Vladimir Putin felt insulted in 2014 when Barack Obama, the then-president, claimed that Russia was only” a local authority that is threating some of its immediate neighbors, not out of power but out of frailty.”
Obama’s assertion is still valid 11 years afterward, and three years after Putin’s whole invasion of Ukraine. The issue is that both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump act more like they are powerful than weak.
The reality of the conflict indicates then. Russia’s defense has lost 900,000 lives since February 2022. According to new images released by Britain’s Ministry of Defense, 200 000 to 250 000 men have been killed and the rest have been seriously injured.
Russia’s military accounts for 8 % of the country’s total GDP, making up 40 % of its federal budget.
However, despite all those deaths and all that money, Russia has remained in complete control of just 20 % of Ukraine’s province and has made little progress inside Ukraine for the past three months.
Russia’s just recent successes have been in preventing Russian troops from leaving Kursk, Ukraine’s border region, which Ukraine invaded past August. A significant portion of that happened when Trump abruptly curtailed US knowledge support for Ukraine. The Russian forces are still not completely expelled from Kursk.
Russia’s economy has shown it can sustain Putin’s war’s protracted loss, but that does not imply that the nation is powerful.
The market has remained upright thanks to the exports of oil, gasoline, and other supplies to China, India, and other buyers, whereas Russian banks have been forced to provide subsidized loans for agriculture, security, and design. This is only storing up problem, though.
The Russian central bank has increased interest rates to 21 %, indicating that without the subsidized loans, the economy would come to a halt and many borrowers would go bankrupt. This is done in order to control inflation.
The truth about the conflict is that it was the product of an authoritarian leader using only his defense and patriotic rhetoric as his only means of defense. The reality is that Putin may not want to stop the fighting because Russia’s economy would be in serious trouble if war spending were to slow down or stop.
Obama was wrong to say that about 11 years before, but his response was incorrect. If he and his Western allies had firmly and strongly responded to Putin’s aggression, Russia might have been forced to back.
Instead, they continued to purchase Russian gas and invest in new pipelines, which eventually fueled Putin’s attempt to continue his tyrannical invasion and ultimately his bloody, pointless invasion.
Both Trump and Western leaders now need to keep this odd balance between Putin’s personal power and Russia’s national frailty at the forefront of their minds.
Trump’s actions in 2014 seem to have been similar to those of Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel: in his private negotiations with Putin on March 18 and in his overseas policy discussions with Russian authorities in Moscow, as opposed to obstructing him to do so.
All of Trump’s “enormous monetary deals” are about this, according to the man who suggested, perhaps encouraged by Putin himself, that if only peace may be achieved, both America and Russia would benefit from all kinds of financial benefits. The myth that the Russian carry can be tamed if only it receives plenty of food to eat is the story of the Nordstream oil refineries under the Baltic Sea all over again.
However, neither Putin nor the other ex-KGB officials around him need any more foods because they are already wealthy beyond all of their wildest dreams.
They have no reason to care about the Soviet economy as long as the Putin administration’s hold on power is strong. To the extent that they are concerned, keeping the conflict going is their top priority, since that is what the business and employment are currently primarily focused on.
Putin won’t get drawn into harmony, he won’t. He has no need to give in to the romance of “deals,” nor is he even necessary to be interested in the chat that German, Italian, and other Western companies are now having about resuming purchases of Russian oil once serenity has been reached.
Trump’s deception attempt and talk of German gas purchases will serve as a pretext for his continued assertion that his northern foes are weak and degenerate.
However, force is the only way to bring about a lasting peace, not seduction. We are awaiting confirmation from Trump and his experts as to whether they are capable of real strain on Putin by resumed military support for Ukraine and by imposing “massive restrictions” on Russia, which Trump has threatened but has shown no sign of establishing or even putting into action.
This confirms the fundamental tenet of our time, which is that Europe is ultimately to blame. We must adjust the old phrase and put our income and our martial where our mouth is in order to put strain on a strong Russia and a poor Russia.
Without the assistance of the United States, Britain, France, Poland, and others are making plans for the long term. The European Commission is also developing long-term plans to encourage member nations to borrow more money for defence projects.
The biggest challenges, however, lie in Putin’s opposition to romance, which will require both proving tomorrow’s strength’s ability to deliver forces for a security guarantee and strengthening Ukraine’s resistance today.
A great first step would be for Chancellor Friedrich Merz to grant his predecessor’s refusal to grant the transport of Germany’s long-range Corolla weapons to Ukraine.
Next, the trio of Germany, France, and Britain should make actual, trustworthy plans to send soldiers and air forces to Ukraine, demonstrating that they will be there as soon as a peace is agreed.
The Russian keep can only be truly subdued by such bravery demonstrations.
Previous The Economist editor in chief, Bill Emmott. This article is the English translation of an article that La Stampa published in Italian and was published in his Substack email Bill Emmott’s World View. It can be republished these with kind authority.