World on the Installment Plan: How Ukraine’s War Became Everyone’s Never-Ending Subscription

KYIV—Somewhere between the third air-raid siren and the fourth espresso, you realize the war in Ukraine has become the planet’s most macabre subscription service: it autorenews every morning, drains the global wallet, and still hasn’t figured out how to skip the ads. Two years, five summits, and roughly 17,000 think-tank papers later, the front lines have moved about as far as a hung-over Brussels bureaucrat on a Monday. Yet the ripple effects continue to rearrange the furniture everywhere from Lagos to Lapland.

Take grain, that humble staff of life. Ukraine used to ship enough wheat to feed 400 million people—roughly the number who also believe their government’s official inflation figure. When Russia started harvesting Ukrainian silos with artillery instead of combines, bread prices in Cairo did pirouettes. Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, discovered that geopolitical blackmail pairs nicely with a side of subsidized pita. Meanwhile, European farmers—never ones to waste a good crisis—lobbied Brussels to slap “carbon-adjustment tariffs” on non-EU grain, proving that protectionism, like mildew, thrives in damp conditions.

Energy markets, never emotionally stable, became full-blown opera. Germany mothballed its nuclear plants, discovered Russian gas was a bad boyfriend, and promptly fell into the muscular arms of Qatar—only to find that liquefied natural gas ships are the Uber Surge pricing of geopolitics. Across the Atlantic, U.S. shale CEOs performed their customary “drill, baby, drill” kabuki for Congress while quietly pocketing record margins and buying back stock. Somewhere in Houston, an executive is lighting a cigar with a rolled-up IPCC report, murmuring, “ESG is just a phase, darling.”

China watches from the mezzanine, selling drones to both sides’ cousins and taking notes like a diligent student auditing War Crimes 101. Beijing’s 12-point “peace plan” reads like a fortune cookie written by a committee: profound-sounding, calorie-free, and safely ignored by everyone actually holding a rifle. Still, Xi Jinping gets to play elder statesman at G20 photo-ops, which is cheaper than building another aircraft carrier and photographs better, too.

The Global South, tired of being the dinner table at which great powers discuss the menu, has started its own conversation. India refines Russian crude into “non-Russian” diesel, demonstrating that sanctions work best when photocopied in Sanskrit. South Africa hosts naval exercises with Moscow and Beijing, a maritime ménage à trois that leaves NATO planners updating PowerPoint slides at 3 a.m. Brazil’s Lula suggests Ukraine share Crimea like a timeshare condo, prompting Kyiv to inquire whether Brasília would also like to timeshare the Amazon.

Back in Europe, defense spending has rocketed past the speed of bureaucratic light. Poland, apparently nostalgic for 1939, announced it will build the continent’s largest land army—because nothing says “never again” like ordering 1,000 K2 tanks with heated seats. France counters with a €400 billion rearmament program, ensuring that the next European war will at least be carbon-neutral. Sweden, having spent two centuries perfecting neutrality, suddenly remembered that Russia is next door and applied to NATO faster than you can say “ABBA reunion.”

Humanitarian fatigue is the season’s hottest accessory. Donor conferences now resemble charity galas where the caviar runs out before the pledges do. The UN’s latest appeal for Ukraine is underfunded by 60 percent, roughly the same percentage of diplomats who actually read the Security Council resolutions they vote on. In the meantime, Ukrainian power engineers have become the world’s most overqualified circus act, rerouting electricity around Russian missiles with the insouciance of a New York bike messenger.

And yet, for all the cynicism baked into this geopolitical soufflé, certain facts remain annoyingly stubborn. Eight million Ukrainians still live abroad, making them Europe’s largest diaspora since the Huguenots. Ukrainian startups—yes, there are pitch decks even in bomb shelters—raised $600 million last year, proving that venture capital has a higher pain threshold than most infantry units. Meanwhile, a generation of Russian conscripts returns home in zinc boxes or Telegram videos, offering a grim reminder that empires, like cheap blenders, tend to leak from the bottom.

The war will end someday, probably on a Tuesday when the markets are closed. The grain will flow again, the gas pipelines will reopen, and think-tankers will pivot to the next “unprecedented crisis.” But the aftershocks—energy grids rewired, supply chains rerouted, borders redrawn—will linger like a hangover that outlasts the party. In that sense, Ukraine isn’t just fighting for its own sovereignty; it’s providing the rest of us with a live demonstration of how quickly the modern world can be disassembled and reassembled, IKEA-style, with half the screws missing and the instructions in Swedish.

Until then, keep your VPN handy, your generator fueled, and your gallows humor well-oiled. History is on deadline, and it files whether we’re ready or not.