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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia may emerge from the war in Ukraine as a hyper-mobilized, hyper-illiberal revisionist power with a deep pool of trained military manpower and a deep sense of grievance toward the West.

Western sanctions no longer look like wonder weapons. The Russian economy contracted by just 2.2 percent in 2022, and resumed growing in 2023. Russian trade has been rerouted to Asia; financial, technological and commercial relations with China are flourishing. Geopolitically ambivalent swing states, such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, are helping Moscow mitigate its economic isolation. Granted, the costs of conflict have exacerbated economic imbalances in Russia. But there is no near-term prospect of the economy, or the war machine it supports, falling apart.

Nor is it clear that the West will soon face a weakened, humbled Russia, incapable of seriously menacing its neighbors. Sure, Putin’s country has suffered grievous losses of men and materiel. But the government has mobilized hundreds of thousands of new soldiers and put the economy on a war footing. With the Kremlin pouring money into the defense sector, military production is soaring: Russia will pump out more artillery shells in 2024 than the US and Europe combined.

Putin has squeezed most remaining moderates out of the political system and weathered internal challenges to his power. He has doubled down on partnerships with Iran, China and North Korea, fellow autocracies that are now providing Russia with military and economic sustenance.

The Russia that emerges from this war may be a hyper-mobilized, hyper-illiberal revisionist power with a deep pool of trained military manpower and a deep sense of grievance toward the West. That’s a recipe for trouble on NATO’s Eastern front — and for increased global demands on American military power.

Finally, the democratic community no longer looks so committed, so unified. For months, political dysfunction has prevented the US from replenishing the level of support Ukraine needs to fight its war. The European Union has been momentarily stymied in its own bid to ramp up Ukraine assistance by the resistance of the pro-Putin government in Hungary. “Ukraine fatigue” is rising in much of the West.

If Donald Trump wins the presidency this November, democratic solidarity could devolve into transatlantic rancor. And if the US ends up abandoning Ukraine, that country could still go down to a military defeat that would have global consequences, by demonstrating that democracies lack the stamina to prevent expansionist autocracies –- whether Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Kim’s North Korea, or Khamenei’s Iran -- from imposing their will on the world.

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Bloomberg.com

Ukraine’s Desperate Hour: The World Needs a Russian Defeat

After one year of war, it looked like Putin was going to lead a weakened, humbled nation. Entering year three, he has a chance to break Western solidarity.

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