Taiwan Could Be Next: How Ending the Ukraine War Could Trigger More Wars
Mar 8, 2025
2 min read
Illustration by PolitStellar
After three years of protracted conflict in Ukraine, the situation seems to have reached an impasse. The Ukrainian side wants to sign a peace agreement with Russia as soon as possible, while Russia itself does not want to sign a fair peace agreement. Yes, the Russian side pretends that it too wants to end the war as soon as possible, but experts say otherwise. The Kremlin does not want a just end to the war, but simply wants a favorable ceasefire so that it can take a break and regain its strength for a new offensive.
Unfortunately, the current U.S. administration is simply allowing Putin's dreams to become reality. It is likely that the final peace agreement on conflict resolution will be signed by the U.S. and Russia, without taking into account the opinions of the EU and Ukraine.
By the way, this is what Zelensky is most afraid of, because he has not forgotten that by annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum, a treaty under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the U.S., and the U.K., and Russia was never properly punished for this and just got off with light sanctions. He has repeatedly said that the conflict must be ended fairly and with real guarantees that it will not happen again, because if the conflict is ended in the wrong way, Russia can launch a new offensive, and not necessarily on Ukraine, instead of Ukraine can be another victim country. Zelensky has also said this many times.
Now the West is facing a very important task. They must end the war between Russia and Ukraine properly, otherwise this whole situation can serve as an example for other states with imperial ambitions. Looking ahead we can say only one thing - the West has probably already made one big mistake.
It is obvious that Western countries have no intention of returning the occupied territories of Ukraine. Moreover, they are not even going to adequately punish Russia for the fact that it has already violated the peace agreements once. In other words, the situation is as follows: Russia, having violated the previously signed peace agreements, invaded the territory of another country, and forcibly took a part of this country, without being properly punished. Obviously, other states with imperial ambitions can try to do something similar, because they know that the West will not be able to punish them adequately for this either.
But what does this have to do with Taiwan? The fact is that China has long dreamed of taking this island state under its control, as it does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state. Accordingly, it turns out that if the West fails to properly end the conflict in Ukraine, it may serve as an example for other states and provoke new wars. So it is possible that in the coming years China may, following Russia's example, launch an invasion of a neighboring state.
