A banner reading ‘Slava Ukraini’ (‘Honor to Ukraine, a Ukrainian national salute’) against the backdrop of a demonstration in support of Ukraine at Freedom Square in Tallinn, Estonia, February 26, 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As sympathy for Ukraine increases across much of the world, the cost to Russia increases.
Raigo Pajula | AFP | Getty Images
When Russia invaded Ukraine, it was widely believed that it expected an easy victory over its neighbor.
But so far Russia has shown little of its so-called “military special operations”: Its forces have bogged down in fighting mostly on Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern edges and have found the country to be much better organized and better equipped than expected.
Russian forces have only taken one city, Kherson, but even that occupation looks shaky as Ukrainian forces launch a counteroffensive to retake the southern port. Similar moves have been observed elsewhere in Ukraine, with officials claiming that its forces are conducting an increasing number of counterattacks.
A little over a month into the war, Moscow is facing the unintended consequences of its aggression in Ukraine, ranging from heavy casualties among its troops to economic ruin for years to come.
Here are five of them:
1) Russian losses are high
Russia has been bashful to release statistics on its losses, but a Russian Defense Ministry official said Friday that 1,351 Russian soldiers have died in the war and 3,825 have been injured.
Ukrainian authorities claim that more than 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict, while a senior NATO official last week estimated between 8,000 and 15,000 were killed.
Ukrainian soldiers recover equipment from the body of a dead Russian soldier after a Russian vehicle was destroyed by Ukrainian forces near Sytnyaky, Ukraine, March 3, 2022.
Marcus Yam | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
If true, these numbers would be a high death toll for Russia — comparable to the nearly 15,000 Soviet soldiers who died during the 10-year war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. To this day, this incursion is unpopular in Russia because it brought the country little but cost a lot of blood.
To put the casualties at Russian forces into context, the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that it had recorded a total of 1,151 deaths among Ukrainian civilians, including 54 children, and over 1,800 injured civilians. She assumes that the actual number of victims is significantly higher.
“Most of the recorded civilian casualties were caused by the use of long-range explosive weapons, including heavy artillery fire and multiple-missile systems, as well as missile and airstrikes,” OHCHR said.
2) Ukrainians now detest Russia
One of the likely consequences of this war is that more Ukrainians will harbor enduring hostility towards Russia. Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure — including a children’s hospital and maternity ward, and a theater where families took shelter — are widely viewed by the international community as war crimes. Russia claims it did not attack civilians.
Summing up the mood in the country in early March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared: “We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will punish anyone who has committed atrocities in this war on our country,” before adding, “that there will be no quiet place on this earth but the grave.”
A car burns after the destruction of a children’s hospital in Mariupol March 9, 2022, in this still image from handout video obtained by Reuters.
Military of Ukraine | via Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hailed the cultural, linguistic and historical ties between Russia and Ukraine, but he has likely driven a lasting wedge between the nations.
A member of Ukraine’s parliament, Kira Rudik, tweeted Monday that the sight of Ukrainian homes burning in the wake of Russian attacks “only makes us more angry,” while another joined the call for $400 billion in reparations from Russia to rebuild Ukraine.
Putin has goaded Ukrainians in recent years, reaffirming his belief that Ukraine is “not even a state” and a historical part – and indeed a creation – of Russia, a claim he has reiterated in recent weeks.
A woman holds a child next to a destroyed bridge during an evacuation from Irpin outside Kyiv, Ukraine, March 28, 2022.
Oleksandr Ratushniak | Reuters
On the other hand, many Ukrainians have spent much of the past two decades asserting their separation from Russia, rejecting pro-Russian politics (and politicians), and fomenting not one but two dramatic uprisings in 2004 and 2013. the Euromaidan revolution – Thousands of Ukrainians defied police brutality and violent repression to demand political change and Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
That ambition has been heightened under President Zelensky, who has urged the EU to speed up Ukraine’s accession to the bloc, while acknowledging that Ukraine may never join NATO – a consequence Moscow intended – as it compromises to find a peace dealing with Russia.
3) Economic ruin
The international community was accused of being slow and ineffective when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. This time, she upped the ante as Russia’s full-scale invasion began, as Western democracies imposed sweeping sanctions on key Russian sectors, companies, and individuals associated with the Kremlin or supporting the invasion.
As a result, the Russian economy is expected to slide into a deep recession this year. The Institute of International Finance predicts that Russia’s economy will shrink by up to 15% in 2022 due to the war. It also forecast a 3% decline in 2023 and warned in a note last week that the war will “wipe out fifteen years of economic growth.”
Analysts at TS Lombard predict that the combination of recession and high inflation will “seriously affect” the living standards of Russian citizens. The annualized inflation rate is expected to be 14.5% by the end of the third week of March, “with a plausible range of 30% to 35% by the end of the year,” Christopher Granville and Madina Khrustaleva said in a note on Monday.
This, they added, could have important medium to longer-term implications, particularly at the political level, with Putin’s popularity likely to be tested. However, they noted one way Russia can mitigate the impact of the sanctions on its economy: increasing its oil exports to China and India. Russia’s oil-producing allies in OPEC also agree.
4) Europe drops Russian energy
The war has also accelerated Europe’s transition away from Russian energy imports and left a large dent in the revenue Russia receives from energy exports.
It also has the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – designed to bring more Russian gas to Europe (and which the United States, Poland and Ukraine have warned would increase the region’s energy insecurity ) – perhaps made obsolete forever.
The landfall facilities of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Lubmin, Germany, March 7, 2021. The war in Ukraine has hastened Europe’s shift away from Russian energy imports, rendering the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline obsolete – perhaps forever.
Hannibal Hänschke | Reuters
The EU, which imported around 45% of its gas from Russia in 2021, has pledged to reduce its purchases of Russian gas by two-thirds by the end of the year, and the European Commission aims to end purchases of Russian fossil fuels before 2030. Meanwhile, the US wants to step into the breach by supplying its own liquefied natural gas to the region. However, the transition remains complex.
“We know that Europe has made itself far too dependent on Russia [for energy] especially Germany … but it takes time to switch energy sources, it’s not just a light switch you turn off overnight,” Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, told CNBC. “An energy transition is a transition and that’s when you need oil and gas,” he added.
5) Russia has united the West
During the roughly 22 years in power of President Vladimir Putin, he has systematically and repeatedly attempted to weaken and undermine the West, whether by interfering in democratic processes in the US (in the 2016 elections) or in Europe (with the funding right-wing factions) or serious incidents such as the alleged use of nerve gas against his personal and political enemies.
Military personnel in hazmat suits remove a police car and other vehicles from a public car park as they continue the investigation into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal March 11, 2018 in Salisbury, England.
Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Experts believe that Putin probably expected his invasion of Ukraine to have a divisive effect on the West as countries could not agree on sanctions or send arms to Ukraine, but the opposite has proven to be true.
“The Western response is unprecedented. She is beyond all expectations — united and far more than anyone in Russia was prepared or prepared for,” Anton Barbashin, a political analyst and editor of Riddle Russia magazine, told CNBC.
“Essentially, as we know, it is the ultimate economic war that will destroy Russia’s economy [it]. Will these sanctions deter Putin’s war in Ukraine – no, but they will certainly severely limit the time we have with Putin’s Russia as it is today,” Barbashin added.