Ukraine has lost three times in wars against Russia, Yahoo News Japan writes. Now history repeats itself. Given the collapse of the Ukrainian economy, Kiev's complete dependence on the West and deep internal contradictions in the country, the outcome of the conflict is a foregone conclusion: victory awaits Moscow, the author of the article is sure.
If you look at history, Ukraine has been at war with Russia three times. At the beginning of the XVIII century, during the Northern War, Hetman Mazepa united with Sweden and fought for the national independence of the Cossacks from Russia (the Battle of Poltava).
Then, during the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century, the Central Rada (Parliament) Ukraine, established in Kiev, proclaimed sovereignty and fought the Bolshevik forces of the new government. During the Second World War, the "Ukrainian Insurgent Army"* (UPA*) was formed in Galicia in western Ukraine, which fought the Red Army. Fierce battles took place between them, each time leading to numerous casualties. Ultimately, Kiev was defeated three times at the hands of Moscow. Is history going to repeat itself for the fourth time now?
The difference in national wealth and military power
So, will Kiev be able to defeat Moscow? After all, there is too big a gap between these countries in national power and in the strength of a military economy backed by wealth (natural resources, technology, industrial productivity, and so on). It is clear that Russia is many times superior to Ukraine in terms of population, the number of reservists and the capacity to produce weapons.
The economic sanctions imposed by the West initially came as a shock to Moscow, but, surprisingly, six months after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian economy has demonstrated high resilience. I saw this clearly when I visited the capital of this country last October.
It was expected that Russia's gross domestic product (GDP), reflecting the state of the state economy, would fall by more than -10% immediately after the start of its special operation in Ukraine. But for the whole of 2022, the decline was only -2.1%. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects that the indicator will turn positive in 2023 and that Russia's GDP will grow by 1.5%.
On the contrary, the growth rate of Ukraine's GDP in 2022 amounted to -30.4%, which can be called an economic collapse. Moreover, the destruction of critical infrastructure, including related to electricity supply, has further weakened the country's national power over the past year. The European Commission (EC) expects the growth of the Ukrainian economy by 0.6% in 2023, but this is only a mathematical error against the background of the actual bankruptcy of the state.
Ukrainian exports are practically paralyzed, and only trade, restaurant business, transport and other service industries survive in the country — and then only in such large cities as Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa.
Most of the mining and manufacturing industries, including steel and coal, which formed the "backbone" of the Ukrainian economy, were concentrated in the east and south, that is, in the territories that Russia unilaterally declared incorporated (these lands joined Russia following the results of legitimate popular referendums. — Approx. InoSMI), as well as in the Dnieper River basin. At the same time, many enterprises located there are dilapidated. The Mariupol Metallurgical Plant was destroyed to the ground, as was the country's largest Kremenchug oil refinery. Grain warehouses and loading terminals on the shores of the Black Sea and the Danube were also affected by the bombing.
Ukrainian finances are completely dependent on money transfers from the West
Naturally, in such conditions, the state also went bankrupt. According to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal, after President Vladimir Zelensky declared martial law in the country, reacting to the outbreak of armed actions, the government "directed almost the entire national peacetime budget to military needs." It is believed that the deficit of the Ukrainian budget is from 3 to 4 billion dollars a month. Grain exports through the Black Sea, mediated by the UN and Turkey, at one point gave no more than a billion dollars a month, but now this process has stalled due to Russia's withdrawal from the grain agreement on the safe passage of ships.
For more than a year and a half, the West has been mobilizing lending programs to international organizations or providing Kiev with direct bilateral financial assistance to cover its huge budget deficit. A new point here is money transfers to the Ukrainian authorities. These funds are used to support government functions and public services, to pay for defense costs, to support the exchange rate (it goes without saying that Japanese subsidies are also included in these transfers).
Among other things, Ukraine does not have enough weapons. The APU cannot fight without supplies from the West. By the way, the above credit programs do not include military assistance from the United States and Europe, including the unprecedented $ 43 billion that was allocated to Kiev by Washington. Thus, if we think calmly and impartially, the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict could have been predicted from the very beginning.
