White Elephant Called "Ukraine"

In modern usage, the term “white elephant” refers to an extremely expensive project that fails to deliver on its function and/or becomes very costly to maintain.
According to one source the term was popularized in 19th century following a showman P. T. Barnum’s experience with an elephant named Toung Taloung that he billed as the "Sacred White Elephant of Burma". After much effort and great expense, Barnum finally acquired the animal from the King of Siam only to discover that his "white elephant" was actually dirty grey in color with a few pink spots.

It seems that Ukraine has become the “white elephant” for the West which “is extremely expensive project that fails to deliver on its function and/or becomes very costly to maintain.” Both the West and the Ukrainians are to blame for this.

The mistake of the collective West.

The West should have immediately after Russia's attack on Ukraine:
1. not been afraid of Putin's nuclear threats (if they had already decided to help) and given any weapons to Ukraine without restrictions on their use, given the Ukrainians the Russian assets frozen in the West (around $320 billion), turned off SWIFT, immediately introduced the toughest sanctions against Russia and monitored their implementation by all allied countries, refused Russian oil and gas and closed at least the northern straits for the so-called "shadow fleet" of Russia;
or
2. not interfered at all.

However, the collective West, led by the US and the elderly president Biden, took the third path: it inconsistently helped Ukraine, was too cautious, thinking that it was managing the process, and missed the initiative, time and a good opportunity to defeat Russia by the hands of Ukrainians. If the West's goal was not to punish Putin for aggression, defend Ukraine and the democratic principles, but to bleed Russia dry (and Ukraine, too), then everything has been done correctly.

As a result, everything has become much worse now, the “white elephant” called Ukraine is becoming more and more expensive to maintain, everyone is tired of the war and it turns out that around 500 thousand Ukrainians (and approximately the same number of Russians) died in vain. If the West had refused to help Ukraine right away, it would have been captured by Russian troops in a couple of months, yes, but the number of killed and wounded people would have been many times less.
After all, human life is considered to be the most important value, isn't it?

Ukraine's misfortune.

However, the problem is not only and not so much in the indecisive, tolerant and divided West, but in Ukraine itself which from the very beginning of its “independence” (1991) was also divided into the elites and the people pursuing different goals. Ukrainian people have not been able to curb their arrogant elites who are now shamelessly profiting from the war and pushing the people to fight instead of them. The people see this and hide from the army, the patriotic volunteer soldiers have almost all died, wounded or tired and do not want to fight for others. Even a merciless war could not bring the nation together. In the end, Ukraine is losing the war and can only count on the goodwill of Mr. Trump and a shaky truce on Mr. Putin’s terms (or almost on his terms).
Ukraine was and remains an object, not a subject of the global politics. Therefore, it was doomed to become a "white elephant" one day.

The thievish mentality of the Ukrainian elites has not changed during last 30+ years, but they are the ones who make decisions for the entire nation. The ignorant people do not like how they live, but are forced to participate, so the country as a whole behaves inappropriately. I have been observing Ukraine for many years and it reminds me of an imbecile. Outwardly, it seems to have everything like any other country - borders, Сonstitution, government, people, democracy, army, courts, businesses, but all this together works poorly and it becomes clear that it is an imbecile. Why and how this happened I explained in several of my articles, in particular here.

And here is another conclusion I made many years ago: it is useless to help an imbecile because he is inadequate and “his right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.” He will crack nuts with a microscope and light a cigarette with a $100 bill. He is nothing but trouble, and must first become “normal.” This is exactly what IMF, World Bank, EU and USA are trying to achieve with Ukraine, but for that the national mentality has to be changed which only ordeals and time can make.

Wasted energy.

Even large amounts of money spent by the West on aid to Ukraine often fail to achieve the stated goals or are simply stolen.

1. Recently, a good Ukrainian journalist, Y. Butusov, conducted his investigation into the arming and training in France of the 155th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces «Anne of Kyiv» (named after a Kyiv princess who became queen of France in 1051). The aid was blessed by French President Macron himself.

Mr. Butusov found out that:
- a brigade of about 2,000+ men underwent training for several months in France and the French side provided everything necessary, including heavy weapons. France allocated 900 million euros for all this.
- During the training in France, more than 60% of the brigade were new recruits, and experienced soldiers for some reason were sent to replenish other units before the trip.
- At the time of being sent to France, the brigade already had about 10% of AWOL (“Absent Without Official Leave”, when servicemen leave their military units).
- During the training, about 50 Ukrainian soldiers deserted and are now probably somewhere in France. In this regard, the French authorities rightly raised the question of the seriousness of the Ukrainians' attitude to the implementation of such an expensive project.
- While the 155th Brigade and its commanders were in France, the Ukrainian military leaders replenished the brigade with several thousand recruits in Ukraine, and 700 of them immediately went AWOL.
- After returning from France, the “trained” soldiers met the reinforcements, but had no time to meet the commanders, and the 155th Brigade, consisting of around 4,500 people, was sent to the front line near Pokrovsk.
- Before the brigade fired its first shot, about 1,700 (!) soldiers have gone AWOL.

