Summary
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that if Ukraine falls to Russia, the conflict could spread to European cities, as Putin might target the EU next.
Kuleba emphasized Ukraine’s NATO membership as critical to preventing future wars, dismissing security guarantees as insufficient.
He criticized potential peace settlements at Ukraine’s territorial expense, stressing the need for Moscow to negotiate in good faith.
Amid escalating attacks on Ukraine, Kuleba defended counter-escalation using U.S.-supplied weapons, while Trump criticized Biden’s support for strikes inside Russia.
Yeah this war has revealed just how strong Russia is not. They thought they would take Kiev in 3 days and have still not done so after 3 years. Ukraine + Syrian Rebels = too much for them, let alone 3 European nations.
Russia can just put in the minimum effort for a long time
That’s what they are trying to do, but they are spending 33% of their federal budget on it. For comparison, the US spends 13% of federal budget on its defense department.
Russia has also lost anywhere between 100k and 600k soldiers’ lives. At the low end it is already triple their total losses from their engagements in Chechnya and Afghanistan combined. At the high end, estimates are that 2% of the entire Russian adult male population has now been killed or wounded in this war. For comparison, America lost less than 60k soldiers in the entire Vietnam War.
Ukraine is an extremely attractive prize for Russia but how long can they sustain these losses, and the crippling sanctions, to attain some prize? Not forever.
Of course we can always come back and say that Ukraine has lost a similar amount and can afford it less. But Ukraine is fighting for their very existence so they can “afford” any amount.
Personally I think that they will hold out as long as western arms support does. That’s really the only thing on the Ukrainian side that could falter. And that’s probably what Russians are holding out for. Trump will likely fold and I don’t think Russia will settle for its current gains when that happens. Either they will continue hostilities as they are, make some breakthrough gains and then settle, or settle now and come back in 2 years to stir shit again. Either way, with their currency on fire and their war effort stagnating,Trump is Russia’s great hope right now.
It’s not because of anything but the US sending money and weapons to Ukraine, otherwise, they’d be done.
Yes western armaments have been key. I still think it’s telling that Russia cannot dominate a much smaller foe that’s working with an on-again / off-again pastiche of foreign armaments they aren’t always trained for.