Before the Russian strikes on the energy sector, Kiev expected that it would need $55 billion in foreign aid next year. Now, according to Ukraine’s estimates, another 44 billion have been added to this figure (two extra per month).
At the aforementioned meeting in the National Bank, officials tried to predict the consequences of Russian strikes on the energy sector. Among the threats listed are:
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People can leave Ukraine en masse, taking their money with them, which can lead to a collapse of the national currency, as they will try to exchange hryvnia for euros or dollars.
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The government may be left without international reserves to pay for critical imports and will not be able to fulfill its obligations on foreign debt - a “doomsday scenario” known as a balance of payments crisis.
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Ukraine’s economy may shrink by another five percent next year - in excess of the 33 percent reduction in the outgoing year. Such data is contained in the forecast of Ukrainian bankers, which has not been publicly presented.
But public assessments are no better. Prime Minister Denis Shmygal, speaking at an international donors’ conference in Paris on Tuesday, said that next year the reduction could reach an even higher figure - 9%.
What can the West oppose to this from a financial point of view?
“The EU and the US have jointly pledged to send Ukraine more than $30 billion next year. Although in fact none of these amounts was approved by either Brussels or Washington,” the newspaper writes.
And the aid promised this year was allocated slowly, which forced Kiev to print money and caused inflation to jump by more than 20 percent.
But even if all the promised assistance is provided, it is intended only to keep the country afloat from day to day. And even remotely, it does not cover hundreds of billions of dollars of damage caused by the war.
The only way they have been staving off a complete societal collapse is through a combination of massive infusions of cash and other aid from the West as well as brutal state repression aided by fascist paramilitary gangs. Once the tap is turned off - and it will be since the West itself and especially Europe are spiraling toward an inevitable economic and energy crisis - the entire house of cards will come crashing down. The only question that remains is whether this will come before or after Russia fulfills all its goals in the special military operation.
It’s also becoming clear that it’s costing the west far more to keep propping Ukraine up than what it costs Russia to continue the SMO. If things keep going the way they are then it’s likely that the entire western economic system is going to be headed for collapse.
Another factor is that there will likely be a flood of refugees coming to Europe from Ukraine as the result of infrastructure collapse. That’s going to put a huge strain on already fragile economic situation in Europe and further sharpen political tensions that are already translating into civil unrest.
this is playing out very much like the aggression towards and exploitation of Iraq. world bank is more than happy to give out massive loans to a country with its infrastructure and industrial base completely destroyed. Ironically this time, it’s Ukraine’s presumed allies that smell blood in the water.
i don’t get how “leftists” still think that zelenskyy and the US are doing anything good for the ukrainian proletariat
One of their first acts was literally to outlaw the communist party.
So who’s gonna shoulder the burden of rebuilding it all? Will it be Yankee and Brit ruling class that instigated the whole shitshow? Or is it going to be Russian taxpayers as usual? Think we already know the answer.
I guess it depends on how far Russia wants to go in Ukraine. Obviously the territories that join Russia will become Russia’s responsibility to rebuild, but seems to me that Russia should leave western Ukraine to become west’s problem. I don’t see the point for Russia to occupy parts of Ukraine that are hostile to Russia, nothing good is likely to come of that.
I don’t see the point for Russia to occupy parts of Ukraine that are hostile to Russia, nothing good is likely to come of that.
This I agree with. I think we’re both old enough to remember the counter-terrorism in Caucasus after the second Chechen war. This would be worse.
should leave western Ukraine to become west’s problem
Well west doesn’t seem to keen to actually be useful for once and accept this responsibility, not with the current leadership. Plus it opens the gates for Polish/Hungarian occupation.
Yeah, it’s very likely that Poland and Hungary will try to cannibalize whatever is left of western Ukraine. This will create a lot of problems for them, because the people left in western Ukraine are hardcore nationalists. So, basically they could end up with something like Chechnya on their hands.
I mean modern Ukrainian nationalism was literally born in what is now western Ukraine along to and as reaction to growing polish nationalism in the region which was then part of Austria-Hungary. AH itself was helping it actually because polish nationalism was very strong across the 3 partitions and ukrainian one helped to diffuse it locally. Also, unlike Russia and Prussia/Germany which tended to react rather straightforward and pretty brutally to nationalism among minorities, AH was more insidious, playing subject nations against eachother (and it actually worked until their huge loss in WW1).
They will officially steal the russian assets frozen in western financial system, explain it is for the rebuilding of Ukraine and give it all to the western financiere as Ukraine debt repayment. That for starters, they will also loot everything that have some value in Ukraine and put it in debt spiral that would make haitan one look like picnic.
Sounds about right
The west will rebuild, paying their own corporations the whole time, and the corporations will take controlling interests in their natural resources. Ukrainians will be forced to shoulder the burden over the long term through harsh austerity terms on their immense IMF loans.
The question that weighs down on my mind is what the final fate of Ukraine will be, and ultimately much of that depends greatly on the conclusion of the conflict. A while ago I anticipated the possibility of a landlocked, rump state Ukraine. Militarily speaking this scenario seems further away now as the attempted Russian advance towards Odessa appears to have come to a standstill at the southern bank of the Dnieper. Does anyone here anticipate a renewed offensive when winter really starts to bite? It seems like the natural follow up to this recent campaign of destroying energy infrastructure.
I think there will be a renewed offensive after Russia dismantles Ukrainian infrastructure. Once that’s done Ukrainian army will be in an untenable position where they won’t be able to get the supplies they need. Russia is also depleting Ukrainian army through attrition right now, so by the time they go on offensive Russia will have a fresh and well supplied army from all the reservists that have been mobilized, while Ukraine will have remnants of a demoralized and poorly supplied army playing defence.
