Russia’s puppet, the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, uncharacteristically reached out to Europe and even Poland.
“We make money primarily in the East: in Russia, China. But we must not discard contacts with the high-tech West,” Lukashenko said, adding:
“They are nearby, the European Union is our neighbor. And we should maintain contacts with them.” While off Poland he said: “if they want, we can talk, patch up our relations.”
Poland’s response was to say that if Belarus wants good relations it should stop attacks on their shared border and release Polish prisoners from Belarusian prisons.
On the surface, this looks like an attempt by Lukashenko to return to a policy of maintaining some balance in its relations with Europe and Russia.
Just before the 2020 mass protests for democracy in Belarus, there were rumors Lukashenko was trying to move away from Russia.
Their credibility was unclear, yet it placed many in a difficult position regarding whether to openly support those democracy movements, or whether doing so would risk a situation of Belarus ending up where it did.
Plenty therefore stayed silent. Germany didn’t, quite understandably, but three years on, we’d take the president a bit seriously and potentially even look at whether he can become less of a puppet.
That may leave an opening for democracy activists to level the criticism of propping up the dictator, but those activists failed, unfortunately, and waiting out instead of isolating may well be the better policy.
That is Belarus, and only Belarus. They are not Russia, they are a different people, they did not participate directly in Russia’s war on Ukraine, and anecdotally where the people are concerned they seem to be very friendly to Europe and less chess pumping than some Russians.
Some commentators however suggest Lukashenko is just acting as a Putin microphone. Of course the all powerful genius Putin would never allow Belarus to have its own initiative or agency, so there is no way this is a Belarusian initiative they argue.
That may be the case, but there’s ground to disagree. Russia is very weak currently. Their civil service has to consider two potential developments: their defeat on the ground in the Sea of Azov, and/or their defeat on the economic front.
Satellites like Belarus gain more agency during such weakness. Lukashenko at the end of the day has his own interests and he is too small to have any control over how those two fronts will play out. He has to hedge.
As a more complicated Putin microphone on the other hand, as a way to try and see the public reaction, to measure their support for Ukraine in effect, there has hardly been any goodwill measure on the part of Russia to entertain that suggestion realistically.
To the contrary, they cancelled the grain deal, angering Europe and beyond it. It is being called bluff again, but those sort of gestures only strengthen public support for Ukraine.
A Battle on Two Fronts
The abrupt measures of Russia’s central bank to stabilize the ruble last year bought them time, but its chief Elvira Nabiullina warned this was temporary.
“The period when the economy has been able to live on the reserves is over,” she said. “In the second quarter or at the beginning of the third, we will enter a phase of structural transformation.”
Russia no longer publishes export and import data, presumably because they don’t tell a good story. If exports have fallen, as they have, then demand for rubles has fallen too.
A structural transformation in practice means adjusting to being poorer. That the 2.1% contraction last year does not suddenly become growth as the year on year measure is based on the contraction.
As an example, if exports fell 20% last year, a 5% growth this year still means -15%. As a lot of that export drop is structural because of the oil price cap and the Russian gas ban in Europe, there is a permanent loss of income for the Russian state.
The ruble has no choice but to re-adjust. The Kremlin may not like it and may try to deflect blame, but arguably about $1.5 trillion of Russia’s GDP is due to foreign investment following the opening of their market in the 90s and early naughts.
Some of that new value may have staying power, but a new economic iron wall has descended with Russian markets once again closed to the west. That requires a fairly significant structural change.
Arguably a massive one and maybe it is so big that only denial can be a first response. Nothing has changed, fortress Russia chest pumping, blame Nabiullina.
Yet one thing those civil servants in Russia have to seriously consider is whether it is foolish to try and outspend the west once again.
Time as it happens is not on Russia’s side. They are currently maintaining their spending by dipping on savings. Their savings will run out.
That’s especially considering that while previously they may have thought there could be a change of leadership in Washington, a second Biden term is perhaps even likely especially considering Trump might be the Republican nominee.
