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Will, how, and when will the war in Ukraine end ?

• 2022-04-10
• Maciej Szczerba

Will it end ? And WHEN will it end ? And how ? These are probably the most important questions we are all asking ourselves today. All over the world. That's why, despite the fact that my blog focuses on deep tech applications and topics about HR management in technology companies, I decided to depart from the topic for the second time (the first time was the post "Can Russia be democratic - I encourage you to read it too).

No one has a glass ball, and neither do I. I am by no means a so-called futurologist, and certainly not a kremlinologist (yes, unfortunately this ironically named field of political science is making a comeback).

Nor am I a former general to speak accurately on military matters.

But I am a hobby historian. And I decided to analyse for myself in depth the history of Russia and the history of Hitler in order to answer for myself the questions: Will it end and how and when ?

BTW- I throw in a lot of Wikipedia links into the following analysis. I would like it to be understandable for everyone. Not only for people who are particularly interested in history.

Will it end ?

Yes, it will end.

I am reminded of a beautiful scene from Andrzej Wajda's film about Lech Walesa. When Lech lands at a police station with a small child (he was carrying illegal newspapers in the child's pram) and a policewoman breastfeeds his hungry child. Lech to the militia woman: "Will this ever end ?", Militia woman "It will end, it will end, and faster than you think. They are more afraid of you than you are of them".

In my opinion, the Russians are also more afraid of the West than the West is of the Russians.

1.The boyars (oligarchs) are afraid of retaining some (less, than more) percentage of their horrendous fortunes. Because they have already lost most of it anyway.

2.The small middle class is afraid of everything. It has largely lost their jobs. It doesn't have half the Western products. No money for holidays in Turkey. But what holiday in Turkey? In Russia today, women don't have sanitary towels and children don't have necessary medicines.

3.And I guess, I hope, even all the Yakuts and other poor Asians from northern Siberia, whom Russia has colonised and is sending as cannon fodder, and they are murdering and robbing Ukrainians in retaliation, are afraid of whether they will have any potatoes and onions to feed themselves. Literally. And despite everything, they're probably afraid of how many of their boys are being brought back in coffins.

And that „it will end” is probably the only positive conclusion, unfortunately. In the context of Russian bestiality in Ukraine, the answers to the "how" and "when" will it end questions are worse.

How will it end?

Here the answer is much more difficult. And unfortunately the following factors must be taken into account, firstly cultural, secondly material.

1.The key element of Russian history and culture is survival. Not development. Survival.

2.The history of Russia is the history of the struggle of feudal coteries for more than a thousand years. In comparison to Russian history, 'Game of Thrones' is a small wonder. Fortunately, the history of stealthy murder in Russia has a great tradition.

3.The whole idea of Russia as a nation is eternal territorial expansion - unfortunately, this is the biggest problem. It is no accident that Russia is the largest country on the world map. Russia started the conquest of Siberia almost 500 years ago (!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermak_Timofeyevich

4.About 25 % of the Russian population lives below the poverty line. About 25 % have no running water or toilet in their flat. Hygienic standard 200 years ago.

5.The so-called Far East of Russia is, apart from a few big cities, third world.

Option one (optimistic), i.e. revolt of oligarchs and KGB:

Putin is eliminated physically. The"New Putin", previously chosen by the security and oligarchs, sits down at the negotiating table, but negotiates hard. No war reparations and at least keeping Crimea in Russian hands. Ukraine's declaration of "Finlandization". The West manages to push Ukraine towards the concessions demanded by Russia.

The war ends in a few weeks from today

A variant unfortunately very unlikely, but not completely impossible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization

Arguments in favour:

1.In feudal systems, and such is the case in Russia, courtiers form coteries all the time and plot behind the back of the king (in this case the tsar). The tsar is not aware that there are many more different boyars than he thinks. It also seems that today Putin is a much weaker rather than a strong tsar he tries to resemble. He is not Peter I or Ivan the Terrible. He is some sort of mix of both Nikolais - on one hand a cruel but cowardly murderer, on the other a poor administrator. Like the Nikolais he is afraid of boyars and oprichniki-kagiebists.

Old Polish folk song: „Bies cię porwie Mikołaju, ale będzie wolność w kraju”- put into the translator please.

2.If we assume that the boyars' property is 50 % of Putin's own property, then this 50 % is theirs anyway. They will fight for their 50 % of share.

3.The KGB should also have an interest in liquidating Putin. If Putin, like Hitler, defends himself until he blows himself up in his bunker, they risk being occupied. What does that mean ? Also they will lose assets, be mostly locked up and have no retirement in Cyprus, although some Gellen group (link below) will surely be found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_I_of_Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprichnina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen

Arguments against:

1.Hitler's history shows that a dictator is not easily physically eliminated. Assassinations of Hitler by German generals are documented at least two. The first during the Munich Conference in 1938. Imagine. World War Two might simply not have happened. The second is the famous Tom Cruise movie "Operation Valkyrie". It was one step away. Why did it fail? A long topic for discussion, exceeding the scope of this blog. The mix of the dictator's aura that paralyses, the dictator's cowardice that causes him to hide underground like a rat, the entourage of cynics and cowards who until the dictator is defeated will denounce...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Valkyrie

2.Sanctions are working too weakly for now and the Russians just need to feel the hunger. All the great upheavals in Russian history from the rise of Kuzma Minin to the Bolshevik Revolution erupted when even potatoes and onions began to be in short supply. But one should be aware that during the 3-year (!) blockade of Leningrad, the Russians even committed acts of cannibalism and did not surrender the city. In its present state it is (unfortunately) very far from starvation. I do not believe in the so called Russian middle class, although yes - it exists. Moscow and St Petersburg together have 17 million people. This is almost 15 % of the population and probably 90 % of these people are "middle class" by Russian standards. Although much poorer than in the West. History shows that the "middle class" in Russia has NEVER politically emerged. See links below regarding Prime Ministers Stolypin and Kieronski.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Stolypin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad

3.After what the Russians have done in Ukraine, it seems to me that nobody and nothing will push the Ukrainians towards any concessions.

