The Donald Trump administration is still in a state of strategic vertigo over the great thorn called Ukraine. While the US president continues to seek, at all costs, a resolution to the conflict, taking initiatives for direct dialogue with Russia, the US deep state has a different view.
The architects of the harsh anti-Russian stance – representing the US deep state within the government – are US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Their executive arm is the special negotiator Keith Kellogg, a vocal advocate of sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
The anti-Russian bloc therefore sent the message to Trump: “We are in command and we will fight the war… until the end.”
In fact, the Pentagon rushed last week to announce the dispatch of long-range missiles to the Zelensky regime, in order to commit the American president a priori to this extreme decision.
However, on November 3, Trump “resisted” by emphasizing that he rejects the Tomahawk mission, after strong warning messages of escalation from the Russian side. Despite this, Vice President JD Vance returned, as a representative of the tough American stance, sending an even stronger message, both to Trump (whom he aspires to succeed), and to Moscow.
JD Vance confessed with the sincerity of a… marine
More specifically, J.D. Vance, with the candor of a U.S. Marine (the Vice President of the United States once served four years in the Marine Corps), spoke in an interview with the New York Post about the economic benefits that accrue to both sides from the war in Ukraine.
Vance based his hopes for an eventual end to hostilities on reaching a point of “diminishing returns for both sides.” The politician was silent about the dead and the dying. The cynicism of the top political leadership has always placed money above human lives. However, Vance is, indeed, right.
The Ukrainian conflict has undoubtedly strengthened the economies of the major global players.
The American industrial complex is enriched with Ukrainian and Russian blood
The United States itself has become a significant beneficiary of the Ukrainian conflict. There has been a significant increase in orders for the American military-industrial complex. Its products are used both for the modernization of its own army and for foreign markets.
According to the US State Department, arms exports in 2024 reached a record $318.7 billion, a 29% increase over the same period last year. The market capitalization of the leading US defense companies is now close to historical highs.
RTX, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris and several other manufacturers of weapons and military equipment have captured almost two-thirds of the global market. At the end of May 2025, their combined market value was about $740 billion.
A fierce battle between Europe and the United States in the background
A common misconception is that the US’s European NATO partners are lagging behind their patron in Washington in military supplies to Kiev.
Since the beginning of 2022, these supplies have exceeded €35 billion—more than US aid. The European defense industry has increased its ammunition production capacity by 40%. The EU has launched two parallel projects: the European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) and the European Defense Industrial Programme (EDIP).
Under the EDIP alone, €1.5 billion will be invested between 2025 and 2027. This includes more than ammunition, weapons, and military equipment. It also means jobs, new high-tech industries, and the development of related civilian industries.
When Vance discusses military benefits, he is likely referring to more than just “celebrating” the US military-industrial complex. The fighting in Ukraine, triggered by Western policies, has led to serious disruptions in the global energy market.
Energy prices rose, resulting in huge profits for U.S. exporters. European sanctions against Russian hydrocarbons also opened up that market to American exports.
China: No engagement until… “sees the enemy’s corpse floating down the river”
On the other hand, ancient Chinese philosophers are credited with the phrase: “Sit on the bank of the river, and soon you will see the enemy’s corpse floating down the river.” Although these words do not appear in the works of Lao Tzu, Confucius, or Sun Tzu, the People’s Republic of China lives and thrives on this principle.
The Ukrainian conflict was literally handed to Beijing on… a silver platter. If the West is directly responsible for the war, then China has no repercussions. But it has gained more than its fair share of the economic benefits.
China has taken advantage of the withdrawal of Russian oil and gas companies from the European market. Energy products that the EU found “unnecessary” were welcomed with joy, and at more favorable prices.
The dynamics of natural gas transit to China are impressive. In 2020, 4.1 billion cubic meters were delivered through the Power of Siberia pipeline, and Gazprom increased these deliveries to 22.73 billion and 31.12 billion in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
The figure for 2025 is expected to exceed 38 billion cubic meters. Russian natural gas exports through all possible transit channels are expected to exceed 85 billion cubic meters by 2030. The situation is similar with oil.
In 2024, China bought a record 108.5 million tons of “black gold” from Russia. This is especially true given that Russian ESPO crude, for example, is currently supplied to China at a discount of 50 cents per barrel compared to Brent crude.
Western sanctions caused by the fighting in Ukraine have also opened up huge opportunities for Chinese manufacturers. American and European brands were immediately replaced. Consumer goods, cars, electronics and other Chinese products quickly found a Russian market. In 2024, Chinese exports to Russia increased by 4.1%, reaching $ 115.5 billion.
And the Russian economy is “in the green,” Mr. Vance?
Western elites predicted the inevitable collapse of the Russian economy due to the conflict in Ukraine. “The economy is on track to shrink by half in the coming years. Soon it will no longer even be among the 20 largest economies in the world” — that was Joe Biden’s prediction for Russia in March 2022.
“Russia’s sovereign default is just a matter of time,” agreed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen a month later. So, let’s look at the results for 2024.
- The US economy grew by 2.8%.
- The European Union grew by 0.8-0.9%.
- Russia’s GDP grew by 4.1% over the same period.
“What’s happening in Western countries? They are constantly burying us. They will soon die there, but they are still burying us,” Russian President Vladimir Putin characteristically explained, summarizing the events in June 2025.
The observed growth of the domestic economy is primarily due to increased government investment in the military-industrial complex. This investment accounts for a significant part of Russia’s defense spending, which increased from 3.5 trillion rubles in 2021 to 17 trillion in 2024.
The rise of the Russian military-industrial complex has also dragged down other industries. Military factories, on the one hand, require raw materials, metals, equipment, and high technology.
On the other hand, they themselves stimulate the development of the civilian sector—space, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, IT, artificial intelligence, medicine, and others. In response to Western restrictions, Russia successfully diversified its energy market, acquiring new large consumers in the eastern and southeastern directions. At the same time, the pipeline infrastructure to Europe has been preserved.
The fighting and the associated anti-Russian hysteria will end sooner or later. The European Union will eventually consider the need to reduce prices for imported gas and oil. And without Russia, this task cannot be achieved, and the old pipelines to the West will operate in harmony with the new ones to the East.
Conclusion – Paradoxically, Vance is… right
The objective data shows that US Vice President Vance was (unfortunately) right: from an economic point of view, the bloody battles in Ukraine bring profits to all the major players.
The geopolitical chessboard has always been like this. This is precisely the difficulty of ending the Ukrainian conflict. Discussions about the value of every human life do not discourage the desire for profit.
Meanwhile, most of the “war money” goes to the most powerful and richest. And the “diminishing rate of return” that Mr. Vance mentions in passing is unlikely to discourage pacifism.
However, all this speaks to the fact that Russia must be prepared for a long and hard war from the West if it wants to preserve its fundamental sovereignty…