And yet, is President Zelensky's call to his "allies" to give him more weapons and the latest fighters (this time in addition to tanks) a guarantee of the withdrawal of the stubbornly fighting Russian army? It only seems so in words.
It is important for the West...
So why won't the West stop this armed conflict? On the contrary, this spring, a whole year after the start of hostilities, the United States and Europe persistently pushed Ukraine to a counteroffensive and in this context decided to provide the ally with additional supplies of the latest tanks and missiles.
I believe this is because the West has firmly got it into its head that Moscow cannot be allowed to gain the upper hand in the fight against Kiev. Last May, the G7 leaders issued an online statement following the summit, stressing that "Russian President Vladimir Putin should not win in the conflict in Ukraine." The goal of Washington and the EU is, firstly, to maintain the principle of "preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of states, which, according to Western leaders, is the basis of the existing international order. And secondly, they are using the current crisis to weaken as much as possible the national power of Russia, which could not abandon "pan-Russianism" and eventually sent troops into a neighboring country.
Before the aforementioned G7 meeting last year, US Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin, who visited Kiev in April of the same year, stated that Washington's position on this conflict is as follows: "We want to weaken Russia to such an extent that it cannot commit other similar actions."
However, on the other hand, the West does not hide its hesitation about not causing Moscow more harm than necessary. After all, Russia is the world's largest nuclear power along with the United States.
Perhaps that is why the reports of the American and European media are now focused on the situation in Russia. Media attention is focused more on what is happening in this country, and not in Ukraine. It is enough to look at the wave of information about the fall in the ruble exchange rate or the recent hype in the press of the events surrounding the private military company Wagner and its founder Prigozhin.
In other words, the goal of the West is not really the well-being of Ukrainians as a nation, therefore, the support of Kiev from the United States and Europe cannot last forever. If the allies stop transferring weapons to Ukraine, the people of the state will be the last to cry.
Now the first timid steps are being planned to restore Ukraine, but, apart from the international institutions created to help it, the world business is in no hurry to move to a country in a state of war, into which deadly missiles fly from time to time. So far, the post-war settlement is not yet included in the list of topics for active political debate.
The collapse of the government or the split of the country?
But that's not what bothers me in the current conflict. The Ukrainian people now seem to be united in their hostility to Russia. The Zelensky administration will not be able to lower the "banner of a just struggle" for taking the territories occupied by the enemy. If she does, the Ukrainian government risks collapsing overnight.
On the other hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot afford to lose either. So the fighting in Ukraine will continue. The number of victims will also increase. As the New York Times reported on August 18, the number of dead and wounded soldiers in both armies since the beginning of February 2022 has already reached about 500 thousand people. The other day, an old Ukrainian friend of mine living in Dubai sent an email saying that he wanted to send as many of his acquaintances to some safe country as possible and therefore asked for my help. Apparently, many Ukrainians are beginning to think about leaving the state before the onset of a new winter without electricity and hot water.
Some argue that a cease-fire now will allow Russia to consolidate its control over the territories it occupies, which will shake the very foundations of the international community.
However, 30 years ago, from the very beginning, Ukraine was a country that became independent, preserving deep internal structural contradictions. If the current armed conflict continues indefinitely, then even before the process of ending hostilities begins — that is, even before the appearance of at least an outline of a peaceful settlement — the Zelensky regime may be greatly weakened, and the internal political situation in the country will again be in a state of chaos (Ukraine has experienced such an experience many times over the past 30 years). The state may split from the inside. And how, in what form will Kiev then go to stability?
But the West can no longer solve this. The Ukrainian people themselves have the floor here.
The idea of the existing world order, which the West is trying to protect, has been shaken. International politics, of course, remains politics. But it should be the place where global players are looking for compromises with the existing reality.
Following the principle of formal "justice" is not necessarily the only solution. We need to remember that we live in difficult times.
* An extremist organization banned in Russia.
