https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-coming-dismemberment-of-ukraine_5042872.htmlThe Coming Dismemberment of Ukraineby Patricia Adams & Lawrence Solomon
February 9, 2023
The West’s wishful thinking that it could win a war against Russia using Ukraine as its proxy is coming to a close.
Western sanctions against Russia—initially predicted to bring the Russian economy to its knees—have backfired. Absent Russian resources, European economies are reeling while Russia’s economy, according to the IMF, has rebounded and is now growing faster than those of Germany or the UK.
The military end game is also in sight, the Rand Corporation concluded in a recent report, despite the “extent of NATO allies’ indirect involvement in the war [which] is breathtaking in scope. Support includes tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and … billions of dollars monthly in direct budgetary support to Kyiv.”
Yet it may all come to naught, since Russia has “a high level of resolve,” Rand notes. Russia “rectified the manpower deficit that enabled Ukraine’s success in the Kharkiv counteroffensive” and Ukraine’s “cities have been flattened; their economy has been decimated.”
Rand concludes that the United States should prepare its departure, since the war harms U.S. interests: “Avoiding a long war is also a higher priority for the United States than facilitating significantly more Ukrainian territorial control.”
Without the West’s military aid, which the new Republican House of Representatives may soon cut back, Ukraine’s military efforts would collapse. It can provide little to its own defense but personnel, and even that is running low—so many Ukrainians have died opposing Russia’s relentless military that Ukraine is now reportedly sending men over 60 to the front.
Ukraine’s economy, which was burdened with an external pre-war debt of $135 billion and has since lost $5 billion a month, would also collapse. Ukraine would be a spent force and utterly bankrupt, with Wall Street lenders such as BlackRock and vulture capitalists circling to claim whatever assets remain. Having lost at least one-third of its GDP in 2022 and as much as one-quarter of its pre-war 40 million population, its destitute government would be unable to provide pensions and welfare, let alone employment.
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