The EU covers itself in shame
While Kyiv burns, EU countries send a flood of goods to Russia via Central Asia
Russia has stepped up its aerial attacks on Ukraine and the images are harrowing. The EU dragged its feet on shutting down Russia’s shadow fleet in the Baltic, a delay that now helps Putin keep his murderous invasion of Ukraine going. It gets worse. Many EU countries are sending a flood of goods to Russia via Central Asia, choosing short-term profits over solidarity with Ukraine and their own medium-term security. Since Trump’s election win last year, the EU styles itself as a moral leader in the world. The truth is that it’s anything but. The EU is profoundly broken and amoral.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, exports from many EU countries to Kyrgyzstan - a tiny, landlocked country in Central Asia - have exploded. The charts above show Germany (top left), Italy (top right), Belgium (bottom left) and the Netherlands (bottom right). The fact that this trade boomed right after the invasion makes it highly unlikely that these goods are actually going to Kyrgyz buyers. Instead, they’re going to Russia, where they help Putin keep his war economy going.
The numbers involved for Kyrgyzstan are relatively small. Kyrgyzstan is a tiny country and there’s a limit to how much EU businesses can plausibly transship through such a small place. However, most EU countries are doing such transshipments to all over Central Asia, the Caucasus and - the biggest transshipment hub of all - Turkey. When you add all those transshipments up, they’re big enough to fully offset the fall in direct exports from the EU to Russia. These transshipments are therefore substantial and mean that the flow of goods to Russia from the EU never slowed.
There are exceptions to this pattern. Poland has essentially ended transshipments after aggressively clamping down on them. The Baltics are similar. Sweden and Finland kept a close eye on exports from the beginning so that transshipments never got going. These exceptions show that EU leaders could easily put an end to this. The fact that they don’t shows that these exports have their tacit approval. While Kyiv burns, the EU covers itself in shame.
Hindsight, counterfactual arguments for the Western Allies in WW2 to have strung Stalin out for geopolitical reasons abound. Although with Soviet forces accounting for between 80%-90% of all Wehrmacht casualties and as the Russian people continued to suffer indubitably - the immorality of that bears significant weight. Here we are several decades later and again geopolitics rules with the West stringing Ukraine out. Surely, using Ukraine as a meatshield for the EU/West in general is immoral. It cannot be a fear instilled by Russian threats of a rescaled war with tactical nuclear weapons, chemical weapons. There are unforeseen consequences with throwing Ukraine to the wolf. The gains from short term trade are less than the costs of war, supplying arms - it merely encourages Russia’s aggression. Russia as a full time war economy using capital goods for military production has its costs yet as we saw during the Soviet era it takes decades to manifest. The Lanchester square rule for force/manpower decline has been derailed by hidden yet substantial Chinese aid. Given to preclude Chinese fear of Russian collapse that ends with a liberal perhaps even western orientated government [it won’t happen with 70% of the populace pro-war/Putin…] ends Russia’s function as a northern buffer state with the West. If that occurs see China quickly rescind the Amur and Aigun treaties. China’s belief Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction is hard to discredit. Western capital’s opportunism vis a vis a willingness to defend an emerging democracy to its medium term interest is another nail in the decline of the West.
Valeri Gergiev，a good friend of Putin, will perform at 9pm on July 27 at “Un’Estate da Re” in Italy. (Concerto sinfonico)