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European leaders are unable to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia yet unwilling to face the political consequences of peace in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is now entirely dependent on the ability of European states to pay for it at a cost of at least $50bn per year

a strong likelihood……….. that three years from now Ukraine would have to settle for a peace that was even more disadvantageous to it than that which is available now

Ian Proud, Oct 22, 2025, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/european-leaders-are-unable-to-inflict?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=176818542&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

President Trump’s latest about face on dialogue with Russia doesn’t change the fundamental predicament Europe finds itself in: unable to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia but unwilling to face the political consequences of ending the war in Ukraine.

The Budapest Summit between Trump and Putin is now off, it seems. European leaders and Zelensky have clearly sold the US President on the idea of entering a ceasefire along the current line of contact. Yet, caught between a rock and a hard place, European leaders continue to deny the obvious realities of the dire situation in Ukraine, which will only worsen over time. I see no evidence of any willingness to change course, despite the obvious political hazard they face and the increasingly grim forecast for Europe and for Ukraine should they continue to push an unwinnable war.

The war in Ukraine is now entirely dependent on the ability of European states to pay for it at a cost of at least $50bn per year, on the basis of Ukraine’s latest budget estimate for the 2026 fiscal year. Ukraine itself is bankrupt and has no access to other sources of external capital, beyond that provided by the governments sponsoring the ongoing war.

That then brings the conversation back to the creation of a so-called ‘reconstruction loan’ underwritten by $140bn of the Russian foreign exchange assets currently frozen in Belgium. The term ‘reconstruction loan’ is itself disingenuous, on the basis that any expropriated Russian assets would not be used for reconstruction, but rather to fund the Ukrainian war effort. Indeed. Chancellor Merz of Germany recently suggested that the fund could allow Ukraine to keep fighting for another three years.

The most likely scenario, in the terrible eventuality that war in Ukraine did continue for another three years is that the Russian armed forces would almost certainly swallow up the whole of the Donbass region – comprising Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. This – Ukraine’s departure from the Donbas – appears to be the basis of President Putin’s conditions for ending the war now, together with a Ukrainian declaration of neutrality and giving up any NATO aspirations. More likely, the Russian Armed forces might also capture additional swathes of land in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts, and also in Dnipropetrovsk, where they have made recent incursions.

So, there is a strong likelihood, at the currently slow pace of the war effort in which Russia claims small pieces of land on a weekly basis, that three years from now Ukraine would have to settle for a peace that was even more disadvantageous to it than that which is available now, having lost more land, together with potentially hundreds of thousands of troops killed or injured.

Logically, European policymakers would be able to look into the future to see this grim predicament with clear eyes and encourage Zelensky to settle for peace now.

But European policy is driven by two key considerations. Firstly, an emotional belief that an extended war might so weaken Russia that President Putin was forced to settle on unfavourable terms. The idea of a strategic defeat of Russia – which is often spoken by European politicians – however, doesn’t bear serious scrutiny.

Russia doesn’t face the same considerable social and financial challenges that Ukraine faces. Its population is much larger and a wider conscription of men into the Armed forces has not been needed – Russia can recruit sufficient new soldiers to fight and, indeed, has increased the size of its army since 2022. Ukraine continues to resort to forced mobilisation of men over the age of 25, often using extreme tactics that involve busifying young men against their will from the streets.

Critically, Russia could likely continue to prosecute the war on the current slow tempo for an extended period of time without the need for a wider mobilisation of young men, which may prove politically unpopular for President Putin domestically. Yet, the longer the war continues, Ukraine will come under increasing pressure, including from western allies, to deepen its mobilisation to capture young men below the age of 25 to shore up its heavily depleted armed forces on the front line.

There has been considerable resistance to this so far within Ukraine. Mobilising young men above the age of 22 would prove unpopular for President Zelensky but it would also worsen Ukraine’s already catastrophic demographic challenge: 40% of the working age population has already been lost, either through migration or through death on the front line and that number will continue to go south, the longer the war carries on.

Russia’s financial position is considerably stronger than Ukraine’s. It has very low levels of debt at around 15% of GDP and maintains a healthy current account surplus, despite a narrowing of the balance in the second quarter of 2025. Even if Europe expropriates its frozen assets, Russia still has a generous and growing stock of foreign exchange reserves to draw upon, which recently topped $700bn for the first time.

