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- Bet on red: who and why is interested in disrupting the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis
Bet on red: who and why is interested in disrupting the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis
The European states gathered in the "coalition of the willing" and their allies across the ocean are taking measures to disrupt the emerging progress in the diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. Although the EU economy as a whole has been severely affected by the actions of its own authorities, there are many players in the UK and the countries of continental Europe who would like to continue making money from the war. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
The guns should be firing
It would be a mistake to reduce a State's interest in an armed conflict solely to business or financial gain. It is obvious that the European Union as a whole, as a collection of states and citizens, is losing a lot of money in the current war, which leads to an industrial crisis in countries such as Germany or Finland and a general decline in living standards. But, as often happens in such cases, the costs go to some, and the profits go to others. The interests of these latter overlap with the benefits for the most militant politicians.
The most obvious beneficiaries are corporations of the European military—industrial complex. British companies like BAE Systems and European companies like Rheinmetall (Germany) or Thales (France) are experiencing a real boom. Massive orders for artillery shells, armored vehicles, air defense systems, and drones from the state budgets of Ukraine's allied countries have provided them with long—term production capacity utilization and record revenues. The shares of these companies have soared to historic highs. For example, BAE Systems securities almost tripled from February 2022 to September 2025, and after the intensification of the negotiation process around Ukraine, they lost almost 20% of their value.
Rheinmetall has a similar situation. Until February 2022, it was a "boring" company whose quotes had not changed for many years. Over the next three years, its shares have risen in price almost 20 times. This rarely happens even in the field of high technology. Obviously, military tension is vital for defense corporations right now. It's not so much about orders (they will arrive anyway, if only to replenish empty warehouses), but about the constant growth of the stock price due to general instability.
Related business
There are other beneficiaries of the current EU policy. The war created a huge demand for related services. Companies specializing in cyberattack protection, digital incident investigation, and infrastructure resilience have been given a unique testing ground and demonstration of their capabilities, as well as generous contracts.
The boom of private military companies is happening in real time. British and European PMCs and instructor missions are actively involved in the training of the Ukrainian military, providing services for which they are paid from state and international funds. At the same time, there is a growing demand for strategic consulting, intelligence analytics, political science forecasting, and security consulting. Firms capable of providing "expertise in Russia and Ukraine" have become highly sought after by governments and corporations.
Interests of the elites
Finally, there is a purely financial component. The continuation of the conflict makes it easier to freeze and even potentially seize hundreds of billions of euros belonging to Russia. Using this money allows European banks to earn hundreds of millions, if not billions of euros per year. The longer the uncertainty and European sanctions drag on, the more you can make money from all this.
In general, the policy of sanctions and aggressive struggle against the "Russian threat" is a classic example of "profit privatization and cost socialization." The Iraq war is a good example of the same situation in the past. For the United States and NATO countries, it cost a pretty penny and did not bring significant benefits. But a huge number of companies with good lobbying contacts in the White House, Congress and other Western institutions have significantly improved their financial performance, and their managers and shareholders have improved their own well—being.
Russian assets are in limbo. The end of the conflict will raise the issue of their defrosting. In part, they can be used as a clause in some kind of agreement, which will be clearly stipulated by the rules and exclude the possibility of an "endless" profit on the placement of these funds. If they are withdrawn in one form or another, this may cause a crisis of confidence in European financial institutions and become a grandiose "black swan". Belgium will be the first to suffer, for which the Euroclear depository is one of the pillars of the entire national economy.
Therefore, the situation of "neither peace nor war" seems optimal for the EU leaders now.
The political part
Meanwhile, as soon as the White House addressed Kiev in a directive tone, actually forced it to return to the negotiation process and, moreover, declared imminent success, the mainstream media on both sides of the ocean launched an information campaign against the peace initiative. The goal is the same as it was in 2016 — to discredit the US president with "ties with Russia." Now, warnings about the impending "betrayal of Ukraine" have been added to these accusations. The list of settlement issues presented by the White House is called the "Russian plan" by the largest Western media, and in some cases it is even called the "surrender agreement" of Kiev.
It is noteworthy that the scandal followed immediately after the White House announced a campaign against the initiators of Russiagate, a grandiose information campaign about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. As it turns out now, the top leaders of the American intelligence services were involved in its preparation: James Comey (ex-head of the FBI), John Brennan (ex-director of the CIA) and James Clapper (former director of National Intelligence of the United States) — with the active help of British allies and under the leadership of the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama.
The accusations of treason and attempted coup against the above-mentioned individuals were voiced by the current director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. How far the Trumpists will be able to put such influential people in the dock, and even more so the ex-president of the country, is a big question. Recently, the US Department of Justice was unable to even launch proceedings against Komi: the federal court found a lot of inaccuracies, errors and political intent in the case.
At the same time, the White House has the resources to make the bureaucratic pressure permanent, for example, by continuing the successful campaign against the financial sources of the Democratic Party and the NGOs controlled by it.
Tracks leading to Kiev
At the same time, the FBI for the first time publicly stated its interest in large-scale corruption in the highest echelons of the Ukrainian government and the embezzlement of American financial aid by top officials of Zelensky's team. We are talking about specific politicians and, as reported, the cases already collected on them through the Washington—controlled investigative bodies in Ukraine.
At the same time, Trump and his associates have repeatedly stated about the corrupt interests of individual congressmen and representatives of the Biden administration in Ukraine. However, in the light of the unity of interests of the latter with the current political elite of Europe, the traces of corruption schemes may go even further. This plot of the American information agenda is still in the shadows.
Revenge or warning
In this light, the attempt to discredit Trump with a new scandal about "collusion with the Russians" seems not only an attempt to disrupt the negotiation process, but also a way to "turn the board over", that is, to bring down the negative information agenda.
However, experts note that it is unlikely to be possible to "sell" a story about "Russian interference" to an American citizen for the second time. As noted by American political scientist Malek Dudakov, this agenda "has long been boring for the American society and will not work."
Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada, cites two possible reasons for the information attack on Trump.
— For many people, the scandal looks like a response from the American intelligence services to Trump and his people for the pressure he has put on them lately. Moreover, this is a very serious warning for the US president, the consolidated position of influential circles of the intelligence community, relying on large American capital," the expert emphasized.
US President Donald Trump
In addition, Vasiliev notes that this may also be evidence of contradictions within the Trump team, whose attitude to the president's peace initiatives and his attempts to reanimate relations with Moscow is ambiguous.
Thus, right now, the confrontation between the elites has reached a new level. Trump's foreign policy success would be a major blow to the financial and political positions of his opponents on both sides of the Atlantic. The prospect of normalizing relations between the United States and Russia is becoming all the more dangerous for them. The combination of these events will not only be a political disaster for them, but will also entail enormous economic losses in addition to those already incurred.
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