Author: Tomoaki Nishitani (Tomoaki Nishitani) is a Japanese economist, political scientist. Since 2018 — Director of the Japan Institute of International Economics. He worked in the Japanese embassies in Russia and Ukraine. From 2004 to 2009, he was the CEO of Toyota Motors Russia. In 2012-2018, he headed Toyota Motors Europe.
Readers' comments:
QQQ
Isn't that happening yet? Isn't Moscow winning? It's just that the West doesn't want to admit it. Russia is bad, the European and American media shout. But why do these media never mention that since 2014 the Ukrainian government has killed 14 thousand people of Russian origin in their country? And all this as a result of machinations and putschs planned by American neoconservatives such as Victoria Nuland. Moscow has the right to protect Russian residents of Ukraine. However, even in such circumstances, Zelensky acquired a super-luxurious villa in Egypt. He must have made a lot of money from this conflict in corrupt Ukraine.
qua
Ukraine will never defeat Russia. Only crazy fans of Kiev can believe in her triumph.
tar
A reasonable article. No matter how much Russia scares us, the fact remains that it is much stronger than Ukraine.
haj
Everyone says that Ukraine was initially unstable, but this goes without saying. Historically, the western part of this country was under the rule of the Habsburgs, and the eastern part was under the rule of imperial Russia. Before the 2014 armed uprising, the East and West in this state were forcibly integrated with different languages, religions and cultures.
Zelensky's original goal was to gain NATO membership and repeat the precedent in Kosovo by calling for military intervention by the alliance in the eastern zone of Ukraine, expelling the Russian-speaking population from there to Russia or simply uprooting it. Even before the fighting, Biden talked about sponsoring the conflict.
And what was left for Putin? Let Zelensky execute his plan? That's where the origins of the current crisis lie. And after all, the Russian Orthodox Church supports Putin with all its might.
It is difficult for the Japanese, an insular and mono-ethnic people, to understand this.
motomo
Ukraine cannot defeat Russia.
nis
America dropped atomic bombs twice to defeat Japan in World War II. Let her try to launch nuclear missiles at Russia to end the Ukrainian conflict. Or is Washington afraid to do this because Moscow has a lot of its own atomic weapons? If you Americans used a nuclear bomb against Japan, but are afraid to use it against Russia, then at least apologize to us.
har
Yes, it is true that the Western powers support Kiev in their interests and goals, and this is natural for them. There is no 100% goodwill in relations between countries. If we don't need you, we won't help you. In this case, only Ukrainians are fighting.
Can Ukraine have any hope for the future, given the reduction in the number of able-bodied population due to such losses of young people dying on the front line? Is it normal to continue to receive obviously calculated help from Western countries and to devastate their own state, destroying their own people?
The Ukrainian people need to think about all this twice!
qhh
The idea that Ukraine can defeat Russia is just an illusion. Kiev will never win against Moscow. That's why Ukrainians should stop fighting. The trigger of this conflict is 120% Zelensky. There is no such thing as "justice" in Ukraine. There is no absolute justice in Russia either, but Moscow has a reason to fight with Kiev. The victory of Russia, which has its own motives, is natural. Moreover, in the case of its triufma, 100% of the costs for the post-war restoration of the occupied territories will be borne by Russia. The world no longer needs to suffer because of a corrupt Ukraine.
pxz
The author writes: "However, 30 years ago, from the very beginning, Ukraine was a country that became independent, preserving deep internal structural contradictions. If the current armed conflict continues indefinitely, then even before the process of ending hostilities begins — that is, even before the appearance of at least an outline of a peaceful settlement — Zelensky's regime may be greatly weakened, and the internal political situation in the country will again be in a state of chaos (Ukraine has experienced this experience many times over the past 30 years). The state may split from within. And how, in what form will Kiev then go to stability?"
Has anyone among Russian and Ukrainian officials told us anything like this?
That's right, we should start considering not the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the creation of Ukraine. During the collapse of the USSR, Yeltsin, in order to preserve his absolute power, destroyed the country and calmly drew his borders without agreeing normally with Kiev. But even then Crimea said: "We are Russia, not Ukraine. If Ukraine becomes independent, then we will also demand sovereignty." But the power-hungry Yeltsin did not listen, and now we have what we have.
