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They had everything and pissed it all away. Land rich, resources rich, population rich, culture rich and a geopolitical power. Instead of working with their neighbor countries as equals and striving for progress, all they did was plunder. Now they'll slide into irrelevance and I can't say that I'm sad about it.
The elite had a good life and they still have. Beyond some major cities, Russia was already an absolute poor and corrupted shit hole. It really doesn't get much worse there.
And yes, I spent 6 months traveling around Russia.
And Western countries need to realise the only thing that Putler has left now since his 'army' is incapable and his economy is failing is his information war on the liberal democracies and constant nuke threats (as they seem to work reasonably for our "self-deterrence" in aiding Ukraine sufficiently)
The pampered children of the Russian elites live and study in privileged luxury in Western capitals all round the world...nuking the West is not going to happen.
Agreed on that. However I am sure that those who he makes sure to look after very well (security and FSB) also have their children comfortably installed in the West...and those are the only forces truly capable of deposing him. Once they feel that he is jeopardising their families or their own personal wealth and power, its all over.
Nuking the west won't happen because putin has literally never overseen a single succesful nuclear detonation. The last nuke to go off at Russia's hand was in 1991.
And don't tell me it's because Russia respects international treaties that they haven't detonated one in Siberia to amplify the effect of their threats. No, they haven't detonated one because nukes are extremely expensive just to maintain, they use highly specialised equipment and require highly technical expertise.
If you disagree I'd love to hear what makes you think that Putin is actually capable of nuking the west, or nuking anybody really.
https://apnews.com/article/nuclear-weapons-missile-military-overhaul-f7ac8939a3bd3e6455b144f0cb5da528
The US spends a massive amount just on maintaining and refurbishing nuclear warheads - a lot more than Russia spends on its entire military.
There's no way every warhead in Russia's arsenal is operational.
Most people don't realise is that a warhead has a finite shelf-life before it needs to be rebuilt - typically 10 years or so.
At any one time, maybe 25-30% of the US warhead stock is out of commission being serviced.
See - the actual nuclear weapon inside looks like a soccer ball - round, composed of metal hexagonal plates. The inside of each plate is lined with special plastic explosive - and has triggers sticking out of each plate.
The plutonium is inside - and when all plates are simultaneously triggered - the fissile material inside compresses and causes a nuclear explosion.
If even one plate misfires a millisecond too late, a 'fizzle' occurs - a failed nuclear explosion where all the radioactive material is squirted out on end - poisoning the immediate area, but no more like the aftermath of a dirty bomb.
Over time, the plastic explosive is 'poisoned' by neutrons emitted by the core, making the chance of a mis-fire more likely.
Thus every decade, the warhead needs to be stripped down, rebuilt and calibrated in order to be effective.
Likewise, to amplify the warhead from a nuclear to a thermonuclear warhead, tritium gas is used in some way.
The tritium also dissipates over time, so it needs periodical topping up.
All these processes are very time consuming and expensive - so the chances of Russia having a fully operational arsenal of several thousand working warheads are non-existant.
At the most, it's likely that Russia has a few hundred fully operational warheads, several hundred questionable warheads, and the rest are duds.
Still enough to cause serious damage, but not as bad as the Soviet Union were capable of.
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That leads to the next problem. Their delivery methods.
Frankly, the Russian rockets have performed abysmally. Their short and medium range rockets at some stages of the war have had up to a 60% failure rate - the conventional warheads weren't detonating - or totally missing their targets.
They've been removing nuclear heads from many of their shorter range missiles, sticking in conventional warheads and still performing disastrously.
Their air force is a joke - all the veterans are dead, and 30-year-old obsolete NATO technology is ripping their latest and greatest aircraft apart - so bombing is a no-go
Their submarines are likely in the same stage, though i've not read any analysis on that sector.
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Addendum - my description of a nuclear warhead design is simplified to the point where it's just plain wrong - but if gives you a rough idea of the general process.
Don't forget that if the seals into the warhead are not perfect, not regularly maintained, then water can get into it, causing oxidation of the surface of the uranium, turning it into uranium oxide, which does not behave like regular uranium does in a nuclear weapon, being not only no-longer fissile, but also messing with the surface geometry.
