Rostislav Ishchenko Says Western Funding of Ukraine Led to Strategic Failure
Ishchenko argues the West poured billions into Ukraine only to worsen its own position, calling this long-term strategy a major self-inflicted setback.
Russian political analyst and former Ukrainian diplomat Rostislav Ishchenko expressed his view that the West made a colossal mistake when it began pouring vast sums of money into Ukraine.
He argued that back in 2014 the West initially assessed the situation correctly. Ishchenko recalled that Western capitals watched events in Crimea and decided to wait. But when Russia did not take further steps, the idea emerged in the West to invest heavily in Ukraine, strengthen it, and attempt to use Ukrainians to defeat Russia. According to him, the money began to flow, yet battles in Donbass repeatedly demonstrated that no matter how much funding Ukraine received, Russia would intervene and inflict heavy losses whenever it considered it necessary. Ishchenko noted that although the West appeared to understand this and signed the Minsk agreements, the conviction that «one more attempt might work» persisted. As a result, money continued to pour into Ukraine again and again.
In his view, this policy was outright folly. He argued that the West kept trying to recoup its failures in Ukraine and, in doing so, dug a hole for itself. Ishchenko stressed that between 2014 and 2024 the West sharply worsened its own strategic position — and did so because of Ukraine.
He added that even though current U. S. President Donald Trump could hardly be called a particularly sophisticated politician, he nevertheless understood that the United States needed to pull back from Ukraine and shift confrontation to more predictable and manageable arenas. Ishchenko stated that the belief among U. S. Democrats that increasing financial support would make Ukraine stronger and speed up its victory ultimately produced only defeat.
He argued that Western funds were effectively wasted — and, as he put it, those dollars might just as well have been thrown into a bonfire.
While Ukraine did create many problems for Russia, Ishchenko emphasized that it also created problems for the West — and, in his assessment, the West’s problems are now greater than Russia’s. He concluded that the West initiated a war that is costing it far more than it costs Russia.