Bruveris. The world in 2025: a continuation of last year’s collapses towards new fires

The world
The world

The world is becoming smaller, more intertwined, and increasingly fragmented, with many of the previous centres of power continuing to lose their power. This is why all the dangerous and destructive processes that this new year inherits from the last one are only likely to expand, deepen, and sharpen, and new ones will join them, Vytautas Bruveris Editor-in-Chief of ELTA, states.

This can be predicted at the turn of the year while raising the question of what could, if not reverse or halt these bad trends, at least slow them down.

Of course, this is crucial, first of all, in terms of our immediate neighbourhood and our region, and, if we turn away from it, in terms of the whole of the Old Continent.

Will the war raging here, unprecedented since the Second World War, finally end next year, or at least stop?

Hardly, because no objective factors could justify such a hope. At least with the naked eye.

The most important thing that has been visible to the naked eye since the beginning of this war in 2014 is that it will not end in the true sense of the word as long as Russia remains the chauvinist Nazi dictatorship that it is today. Or instead, as long as this country, as it is, has the physical strength and resources to continue this war.

Thus, there will be no end in sight in this bloody tunnel until it is stopped by force, with the clear and guaranteed prospect that it may even face physical destruction or internal erosion and collapse.

After all, the fundamental, existential goal that Russia has pursued and will pursue desperately and by all means is the destruction of Ukraine as a state, a society and a country and the transformation of the part of its territory that it has not yet been able to occupy, or will not be able to occupy, into ruin not only with no future but which is not fit for life at all.

Thus, until either condition is met, any suspension of the war would only mean a pause and a break until the Russian dictatorship resumes it.

However, for this to happen, at least one of several reasons is needed. The first is that Ukraine can finally halt Russia’s steady advance across the front line.

If Russia can no longer advance by even a metre, this would be the final ‘i’ in the three-year history of the ‘capture of Kyiv in three days’. It would mean that Ukraine has finally repelled the attack, managed to defend itself, and put Russia on the spot.

Of course, this would not mean the end of the war – Russia would continue to try to attack and destroy the part of Ukraine that has defended itself in every possible way. However, it would be a significant military and psychological blow to the regime, demoralising it from top to bottom. It could be a prelude to the complete crushing of Russian forces throughout Ukraine.

However, in order for Ukraine to stop the Russian forces and keep them in place until they can no longer climb over their Himalayas of flesh and iron, Ukraine itself must be substantially strengthened on the human resources front, on the arms front, and on the organisation of defence.

In Ukraine itself, experts and the military disagree quite sharply about whether this is possible in the foreseeable future.

Some argue that it is impossible in principle because Ukraine, even with Western support, lacks weapons and, more importantly, human resources. However, the voices of those who argue that the human and armed resources would be sufficient are equally loud and that the fundamental problem is the lack of competence and simple will on the part of the military and political leadership, including the top leadership.

According to the latter view, Russia can push forward and take more and more of Ukraine’s land, mainly because Ukraine’s defence is poorly organised, not only on the front line, the necessary decisions are delayed or not taken at all, and corruption is rampant.

These days, the Ukrainian public sphere is full of scandal and indignation about this situation in the most critical place on the frontline—near Pokrovsk. Here, one of the 14 new brigades, the 155th brigade, one of the most widely publicised of the new brigades, has been thrown on the defensive and almost immediately began to crumble. The main reasons were mass desertions and unpreparedness for combat.

Meanwhile, this brigade had been trained in France and equipped with the latest Western weaponry. The military, experts, and the media, who see in this situation the responsibility of the top military leadership, negligence, pure public relations, and desire to show off before the authorities, are also angry that new ‘image’ brigades are being created in general instead of being filled with mobilised people who are in a position of strength and who have a long and solid combat experience.

However, if the main problem is poor defence organisation and the inability to allocate capabilities and resources, can the situation be rectified in the same short period? Again, this is not possible.

So, Ukraine would simply need at least a break to renew its forces and reboot its entire defence system.

The second factor, significantly more important than the Ukrainian forces themselves and which could lead to a halt in the war, is the state of the Russian economy and resources. If it is so bad that it could start to threaten the regime itself, then Russia itself really needs a break—to be able to renew its forces and concentrate on a new offensive and the continuation of the war.

The third factor is pressure from the West and, above all, of course, from the new US administration, which is now almost universally believed to be a magic wand. This is especially true since Donald Trump, who has been re-elected as President, does not like to ‘lose’ anyway and has a fundamental political interest in immediately beginning to show the electorate and the whole world his strength and his great political victories.

But here is the crucial question: what levers does the new US Government have to threaten the Russian regime so that it becomes frightened and compliant? New sanctions or a price war? Arming Ukraine to the point where it can disarm the invaders not only in its territory but also in its territory?

