A Ukrainian lawmaker visiting Taipei this month told policymakers that preparing for conflict costs far less than fighting one — and that Russia's invasion of Ukraine provides the numbers to prove it.
Yulia Sirko, a member of Ukraine's parliament and a former deputy minister of economy and trade, joined an Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) delegation to Taiwan in early July 2026. Speaking at the 2026 Taiwan Ocean International Forum organized by Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Council, she laid out two hard lessons from four-and-a-half years of war that she said carry direct relevance for Taiwan.
Ukraine's War Spending Dwarfs Taiwan's Defense Budget
Sirko's first lesson is about the economics of deterrence. Ukraine now spends approximately 120 billion euros per year — equivalent to more than NT$4.4 trillion — to sustain its war effort. That figure is more than four times Taiwan's total annual defense budget of NT$949.5 billion.
"Only by being prepared for war can you talk about peace," she said. Investing in deterrence and military capability before a conflict begins, she argued, costs a fraction of the financial and human price of actual combat.
She also warned that aggressors need to think past the opening move — including how to end a war they have started. "Russia is stuck in the war — it can neither win nor stop," she said, describing a military campaign with no visible path to either victory or disengagement.
Russia Spent $1 Trillion to Seize 5% of Ukrainian Territory
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the toll has been staggering. Sirko cited more than 1.4 million Russian casualties — roughly 500,000 dead, with many more so severely wounded they can no longer serve. Russia's total war expenditure has exceeded $1 trillion, or more than NT$30 trillion.
In return, Moscow holds approximately 5% of Ukrainian territory, with no end to the conflict in sight.
"If you took that money and invested it in national development, in international trade and development — the returns you'd get, and the foreign investment you'd attract, would far exceed anything you gain by invading another country," Sirko said.
The second lesson, she argued, is that the cost of aggression can be severe enough to destabilize even a major power from within. Any country that invades a neighbor, she said, should expect to pay a price high enough to shake its own foundations.
China Benefits Most from Russia's Shadow Fleet
Sirko also drew attention to what she called an underappreciated dimension of the war's global reach: Russia's shadow fleet — a network of roughly 1,500 vessels operating outside any public registry, which she described as effectively the world's third-largest fleet.
Russia's economy depends heavily on exports of oil, gas, minerals, and grain. Under international sanctions, Moscow has relied on these largely old and poorly maintained ships to bypass restrictions and generate the foreign exchange needed to keep its war economy running. Sirko warned the fleet poses real environmental and navigational risks across the world's oceans.
About half of the cargo the shadow fleet carries goes to China, she said. Beijing receives discounted Russian energy to fuel the production of low-cost goods sold globally; Moscow gets the hard currency to sustain the war. Both sides, Sirko argued, are profiting from an arrangement largely invisible to the outside world.
She acknowledged that Ukraine is geographically distant from the Asia-Pacific, but said the war's lessons apply wherever countries live under the threat of powerful, aggressive neighbors. Taiwan, she said, is precisely such a case. （Related： Opinion | Drones Are Rewriting the Rules of Taiwan's Defense ｜ Latest ）