Now the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine launched an investigation that would most likely not change anything in essence. Y. Butusov made his conclusion: “The servicemen of the 155th brigade became hostages of Zelensky’s PR project which the authorities treated in reality incompetently and irresponsibly.” The French must be very offended: it turns out that for their 900 million euros Ukraine acquired a "white elephant" - the 155th brigade. And it is going to acquire more, because here the Ukrainian mentality says: "Why not take it if it is granted?"

2. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is going to purchase the gas-fired power plants on its own trading platform. Ukraine was not trusted with this. Why? Apparently, because the EBRD knows from its own experience that Ukrainians will buy the wrong thing, in the wrong time, from the wrong people, and will also steal half of the funds, so it is easier to give them the final product. How will they steal? As it is usually done in Ukraine (see point 3).

3. A large state-owned enterprise, Ukrhydroenergo, awarded a UAH 4.4 billion ($110 million) contract to build protection for the destroyed Dnipro hydroelectric power station to a little-known «Adamant» company which had not yet completed several previous contracts. Everything happened without open bidding and an estimate was closed to publication. The «Adamant» company is associated with former member of Parliament and head of the state construction company “Ukrbud” Maksym Mykytas, who is involved in four criminal cases in Ukraine and is currently under the investigation.
Politics and crime have become tightly intertwined in Ukraine (like in Russia) long ago and the country cannot free itself from this heritage.

The IMF's "carrot" and Mr. Putin's "stick" do not work in Ukraine.

There are many such examples in Ukraine and they are very upsetting for Ukrainians and all those who help them. And really, why help if much will be stolen, resold or even simply misused? And I would be very upset, too, if I saw all this, but I left Ukraine because I understood that it would be impossible not to get upset there. If you get involved with a fool, you will end up being a fool. That’s why I "disconnected" like many other Ukrainians did. I don't want to participate in stupidity or outright looting, and I feel very sorry for those normal people who stayed in Ukraine and continue to be terribly upset that everything is going wrong.

Actually, it is very simple. The Ukrainian elites have always worked only for their own pockets, and therefore against Ukraine and its people. It's sad that the blind Ukrainians themselves elect these elites, and then get upset, but that's Ukrainian “democratic” reality.
I have long noticed that the main driver of reforms and the force that unites Ukrainians are not the elite or the people of Ukraine, but the International Monetary Fund and now Mr. Putin with his war. But even they have not succeeded yet; Mr. Putin’s “stick” and the IMF’s “carrot” do not work and Ukraine remains a totally corrupt and divided country. The IMF mission, after visiting Ukraine in September 2019 (after Mr. Zelensky became president), has made the following conclusion: «Growth is held back by a weak business environment—with shortcomings in the legal framework, pervasive corruption, and large parts of the economy dominated by inefficient state-owned enterprises or by oligarchs—deterring competition and investment».

Since then, almost nothing has changed in the country, despite the war. On the contrary, the war has exposed the main and, apparently, insurmountable shortcomings of Ukraine. This is why the country is not accepted into the EU and NATO. The mentalities are too different.

Similarities and differences in mentalities.

I see that the thievish mentality of the Ukrainian elites (which, I must say, has penetrated deep into the broad masses of the people) is much closer to the bandit mentality of the Russians than to the liberal mentality of the Europeans and Americans.

Mr Putin probably knew that when he started the war, but he missed the changes in the mentality of the Ukrainian people after the Orange Revolution (2004-2005) and especially the Revolution of Dignity (2014). That's why he made a mistake when decided to return Ukraine to Russia's zone of influence by force in 2022. Well, he could have taken Crimea in 2014 and wait quietly, plotting against Ukraine and the West, and continuing to trade oil and gas without problems, restrictions and sanctions. However, knowing the corrupt Ukrainian elites well, Mr. Putin rightly expected to seize Ukraine “within 3 days” in February 2022, and he would have succeeded if Ukrainian patriots in the army and volunteers had not intervened, and the West had not helped with weapons.

Now the third year of the war is ending, there are few patriots left in Ukraine, the elites do not fight and keep making money from the war, the rest of the Ukrainians see this and avoid the army, the country is in disarray, the West is tired of all this and wants peace at any cost.
The war may well end in a ceasefire in 2025 that will be far from satisfactory to either side of the conflict, so there are no guarantees of subsequent peace. However, what I am sure of is that no matter how the war in Ukraine ends, the West will regret its involvement. If you get involved with a fool, you will end up being a fool.
A «white elephant» is an expensive pleasure, especially when it “fails to deliver on its function”.