- “Ukraine can lose this war,” but Russia cannot win on a geopolitical level, Ian Bremmer told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.
- It remains to be seen whether Ukraine will continue to have the “attention and cohesion” it gained from the West in the first year after the Russian invasion, Bremmer said.
- The UK, US and Germany are among nations that have agreed to equip Ukraine with tanks, but they have yet to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent request for fighter jets.
“Ukraine can still lose the war – but Russia can’t win,” Ian Bremmer told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in Munich
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Ukraine can lose the war, but Russia cannot win at the geopolitical level, Ian Bremmer, political scientist and president of the Eurasia Group, told CNBC.
“Ukraine can lose this war,” Bremmer told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, but Russia can’t win because of its “pariah” status in NATO, Bremmer said.
“[Russia] will still be cut off, NATO will still expand and for Putin, who feels humiliated, insecure and in a far worse geostrategic position than before his invasion, what will he do as the world’s most powerful rogue state? This is a long-term question that goes beyond Ukraine,” said Bremmer.
Bremmer said NATO support to Ukraine has been “extraordinary” and “far beyond what anyone thought possible,” with Germany reducing its reliance on Russian energy supplies and the US taking the lead in supplying military supplies to Ukraine took over Ukraine. But he questioned whether that aid would continue.
“Will 2024 be true with the upcoming presidential election?” he asked. “We don’t know what will happen there.”
It remains to be seen whether Ukraine will continue to have the “attention and cohesion” that it gained from the West in the first year after the Russian invasion, Bremmer said.
“The answer is that Ukraine can lose. Everyone here has to understand that Ukraine can lose this war,” said Bremmer.
So far, Britain, the US and Germany are among the nations that have agreed to provide Ukraine with tanks, but they have yet to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent request for fighter jets.
“[The war] is an existential crisis for Ukraine, it is an existential crisis for Zelenskyy and his family personally – they are literally fighting for their lives,” said Bremmer.