Ukraine – EU prolonging the war

The logic of prolongation

The EU is determined to prolong this war as long as they can. Do they still believe they can win it, or are they just putting off the inevitable defeat? In the case of the Afghan debacle the prolongation of the war for years after it was evident to everyone that the aim of imposing a pro-Western “democracy” on the country by force, (I hope my readers notice the inherent absurdity of the actual idea), they continued to pour money into and waste soldier’s lives on the war. I think the main reason was a rather macabre game of musical chairs. No one wanted to be the one left standing exposed, when the music stopped, as the one taking responsibility for the defeat. Eventually the US pulled out under cover of the pandemic. In the case of Ukraine, a lot of voices calling for an indefinite prolongation of the war are European civil servants such as Commission President von Der Leyen and EU representative Kajas Kallas, who, in theory, do not have elections to lose. I think there is much more at stake in this war for the EU and NATO. The Taliban are so small that they can brush off losing to them. There are no geo-political ramifications. But I don’t think they are psychologically prepared to lose to Russia. When it happens, how are they going to cope? I think it was John Mearsheimer I listened to recently, commentating that this could be rather serious. When it all starts coming apart – how are they going to react? Quite likely, they will escalate, rather than lose. Hopefully, though, they will be able to massage the loss in such a way that they can produce a narrative that it isn’t really a loss. The one skill these people have is in spinning up narratives. Back to the question; do the EU/NATO leaders still believe they can win? I suspect that they are currently half-deceiving themselves. They know they can’t win, but they still think they can “increase the costs” on Russia so much that they can force a compromise out of Russia, sufficient for them to wriggle out with a bit of narrative spinning. But; this misunderstands the Russian position. Russia has very little room for compromise. In fact, in the recent attempt at “peace talks” Putin has already offered all the concessions he can; possibly limit their claim to Kherson and Zaporizhia provinces to the territory they currently hold, and allow some kind of face-saving token European “peace-keeping” force in Ukraine, so long as the wider security guarantees included a non Western guarantor. That’s it; all the rest is non-negotiable. Ukraine never in NATO. Limits to the Ukrainian army. No significant Western forces in Ukraine. Donbas, Crimea and parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia, at least, transferred to them.

19th Sanctions package proposed

The Commission, von der Leyen, has proposed the 19th round of sanctions. [1] These look like a tightening up of existing sanctions. For example; more of Russia’s “shadow fleet” (ships which don’t use European insurance) are added. But; if sanctioning 440 ships didn’t “force Russia to the negotiation table” how will adding another 118 to this list achieve that result? The statement from von der Leyen is full of macho statements about sanctioning companies in “third countries”, such as refineries in China. The media duly reports this as the EU “sanctioning third party countries”. But the EU has no such power. What this actually means is that the EU would ban their companies from doing business with companies like these Chinese refineries. This will, of course, add to energy costs in Europe. It might reduce purchases of Russian crude by Indian (and Chinese?) refineries which is currently being exported to Europe; but the effect is likely, I think, to be quite small; mostly with these sanctions at least some degree of offset can be found by directing the product to new markets. The new round of proposed sanctions even contains an intention to cut out Russian LNG imports by January 2027! That gives, (even if passed), Russia well over a year to adjust to the change. Von der Leyen boasts as follows:

First, on energy. Russia’s war economy is sustained by revenues from fossil fuels. We want to cut these revenues. So we are banning imports of Russian LNG into European markets. [Ed. The Guardian reports this is by January 2027]. It is time to turn off the tap. We are prepared for this. We have been saving energy, diversifying supplies and investing in low-carbon sources of energy like never before. Today, these efforts pay off. Then, we have just lowered the crude oil price cap to 47.6 USD. To strengthen enforcement, we are now sanctioning 118 additional vessels from the shadow fleet. In total, more than 560 vessels are now listed under EU sanctions. Major energy trading companies Rosneft and Gazpromneft will now be on a full transaction ban. And other companies will also come under asset freeze. We are now going after those who fuel Russia’s war by purchasing oil in breach of the sanctions. We target refineries, oil traders, petrochemical companies in third countries, including China. In three years, Russia’s oil revenues in Europe have gone down by 90%. We are now turning that page for good [1]

