On 5 July, writing about the leadership problems of the Great West, from Macron to Biden, I said: “US President Biden is one step away from capitulation.”

Capitulation has happened. There are major political shifts taking place in America, both in the short term and in the long term. It is difficult to predict what they will bring. In the short term, only one thing is clear – Kamala Harry is predictable, Donald Trump is unpredictable.

Whatever the outcome of the elections in the United States, the key questions to be answered throughout the transatlantic community, and especially in the European Union, will remain the same: Ukraine and the Russian war. Only they may become even more acute. And they will require us to have clear arguments, which we need to start making now.

Looking at the whole picture, and in particular at the political debate in the United States, but also in the European Union and in Ukraine itself, there are two fundamental debates to be prepared for: a) on the scope and duration of Western military support for Ukraine, and b) on the terms and consequences of peace talks with Russia, both for Ukraine itself and for Russia and the West as a whole.

This debate could lead to major geopolitical shifts around the world, both in the East and in the West.

The two topics are closely interlinked: declining Western military support for Ukraine will inevitably force Ukraine to the negotiating table on terms that are unfavourable to it. The consequences of such negotiations will be catastrophic for both Ukraine and the West.

ON MILITARY SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE AND ON WESTERN CAPITULATION

On the American side, and especially in the Trump camp, it is often argued that the US should stop its military support for Ukraine, because the European Union should bear the entire burden of such support. And anyway, it is a hopeless business to provide Ukraine military support, because Russia will still produce more artillery shells than the West can produce. Therefore, according to those who talk like this, the only way forward is to do what Mr Trump is promising to do, which is to end the war in one day, by some miracle. This is how the fundamental difference is formulated: weapons and a costly war or a mystical peace without weapons.

And the main argument for the second option is very simple: there are no weapons in the West and there will be none. This argument most consistently was made by Senator J.D. Vance (now Trump’s choice for Vice President) in his famous speech to the US Senate this year. His main argument is that US industry has moved to China and that the US is therefore incapable of producing either the number of artillery shells or the number of air defences needed to defeat Russia in Ukraine.

Such arguments, combined with strong oratorical skills, sound impressive and convincing enough at the beginning. But very soon you realise their capitulatory shift.

Talks of the US or the European Union not being able to produce the number and type of weapons needed for Ukraine’s victory are in no way consistent with simple economic facts: the combined economic potential of the US and the European Union is 25 times stronger than Russia’s potential. The West produces a surplus of top-quality cars, passenger and military aircraft, and is on an unstoppable drive into the vastness of outer space, all of which is technologically and economically beyond the reach of the aggressor, Russia. Therefore, from an economic point of view, the explanation that the West is incapable of producing as many weapons as it needs sounds completely unconvincing. The only logical argument could be that if the West lacks the production of some weapons today, then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow that production must have already been developed.

Obviously, there are other (non-economic) reasons why such arguments are being put forward in the West: a general lack of understanding of the importance of the Ukrainian war; a lack of basic political will and leadership (“it’s no skin off my nose”); the fear that losing the war could make Russia more dangerous than it is today.

Each of these reasons can be analysed separately and in depth, but the kind of in-depth analysis that Western pundits love to engage in makes it easy to escape from the main, simple conclusion: if the West is unable to produce and supply Ukraine with enough weapons to force Russia to pull out of Ukraine, it will only mean that the West, despite the West’s economic power, is politically and geopolitically weaker than Russia. If it is weaker than Russia, that means it is also weaker than China. It would be difficult to understand why, in the face of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the West is incapable of producing the necessary weapons, but in the face of China’s aggression against Taiwan, it would already be capable of doing so. Moreover, if the West is not capable of repelling Russian aggression in Ukraine, why should Lithuanians believe that the West would be able to do so in the event of Russian aggression against Lithuania?

Capitulation by the West, and by the US in particular, to Russian aggression in Ukraine would only weaken the geopolitical potential of the US and encourage aggression not only from Russia but also from China. The shift towards capitulationist thinking in the West on Ukraine would be a shift towards the defeat of the fundamental geopolitical interests of the West, including the US.

ABOUT CAPITULATORY PEACE

The increasingly loud talk in the West about peace talks, diplomatic solutions and a mystical end to the war in one day is a “beautiful” continuation of the same arguments for not giving arms to Ukraine: we don’t need to give arms because we don’t have them and we can’t make them, and besides, arms only delay peace, and peace is the most important humanistic goal, no matter by what the means and with what consequences. We hear such arguments with increasing frequency. The apologists for such a peace do not explain how and under what conditions such a peace can be achieved, because it is enough for them to say that it can be achieved by diplomatic means. But it is clear that behind the so-called “humanist” arguments there is a simple logic: Ukraine must hand over the occupied territories to Russia, and in return, Russia will promise to cease its aggression, as if this will save thousands of lives and preserve the destruction of cities.

Putin will see such a peace as a victory for him and will treat it as a surrender by the West.

Any alleged commitment by Putin to guarantee the inviolability of the remaining territories of Ukraine will be completely null and void, like Hitler’s promises not to touch the remaining territory of Czechoslovakia after Chamberlain and Daladier promised to give up the Sudetenland to Hitler at the Munich Peace Conference (the real name of the “Munich Agreement”). Six months later, Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, despite his earlier promise.

If not stopped in Ukraine, Putin will behave just like Hitler. Only in this case, the “new Hitler” of the 21st century will have been created by the West, by choosing the path of conscious or unconscious capitulation.

Putin will become ten times more aggressive after such a “peace” and the Russian victory. And he will choose new targets in the neighbourhood. Putin will certainly not become a peace dove. China will take its cue from Russia and consider the West to be just as politically and geopolitically weak. The West’s geopolitical weakness has so far only served to strengthen the aggressiveness of an authoritarian Russia or China.

Peace is absolutely necessary for Ukraine and Europe. But not just any peace. A Western capitulatory peace with Putin on Putin’s terms would not be a peace for Ukraine, but an incitement to Putin’s aggression. It would only fan the flames of war even further.

The West must finally realise that a real peace with an undefeated Putin is impossible, especially if there is a capitulatory slide towards peace on Putin’s terms.

HOW TO AVOID CAPITULATION SHIFT?

It is now 2.5 years since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The West has had enough time to wake up to the fact that Putin’s Russia is the greatest threat to European security, and to reflect on what strategy to pursue in this war. Unfortunately, no clearer strategy has emerged so far. Or no one is naming one.

Simple common sense tells us that if you are attacked by an enemy who is your greatest threat, your strategy can only be threefold: a) capitulate and surrender; b) defend and wait for the enemy to tire; and c) attack and destroy the threat yourself.

So far, despite the plethora of strong and loud statements and visits to Kiev, the West has essentially balanced only between the first two options: some have suggested that Ukraine should not be armed and that it should pursue a capitulatory peace; others have looked for ways to help Ukraine defend itself. And all the military support given so far has been just enough to barely allow Ukraine to defend itself.

Why is Ukraine not receiving more support?

It is not because the West is economically incapable of providing such support. I have already written about this.

My answer is that it is only because the West still does not dare to have a strategy for attacking and destroying the threat. And in the West they themselves are getting tired of their own timidity and their own political and leadership impotence. And, feeling increasingly tired of their impotence, they themselves are moving closer and closer to capitulation without noticing it.

This summer must be the “last summer” in which the West still lives without such an offensive strategy. If the West does not soon develop a strategy of destroying the threat and attacking it, it will have to start calculating which summer will be the “last summer” for the West.

The threat of Putin’s Russia can be eliminated, first and foremost, if Putin’s regime falls. Let us dare to talk about the fact that the West’s strategic objective with regard to Russia is a “regime change” in the Kremlin, which will be implemented by the Russians themselves, but only the West can create the conditions for this if it defeats Putin in Ukraine.

The capitulatory shift in the West will only be halted if the West finally starts to shift towards a strategy of destroying the threat. The West must finally realise that Russia and Putin are on a long-term path of self-destruction that could be bloody and dangerous for everyone around them, while Russia, which the West would help to free from Putin, would have the opportunity to become a normal state.

Lithuania has the potential to influence Western strategic thinking. But to do so, it needs to be able to think strategically itself. And to act. Otherwise, we will inadvertently find ourselves in a capitulatory shift, occasionally still repeating in the standard way that we support Ukraine, that we are concerned and that we condemn Putin. The West, too, will do exactly the same thing when it finds itself in a capitulatory shift.

We need to learn to swim against the tide…

The easy way is not our way!

Source: ELP

A destroyed tank is seen on a road, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv Region, Ukraine May 16, 2024. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

In the coming weeks, the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, the G7 Summit in Italy, the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, and the jubilee NATO Summit in Washington DC will all offer opportunities for the international community to reinforce its support for Ukraine. These high-profile events should also serve as a chance to take stock. With no end in sight to Russia’s genocidal invasion, Kyiv’s Western partners must define the endgame of their support for Ukraine. Is it Ukrainian victory or merely Ukrainian survival?

Why does the West not have a coherent victory plan? How long can Ukraine be expected to sustain the current war effort if the country only receives sufficient military aid to survive? Is the latest US aid package enough to secure Ukrainian victory? Is Europe doing enough to enforce sanctions, confiscate Russian assets, and supply advanced weapons systems like Taurus missiles? These are just some of the key questions Ukraine’s partners should be asking themselves in the coming weeks.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Putin’s Russia poses a direct threat to the global security system and to a sustainable peace in Europe. The outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine will define the future security framework on the European continent for decades to come. If the West provides Ukraine with the support it needs to win the war, this victory will secure peace not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe. Russian defeat could also spark a political transformation inside Russia and help undermine the country’s aggressive imperial ambitions.