Or, on the contrary, and perhaps simultaneously, not only a whip but also a biscuit? Or, more correctly, some ‘grand bargain’ for the global world order in general, where Russia is given something, it wants badly in return for leaving Ukraine alone?

Or is it the other way around that Ukraine is given to Russia in return for her being content with it? After all, immediately after the sudden collapse of the Syrian regime, there were conspiracy theories that Russia had ‘given’ Damascus in exchange for ‘something’ – most likely forcing Ukraine to surrender.

However, all these things are, evidently, writings with a pitchfork on water.

Sanctions and all the other acts of physical pressure and isolation by Russia aimed at collapsing the economy of the country as a whole are, of course, essential tools in the fight against the regime. It needed such a coherent and, above all, united policy and will on the part of the whole of the West a decade ago.

It is doubtful whether the US will resort to such a policy now. On the other hand, its real impact will not be felt shortly, even if Russia’s current state of affairs is terrible.

However, even under real pressure, Russia cannot simply end the war—the regime can only do so under conditions that make it look like a victory. And not just look like it, but be it because those conditions must create the preconditions for the final dismantling of Ukrainian statehood, even if that statehood had remained entirely formal and symbolic.

This is something that the Kremlin regime’s leaders and their propagandists themselves are pretty open about: they do not need a Ukraine that has surrendered even on their terms. They see the capitulation itself only as a means of finally dividing the country, causing a civil war there, and then finally seizing and destroying it.

Moreover, the Kremlin does not regard the current Ukrainian Government as a subject. It constantly declares it ‘illegitimate’, as does its leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky. From the point of view of the Russian dictatorship, this is understandable—to start talking as equals with the Ukrainian Government, which has stood up to it, would be a defeat and humiliation in itself.

But Moscow does not consider Ukraine itself to be a real subject. So, it is precisely one of the biggest possible issues that Russia wants to negotiate with the West—especially the US. This is the division of spheres of influence around the world, where Russia is an equal subject with China and the other members of the alliance of imperialist dictatorships.

The only question is, to what extent are the Kremlin’s ambitions based on real weight and future prospects?

After all, Russia’s war against Ukraine is debilitating and killing not only the latter but also the former. Russia is getting weaker and weaker internally and externally, gradually losing its status not only as a global player but even as a regional major league player.

The most striking example of this, of course, was the collapse of the Syrian tyranny, which, thanks to Russia, continued to agonise for several years.

Of course, Russia will desperately try to hold on, at least to a small extent, both in the Middle East and Africa, where its position is linked to the Middle East.

However, it is now far more critical for it to retain at least some of its former influence in the space of the former Soviet Union, where it has made a death grip on Sakartvelo and Moldova. In both countries, Moscow can, of course, resort to bloodshed. Although it does not have the forces for full-scale aggression and will not have them shortly, terrorism diversion of various scales and types and political destruction are tools that it can and will resort to at any time.

Russia has a long history of terrorist aggression. It has been expanding against its neighbours in the European Union (EU) and NATO, as well as against the major Western countries. This is the inevitable course of the Russian dictatorship. It needs not only to pour the war in Ukraine over the edges, to ‘test’ the reaction and resistance of the Western countries, to try to frighten and blackmail them as much as possible. Equally important is the dictatorship’s motive to ‘punish’ them, to take revenge on them for daring to support Ukraine.

In this way, the Kremlin will undoubtedly not only act alone or with the help of its other authoritarian allies but will also cooperate with the resurgence of Islamic terrorism.

Since the dictatorship cannot stop on any front because it is mortally dangerous for itself, it can only escalate.

Thus, the likelihood of an open and direct military clash between a NATO country and Russia will only continue to increase this year. This is also the case in our own neighbourhood, in the Baltic Sea, through which the so-called Russian ‘shadow fleet’ constantly passes. This fleet is helping Russia circumvent the oil embargo and is now employed to destroy and disrupt critical infrastructure on the seabed and conduct espionage.

After one of these vessels was intercepted by Finnish forces while pulling cables at sea, Russia immediately threatened to protect these vessels. There is no alternative but to continue and increasingly physically block the activities of this ‘fleet’ for NATO countries. At the same time, however, we must prepare for Russia to start testing the ‘red lines’ here, too, and that ‘testing’ could turn into a direct military confrontation.

What is most worrying is that, so far, neither the countries of our region nor NATO as a whole has a clear strategic response to the terrorist aggression of Russia that is already underway. The need for such a response has so far only been mournfully publicised by the highest officials of the alliance as an almost hopelessly overdue affair, with the promise of strategic plans and solutions very shortly. At the same time, however, they state that, until then, Russia may well be determined to carry out a terrorist act that will require so many casualties that a response will be needed immediately.