The reality is the EU is still transferring the same amount in dollars to Russia for gas as they were before the war! Von der Leyen doesn’t mention that. And, in general, the media is prepared to cover up for her. For example; this is the Guardian:

Donald Trump on Tuesday said Zelenskyy will “have to get going and make a deal” while Europe “have to stop buying oil from Russia”. Europe has in fact greatly reduced its purchase of Russian oil and gas, though two big holdouts are Hungary and Slovakia, whose rightwing prime ministers are both friendly with Putin and Trump. [2]

True; in cubic metres terms; the total reduction in the share of Russian pipeline gas in the EU market has dropped from 40% in 2021 to 11% now. And including LNG the EU as a whole, and not just Hungary and Slovakia, still rely on Russia for 19% of their gas imports – in 2024. [3] (The wording of the text on an EU website tries to disguise the actual reality; countries, such as Germany have been increasing their LNG imports to compensate for a reduction in pipeline gas)! However, von Der Leyen does not admit the uncomfortable truth, that one reason for reduced pipeline gas consumption in Europe is because Russia itself reduced flows. [5] The Guardian is trying a rather popular narrative line at the moment; EU imports of Russian energy are down to Slovakia and Hungary – the well-known hold-outs. But that isn’t true. Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands are all, at least, still using Russian gas. [6]

Making it somewhat harder for Russia to earn energy revenues is unlikely to collapse the economy. If there was some magic wand which the EU could wave to collapse the Russian economy, one imagines they would already have done it. India and China will continue to buy Russian energy. India has already made that clear in relation to US sanctions/tariffs. It is unthinkable that China will bow. Yes; small steps to slowly and further reduce EU dependence on Russian energy will hit Russia, but it is precisely the slow and halting steps that the EU takes to reduce this dependency, that give Russia time to adapt and find new markets. For example, this report from the Oxford Institute for energy Studies, makes it clear that Russia was already moving to diversify away from Europe before the war, and that it has largely succeeded in finding new markets for its oil exports:

In 2023, it is possible to say that Russia has managed to re-direct the flows of its crude oil exports away from so-called “unfriendly” countries to alternative markets and to limit any decrease to manageable levels driven mainly by an agreement with the OPEC+ group to constrain exports.2 This happened thanks to the significant discounts that Russian energy commodity exporters offered to buyers in Asia (mostly to India and China), although the extent of these discounts has been somewhat exaggerated. The so-called “mirror statistics” from the Indian and the Chinese customs demonstrate that imported Russian crude was only $10-15/bbl cheaper than Brent, not the often reported $35-40/bbl …

On balance, however, Russia’s ability to sustain and protect its niche in the global crude and product markets despite unprecedented trade restrictions could be considered a significant achievement. [7]

Exports of gas have suffered as a result of the large reductions in EU imports, which have not been fully compensated for by switching to China, though new infrastructure is being built:

These developments have continued into 2023. Production [of gas] fell by a further 36bcm to 659bcm (down 5%) driven by a further sharp fall in Gazprom’s pipeline exports to Europe (a fall of around 40bcm to 25bcm) which was only partly offset by rising exports to China (22bcm) and stable sales to Turkey (21bcm). [7]

So; the EU’s partial reduction in gas imports is hurting Russia, (despite their attempts to obfuscate it in the above text, I don’t think the reduction has been much more than 50%. This link, on another EU website, – suggests a total reduction from 45% to 19% of total EU gas imports coming from Russia). But Russia has largely managed the reduction in oil imports to their advantage.