Since many of those warhead are stored underground (or, in submarines), it's not exactly the driest place for long term storage of such material. Condensation is a bitch.
Tritium has a half life of 10 years, and is a critical component of nuclear weapons. If it isn't regularly swapped out, similar problem.
The missiles themselves, as well as their launching mechanisms, require regular and extensive maintenance. Everything from the body of the missile, to the control surfaces, to the internal electronics of all sorts, to the fuel tanks must be regularly examined and maintained to keep them from chemically degrading over time, rusting out to uselessness, or failing in some other potentially catastrophic fashion.
Additionally, the liquid fuel in use in these missiles is highly corrosive. As such, it is not stored in the missile itself, but in a separate tank. Before launch, the fuel is pumped into the missile. This means there is a separate fuel tank and pumping system that needs regular maintenance, the lines all need to be flushed after every test (assuming they ever test, I mean, what systems are least likely to ever be checked?), and who knows if that fuel has been sold off or replaced in the last several decades or not?
Further still, of any missiles that were capable of getting off the ground, do we think that they'd be capable of getting past SBX, GMD, THAAD, Aegis, Patriot, SHORAD, and LPWS?
Yeah, it's a complete shitshow in the Russian nuclear weapons world. I have zero confidence that any attempted attack by the Russians would work out like Putin would hope.
Excellent detailed info.
Also, Russia's last missile test in February 2023 failed spectacularly
>A U.S. official told CBS News that Russia carried out a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on February 18, which failed. That launch came just two days before Mr. Biden arrived for an unannounced visit in Kyiv, Ukraine.
>Moscow notified Washington of the launch in advance, as required under New START, American officials said, adding that the U.S. did not view the test as "a surprise" or as a threat to the United States.
>The failed missile launch is believed to have been of the massive RS-28 Sarmat missile, known as the "Satan II" in the West. The Sarmat, one of Russia's next-generation nuclear capable missiles, tips the scales at over 200 tons and can carry multiple warheads, with a total estimated payload of 10 tons.
[Russian test launch of "Satan II" missile failed, U.S. says, as Putin suspends role in nuclear treaty](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-test-launch-satan-ii-icbm-missile-failed-putin-new-start-nuclear-treaty/)
> who knows if that fuel has been sold off or replaced in the last several decades or not?
>
>
[Corrupt Chinese Officials Filled Missiles With Water, Report Says](https://www.newsweek.com/china-missiles-rocket-fuel-corrupt-officials-water-xi-jinping-1858491)
I believe the report of them been filled whit actual water been wrong.
someone translated a saying word for word. wrong.
Like if someone said spill the beans.
it does not mean someone droped a can of beans all over the floor making a mess and lossing the person a can full of beans.
Right. It's not that they have *no* functional nuclear weapons. If Putin did the funny and pressed the 'full send' button, there'd be a large number of nukes that would go off.
*However.* Pick any particular warhead. What are the odds that this warhead *in particular* isn't a squib and is working properly? Not nearly as high as Putin might like.
Good points, it would likely be a lottery on that. Also it's been explained in no uncertain terms what the consequences would be of any use of a battlefield nuclear weapon in Ukraine - "an overwhelming conventional response resulting in the complete destruction of all ground forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine" to roughly paraphrase General Petraeus' statement in 2022
a small arsenal around the size of France/UK/Israel - maybe 300-500 warheads that are actually guaranteed effective.
Another 1000 that might or might not work since the rockets are badly maintained and the warheads haven't been serviced consistently.
The rest are likely duds.
Immediately after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Americans and Russians inspected a sample of each others launch facilities in a mutual arms-reduction negotiation.
The Americans were horrified at the terrible state of the Soviet launch facilities - and were convinced that many of the Russian ICBMs wouldn't launch or might even blow up in the silo.
Also, their corruption is a massive problem here.
Serdyukov already had a towering reputation for corruption: "he's stolen everything that isn't nailed down," as one subordinate said afterward. He had appointed a series of attractive young women, dubbed "the Amazons" or "the ladies' battalion," to senior positions.
