NATO IS FAILING UKRAINE

AT THE ANKARA SUMMIT, LEADERS SHOULD GET BEHIND PEACE (BUT PROBABLY WON'T)

NATO is destroying Ukraine by funnelling money into it for a war against Russia that cannot be won.

Every mutli-billion commitment of financial and military assistance to Ukraine is another nail in Ukraine’s coffin.

At the Ankara Summit, NATO leaders should get behind peace in Ukraine, recognising that when the war ends, Ukraine will emerge much weaker than before the war started.

NATO leaders need to own their own failure, and yet I fear they won’t.

Rather, they will continue with more of the same, rendering Ukraine’s death even more painful.

There is a saying that wars are won by economies not armies.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Ukraine has received up to $470 billion in combined aid and lending since the war started.

In 2021, Ukraine’s gross domestic product, the total economic output produced in the country during that one year, was $200 billion.

So, over the course of four and a half years of war, Ukraine has received aid greater than twice the value of its GDP before the war started, and yet Ukraine’s GDP in 2025 was measured by the World Bank at $213 billion, a rise of just 6.5% since the war started.

The money provided by the west has largely been wasted.

The reason it has been wasted, is that had the war finished in April 2022 after the agreement of a framework peace deal in Istanbul, the vast majority of this money would not have been spent. If the war had ended, and just a proportion of that western funding been spent on developing Ukraine’s economy, the country would be in a far stronger position today.

$470 billion literally amounts to killing Ukraine with fake kindness.

Let’s take a moment to consider that.

Most of that money has been tipped into the coffers of Ukraine’s government and military rather than into the real economy.

Ukraine’s government spending in 2021 was $67.6 billion.

Ukraine’s government spending in 2025 was $134 billion, twice as high as in 2021.

Government spending is a major component of how GDP is calculated. It now accounts for 63% of GDP compared to just 33.8% in 2021.

What that means is that the rest of Ukraine’s economy has fallen into disrepair.

Where Ukraine imported $3.9 billion more than it exported in 2021 that figure rose to a whopping $34.2 billion in 2025. It is exporting less and importing more than before the war started.

Russia has so far pulled in a combined current account surplus of approximately $400 billion, by the way, twice the size of Ukraine’s pre-war GDP.

Ukraine’s industrial production is at 74% of its prewar level, in particular in heavy industry, especially basic chemicals (42.8% of pre-war levels), metals (44.5%), mining (39.1%) and refined products (21.8%). And it simply won’t get some of this back, as certain facilities and mines have fallen under Russian control in the Donbas.

Russia’s industrial production has continued to grow, and it 48-53% higher than in 2021 before the war started.

Ukraine invested $10bn less into its economy in 2025 compared to 2021, a drop of 38%.

Investment in Russia’s economy has grown from 23% to over 26% of GDP.

Ukraine’s economy has been hollowed out by war

Ukraine’s debt as a percentage of GDP has surged from 49% in 2021 to an estimated 110% this year.

Russia’s debt to GDP remains below 20%, a slight rise since the war started when it was 14% of GDP.

And the kicker is this, the vast amount of government spending is propped up by loans and donations from western nations which has consistently accounted for around half of all government spending.

And the problems extend beyond the economic.

The population inside of Ukraine has fallen by 25-30%, largely down to mass emigration, together with battlefield losses.

Russia’s population by contrast has seen a modest decline of 0.3-0.5% and is now almost five times larger than Ukraine’s population.

Ukraine’s birthrate has fallen by 38% - 105,000 fewer babies arrived in 2025 compared to 2021. The average birthrate per woman has now fallen to below 1.

Russia produced 1 million more babies in 2025 and it’s fertility rate, while low (1.378) is still significantly higher than in Ukraine.

I person in 3 inside of Ukraine today is a pensioner. For every employed worker there is one pensioner. In the UK, as a comparison, there are 2.6 workers per pensioner and in Russia 1.7-1.8.

When the war ends, there will be huge pressure in western nations to reduce their financial commitments.

