As of: March 9, 2024, 9:03 a.m
By: Karsten Hinzmann
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Split
So far, it has mainly arrived to celebrate: the newly developed T-14 Aramata main battle tank (front) at a military parade in Moscow.
The West's crucial question is how much reserves Russia still has in reserve.
© Alexander Zemlianichenko/dpa
The pressing question is how long Russia's ruble will keep rolling.
The Balts see no end, economists are expecting a sudden collapse.
But only some.
Vilnius – There is fear in Vilnius.
Fear of the end of the Ukraine war: “The Lithuanian secret services warned that Moscow would concentrate on expanding its military capabilities towards the West if the war against Ukraine freezes or ends for any reason.” This is now reported by the Kyiv
Independent
: Lithuania's Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis goes further: “The Russians are 'all in'.
They will destroy Ukraine.
And who knows what else?” he said in Brussels at the beginning of the week.
“If Ukraine falls, it will be clear to everyone that we will be next.
Putin doesn't stop.
He can't stop." In November, the Lithuanian had already complained, as the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
reported: The standstill in the European Union only helps the aggressor Russia: "Putin is preparing to blow the dust off his victory plans, which he “We had to put it on the shelf last year,” said Landsbergis.
The
Kyiv Independent
reports more moderately, relying on a report from the Department of State Security of the Republic of Lithuania (VSD), which states: “Russia has financial, human, material and technical resources to fight the war with similar intensity, at least in the near future Lithuanian military officials put this short-term duration at six months to two years.
“Wars are won in factories – Ukraine can keep up there.”
Some economists are more optimistic, like
Capital
columnist Bernd Ziesemer.
“Since the Second World War at the latest, the realization has been true: wars are won first on the factory floor and then on the battlefields.
“Industrial strength and technical innovations determine the combat effectiveness of armies.” Ziesemer argues in terms of technology.
Ultimately, the party that has modern weapons, such as Taurus cruise missiles or F-16 fighter jets, wins.
In fact, in its current phase, the Ukraine war is leading to an economic result or, as a result, to a political solution, at least that is what the German military historian Sönke Neitzel expects.
A third scenario would be the destruction of the Russian armed forces, which is currently unlikely given the situation at the front or, as he believes, hardly increases in probability due to the slow delivery of Western weapons.
However, Neitzel warns against comparing the two poles of winning and losing.
The military historian recalls the First World War, in which Great Britain, for example, was nominally one of the victorious powers and was the driving force behind the Paris Peace Order.
However, this great power was financially on the brink and ultimately only survived the Second World War through support from the USA.
In this respect, Neitzel certainly expects an open outcome to the Ukraine war, regardless of the outcome on the fronts.
He therefore recommends a broad definition of the terms winning and losing;
As far as he knows, since the 20th century at the latest, wars have ended equally catastrophically for all sides involved.
“War spending acts like a drug on the economy.”
Other economists actually see Russia's collapse already on the horizon, as the
Germany editorial network
recently reported: “Russia is becoming more and more dependent on the war continuing.
The enormous expenditure on this acts like a drug on the economy,” said Vasily Astrov, a Russia expert at the
Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
.
According to
WIIW,
the Russian economy, fueled by the arms boom, can no longer continue its rapid growth.
“It is now operating at the limit of its capacity and is showing increasing signs of overheating,” says their forecast.
According to the think tank specializing in Eastern Europe, the Russian economy expanded by 3.5 percent in 2023.
Because of high inflation and key interest rates that have been raised to 16 percent, the
WIIW
only expects growth of 1.5 percent this year.
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However, economists take the energy price into account - like Janis Kluge from the
Science and Politics Foundation
: Regardless of the sanctions, Russia is economically strong enough to continue its war of aggression against Ukraine for several years if energy prices on the world market remain stable.
According to him, the transformation of the Russian economy into a war economy, which is kept going primarily by government spending, is likely to continue in the coming years.
This means that the Russian economy will remain increasingly dependent on the war continuing, otherwise the arms boom could end abruptly.
Russia's current economic model will therefore not lead to sustainable development.
“The expulsions are very serious matters that directly affect Russia’s security.”
The strong focus on the war, lack of investment, but also the longer-term effects of sanctions make the long-term future prospects for the Russian economy appear very bleak.
Although there will continue to be hardly any unemployment, the Russian population will be able to afford less and less with their income.
The high cost of the war will only become fully apparent after the war is over, Kluge claims.
In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin is further fueling the fears of the Baltic states.
“What is happening now in Latvia and other Baltic republics is that Russian people are being expelled from their countries,” Vladimir Putin said, according to the Russian state news agency
Ria Novosti
, “these are very serious things that directly affect Russia's security. The
Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
sees this as the basis of information requirements for future aggressive Russian actions abroad under the pretext of wanting to protect supposed compatriots.
In fact, a quarter of the population of Estonia and Latvia are ethnic Russians - potentially Russia's fifth column in a tense situation.
“The exceptional political situation justifies much harsher repression.”
The threat to the Baltic states remains concrete for the time being: for years, the most likely and first target of attack for Putin's troops in the region has been the Suwałki Gap - an approximately 100 kilometer long border that lies between Belarus and the enclave of Kaliningrad and the two NATO partners Connects Lithuania and Poland.
Russia is currently far from achieving its declared war goals in Ukraine, i.e. to completely control the annexed territories militarily or to stop the West's economic and military support for Ukraine.
So far, neither strategy has produced results.
Which, according to the
Science and Politics Foundation,
still brings domestic political advantages: “The alleged threat from outside provides the regime with pretexts to legitimize the continuation of Putin's rule.
At the same time, the exceptional political situation makes significantly harsher repression possible.”
However, Western sanctions have not been able to stop the Russian campaign after two years.
However, every year of the war forces the Russian leadership to make greater efforts to find the necessary resources for further attacks.
In the long term, the regime is forced to reduce its war spending so that the economic problems do not provoke domestic political instability.
In the long term that means: fewer tanks, less ammunition, fewer missiles.
In this respect, the concerns of Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis may describe a possible reality, but perhaps not a probable one.
The German military historian Sönke Neitzel expects that the war will continue to simmer on a low flame for quite some time.
Dutch scientists from
The Hague Center for Strategic Studies
have found that five factors favor the end of a war: costs, profit prospects, positive incentives and external and internal pressures.
None of the factors promise a quick end to the Ukraine war.
According to the scientists, the fundamental evil lies in the belief, shared by both warring parties, that they can force victory on the battlefield;
However, the study also provides comfort with regard to the Ukraine war: According to Dutch statistics, a war in the 20th century lasted an average of two and a half years.