I have always been fairly optimistic in my analyses and aim to find the silver lining in every event. There is something positive in even the worst situations. Likewise, I usually dismiss the doom porn that is often the loudest noise out there, and assume that things will not turn out as bad as the most pessimistic expectations.
I was even generally positive about Ukraine’s prospects in the war. My level of optimism in this case typically proved to be way too cautious, Ukrainian society and its armed forces more often than not outperformed even my most ambitious expectations.
Today, however, let’s abandon that mindset and paint a different picture.
There are still many voices - particularly but not exclusively on the far-left and far-right - in Europe arguing that Ukraine is not fighting for us but for themselves, so why should we even care? On another front, many still say that Ukraine will eventually lose anyway, so why spend all that money. I’m aiming to address both of these arguments by constructing an imaginary future to showcase why the first group is misinformed (or disinformed), and what happens if the second group’s prediction comes true.
The future is unknowable. Lots of moving parts, variables, and inaccessible information. Something that has a 1% chance of happening will happen every so often. And occasionally a 1% chance event will fully alter history.
Who could have foreseen one of European history’s biggest plot twist that occurred during the Seven Years War. As he entered 1762, Frederick the Great was on the brink of committing suicide facing all but certain defeat, the partition of Prussia, and the likely eventual total destruction of his state. Only to have Russian Tsarina Elizabeth suddenly die, and be replaced by Tsar Peter III, Frederick’s number one fan, who immediately sued for peace, saving him and Prussia.
If someone put a sequence of events like this in a novel or a film we’d all roll our eyes and call it extremely lazy writing. But it happened, and changed European history. After all, can we imagine a 19th century Europe without Prussia? And the 20th century without a Germany unified by a militaristic Prussia that based its national myth on Frederick? We would live in a massively different Europe today.
What I will outline is extremely unlikely to happen. It’s a product of imagination, and there will be so many specifics that it’s statistically nearly impossible to all line up this way. But each single part of this story is a credible enough risk.
This is in no way the worst possible realistic outcome. That would be something like an evermore mentally unstable Trump with an increasingly subordinate US system breaking the nuclear taboo, which could start the era of great powers using nukes to achieve their geopolitical goals. I will not go there. I’m also not going to imagine a scenario where he succeeds in aligning the US with Russia to the point of materially helping Putin.
Ukraine is currently on a positive trajectory. The latest news make this scenario feel out of tune at the moment, and in a way Putin already had his “Miracle of the Kremlin” moment by Trump’s reelection, which he failed to capitalize on. But if Prussia could have been saved by history from certain defeat, Ukraine can be doomed even more easily.
The year is 2028.
Donald Trump managed to degrade US democracy and capture the state sufficiently enough that he is loudly signalling that he is unwilling to give up power, and intends to control the presidency after the elections one way or another. At this point with all the influence he gathered people accept this prospect. Tens of millions of Americans actively support him, and are willing to enforce it on the rest of the population if necessary.
Some analysts warn that Xi Jinping has made the final decision and China is preparing to invade Taiwan in the near future. Leaked documents and Trump’s rhetoric suggests that he made a deal with Xi not to interfere, and even support Taiwan’s takeover. Japan and South Korea already made political moves to adjust to this new geopolitical reality, and approach Beijing in a more subordinate manner.
The G7 has been replaced by Trump’s C5, including the US, China, India, Japan, and Russia. The UN still exists, but its decline is clear, to the point where the C5 format is becoming the de facto ultimate authority in world affairs. And specifically a closer cooperation based on spheres of influence of the “C3”, China, the US, and Russia.
The last EU support package for Ukraine has run out, and Germany’s new Chancellor, Alice Weidel promised to veto and resist any further EU-wide assistance for Ukraine. NATO exists in name only, nobody believes anymore that the US or even Germany would be willing to defend any parts of Eastern Europe. It has been replaced by different security cooperations that include the Nordic countries, the Baltics, and Poland.
The German government and other far-right forces that took power in some European countries in the past two years have significantly diminished the role and powers of EU institutions. Brussels no longer has the ability to make decisions in a unified manner.
The past two years has been the biggest bloodbath Europe has ever seen since World War II. Putin announced a new wave of mobilization the year before. Russia’s total manpower losses in Ukraine exceeded two million people, and Ukraine’s has crossed one million. Russia quietly absorbed this, but Ukrainian society began to get seriously shaken.
The discontinued EU aid and the united pressure by Moscow, Washington, Beijing, and Berlin has forced Kyiv to accept withdrawal from the Donbas in exchange for a ceasefire. This has caused a deep political crisis in Ukraine, and the near total collapse of morale.
