Blogger Yuriy Bogdanov has bad and good news for Ukrainians. The bad thing is that Ukraine does not have and cannot have a "plan B" without the help of the West. The good thing is that no one will leave us, and there will be help.
I have two news for you. One is very good. One is very bad.
I read and listened to brilliant ideas about "plan B for Ukraine" if "the West abandons us". And about the fact that we can produce all the weapons ourselves and that's all, and we'll have enough money if we do everything right. So that's what both news stories are about.
Let's start with the very bad. We do not have and cannot have any plan B.
In the event that partners stop helping us with money and weapons, we're out of luck. Sooner or later. Fast or slow. Unless some epic "black swan" happens in Russia.
No, we have no internal resilience to sustain such a war for more than a couple of quarters without outside resource aid. Loans or donations.
During the First World War, even France and Britain, the two colonial empires, the #3 and #4 economies of the world at the time, did not survive the First World War without American (and a little Japanese) loans and supplies of resources from the colonies. And the further the war progressed, the more this dependence on loans and supplies GROWS, not the other way around.
1918 France spent 4.5 times more money on the war than it managed to earn, and was actually bankrupt. France, shakers. Not Ukraine. France. Colonial empire. And the "banker of Europe" before the war.
Kaiser's Germany, No. 2 in the world's economy, No. 1 in terms of military power, as soon as it found itself in isolation (it was banal to borrow or take resources from anywhere), gradually exhausted its potential and lost.
Our esteemed community sincerely believes sometimes that Ukraine could pay for the war itself if it wanted to. Whether to mass-produce weapons more complex than drones and already mastered equipment, but the truth is that we have long since lost the industrial potential that existed in Soviet times. Such cases. And there is no such demographic. Such cases 2.0. No, there will be no economic miracle during the war on our territory, because it never happened.
That doesn't mean we can't do more than we are doing now. We can and we must. But the truth is that without external supply of money (no, no Ukrainian economic rear is capable of carrying out the war) and other resources, we are doomed. Therefore, those people who demand a "plan B" from the government either know that they are demanding something unrealistic, or they don't understand. Both conclusions speak ill of them.
Yes, the bad news is that our destiny is not only up to us. Unfortunately.
Now the very good news.
No, no one will abandon us and will either pay and supply. Or fight tomorrow alone, as an alternative. In Europe, the realization of this comes faster than in America. Which is now really at some kind of existential crossroads. But we will have aid for this year from the USA.
And therefore we will have at least a year — more precisely, we, Europe, the United States, Japan, Korea, etc. — to either inflict decisive damage on Russia, or to recalibrate our capabilities and expectations.
There is another good news. Things are not good in Russia either. But that's a topic for another conversation.
And what should we do? To fight, to work. If not in the Armed Forces, then for the Armed Forces. You know it without me. Having a weakly predicted future is difficult and extremely unpleasant, but we still have no other choice than to hang on and row. Well, if we want to live and for our children to live in their own country, not in emigration or in occupation.
