It's still on, the war
My newsletter set reading records when the Ukraine war started, now some four and a a half months ago. If you look around and see what people talk about, read about, it is not too hard to see that the Russian invasion and its concurrent devastation is slipping from the proverbial front pages. Most people have moved on. The war has been labelled a quagmire that will go on for a while, much like Vietnam and Iraq and apart from the occasional dramatic updates from the battleground it is hard to keep engaging the world. The Ukrainians themselves have noticed this too:
But things are bad, and the impact of the war is no longer just limited to Ukraine and its surrounding areas. The long-term implications for the rest of the world are quite significant and appear to be spreading and compounding. A quick round-up, in random order:
Food - the situation worldwide was bad following Covid with disrupted supply chains, but the war is adding to this by devastating Ukraine’s ability to export now that harvest season is upon us. Blockades, destruction and the inability to get ready for next year’s harvest will leave some deep imprints on the countries dependent on grain imports. And that in turn will exacerbate the tenuous political stability in some of them, think Lebanon, Turkey and Tunisia, but it is certainly not restricted to only those. Ukraine feeds a lot of mouths.
Weapons - if Ukraine is to be successful it needs to have a continuous supply of weapons. It is hard to believe, but for instance France has already shipped over 1/3 of its long-range missiles, in about four months. This tells you how incredibly thin the European defence inventory is and what needs to happen to keep the Ukrainian forces going. And that is only the hardware. Although numerically strong, the casualties and even desertions are significant. It’s a meat grinder and it feels that both the thinly armed Europeans and the Americans will need to step up and sustain support for this conflict that consumes lives and materials at a dizzying rate. What’s more: the arms support will have to be long-term and thus survive elections and other political cycles in the countries that send all the stuff. A potential Republican sweep later this year and in 2024 will put real pressure on generous weapon deliveries to Ukraine.
Casualties, Horrors - no need to provide examples specifically, but the wanton murder, rape, destruction, kidnappings, torture and deliberate targeting of civilians by Putin’s forces defies imagination. The strategy is to obliterate entire communities with whatever means. We are back to Stalin’s 1930s and 1940s. It is sickening and there is no end to it. There are endless accounts of families ripped apart and a generation growing up with the curse of an unnecessary and brutal war. But it will create resolve and determination at the same time and most Ukrainians will find “strength to fight until the end”. The war has given birth to a nation that will not go away again.
Russia - life in Moscow appears to be going swimmingly. The west’s sanctions have had some impact but are manageable, and the rouble after its initial crash has appreciated relative to the US$ and is as strong as before the war. The Russians have settled into the new normal and are set for the long haul with a willingness to accept the worst if necessary, something that is ingrained in their national DNA. If it wasn’t Putin and his propaganda machine would have made sure it was. Any predictions of a domestic fall-out and a moderate takeover of the Kremlin have proven to be wrong. This was western daydreaming, again. The alternative scenario of hardcore nationalists shoving Putin aside for an even worse escalation of the war still stands as a possible scenario.
Energy - it may have been fine for now, but the energy crisis is steadily building up, globally. Europe has most to lose and this week the omnipresent fear is that Russia will not turn on the gas again once a scheduled maintenance on some pipelines is completed in two weeks time. Ukraine’s disrupted coal exports also have an impact, Israel for instance is bracing for a big energy price increase. So far most countries have managed well, but if post-summer we go into deeper and more sustained disruptions without alternatives coming on stream (I will spare you the gasfield debate in The Netherlands) it will be a very rough fall and winter season for many countries relying on external fuel supplies.
The only way out of this war is to ensure Russia will lose decisively. Nothing else will do the magic of a pullback by the invaders and/or a negotiated settlement that Ukraine can live with, and that includes security guarantees as well as a reconstruction package. Putin will have to feel the pain. Any other outcome will embolden him and the ongoing threats over the Baltic states will have to be taken seriously.
It will require phenomenal political will to at the very least keep NATO supporting the effort, ensuring sanctions will remain in place and apply whatever it takes to break the back of the forces that unleashed this ghastly war. The more intense this gets, the more likely it is that tensions between Russia on the one hand and Ukraine and NATO on the other will rise to seriously uncomfortable levels. To add to this is the fact that Russia is loosely partnered with China and - as we found out just yesterday - taking arms supplies from Iran. More ingredients for a deepening crisis.
But long term world stability demands it, there is no easy way out and no good reason to further strengthen and embolden the authoritarian camp. And equally important are the people of Ukraine who deserve a fair shot at the promise they were more or less given when the Soviet Union collapsed: to be a free, safe and prosperous democratic nation in Europe. To answer Yaroslava Antipina: the world is still here, trying hard to give Ukraine its best.