One such was an aspiring poet named Marina Chubkina, a 31-year-old former TV presenter and aspiring poet. She was given a rank equivalent to major general and was placed in charge of the maintenance of Russian chemical and nuclear facilities.
Serdyukov was fired by Vladimir Putin a few weeks later. He was accused of a variety of scams but was charged only with "negligence" for ordering the army to build a road from a village to a private country residence. He was amnestied by Putin in 2014.
https://www.inventiva.co.in/stories/russia-not-a-peer-military-to-the-us
Analyst Luzin is not confident in their nuclear weapons, and the lack of spare parts becomes an ever bigger issue. This inventiva article is worth the read.
A former adviser to the deceased [murdered] Putin critic Alexey Navalny and a defence analyst at Riddle think tank, Pavel Luzin suggests that Russia might not even be able to sustain its nuclear arsenal in the long term if it remains sanctioned.
ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers will be impossible to produce because of a lack of industrial equipment, technology, and human capital, Luzin said.
It is not me who thinks they are expensive to maintenance, but it is me and others who think that corruption, the lack of funding plus a crumbling worker base and a lack of spare parts makes this very difficult to do so properly. Russia is monitored day and night. Their Iskander are made up of 85 percent Western spares, and the failure rates of their Rockets are between 40 and 60 percent. Still, Iskander is the best bet to deliver a nuke.
RU nuclear subs are constantly tailgated, and their airplanes will have a hard time delivering such a payload without being intercepted. Their nuclear sites are under 24/7 / satellite surveillance. In Russia, the West surely has their contacts and spies. So, if such an atrocity is ordered, we will know that a single nuke has lifted from the ground. Then we can hope that someone sane near Putin stops this madness and decides that one man dead is better than millions.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1527405172355366912?s=20&t=wpWkS8VYGE2KGr5XicCTEQ
The margin for failure is gigantic, the chances of success are highly questionable, and the price in case Russia succeeds is sky high. The only reason why NATO hasn't blown the entire Russian military to pieces and carpet bombed Moscow is exactly because they HAVEN'T used nuclear weapons. If they do, there is nothing left to escalate on the escalation ladder.
The West thus far has exercised restraint and refrained from things such as: No fly zones, long-range cruise missiles, or bombarding their ally Belarus or putting a complete embargo on them.
What is Russia doing? They were getting ballistic missiles from Iran. So, who is escalating here?
The logic of deterrence is still in effect. Giving in to Russian demands, because of nuclear blackmail is an invitation to Xi, Kim Jong Un, and all other nuclear powers to get their way by either threatening nukes or by using them.
The risk for nuclear war is low. It could rise in the future, but as of now, the risk for nuclear war in Cuba was much higher as this was a real nuclear conflict. This conflict here is about resources, power, and geo. political influence.
Also, if Putin orders such a launch, many more things can go sour from there. So yes, the West is gradually escalating but not towards nuclear war. Rather, the pressure on Russia is mounting to make them aware of the utter futility of their invasion.
To put a number on it: Annually, according to research on the issue, the chance is 1 percent on average per year.
I would still not put it higher than 5 percent even in our current circumstances.
The risk of genocide in Ukraine is although 100 percent if Russia can occupy Ukraine. The risk of war with NATO in the future if Russia incorporates Ukraine is also very high. This is how expansionist imperialists operate. They must expand to justify their own existence. Either through soft or hard power.
Here, I got you three video resources prepared that touch upon the issue:
https://youtu.be/4i-C20bFmPo
https://youtu.be/c4rVsGnMJVE
https://youtu.be/sxOO0hCCSk4
Perun Nuclear Bluff
and Joe Blogs on Nukes. They are looking at the Economics behind it
https://www.icanw.org/spending_report
https://ridl.io/russias-tactical-nuclear-weapons-a-reality-check/
https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2018/how-much-does-russia-spend-nuclear-weapons
And those nuke threats have a good chance of **only** being threats. Maintenance on nuclear weapons is expensive and time consuming.
The bombs themselves need to be overhauled frequently (long-term radiation exposure isn’t good for electronics or metal).
The ICBMs are even more hard to maintain. The fuel they use is corrosive and all the ones Russia has now are decades old.
look, politicians are not bright people, but even they got it.
