Expert Says Russia Can In Ukraine Without Firing A Single Shot

It seems most everyone is staring at satellite photos of Russia’s border with Ukraine. But they’d do well to study insurance tables as well. Business in Ukraine is becoming more and more difficult to insure, wrote Foreign Policy columnist and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Elisabeth Braw.

Photo Insert: A convoy of Russian-backed rebel armored fighting vehicles

Indeed, underwriters are staying away from the country. And without insurance, there’s no business. Even without sending a single soldier across the border, Russia could make Ukraine’s economy tank.

But that requires intensifying pressure on Ukraine, which became a country only in 1919 and expanded its territory when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ceded areas in the east and west, as well as Crimea, in 1954.

It means sending more troops to the border with Ukraine, adding more armor, jets, and artillery to fester Kyiv, and intensifying the insurgency of Russian-speaking separatists in the Donbas and Luhansk regions. It means spending more to bully a weaker nation.

In London, the Joint War Committee (JWC) meets every quarter. Andrew Moulton serves as the committee’s chair, Neil Roberts as its secretary and its members include Richard Young and Edward Carpenter.

If a crisis erupts, as happens with some frequency, the JWC convenes an extraordinary meeting. As things stand, the committee could convene such a meeting to discuss Ukraine very soon.

Never heard of Moulton or the other members of the JWC? That’s because the committee is an insurance outfit, composed of executives from maritime insurers and underwriters such as Lloyd’s Market Association, Ascot Underwriting, and Beazley Furlonge, Braw wrote.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic