If Ukraine fails, the world will reap fatal consequences

post by Danylo Zhyrko · 2024-03-05T19:42:00.789Z · LW · GW · 14 comments

    This essay serves as a reminder of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which began in late February 2014 and escalated on February 24, 2022. The current situation at the frontline poses numerous challenges, with one of the most significant being ammunition starvation. President Zelenskyi highlighted this issue on February 26, 2024, stating that Ukraine had received less than a third of the one million artillery shells the European Union promised to deliver.

  Here, I am going to outline the potential outcomes of Ukraine's defeat may result in not only for Europe but also the world. This scenario becomes more plausible if the US and Europe do not supply it with a sufficient amount of ammunition, F16 jets, long-range weapons, ballistic missiles, battle tanks, and Bradley fighting vehicles to name but a few. In anticipation of European or US potential taxpayer discontent sounding like ‘Who has to carry all of this military aid financially?’, the true cost is borne by Ukrainians paying the highest price in the massive war, with their lives while no NATO or American combatant have died or been wounded, not including foreign volunteers.

  You, a reader, may ask me:

Why should the US and the EU supply Ukraine from their perspective?

• Should Ukraine fail, the likelihood of upcoming conflicts with Russia will rise. The recent war history of Russia is marked by several conflicts, including the Russo-Georgian War, the South Ossetian War, the War in Abkhazia, the Transnistria War, two Chechen wars, the Russo-Ukrainian War, and Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War. You may argue that none of these countries are NATO members, or it is NATO expansion that provoked Russia to invade Ukraine. Why should Europe and the US worry? The point is that Russia escalates conflicts, taking advantage of their consequences, including forced migration (subsequent social tensions), unstable political situation in the world (chaos breeds opportunities to advance one’s agenda), and a sense of impunity. Secondly, NATO could not have acted as an aggressor toward Russia’s security, for it is a purely defensive alliance. What I am trying to convey is that if Russia’s appetite for seizure is not suppressed in Ukraine, Europe, fatigued with its own issues, must face upcoming Russia’s military interventions as soon as Russia recovers from losses in Ukraine. Thus, European citizens are not mere observers but active participants in defending themselves from Russia as well.
• If Russia can afford to breach agreed borders (the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, signed in 1997, fixes the principle of the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders), annexing a significant portion of its neighbor’s territory (as of March 4, 2024, it amounts to ci. 18% of Ukraine or ci. 108.7 thousand km²) and slaughtering the people of neighbor’s nation, it sets a dangerous precedent. Other countries having territorial disputes are implicitly emboldened to follow Russia’s lead. It may well bring about a wave of conflicts worldwide, justifying invaders’ actions in the name of historical justice. If one country can use military force to cross borders unchallenged, what prevents others from doing the same?
• Russia’s influence over Europe is a matter of concern, particularly its lobbying of far-right parties for the interests of Russia. For instance, recent farmer protests across Europe, which have their grounded reasons, have been inflated to catastrophe proportions by pro-Russian elements.

Is the situation that Ukraine does not have Russian soldiers at its borders possible?

• The Armed Forces of Ukraine are pursuing a strategy to exhaust the Russian army. If the Russian forces lack sufficient manpower and logistical support, they are very likely not to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border. For the number of deaths in the Russian army to keep overweighing the number of deaths in Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel, Ukraine urges for ammunition and high-tech weapons. On February 25, 2024, President Zelenskyi revealed that the Ukrainian losses had amounted to 31,000, while there have been 180,000 Russian soldiers killed. By making simple calculations, you will learn that the death toll is 1:5.8. It means that almost 6 Russian soldiers die for 1 Ukrainian. Moreover, as of March 4, 2024, (this statistic is regularly renewed), Russian casualties are approximately a total of 417,950 troops, including both dead and wounded (read: the incapacitated). Nevertheless, the number of Russian combatants still exceeds the number of Ukrainian ones. To keep decreasing this number optimally, Ukrainian soldiers need military aid.

Is it expedient for Europe and the US to keep providing Ukraine with weapons if the war drags on for decades?

• If Ukraine acquires a required supply of weapons, it will enable Ukraine to reclaim its territories currently under Russia’s control, i.e. Donetsk, Luhansk, part of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia oblasts (regions), and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, in shorter time frames. The evidence is the disruption of the Russian plan to seize Kyiv, Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts in April 2022, the successful Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives, and attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea with the Russian Black Sea naval warfare damaged.

Why can’t Ukraine merely engage in negotiations with Russia?

• You must have heard this fictitious remark made by Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour. I quote, ‘You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.’ This metaphor underscores the futility of negotiating with an adversary who holds a significant advantage. Historically, Russia has repeatedly affirmed this quote by breaking treaties with Ukraine. The already referred Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, the Treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the Russian-Ukrainian State Border, signed in 2003, and the Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994, are cases in point. The Russian Federation had to respect Ukraine's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders in exchange for Ukrainian nuclear weapons. The Minsk agreements’ efficacy in regulating the conflict was left to be desired. What prevents Russia from breaking a newly coined agreement?

What if Russia's actions in Ukraine are driven by a desire to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from what it perceives as the mayhem of Ukrainian authorities?

  This question aims to consider the situation from Russia's perspective. While the objectives of the so-called 'special military operation' are not clearly defined, dictator Putin has many times mentioned denazification, demilitarization of Ukraine, and the protection of Russian-speaking populations. However, if Russia did care about the well-being of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians, it would not

• launch the largest war in Europe since WWII,
• erase such Ukrainian cities as Bakhmut, Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, Mariinka, Avdiiivka,
• express and make any wish to massacre the Ukrainians come true (namely the Bucha massacre, the shelling of civilian buildings, shooting at civilian vehicles),
• hold the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant hostage, committing nuclear terrorism,
• destroy the Kakhovka Dam that resulted in flooding many Ukrainian settlements and subsequent environmental damages,
• abduct Ukrainian children in an attempt to russify them.

Moreover, even if Russia were to conquer Ukraine, it would face significant economic challenges in rebuilding grabbed and destroyed cities considering the current situation with the Russian economy, as Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, writes.

  What is the actual drive of Russia in such a case?

  If Russia's special military operation is not aimed at protecting the rights of Russian-speaking people or preventing NATO expansion, what is the underlying reason for this war? The answer is a sense of superiority over the other nations and Ilyin and Dugin’s fascist ideology being nurtured in the Kremlin.

  If you think the hypothetical ideological preferences of the Kremlin elites is a dubious argument, I invite you to read Rashism or why russians are the new Nazi. It is a Vox Ukraine article where Vladlen Marayev, a Ukrainian historian, co-authored with Julia Bilyk, presented evidence for Russia being an actual fascist state, even though Ukrainians have been painted as neo-Nazis, Bandera-Nazis by Russian propaganda.

  List of arguments of why Russia is a Nazi dictatorship:

• Propaganda and rewriting of history
• Personality cult
• Symbols
• Genocide of other nations
• Ignoring international law
• Single-party system
• Close alignment of state and church
• Cementing the traditional gender roles
• Total control over media
• Unlimited impact of the enforcement services (police, special services)
• Blitzkrieg failures

  However, what we have learned from dictatorship is that it takes immense human effort to dismantle it. Its collapse is not inevitable. There is no goodness in itself that will contribute to it.

  Help Ukraine enable the process and save as many lives as possible.

14 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.