I don't see Antonov disappearing anymore than GM, Boeing or Volkswagen. I'm sure the Russian state will continue to protect them in one form or another.
Given the fact that the only way Russia was able to claw back a bit of Ukrainian territory was through outright invasion I think that the Ukrainian people do not share your misguided belief that it would be good for them to rejoin the CIS. In fact, other than Russian apparatchiks I do not think there is anyone in the world who thinks that this would be a good idea.
Because Ukraine army salaries are paid by the government of Ukraine?
If Ukraine falls, Russian tanks will be withing zero kilometres from EU border, and four states who are only relatively recent NATO members, without much weight in the NATO block.
Add to these that all four of those states are far from being 100% reliable, with clepto-political elites who are very similar to ones who switched sides to Russia in the Ukraine conflict.
The nightmare scenarios is of course if Poland gives in. Then, you will only have 300-500km of very flat land, and good roads in between them, and Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Nuremberg, Munich, and ability to cut off the Eastern route around alps.
I would worry about Russia more. It will go bust sooner or later. If Russia is now a problem for everyone, then it can be not a problem but a disaster.
Yes, completely right. EU, and NATO will have a problem almost on the same scale if Russia collapses on them, as if it will launch an attack on them.
Russia has 8 times the population of Syria, and people can't live on a big part of its territory without artificial heating (and thus fuel supplies; your heating bill is pretty much a live or die price in a lot of places there,) or completely reliant for on long range freight for essential supplies.
The state was far from complete failure, very far from it. Nowhere near Syria.
The state kept control of the military. Troops were orderly demobilised.
The criminality was comparatively low in comparison to Putin's years. The state-mafia fusion came long after the years immediately following the collapse.
The same is for much of the industry, much of it has failed over nineties, and not immediately after.
The remnants of state economy at least managed to keep supplies going. Utilities in cities on "life support" were failing, but otherwise kept working at any cost.
If Russia will fail today, the collapse will be much less gradual, and this time, there will be a civil war, and warlordism, and famine, and mass humanitarian catastrophy.
Brexit .. and to a lesser extent, Ukraine-fail .. is the least of EU's problems. It was, in the first place, formed to guard against these kinds of circumstances. So, its probably better to say "EU will be unit tested" by Ukraine's disruption, rather than 'have big problems' ..
