The West is toying with the idea of handing over Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Newly committed Western aid to the country fell by nearly 90 percent from a year earlier, even before the US and EU approved additional funds this month, according to estimates from the Kiel Institute for World Economics.
Voters, spurred on by the pro-Russian extreme right, are fed up with the war in Ukraine. The West, after an 18-month hiatus, continues its 15-year policy of yielding to Putin's aggression. The scenario “If Russia wins” is becoming more and more likely. Here's what it might look like:
1. Russia is carrying out a terrible "victor's justice" on Ukrainians. This is not a guess. This is exactly what the Russians have already done in Ukraine: mass executions, castrations, rapes, tortures and child abductions. Remember the Russian lists, before the invasion, with the names of Ukrainian public figures to be "removed".
Guerrilla attacks by Ukrainian partisans would provoke further Russian reprisals. Millions of Ukrainians would flee to the west, this time permanently. Don't forget that the arrival of 1,3 million refugees in 2015 accelerated the rise of the extreme right in Europe.
2. A free state could survive in the west of Ukraine, according to former British diplomat Peter Ricketts. It could even enter the European Union. It seems that Putin is not particularly interested in that region. But he can expect continuous Russian attacks, regardless of what "agreements" are signed. Russia has consistently violated the Minsk Agreements after 2014. The advance of Russian forces would be continuous, taking territory whenever possible.
3. Putin would control almost a quarter of the world's wheat exports. He has already gone from using gas as a weapon to using food as a weapon.
4. Putin's success would encourage countries that are thinking about invading their neighbor: China, Venezuela, Azerbaijan and even Russia itself. Dara Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said: Every time the Russians, during Putin's rule, think they have "won" a conflict - Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Syria 2015 - they learn something about us... they become overbearing and in a few years they try bigger and bolder operations".
The likely creation of a Ukrainian army in exile, which conducts operations from European countries, would further encourage Russian attacks on those locations.
Putin has already built a war economy. His army significantly improved its methods within less than two years. Its population has shown that it will tolerate even a major war. Why not continue to take parts of neighboring countries? Viktor Orbán, a Putin supporter, should consider Hungary's border with Ukraine.
5. A discredited NATO would face its greatest test. NATO and the EU are perhaps the strongest remaining multinational alliances in this nationalist world. Putin is trying to prove that they will not survive. If he were to attack the Baltics, NATO would probably send troops. But for how long? Once several hundred Western soldiers were killed, far-right parties would demand "peace," meaning unenforceable peace agreements with Putin. Western countries could withdraw, claiming that they have fulfilled their obligation under NATO Article 5 to defend any ally. No one wants an escalation to nuclear war.
Article 5 is not set in stone. Other international agreements - from the UN Convention against Torture to the EU budget deficit rules - are regularly violated with impunity. The Russian military in Ukraine, Hamas and the Israeli military in Gaza have all recently publicly violated international law. In any case, two pillars of the so-called "international community" - the British government and a possible Trump administration - seem to have crossed paths with international agreements. Donald Trump (according to his former national security adviser John Bolton) said "I don't really care about NATO", and as president he often threatened to withdraw from that Alliance.
Every time the Russians, during Putin's rule, think they have "won" a conflict - Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Syria 2015 - they learn something about us... they become overbearing and in a few years try bigger and bolder operations
Americans and Western Europeans feel resilient: Putin is not coming for them. No wonder some Eastern European officials are starting to talk about attacking Russia first instead of just sitting back and waiting for it to attack them.
A more certain scenario: many European countries spend a fortune on defense, introduce conscription and invest in nuclear weapons, while allowing Putin to bully them.
Rejecting Ukraine is one choice. There is also an alternative. Russia has a low-tech economy the size of Canada's. Europeans could help Ukraine resist Putin even if Trump withdraws. We should rapidly build up arms industries, but the effort expected of us would be small compared to that of Russia. We would also have to replace US aid to Ukraine - which the Kiel Institute estimates was $71,4 billion in the first 21 months of the war, or $40,8 billion on an annualized basis. That is 70 euros per year per European citizen of NATO. We can only do it if we want to.
Prepared by: N. Bogetić
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