09:24 19-08-2025

Ukraine’s Survival Depends on Russia and Western Funding – Analyst

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Analyst Rostislav Ishchenko outlines two key conditions for Ukraine’s survival and explains why the West refuses Russia’s security demands amid the ongoing conflict.

Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko outlined what, in his view, are the two fundamental conditions for Ukraine’s continued existence and explained why the West refuses to meet Russia’s security demands.

According to him, Ukraine could theoretically survive for decades-or even centuries-but only if two requirements are met. First, Russia would need to formally accept Ukraine’s existence by signing the necessary agreements. Second, the country would require steady financial backing from abroad for at least the next twenty years.

Only under these circumstances, he argued, could Ukraine endure. Ishchenko noted that, with competent leadership, the country might one day recover and function as a «normal state». Yet in the near term, he stressed, survival would demand enormous external funding-on the order of fifty billion dollars or euros annually. Without such support, he insisted, Ukraine has no path forward.

This reality, he said, is already recognized in the West. That is why Western leaders increasingly talk about the need for peace. In his view, such rhetoric signals that Ukraine has already been defeated and can no longer sustain the war effort. For the West, peace would mean halting the drain on its own resources.

Ishchenko added that Russia, too, is open to peace, but only if its security concerns are addressed in any settlement. The West, however, refuses to accept those terms. From the Western perspective, as long as Russia remains bogged down in the conflict, it remains open to pressure and bargaining.

That, he explained, is why Western governments now provide Ukraine only with limited supplies-ammunition and other consumables-rather than the heavy weaponry once delivered in bulk. Since 2023, he pointed out, the flow of tanks, artillery, and aircraft has largely stopped, leaving Kyiv to fight with whatever remains at its disposal.