Ukraine War Tilts In Russia’s Favour

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24 2022, days after Russia recognised two breakaway Ukrainian republics. Russia’s invasion was, in fact, an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014. The invasion became the largest attack on a European country since World War II.

The invasion has caused tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of military casualties. By June 2022, Russian troops occupied about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

From a population of 41 million in January 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II.

Extensive environmental damage caused by the war led to global food crises. The war rages on but media fatigue has taken it off from the headlines.

By September 2022, military costs were estimated at $40 billion. The 2022 GDP losses amounted to between $81 billion and $104 billion and financial capital destruction reached $322 billion by year-end.

Every day of the war in Ukraine costs Russia $500 million to $1 billion. Direct military spending may amount to almost $132 billion through 2024.

Subsequent economic sanctions have targeted large parts of the Russian economy, Russian oligarchs, and members of the Russian government. A wave of protests and strikes occurred across Europe against the rising cost of living.

Russia has incurred direct military costs, gross domestic product losses, and financial capital destruction and stood to face a decline in the standard of living of its citizens. As of September 2022, the direct military costs of the war might have reached $40 billion, or 84 percent of 2021 national defence spending.

For all of 2022, gross domestic product losses amounted to between $81 billion and $104 billion. However, growth returned by the second quarter of 2023. Russia experienced $322 billion in financial capital destruction in 2022, as measured by the market value of companies on the Moscow Stock Exchange, but the market revived in 2023.

Russia can sustain these costs for at least several years. However, over the long term, even with a stalemate war, Russia's economy and the standard of living of its people are likely to decline.

The war in Ukraine has also resulted in significant loss of human capital for Ukrainians. There has been destruction of agricultural trading infrastructure, huge damage to production capacity, including through the loss of electricity, and a reduction in private consumption of more than a third relative to pre-war levels.

As the war has traversed into its third year, these questions nudge many: Why can't the conflict be resolved? Will the West's mindset of "defeating Russia" change? Has the West finally realised that cornering Russia and reducing it to lesser status is unfeasible? What are its impacts of the war on global geopolitical patterns?

Chay Bowes, an Irish journalist, writer and analyst, who addressed the conflict at a UN Security Council meeting in 2023, offers important insights. Bowes has been living in Russia and working among Russians.

He concludes, based on inside perspectives, that the biggest obstacle to ending the conflict is the West. There is an appetite for peace in Ukraine among ordinary Ukrainian and Russian people, and in the Russian government too.

The view in Russia and many parts of the world is that the main obstacle to peace in Ukraine is Ukraine's Western backers, who are providing weapons, cash and political support for the prolongation, and in some ways, the expansion of this conflict. There has been sustained CIA/American support that is the prime guilty party and Western aid, money and weapons which have made the war look endless.

President Vladimir Putin was emphatic when he said in an interview with Tucker Carlson: “If they want the war to stop, they can easily end it”. Bowes concurs because all conflicts end with some kind of political adjustments. Besides, there is clearly a dwindling appetite for aid to Ukraine from Europe. Soon this may leave Ukraine isolated.

Ordinary Russian people on the streets are somewhat resigned to the fact that this war may continue until Russia achieves its goals. It seems that the old trail of diplomacy that existed during the Cold War between Russia and America, between the security services and diplomats, these bridges have petered out.

The longer the war goes on, the more territory Russia gains, the stronger the Russian economy becomes. President Putin is very popular among Russians, despite what the Western media might tell us. Soon, more fatigue will sneak in among the Western backers of Ukraine and leave Ukraine with no wherewithal to fight this war. It lacks an economy that is robust enough to subsidise the conflict.

It wants a forceful military but can’t afford it. It is hopelessly outnumbered. This was after all a proxy war with the West now looking for a way out based on devious pretexts to let Ukraine fight virtually on its own.

It was NATO’s (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) brainchild and that, in turn, means its prompters and gainers are the Military-Industrial Complex (MIM). Current levels of Aid are sheer crumbs from under the table. Putin’s army is huge, well equipped and Ukraine will not be able to carry the strain of the war beyond the end of 2024.

The tough-muscled Zelensky will probably be forced to exit from a gamble that he miscalculated as commander-in-chief, as well as his western allies. Even before 2023, people were becoming war-drained. Ukraine had all the modern fighting equipment but it was clueless on the battlefield.

The various weapons, the game changers, meant to turn the conflict around, had been torpedoed by a far superior army and astute Russian military and political leadership. Sadly, in the midst of this proxy war instigated by NATO, the harsh and sad fact is that many Ukrainians are dying and/or being dispossessed.

The US has turned from being a strong ally which underestimated Russia and blew the trumpet of victory far too soon. The US may turn out to be the side that leaves Ukraine bereft of its military capacities in this war-induced storm, and political earthquake.

The US knows how to flee from a war and reside safely in its arena. (Vietnam and Afghanistan are two examples). In many of its other wars, the US has disrupted countries leaving behind a trail of death and destruction, and economic turmoil.