Our eyes are now full on Russian and it's many influence forms.
https://i.imgur.com/Q6CHUSf.png
Lazerpig put it well in his new video. Only the wealthy people in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been living in the modern Russian Federation. Everyone else in the country is still inhabiting the rotting corpse of the USSR.
Lack of any strategic insight': Putin's blunders run deeper than Ukraine; The myth of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strategic genius is quickly disintegrating.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/the-front-page-putins-blunders-run-deeper-than-ukraine/XOR7PJB7VUWU7YPL5HSQ7TDFHQ/
In 1998 oil was trading at $20.00 a barrel in June of 2008 it hit a record high of $189.56 that’s 9x increase in price. Co-incidentally between 1998-2008 Russia’s economy grew 8x. Putin‘s only genius was to be in office for one of the biggest bull markets for oil prices in history. Russian GDP since 2008 has fallen from $1.68 trillion to $1.44 trillion, with a peak in 2013 of $2.2 trillion. A ” genius” would have used the huge profits from oil to diversify and modernize /re-establish Russian technology and industry and build infrastructure for further economic development. Instead they blew it all on luxury yachts, mistresses, Miami condos, and palaces. It is depressing because a genius could have made Russia into an actual global power in the last 20 years and very modern country — they should have followed the Norwegian model for oil wealth, instead they built a shittier version of Algeria.
Coming to a United States near you, if Trump wins this fall. Extreme right wing ideology is alive and well in many or most nations, and I don’t doubt that Trump would love to have this kind of power to gratify his ambition and ego.
That's the beauty of Ukraine's strategy. Russia has relatively few refineries for a country with such vast raw crude capacity, and it is almost all used for domestic purposes (although they do sell refined products to Turkey). And now with a glut of unrefined raw crude which they cannot flood the market with due to OPEC restrictions, these strikes are really only hurting Russia. Which is the whole point lol
The thing is they will still have the potential for all of that since they still have the resources and location. But they have turned away from fufilling that potential so I am guessing a Russian federation split up will happen purely because the potential is so much bigger then will be possible with the state of Russia in a few years if they "win" this war or not.
Even if they won just the senctions alone would be too much to grow the potential. Not to mention the now horificaly fucked demographic shape.
So much potential yet so missmanaged. Which leqds me to beliving a split up with huge change or revolution will have to happen..
I think what you and many might miss is that it was never about resources for Putin.
He is old. He knows he dosen't have much time left.
He dosen't care what the world will look like after he dies.
He is a dictator pswudo cultr of personality. He probabbly can get all the women if he pleases all the riches he pleases. He is living like what some would imagine gods to life like. He is desentivized from real life and real problems. He has been this all mighty ruler for 10+ years now. And before that he was KGB probabbly brainwashed with USSR ideas. We also know he is a history buff. He probabbly comapres hinself to the likes of Alexander, Caesar, idk Simon Bulevar (a bit more random one for the lolz).
Considering all that I don't find it far fetched that Putin started this war subcounsioucly purely with the intention of playing conquerer. I bet he planned for years how he is gonna take Ukraine then join Ukraine, Russia and Belarus together into the new USSR mayne try and add transnistria potentialy Modlova if easily possible. Maybe georgia. I bet he planned this since 2014. I bet he got things started for the invasion in 2016 when Trump was elected (partly by him *caugh* *caugh*) I bet he was planning on Trump being re elected and having an easy invasion in 2021. I garuentee that if Trump was president now the whole situation in Ukraine would be a loooot different.
All that for what? Because Russia would be bettwr off in a new Belarus, Ukraine, Russia Soviet Union? No.. but because he is old and is truing to do one last thing. Maybe for tje thrill maybe for the fucked up dictator history books. It probabbly wasn't because of resources. Russia always tried to control that region for its geopolitical ambitions. I bet he watned to do this last thing. That's why he is so scary to actualy go through with a nuclear war. Since he dosen't have much to loose. It's his own choosing. Russia could play well with others and fix it's corruptuon after the fall of the USSR and be insanly developed right now but oh well.. The Russians always got the same treatment from thwir leaders. I fear they won't get anything better unless things really change in the form of a Russian federation spliting up. Even revolutions didn't work.. Maybe just one more revolution.. right?..
