Timothy Ash: What if Putin still wins?

Timothy Ash is a professional economist specializing in developing markets, in particular Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. "Dron" translates and publishes an opinion with the abbreviations with the permission of the author. The original publication is here .

A few months ago, the victory of the Russian Federation seemed incomprehensible, however, the incompetence of the West led to the fact that now it is quite possible to imagine the defeat of Kyiv and the collapse of Ukraine only because the Ukrainians have ended ammunition.

And it will be our fault, the fault of the whole West.

If we talk about Western politicians who make decisions, then these are the same people who incorrectly interpreted all Putin’s actions over the past decade or even longer. They failed then and fail again.

Helping Ukraine in this war, they always thought more about the defeat of Russia, instead of developing a Ukrainian victory strategy.

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They minimally provided Kyiv what he needed to just survive, and not win. Reluctantly transferring the Javelin, Stinger, Himars systems to Ukraine, T72 and Leopard tanks, MiG and F16 fighters. But invariably too little and too late.

I observe this picture against the background of the debate about the use of frozen Russian assets. If we want Ukraine to win, then we do not have another alternative, except to give it everything you need, that is, all $ 330 billion. At the moment we are not financing Ukraine sufficiently so that it can defeat or even protect itself.

I believe that the consequences of the victory of Russia will be destructive for Europe, for the euro and for the long -term world and stability in Europe.

What will the victory of the Russian Federation mean:

- Colossal migration from Ukraine - tens of millions of people will move west. This will lead to deformation of the socio-economic system of Europe. Migration will stimulate nationalism, populism and fascism in Europe. And this is exactly what Putin wants - a complete defeat of Western liberal market democracy. Putin has already “bought” Republicans in the United States and will continue to “buy up” European politicians - Orban, Fitz, Le Pen, Vilders, AFD party in Germany and Reform UK in the UK, etc.

- What remains of Ukraine? Her remains, if Putin does not take her all in his hands, will form an incompetent state, while the best armed in Europe. She will project instability, and Putin will use this to complete his conquests.

- Putin will not stop in Ukraine - he will use NATO weakness to enter the Baltic states and threaten Poland, etc. Most likely, he will strive to expand control over Transcaucasia and Central Asia. He annexes Northern Kazakhstan.

- The costs of defense of NATO countries/Europe will grow in a spiral. An additional 1-2% of GDP will be added. This is about 100-200 billion dollars in addition to defense in Europe.

- The euro collapses due to the threat of security, wars in Europe and an increase in defense costs.

Meanwhile, European politicians are too focused on listening to the interests of Western business, which has long accepted the Putin’s forty srebrenics and does not prevent lobbying from organizations such as EuroClear. Let me remind you that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation was the Client of EuroClear all the time that Russian assets have been immobilized, that is, even after the annexation of Crimea and the Russian invasion of the Donbass in 2014.

Why are we listening to such organizations?

After all, we are talking about the main interests of NATO and European National Security.

In Europe, a crisis began. Putin is an existential threat to NATO, EU, Europe and Western liberal market democracy as a whole. He threatens us and our own way of life. [Chancellor of Germany Olaf] Scholtsu, [Chairman of the European Central Bank Christine] Lagarda and it is time for others to wake up.