BY JON
JACKSON ON 12/28/22 AT 5:09 PM EST
Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the sidelines of an informal summit of the heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg on December 27, 2022. In inset, Ukrainian military vehicles on November 11, 2022, in Blahodatne, Ukraine. A Moscow-born economist said that the war in Ukraine could result in Russia losing its status as an "empire."
PHOTOS BY ALEXEY DANICHEV / SPUTNIK / AFP / ANDRII DUBCHAK / DONBAS FRONTLINER VIA ZABORONA /GLOBAL IMAGES UKRAINE / GETTY IMAGES
The
war in Ukraine could be the "nail in the coffin" for Russian
President Vladimir Putin's "empire," a Moscow-born
economist and professor at Indiana University said in a recent interview.
Speaking to Jason Jay Smart
of the Kyiv
Post in a video discussion, Dr. Michael Alexeev called the war
"monstrous" and "a mistake for everybody involved." He also
said that while the war might end up having positive effects for Ukraine
"in the long run," Russia could stand to lose much of its global power.
"The only positive thing that I can think of in terms of
this war is that maybe it will finally put a nail in the coffin of the idea of
Russian Empire," Alexeev said. "Maybe finally, it will become a
normal country."
Alexeev said a paper published 20-plus years ago called Russia a
normal, middle-income country. He took issue with that characterization.
"Unfortunately, it was wrong," he
said. "It [Russia] is not a normal country. It still has its imperial
view, and it's bad for everybody, including Russia. So I hope that the result
of this terrible war will be that maybe Russia will become eventually a normal
country."
The United Nations recently
estimated nearly 18,000 civilian casualties in Ukraine as a
result of the war, while Ukraine defense officials reported last week that more
than 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed.
For now, peace seems
unlikely. A spokesperson for the Kremlin on Wednesday said negotiations for an end to the war cannot proceed
unless Ukraine agrees to Russia's recent annexation of four Ukrainian
territories, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he strongly opposes.
When Smart asked Alexeev if there was hope for
Ukraine to build back after the war, he answered in the affirmative.
"Sure, I think actually...it might be in the long run a good thing for Ukraine in the long run, because this war actually has strengthened the national identity of Ukraine," he said. "There were people who had some sympathy for Russia, for Putin and all that—no more, as far as I understand.
"Yes, it's huge amount of distraction,
but I am sure that the West is going to help a lot with the construction,
rebuilding. Just look at Germany and look at Japan. The countries were
destroyed completely in World War II. Now they are some of the most developed,
richest countries in the world. And I hope the same thing is going to happen
with Ukraine."
Alexeev said he grew
up in Moscow and went to college there before moving to the United States to
further his education at Duke University.
While his expertise mostly concerns the economies of Russia and the former
Soviet Union, Alexeev emphasized that he doesn't harbor Soviet sympathies. His
parents were born in Ukraine, and his mother, Ludmila Alexeeva, was a prominent
Soviet dissident who co-founded the Moscow Helsinki Group, a well-known human
rights organization.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign
Ministry for comment.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-war-may-nail-coffin-putins-empire-economist-1770037
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