The war in Ukraine started in February 2022; it has lasted for 815 days thus far. There have been ups and downs, as there are in any long-lasting conflict, but two elements seem quite clear. First, the counter-offensive attempted by Ukraine, which was carried out in the spring-autumn period of 2023, largely failed to achieve its objectives. Second, the Russian army has made advances since the end of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, as epitomised by the fall of Kharkiv region back into the hands of the Russian army. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, commenting on this development, said he now fears that the new Russian offensive is only “the first wave” in what will be a brutal summer.
Given the situation, can “the West” (i.e. the US and its European allies) win this war? If by winning one means pushing back the Russian army outside of where the borders of Ukraine were before February 2022, and – even more so – out of Crimea, which was occupied in 2014, this seems to be very unlikely. Especially if the West continues to consistently invest many fewer resources into the war than Russia is doing.
As Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in a recent post, Russia invests more than 5% of GDP in military expenses related to the war in Ukraine. Indeed, as we discussed in a recent column, Putin has transformed Russia into a war economy. Europe’s aid to Russia amounts to EUR 88bn, or 0.25% of EU’s GDP. When taking into account the US contribution, Russia still outpaces the West by a ratio of 2.5 to 1. In the many months that it took US Congress to approve the USD 61bn aid package to Ukraine, this ratio jumped to 4 to 1. As we discuss in our recent report, this “foreign aid” security package aimed at helping Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is in fact a massive expenditure package in favour of the US military industry. Only USD 8bn out of the total 95bn will go “abroad” – the rest will be spent domestically to build weapons that will eventually be exported
The situation is even worse if one considers that, while Western support for Ukraine is wavering in many countries, the Chinese support being given to Russia seems to be consolidating. China’s President Xi recently warmly welcomed President Putin in Beijing, in what seems to be a periodic appointment to confirm and reinforce the “limitless cooperation” between the two countries. This happened just a few days after Xi visited Europe, in an attempt to divide and conquer the EU.
Last but not least, Putin and Xi can still count on the option value of waiting for a potential success by Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November, which would further divide the Western front and further weaken the support being given to Ukraine. Political scientist Ian Bremmer recently summarised all this by saying: “Ukraine is going to be partitioned. The best-case scenario is that they lose a significant amount of their territory, but at least they can defend the rest with help from the Europeans and Americans, and they can join the EU and get security guarantees and rebuild their country. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is a lot worse than that.”
