Ukraine Will Not Win This War

Last week, two important events took place and both directly related to Ukraine: the meeting of G7 leaders in Italy on June 13-15 and the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15-16.

I looked at the news on these two events and some more on Ukrainian internal affairs over the past few months and got the impression that Ukraine will not win this war the way the Ukrainians imagine it (the return to the 1991 borders). And the point is not so much about the superiority of Russia and carefully limited aid from the West, but the fact that even the threat of mortal danger did not force the Ukrainian elite to abandon lucrative corruption schemes and harmful divisive laws. The nation is divided and weakened. Even the cruel war could not gather the Ukrainians into a single fist.

If Mr. Putin simply left Ukrainians alone after the seizure of Crimea (which was necessary for him as a base for the Russian Black Sea Fleet), Ukraine would have collapsed by itself due to internal conflicts and the Russians would have been able to easily pick up the remains with no any sanctions. However, Mr. Putin has long and consistently rallied the Ukrainians against Russia since 2014 (the beginning of Russo-Ukrainian war), but his brutal war could not change the thievish mentality of the Ukrainian elites and the ignorance of the Ukrainian people.

G7 Summit.

The leaders of G7 countries in the final communiqué expressed their readiness to allocate $50 billion to Ukraine using profits from Russian assets frozen in the West:
«Standing in solidarity to support Ukraine’s fight for freedom and its reconstruction for as long as it takes. In the presence of President Zelenskyy, we decided to make available approximately USD 50 billion leveraging the extraordinary revenues of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets, sending an unmistakable signal to President Putin. We are stepping up our collective efforts to disarm and defund Russia’s military industrial complex.»

It seems like a good news, but for the restoration of Ukraine about $500 billion was already needed as of February 2024, and this figure is growing every day. The collective West (mainly the EU) does not want to transfer all Russian assets (about $300 billion) to Ukraine, apparently for not undermining the confidence in the Western financial system in favor of the ruble and yuan, so they are only going to give the interest in the form of an advance of $50 billion. This is not bad for the continuation of hostilities, but not enough for Ukraine to win the war. Unfortunately, Russia will not stop its hostile actions towards Ukraine and other countries without an unambiguous defeat in the war.

Global summit on peace in Ukraine.

Global summit on peace succeeded and failed at the same time.
Ukraine was able to gather about 100 countries and organizations in its support to the forum in Switzerland, but China — a very important alley of Russia - did not send its delegation, and some other respected countries (India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates) did not sign the final communiqué, referring to Russia’s absence or Israel’s presence.

Mr. Zelensky’s agenda of only 3 issues (out of 10 points of the “peace plan” of Ukraine) was supported by 82 delegations. These were the basic issues of food security, nuclear and energy security, and the release of all captured and deported by Russia Ukrainians (adults and children). There was no longer talk at all about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. Who could be against this agenda? But... Somebody can.
In my opinion, the humanity is quickly losing its decency and sense of justice due to the abundance of information (or lies?). A large country invades the neighboring country, seizes a piece of its territory and after that offers “peace” on its own terms, and many other decent countries do not condemn that and do not sign the final document… Are they potential aggressors also or just “useful/harmful idiots”? This civilization should be destroyed.

And it will. The veneer of civility of the last 70 years is fading into oblivion and people are returning to what they always were - warring gangs of robbers and murderers, only now they have become of the size of Russia and some have nuclear weapons...

The elites of Ukraine continue to rob the country even during the war and force the people to fight.

Ukraine was managed by its elites from the very beginning of its “independence”, and the people served as the political scenery of the new “democratic” (in fact, oligarchic) country. After the collapse of the USSR the Ukrainian elites did not begin to build a strong independent state, as the Baltic nations did, but rushed to appropriate what was left of the USSR. The people passively watched all this, voted for “their” parties for some reason, split into parts and generally withdrew from decision-making process in the country. Only now the people became really needed: someone has to die in the war. The interests of the elites and the people in Ukraine have always been opposite.

