Russian elections. A war in Ukraine and a possible fifth term for Putin.
Russia is preparing for a protracted war in Ukraine by increasing defense spending by 70% next year in 2024, a move that promises to benefit depressed Russian regions and sectors related to the war effort. This way, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term in the 2024 elections.
With the budget increase, both state-owned and private food, construction and pharmaceutical manufacturers, which receive contracts from the military sector, will benefit.
On December 1, Putin ordered the country’s military to increase troop numbers by nearly 170,000 to a total of 1.32 million, and all these people; they need to be armed, fed and provided with uniforms, plus companies that provide prosthetics and funeral services would also benefit as the war progresses.
It is important to mention that the remote and depressed regions where many of these industries are located have experienced a boom since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and another source of wartime income for Russia’s depressed industrial regions comes from the financial compensation the government offers to entice men to sign up to fight, since, simply put, the families of men hired or recruited into the Army last year receive around 200,000 rubles (about $2,100) a month. This is four times the average salary in small cities and between two and three times the average salary in large cities, the men who enlist come mainly from places like Buryatia, Tyva or Novgorod, regions that have not experienced much prosperity in the last two decades.
The boom caused by government spending in the defense sector has also led to increased spending in other sectors of the economy, including construction, domestic tourism, and restaurants and hotels.
The Kremlin has at the same time managed to continue paying public workers in the education and health sectors. Its huge oil and gas revenues have allowed it to continue the war in Ukraine while keeping domestic spending under control.
Before US and EU sanctions came into effect at the end of 2022, Russia’s oil and gas revenues were soaring: revenues increased by 28% compared to 2021 and Russia was able to offset the reduction in export prices.
The restrictions promoted by the West had the opposite effect than expected, because Russian companies and even ordinary Russians kept their money in Russia.
After the initial ‘shock’ of February 2022, the Russian Central Bank helped stabilize the situation, and both the Russian government and the banking system had enough money to lend to private companies, which would otherwise have suffered from being isolated from the West.
However a prolonged war; It could already put the Russian economy in difficulties and could be unsustainable. The Government still has some reserves for next year, but there are doubts about whether it will be able to cover the budget deficit after 2024. The economy and markets move based on supply and demand; in that sense, common people come to the market with demands for consumer goods and housing, but there is not enough labor or production capacity to meet the growing demand. Until now; Russia is moving forward, but the country is in decline and is being ‘re-Sovietized’. Putin has enough reserves at the moment, but he is buying soldiers and deaths.
The Russian Government also relies on prisoners on the battlefield to sustain its war. The incentive to join the fighting is strong for convicts, who are being pardoned in exchange for fighting in Ukraine, and men who are suddenly released from prison to fight in the war return home as heroes because they fought for the homeland and those who die are buried with military honors while their families receive financial compensation.
Meanwhile, residents of large metropolitan cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, so far unaffected by conscription, have barely felt the effects of Western sanctions or the war.
The above forces us to reflect on the differences between the strategy of the European Union and the United States regarding the war in Ukraine, despite sharing a common objective.
Both the United States and the European Union maintain a common position regarding Putin’s imperialist aggression against Ukraine, but with certain nuances. Of course there is complete agreement on the objective of isolating Russia, hitting the country economically and arming Ukraine, but in this context the American leadership predominates because it is a State and the leading world power and because of its enormous military capacity: it is enough to remember that 75% of NATO troops are contributed by that country. On the contrary, the EU, although it aspires to be a single geopolitical actor, is currently failing to do so, although its contribution to Ukraine is proving to be very relevant.
The United States is clearly betting on the strategy of defeating Putin, although there are different interpretations about what this may mean. The European Union, which shares this objective, is more in favor of forcing the opening of real negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. This does not mean that the United States is against them but, for them, the key seems to be on the military front. Once Ukraine finds itself in a better position (for example, preventing the Russians from taking Odessa) this scenario could open up.
However, it is not very evident what the United States intends since somewhat different opinions have been expressed in its government. The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has spoken in favor of opening negotiations, once Ukraine has a more favorable military position. On the other hand, its Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has stated that with the sophisticated weapons that are being sent Ukraine this country can beat Russia. It is precisely the mediocre performance of the Russian army that is encouraging this strategy and the United States is carefully calibrating its shortcomings to inflict the greatest damage possible, which also contributes to prolonging the war and prolonging the war would also imply weakening the economy. Russia after 2024 and the probable fall and defeat of Putin.
