Mentioning the war on COVID but not the actual war between Russia and Ukraine that caused a huge spike in European energy prices is a big omission, since that caused a lot of global inflation.
But you are right otherwise.
(Russia got into more trouble than it was worth it, even by their own standards, I'd say. And that's not even getting into the moral dimensions.)
This is also a big reason why Crimea, by and large, supported annexation - it has very large proportions of the population that are either active or retired Soviet/Russian navy.
Virtually the entire indigenous and otherwise non-Slavic population (some 30 percent of the total population of the peninsula) to be precise, according to this graph:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_P...
On what basis is this claim made?
In reality that phase of the war started before. Russia did not improvise this war. They started disrupting the supply in 2021 to ensure that Europe would not fill their strategic reserves / winter storage during the summer, thus insuring maximum leverage when they needed it. This is well documented [1]
Note that this is just talking about this phase of the war. Hostilities started in 2014 when parts of Ukraine "suddenly self-liberated" themselves. Helped by mysterious soldiers in professional but unmarked uniforms.
[1] https://www.banque-france.fr/en/publications-and-statistics/...
And Europe is not a single country. My country still happily digs out and burns tons of coal (annoying our neighbors in the process). I hope you're proud of us.
The key word in my single sentence is "workable". All Russian peace deals so far essentially amount to 1) they get all the territory they claim, and 2) they pinky promise to not invade Ukraine again, but 3) Ukraine is forbidden from taking actions - such as joining NATO - that would actually guarantee that such an invasion wouldn't re-occur.
Knowing Russian politics and discourse inside the country around imperial ambitions in general and Ukraine in particular, I'm firmly convinced that any peace deal that would be signed on these terms will last only as long as it'll take for Russia to build up enough to resume hostilities with a much stronger upper hand. Most Ukrainians seem to be of the same opinion.
That said, I'd be curious to know why you seem to implicitly accept the Russian regime's currently stated (or reasonably inferable) terms as the only "workable" terms.
Is it because you think it has that much of an upper hand in the situation (to get its way no matter what the West does in the coming months) -- or because the Trump administration will likely simply cave in to pretty much whatever it asks for?
Given the latter's proudly and loudly stated "We don't give a fuck about Ukraine" stance, and all.
What's actually workable in the end depends solely on how far the West is willing to go, IMO. There's no realistic scenario in which Ukraine retakes all the captured territories without direct Western military involvement - air at the minimum - which is certainly not politically tenable in either US or Europe (although my personal opinion is that both will eventually regret not getting directly involved now, because they will be forced into a larger war later anyway).
Russia will definitely not give up Crimea without getting military defeated there; quite aside from any military value of Sevastopol, the symbolical and political value is just too high, especially for a regime that desperately needs to be seen as "patriotic" by the populace - that is their only real source of legitimacy in the absence of real democracy. Abandoning LNR and DNR would be easier in some ways, but harder in others because the government agitprop has already spent so much time vividly describing how "Ukrainian Nazis" are supposedly ethnically cleansing Russian speakers to justify the invasion, abandoning them now would also be very costly in terms of popular support.
OTOH I could see the pre-2022 de facto borders as something Putin would accept. They could still justify the war then by claiming that, at least, LNR and DNR were "rescued" and are now safe from further depredations, and that people from other regions that couldn't be "liberated" will be resettled, so - mission complete, oooorah etc.
However, I don't see why they would do that if the West keeps dragging its legs on military support to such an extent that Ukrainians can't even reliably hold what they already have. The way things are going, Russia can keep doing what it's doing, even despite the insane cost in human lives, for longer than Ukrainian military can hold the line. Ukrainians have less of basically everything - artillery, drones, people. They make do by making much more efficient use of what they have than Russians do, but it's still too skewed to be sustainable.
And meanwhile the West hasn't even drawn any clear red lines on how much of Ukraine Russia would need to take before the support would be seriously ramped up - if at all. So then, when Russia sees that support is already at levels insufficient to sustain Ukraine, and it's likely to dwindle significantly with Trump, and it has the upper hand in terms of momentum right now... I don't see why they'd suddenly want a deal.
OTOH if US and Europe doesn't get involved directly but start treat their role as the "arsenal of democracy" in this conflict seriously, it might just be enough for Ukraine to hold the line in the east and in Kursk. And then they might be able to trade that captured Russian land for a peace deal with some concessions - maybe not quite pre-war borders, but at least push the new border away from large cities like Kharkiv and Kherson. However, any such deal would be pointless for Ukraine unless they get proper security guarantees; and, given the whole history with Budapest Memorandum, the only guarantee that Ukraine will actually believe in at this point is NATO membership. AFAIK that is the main reason why popular support there is still in favor of continuing the war and rejecting the current Russian offer - they elected Zelensky largely as a peace offering to Russia and effectively acknowledged the de facto existence of LNR and DNR, and all they got for that is an even larger invasion, so it's a "fool me twice" kind of deal now.
Assuming no further military push from the West -- do you think the Russian side would acquiesce to some form of "Cease fire along current lines, but no legal recognition of the territorial claims, and no lifting of sanctions or arrest warrants, and no return of seized foreign assets"?
(That's very far from my own ideal outcome, but I'm just trying to get sense of how you see the situation).
