Ukraine

[KORG 4,756]

Here's what's going to happen.

Everyone will threaten Russia, Russia will push back, everyone will sanction Russia and cut them off. Putin will get back in his box.

[NightStar 313]

On 1/24/2022 at 5:34 PM, Mindblown said:

So if Russia goes to war with Ukraine, do you think other countries will just forget about COVID?

Separately, do you think this could lead to a world war?

The political regime that has been built in Russia under its current president has varied in some way during the last 22 years however there has been one thing which seems like a fundamental feature of it. It's authoritarian and therefore it is built on absenteeism and the practices of un-involvement and un-participation of the general public. Kremlin has always tried to minimize the impact of any political decisions it would make on the Russian citizens' routine. It only carried out certain reforms when they became inevitable (e.g. retirement age raise happened not because of malice but simply because the Retirement Fund gained too much deficit which could no longer be sustained while keeping the previous retirement age). 

Launching a war against Ukraine will destroy the routine of all the citizens in Russia. It will ruin the Russian currency which will result in massive inflation like it did in 1998 and in 2014, while the wages will not be able to keep up with the galloping price growth. Moreover, it will possibly result in the loss of gas and oil export markets which are on of the major sources of the incomes for the budget and for Putin's corruption. It will strengthen NATO's presence in the Eastern Europe. It will also possibly lead to the crash of the banking system due to sanctions and due to people running to the banks to get their deposits.  

Such an outcome (full scale war with Ukraine) will signify the fundamental change to the regime; there must be no Putin to carry such a war out. Unless there is a coup in Kremlin which sees more radical members of the Security Council overthrow the commander in chief, a full-scale war is unlikely. 

What is more likely, though, is an attempt of Russia to recognize the sovereignty of the breakaway territories in Ukraine, the way Russia did in 2008 in relation to two Georgia break-away territories. Following the formal recognition of their sovereignty, Russia may attempt to restore their territory to the administrative borders of Donets and Luhansk regions, which will involve clashes with Ukrainian forces that are positioned in Donetsk and Luhansk.  Major world powers didn't go to war with Russia over Georgia crisis in 2008; will they do it if something like that happened in Ukraine? That's the question.