Option two: moderately optimistic, yet probably the most realistic (80 %):

The war will unfortunately last 12 to 18 months. The Russians will completely withdraw from Ukraine. Forget about war reparations, unfortunately. Forget, unfortunately, also about bringing Putin's clique and Putin himself before an international Tribunal. Russia may also keep Crimea (50/50 chance), but it will more than likely give back Donetsk and Lugansk back to Ukraine. Putin will be relegated to the shadows after the war like the declining Brezhnev. This is probably a good historical comparison. Officially there will be  for the "rodina and Putin" propaganda all the time, but one day Putin will just "get sick". The European Union will rebuild Ukraine with a new 'Marshall Plan'. In Russia, unfortunately, things will remain as they were before: corruption, stealth killings, a rogue state. Fortunately, Russia's territorial disintegration will continue. And its army will be licking its wounds for decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Arguments for:

1.Putin is losing the war militarily. This is what all the military experts I listen to say. When I listen today (10 April 2022) that "everything depends on „the great battle of Donetsk", although I do not have sufficient military knowledge, I am rather reassured Ukrainians prevail. Why ? Because for these 6 weeks we have already heard whether Kiev will hold, or Kharkiv will hold, and that this will "decide everything". There is still no breakthrough, but the scales are tipping on the Ukrainian side. The morale of the Russians is hopeless.

As Winston Churchill said after the first major British victory in the Second World War-the Battle of El-Alamein: 'This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is probably the end of the beginning'.

2.Ukraine gets massive material support from the West in the military area. The West is afraid of open war with Putin, but has a deep selfish interest in defending Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the world's largest producers of agricultural raw materials. The devastation of Ukrainian wheat crops is causing famine in the so-called South - the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the 'Horn of Africa' which are most threatened by hunger in the world (Ethiopia, Somalia). There are more and more refugees from these parts landing in Sicily, Greece or Lampedusa in Italy. This is increasing pressure on Germany (the main political and economic power in Europe) and other rich countries (Scandinavia, Benelux). The morale of the Ukrainians, the large population and the supply of western weapons will do the trick.

3.The most important argument - Russia's unfrozen currency reserves allow it to finance the war for about 10 months. These reserves are about 300-500 billion dollars (it is not known exactly how much). After 10 months the poor kids/Evenks/Yakuts etc. at the front have no pay/food/fuel. There is nothing in the shops. Unemployment, which Bloomberg today says will reach 9% in Russia this year, will really reach rather 20%. The artificial exchange rate of the rouble cannot be maintained. Hungry ordinary people (not the middle class) will take to the streets. Just like during the Bolshevik revolution.

The third (pessimistic) option. Very unlikely, but still.

The war will drag on for years. Even 10+ (that's how long the world's "proxy wars" in Vietnam and Afghanistan lasted). This causes a great economic crisis in the western world. The main cause this time is not the printing of empty financial instruments (2008) or a pandemic (2020), but the lack of agricultural raw materials in Africa, a gigantic famine there and a migration crisis the likes of which the world has never seen. The West must finance this migration crisis - more public spending, printing money. At the same time, the financing of the 'proxy war' by the West is causing the already increasing public debt in the Western world and stagflation. At the same time, the global economy is affected by the complete hijacking of a supply chain that has been stabilised for decades.

Here, thankfully, I see it poorly. But, well let's list the arguments:

1.The Russians will miraculously scrape up the money for the war by reorienting raw material sales to Asia (that Europe will stop buying oil and gas from Russia in full is a matter of months for me). But China (and increasingly India) are civilizations that have decided to build empires on trade. They will nevertheless fear retaliation in trade with the West for their oil and gas imports from Russia.

2.The Russians are ready for a "new Leningrad" and will fanatically defend themselves like the Hitlerjugend in Berlin in April 1945. I don't think so either. The poor, as I wrote above, will start starving, and the middle class, although it is absolutely opportunistic and will not openly oppose Putin, is used to some, at least minimal, western quality of life. Someone in a famine situation will take to the streets, and gradually it will be crowds.

3.The Russians will win the next "battle for everything" and take the initiative at the front. Again- I am not a military man, but looking at the defensive wars in Poland in 1939, or in France in 1940: if it was going to be like that, it would have been like that after 6 weeks of this war.

The rest of the arguments are against. Fortunately.

What comes next:

The European Union will have to "bounce back" from the economic war. Which will fortunately push the EU into a new "Marshall Plan". Not for idealistic reasons. The EU will have to create a new external market for itself to make up for 4 years of first pandemic and then war.

Russia is too big to set up an occupation like Germany after 1945. But the disintegration of Russia will begin. Poor Siberian-Asian soldiers have been sent as the first cannon fodder. Mostly they will die. I hope that the era of self-determination for these peoples will begin.

And what will China do about all this? They will try to take over Siberia with its natural resources. I hope they will do it by means of political pressure on the emerging states and not by war.