The consequences of Russian success in Ukraine would be equally far-reaching. If the West continues to demonstrate weakness in Ukraine and supports calls for some kind of ceasefire or negotiated settlement, Russia will claim an historic victory and will become even more internationally aggressive. This aggression will not be limited to Ukraine, and will be targeted against the whole Western world.

Nor will the Kremlin be acting alone. On the contrary, Russian victory over the West in Ukraine would embolden the Alliance of Autocracies that has emerged in recent years, bringing together Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. While further Russian aggression is likely to focus on Europe, Putin’s fellow autocrats will be encouraged to embrace their own expansionist agendas elsewhere.

This is why the international community needs to accept that only Ukrainian victory can open the door to a sustainable peace, both for Ukraine and the wider world. Any attempt to reach a compromise peace agreement with Putin would not only hand Russia victory and allow Moscow to continue occupying entire regions of Ukraine; it would also be a dangerous repetition of the 1938 Munich Conference, which had such tragic consequences for the entire international community. The British and French leaders who agreed to hand Hitler part of Czechoslovakia in Munich also hoped they were securing peace. Instead, they were setting the stage for World War II. Europe cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

At present, the West appears to be split into two main camps over the issue of how to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One camp recognizes the importance of Ukrainian victory for European security, and sees Russian defeat as its clear goal. These countries are committed to supporting the Ukrainian war effort and refuse to rule out sending troops to defend Ukraine if necessary.

The other camp favors a negotiated settlement and typically frames this readiness to compromise with the Kremlin as a desire for peace. Such posturing is intellectually dishonest. After all, nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians themselves. However, Ukrainians understand that peace cannot be secured by offering territorial concessions to the Putin regime that would abandon millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of permanent Russian occupation. They know that accepting a ceasefire without victory would make it impossible to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.

Crucially, Ukrainians also recognize that unless Putin is defeated, he will inevitably go further. Encouraged by the impunity of a ceasefire agreement, Russia would use any pause in hostilities to rearm and prepare for the next phase of its war against Ukraine and the West. This would create dangers similar to the threat faced by the Allies during World War II, when Churchill and Roosevelt warned against a premature peace and instead declared the goal of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. Today’s Western leaders must now recognize that offering Putin a ceasefire will not bring about a lasting peace. Instead, it will pave the way for more war.

Future Western support for Ukraine must be built around a clear and unambiguous commitment to Ukrainian victory. This is currently missing. When Western leaders and policymakers gather in the coming weeks, the need to work toward a Ukrainian victory should be at the very top of the agenda. Meanwhile, Ukrainians must continue to explain the difference between a temporary ceasefire and a lasting peace. In 2023, Ukrainian civil society experts did their part by developing their own vision, which was outlined in the Sustainable Peace Manifesto, describing the importance of bringing Russia to justice and providing Ukraine with unambiguous security guarantees.

After more than ten years of Russian military aggression against Ukraine, it is time for Kyiv’s partners to learn the lessons of this war and avoid falling into further Russian traps. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, it did so under a veil of deniability using so-called “little green men,” or Russian soldiers without insignia. A decade later, Russia is now openly waging the largest European invasion since World War II, and is supported by an alliance of fellow tyrannies who share the Kremlin’s goal of destroying the rules-based international order. Russia is now attacking Ukraine with Iranian drones and North Korean missiles, while receiving military supplies and vital economic support from China. If the West is unable to counter this growing threat, it will forfeit its position at the heart of the international security architecture and be replaced by the rising authoritarian powers.

In 2014, Western leaders were naive enough to expect a diplomatic solution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It should now be painfully obvious that such hopes were unrealistic. Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine engaged in more than 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia, but this failed to prevent the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Even while talks continued, Russia made its genocidal intentions clear with relentless propaganda denying the existence of the Ukrainian nation and dehumanizing Ukrainians. This genocidal rhetoric has since been implemented in practice by Putin’s invading army, with well-documented massacres in places like Bucha and Izium, mass abductions and forced deportations, and the eradication of all symbols of Ukrainian national identity in areas under Russian occupation. While the international community sees what is happening in Ukraine, most remain reluctant to accuse Russia of genocide as this would oblige them to act. But turning a blind eye cannot change the fact that we are witnessing a genocide in the center of twenty-first century Europe.

Everybody understands what is needed for Ukraine victory. They know how much Western military assistance is required, and exactly which weapons should be delivered. Everybody knows what sanctions, tribunals, and security agreements are necessary in order to establish a sustainable peace. At the same time, the leaders of the democratic world have yet to address why they have so far shied away from policies that could facilitate Ukrainian victory. The answer is very simple: Western leaders are still heavily influenced by the twin fears of a possible Russian escalation and a potential Russian collapse. In other words, they are unable to commit fully to Ukrainian victory because they are afraid of Russian defeat. This is now the greatest single obstacle to a sustainable peace in Europe.

Perhaps the best advice for Ukraine’s Western partners comes from Pope John Paul II, who said “be not afraid” as he led the fight for freedom and democracy in Central Europe during the 1980s. Europe must now overcome its fears once again if it is to safeguard the freedoms that define the continent. Sustainable peace cannot be achieved at the expense of justice. European security will remain elusive if Putin is allowed to gain from his aggression and consolidate his genocidal occupation of Ukrainian lands.

With the Russian invasion now in its third year, Ukraine’s partners must finally acknowledge that European security depends on Ukrainian victory. The sooner they develop and implement a strategy to achieve this victory, the more lives will be saved. Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win.

Source: AtlanticCouncil

The terrorist attack in outskirts of Moscow on March 22nd has brought back the debate about the future of Russia, what we need to prepare for and what kind of Western policy we should pursue.

We will only know who carried out this act of terror and what it was aimed at after some independent investigations by Belingcat, Insider or Christo Grozev. Until then, we will hear whatever the Kremlin wants to say and whatever confessions it wants to be made to the FSB interrogators, proving the alleged Ukrainian or Western footprint. Although most sources of information claim that this is the work of an ISIS offshoot, intuition tells us that it is unlikely to have been without the FSB’s involvement: the way the terrorists retreated in the same white Renault that they drove to the scene of the terror, and the way in which they were intercepted by the FSB, is more like a tragic “play”, poorly staged by the FSB, rather than a seriously prepared terrorist operation. In any case, the innocent victims are to be pitied, but this is the typical style of the Putin regime: they did not count the casualties in 1999, when the FSB bombed apartment blocks in Moscow. It is not only Lithuanians, who traditionally suspect the Kremlin of everything, but also solid German politicians who are speculating that this could be an FSB operation.

However, today it is worth examining not only who might have organised and carried out such a terrorist act and who might benefit from it, but also what long-term conclusions we need to draw and what kind of Western policy we need to pursue towards Russia.

On this occasion, I have tried to reiterate what I have said time and again: we must seek to finally consolidate an anti-Putin coalition in the West, with a clear anti-Putin strategy, in which the victory of Ukraine and the defeat of Russia must be the top priority.

This time, I have tried to put my thoughts into a coherent 12 points:

– What next: Russia’s trajectory is increasingly desperate and bloody, and heading towards North Korea.

We will see more and more of the Kremlin’s insane internal and external aggression; the Kremlin’s consistent policy is only more blood: bloody persecution of any opposition activity inside Russia and more and more bloody aggression, both against Ukraine and against anyone else outside Russia.

– The threat of export of terrorism from Russia. The threats to Lithuania will only increase. And not just the threat of a conventional war against Lithuania or of a nuclear strike on anyone in Europe, but above all the threat of the export of Russian terrorism to neighbouring countries will increase. No Article 5 of NATO Charter protects against this. We have not yet seen this, we have not seen massacres in city centre streets, cafés or bus bombings. We must prepare for it with much greater intensity than we have done so far, because neither tanks, nor drones, nor the German brigade will protect us from this.

– A different Russia is a Europe without a permanent threat.

The only guarantee of long-term security for us and for the whole of Europe against such a bloody Putin Russia is a different Russia and Belarus (without Putin and Lukashenko), which, after the transformation of the regime, might yet be able to become more normal states. Even if the likelihood of such a transformation is not high, we would be making a historic mistake if we did not make every effort to persuade the West to invest maximum resources in realising such a remote possibility.

– Neither the opposition, nor Maidans, nor “elections” will change the Kremlin regime.

No opposition or civil society in Russia or Belarus will be the trigger for such a transformation. Neither will the regime’s organised and controlled imitation of “elections” bring about change, nor will there be any Maidans in either Moscow or Minsk, because on the very first day of public protests, everyone will be shot or blown up without mercy. However, the current democratic opposition and civil society will play a special and indispensable role when the transformation of the regime begins and the way is opened for lasting positive change.

– The revolt in the Kremlin is the path to the beginning of change.

The only way to start the regime transformation is to revolt in or near the Kremlin. Possible organisers: Putin’s rivals within the Kremlin; a younger generation of oligarchs who are losing access to the usual financial flows linked to international markets; “patriotic” officers who might see Russia’s existential doom as a real threat, as predicted in a statement issued by the Russian Retired Officers’ Association on behalf of retired General Lev Ivashov as long ago as January 2022 (a month before the start of war).

– The lessons of history: change in Russia can only come through change in the Kremlin.