Corruption was, is and, apparently, will always be in Ukraine.
People's Deputy of Ukraine Y. Zheleznyak says that “… These are all well-known illegal markets for tobacco, alcohol, fuel, gambling, smuggling, and “my favorite” — Energoatom (nuclear energy operator) ...” These are words of the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation, and Customs Policy who should know what he's talking about.
Mr. Zheleznyak also states that most of the country’s current budget deficit could be covered if these markets were eliminated, but... This is the inviolable business of the elites and therefore Ukraine will follow the old proven path - it will increase taxes. The country's presidents and elites change at the helm of the country, but corrupt schemes of their enrichment remain.


Some Ukrainians (perhaps, hundreds of thousands) do not want to fight for Ukraine now. This seems to be bad, but if citizens do not feel their obligation towards their Motherland (even if this is written in the Constitution), they do not have it and will not fight.
On the other hand, why should the people fight for the Ukrainian thievish elite which does not fight, but just makes money from the war?

War is a dirty and dangerous business. Soldiers have to be paid well and guaranteed (and paid!) large bonuses in the event of injury or death to the families of the killed. This is what the Ukrainian government is basically doing somehow (relatives of fallen soldiers have to receive about $400,000), but due to the large number of dead and the difficulty of identifying the bodies, the process is being delayed for months, if not years. All this adds to the reluctance of Ukrainians to go to the front. Patriotism alone is not enough in the third year of the war.

Therefore, the Ukrainian elites are now trying to force their citizens to fight with the help of a specially adopted law on mobilization. The law is unfinished and contradictory, but it nevertheless came into force on May 18, 2024. Now only 34% of Ukrainians approve it, and many men are simply hiding from mobilization. Therefore, the most effective way to replenish the Ukrainian army remains to catch citizens of military age on the streets:
«The mobilisation squads have a fearsome reputation, especially in Odesa, for pulling people off buses and from train stations and ferrying them straight to enlistment centres.»

Conclusions and prospects.

Unfortunately, with such an international contradictory attitude towards the war and the internal division of the nation, Ukraine will not return to the borders of 1991; it will have to give up part of its territory to the Russians and wait for the next invasion.

However, Mr. Putin may decide to take another idiotic/brilliant step.
He may try, using Belarusian (!) troops, to break through the Suwałki corridor from Belarus to the Kaliningrad region of Russia through the territory of Poland/Lithuania and thereby involve NATO in the war (if NATO is interested in protecting member countries).
This could happen soon - during the US presidential election, from early November 2024 to mid-January 2025. The United States will be paralyzed by its internal affairs, and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will become NATO Secretary General from October 1, 2024.
Mr. Rutte has been in big politics for a long time and earned the nickname «Teflon Mark» for his ability to avoid being tainted by scandals. From my point of view, he is a bad candidate (although all 32 NATO countries approved M. Rutte for that position) because Mr. Putin understands just the language of force and, unfortunately, it is necessary to conflict with him.

I think that Mr. Rutte (and the collective West) will think and deliberate for a very long time before striking Belarus in the event of an attack on Lithuania/Poland from its territory, and Russia will formally have nothing to do with that. Then a long and useless negotiation process will begin, where Russia with its nuclear weapons will support the legal right of Belarus (already having the nuclear weapons) to return its ancestral Belarusian lands from the possession of Lithuania and Poland. Everything, as always, will be “fair” and “in full compliance with the UN Charter”.

A nice plan. However, all this is possible in the event of defeat of the Ukrainian army before November 2024, so the collective West must pray that this does not happen. Russia will not fight on two fronts.


P.S. Perhaps, Mr. Putin will not win this war as he imagined that, but he will not lose it. And China which is very wisely waiting behind Russia’s back wins, too, as well as the “right of the mighty” now does.
The West does not realize that Mr. Putin is waging a war just against it (for now in Ukraine). Democracy is harmful during wartime and decline of the toothless democracy of the West will continue.