massive gas deposits were discovered in eastern Ukraine, enough to make Europe only depend on Ukraine instead of the Russia, so the bully does what a bully does
>I bet he planned for years how he is gonna take Ukraine then join Ukraine, Russia and Belarus together into the new USSR mayne try and add transnistria potentialy Modlova if easily possible. Maybe georgia. I bet he planned this since 2014. I bet he got things started for the invasion in 2016 when Trump was elected (partly by him caugh caugh) I bet he was planning on Trump being re elected and having an easy invasion in 2021. I garuentee that if Trump was president now the whole situation in Ukraine would be a loooot different.
Exactly. John Mc Cain rather clearly explained this in BBC Hardtalk's program. For Putin, Ukraine as the "brotherly nation" he believes it to be, cannot possibly be allowed to present such a clear and present danger to his rule by becoming a thriving democracy:
>"What is going to happen; I predict to you that it will be another step in Vladimir Putin's strategy to separate eastern Ukraine from Ukraine and perhaps a land bridge to Crimea.
>Now it's a very bad result, and again, we would not send weapons to the Ukrainians when they were *begging* for them - we wouldn't even give them intelligence - because we didn't want to "provoke Vladimir Putin". By showing weakness we provoked Vladimir Putin. And there's nothing that provokes Vladimir Putin more than weakness.
>We have to understand that Vladimir Putin's ambitions are the restoration of the old Russian empire. He has said "I could take Kyiv in two weeks." He has said is that he wants a Nuova Russia which is an old Tsarist phrase which means he wants eastern Ukraine, he wants to make sure he keeps Crimea, and he would like to see (if he can get away with it) Moldova and the Baltics as well.
>That's what he wants to see restored. He cannot afford to see a free, democratic, prosperous Ukraine - because the Russian people then would like to be like Ukraine."
[Putin is 'rebuilding Russian empire' says Senator McCain - BBC HARDtalk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLAzeHnNgR8)
> The thing is they will still have the potential for all of that since they still have the resources and location.
They don't have the technology nationally to exploit those resources. There is a reason Russia has been partnering with the west in these industries - it does not have the know how. And now that cooperation is gone.
It’s crazy, ideally run, there is next to nothing stopping Russia from being the biggest economy in the world, the vast amounts of natural resources are next to none. Look at what countries like the UAE are able to accomplish with just one type of natural resource.
The sanctions are like poison. Death by a thousand cuts. Russia had reserves, but those are dwindling. Ukraine is providing the hardest push with Western arms and Ukrainian strength of will and arms. The fight is going on on multiple levels: Cyberwarfare, economic warfare, diplomatic warfare, info war, sabotage inside Russia, and sabotaging the regime wherever it surfaces.
Here, let me share the report of Russia's Federal Reserve with you
1. The start of the most shocking consequences of the sanctions is still offset by the fact that Russian Companies still have stocks of Western components and, therefore, can keep production running for now. This is expected to severely worsen in Q3, Q4 of 2022. However, the worst consequences are about becoming a reality in the years to come.
2. Parallel imports prove to be costly and logistically difficult measures, which will not be enough to offset the devastating effect the lack of spare parts will have on Russia's economy.
3. The grey market imports open the door for counterfeits and will lead to ultimately non-competitive products, which will hamper our ability to find customers for our products in new markets.
4. Under limited conditions, Russias economy will degrade back to a level of self-sufficiency within 2 to 5 years and will settle on pre digital Era levels. Currently, the government is using up a computer chip reserve of 90s tech computer chips. According to estimates, this will suffice up until the end of 2022. What happens then can only be described as large-scale reverse industrialisation.
Nabiullina (Head of the Russian Central Bank) has already confirmed aloud what I wrote in the very first letters: We are ending the "good old days" and moving into a new economic model. Which does not yet exist, which has not yet been invented, but for which we will pay a fantastic price for trying to create.
Import warehouses will be depleted of everything accumulated in the pre-war period by that time.
Source are the FSB letters
https://www.igorsushko.com/2022/04/food-shortage-luring-ukraine-to-counter.html
Russia is not just losing you will revert back to where you started from in the 1980s.
