What we see now is that the fate of Ukraine really has become a test case for liberal democracy and for free societies—for the right of every nation state to decide their own fate.
And the international public outcry that we’ve seen now also demonstrates to what extent a war of aggression—criminal war—is something which, especially in Europe, is not ignored. But remind Europeans, and the German can say this quite explicitly, reminds Europeans of our own history in the 20th century.
So, if Ukraine will lose this war, even if there will still be guerilla fighting, a resistance movement insurgency, but if it loses political control to Russia, there’s certainly no scenario imaginable where the West would accept a Russian government in Kyiv.
So, the West would try to support a Ukrainian insurgency, perhaps support a Ukrainian government in the west of the country if there’s a possibility to have this or a government in exile, similar to the scenario that we saw with the Baltic states during the Soviet times, when the West never accepted the Soviet occupation, and for instance, in Washington, the embassy buildings of the Baltic states were kept.
This would be the task for the West, to wait for the times when Ukraine will regain its territorial integrity and civil achievements. Just as well, another way the West will react if Russia wins in Ukraine is to create a permanent state of economic war with Russia.
NATO has excluded that it will sort of get into a warlike situation with Russia because this could potentially lead to nuclear war and a catastrophe for everyone. So, it is really reduced to economic warfare against Russia and supporting Ukraine in its resistance. And economic warfare is exactly the way for them to go.
What we’ve seen from the US is an even stronger response than initially expected, trying to take away the resources that Russia has – the wealth that it has acquired over the years, targeting even the Russian central bank, which is very much the lifeline of the Russian economy because it’s the insurance with sort of the money that the Russian president has saved every day and every week for the rainy days.
So, targeting also the central bank is quite a big step and this is the model approach they will keep at if Russia wins the Ukraine war.
