CINCINNATI — As war continues in Eastern Europe, the world watches news reports,and waits to see the results of this major conflict.
Brendan Green, an associate professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati, spoke with Spectrum News 1 about the potential of this war amid the flurry of international sanctions against Russia, including the recent announcement by President Joe Biden banning U.S. imports of Russian oil.
Green noted that many Western nations may express hesitancy in military action simply because they fear escalation.
“All of the Western states, to include the United States and Canada, are very cognizant of the fact that Russia is a nuclear power, and Russia has been making nuclear threats that are not particularly subtle in warning NATO and other nations to stay out of the war as much as possible,” Green said.
Due to this, he said Western states have wanted to limit supplying the Ukrainians as well as imposing economic sanctions.
He said it seems very unlikely that there will be further Western military intervention.
Without this aid, Green said Ukraine can likely hold out against Russia for some time, but the largest unanswered question is how long it will take Russia to see this through.
“But I think the ultimate outcome is not in doubt,” he said. “And so the question is basically what kind of cost can the Ukrainians impose on the Russians, and will that cost help move quicker to a negotiated end of the war?”
However, he thinks that the Russians will likely be able to impose the outcome they wish, without negotiations.
“And so — in the end — I don’t think… Ukraine has very much hope,” he said.
Should Russia succeed in their efforts and take over Ukraine, the nature of their occupation is dependent on the way the war ends.
“As far as the occupation goes, a critical question will be how much of the country does Russia choose to occupy?” he said.
He noted the most “ardent Ukranian nationalists” live in the western third of the nation, and Russia would have a more difficult time occupying that region than the more Eastern ones.
Regarding the ongoing sanctions against Russia, he said it will also make this all very costly for them. The Western states imposing these sanctions, he said, have not sought to use them coercively.
“That is to offer to remove them in return for a deal that, say, preserves the Ukranian government or accomplishes some other Western goal in Ukraine,” he said. “Right now, the sanctions appear to be purely punitive, and so they’re just costs that Russia will have to live with no matter what the outcome is until the Western states change their mind.”