It is worth remembering that after Stalin’s death, Nikita Khrushchev “cleaned up” the Kremlin within 3 years, ousting L.Beria and other rivals and becoming the sole leader; in 1964 L.Brezhnev “cleaned up” Nikita Khrushchev inside the Kremlin and took over from him; in 1984, Mikhail Gorbachev, with the blessing of the previously deceased Andropov, took over from the Kremlin gerontocracy; in 1991 Gorbachev was almost democratically ousted by Boris Yeltsin, who had managed to dismantle the Soviet Union itself; thanks to the manipulations of the Kremlin “family”, in 2000 Putin took over from Yeltsin in Russia. All changes in Russia have so far started in the Kremlin. It is therefore most likely that Putin will be removed from power in the same Kremlin-ripe manner, or only after his natural death.

– The opportunity for change in the Kremlin will only come after the crushing victory of Ukraine.

In the short term, the window of opportunity for the Kremlin’s own efforts to bring about such a change in the Kremlin environment can only open after Ukraine’s victory over Russia. For the Putin regime to suffer a crippling blow and for the window of opportunity for change to open, Russia needs to lose the war in Ukraine in a crushing manner. And that requires the West to have a clear plan for achieving such a Ukrainian victory.

– Ukraine’s victory requires EUR100 billion of Western military support.

For Russia to suffer such a defeat in Ukraine, it would require a much larger (2-3 times larger than before) Western military support to reach Ukraine. This requires Western support for Ukraine to increase from the EUR 40 billion of Western military aid provided in 2023 to EUR 100 billion in one year already in 2024. The same and even more Western military support will be needed in 2025 and possibly even in 2026. The EU must plan for such support without waiting for the US to make up its mind. Each year, such EU support to Ukraine would amount to around 0.55% of EU GDP. The EU can realise such military support for Ukraine if it borrows on its own behalf on the markets, as it did at the beginning of the pandemic, when it borrowed on the markets EUR 800 billion (I wrote about this in a previous text).

– The West will only provide EUR 100 billion to Ukraine once it has overcome its fear of what will happen after the collapse of the Putin regime.

In order for the West to muster the political will to provide hundreds of billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine, it needs to ensure that the West is no longer afraid of Russia’s defeat in Ukraine and the possible collapse of Putin’s regime. The West needs to begin to see in the collapse of Putin’s regime the potential for positive change in Russia. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Putin regime is currently frightening many in the West with the uncertainty of what might happen in Russia after the collapse of the Putin regime. It seems to many that in such a case, there is a strong possibility that nationalists and enthusiasts for the restoration of the Russian empire who are even more frightening than Putin would take power in the Kremlin. Others feel that the collapse of Putin’s regime could lead to complete chaos in Russia, to the collapse of the state itself, to inter-regional and inter-ethnic bloody battles, and to the uncertainty of who will continue to control Russia’s nuclear weapons. Such fears, which prevail in the corridors of the West, are very unfavourable both for Ukraine and for our strategic ambition to achieve a clear victory for Ukraine, because if the collapse of Putin’s regime continues to be feared in the West, Russia’s significant defeat in Ukraine will also be feared, which means that Ukraine’s significant victory will be feared. And if the fear of the collapse of Putin’s regime also leads to a fear of a Ukrainian victory, then it will also lead to a fear of providing Ukraine with the number and type of weapons that would allow it to achieve such a victory.

– The Western strategy of “slow boiling of the frog” for Putin.

This is what we see today in the West’s behaviour: it gives Ukraine just enough military support to keep it from losing the war, but it is totally inadequate for Ukraine to win significantly. For such a Ukrainian victory would mean the crushing of Russia and the eventual collapse of the Putin regime. That is what the West fears. And that is why their strategy of support for Ukraine is simultaneously based on two diametrically opposed strategies: according to the West, on the one hand, Ukraine must not lose the war (but whether it must win to the extent of liberating all of its territories remains unclear); and, on the other hand, the West does not dare to say that Russia must lose this war painfully (which means that the West does not want Russia to lose either). Therefore, consciously or unconsciously, the West has so far pursued only a “slow boiling of the frog” strategy with regard to Russia: slowly increasing the supply of arms to Ukraine, in the hope that in the long run Putin will not even feel that he is “boiling” in the war he has started, and that any Kremlin uprising would then remove him from power. However, it is unclear which will “boil over” and collapse more quickly in the long term – the Putin regime or the political will of the West to support Ukraine. This “slow boiling of the frog” strategy in the West is a strategy of “not having any clear and consolidated strategy”, and this lack of a strategy could eventually lead to a complete catastrophe for the West, not to the collapse of the Putin regime. In order for the West to get out of the trap of the “slow boiling of the frog” strategy that it is pursuing, the West needs to be persuaded not to be afraid of what might happen in Russia after the collapse of the Putin regime. And this requires convincing the West that a positive transformation towards a normal and non-aggressive state can take place in Russia after Putin’s collapse. And for such a transformation to take place in Russia, it requires a consolidated and holistic Western strategy for this purpose, drawn up together with the Russian opposition and civil society.

– From a “slow-boiling” coalition to an “anti-Putin” coalition.

If the West is to have any more consolidated strategy for its action in this war, the first thing that must be achieved is that the “pro-Ukrainian” coalition that now exists in the West, although it is unable to clearly define its objectives, should dare to become an “anti-Putin” coalition. As Vladislav Inozemtsev, the Russian opposition analyst, very sensibly puts it, the victory over Hitler in World War II was achieved because the Nazis were not fought by a “pro-British” coalition, but by an “anti-Hitler” coalition that had clearly defined its aims and which in 1943 declared that it would seek Hitler’s unconditional defeat. So now, too, the democratic Western world must finally dare to join the “anti-Putin” coalition and seek the unconditional crushing of the Putin regime, at least in Ukraine. The creation of such an “anti-Putin coalition” is a prerequisite for the West to finally have the courage and the ability to pursue the unconditional victory of Ukraine and to invest the EUR 100 billion in it, without which it will never be achieved.

– For the Anti-Putin coalition – anti-Putin strategy.

European security requires a different Russia; it requires the collapse of the Putin regime, and it requires the victory of Ukraine, in which the West must invest as a long-term guarantee of its own security (not just Ukraine’s). For such an “anti-Putin” coalition to finally come together, its members need to stop fearing that an unconditional Ukrainian victory might also lead to the collapse of the Putin regime. This requires such an anti-Putin coalition to have an anti-Putin strategy for Russia, which not only includes ideas on how the West must invest in the victory in Ukraine in order to bring about the collapse of Putin’s regime, but also ideas on how the West must invest in preparing for future changes in Russia after the collapse of Putin, so as to ensure that those changes are positive. Therefore, the West’s anti-Putin coalition must involve the current Russian democratic opposition and civil society in its activities and in the development and implementation of its anti-Putin strategy, despite their weakness, fragmentation and immaturity. In this way, the anti-Hitler coalition began, before the end of the Second World War, to draw up a Western strategy for the development of post-Hitler Germany after Hitler’s defeat in the war, for the realisation of justice and the restoration of democracy, and for the development of the economy, so as to leave no room for political radicalism in the poverty-stricken society of post-war Germany. The same strategy must already be developed by the anti-Putin Western coalition.

– The West’s plan for lasting peace on the European continent is the West’s anti-Putin Russian strategy, subordinated to the West’s strategy for Ukraine’s victory and success.

Not so long ago, Mr J.Borell admitted in the European Parliament that the European Union did not have a Russian strategy before the outbreak of the war against Ukraine, because it was so heavily dependent on Russian gas, and that it did not have a Ukrainian strategy, because the EU’s strategy for Ukraine was subordinated to the EU’s strategy for Russia. Mr Borell believed that the end of the EU’s dependence on Russian gas could lead to the birth of a new EU strategy towards Russia. It is my conviction that such an EU strategy towards Russia must henceforth be subordinate to the EU strategy towards Ukraine. And the EU’s strategy for Ukraine must focus first and foremost on the victory of Ukraine and the crushing of Russia, but it must also include Ukraine becoming a member of the EU and NATO, because only that will create a long-term success for Ukraine, and that will be an inspiring example for ordinary Russians. That is the only reason why Putin launched the war against Ukraine – because he was afraid that it might become such a model of success. The West’s strategy towards Ukraine and Russia must aim both at a Ukrainian victory and at the fact that such a victory can be a trigger for positive change in Russia. This is the only way not only to the security of Ukraine, but also to the long-term peace and security of the whole of Europe.

Finally, I would like to reiterate the same 12 points, which should define not only the West’s response to Russia’s aggression, but also the Western policy that Lithuania should pursue by consistently bringing together like-minded people. It is not enough for us to be concerned only with our military security. Our security will be determined first and foremost by the victory of Ukraine and the West’s support for such a victory. We need to win the battles on the political front in the West in return for much greater Western support for Ukraine in order for Ukraine to win on the military front in the East and to crush Russia. These 12 points of the Western strategy are the main objective of our political battles on the Western front:

1. What’s next: Russia’s trajectory is increasingly desperate and bloody, and heading towards North Korea.
2. The threat of exporting terrorism from Russia; Article 5 of NATO Charter will not protect against terrorism.
3. A different Russia – a Europe without a permanent military and terrorist threat.
4. Neither opposition, nor Maidans, nor “elections” will change the Kremlin regime.
5. Revolt in the Kremlin is the path to change; the lessons of history: change in Russia can only come through change in the Kremlin.
6. Change in the Kremlin is only possible after Ukraine’s crushing victory.
7. Ukraine’s victory requires an annual Western military aid of EUR 100 billion.
8. The West will only provide EUR 100 billion to Ukraine once it has overcome its fear of what will happen after the collapse of the Putin regime.
9. The West’s prevailing “slow boiling of the frog” strategy for Putin.
10. From a “slow-boil” coalition to an “anti-Putin” coalition.
11. For an anti-Putin coalition – an anti-Putin strategy: European security needs a different Russia, it needs the collapse of the Putin regime, and it needs the victory of Ukraine, in which the West needs to invest as a long-term guarantee of its own (not only Ukrainian) security;
12. The West’s plan for lasting peace on the European continent is the West’s anti-Putin Russian strategy, subordinated to the West’s strategy for Ukraine’s victory and success.

