s demise should include the following aspect of it:

    “France’s former president, Francois Hollande, who participated in attempts to settle the conflict in Donbass and in shaping the Minsk agreements in 2015 has confirmed the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement to the effect the agreements were needed for the sole purpose of letting Kiev gain time and build up military muscle for another conflict.

    “Yes, Angela Merkel is right on this point,” he told the Kiev Independent media outlet, while commenting on Merkel’s remark that the Minsk agreements allowed Kiev to gain time, but by no means prevented further hostilities in the Donbass. “Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture. Indeed, the Ukrainian army was completely different from that of 2014. It was better trained and equipped. It is the merit of the Minsk agreements to have given the Ukrainian army this opportunity.””

     

     

    Of course- only a fool in 2014 thought you could trust Putin to honor any agreement- he violated the Budapest memorandum, so why would he honor the Minsk agreements? For Ukraine not to prepare for further invasions would have been extreme malfeasance. Russia had already intervened numerous times in former Soviet republics to ensure Russian control.

    Putin hoped he could keep a compliant & corrupt pro-Russian puppet in Ukraine but the Maiden Revolution ended any hope of that- so the repeated invasions were required to prevent the emergence of a free and prosperous Ukraine.

    Again, if the invasion was about Sevastopol, why invade in 2021?  He already had stolen Sevastopol. The nonsense about water is ludicrous- by any credible calculation, it would have been far cheaper to build desalination plants than sacrifice 800,000 men (killed & wounded) in an invasion….plus tens of thousands of armored vehicles and undergo numerous sanctions.

    • #26
  27. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Misthiocracy has never (View Comment):

    JoelB (View Comment):
    This war just does not make sense to me.

    IMHO: It’s all about Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine agreed to continue leasing the Sevastopol naval base to Russia.

    It’s Russia’s only warm water naval base. Its strategic value to Russia is virtually immeasurable.

    If Ukraine were to join NATO, there would be no way that Ukraine could continue to lease the base to Russia. It would be simply absurd for a NATO member to have a Russian naval base.

    So, Russia annexed Crimea so that it didn’t have to worry about losing the base.

    Problem is, Crimea has no rivers, and very little rainfall. The peninsula depends almost entirely on the Crimea Canal for all its fresh water.

    The Crimea Canal is fed by the Dneiper River. The Dneiper River is in Ukraine. When Russia annexed Crimea, Ukraine closed the gates that allow water from the Dneiper River into the canal. Crops, livestock, and people need water. Crimea started to wither from dehydration.

    So Russia invaded Ukraine, advancing all the way to the Dneiper River. Russia seized control of the gates.

    Everything about defending ethnic Russians in Ukraine is a sideshow. The real objective is continued access to the Dneiper River, so Crimea can continue to get fresh water, so Russia can keep its naval base.

    IMHO

    It seems that you are making an excuse for Russia to invade and kill hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, just because Russia didn’t trust its neighbor to honor their lease of a Naval base.  By this reasoning, the U.S. would be fully justified in wiping out the Island of Cuba since we can’t trust them to honor our base in Guantanamo Bay, or any other country with a U.S. base.  This doesn’t make any ethical or moral sense to me at all.

    • #27
  28. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    cdor (View Comment):

    All that Russia need do is obtain a sugar daddy like the United States and they won’t have any greater financial worries than Ukraine.

    Is this a real proposal?  Why in the world would the U.S. want to prop-up Russia with our tax dollars?

    • #28
  29. big spaniel Member
    big spaniel
    @bigspaniel

    MiMac (View Comment):

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):
    (3) Ukraine was years away from joining NATO in 2021, much less 2014. A membership action plan is necessary to prepare an aspirant for membership, and none was ever in place for Ukraine. …

    Nope, a MAP is not obligatory. Finland and Sweden joined without one. It took Finland less than 1 year from application to ascension, and Sweden less than 2.

    You think the change in Russia’s behavior had anything to do with that ???? Just maybe a little bit?

    (1)I might conjecture that starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 might lead to a change in NATO’s admission criteria.

    (2) The Swedes and Finns already would have meet any NATO standards so a MAP would be superfluous- but pre-2014 Ukraine didn’t. And that is part of the reasons Putin invaded- Ukraine had started down a path of serious reforms and Putin couldn’t tolerate the development of a successful democracy & innovating market system in Ukraine. First, it threatened him with a much more powerful Ukraine. Second, Russians might get the strange idea they could have a free & growing country rather than a dictatorship.

    Ironically, before 2014, Ukraine wasn’t much of a country- but Putin’s aggression has forged a sense of national unity and help to spur reforms. But Putin believed his own rhetoric and anticipated that Ukraine would collapse and the invasion would be a glorified parade (heck the Russian soldiers were rumored to have parade uniforms in their packs). Of course he seriously underestimated Ukraine.

    Ukraine was the keystone of the Soviet Union — most Russians admit it.  Ukraine is distinct from Russia in so many ways, but the events of 2014 onward coalesced the nation and brought out those differences.  The Maidan Revolution would have have happened twenty years before.  By 2014 Ukrainians agreed that they did not want to to back to a Russian-dominated state, regardless of the state of Ukraine at the time.  On the other hand, there’s been sentiment against Ukraine in Moscow from the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union.  Putin essentially declared in a long “scholarly” article in 2021 that Ukraine did not exist, giving him — and Russia — to go to war to destroy Ukraine.  But that’s not going to happen.  The Ukrainian have defended their nation and people incredibly, despite the lukewarm support of the West.  We should have been much more supportive at the outset; the war might have ended earlier.  It’s a massive shame on our leaders for not supporting Ukraine better.

    • #29
  30. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    big spaniel (View Comment):
    … Putin essentially declared in a long “scholarly” article in 2021 that Ukraine did not exist …

    Utter poppycock. That is a egregious distortion.

    Here are the concluding paragraphs thereof:

    “The incumbent authorities in Ukraine like to refer to Western experience, seeing it as a model to follow. Just have a look at how Austria and Germany, the USA and Canada live next to each other. Close in ethnic composition, culture, in fact sharing one language, they remain sovereign states with their own interests, with their own foreign policy. But this does not prevent them from the closest integration or allied relations. They have very conditional, transparent borders. And when crossing them the citizens feel at home. They create families, study, work, do business. Incidentally, so do millions of those born in Ukraine who now live in Russia. We see them as our own close people.

    Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine and ready to discuss the most complex issues. But it is important for us to understand that our partner is defending its national interests but not serving someone else’s, and is not a tool in someone else’s hands to fight against us.

    We respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians’ desire to see their country free, safe and prosperous.

    I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.

    Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways. Yet, many people will hear me. And I will say one thing – Russia has never been and will never be “anti-Ukraine”. And what Ukraine will be – it is up to its citizens to decide.”

    Link: http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

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