REVIEW: The Aftermath for Russians

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Summary

This AI summary is generated by Microsoft Edge Copilot:

**Russia’s Strategic Trap — Summary of a Pyrrhic Victory**

Russia achieved its immediate objectives in Ukraine—**annexing Crimea** and destabilizing Donbas—but at significant and growing cost, leaving its leadership entangled in a geopolitical bind.

**Victories Turned Burdens**
- **Crimea annexed**, Donbas destabilized—strategically valuable but economically punishing.
- Western **sanctions slashed $170B** from the Russian economy and cost another **$400B in energy revenue** by 2016.
- High-profile political fallout:
  - **Expelled from the G8**, now G7
  - **UN condemnation** of Crimea’s annexation
  - **Global rejection** of Russia’s territorial claims

**The Putin Paradox: Riding the Tiger**
- The Russian leader, resilient and tactically shrewd, **cannot return Crimea** without political backlash from Russians who see it as eternally theirs.
- But **holding Crimea** and maintaining Donbas’s proxy war has **weighed down the economy**, especially post–COVID energy shocks.
- The public is growing **increasingly discontent**, even as national pride remains tied to the narrative of defending Russian-speaking populations.

**Donbas: The Costly Diversion**
- Russia may **seek to freeze Donbas** like **South Ossetia**, keeping Ukraine off balance.
- Unlike South Ossetia, Donbas is **resource-intensive**, with Ukraine offering **fierce, organized resistance**.
- **Abandoning Donbas** risks domestic outrage over perceived betrayal of ethnic kin.
- **Sustaining the status quo**, however, is **financially unsustainable** and politically taxing.

**A Leadership Dilemma**
Now more than two decades in power, the Russian president faces an aging arc and a legacy conundrum:  
**How does he step away without losing everything he gained—or everything he’s held onto?**

References

See The Aftermath for Russians.