Therefore, despite these nuances, it seems clear that the United States’ strategy is committed to defeating Putin, which would once again reaffirm its hegemony as the main world superpower, and to increase sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. In this sense, it seems that the United States has delegated the war against Russia to Ukraine, although with certain limits since, for example, they have refused to send fighter jets to the Zelensky government.
Thus, with the type of military aid that Ukraine is receiving, it will be able to avoid the greater evil that is the total occupation of the country (a scenario already ruled out de facto by Putin himself) and resist; However, it is practically impossible for it to expel the Russian occupation troops from the invaded Ukrainian territories on its own.
For its part, the European Union has opted for more “gradualist” strategies: six successive packages of economic sanctions, but with little success so far.
In other words, the European Union has resisted completely cornering Putin, both to avert the eventual potential risk that he could resort to the tactical nuclear arsenal, ultimately a more theoretical than real possibility, and to force at least a armistice.
Since the Russian military strategy is to devastate the areas it intends to occupy, this does not exactly favor the rapprochement of positions and forces the EU itself to send more weapons to Ukraine. Therefore, it is true that the EU has not stopped increasing economic sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine, but the problem of its energy dependence on Russian gas, which contributes to continuing to finance Putin’s war, persists.
All in all, it is interesting to note that this war is accelerating the energy transition in the EU and that the need to get rid of the purchase of Russian gas has been accepted. The European balance in this war is globally positive, despite always finding it difficult to make decisions due to the paralyzing principle of unanimity, since such strong financial sanctions and trade prohibitions have never been imposed.
The EU countries can be grouped into three categories in relation to their strategies in this war:
Those who are frontally opposed to Russia, not by chance in this category are almost all the countries of central and eastern Europe (Poland, the Baltic Republics, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia, plus Finland due to its long border). ); That is, due to proximity and past experiences, those who most fear Russian expansionism.
Those who also oppose, but with nuances. In this category we highlight France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain and Portugal, among others.
Hungary as a separate case due to the illiberal Orbán as Putin’s “pawn” in the EU. At the moment, Russia has cut off its gas exports to Poland, Bulgaria and Finland, but it remains to be seen whether it will be able to do without purchases from other European countries completely and without problems in the short term.
Another nuance of interest when comparing the strategies of the United States and the European Union is the question of pending political reforms in Ukraine. The United States practically does not mention this issue, while the European Union demands administrative modernization, the rule of law, judicial and mass media independence, and an energetic fight against widespread corruption.
Indeed, although in the midst of war it is impossible to address such a program, Zelensky should make it his own to gradually implement it. Furthermore, Ukraine should be more diplomatic, since it is a mistake to proscribe everything Russian (neither the Russian language nor culture are “guilty”) nor to assume that the eventual recovery of Donbas, which today seems impossible, should imply the recognition of a broad autonomy and the official status of the Russian language, something that is now unpopular to defend in Ukraine.
Without a doubt, the support of the United States and the European Union for Ukraine has prevented Putin’s victory. However, by not intervening directly (something that is obviously not possible because this would mean the outbreak of World War III), it has given way to a somewhat more limited war, concentrated in Donbas.
The West must provide economic and financial support to Ukraine and not just military support, otherwise the collapse of this country will be inevitable. Macron and Kissinger have suggested “Finlandizing” (in the old sense of the expression) Ukraine.
However, such an option would not only weaken the sovereignty of this country, but would also give Russia a certain victory since this would represent tacitly recognizing its right to have a “zone of influence.” These positions are not shared as such by all Western countries and, although a middle way could be opened, in the long term Ukraine could be a member of the EU which, by the way, has its own common defense clause (art. 42.7 of the Treaty). of the Union), definitively giving up joining NATO.
As noted above, it is not clear what meaning lies behind the objective of “defeating” Russia. Does he mean kicking his troops out of Ukraine or causing the collapse of Putin’s regime? The first objective seems practically impossible since Ukraine can resist but does not have enough capacity to expel the invader completely. Unless there was a direct intervention by NATO, something that does not seem to be happening at the moment.
The second objective does not seem possible either since the opposition in Russia is very minority, lacks strength and is severely repressed. Neither the oligarchs, much less the military, seem like they are going to confront a Putin who has the leadership completely under control. Rather, it must be interpreted that when Biden or Scholz affirm that Putin must be “defeated” it means that his territorial occupations will never be endorsed and that his life will be made impossible by turning him into an international pariah.