To their east, China is facing an economic crisis. Whatever Xi Jinping may have said, events are sometime the actual ruler and currently China can not afford any antagonism towards the west, with their grand NWO plans probably very much on pause as they look to put out the fire in their own house.
So can Russia outspend the west for the next five years? Can they sustain this war economically, or do they risk bankruptcy once again due to their economic isolation from the rich west, due to betting their cards on China at the top so to speak, and of course due to the extra expenses, both economically and culturally, from the war?
That should be what the Russian civil service should be thinking, looking ahead a bit to see what cards they actually have today, and then there’s the actual front.
The Battle for Azov
Ukrainians claim they have made advanced in Robotyne, a frontline village on the way to the sea of Azov. There’s some distance to it, but Russia arguably finds itself in a situation where there are two outcomes: either Ukraine advances or the frontline stalls.
Russia arguably can’t advance anymore. They spent months taking Bakhmut, and Ukraine may well take it again if it cared. They can’t take and hold Kherson, a city that was ‘gifted’ to them by a traitor. Without Kherson arguably they can’t defend Crimea, and so their best hope is it stalls.
Hence all the propaganda about the advance being slow, Ukraine achieving nothing, talk to us Europe. Europe however did not want to talk to Putin even before the Ukraine war. Some might remember that Biden-Putin summit in 2021 after Russia’s first build up near Ukraine’s borders. Then the EU council deliberations on whether there should be an EU-Putin summit. They said nyet.
So arguably the frontline first has to stall, and Putin leave, or maybe potentially even just the latter, for there to be actual talks. Otherwise how do you talk to someone who is wanted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.
On the Russian side, they may really want talks. Freezing it here, the rest of Ukraine in NATO, probably wouldn’t be a bad deal for them.
Sanctions are biting, and the war is very costly, especially culturally because they’re the bad guys and they know it. So Putin is probably looking to end it but on appeasement terms.
Hence the significant fortifications in the frontline trying to freeze the conflict. Where the European public is concerned, no more Russian attacks outside that frontline would help towards painting that picture, with that not quite being the case currently.
But even if the conflict freezes, there’s the economic front. Can Russia afford maintaining its isolation, the frozen conflict, for maybe half a decade or even more?
Ukrainians have their own considerations, but they’re fighting a war of independence, so their pain point is a lot higher than Russians lost on holiday. They also have the advantage of not quite having an economic front, arguably, not in the same way as Russia anyway.
So one can argue that a frozen conflict is defeat for Russia, eventually, on the premise that they can’t actually afford maintaining it economically. While for Europe and US, the cost of supporting Ukraine is some rounding error. Maybe $40 billion a year for a $40 trillion economic block, so 1% of the GDP.
Of course a cost is a cost, but dumb Russians have been mouthing off about Poland, so it’s not a cost. It is to Ukraine in terms of a lot of things, but where the western public is concerned in terms of their day to day life, all of this is as good as not happening.
The west can afford to wait. Russia arguably can’t. Ukraine has no choice since its their choice to fight. And therefore arguably it’s actually best for Russia and everyone else that Ukraine does get to the Sea of Azov.
At least that would end all this quicker, avoid a potential bankruptcy for the Russian state, and Putin does not have to make a choice. He can just say that Ukraine has become too western and we don’t want it anyway.
Whether Ukraine can so advance however remains to be seen. They’re still very much seen as the underdog. Some of their soldiers have kalashnikovs, while others have very modern weapons. It’s a vast area of land to take, and therefore for them to do so would be awe inspiring.
That they can even hold is a huge achievement, let alone being able to go all the way to the Sea of Azov, but on the other hand that’s what you get when you underestimate democracy.
Ukraine is on the up now. The west is on the up. Fools thought they could bite the hand that feeds them, with both Russia and China made rich by the west. So they’re no longer on the up now. The east has topped off.
That may well be what some in Russia’s civil service might be thinking, as well as in other countries. Including perhaps even in Belarus. Because how on earth do you bet against the west.