So I think now they would do it if they believe that taking another break would benefit them more than it benefits Ukraine. But, again, looking at post-2015 developments, it's not clear to me why they'd think that. The reason why their advance in the east was so much slower than elsewhere is that Ukraine had a massive effort to build fortifications and infrastructure around them under Poroshenko. It's why Ukraine could hold Avdiivka for so long despite it being less than 10 miles away from Donetsk, and it's partly why Russian losses are so high. Russia has managed to punch through that line in several places in this past year despite those high costs, but if they stop the advance now, that kinda defeats the purpose of that. And meanwhile if Ukraine could get some respite, they would surely spend a lot more resources on another defensive line along the new border, probably with significant Western assistance this time, as well (since "defensive" military aid generally enjoys higher popular support, countries like Germany might be more willing to do that even if they aren't willing to send more tanks and missiles). As well as building new munition factories etc, likely also with Western defense companies involved. It would also mean the return of millions of Ukrainian refugees, reinvigorating their economy.
This all assumes that Russia wants to take as much Ukrainian territory as they can get away with, in the long term. But, given that the war literally started with them trying to capture Kyiv, I think it is a safe assumption. If they gave up on that goal since then, they wouldn't be pushing so hard now despite the losses.
Do you want Russia, a geopolitical entity, to somehow measurably suffer, or do you want an end to pointless bloodshed? Are you willing to put your own life to this lofty goal?
> placating an invading army is the best way to peace.
If you're not capable of repelling the invasion effectively, then yes, this is absolutely true. How could it not be? There's no reason that you can't have peace today and sue for justice tomorrow.
Why anyone would think this time it would be different when what Russia wants hasn't changed is beyond me.
In short, they barrowed money in your name with you as a guarantor and now you're paying for it, it's that simple.
The war caused by Russia is just a convenient scapegoat that's easier to sell to the financially illiterate population to deflect the blame. Keep in mind most voters don't understand basic economics and how currency supply affects inflation, but they do understand "Russia dropping bombs = bad".
When 80% of the entire world supply of USD (the world reserve currency that the EU also has to use) was printed during the pandemic, how can anyone say that Russia's war caused the inflation? Do people not know arithmetic anymore?
Do you see the issue here?
The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. The US's relatively soft landing post-pandemic seems to demonstrate some use of monetary policy in this fashion works.
Check the price of Russian gas before and after the invasion, and the resulting price of electricity: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Combine with the fact that Russia and Ukraine are some of the biggest exporters of many critical raw materials, like importantly, foodstuffs (wheat, sunflower oil, etc), and steel, aluminium, oil, gas. Hell, there was a crisis in availability of mustard and snails in France due to the invasion of Ukraine (and on the mustard, a series of bad harvests in Canada which further complicated things).
We can even clearly see it in the inflation charts, first there was growth in energy inflation towards the end of 2021 (as things were ramping back up from Covid), then a big spike in 2022 due to Russia's invasion, and then over 2022-2023, related spike in other sectors: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
To pretend none of this had no impact whatsoever is wilful ignorance.
So what? In the EU a lot of that money went into the Recovery fund, which released the funds in multiple steps (only the first one was in 2021), and a lot of it is still remaining in the fund.
How do you explain the massive inflation in the EU then?
And are you seriously that centred on "money printing" that you cannot imagine gas and oil prices raising multiple times, and the disappearance of multiple critical raw material suppliers, had _no impact whatsoever_?
Stop saying this whenever somebody disagrees with you. That's not what that term means at all.
High energy prices cause high transportation and manufacturing costs which causes everything else to rise.
But the main cause of inflation is printing of money, especially when you introduce such a large amount in such a short time.
People used to know that, they either pretend it's not true now or they're ignorant.
And yes the "bad faith" parrot line is really annoying and doesn't contribute to the conversation. It's what people say when they don't have a rebuttal.
Only I have a rebuttal, and came with receipts from Eurostat. So what exactly are you trying to argue?
> But the main cause of inflation is printing of money, especially when you introduce such a large amount in such a short time.
The original premise (which is still in bad faith, however much you dislike that part) was that money printing was the main cause. And this is fundamentally and provably wrong (check my comment upthread, Eurostat inflation per sector with the timeline). Inflation was kickstarted by energy inflation which coincides with the Russian invasion.
Did money printing contribute? Of course. Did Russia's invasion of Ukraine and all the issues it brought in energy prices and food prices? Of course. Did the Houthis contribute with their attacks disturbing supply chains? Probably. Did Covid contribute with all the supply chain issues it caused? Of course.
Trying to pin it solely or mostly on one single reason, especially when it is a global phenomenon that many countries suffered from regardless of their exact specifics (e.g. Sweden's monetary policy was not the same as the EUs nor Canada's, yet they all suffered from serious inflation) is arguing in bad faith. It's so trivially provably wrong, it's not even funny entertaining people who are wrong.
In May 2020, the definition of M1 (monetary supply in “cash”) was changed to include savings deposits. They changed this not due to some conspiracy, but because savings accounts were deregulated to remove withdrawal limits, effectively rendering them cash-equivalent, and thus necessary to include in M1 metrics.
I.e. the 80% spike has nothing to do with money being printed.
One of my big issues with economics as a "science" is that they try to boil down massively complex systems into a handful of numbers. When it comes to global economics and geopolitics the system is even more complex. How would we ever be able to say any particular time of inflation was causes by exclusively, or primarily, any one factor?
At best looking at historic data and seeing graphs that move together show correlation, they will never show causation.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more...
M2 captures the pandemic influx better and is significantly less dramatic: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS
They never knew it.