That could see a brutal write down in the size of Ukraine’s GDP. If the Ukraine government reduced its spending to pre-war level, that would amount to a sudden drop of 30% in GDP.

Of course, that scale of drop won’t happen, as it will take some time to demobilise its army.

Ukraine will simply not be able to afford to pay for a military of 1 million personnel without further loans from the west. So will have to drive down military costs over time.

They will find that they have a disgruntled veteran class, resentful that a military success was offered by not delivered at a cost of 2.4 million killed and injured so far.

But, for the first time, Ukraine will have its economic fortunes in its hands.

If it chose to, it could do a massive debt restructuring and reopen itself to borrowing on the international markets, having been cut off of international borrowing since the war began.

It would almost certainly see a flood of foreign investment from western nations to rebuild its shattered cities and infrastructure.

It could start the process of weaning itself off of imports and reboot its exports, recognising that it has lost some of its valuable coal exports from the loss of territory.

However, it’s far from guaranteed that Ukraine would return to its prewar population, possibly ever, nor repair its catastrophic demographic crisis, as birthrates were already very low before the war started, at just 1.22 babies per woman.

So, the economic future for Ukraine looks bleak. It will have taken a permanent deadweight loss to its economic potential whenever the war ends.

An economy that is significantly smaller when the war ends compared to before it started. A population that is smaller and not reproducing itself.

However, what should be blindingly obvious is that the economic numbers will continue to get much worse for Ukraine for as long as the war continues.

Ukraine’s deficit of exports over imports will grow.

Industrial production will remain depressed and possibly fall further if Russia paints out Donetsk

Investment in Ukraine’s real economy will continue to slide

Ukraine’s massive debt burden will pile up further.

It is impossible to imagine that Ukraine will have cleaned up its grotesque levels of corruption if the war continues and billions of foreign money continues to pour in. That’s not to say that Russia doesn’t have a corruption problem too, of course. But the difference is, we are sending the billions to Ukraine for Zelensky’s cronies to pilfer.

Ukraine’s population will continue to decline

It will produce fewer babies and move to having more pensioners than workers.

There is no way to reverse any of these trends for as long as the war continues.

The $470 billion that western nations have tipped into Ukraine has been wasted.

And all for what?

What are the factors driving on NATO to keep Ukraine fighting?

The first, is the mistaken view that NATO can use a much smaller economically more fragile country like Ukraine as a battering ram to shatter Russia and inflict a strategic defeat that would topple the Putin government.

All of this is cloaked under the excuse that Ukraine should have the right to choose which military bloc is joins. However, in 2014 before the Ukraine crisis started, a majority of Ukrainians did not support joining NATO, as opposed to the EU, where attitudes were finely balanced in 2013 prior to the Vilnius Eastern Partnership Summit.

For those Ukrainians that did want to join the EU, their choice was soon labelled as a Euro-Atlantic, rather than a European choice after the unconstitutional removal of Viktor Yanukovych as President in February 2014.

The Ukraine crisis has always been about NATO membership.

Whenever efforts were made to broker peace, most notably after the Minsk II Agreement in February 2015 or the Istanbul talks in April 22 after the war started, those efforts were derailed by the Americans, with the help of the British.

And, as it turns out, even though the Europeans have become the major funders of the war in Ukraine since Trump came to power, it is now completely obvious that Ukrainian membership of the EU is further away than it has ever been, not least because of the boorish antics of Zelensky on the world stage, typified by his turning Poland into an irritant after his glorification of World War II Nazi collaborators. Zelensky has variously generated bad blood with other EU nations that he will rely on to obtain EU membership for his country, driven by his towering sense of entitlement and lack of self-awareness.

While I’ve always supported the theory of EU membership for Ukraine, the practice has become more complicated by the continuation of war. Important reforms in Ukraine have not been undertaken or have been held back.

