Recently, according to a data report released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance, Ukraine's government bond scale has exceeded US$100 billion. As we all know, fighting war is fighting the economy. Ukraine is now heavily in debt. Can Ukraine still fight this war? Moreover, Ukraine is still facing three major crises, and Zelensky is really not optimistic.
Before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Ukraine's government bond scale was about US$22.7 billion, which was generally within a controllable range. But now, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has broken out for more than half a year. In the past six months, Ukraine's national debt has continued to soar, and now it has exceeded US$100 billion. Ukraine today can be said to be heavily in debt and unable to make ends meet. Before this, World Bank had already made relevant predictions about Ukraine's economy.
According to the prediction of World Bank , affected by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Ukraine's GDP took a sharp turn for the worse in 2022, with a drop of up to 35%. If Ukraine wants to carry out post-war reconstruction at home, it will cost at least about US$350 billion in the fields of society, production and infrastructure, which is equivalent to 1.5 times Ukraine's GDP in 2021, which is no different from astronomical figures for Ukraine.
As we all know, fighting war means fighting the economy. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "the army and horses move, food and grass will come first." In modern warfare, a strong economic foundation is one of the keys to the outcome of the war. Nowadays, Ukraine can be said to be heavily in debt, and the situation Zelensky faces is not optimistic.
However, compared with Ukraine's domestic economy, which is in short supply and heavily in debt, the impact of Russia's domestic economy in the Russian-Ukraine conflict is far beyond people's expectations. When the Russian-Ukraine conflict broke out, the United States gathered Western countries in a short period of time and imposed unprecedented joint economic sanctions against Russia in an attempt to crush Russia's economic foundation. But what many people unexpected is that Russia's economy is not as slumped and on the verge of collapse as the public thinks, but is still firm. As international energy prices continue to rise, Russia even made a big profit in this Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Not long ago, the Russian Ministry of Finance declared that due to the rise in international oil prices, Russia expects to increase its additional revenue of 305.6 billion rubles in October.
On the one hand, the scale of Ukraine's government bonds has continued to soar, and on the other hand, Russia's fiscal revenue has actually steadily increased. In contrast, Zelensky may find it difficult to fight this battle against Ukraine, which is heavily in debt and underpaid income.
Today, Ukraine is actually facing three major crises, and Zelensky's situation is really not optimistic.
The biggest crisis is that Ukraine's domestic economy has declined and all industries have been depressed due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The World Bank predicts that the decline in Ukraine's GDP will reach as high as 35% in 2022. Some industry insiders believe that this data is still relatively conservative and optimistic. In addition to the government bonds that have exceeded the 100 billion US dollars mark, Ukraine has now used more than half of its overall GDP in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through the nationwide mobilization. Other domestic livelihood industries have also been severely impacted, and the living standards of Ukrainian people have also further declined.
The second biggest crisis is that the United States and the West have less and less aided to Ukraine, and they are often just verbal promises and not much practical action. At the beginning of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States and the West showed "righteous indignation" and their slogans were shouting loudly. They all said that they would fully support Ukraine. However, as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict continues to deepen, the war between the two sides has gradually entered a stalemate. The United States and Western countries have also begun to realize that the conflict will not end in a short period of time, and they are likely to be "trapped", so they quickly adjusted their strategies and no longer provided real money support to Ukraine, but more just verbal shouts. For example, not long ago, the German Parliament directly rejected military aid to Ukraine with a large proportion of 476:179.
The third biggest crisis is that some tough "nuclear remarks" have appeared in Russia recently, which has made Zelensky worried. Not long ago, Russian President Putin said in a national televised speech in Russia, "In order to defend Russia's national security, we will use all existing means." This is interpreted by the outside world as Putin's "nuclear hint" to the West. Ukraine had publicly "destroyed nuclear weapons" nearly thirty years ago. If Putin really used nuclear weapon , Ukraine would probably have to be beaten passively.