Both I and my colleague Rasa Juknevičienė, representing Lithuania in the European Parliament, have consistently sought to ensure that the European Union formulates its short-term and long-term policy towards Ukraine and Russia in line with these 12 points. But Lithuania’s efforts in the European Parliament alone will not be enough to consolidate a clear anti-Putin coalition in Europe with an equally clear anti-Russian strategy in the name of a Ukrainian victory in the short term. The task of establishing such an anti-Putin coalition with an anti-Putin strategy needs to be carried out in all Western capitals, mobilising like-minded people and dispelling Western fears about what will happen to Russia after the collapse of the Putin regime following the defeat of Russia in war. This must be done on behalf of Lithuania, not only by the Members of the European Parliament, but also by the Government and the President of the Republic, who is unfortunately now concentrating more on visiting Lithuanian municipalities than Western capitals. The efforts of the Lithuanian public to encourage Lithuanian politicians to form such a coalition must be as enthusiastic as the efforts to achieve 4% of GDP for Lithuanian defence.

The anti-Putin coalition’s immediate task is to mobilise EUR 100 billion of Western military support to achieve a Ukrainian victory. Without such support, there will be no Ukrainian victory, and without a Ukrainian victory, the whole of Europe will end up where it was in 1938 after the Munich Agreement. The only question remains who will be the next victim if Ukraine is sacrificed in the same way that Czechoslovakia was sacrificed in Munich in 1938.

Our defence begins with the victory of Ukraine – we must never forget that. And that must be our top priority.

Source: ELP

The year 2023 ended in Lithuania with apocalyptic predictions that everything is bad – Ukraine is losing, it does not know how to fight, Russia is winning and will soon come to us, and the West is betraying us all. And we are the only ones who know how to do everything, but nobody listens to us.

I am hyperbolizing a bit, but the end of the year sounded like this…

We are not special – in today’s world of instant global communication and rapid change, it is common for societies to swing from a wave of over-optimism to a black pit of pessimism very quickly.

HOW CAN WE OVERCOME OUR PESSIMISM AND STOP THE KREMLIN ENJOYING IT?

We have to admit that at the beginning of last year, many of us were hoping for a quick victory for Ukraine, and when we did not get it, we were tempted, without thinking too much, to compete to see who could paint a blacker and more desperate scenario for the future. In the darkness of the long winter nights, pessimism becomes a new dangerous pandemic, because our and all the West’s disbelief in the possibility of a different outcome, of the victory of Ukraine eventually leads very quickly to the Kremlin’s longed-for mood of “fatigue” and “acceptance of reality” in our midst. Obviously, if this mood is allowed to prevail, Ukraine will receive even less support from the West.

So, it is worth answering a simple question for ourselves: if the Kremlin benefits from our emotional pessimism and apocalyptic predictions, is it really wise for us to indulge in such black pessimism indiscriminately and to encourage it even more ourselves?

The desire not to succumb to global pessimism does not mean that we do not need to see what is happening on the ground: Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion has entered a new phase in which there are no immediate victories for Ukraine in liberating its territory. The war may last longer than we expected a year ago. However, this also does not mean that Russia’s victory in this war is imminent.

In order to overcome our own pessimistic pandemic, we must first of all realize that the only inoculation that can protect us from such a pandemic is not the fountain of over-optimistic sentiment that opposes general pessimism, but only a much deeper rational analysis, based on facts, figures, and reason (but not on emotion). Meanwhile, we are still not used to such analyses, even after becoming a frontier state. It is about time…

It is worth starting such a rational analysis with simple, basic questions: firstly, about the political will of the West, and secondly, about the material capacity of the West to realize this political will.

DOES THE WEST WANT RUSSIA TO WIN THE WAR?

The first question in this series of questions is quite primitive: why has Ukraine, which is supported by a West that is dozens of times richer than Russia, not yet won the war, and why is this war turning into a continuing conflict?

I provided a numerical answer to this question a good month ago in my text “On the Reality of War”: despite the fact that the West is economically much stronger than Russia, Russia has spent more than EUR100 billion on financing the war in 2023, while Ukraine, with all the support of the EU and the US, has mobilized only EUR80 billion. Ukraine spent 25% of its GDP on the war effort, Russia almost 6%, while EU military aid amounted to only 0.075% of its total GDP. Thus, on the front line, the West’s economic advantage has not yet been seen, and therefore Ukraine is so far receiving only the kind of support from the West that allows it to remain undefeated, but is not enough to achieve victory.

This raises a second simple question: if the West does not support Ukraine to the extent that Ukraine can win, is it possible that the West, on whose support Ukraine’s ability to win this war depends, want Russia to win this war?

I do not have the capacity to delve into the depths of the thinking of the leaders of the democratic world, especially the leaders of Western Europe, but I do not see any rational argument why they should want and seek to see Russia win this war. On the contrary, the fears of Western leaders that a Russian victory over Ukraine would only mean that in a few years’ time, Russia would turn its aggression against one of the NATO countries – Finland, Estonia, or Lithuania – are becoming more frequent in public discourse. My personal hunch is that an increasing number of Western leaders now similarly see the danger of a “peace under Putin”, in which Ukraine would be forced to give up part of its territory, which would only mean a victory for Putin and the prospect of imminent future aggression.

It is likely that some Western leaders are wary of the prospect of a quick and crushing victory for Ukraine, either because they fear that the Kremlin would respond with an unpredictable escalation of its aggression, or because they fear that such a Ukrainian victory would result in the collapse of the Putin regime and the frightening uncertainty of who will take over the Kremlin after Putin. However, such fears, even if they exist, cannot explain why the West should want a Russian victory.

This leads to the rational conclusion that there are no Western leaders who want Russia to win this war. There is no logical argument as to why a Russian victory, followed by a new wave of Russian aggression, would be of any benefit to the West. And since the West is also likely to be increasingly aware that a Russian victory would probably mean an inevitable increase in Chinese aggressiveness against the “weak” West and Taiwan too, this makes it even less likely that anyone in the West would think that a Russian victory in Ukraine would be of any benefit to the West.

Some might say that the West, even if it perceives that a Russian victory in Ukraine is not only disadvantageous to it but even highly threatening to them, may remain indifferent to the fate of Ukraine. But those who would think so, would be assuming that Western leaders are simply unwise, and that the only wise people in the entire Western world are us. Such an assumption on our part would say nothing good about our own wisdom.

The answers to the first two basic questions lead to a simple conclusion about the political will of the West: there is no indication that the West wants Russia to win this war; however, the West’s support for Ukraine until now has enabled Ukraine only not to lose, but not to win the war.

FROM SUPPORT FROM WAREHOUSES TO SUPPORT FROM MILITARY INDUSTRY FACTORIES

Having concluded that the lack of Western support for Ukraine is not due to a lack of political will, the third rational question is whether the West is materially capable of providing greater military support to Ukraine at this time. That is, is the West currently capable of providing Ukraine with more artillery shells, long-range missiles, air defense systems, modern tanks, fighter jets, and drones?

We must recognize a simple truth: during the first years of the war, many Western countries, including Lithuania, provided Ukraine as their military support with what they had stockpiled in their warehouses. As the second year of the war draws to a close, such stocks in the West (and in Lithuania) are running out. Meanwhile, the production capacity of the military industry throughout the Western world, while beginning to grow, is still not sufficient to meet the needs for a Ukrainian victory. The reasons why Russia, even in an environment of sanctions, has managed to put its economy on the warpath; why Russia’s ally North Korea has managed to supply Russia with 1 million artillery shells in one month; and why the European Union is still not able to produce and supply Ukraine with the same amount of artillery shells it promised, namely 1 million artillery shells – that is a subject for a separate discussion. But it is obvious that this is the core problem of the war: the capacity of the Western military industry, which has only just begun to be mobilized for the needs of the war in Ukraine, is still not able to meet those needs in full.

As stated in a recent valuable analytical, strategic text published by the Estonian Ministry of Defence, “Setting Transatlantic Defence up for Success: A Military Strategy for Ukraine’s Victory and Russia’s Defeat”: in order for Ukraine to maintain its 155 mm caliber artillery superiority over Russia’s artillery capabilities, Ukraine needs a minimum of 200,000 artillery shells per month (2.4 million shells per year). This rate of consumption of artillery shells threatens to exhaust the stockpiles of such artillery shells in both EU and US warehouses by 2024. However, Estonian experts argue that the West can increase its artillery shell production capacity by 2025 to fully meet at least Ukraine’s minimum military needs. At the end of 2023, EU companies were producing about 50,000 artillery shells per month, which is about twice as many as they were able to produce at the beginning of the year. The US currently produces 28,000 shells per month, which is also twice as much as it was able to produce at the beginning of 2023.

