“The Ukrainian conflict should never have happened, and would not have happened if I were President.”  — Donald Trump on Truth Social. September 2022

As the war in Ukraine stumbles into its end game, analysts from contesting sides will be evaluating the wins and losses in the struggle for power and dominance among Europe’s nations and other countries of the world having a stake in the outcome. What are the political and economic advantages gained or lost in this conflict supereminent in the arena of international geopolitics since it first started?

For now, it is clear that the 28 point peace plan currently providing the basis of a post war settlement will have two winners – Russia and the United States. Both will be gaining strategic and economic advantages from what appears to be an asymmetrical plan requiring significant territorial concessions on the part of Ukraine.

An examination of the points likely to emerge from what could be the final Ukraine – Russia agreement provides the following list of potential gains and losses for the 5 key players in what has been amongst the deadliest wars in European history, and which ranks as one of the most casualty-intensive conflicts since World War 2. 

For Ukraine, the end of active hostilities is likely to result in a loss of territorial sovereignty in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and other Russian occupied areas. Its military is to be capped at an yet unresolved number and no foreign troops are to be stationed on its soil. There will effectively be a ban on NATO membership – one of the catalysts of the war – though this is to be balanced by security guarantees already denounced as “vague”. 

On the positive side, Ukraine will receive reparations primarily through a reconstruction fund financed in part by $100 billion in frozen Russian assets – a proposal which Russia has rejected as amounting to “theft” – and an additional $100 billion investment from Europe. 

Whatever the amount of reparations and........

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