Russia’s military industrial complex continues to outperform western suppliers in the production of military equipment and munitions. In the currently unlikely event that Russia started to fall into the red in terms of its trade – what commentators in the west refer to as destroying Russia’s war economy – it would still have considerable scope to borrow from non-western lenders, given the strength of its links with the developing world, aided by the emergence of BRICS.

Ukraine is functionally bankrupt because it is unable to borrow from western capital markets, on account of its decision to pause all debt payments. With debt expected to reach 110% in 2025, even before consideration of any loan backed by frozen Russian assets, it depends entirely on handouts from the west. Ukraine’s trade balance has continued to worsen throughout the war, reinforcing its dependence on capital injections from the west to keep its foreign exchange reserves in the black.

So while the determination of Ukraine to fight is unquestionable, the emotional belief in the west that this will overcome the enormous social and economic challenges the country faces in an extended attritional war with Russia is wildly misplaced.

So, let’s look at the rational explanation for Europe’s continued willingness to prolong the fight in Ukraine. The uncomfortable truth is that Europe’s political leaders have boxed themselves into this position because of a hard boiled determination not to concede to Russia’s demands in any peace negotiations. Indeed, there is a steadfast and immovable objection to talking to Russia at all, which has been growing since 2014.

However, across much of Europe, the political arithmetic is turning against the pro-war establishment with nationalist, anti-war parties gaining ground in Central Europe, Germany, France, Britain and even in Poland. And despite so far fruitless overtures made by President Trump towards negotiation with President Putin, Trumpophobia provides another brake on the European political establishment shifting its position.

So, changing course now and entering into direct negotiations with Russia would have potentially catastrophic consequences, politically, for European leaders, which they must surely be aware of. A full 180 degree change in diplomatic course by Europe would require an acceptance that the war against Russia was unwinnable, and that Russia’s underlying concerns – namely Ukrainian neutrality – would finally have to be accepted as a political reality.

On this basis, European politicians would face the prospect of explaining to their increasingly sceptical voters that their strategy of defeating Russia had failed, having spent four years of war saying at all times that it would eventually succeed. And that would lead potentially to internationalist governments falling across Europe starting in two years when Poland and France will again go to the polls, and in 2029 when the British and German governments will face the voters.

There are deeper issues too. An end of war would accelerate the process of admitting Ukraine into the European Union with potentially disastrous consequences for the whole financial basis of Europe. The European Commission will face the prospect of accepting that a two-tier Europe is inevitable, admitting Ukraine as a member without the financial benefits received by existing member states; for probably understandable reasons, this would cause widespread resentment within Ukraine itself, having sacrificed so much blood to become European, precipitating widespread internal dissent and possibly conflict in a disgruntled country with an army of almost one million. Alternatively, the European Commission would need to redraw its budget and face huge resistance from existing Member States, who would lose billions of Euros each year in subsidies to Ukraine. And the truth is that it will in all likelihood be unable to do so.

Caught between hoping for a strategic defeat of Russia which any rational observer can see is unlikely, and accepting the failure of their policy, causing a widespread loss of power and huge economic and political turmoil, Europe’s leaders are choosing to keep calm and carry on. If they had any sense, the likes of Von der Leyen, Merz, Starmer or Macron would change tack and pin their hopes on explaining away their failure before the political tide in Europe evicts them all from power. But I see no signs of them having the political acumen to do that. So we will continue to sit and wait, while storm clouds grow ever darker over Europe.

October 24, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Slouching Towards Peace

“Zelensky has been given a Russian ultimatum via Trump. Accept Russia terms or face total destruction.” —SiriusReport on “X”

James Howard Kunstler, Oct 20, 2025, https://www.kunstler.com/p/slouching-towards-peace

Well, “No Kings” came and went. Inflatable animal costumes did a brisk business for one week. The old Boomers got a social space to act out their nostalgic re-visit to the Age of Aquarius. They resisted. . . something. (Mainly authority of any kind, a retarded adolescent fantasy.) And now it’s back to Rachel Maddow for further instructions. The Republic slogs on, albeit with a shut-down government.