The US plans to increase its production capacity to 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025, while the European Union’s production of artillery shells needs to be increased by an additional 140% by the end of 2025 to meet Ukraine’s minimum needs. However, it is worth knowing that Russia plans to produce and deploy 3.5 million artillery shells this year (2023) (which is 3 times the production of the previous year), and plans to produce 4.5 million artillery shells in 2024. Therefore, the most important task for the West today is, first of all, to realize that the war cannot be won if the projected production of artillery shells in the West is almost two times less than the projected figures for Russia. And for the West to be able to close this gap urgently requires a common Western strategy, not just plans by individual NATO countries to slightly increase their production.

This leads to the conclusion that problems on the Ukrainian front are not due to a lack of Western strategic political will to support Ukraine’s victory, nor to a lack of Western financial resources to support Ukraine’s victory, but to a simple deficit in the capacity of the Western military industry. This is an economic issue for the West, not a political or strategic one. It is rooted in the West’s long-held belief that there will be no war with Russia and that there is no need to prepare for such a war in advance, thus negating the need to develop its military industry. This problem is gradually being overcome if the political will and financial resources needed to overcome it become available in the West.

This situation mirrors the one faced by the collectively democratic West on the eve of the Second World War when only Churchill, from the beginning of the 1930s after Hitler came to power in Germany, was worriedly proclaiming that Hitler was rapidly increasing the capacity of the German military industry. Meanwhile, Britain and the other Western democracies did not heed Churchill’s warnings, they naïvely hoped that peace could be negotiated with Hitler, and were virtually unconcerned about their own military-industrial capacity. As a result, Hitler had clear military superiority at the start of World War II, and it was not until the war began that Britain and the US gradually managed to catch up and eventually overtake the pace of Germany’s military industry.

Today, the Western democracies are only beginning to develop their military-industrial capabilities, belatedly, after the war has started. The rapid expansion of the military-industrial capacity of the democratic Western Alliance at the outbreak of World War II did not happen overnight. The same thing is happening now. This is the main reason why the West’s support for Ukraine is so far only enough to enable Ukraine not to lose, but not yet enough for Ukraine to win.

2024 – STRATEGIC DEFENCE. VICTORY – 2026?

Is the lag of the Western military industry behind the needs of the war in Ukraine surmountable? The same Estonian experts, in their strategic analysis, provide rational figures on how many and what other weapons (not only artillery shells) Ukraine will need to exceed Russia’s capabilities: from artillery “tubes” to long-range GMLRS, ATACAMS, Storm Shadow, SCALP, or Taurus missiles. Increasing their production capacity to the required volumes would not seem to be out of reach in the coming years. The same applies to the production of drones or the tactical training of a larger number of Ukrainian troops in the West. All such Ukrainian needs are easy to calculate, not difficult to quantify financially, and the West is fully capable of realizing them in the coming years. But physically it cannot happen tomorrow: for the West to be able to supply Ukraine with more weapons than it was able to supply at the beginning of the war from its own warehouses requires that the capacity of the Western war industry grows very rapidly, at least several times over.

The same experts, therefore, calculate that Ukraine will have to live through 2024 with a level of Western support that will be insufficient to achieve victory, and that Ukraine may have to switch to strategic defense as a result. By 2025, however, the rapidly growing Western military industry will have reached a level of production that will allow it to accumulate and provide Ukraine with enough support to achieve victory in 2026.

I realize that such an attempt to take a rational look at the prospect of war may not convince everyone of its rational optimism. And especially when that rational and constructive optimism is formulated not by someone else, but by our neighbors, the Estonians (although when I found the analytical document cited on the website of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, I became jealous that it was not published by Lithuanians). We are easily swayed by emotions, but wars are won (and lost) not by emotions, but by material numbers: the economic strength of the belligerents, the volume of their military-industrial production and the number of weapons supplied, as well as the finances devoted to it. And of course, we must not forget the number of troops mobilized.

Again, the same experts say that if the Ukrainian armed forces were able to destroy (counting those killed or seriously wounded) at least 50,000 Russian troops in each six-month period, Russia, with its mobilization and recruit training capabilities,

would not be able to regenerate its human military resources (I would guess, based on the information available in the public domain, that the Ukrainian armed forces are currently capable of far exceeding this indicator). For its part, the West can easily increase the quantity and quality of training of Ukrainian troops, given that 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained in the West so far, at a cost of only around EUR 350 million.

WILL WE FORM A “0.25% GDP” COALITION IN SUPPORT OF UKRAINE?

And finally, once again about money. And about us.

At the very beginning of this text, I reminded that in 2023, Russia has spent EUR 100 billion on the war, while Ukraine, with all the military support from the EU and the US, has spent only EUR 80 billion. That is why the front has stalled. As it turned out, the West was unable to provide significantly more material military support because the stocks in the warehouses have run out and new military production is growing more slowly than desired at this stage.

In this text, I have discussed expert estimates of the levels of arms production needed in the West to provide Ukraine with sufficient supplies to achieve victory. However, it is clear that new financial resources are also needed for the West to grow new arms’ production capacity. As has already been written, this year total EU military aid (provided by the EU institutions and all EU Member States) amounted to only 0.075% of the EU’s GDP. The US has given a little more to Ukraine, with military aid amounting to 0.10% of US GDP in 2023. But in any case, it is clear that in financial terms such Western military support to Ukraine is insufficient to achieve victory.

One of the problems that has become evident during these two years of war is that the level of military support to Ukraine varies considerably from country to country: during these two years, Lithuania and Estonia’s military support to Ukraine has exceeded 1.2% of their respective GDPs; Norway is not far behind with 0.79% of Norway’s GDP, and Germany’s growing support has reached 0.43% of Germany’s GDP, while France’s support is still only 0.02% of its GDP.

This situation needs to be changed. One way is the one proposed by the Estonian experts already quoted above: the countries of the transatlantic alliance should commit themselves to provide military support of at least 0.25% of their national GDP each year, which would generate around three times the current level of Western military support to Ukraine (EUR120 billion instead of the current EUR40 billion). This would be enough for Ukraine to win and for Russia to lose.

And finally: more on the prospects for Lithuanian military support to Ukraine.

As already mentioned, Lithuania’s military support to Ukraine in the two years since the start of the war amounts to 1.2% of Lithuania’s GDP (the second highest among NATO countries), i.e., about EUR760 million since the start of the war or EUR380 million (0.6% of GDP) in one year of the war. However, it is worth noting that Lithuania’s currently officially approved programme of assistance to Ukraine foresees that such assistance will amount to only EUR200 million over the next three years, i.e., about EUR67 million per year or about 0.1% of GDP. This level of planned Lithuanian assistance to Ukraine is clearly insufficient. Our strategic task, not only in terms of Ukraine’s security but also in terms of our own and Europe’s security, is not only to think about how to support Ukraine bilaterally, but also about how to set a good example of support for Ukraine to other Western countries, and about how to build, if not a coalition of the 1%, then at least a coalition of the 0.25%, so that we can jointly persuade the laggards.

The problem with our support to Ukraine is the same as for many other countries – we have given away all the military stocks we have accumulated over the two years of the war, which we do not really need at the moment, therefore our level of support has been exceptionally high. But today we have nothing left in our warehouses that we can give to Ukraine. And we do not have much of a defense industry of our own in which we could invest further and produce what Ukraine needs. Therefore, in seeking grounds for rational optimism about the West’s support for Ukraine and Ukraine’s victory in 2026, let us first of all deal rationally with the prospects for our support for Ukraine. Our declarations of solidarity, our calls for the West to increase its support for Ukraine and our apocalyptic lamentations that the West is probably betraying Ukraine will certainly not be enough. In war, victories are not achieved by declarations of solidarity from allies, but by the abundance of material support they provide.

PUTIN WILL NOT WIN

Rational analysis clearly demonstrates that Putin has no chance of winning this war. Because, as Putin himself complains, Russia is now at war in Ukraine with the whole Western world. Putin did not expect this when he launched the war against Ukraine. And the West’s total economic potential is more than 25 times greater than Russia’s entire economy. This will eventually become apparent in this confrontation between the West and Russia, which Putin himself “asked for”. It will be felt, among other things, on the war front in Ukraine. But it will take time for the West’s economic advantage to be transformed into an advantage in arms production. The West needs not only a “defense NATO” but also a “weapons production NATO”. And that depends on us.

Rational optimism is made by “doing”. I wish to engage in that “doing”…

Source: ELP

We all know that this year Ukraine is finding it harder to liberate its occupied territories than last year. Increasingly, there are warnings (from the Ukrainian General V.Zaluzhnyi to the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis) that the war could become a war of entrenchment, which only benefits Russia. On this occasion, there are attempts in various corners of the West to persuade that the only way to avoid the stagnation of trench warfare is to negotiate peace with Russia on Putin’s terms.

Many in the World are worried by such facts that the US Congress is unable to approve a new package of financial support for Ukraine. In addition, the US presidential elections are approaching, where D.Trump may win. It is impossible to predict the impact of this on the further course of the war. And then there is Hungary, which also makes the EU’s decision-making on support for Ukraine unpredictable.

It is against this backdrop that it is worth looking for fundamental answers as to why the frontline in Ukraine is stagnating, even though the West proclaims that it has provided Ukraine with a lot of military support, which should be sufficient to achieve victory. Even the F-16s are about to arrive.