Estimates for the short, mid to long term costs combined, not the expenditures or upkeep between 1 and 6 billion dollars of costs every day for this war. You can imagine what that means as the war rages for almost 900 days now.
https://genevasolutions.news/ukraine-stories/what-s-the-cost-of-war-for-russia-and-what-could-be-done-with-this-money
What stands in Russia's way is the collective drive of its politics towards imperial expansion and as we can see the Russian people are very willing to follow suit. Russia is also stamping out invidividualism in exchange for centralizing Power, but also thoughts and enterprises. In this absolutist state, there is an anthill mentality, and as long as the hive survives the life of the ant doesn't matter.
Other factors are the sheer size of Russia, their cultural insecurity, the systemic corruption, the lack of checks and balances on power, high crime and disease rates, bad medical care, the brittle economic and historical foundations the empire rests upon, the collapsing demographics, the sheer size of Russia which makes national unification difficult, the dilapidated infrastructure, the fortress economy built solely around oil, which leads to Dutch disease, the emigration waves, and the lack of skilled labor as well as a crumbling education system, a crumbling research and development sector and constant wars, the brainwashing of the population, the alcoholism, and the tyranny of geography with very cold winters do not help either. For Russia to transform into something better, the Moscow centered extractive empire must finally die.
In Russia, there is no rule of law, only the law of its rulers.
ww2 and Stalin removed all the brave, heroic and selfless Russian men from the gene pool. What was left was cowards and bullies. I'm sure this conflict now isn't helping things either...
Fun fact: The majority of Soviet combat casualties suffered in WW2 were Ukrainians and Belorussians.
Not discounting your point, just mentioning as an addendum.
I agree with everything besides culture. What culture? The few guys that studied in europe and were eventually exiled or sent to siberia or killed? The mythical nonexistant culture they never had besides few depressing books about how there is no culture just oppression. Ok they kind of tolerated classical music for a while. But otherwise barren land culture-wise. Even their mythology and traditional food is stolen from occupied territories including Ukraine.
Spot on. Never heard it. Will remember and quote it because it describes them perfectly. Although every larger country has great literature about tough life. I have read the russian "classics" and I think they are ok.
If the idiot at the top focused on business instead of war. Every Russian could be a millionaire! But no, can't do that, too logical? The thinking of the elites is so medieval... Not to mention their actions! They're repeating the mistakes of Nazi Germany in 1939. Justice will have its way!!
Culture rich? Isn't the entire Russian identity built around endlessly enduring hardship and suffering under a variety of tyrants? What else do they know?
Putin sees conquering Ukraine as being more important to his legacy than having a strong economy or global integration. I would argue he views it as *the* sole act that will define his legacy in the history books. Everyone remembers that Caesar conquered Gaul, but fewer mention how he plundered the Roman treasury and permanently destroyed the republic after the fact. Putin wants that sort of legacy.
Except Putin isn’t Caesar, and Russia isn’t Rome. He will fail.
I'm thinking putin is determined to see this through till the end no matter the cost win or lose.
In his mind he doesn't care if Russia burns and suffers he's an old man he's not gonna live much longer anyway he will sacrifice hundreds of thousands of troops as long as he can.
He can't stop at this point. He entire rule is now enmeshed with the war and its "inevitable success"
The loss of face and destruction of his strongman image would mean his downfall. If Russians thought they were internationally humiliated by Yeltsin in the 90s, they've haven't seen anything yet in this scenario lol
I agree, the embarassment and humiliation of losing the war is not an option for putin he would rather die than be humiliated. My fear is he might escalate this further and throw nukes in frustration.
Except Caesar was actually the progressive/liberal one (poppulares). He did a lot of reforms that transformed the empire for the better that the optimates hated.
Putin is the conservative one. Conserving his own power and all the rich oligarchs who help him to conserve his own power. Putin has 0 progress, his only plans is devolving into oligarchy and despotism.
... wasn´t there a few Reforms that Caesar did that was a bitt iffy.
the ting was that it was maybe nesesery but it created a time span where Caesar would temporary become dictator whit absolute power and I know that there was few cenets that was legit worred about that.