Its ‘lying media’ and propaganda machine stands to propagate contrary facts. The US has been liable for the deaths of tens of millions of human beings in the last half a century. It sells more weapons and spends more money on war than the next 10 countries combined. In the meantime, its own socio-economic systems are in absolute bedlam.

For armament manufacturers, the War in Ukraine is a top prize. A fact-check suggests that not even one percent will reach Ukraine. The Russian invasion takes the MIM laughing to the bank.

In fact, MIMs everywhere (including Russia) are rubbing their hands with glee. With Ukraine-Russia as the pretext, NATO armies remain continuously over-armed as in the Cold War era.

NATO expansion inanely incited Russia, Ukraine’s is emphatically not one of self-determination. NATO expansion will be a step backward for Eastern and Central Europe and will accentuate further divisions in the region.

Expansions will arrest the demilitarisation of East-Central Europe and cost alliance members money and heighten indebtedness. Russia has steadfastly opposed NATO expansion and views the move as an attempt for a Western clasp over Russia.

Russia is particularly sensitive about the inclusion of bordering countries–the Baltics, Ukraine, and Moldova. Should the Baltic countries join NATO, Russian officials hinted that they would counter with troop concentrations, even tactical nuclear weapons on the border, thus decreasing, not increasing, security in the region.

NATO is a construct of the MIM because it lacks a profound understanding of and capacity to handle the conflicts involving Hungary and Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine, Ukraine and Russia, Estonia and Russia.

Ukraine lacks the human resources and the equipment and ammunition to hold the line against Russia. A new Ukrainian mobilisation law has just been legislated. But it will be years before these forces are trained, deployed and join the frontlines.

At the same time, Russia’s economy has been resilient to western sanctions and seen growth driven by the war. Moscow has also managed to produce a lot of its own equipment and ammunition. A tough Russian offensive in the next couple of months would force Kyiv into uncomfortable concessions.

The west will be under pressure to dismantle the present united front of support for Kyiv. The 300,000 trained Russians are not going to hit the pause button to give Ukraine a chance to catch their breath. They would grind the Ukrainians down to the point of exhaustion.

Reliable predictions are that Ukraine’s year may conclude with a brutal Western betrayal. Western governments are already beginning to signal impatience and lack of military and economic support to Kyiv.

Until very recently, the West used to hail Ukrainian defenders as defenders of the liberal values and freedoms. The euphoria is fading, typifying the West’s slapdash and morally bankruptcy.

Ukraine must also worry about what could happen if a Republican administration returns to the White House in eight months-time threatening the ghost of an abrupt end to American funding.

Russia had advocated for a peace deal very early on in the conflict, which according to Russia, and other sources, were stumped by the British prime minister in conjunction with the White House. They held that the Ukrainians should fight on.

Russians now deem a Western-brokered peace deal as lacking political will and, hence, not forthcoming. Realpolitik is that the Russian economy is strong.

The West’s wild imaginings of the outcomes of the economic war for Russia has been misconstrued. By contrast, it is their short sightedness and imperialistic outlook that has left Ukraine vulnerable.

When it comes to Ukraine, Russia is open to constructive peace negotiations. If the West were to impede this, as it is, this could bring Ukraine to ruins. It is futile for Ukraine to trust Western promises.

The European Commission, World Bank, and United Nations estimate, the total cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine is US$486 billion over the next decade. In the 30 years since the Iron Curtain came crashing down, trillions of dollars that had been dedicated to Cold War armies and weapons systems were gradually diverted to health care, housing and schools.

Russia has dismissed Ukrainian’s peace formula to pull back its troops, pay compensation to Ukraine and face an international tribunal for its actions. On the other hand Putin’s terms for peace seek Ukraine's military to be downsized including troops, and tanks, and Ukrainian missiles.

Russia also insists the Crimean Peninsula, already occupied by Russia, to remain under Moscow's influence and not be considered neutral. The complexities of these questions require global security with a renewed vision.

The NATO was created in 1949. Now, the security backdrop of Europe has changed massively. The Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union as a superpower, and the Warsaw Pact are no more. Yet NATO, driven by the Military Industrial Complex has refused to budge and remains a military construct to protect western interests and western military domination.

The UN is mandated to uphold international peace and security while navigating the intricate power dynamics that define global politics. Under the rubric of an Independent Commission, there needs to be a cease fire supervised by judges, political thinkers who are known for their integrity, and are drawn from different sections of the world.

It is of critical importance to dismantle all operational military alliances – be they bilateral or multilateral. The UN should be resourced to rally global alliances for peace and human advancement. Such a Global Security apparatus must be inclusive of every single region.

The UN Security Council has failed to produce equitable security. The days of domination by a handful of rich States must be put firmly in the past. In a world where poverty and deprivation reigns, governments must seek to capture profits of a peace dividend rather than benefiting arms manufacturers.

The poor cannot eat bombs for breakfast.

Ranjan Solomon is a writer and human rights activist who has worked in Palestine, Central America during the civil wars, in Sri Lanka, and South Africa. Views expressed are the writer’s own.