Increasingly, one can hear hints in the West that the West is “tired” or is “about to be tired” of supporting Ukraine because the frontline is stalled. North Korea is capable of finding a million artillery shells for Russia in a month, but the European Union cannot do it in a year. Meanwhile, General Zaluzhnyi is not asking the West for tanks or artillery (which the West has supplied for as long as it has them in its warehouses, because Western military industry is still unable to increase production), but for drones, electronic anti-drones or radars, which the Ukrainians could produce themselves if they were given the funding.

The fundamental question thus arises: why is it that the West, while supporting Ukraine, has not been able to achieve a fundamental breakthrough in Ukraine’s war of liberation against Russia? After all, the West is economically tens of times stronger than Russia, and as history tells us, wars are always won in the end by stronger economies. This has always been the case. Why are we still not seeing that this time?

To understand the essence of the problem, we need to look in some detail at the “war finance” situation of Russia, Ukraine and the West. Accounting is not only important for the state budget, but also for military affairs.

So here are some important figures.

First of all, on the economic potential of Russia and the West: in 2022, Russia’s GDP was USD 1,8 trillion. The European Union’s GDP was USD 18,35 trillion and the USA’s USD 26,23 trillion. So, the EU alone has 10 times the economic potential of Russia, and if you add up the EU and US figures, the gap between the major Western powers and Russia is up to 25 times.

The West is 25 times economically stronger than Russia! According to the simple historical and economic logic of the wars, Russia should have been crushed in Ukraine long ago. But, as we can see, this is not yet the case. Why?

Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at the bookkeeping of “war finance”: how much money does Russia, Ukraine and the West contribute to the financing of the war?

When looking at the Russian data, it is noticeable that the figures published in various expert publications or in the World Bank statistics vary quite significantly, because since the beginning of the war the Russian authorities have classified the financial statistics. Thus, the World Bank announces that in 2022 Russia will have spent USD 86 billion on military expenditure, while experts at Sweden’s SIPRI Institute put the figure at USD 61 billion. The Wilson Center puts the figure at USD 81,7 billion. The figures for 2023 vary even more: between 80 billion USD (SIPRI) and 120 billion USD (Wilson Center) for 2023. The Wilson Center also states that Russia’s “war costs” do not include all the costs of the war, as they exclude the treatment of the wounded and many other costs (which, if included, would bring Russia’s costs in 2023 up to USD 160 billion). It is also worth noting that the Russian government announces that it will increase military spending by as much as 70% in 2024.

Although the figures published by experts on Russia’s military spending vary, in summary, it can be said that in 2022, such spending would amount to around USD 80 billion, and in 2023 it may reach around USD 100 billion. This could rise even further in 2024.

Calculating the ratio of Russia’s military spending to GDP, we find that it was around 4% in 2022, over 5% in 2023 and will exceed 6% in 2024.

Russia is able to finance such military spending because it earns around USD 7,4 billion a month from oil and gas exports alone. This means that Russia can earn around USD 90 billion a year from oil and gas.

Ukraine plans to spend almost unchanged amounts of money on war financing in both 2023 and 2024 – around UAH 1,7 trillion, or around USD 44 billion.

Such war spending represents as much as 26,6% of Ukraine’s GDP, resulting in the deficit of the Ukrainian budget of USD 38 billion, or 27% of GDP. Therefore, Ukraine needs not only Western military support, but also support to cover the budget gap. Ukraine is also planning to spend USD 1,25 billion on the acquisition of drones in 2024.

The European Union has provided Ukraine with USD 29 billion in military aid since the start of the war. This is the support that the EU has provided for Ukraine’s military needs, both from its own budget (EUR 6 billion) and from all EU Member States combined, i.e. all the support provided to Ukraine by Germany, Lithuania, Poland and all other EU Member States.

However, this amount represents only 0,15% of the European Union’s gross domestic product!!! In 2 years, only 0,15%! In one year, it comes out to 2 times less – USD 14.5 billion or 0,075% of EU GDP.

The NATO standard for defence is 2% of GDP. The EU says that it will “stand together with Ukraine for as long as it takes” and that the Ukrainian war is also “our” war, but it spends only 0,075% on this “our” war.

Ukraine will spend 26% of its GDP on this war in 2023, Russia 6% and the EU only 0,075%. A staggering difference!!!

Of course, there are countries such as Lithuania (leading), Estonia, Latvia or Poland, which have already allocated 1% or even more of their GDP to military aid, but the overall level of EU military aid to Ukraine looks dismal – 0,075%.

Of course, the European Union is providing a lot of money for Ukraine’s macro-financial support, or in other words, for the financing of other expenses in the Ukrainian budget, but this does not change the fact that the only way to win a war is to finance a military victory. Wars are not won by political declarations of solidarity alone.

United States military aid to Ukraine has reached USD 42,10 billion in 2 years. Not much better than the EU support. In one year of war, US support amounts to only USD 21 billion or 0.10% of GDP.

Once the individual figures are broken down, the overall picture of the war’s “bookkeeping” can be seen, which reveals the main reason for the stalemate in this war on the Eastern Front.

As has already been shown, Russia’s military expenditure in 2023 is estimated at USD 100 billion. Maybe more.

Ukraine’s military spending is USD 44 billion. The European Union adds USD 14,5 billion to this, and the US another USD 21 billion. To this could be added the figures for British or Norwegian aid (not included in the EU statistics), but these do not change the substance.

So, the total amount of funds Ukraine, the EU and the US have allocated in 2023 to militarily counter Russian aggression is only USD 79,5 billion. This is less than the USD 100 billion allocated by Russia for the same purpose this year.

One can remember that the US and the EU are 25 times more economically powerful than Russia. But Russia is spending 6% of its GDP on this war, while the EU and the US are spending only 0,075% and 0,10% respectively. That is to say, Russia is devoting 60-80 times more of its economy to this war than the US or the EU.

I stress, 60-80 times more!

This is why the war is stalling in the trenches: because Russia is clearly winning against the West on the front of its economic mobilisation for war.

This overall picture of the financial “bookkeeping” of the war also makes clear what is needed to avoid a disastrous trench war on the Eastern military front: this requires victory on the political front in the West. And this is one of the most important geopolitical tasks for Lithuania. Lithuania must not only worry about its own bilateral support for Ukraine, but also about how to build a coalition of like-minded and like-supporting countries (the Baltic States, Poland, Scandinavia, the UK) and how to persuade the rest of the West to follow our example.

I can say again and again what I have said many times before: It is important for Lithuania today to take care and fight on the Western front to ensure that Russia is defeated at Kherson and Kharkiv, and not just to accept the current situation of “trench warfare” in Ukraine, and to think now only about how we will defend Vilnius when Putin comes to us after victory in Ukraine.

Russia will lose in Ukraine if we win in the West. That is the alpha and omega of our defence and security strategy. This requires that we stop just watching military developments in
Ukraine like the self-righteous actors or neutral experts, we need to start to “fight” in the European Council in Brussels and Washington and in other Western outposts for real and much larger investment into Ukraine’s defense, in order to guarantee that Ukrainian military efforts are financed 2 or 3 times more than Russia is able to finance it’s own. I have not heard anything so far about such fights for such purposes on the Western front and about building coalitions for our victories on that front.

We will be talking about the new battles ahead on the Western Front and Ukraine’s future victories at a high-level conference in the European Parliament organised by the U4U (United for Ukraine) coalition this coming Tuesday, 28 November. We started the U4U coalition on the first day of the war in order to win the battles on the Western Front. Because only then will Ukraine finally win.

And we will achieve it!

Source: The Lithuanua Tribune

Central and Eastern Europe

In 2024, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the “New Europe” – on 1 May, it will be 20 years since eight Central European and Baltic States became members of the European Union. Romania and Bulgaria joined a little later, and Croatia was the last.

Someone in the US named all these newcomers “New Europe” because of their differences from “Old Europe”, and the title “New Europe” has stuck.

The New Europe, with its membership of the European Union, its access to the much richer EU Single Market and its billions in financial support from EU funds, has managed to grow rapidly over these two decades and to catch up with the economic development of The Old Europe.

In the light of the sad historical experience of the last centuries in the New Europe, such a leap in the region’s fortunes in recent decades could be generally regarded as a miracle. The New Europe should be the European Union’s greatest enthusiast, never ceasing to celebrate this post-war invention of the Old Europe.

However, this is not the case. Over the last decade, the New Europe has become a region where anti-European populism, disrespect for the European rule of law and democratic rules and traditions, and the development of a culture of “veto” blackmail have spread rapidly in the ruling circles. Orban’s Hungary, more recently Kaczynski’s Poland, a little before that Babiš’s Czech Republic, and now Fico’s Slovakia have been, and are, the flag-bearers of such populism, which is frightening the whole of the European Union. A few years ago, ideas of Karbauskis (leader of the Greens-peasants Union) for Lithuania were also along the same lines. In Lithuania, they continue to float, in ever-changing forms, between the Daukantas Square (President’s Palace) and the current opposition in the Seimas.

It is therefore worth looking much deeper into the causes of the New Europe wave of populism and where the whole of the New Europe is at the moment: is it at the beginning of such a wave and is the peak of the wave yet to come, or are we already witnessing the beginning of the ebb? And what are we to do about all this in Lithuania, being a part of the same the New Europe?

The results of last weekend’s (15 October) elections in Poland make it possible to be more optimistic not only about Poland, but also about the prospects for the whole of the New Europe, especially Central Europe, in combating the pandemic of populism in the New Europe in this period. Not only has Poland returned to Europe, but it is likely that Europe is returning not only to Poland but to the whole of Central Europe.

