On the night of 26 May, Kyiv came under another large-scale Russian drone and missile attack, with explosions and machine gun fire rattling the city. I lay on the floor of my narrow hallway, listening to the furious cacophony outside the window. Two thin walls stood between me and the war, hardly an invitation to philosophical reflection. Nevertheless, I tried, because it helped me banish the more disturbing thoughts.
We Ukrainians now rely on smartphone apps to warn us of incoming Russian drones and missile launches. They don’t tell you which building will be hit or where the wreckage of a downed Shahed might fall. This deprives you of sleep. Your mind churns with scrambled thoughts instead of dreams. If you can catch the truly important ones, they can be useful.
Wars aren’t launched by citizens or soldiers. It is the business of politicians
So I thought. Between explosions, Seneca’s old question ‘Cui bono?’ – ‘who benefits?’ – echoed in my head. Then I reframed it: Who doesn’t benefit from this war? The answers were disappointing.
Most of the ordinary people don’t benefit – least of all women and children. Wars aren’t launched by citizens or soldiers. It is the business of politicians. Which politicians aren’t interested in the war in Ukraine now? Cui non bono?
Vladimir Putin, of course, is beyond suspicion: the principal architect of this conflict, reaping everything he desires – from expanding the scope of his political influence to the perverse thrill of killing enough people to fuel his own grandiosity. Ukraine is a tasty morsel for him. He will torment this nation as long as it, or he, exists. As a bonus, he regularly receives flattering words from the US President Donald Trump, stroking his overinflated ego.
Strip away the peacemaker’s halo from Trump, and you find hard-headed, egotistical calculations built on Ukraine’s suffering. First, it gives him a potent weapon against the Biden administration and the Democrats. Second, it lets him blackmail members of the Nato alliance. Third, a simmering war in Europe vindicates his isolationist stance.
There are lesser motives – revenge on Zelensky, an effort to draw the US closer to Russia to undermine China – but these rank secondary. The American President would have been satisfied with Putin’s boast that he respects Trump’s wife a lot. At least, that’s how it felt after their sensational phone call – two leaders with more than a touch of Caligula or Nero between them.
European leaders, taken as a group against the EU flag, share a grim consensus. Germany’s intelligence chief, Bruno Kahl, let slip that if this war ends before 2029 or 2030, Russia will still threaten Europe. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, has campaigned to turn Ukraine into a ‘steel porcupine’, never pausing to ask whether Ukrainians would want to live inside that bristling fortress. She is inspired by the very notion of an eternal outpost on Europe’s eastern flank.
Europe unquestionably has a stake in prolonging the war – and will supply all available means of doing so. Fortunately or not though, those means are finite.
Britain, too, is receiving its political dividends. With Germany often hesitant and France ambiguous, the UK has seized the chance to assert itself as a key Nato pillar and a major global actor beyond the EU. By vocally and actively backing Ukraine, Britain weakens Russia – and the longer the conflict drags on, the more London gains. While the UK may not favour perpetual war – no war lasts forever – the ongoing stalemate, where Ukraine does not fall and Russia does not triumph, clearly serves British interests.
China appears to be a detached spectator, ready to sit by the river for as long as it takes to see the bodies of its enemies float by. This is an apparent indifference. Russia’s assault on Ukraine has drawn crippling sanctions and forced Moscow into deeper dependence on Beijing – territorially, economically, and politically. The war has rendered Russia China’s vassal and proxy army against the West. Xi Jinping has every reason to let this continue; indeed, he did not hide behind Putin at the recent Red Square parade but stood center stage, more imposing than the Russian strongman. Before February 2022, such master-servant frankness was unthinkable.
I saved Ukraine for last – not the country itself, which has paid the highest price in this war, but its leadership. In times like these, survival demands not only courage but a kind of sharp-edged pragmatism. The war has brought them what peace could never guarantee: unshakeable popularity, full control of the narrative, a steady stream of international support, and a firm grip on power.
These are understandable outcomes, perhaps even necessary ones, in a country fighting for its life. But I can’t help wondering: if tomorrow brought a serious proposal for peace – one that demanded painful concessions – what would happen then? The question answers itself. I’ve never seen the bunkers beneath the government quarter, but I imagine they’re deep enough for difficult decisions to echo slowly, if at all.
As I lay there amid the thunder of war, I recalled that ancient kings famously led their armies in person, sometimes even duelling enemy monarchs on the battlefield. Of course, that was a reckless fantasy, irrelevant today. We have no kings – only elected officials, ensconced in fortified bunkers and backed by omnipotent state machines. Sometimes they fight. Then very hard times come for their countries and hundreds of thousands of soldiers have to die to validate – or condemn – their leaders’ decisions.
Ballistic missiles carve trenches in the sky, air raid sirens shriek, children wail, people perish. This is geopolitics, baby, I tell myself as I struggle to sleep. Better not to ponder who profits and who doesn’t. Such thoughts verge on treason. There is a war, and it will grind on until one side achieves its aims or breaks. Only then will historians write the final chapters – and I hope we all live long enough to read them.
Politicians come and go. Nations remain.
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