Thus, against all these trends, a real and genuine cessation of the war in Ukraine and a sustainable peace seem entirely unrealistic.

Of course, if Russia continues its aggression, some semblance of ‘negotiations’ may begin after Trump’s inauguration. This imitation will continue until it becomes abundantly clear to all parties, not just those imitating ‘negotiations’, that this is hopeless.

The price will be time wasted and more Ukrainian lives – and probably not only Ukrainian lives – wasted.

But here is the question: what then?

The most likely scenario is that the US authorities, as if they have been waiting for just such an opportunity, will simply throw up their hands in disgust at the whole thing and Ukraine, leaving this dirty business to Europe for good.

The latter’s existential question is whether it is ready to become the decisive force in this matter. This question is inextricably linked to the broader one of whether a free Europe can finally become a major global geopolitical actor and leader.

Unfortunately, looking at what is happening in the Old Continent and its major powers, the answer is probably not. If it were ready, it would have done something long ago that could stop and defeat Russia in Ukraine rather than just waiting for the ‘negotiations’ to start and looking for other opportunities to shrug off responsibility and leadership.

It and its major capitals are now waiting with naive hope for a change of power in Washington instead of increasing their defence and military support for Ukraine with all their might and preparing for the most fateful possible solution to stop Russia’s slide forward on the front line – the introduction of its ground forces into Ukraine.

After all, this is the final frontier against which Russia must be confronted and constantly in mind when it comes to any ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine. Only the 100%, guaranteed prospect of being confronted with the full military might of the collective West, or at least of its major powers, in a further attack on Ukraine is what will make Russia stop whether this is formalised in the form of NATO membership or otherwise makes no material difference.

The question of introducing troops into Ukrainian territory will arise again with renewed vigour if the Russian forces manage to get fully close to the major cities—first of all, the Dnieper and Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, and Kherson.

Suppose they do not manage to storm them with even greater carnage than Mariupol or Bakhmut. In that case, they will continue to succeed in turning these cities into ghost ruins, triggering a new wave of mass emigration from Ukraine.

However, instead of preparing for this, the West, in the person of Europe, has merely simulated a discussion by talking about a ‘peacekeeping force’, which is likely only possible after a ceasefire or peace negotiations have been concluded. This scenario is nothing more than a bit of airy-fairy to deceive others and themselves.

The underlying motive for this self-deception is the desire to believe that the war in Ukraine is taking place in the Wild East, in the grey post-Soviet zone, which is still far away from the ‘real Europe’, and that what is happening there does not affect it.

So, the EU and free Europe are likely to continue to weaken this year as France and Germany continue to drown in internal crises and as other countries fail to face the same challenges—political radicalisation, primitivistic, anti-Western, and anti-democratic isolationism.

We do not know whether it is only tragic or tragicomic that the new US administration will fuel these trends, which promises, on the one hand, to leave Europe with its headaches. The direct support of the latest US oligarch, Elon Musk, for the radical right in Germany and Britain and his flirtation with such a government in Italy clearly shows this.

The infighting between the US, mired in infighting between the new oligarchy and the authorities, and the EU, which continues to crumble and weaken, is the worst geopolitical scenario of the year. It will encourage further aggression not only by Russia but also by its allies, above all China and North Korea.

The former’s aggression against Taiwan is, if not this year, then in the next few years, a possible new war with even more significant global implications than Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Another prospect is North Korea’s aggression against South Korea, for which the former is preparing.

After all, the main reason why the North Korean dictatorship has sent its ground and other forces to Ukraine and is supplying more and more weapons there is not only to keep Russia as much in debt as possible and to help develop its nuclear troops but also to give the dictatorship’s army as much real combat experience as possible, which will be needed.

As Europe watches these developing trends with a largely passive eye and increasingly struggles with internal problems and sabotage, the geopolitical differences and rivalry between its major Western countries and the democracies of central, eastern, and northern Europe, which are closest to the epicentre of the war and the front line of Russia’s terrorist aggression, should naturally grow.

Our region—Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries—will inevitably have to integrate itself as much as possible, strengthen its capabilities, and, above all, make the necessary sudden strategic decisions without waiting for global approval or ‘blessing’ from the great Western capitals. First, of course, in the case of existential threats.

On the one hand, this is a bad thing, as is any fragmentation of Western alliances and unions. On the other hand, it is historically inevitable and necessary for parts of the West to remain behind the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.

That is the geopolitical waters we are entering this year in our little boat, with the narrow sails of a new governing coalition and the anchor of an international image hanging off the bottom.

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