LETTER: Expect a Europe sans the EU

How the fortunes of war can change. Watching news coverage of a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plus aides and Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg the contrast with earlier in the year was palpable.

Then Zelensky was pleading and Stoltenberg was in control. Now it looks like Nato has been given a list of requirements and told to have them in Lviv by the middle of September. Ukrainian criticism of Germany’s failure to supply Leopard tanks has gone from obsequious to aggressive.

With good reason. Move over Nato; Ukraine now has Europe’s biggest and most successful battle-tested army. While its recent offensive in Kharkiv may have been against an open door, the Russian forces simply folded. It was a bit like Von Rundstedt’s advance across northern France in 1940, and has made Russia Ukraine’s biggest, albeit unwilling, supplier of weaponry.

Ukrainian morale is high, and stopping them from recapturing the Crimea or even bits of Russia, while giving the Russians a bit of their own medicine, will be diplomatically difficult even with the ever present nuclear threat. Since their factories have been flattened, what else is there for them to do? If it is possible, a cold, gasless winter on insufficient food will only increase their need for revenge.

Eastern Ukraine’s industrial centre is in ruins. Russia must pay reparations. War crimes will be prosecuted. And why should [Alexander] Lukashenko’s Belarus escape retribution? As Russia is humiliated, who is to stop the Baltic states from ejecting their Russian-speaking populations? The Chechens and Georgians will also be encouraged to throw off  the Russian yoke, as will  those “stans” within the Asian land mass.

Regional uncertainty  has replaced dictatorial stability. Even if Putin himself survives the corrupt Russian Federation won’t. On the European side, cheap gas is a thing of the past. The competitive edge is moving elsewhere, probably towards China, and there is  a new military power next door. When the dust settles, expect a Europe sans the EU.       

James Cunningham
Camps Bay

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.​