In July 2022, Russia increased the size of its military twenty-five percent, adding three hundred thousand soldiers to its active roll. Russia has a one million five hundred thousand soldier army with conscription in effect. The Russian population is one hundred forty million. The Ukraine population is forty million. Russia has three and one-half times more able-bodied people than Ukraine. In 2024, Russia reported seven hundred thousand troops are fighting in Ukraine. In 2024, the US reported that Russia has suffered three hundred fifty thousand casualties. This is a haunting figure that compares to the four hundred five thousand three hundred ninety-nine US casualties memorialized in WWII.
In 2024, the US appropriated one hundred seventy-five billion dollars to help Ukraine fight Russia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Ukraine's military spending in 2019 and 2020 averaged five billion five hundred fifty million dollars a year. By 2023, this figure increased to sixty-four billion eight hundred million dollars. The help from the US has bolstered the Ukraine's military by over ninety percent. In addition, the Biden administration has brokered a ten-year security deal with Ukraine.
Ukraine's GDP is one hundred sixty billion dollars, which is only 7.1 percent of Russia's GDP. Russia has a GDP of two trillion two hundred forty billion dollars and has the ability to out-produce Ukraine over time. Before 2022, Russia's military spending was ten times greater than Ukraine. Russia could defeat Ukraine. However, in 2022, Ukraine became dependent upon the US. As a result of US involvement, Russia has increased military spending to one hundred nine billion dollars, a forty-five billion dollar increase. The cost of war is now more for Russia. If the US funds Ukraine for ten years at present amounts, then Russia will no longer see Ukraine as the sole enemy.
September 2023, Russia announced the Sarmat missile is in "special regime of combat duty". The missile range is eleven thousand miles, which can reach beyond the borders of Ukraine, and even across the Atlantic Ocean. Russia has introduced a rhetoric of nuclear war, which is directed at the US. Russia has deployed tactical nuclear missiles on their border.
The cost of war is expensive. War does not produce. It destroys. Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of men. Russia has increased their budget by tens of millions of dollars. The US is the cause to Russia's inability to force Ukraine's capitulation. According to Russia's resolve despite their casualties and increased spending, an estimate suggests the US would have to spend at least fifty billion dollars a year to prevent Ukraine's surrender. However, this minimum commitment does not give Ukraine the advantage; rather it would fuel the war in an inconclusive way with no clear outcome. This is the present US policy.
Spending billions of dollars a year for an unknown outcome is wasteful. If Ukraine is to win the war with US assistance, the US would need to increase Ukraine's military spending more than Russia.
(Article changed on Aug 01, 2024 at 12:45 PM EDT)