Why am I so cautiously optimistic?

To answer such a question, it is first necessary to look a little deeper into the causes and methods of such populism in the New Europe.

Firstly, one has to answer the question why and how the demand for populism arose in the New Europe, and secondly, the question of why such a populism became the anti-European populism in the same New Europe?

It is clear that populism is no stranger to today’s democratic world. There are many examples of it both in Europe and in the United States: Le Pen in France, the AfD in Germany, and the Trumpists in the United States are all enjoying considerable electoral success, using the same formula for populist “success”: primitively telling the less educated part of the electorate who their “enemy” is, and then showing how that enemy is and will be fought.

There is a familiar list of such “enemies” on the standard menu, which has been successfully used for a long time and is constantly being updated: the global Jewish, Masonic or gay conspiracy, neo-liberalism, globalisation and the European Union. The historical experience of the populists shows that the naming of these “enemies” and the supposed fight against them is quite effective in mobilising large numbers of voters.

This formula for success was formulated in the first half of the 20th century by the famous German political philosopher Carl Schmitt, who argued that the most important function of politicians is to identify enemies and to fight them. This formula for the essence of politics, discovered by Carl Schmitt, was favoured by Hitler, admired by the Russian philosopher Ilyin, who escaped from the Bolsheviks, and whose works are now admired by Putin and the Kremlin elite.

This arsenal of populism, tested by Putin in Russia, has also been put to reasonably effective use in the New Europe. This does not necessarily mean that it was spread in the New Europe exclusively by the Kremlin (although the Kremlin was happy to spread it in both New and Old Europe). Poland’s Kaczynski cannot be suspected of being favourable towards Kremlin, but the Kremlin’s discovery of the methods of propaganda against Russia’s main “enemies” – against gay Europe and Western liberal democracy, or the supposed fight for traditional family values – was quickly adopted by the New Europe’s populists. This includes not only Poland, but also Lithuania.

In the New Europe, such a populism was exclusively the populism of political leaders. Political leaders gifted for such populism have claimed and instilled in their societies such a perception of “enemies”, and have concentrated ever greater powers of control over the media and the necessary finances for such a propaganda. Broad sections of New European society were prepared to submit to such indoctrination of the propaganda. This became an effective way of seizing power and holding on to it for long enough.

The first signs of this appeared already around 2000, and it began to take hold around 2010 with V.Orban, who first discovered G.Soros as the “enemy”, and then the entire European Union and liberal democracy. This was soon followed by Kaczynski and PiS in Poland, who already in 2015 declared that Poland’s biggest enemies, besides LGBT people, were Germany, the German-dominated European Union, and D.Tusk, who serves Germany. In 2017, A,Babiš, one of the richest businessmen in Czechia, notorious for his conflicts with the European Union, became its Prime Minister. A month ago, R.Fico returned to power in Slovakia, this time loudly declaring his anti-Ukrainian and thus anti-European stance. Anti-European populism guarantees political longevity in the New Europe: Orban, Fico, Kaczynski are the record holders for terms in office in the New Europe, while Babiš is again enjoying the status of the most popular politician in Czechia.

Lithuania has been no stranger to such populist trends over the last twenty years. The first to successfully use the traditional instrument of populism was R.Paksas (the impeached President of Lithuania), followed by a period of populist success by V.Uspaskich (a businessman with ties to Russia, who later became a minister of economy and now is a Member of the European Parliament). R.Karbauskis, using the same formula of populism, was successful in the 2016 parliamentary elections. The arsenal of “enemies” he named was wide – from V.Landsbergis and A.Kubilius to globalisation and the concept of a global Lithuania, to the bureaucrats of the European Union and Brussels, to neo-liberalism, the Istanbul Convention and LGBT, and even to the letter “w” or McDonald’s signs.

Looking at the Lithuanian history of anti-European populism, it is easy to see one tendency: it was and is primarily linked to those political leaders who were also leaders of big business. And such businesses in Lithuania were built up not only on the basis of contacts in Russia, but also on the basis of large-scale support from the European funds.

Very similar links can be found in the Central Europe: Czechia’s Babiš is not only a billionaire, but has also been the subject of a number of investigations by EU prosecutors regarding corruption related with the use of EU funds for his business, while Orban has long been known for building a business and media empire of friends and associates that helps him to monopolise power, and to distribute EU funds. Mr Kaczynski and PiS have used EU funds to exclusively strengthen their favoured sections of society. This phenomenon has been dubbed by some New Europe academic scholars the “grand” corruption, to distinguish it from “normal” corruption, where someone in a position of power takes care of their business. In 2018, Fico was forced to resign amid justified suspicions that a prominent journalist, Jan Kuciak, and his girlfriend had been murdered because the journalist was trying to investigate the large-scale corruption in the distribution of EU funds linked to the PM’s circle. Now Fico has regained power in order (as he proclaims) to drive out all the prosecutors and investigators who are still ruining his life.

Thus, the root cause of the wave of anti-European populism in the New Europe is the European Union’s own funds and money to support the development of the New Europe itself. Such money and the possibility of distributing it tempts some to seek power at any cost and at the cost of any populism, and then to use such money also to maintain power. In the new Europe, the most popular and effective populism for taking or keeping power is the anti-European populism. And so we have a paradox: the generous European Union itself is the main cause of anti-European populism in the New Europe. And we will continue to see waves of such an anti-European populism in the New Europe until the New Europe itself becomes a financial donor. Then the temptation to use populist methods to get into power in order to access EU funds will end. Just as the period of seeking power for the sake of “prikhvatisation” (the concept combining “privatisation” and the Russian language verb “прихватить” (to grab), and meaning the usually dodgy privatisation process, where the state property was appropriated by persons/entities close to organized crime) once ended. There will be other temptations to populist power-grabbing, but it is safe to assume that there will be fewer direct business interests involved, and therefore less political power. And therefore it will be less dangerous.

Meanwhile, we in Lithuania are not far from the dangers of anti-European populism. Although the wave of Karbauskis’s populism seems to have receded, this does not mean that there will be no signs of a new wave of populism and anti-Europeanism during the next year’s elections. The European money is not over yet, the next Seimas and the Government and the President will have until 2027 to negotiate in Brussels the EU’s new macrofinancial perspective for the period of 2027-2034, which will define how much money Lithuania will receive and for whom. It may seem to some, including in Lithuania, that during the period of such negotiations it is better for Lithuania to have a more talkative, more “self-interested” government than the current government of “untalkative” conservatives and liberals.

How will this be attempted?

Once again, someone will have to harness the mobilising power of anti-European populism. The instruments for this are in place: members of marches for family, with Kremlin agents behind them, the you-tube videos of former and self-proclaimed journalists, and the goodwill of the Daukantas Square – everything will be used for this. The entire political arsenal of the left will be actively involved, no matter what they call themselves today: peasants, democrats or social democrats, or simply Žemaitaičiai and Gražuliai. All of them will, in one way or another, be under the wing of G.Nausėda and I.Vėgėlė, even if the latter will pretend that “they have nothing to do with all of this”.

The battle in the next elections will not be between the choices of the political left and right, but between populism and anti-populism. The populism will lean very strongly towards the anti-Europeanism. In the presidential elections, we will see not so much a fight between G.Nausėda and I.Šimonytė, but a duel between empty populism and constructive anti-populism.

Since the 1990s, anti-populism in Lithuania has been, is, and will continue to be a characteristic of only a healthy centre-right, even though it too has to continually rein in anti-European temptations within itself.

Finally, I must answer the question why I wrote at the beginning of this text that I am cautiously optimistic about the long-term prospects for anti-European populism in both New Europe and Lithuania?

It is because I think that next year’s elections in Lithuania may be the last elections in which the European anti-populism will have to compete with the region-wide anti-European populism. After that, the space for waves of anti-European populism is likely to begin to recede sharply.

Why do I think so?

First and foremost, because by the end of this decade, especially if Ukraine becomes an EU member before then, Lithuania will have moved from being a recipient of the EU aid to an EU donor. At the same time, there will no longer be such a strong temptation for somebody to rush to power and, in the name of that, to “wash” people’s minds with all the anti-European rhetoric. Then it will become clear that the majority of Lithuanians are really happy to be members of the EU and they want to live according to European rules, traditions and understandings, including on human rights issues.

Secondly, because the elections in Poland have shown that the younger generation is no longer “buying” all the anti-European rhetoric and threats to traditional values from Brussels. It is likely that we will also see in Lithuania a greater resistance of the younger generation to the populist bacillus.

By the end of this decade, the New Europe and the Old Europe are likely to finally converge: anti-European populism and pro-Kremlin idiocy will be present in some quantity everywhere, but it will no longer be dominant. Unfortunately, such a dominance still exists today in some parts of the New Europe.

Lithuania, together with the new Poland, can be at the forefront of the recovery of the New Europe from the pandemic of populism. Let us wish ourselves that!

