BOZEMAN — Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, showering missiles and explosives throughout the country, Professor Vincent Smith with the Department of Agriculture Economics at Montana State University provided a look at the conflict from a local Montana perspective.
“A tragic silver lining from the point of view of humanity is that very locally our farmers may benefit from the prices,” Smith said. “I doubt too many Montana farmers feel like they should benefit at the expense of terrifying experiences and life costing experiences in Kyiv.”
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That benefit is referring to the increased price of wheat products, such as bread, over the past 48 hours. Of course, sanctions on embargoes of Russia’s natural gas could drive up the price that we pay at the pump.
“There’s no other way to describe Russia’s behavior as simply arbitrarily and—in my opinion—wickedly aggressive,” Smith said.
Associate Professor James Meyer has been following the progression of Russia’s moves and tactics over the years, and the invasion into Ukraine came as no surprise to him.
“This all has a lot more to do with NATO than Ukraine itself,” he said.
Meyer added that Putin may be thinking, “push NATO back westward, closer to where NATO’s borders were in 1989.”