Did you forget about Ukraine? Yes, a war is still going on there and it’s a weeping lesion on Western Civ, possibly leading to fatal sepsis. US neocons set the stage in 2014 with the Maidan color revolution as a wedge to wreck and then loot Russia. Then, for eight years, Ukraine harassed the Donbas with US-supplied missiles and artillery. Russia had enough of that in 2022 and ventured in to stop it. For “Joe Biden,” the war was a nice smokescreen to cover his long-running grift operations in Ukraine. The Euro club stupidly came along for the ride.

It was all a tragic and feckless waste. Mr. Trump wants to stop it, but Western Civ as a whole is in such a state of florid strategic disorder that he’s had to pretend the US supports Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky could not possibly carry on this mischief without US weapons and loads of US taxpayer cash. Still, the Russians advance implacably on-the-ground. They are going to “win” this war eventually — meaning, the US and Europe will lose — and everybody knows it.

It would be nice if France, Germany, and the UK were still stable, thriving, rational nations, but they are not. They have entered an arc of collapse, largely due to their own stupendously bad choices, and their leadership is insane. Macron, Merz, Starmer. . . these are the Three Stooges of our time, and Europe’s collapse has degenerated to morbid, masochistic slapstick as their factories shutter and the Jihadis go about raping their wives and daughters. Do you think that’s not happening?

Mr. Trump surely realizes he has to cut the US loose from this evil clown-show. That they are our NATO allies complicates things, yet, really, the Euro gang is impotent and NATO has become an irrelevant anachronism. They have no effective military mojo. Their economies are imploding. They have surrendered their culture to a savage cult. Their populations are demoralized, emasculated, in thrall to the menopausal viragos in their councils and ministries. They know full-well that Ukraine lies in Russia’s sphere-of-influence — a centuries-long reality — and that it is none of their business. Yet, Macron, Merz, and Starmer keep pushing the fantasy that Russia seeks to invade them, and so they must strike at Russia before that happens . . . all pure delusion.

You can suppose that Mr. Putin wants a negotiated peace rather than continuing the long grind on-the-ground, with all its casualties and expenditures. Such a negotiated peace really amounts to the US ceasing to support Zelensky’s war effort. Of course, such is the insanity of US political life, that many in our government pretend that we have a stake in Ukraine, and must retain some control of it.

Mr. Trump must know this is insane and is against the interests of the USA. He knows that Ukraine is historically in Russia’s sphere of influence — as Venezuela is in ours — and that the best outcome of this mess would be for Ukraine to return to its prior status as a harmless frontier between Russia and western Europe — as it had been since 1945 — looking to its humble business of growing wheat for export. We do not need Ukraine to be anybody’s problem, despite the insane yearnings of the neocons, the weapons manufacturers, and the reckless globalists of the EU, to make it everyone’s problem.

Hence, Mr. Trump’s dilemma: how to dissociate from this losing proposition and come out looking like a winner, saving Europe from becoming a smoldering ashtray, stanching the flow of US taxpayers’ money and US-made weapons into this black hole, and forging friendly relations with a Russia that is decades beyond being our ideological enemy? America and Russia’s interests are geopolitically aligned, though no one in the arena is willing to admit it. Russia has much more to worry about with China right at Siberia’s doorstep than with the USA, just as the USA has much more to worry about with China as it weaponizes A-I, moves into outer space, and casts a covetous eye on the resources of the USA, Australia, Africa, and its next-door-neighbor, Russia.

These are the matters that Presidents Trump and Putin must be touching on in those long, two-and-a-half-hour phone confabs they hold. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump must put on a vaudeville show for his US adversaries about maybe giving tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. . . no, maybe not doing that. . . and the rest of the song and dance to make it appear that we are kinda-sorta still on Ukraine’s side when the truth is we are not so much at all.

And so, the two presidents head for Budapest where — if the intel spooks of Euroland don’t try to bump them off there — they might come to the necessary agreement that the war will end because the US no longer supports it, not even the pretense of supporting it. President Viktor Orban of Hungary, who Mr. Trump respects, will be on hand for moral support. Expect some tough-talking mummery from DJT, just to throw the MSNBC lunatics off-balance. Rogue idiots such as Senators Blumenthal and Schiff will fume that “Trump lost Ukraine,” but the 50-plus percent of Americans who are not-insane will understand what actually happened.

October 21, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment