Opinion by David Ignatius: The time is now to plan for the aftermath of war in Ukraine
that the military squeeze on Russia could be eventually pose a “risk of turning into a full-fledged nuclear war.”
This is scare talk. “We believe that Moscow continues to use nuclear rhetoric to deter the United States and the West from increasing lethal aid to Ukraine,” Haines said, warning that Moscow could turn up the volume by staging nuclear exercises with ICBMs, bombers and submarines.Britain is offering Finland and Sweden a defense pact on the way to NATO membership, and when I asked British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace on Thursday whether that meant a “nuclear umbrella,” he didn’t say no.
Reconstruction should begin now in Ukraine, even as the war continues. President Volodymyr Zelensky has published an online menu for reconstruction,The eventual bill for this war will be immense. A Ukrainian official told me on Wednesday that the eventual cost will exceed $500 billion, according to estimates prepared by the Kyiv School of Economics. The U.S. Agency for International Development and other global agencies are already pumping in billions in humanitarian and other assistance.
This reconstruction process eventually must include Russia, too, paradoxical as that may sound. It won’t happen soon. Alexander Gabuev,at the Carnegie Center in Moscow who recently left Russia, told me Thursday that a large majority of Russia supports Vladimir Putin’s war. Russia sadly is heading the way of Iran, becoming an outcast, sanctioned nation. But it won’t stay that way forever. Eventually, said Gabuev, “there will be a spark.
Even as the war continues in Ukraine, I hope President Biden will keep repeating the message: “The Russian people are not our enemy.” The United States must continue to illuminate an eventual path of return. Someday, an exhausted, traumatized Russia will come in from the cold.