Source: The Lithuanua Tribune

1. This Report is continuation of the 2021 report on the direction of EU-Russia political relations, which was approved before Russia military invasion into Ukraine and in which EP warned, that Russia is becoming an aggressive dictatorship. EP in that report suggested to build future relations with Russia on the basis of “democracy first” principle, looking for possibilities how to help Russia after Putin to transform itself back to normal democratic development.
2. Report of this year is targeted to the same strategic goal – how to help transformation of Russia in those new circumstances when Russia started aggressive war against Ukraine and when defeat of Russia in Ukraine can open the window of opportunity for such a transformation.
3. The draft of the Report, which is prepared , in general is the product of our collective efforts together with my colleagues – AFET rapporteurs on Russia: W.Cimoszewicz, S.Lagodinsky, B.Guetta, since we have spend a lot of time on different webinars, conferences, informal discussions both with Europeans and representatives of Russian opposition discussing the same topic – how to help Russia to transform itself.
4. Some major ideas of the report are coming from our permanent dialogue with Russian liberal civil society and opposition and from major event of that sort – the first conference of Brussels Dialogue in June this year, where we, four rapporteurs on Russia, managed to bring into European Parliament together large number of representatives of Russian opposition and representatives of EU institutions to discuss future of democracy when “the day after” will come, it means when Putin regime will collapse. We are continuing our dialogue and the draft of this report is also discussed in this dialogue with Russian opposition.
5. Why it’s so important now to concentrate our efforts and develop our strategy how to help Russian transformation? a) we need to overcome the fear in some Western capitals that Russian defeat in Ukraine can bring collapse of Putin regime and then some “prigozhins” will come to power; such fear brings hesitation to give enough weapons to Ukraine; we need to show that collapse of Putin regime will open the widow of opportunity for positive transformations in Russia, and there is no need to fear Ukraine’s decisive victory; b) Russian transformation to normality and democracy is the only way in the longer term how sustainable peace can be established on European continent.
6. Our assistance to Russia’s transformation has two major elements: a)our long term Ukraine strategy with Ukraine’s military victory, reconstruction, and Ukraine integration towards EU and NATO, because Russian defeat and Ukraine rooted in the West is the only way how Russians can be helped to abandon their aggressive post-imperial nostalgia; from another side success off Ukraine, created through integration can be a positive inspiration for Russians; and b) our strategy how we are going to support and engage with Russian opposition and civil society, both before und after Putin’s collapse, is very much needed for us to be effective in helping the transformation of Russia.
7. Our strategy to support Russia’s transformation needs to be comprehensive, with the clearly defined goals for different periods of time: as we metaphorically call it – “The year before” (before day X), “The day after”, “The year after”.
8. Strategy for different periods should cover most important topics:
1) strategy for Ukraine’s victory and success: weapons, sanctions, tribunal, seizure of frozen Russian assets; reconstruction of Ukraine and integration of Ukraine towards EU and NATO;
2) support and institutional dialogue with Russian opposition: from democracy passport up to support for communication capacities both towards Russia and towards the West;
3) our conditionality for reforms when “the day after” comes in order for us to be able to recognize that transformation has happened;
4) drafting and publishing now what kind of relations we are ready to establish in the future between of EU and democratic Russia after Putin and after the democratic transformation.
9. At the end – what is the essence of our report. It can be understood if one remembers an open confession of J.Borrell last November in the plenary. He said: “Before the war, EU was so heavily dependent on Russian gas, that EU had no strategy towards Russia, and no strategy towards Ukraine, because EU strategy towards Ukraine was subordinated towards our strategy to Russia”. Now time has changed: we are not anymore dependent on Russian gas. It is time for us to have a clear strategy towards Russia, which this time should be in some way subordinated towards our strategy to Ukraine. That is the way how we can support transformation of Russia, which is very much needed not only to the people of Russia, but also to us, because this is the way how sustainable peace on European continent can be established.

Джерело: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFhKI-slOM

Andrius Kubilius, former PM, MEP, initiator of the “United for Ukraine” network

When we observe and analyse the West’s support for Ukraine, we sometimes see a lot of hesitation, questionable arguments and indecision. I believe that much of this behaviour by the West is linked to its attitude towards Russia. There is a fundamental difference between those who believe and those who do not believe that Russia can become a democracy. I propose to look at the geopolitical implications of this difference in Western attitudes:

YOU BELIEVE THAT RUSSIA CAN BECOME A DEMOCRACY IN THE FUTURE,

Therefore:

– you are not afraid of what will happen after Putin’s regime collapses, because you believe that Russia will then start to evolve towards democracy;

– you are not afraid of a crushing military victory in Ukraine because you are not afraid of what will happen when after such a victory Putin’s regime collapses;

– you are not afraid to proclaim that the aim of the West is to achieve the unconditional defeat of Russia, because you are not afraid of the collapse of Putin’s regime and its fascist ‘Novorossiya’ philosophy, because that is what you are deliberately aiming for;

– you are not afraid of supplying Ukraine with Western weapons of a quantity and quality that would guarantee that Ukraine would achieve a crushing victory in the near future, followed by the collapse of the Putin regime;

– you are not afraid that Ukraine will soon be invited to join NATO, even if Putin is vociferously opposed, because you believe that such an invitation will help Russia’s transition to democracy;

– you do not fear that Ukraine’s rapid integration into the EU, thus building on Ukraine’s success, could become dangerous for the Putin regime, as it could inspire Russian citizens to demand same changes in Russia, which would allow Russia to follow Ukraine’s example in creating a normal life in Russia itself;

– you are convinced that the West’s biggest geopolitical mistake in recent decades has been to leave Ukraine for decades in a grey area of geopolitical security, with no real prospect of becoming an integral part of the West (NATO, EU), and that this is what has led Putin to think that the West has left Ukraine in the zone of Russia’s interests, and that Putin may even take military action against Ukraine;

– you do not negotiate with Putin before and during the war on alleged mutual restrictions on hostilities, while pledging to do everything possible to preserve “Putin’s face” and thus the regime itself;

– you are not pressing Ukraine to enter into peace talks with Putin as soon as possible (on Putin’s terms), because you are not afraid of what will happen to the Putin regime later on if the war, which has been disastrous for Putin, lasts a little longer and ends with a crushing Ukrainian victory;

– you are a real supporter of the Russian opposition, both in Russia and in exile, because you genuinely believe that Russia’s transformation and evolution towards democracy can indeed happen, and that it is necessary not only for Russia itself but also for the West, because this is the only way that a sustainable peace can be created on the continent of Europe once the main threat to that peace, i.e., authoritarian Russia, is no longer there.

– You are not a naive victim of Putin’s long-standing strategy of frightening and convincing the West that the Russian nation is oriental, always authoritarian and aggressive, and not ready for democracy, because you believe that both Russians and Belarusians are capable of governing themselves democratically, in the same way as not only the Ukrainians, but also the Mongolians and the Chinese in Taiwan are doing so very successfully nowadays.

YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THAT RUSSIA CAN BECOME A DEMOCRACY IN THE FUTURE,

Therefore:

– you are afraid of what will happen after Putin’s regime collapses, because you don’t believe that Russia will evolve towards democracy after that;

– you are afraid of a crushing military victory in Ukraine because you are afraid of what will happen after such a victory when Putin’s regime collapses – maybe some prigozhin will take over the Kremlin instead of Putin, or maybe Russia will fall into a bloody chaos of internecine warfare and some terrorists will take control of the nuclear weapons;

– you are afraid to declare that the West’s goal in this war is to achieve Russia’s unconditional defeat, because you fear the collapse of the Putin regime, so you limit yourself to loud statements that you will support Ukraine “whatever it takes” and that “only Ukraine will set the terms of the peace”, but at the same time you are silently increasing the political pressure on Ukraine to quickly come to the negotiating table with Putin to negotiate a cease-fire and a peace on terms dictated by Putin;

– you are afraid to supply Ukraine with the quantity and quality of Western weapons that would guarantee a crushing victory for Ukraine in the near future, because you are afraid that such a victory would lead to the collapse of the Putin regime;

– you are afraid that inviting Ukraine to join NATO in the near future would be seen in Russia as a huge defeat for the Kremlin and might even lead to the collapse of the Putin regime;

– you fear even Ukraine’s integration into the EU, because you believe that any integration of Ukraine into the West, thus building on Ukraine’s success, could “provoke” Putin; you do not believe that the success of a democratic Ukraine can inspire Russian citizens to seek the same democratic changes in Russia, because you do not believe that Russia can become democratic;

– you are convinced that Ukraine must continue to be left in a grey area of geopolitical security, with no real chance of becoming an integral part of the West (NATO, EU), because you believe that there is no need to provoke and be angry with Putin, since the West supposedly needs his partnership in the fight against China’s geo-political dominance;

– you seek to negotiate and have negotiated informally with Putin before and during the war on alleged mutual restraints in hostilities, pledging yourselves to do your utmost to preserve “Putin’s face”;

– you are pressing Ukraine (including by stopping the supply of necessary weapons) to enter into peace talks with Putin as soon as possible (on Putin’s terms), because you are afraid of what will happen to the Putin regime later on if the war, which has been disastrous for Putin, lasts a little longer;

– you do not really support the Russian opposition and its activities, either in Russia or in exile, because you do not believe that Russia’s transformation and evolution towards democracy can really happen; you therefore limit yourself to the standard (but empty) statements of support for the opposition and protests against human rights violations; and you continue to think that in relations with Russia it is more important to hold to the “Putin-first!” rather than “Democracy in Russia – first!” principle;

– you are a victim of Putin’s long-standing strategy to convince the West that the Russian nation is oriental, always authoritarian and aggressive, and not ready for democracy; you have succumbed to Putin’s propaganda, or to nuclear blackmail, or perhaps to the temptation of cheap gas or expensive yachts;

******

It is because of such fundamental differences and their implications for Western thinking and policy that all of us who care about Ukraine, together with Russia’s democratic opposition, need to do our utmost to convince the West that Russia, too, after losing the war in Ukraine and the collapse of Putin’s regime, can become democratic.

Джерело: ELP