Von der Leyen, aided by dissemination of certain narratives in the popular media, is spinning an extremely one-sided picture as relates to Russian energy. Russia has largely found new markets for its oil. And, the reality is that the slow pace of EU disengagement may well, in gas, be matched by an increase in China as a customer, albeit with something of a time lag.

It is just unlikely that this 19th package of sanctions is going to bring Russia to its knees. And, another problem for von der Leyen. These sanctions are just a Commission proposal. They have to be agreed by all the member states. Hungary and Slovakia may block them or demand reductions. It is worth remembering, barely reported in the Western press, that Hungary is currently blocking EU-Ukraine assession talks [8] (In fact there is so little reporting about this in the Western press that almost all the links that come up in Google about this are to Ukrainian web sites). and is currently taking the EU to court over their stealing of the interest on frozen Russian funds, which has been done without a full vote of the Union. [9]

Von der Leyen is destroying Ukraine

I was struck by this von der Leyen quote: “Europe stands with Estonia in the face of Russia’s latest violation of our airspace.” (In relation to an apparent intrusion of Russian jets into Estonian airspace). I didn’t know that the EU has “airspace”, certainly in a military sense. But, then, I was reminded that, under von der Leyen, the EU is becoming increasingly militarised. There is now a Commissioner for Defence. And the EU Commission has been taking a leading role in trying, (often without success), to drum up funds for Ukraine. How unintelligent do you have to be not to see that the increasing militarisation of the EU and tying Ukraine into that will create more obstacles even to Ukraine joining the EU?

The only context in which von der Leyen’s policy would make sense would be if Russia was totally defeated. As in “the defeat of Nazi Germany”. This is the only logical context for her policy; because Russia, is never going to accept her terms. It seems she probably is thinking in terms of the total defeat of Russia. Who knows? Maybe she is dreaming of some kind of revenge for WWII.

Summary

The EU apparently are still convincing themselves that a combination of tightening up of sanctions together with some limited supply of arms will keep Kiev in the fight long enough to put Russia under so much pressure that Putin “comes to the negotiation table” – and agrees, presumably, once there, to something like the EU/Polish vision for ending this war; Ukraine accepts, de facto, some loss of territory, while continuing to talk about reclaiming it on a political track; Ukraine is then turned into an EU military “porcupine” where the little armies of the UK and France can show off, Russia, humiliated, is left with Donbas, and a big “reparations” bill – with their frozen assets held as hostage. Everyone still talks about Ukraine joining NATO at some point, without actually meaning it, as now.

This isn’t going to happen, though. Chiefly because Russia is not in fact engaging in some sort of adventure which they can change their minds about, if the “costs” are high enough. Just as Putin didn’t wake up on 22 February 2022 deciding to launch an “imperial” war, (astonishingly the head of Britain’s MI6 described it as just such an “imperial” adventure in Istanbul today; one would have hoped he would have greater powers of analysis), [10], they aren’t going to just wake up one day, look at the figures showing their economy is under pressure, and say, “hey, ho let’s surrender”. Firstly; they will try everything to hang on. Secondly; were their economy really to be collapsing under direct pressure of sanctions, they would treat that as an existential threat and would react accordingly. (I would hazard a guess that they would massively increase the attack on Ukraine in an effort to force a speedy conclusion to the war; but it could be worse than that).

All this – the drip feed of arms and slowly decreasing purchases of Russian energy, while Russia finds new markets, is just prolonging Ukraine’s pain. The possible war between the West and Russia is also not being headed off; it is being kicked down the road. This is a dangerous and foolish policy. It creates very real risks for the West. And Ukraine is suffering for it. And why? What harm would the situation of a neutral Ukraine in the EU, with an autonomous region in the East, have caused Europe? Because, from the European point of view, this is what all this blood is about.

Notes

Ukraine – EU prolonging the war

The logic of prolongation

19th Sanctions package proposed

Von der Leyen is destroying Ukraine

Summary

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