Russia's gains and losses in 10 years of war against Ukraine

In ten years, Russia has gained:

• Crimea with a murky legal status,  
• Occupied territories in the South and East with destroyed infrastructure and a starving population,  
• Yanukovych.  

And lost:

• Trillions of dollars,  
• More than half the value of its national currency,  
• Economic cooperation with all key players except China,  
• Hundreds of thousands of soldiers,  
• The lion’s share of equipment that the USSR had amassed for potential global conflicts,  
• Its standing in the international community,  
• Syria (apparently, along with what little remained there from Soviet times),  
• Karabakh (and Armenia’s orbit of influence),  
• The CSTO,  
• A neutral buffer between itself and NATO in the form of Sweden and Finland,  
• The lion’s share of its "soft power" in Europe,  
• Nearly all the "soft power" of the Russian Orthodox Church (accumulated, without exaggeration, over half a millennium),  
• Any influence in Ukraine,  
• The ability to represent itself in global sports.  

Its influence in Abkhazia and Georgia is now in question.  

Who's the champ? Vladimir Vladimirovich, who's the champ?

Source

About the author: Viktor Trehubov, Ukrainian journalist, blogger, publicist, social and political activist.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.