On the one hand, Putin has had to limit the war to Donbas because he lacks more means to go further, and on the other, he has also done so to try to limit the involvement of the United States. In other words, it is as if he is implying that the United States itself is not interested in a complete defeat of Russia.
In this sense, within the US Administration itself there are voices that affirm that it is one thing to continue helping Ukraine (this is incontestable and arouses complete unanimity) and another to destroy the Russian State as some “hawks” would like. This second sector is a minority and, furthermore, would give Putin the perfect excuse to resort to the nuclear arsenal in the face of an “existential threat.” So the latter is a practically discardable scenario; In any case, Biden has rectified his controversial slip and has stated that in no case is the objective of the United States to overthrow the Russian regime.
The war in Ukraine is objectively favoring European integration because, even without being (yet) a relevant geopolitical actor in the world, something that has been dragging on since the wars of the former Yugoslavia, it has taken unprecedented steps in that direction. In this sense, Macron’s proposal to create a European Confederation that goes beyond the EU seems to aspire to such an objective.
Although the Conference on the Future of Europe has been very disappointing, it has at least opened the difficult prospect of Treaty reform, but as long as the principle of unanimity for some key issues persists, it seems very difficult to envision such a single supranational actor.
Beyond the different Western strategies in relation to Ukraine, Putin has not stopped chaining one mistake after another in his war of aggression: he failed in his lightning “special operation”; has turned Zelensky into a national hero; the “non-existent” Ukrainian nation has revealed its social strength; Nobody welcomed the Russians as “liberators” and has given a reason for being to a NATO that is stronger than ever.
Thus, Putin has had to reconvert the war and limit it to Donbas, at the same time that he has had to verify that, if he did not want NATO on more borders with Russia, he has achieved the opposite. Putin has claimed that his plan (he never specified it clearly, beyond his empty and ridiculous rhetoric about the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine) is being fulfilled, a fallacy since it is modulated depending on the circumstances warlike.
The fact that Finland and Sweden have requested membership in NATO is Putin’s greatest strategic defeat: NATO is not responsible for the war and if it is going to grow it is not because that is its dynamic, but because two neutral European states They have decided to enter it.
Furthermore, Danish citizens have endorsed in a referendum and by a large majority the elimination of their country’s previous exceptions in the European NATO military system to assimilate with the rest of the members. Therefore, everything has gone wrong for Putin in this dimension: he has achieved nothing less than doubling the direct borders with NATO and has buried “Finlandization”, that is, imposed and “supervised” neutrality.
Added to all this is that all European States will increase their military budgets and the only response that Putin will be able to give will be to deploy nuclear missiles on the border with Finland, but considering the existence of intercontinental missiles the question of territorial proximity as an “existential threat ” is more part of rhetoric than operational reality.
It is clear now that it was a mistake to informally invite Ukraine to apply for membership in NATO because there was never a real intention to include that country in it, but that gave Putin one of his main arguments – false – for his unjustifiable aggression. .
Putin has understood that he will no longer be able to overthrow Zelensky’s government and the difficulties of Russian troops have reoriented the war. If conquering Mariupol has cost Russia almost three months, it is obvious that it does not have the capacity to open new fronts and it remains to be seen if it will be able to attack Odessa with prospects of success.
Everything prefigures that we are heading towards a long war of attrition and of lower intensity that can last indefinitely as long as Russia has China and it is certain that it will be like that and Ukraine with the United States and the EU that will also continue to have its support.
It is true that the economic sanctions did not weaken Russia in the short term, but these sanctions will increasingly affect Russia and this 2024 will be decisive, but they will not stop the war because Putin will be able to continue financing it thanks to China and, to a lesser extent, India, two countries that represent about 25% of the world’s population.
The one who will pay the most will be Ukraine for the horrific human losses, the enormous devastation of the country and the monumental economic setback. Therefore, the most likely scenario is that of a factual partition of Ukraine since Russia is going to keep the Donbas and the corridor that links it with Crimea and, for the moment, neither Putin nor Zelensky have incentives to seriously negotiate peace. .
Everything will depend on the course of the war in the coming months and the stabilization of the fronts and only the stagnation and the very high cost of continuing military operations could, perhaps, force an armistice.
