Capitulation often comes when your odds of winning are significantly against you, but this is not the same probability that exists with regard to Ukraine winning the war against Russia. Ukraine does not need to capitulate in its defensive war against the Russian invasion. Ukraine has halted Russia from taking Kyiv, it has retaken lands that were previously occupied by Russia and is now hitting Russian forces across their demarcated line forcing it on the defensive and preventing it from making any additional territorial gains. Ukraine is fighting back successfully against all odds.
Let’s put things in perspective. Against whom Ukraine is fighting? Ukraine is fighting Russia which is led by the Putin regime. The Putin regime operates like a small and tightly-knit organisation that rules Russia with sheer oppression, fear, and violence. No one took to the streets in support of Putin when Yevgeny Prigozhin was marching his band of merry criminals to Moscow. Putin’s control of the military and the country depends on the effectiveness of his internal security apparatuses: namely his state-sanctioned thugs and death squads.
So, in short, Europe and Ukraine are up against a mafia-like clique with a military force and a nuclear arsenal. Given that this criminal organisation rules Russia, it has at its disposal millions of men it can use as cannon fodder in war, but does it, really?
Russia has lost more than 300,000 men in its invasion of Ukraine, including most of its military hardware such as tanks and heavy vehicles. The Russian navy and air force are still intact because Ukraine does not have the equivalents but still, Russia is taking heavy losses on the air and naval front. Ukraine is alleged to have lost more men than Russia, but undoubtedly, morale seems to be greater among the Ukrainians whose President enjoys clear and majority support from his people.
From an economic standpoint, Ukraine is buoyed by the West and Russia is in an economic and monetary crisis that will only intensify over time. Russia’s economy is in the early stages of its Venezuela 2.0 process, and this scenario is very simple to describe. Like post-Chavez Venezuela, Russia’s economy, which is cut off from the US Dollar, is getting less productive, raking in less foreign currency, all the while spending much more with its local currency and raking in more debts. The EU has to keep closing Russia’s sources of revenue to accelerate Russia’s economic demise, ultimately and eventually hampering its plans to win its war in Ukraine. The West is slowly learning to live without trading with Russia, an experience the West went through multiple times in the previous century.
The only risk that Scholz and Macron fear deeply is that Putin would feel as desperate as to launch a nuclear attack, but this risk is extremely low apart from being absurd. Even showing signs of capitulation sends the wrong message that launching a nuclear weapon would be effective at changing Europe’s position, so in reality, the risk of a nuclear attack is higher on a long-term basis if Europe capitulates. As a criminal organisation, the Kremlin’s ability to launch a nuclear weapon is hampered by many factors including its complete lack of legitimacy and support in its country: it’s not just an existential risk for the Kremlin in terms of retaliation, it is also an existential risk in terms of its political support and the networks that still support it. The Kremlin is not wise enough to behave but clever enough to have a sense of self-preservation that would enable it to lose a war without launching a nuclear weapon.
Macron and Scholz are compromising European security by capitulating to Putin and their capitulation makes Europe weak and ineffective on a global scale. Macron is not convincing and effective when he appeals to Israel to fight Hamas according to the laws of war and preserve the lives of Palestinian civilians given that he can’t win a war on Europe’s borders. This is not rocket science.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply