
The economics of war and peace in Ukraine: podcast
Summary
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - It's almost three years since Russia invaded, unleashing death and devastation. In this live edition of The Big View podcast, economist and former minister Tymofiy Mylovanov talks about the damage to both sides, the effect of sanctions, and what a peace deal might look like.
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The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
‘Hope is not a strategy': Why Nato is calling for Cold War levels of defence spending
Nato chief Mark Rutte has called for a 400 per cent boost to air and missile capabilities and his demand to raise defence spending across the alliance to five per cent has raised the voices of doom to a scream. A return to Cold War levels of defence spending is not, however an hysterical plea from a lackey of the military-industrial complex. It is a sad acknowledgement that the peace dividend that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union has been squandered by the West in a pointless war in Afghanistan and a criminal conflict in Iraq which expanded the lists of peoples with a good reason to hate democracy. But there were plenty around already. Vladimir Putin is one of them, Xi Jinping is another – Donald Trump is rushing to their ranks. Autocracy is on the rise around the world while democracies have been consumed by complacency. 'Wishful thinking will not keep us safe,' said Rutte, who called for Nato to become a 'stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance'. 'The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defence. The fact is, we must have more forces and capabilities to implement our defence plans in full. 'The fact is, danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends.' He's right, of course. But he is the secretary general of a military alliance. He is banging the drum for more money because he wants to see the return to the days when MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, was the sword that hung over every head on the planet. In the bad old days, nuclear war was the horror that kept the peace between the superpowers. They pursued their rivalries through proxies – often in Africa. Marxist Mozambique, Angola, and Ethiopia endured civil wars for decades while western-backed rebels battled the Moscow-backed governments from the 60s to the 80s. Sometimes, as in Vietnam and Korea, the west sent its forces into war – but overwhelmingly the suffering for the ideological schism that split the world was in what was then known as the Third World. In South America, CIA-baked coups removed leaders who were deemed too 'commie-inclined' by Washington where republicans and democrats were terrified of reds getting under beds in their back yards. Kennedy's clash with Khrushchev came close to WW3 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it was the ability of the West to outspend the Soviet Union that brought the Iron Curtain down on the Soviet Empire. The Soviets spent between 10 and 20 per cent of GDP on the military while Nato was spending half that. Moscow depended on high oil process for its economic wellbeing while its collectivisation of farming and industrial policies stifled innovation. When oil crashed from $120/barrel to the mid $20s/barrel in the 1980s, the social and political necessity for reform became overwhelming. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia is estimated to spend at least 7.2 per cent of its GDP on the military, but this does not account for social welfare payments or the costs of administering the occupied territories in Ukraine. A cheap option for Putin in splitting the attention of the West has been to encourage semi-autonomous private military companies to operate in north Africa – like the proxies of the Cold War. Groups like Wagner have expanded their operations in Mali, Niger, from the Sahel to Khartoum, drawing resources and focus away from Ukraine. But in Europe, Rutte said, Nato seems to be no match for Russia. 'Our militaries also need thousands more armoured vehicles and tanks, millions more artillery shells, and we must double our enabling capabilities, such as logistics, supply, transportation and medical support,' he said. Cuts in military spending after the Cold War ended were based on the assumption that a western-style way of life would be adopted in Russia. But the country largely fell into gangsterism and is seen by many there to have been rescued by Putin's more organized oligarchic kleptocracy underpinned by vigorous Soviet-style fear and denunciation of 'The West'. It may be a Moscow myth that Nato covets the Russian Federation but it is one that is believed widely in Putin's realm. That the West is somehow always going to be safe for democracy is an equally dangerous delusion, Rutte suggested. 'Wishful thinking will not keep us safe. We cannot dream away the danger… Hope is not a strategy. So Nato has to become a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance.' In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer has committed to spend 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence from April 2027, with a goal of increasing that to 3 per cent over the next parliament, a timetable which could stretch to 2034. But this is well short of what is needed, according to the Nato chief. Mr Rutte's visit to the UK comes after he proposed members of the bloc spend 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence as part of a strengthened investment plan for the alliance. The target would require nations to raise core defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, while the remaining 1.5 per cent to be made up of "defence-related expenditure". Nato leaders will meet in The Hague later this month, when the 5 per cent spending target by 2035 will be discussed. The leaders gathered in the Hague will all agree that more must be spent. Few, if any, will know how to sell that idea to their voters.


Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Putin's summer of savage brutality has just begun
In the aftermath of Ukraine's audacious 'Operation Spider's Web', which claimed as many as 41 of Russia's military jets in drone attacks on four airbases across the country last Sunday, Vladimir Putin vowed revenge. Relaying his conversation with the Russian president in the attack's aftermath, Donald Trump said – without the slightest hint of alarm or condemnation – 'president Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields'. Now, it appears that response has arrived. Overnight, Moscow launched its 'biggest overnight bombardment' of the war so far, according to Ukraine's air force, directing 479 drones and 20 missiles predominantly at the western and central parts of the country. The attack reached as far west as Rivne, unnerving Poland – Ukraine's neighbour – to such a degree that it felt compelled to scramble its airforce to patrol for stray missiles. Moscow has been ramping up the intensity of its attacks on Ukraine for several weeks now, setting new records for the number of drones launched on consecutive weekends in a row. But Operation Spider's Web appears to have triggered an escalation in Russia's bombardment. Just on Thursday, Ukrainian officials reported that over 400 had once again been launched at the country, with the capital city Kyiv heavily bombarded and over 50 people injured nationwide. While Ukraine's air defences are able to shoot down most of the drones sent their way, even the fraction that get through manage to do a great deal of damage and impact civilian morale, as Ukrainians across the country are forced into bomb shelters day after day. The escalation in Moscow's aerial attacks on Ukraine comes as the signs increasingly point to yet another new Russian offensive getting underway this summer. Some analysts argue that it has already started. Putin's forces are advancing through Donetsk and Luhansk and appear to have their sights set on the region of Dnipropetrovsk. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed this morning that the aim of the advance was, in part, to create a 'buffer zone' along the front line. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, some 125,000 Russian troops are also being amassed in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Some analysts suggest their aim could be to try and push forward as close to the Dnipro river, which runs north to south through the country, by the end of the year as possible. For all of Putin's insistence to Trump that he is ready to discuss an end to his war in Ukraine, the actions of his army suggest quite the opposite. Last month, while Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul to notionally discuss terms for the end to the war, Putin's troops gained territory twice as quickly as in April. Bluntly put, despite Operation Spider's Web, Putin remains on the front foot in the war and as long as he's willing to sacrifice ever more Russians to the meat grinder of the front line, he will probably remain so. At the moment, he simply has no incentive to sit down and seriously negotiate an end to this conflict – with Trump, Zelensky or anyone else. To think otherwise is simply delusional.


BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine under way
A prisoner exchange is under way between Russia and Ukraine, governments in Moscow and Kyiv have President Volodymyr Zelensky said the exchange would unfold "in several stages" over the coming days, adding that the wounded, seriously wounded and soldiers under 25 were being on Telegram, Zelensky said: "The process is quite complicated, there are many sensitive details, negotiations continue virtually every day."Russia said a "similar number" of prisoners of war had been returned to Ukraine, though neither side provided an exact figure for how many people had been exchanged. Russia's defence ministry said "the first group of Russian servicemen under the age of 25 were returned from the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime" following an agreement reached between the warring countries last week during talks in with past exchanges, Moscow said the exchanged Russian soldiers were receiving psychological and medical assistance in Belarus. On the Ukrainian side, relatives of prisoners of war and the missing gathered in the Chernihiv region, close to the border with Belarus, to greet the released prisoners and, in many cases, seek news of others still in week, Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of disrupting the planned repatriation of the bodies of dead soldiers. In late May, Russia and Ukraine each handed over 390 soldiers and civilians in the biggest prisoner exchange since Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022. Meanwhile, war continued overnight, with Moscow launching a record 479 drones at Ukraine, including on the western region of Rivne that had been largely spared from defence ministry said it had targeted Rivne's Dubno base and described this as "one of the retaliatory strikes" in response to Ukraine's audacious drone attacks on Russian airfields on 1 overnight Russian launches caused damage in several Ukrainian regions but there were no reports of has recently escalated its attacks on Ukraine, with each week bringing a new record of drones fired at the country. For its part, Kyiv said it attacked another Russian airbase in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which lies 400 miles from the Ukrainian said the base houses planes that launch hypersonic missiles and that it had damaged "two units of enemy aircraft".It also targeted an electronics factory that Kyiv says manufactures equipment to guide drones and aerial bombs. Video shows one of the explosions caused by an attack drone, and a large fire at the plant. Production there has been suspended.