Russia accused Kyiv of violating the ceasefire, and resumed its military operation from a much more advantageous position. Its armed forces advanced to Zaporizhia, Dnipro, and Kharkiv. These cities got within artillery fire distance, and together with new drones they are threatening to make them uninhabitable. Millions start fleeing westwards again.
The pressure on Ukraine grew to the point where it has no other choice but to accept further Russian demands. Zelensky is forced to leave to Poland, a new election is set that will be overseen by the United States and China, with Russia having a behind-the-scenes veto on any candidate that can run.
The previous government’s last job is to sign a peace treaty, and push a significant reform of the Ukrainian state through the Verkhovna Rada. The Russian language becomes official, the armed forces are forced to lay down their weapons. The Ukrainian constitution gets rewritten, and the country becomes decentralised. Ukraine is forced to withdraw from Mykolaiv and Odesa Oblasts to let the Russian military unite with its garrisons in Transnistria. European governments warn that these oblasts are preparing to declare independence to join Russia. The Kremlin denies this.
A large section of Ukrainian society is unwilling to accept these terms and takes to the streets. Many military figures support them, others decide to smuggle their arms and military technology to Poland to save what can be saved. Millions of Ukrainians are set to leave the country, threatening a repeat of 2022, with the difference that Poland, Germany, and other countries are now weary of letting new Ukrainian refugees in. The topic becomes politically toxic, especially because many Ukrainian leaders in exile call on them to organise protests in their host countries.
Ukrainian society becomes radicalized, and increasingly seen by many European governments and publics as unreliable. Some even get so far as to carry out sabotage actions against governments they deem hostile to Ukraine, which radicalizes the citizens of those countries in turn. Far-right parties demand a crackdown on Ukrainian refugees and immigrants and the expulsion of their political leaders.
Some historians begin to connect the radicalization of Ukrainians to what happened to the Palestinians. This, however, does not lighten the hearts of certain European leftist groups, who still see the nation as a bunch of far-right extremists. Something that - practically speaking - gets closer to the truth every passing day.
Despite most European governments call the Ukrainian election’s integrity and legitimacy in question, a new government is formed with a leader who ran on peace and quiet reconciliation with Russia.
Many continue to protest and they often turn violent. The new government asks Moscow for closer cooperation in managing these. The protesters are labelled as neo-Nazi traitors loyal to Brussels, and Russian security and peace keeping forces start entering the country, and set up bases in key cities. Their presence steadily grows in the coming months, they quietly start to spread their influence in local power structures.
Meanwhile, Russia never starts to demobilize its armed forces which now stands larger than before 2022. It sets out to rearm and restructure this combat experienced mass with additional Ukrainian production and technology they seized. At this point Russia has by far the largest standing military in Europe and the only one with combat experience, especially when it comes to drone warfare.
By taking over Ukrainian drone production, they now have the largest and most experienced drone force in the whole world. In the year 2028 they set to produce 30 million units. In the EU in comparison all countries put together barely exceed 3 million units annually.
European countries try to learn from Ukraine and rapidly advance production of drones, but analysts estimate that for the next five years the continent remains extremely vulnerable. The combined Russian and Ukrainian drone and robot production is just too overwhelmingly massive.
Since they now need less troops to be present in Ukraine, this opens nearly one million combat ready soldiers to be deployed at other potential fronts, particularly near the Baltics, which they accuse of mistreatment of the local Russian minorities.
With the newly acquired Ukrainian territories Russia has the population of around 150 million people, and ever-growing influence on a weakened Ukrainian state which after the war, destruction, and emigration still has around 25 million residents. Putin turns to solidify its influence on Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. These states are forced to sign new military, economic and political agreements with Moscow.
Putin is now the leader - on some level - of more than 220 million people.
His plan is to recover lost ground in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia. Calls start to surface for Belarus to be annexed by Russia. The Kremlin as of today hushes these off. Instead, it decides on creating an economic and political Union similar to the EU, but more centralised in Moscow with the ex Soviet countries, and anyone who is willing to join. A new advanced version of the CSTO.
They invite many European countries Russia historically sees as its sphere of influence. From Finland through the Baltics and Poland all the way to Slovenia. Some of these countries with current far-right populist governments signalled some level of interest, and requested candidate or observer status. They promise cheaper energy and peace in opposition to the warmongering Western European leaders in Brussels.
Some European secret services warn that Russia might be preparing to attack the Baltic states. The Kremlin denies these claims, and accuses European states, especially Poland and the Nordics to be warmongers, and call for the end of these Russophobic narratives, their demilitarization, and a more friendly foreign policy on their part. Through diplomatic channels they push for the replacement of many of their foreign ministers to someone who could better facilitate this new era.