So, the very point of the Maidan movement - if there was ever a point before it was hijacked by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists - has been betrayed by12 years of conflict and now war which has revealed that the true purpose of western sponsors has been to incorporate Ukraine into a military bloc, that not just Putin, but several esteemed western diplomats like Kennan and Matlock, has been saying for at least twenty years was a red line for Russia.

And yet, here was are, on the verge of another NATO summit in which cardboard cutouts like Mark Rutte will continue to insist that Ukraine is part of the NATO family. Further commitments will be made to funnel even more billions in aid into Ukraine to help Zelensky inflict a strategic defeat on Russia that will never happen.

NATO leaders won’t take the cue to end the war. There are just too many vested interests in the west to allow that to happen.

That Zelensky is attending the summit won’t help. He will persuade western leaders - who seem completely unable to say no to him - that they need to let him strike further and further into Russia to inflict pain on Russia’s economy.

And yet, every Ukrainian strike will self-evidently yield another massive retaliation from Russia that heaps suffering on ordinary Ukrainian people.

It won’t change the massive economic and demographic advantages that Russia has over Ukraine and will always have.

It will just prolong the war.

Western mainstream media and politicians are bitterly opposed to ending the war too.

They will trot out the usual tropes.

Russia’s economy is about to implode – it isn’t and I’ve been hearing this for 12 years including while I was in Moscow. Look at the numbers. Ukraine’s economy is in real trouble.

Russian people are turning against Putin because of gasoline shortages in some cities including Moscow. Yes, Russian people are tired of war and Putin has seen a reduction in his popularity, though at 67% it is far higher than anything western leaders enjoy. There is no evidence that Russian people are going to take to the streets to topple Putin. Indeed, Ukraine’s people have suffered far more from the destruction of energy and heating infrastructure during bitter winters. The inconvenience suffered by ordinary Russians is very small in comparison, although that doesn’t mean it isn’t impacting Russia’s domestic politics. The point is, it will never be enough to shift the dial, compared to the significantly greater cost Russia can impose on Ukraine.

Russia is finding it harder to recruit troops to the frontline. This is the worst misinformation of all. Yes, Russia has taken heavy casualties in the war although all the evidence points to Ukraine taking far higher casualties from a smaller population. Body swaps numbers are not a perfect comparator, but on every occasion Ukraine receives at least ten times more bodies than it returns to Russia. And, in any case, every body - Ukrainian or Russian - is a person whose life has been snuffed out by this pointless war.

Russia has avoided a general mobilisation whereas every day there are videos emerging of violent forced mobilisation – busification – of Ukrainian men to be sent to the meat grinder.

Zelensky is the leader of the free world. Utter claptrap. He is a corrupt dictator who absolutely refuses to listen to any advice and will carry on regardless, whatever injury he causes his own country, so long as the west keeps sending him money. Politicians are human and he is no different, I am sad to say. He will not be President of Ukraine after the war ends if fair elections are held. Everyone can see this except the western press. Zelensky biggest challenge when the war ends will be to stay alive, let along to stay inside of Ukraine.

Putin is going to die at any minute. Come on, I’ve been hearing this for twelve years.

Any attempt to get behind a peace settlement will be turned upon by the blob who cry that we are selling out Ukraine and are giving a gift to Putin.

But I am sick and tired of hearing this bullshit. The biggest gift to Putin is to keep the war going on and watch Europe disintegrate politically and economically.

But the only way to secure peace with Russia is through force. Utter nonsense.

Sure, Putin would probably prefer peace now. And, it has always been my impression, that Russia wants to have normal relations with Europe and, in fact, with Ukraine.

But he will not do that under the threat of NATO expansion and has been saying this for over two decades.

So, if NATO leaders want to keep helping Zelensky fight to the last Ukrainian it will be a disgraceful betrayal of the Ukrainian people and of the people of Europe who face a growing threat of general war and all the misery that would ensure, which ordinary Ukrainian people have suffered for four and a half years already.

Zelensky is killing his own country. NATO is helping him do it. We are led by idiots in the west. It’s time to end this nonsense now.