A question I haven't heard asked: who will pay for rebuilding Ukraine and how many hundreds

[Atticus]

of billions---trillions?---of dollars will it take?

If the West were to militarily defeat Russia, the billions of Putin and his criminal inner circle could be accessed, the nation of Russia could be ordered to make reparation payments and we and our allies could give substantial help in the form of loans or outright grants. But,----

---we will not militarily defeat Putin because we are not militarily opposing him. Either some form of extorted "compromise" will allow Putin to declare victory or he will so completely level the nation and slaughter its citizens that he will simply abandon the rubble and mass graves to a cadre of trusted military "caretakers" and go home.

Putin needs to be "removed from power" and Russia and its oligarchs need to pay for his misguided cruelty to Ukraine.

[Demovictory9]

1. good question. and how many of the 2 million refugees will return?

[dchill]

2. The answer your question depends...

...on just how dead Putin is made to be.

[Mr. Evil]

8. So ultra-mega dead that,

he could never be able to suddenly pop up and say, "but, I got better."

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. I see what you did there. How was the newt curse we'll burn the witch for?

Nice Holy Grail reference.

[Mr. Evil]

12. What's really nice is,

after I posted that I was looking for something to watch on TV as I was winding down and I found it playing on BBC America. What a lovely coincidence!

[Irish_Dem]

3. What assurance do we have that Putin won't destroy it again?

[lagomorph777]

4. Keep the sanctions in place until Russia agrees to pay.

Then slap heavy import and export tariffs on everything entering or leaving Russia to cover it.

[iemanja]

5. the US and the EU will pay.

I doubt they'd be able to get enough out of Russia to pay for the damage.

However, I don't think it is at all certain that Putin won't succeed in taking Ukraine.

[Tomconroy]

6. Yes. The West owes at least that to Ukraine.

[ancianita]

7. We, the U.S., just sent Ukraine more than their entire budget. That's a start, right?

You don't think Ukraine has an economy with a GDP? And with reparations to be paid by Russia, the leading nations of the West will set that up. Come on.

Ukraine is down, but it is not out.

[Nasruddin]

9. trick question

In the likely event that Putin's Russia succeeds in destroying and/or conquering Ukraine, then Russia will be stuck with the problem.

Maybe their new best friends in Beijing will wind up owning the place.

If Ukraine manages to defeat (in some fashion) the Russians, then Ukraine will be stuck with the rebuild cost. There's no way other than the complete and utter defeat of Russia (ie the complete surrender of military forces) that Russia could be forced to pay reparations - and even then, someone will remember the treaty of Versailles. And if that level of defeat actually happens, Russia will require massive rebuilding itself.

[JI7]

10. Russia is very poor. We can sell off the private property of oligarchs and other corrupt officials

but we would have to help Russia also if they have a new leader.

All the wealthy Western Nations will contribute to rebuilding Ukraine .