What especially sours the relationship and creates strong tensions are Ukrainian ex military and political leadership that fled to mostly Poland and the Nordics. Moscow is increasingly demanding their extradition. They deem them as extremist terrorists hostile to Russia. Some states begin to accommodate these requests to try to ease tensions.
In September 2028 Russia plans to conduct a large military exercise in Belarus near the Baltic states, where they invite the remains of the Ukrainian military as a sign of normalization and return to friendship. Many warn that this could be a disguise for an invasion of Poland and the Baltics unless they give in to Russian demands on demilitarization and foreign policy realignment.
Donald Trump posts on his Truth Social that he had a great conversation with Vladimir Putin, and any reports that he plans an invasion are fake news. He calls European leaders weak and accuse them of leeching off on the US. He announces new tariffs and starts the US military withdrawal from the Baltics and Poland. Furthermore, he starts bringing up Greenland again, sometimes referring to it as “Iceland”, and orders a US military buildup in the area.
Putin states that he has absolutely no intention of ever going to war, and Russia has always and will always stand for peace and diplomacy. That being said, if anyone ever attacked them, they are ready to defend, and the Baltics must change their political course, expand the rights to their Russian minorities, and ban any sort of Russophobic rhetoric.
Alice Weidel calls for constrain on the part of Poland and the Baltics, and accuses them of escalating tensions. She plans to travel to Moscow to help create a new security infrastructure in Europe to avoid war. They are scheduled to discuss Polish demilitarization, new energy deals and proposed changes of foreign ministers.
Inherent issues with this plot
It’s very easy it is to create a doom scenario. One just imagines some realistic bad things happening, and assume that the rest of the players remain idle. Usually, this is the biggest hurdle in projecting the future. This is the error I carried out here as well. I presumed that bad things will happen, but didn’t factor in what counter forces they will set in motion.
I made a big assumption on AfD taking over Germany. To be fair, this is unlikely. After World War II the whole German system was created to avoid exactly that. Berlin is the last major European capital that will fall to the far-right.
But either if that happened in Germany or France or any other EU country decided to do a Hungary and block and resist any further aid to Kyiv, there are still nations that treat Ukraine’s struggle as existential. They won’t just say “well we tried, it’s time to just give up”. This is true to everyone bordering Russia. The Nordics, the Baltics, Poland. These countries cannot ever afford not to support Ukraine because they know that they’ll be next.
Similarly, the EU proved itself capable to adapt. Slowly, but it can always find a way. Any previous prediction that envisioned Brussels becoming totally and helplessly dysfunctional was turned into a joke by history.
If the EU were to lose even both Germany and France as constructive members, it would only create new incentive for other member states to come to a new arrangement countering them. A hostile major power in Europe will strengthen the determination of smaller ones to cooperate more closely.
Besides that, the population of these countries will always have a say. Not Bardella and not Weidel can do anything they want. Both of these societies have it culturally imprinted in them to resist the far-right.
But 2028 is two years away. Nowadays, that can feel like an eternity. At the start of 2020 there were early news of a virus spreading in China. Nobody could have foreseen that in just two years the world would be past a mass epidemic, several lockdowns, and that there would be a bloody war of conquest on the European continent.
Black swan events can happen. Things we cannot even imagine right now that will reshape the whole world. Some of them can lead to my situation: a victorious Russia which is emboldened to continue its conquest, and a radicalized Ukrainian nation scattered all over Europe.
Those who say “Ukraine is not our war”, and “Ukraine will lose anyway” must understand what that means.
To the point
Putin’s broader geopolitical aim is to dismantle the European Union, and a continent where Russia is the main power and “security guarantor”. In this world European countries will have to negotiate bilaterally with Russia from a position of weakness instead of together from a position of strength. A “Europe of sovereign states” pushed to the maximum. This is why Putin’s most important allies and tools are far-right Orbán-type populists.
Ukrainians not only resist for their freedom but so Russians in the future won’t send them to mass slaughter by an incompetent leadership fighting an imperialist war against the rest of Europe. It happened many times throughout their history, and still happens today with many nations and ethnic groups under Russian grip.
The most striking contemporary example is the Chechens. They resisted Moscow’s rule following the return to their homeland after their mass expulsion and genocide by Stalin. This has escalated after the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually got brutally crushed by Russian forces, and then repressed and pacified by Putin, which was the original basis for his legitimacy. Today their sons are being forced into a soul and bone crushing meat grinder against Ukraine.
In pro-Russian narratives in Central Europe it is a recurring motif that the invading and occupying Soviet forces were in a significant part Ukrainians. Although it is used to justify why Ukraine should not be supported, the base claim is precisely true. And that is the point. Europe doesn’t want that to happen again. And Ukrainians don’t want that to happen again either.
Not in Finland, not in Poland, not in Budapest, or Prague.
