About the Ukrainian diaspora:
Before the invasion, Ukraine had 45 million people.
4mm people have gone to the West, 2mm have gone to Russia, and 8mm have been internally displaced.
1/10
The best, smartest, hardest working Ukrainians will never come back to their homeland. Most of them fled to the West — and they will find good paying jobs and comfort there. A high percentage of them will stay there forever, at least 40%, likely higher.
2/10
Those who are not so capable will remain in Ukraine. Because of their forced displacement, they will resettle in their ethnic regions. This will force a greater geographic divide between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians, increasing the likelihood of a political split.
3/10
The Russian areas of east and south Ukraine will be under-populated, thus weak. So there will be no political resistance to this region being absorbed by the Russian Federation.
4/10
Russia will encourage Russians to settle in the south and east, especially Kharkov, to restart the industrial base there. Thus they will pour a lot of money into the area. They will also make it deliberately difficult for ethnic Ukrainians to resettle there.
5/10
The central region around Kyiv will be highly nationalistic—but won’t have the industrial or agricultural base of the Russian east and south. So this rump-Ukraine will be a poor landlocked country, slowly declining in numbers every year, eking out an existence via tourism.
6/10
Poland’s ambition for Lviv is so strong that they will cut a deal with Russia to reacquire the city—to their regret. The people of Lviv feel that they are Ukrainian—not Polish. So they will forcibly resist Warsaw’s occupation and eventual repression.
7/10
Lviv will become Poland’s Vietnam. Hard-core Ukrainian nationalists will focus on Lviv, fighting against the Poles relentlessly in a bid to rejoin the rump-Ukraine. Russia will encourage this by giving weapons to the Ukrainian nationalists, keeping Poland unstable.
8/10
Hungary is quietly earning brownie points with Russia — they will get Transcarpathia without much problems. That absorption will be smooth, because of the region’s ethnic composition.
9/10
Russia will be the big winner: It will get the eastern industrial base, and all of the north shore of the Black Sea. Short term, it will cost them to rebuild Kharkov-Luhansk-Donetsk. But long-term, it will be a very fruitful investment.
10/10
Originally tweeted by Gonzalo Lira (@realGonzaloLira) on March 27, 2022.
The Polish Lviv part seems overstated to me. ABN
American Buddhist Net 