The bloc’s unstated goal is to perpetuate the conflict till at least 2029 in the hope that the Democrats will regain control of the White House and resume the US’ Biden-era Ukrainian policy.
Andrew Korybko
Orban’s “democratic ouster”
is expected to remove Hungary’s procedural opposition to the EU’s
planned €90 billion loan to Ukraine that’ll be financed by members
raising common debt. RT published a detailed article about this plan here
last December, which was a compromise for financing this loan after the
bloc failed to reach a consensus to either outright confiscate some of
Russia’s frozen assets for giving to Ukraine or use at least some of
them as collateral for a loan to it. Readers can learn more here and here.
If everything goes according to plan, and Bloomberg
reported that the bloc plans to move swiftly after Hungary held
everything up for several months already, then this move risks funding a
forever war. Hopes of a military breakthrough along the front or a
diplomatic breakthrough in US-mediated talks
have yet to materialize, so the pace of Russia’s on-the-ground advance
remains glacial, thus meaning that it could take years to achieve
Russia’s reported minimum goal of obtaining control over all of Donbass.
Funding two-thirds of the Ukrainian budget for the next two years per the EU’s goal
would likely lead to another two-year round being agreed in order to
encourage the US to continue its military aid. Ever since last summer,
the US no longer donates arms to Ukraine but instead sells them to NATO,
which then transfers them there. Even if
Trump suspends these sales, so long as the Ukrainian budget is financed
and nothing major changes, then it might hold out long enough for him
to change his mind again.
To be sure, Ukraine cannot fight forever since even Zelensky’s new Chief of Staff Kirill Budanov recently admitted that it faces “a huge, huge problem” after new Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov revealed
that over 2 million Ukrainians are dodging the draft, which seriously
complicates operations at the front. There’s also always the chance that
Putin will turn the special operation
into a formal war in which he’d no longer care about civilian
casualties in an attempt to decisively end the conflict on Russia’s
terms.
There are two competing schools of thought
about why he hasn’t yet done so. One speculates that he doesn’t want to
inadvertently risk an escalation with the US that could easily spiral
into World War III, while the other is that he still truly considers
Russians and Ukrainians to be one people like he explained at length in summer 2021’s magnum opus,
ergo his reluctance to see their civilians suffer. At any rate, the
forever war scenario assumes that Putin won’t do this, which can’t be
taken for granted.
Nevertheless, the EU operates
under the assumption that he won’t do so, which explains why it plans to
move swiftly to approve Ukraine’s €90 billion loan and still buys arms
from the US for transfer to that country. This not only perpetuates the
risk that tensions spiral out of control but also perpetuates the EU’s
energy insecurity amidst the ongoing crisis caused by the Third Gulf War
since an end to the conflict could hypothetically result in the resumption of Russian energy exports to the EU to its citizens’ benefit.
The
EU’s unstated goal is to perpetuate the conflict till at least 2029 in
the hope that the Democrats will regain control of the White House and
resume the US’ Biden-era Ukrainian policy. Even though Europeans will
economically suffer till then, not to mention more Russians and
Ukrainians dying, the bloc is willing to pay these costs in pursuit of
its ideologically driven goal of inflicting a strategic defeat upon
Russia. Ultimately, however, the conflict might end up strategically
defeating the EU instead.