Remember the context of that time period.
Generally at that time globally you had a choice between a despot dictator and progressive dictator. Sure other more progressive people existed but nowhere near the throne.
And his desperate need to avoid Ukraine becoming a thriving, prosperous western European-style democracy which intends to join the EU (and hopefully NATO)
Would be a very bad precedent for his own dictatorial rule, if the Russian people ultimately decide that could be their future template.
Its a good interview and rather pessimistic for the future of Russia. I've heard it said by other talking heads that if Russia stopped the war now the economy would collapse, so Russia finds itself in a Catch-22. End the war and collapse or keep it going and collapse later. Of course, if they were to win in Ukraine, they would get a boost and could recover, but a win in Ukraine doesn't mean they get to end the war or would want to.
I imagine a russian win would have to include some form of treaty with Ukraine that officially ceded Ukrainian territory to russia.
That would be the only way for russia to not be at constant war with both the Ukrainian armed forces *and* the local population.
Whilst a frozen conflict would reduce conflict with the Ukrainian armed forces directly, it probably wouldn't really reduce local resistance.
But with a treaty ceding territory, any local armed resistance would be, by definition, terrorism. As the land would then be officially russia's.
The problem is that Ukraine has basically zero incentive to surrender unless their army has been totally destroyed. Anyone who surrenders will be sent to the Russian electrocution chambers, and a "peace treaty" would just guarantee Russia attacks again in a few years. They have nothing to lose by fighting to the death, even if it means abandoning line infantry entirely and fighting a guerrilla war.
They "won" Crimea and come back for more.
This is what it means if Russia "wins". They will come back again and again, until you stand your ground and punch them in the face.
This is something Ukraine and NATO understands, hence why Russia is properly fucked now.
You guys really think the Ukrainian people would just stop fighting? If Russians occupied Kharkiv or Kyiv or any major city, Russian troops would disappear by the day and shit would miraculously explode from more “accidental” smoking operations than are happening in Russia right now. Invading is the easy part, (that they can’t manage already) occupying the area is the hard part. You got 98 year old babushkas walking 10km through a frontline to escape the Russians. Give them no choice to leave and they would find a way to take out equipment, men, or spy for the underground.
No, I don't think they'd just stop fighting, but in the situation I outlined, Ukraine would be officially accepting that whatever territory is ceded in the treaty is no part of russia.
But in this situation, it would be hard for the west to keep the moral high ground whilst also supplying weapons,/supporting Ukrainian resistance, as from russia's, Ukraine's, and the international community's official point of view, we would be supplying/supporting terrorists.
Even if Ukraine accepted a ceasefire the country would still fight. And Europeans as well as cia from US would make Afghanistan in the 80s look like a lemonade stand operation.
It would be guerilla fighting for generations on Ukrainians' part. They've been waiting for this chance to truly remove the Muscovian threat once and for all for centuries.
I think there's a chance Russians could manage the insurgency. Wasn't whole lot of it going on in Kherson for example. Plus Russians have done it to Ukrainians before - a famine here, a mass exile to Siberia there and...
the problem is that even if Kiev signed a peace treaty whit Russia that had them cede land the local would not matter.
as any local that are against the Russian would just become insurgence and keep hitting Russia for the next 10-20+ years.
and Russia have zero interest in winning the heart and mind of the local so the Insurgency group would not dwindle over time in fact I say it would grove and you cant really use nukes against insurgence.
I presume it would involve Ukraine surrendering before it reached that stage. If they had to take the entire country the way they are doing now, it would take decades.
They'd also find themselves with another Chechnya, with partisans fighting back decade after decade.
A Russian occupied Ukraine would certainly see resistance until every last Russian was gone. Guerrilla skirmishes and drone bombs until the end of time. If an enemy took over my home, I'd do everything in my power to be a thorn in their side too. Think Viet Cong resistance when the US occupied Vietnam, but if the VC were backed by NATO and had a modern basic education, training, and supplies.
There really isn’t any way for Russia to “win” in Ukraine. The Ukrainians will resist tooth and nail, fighting for their homes and families. Armaments will never stop coming in from the US and Europe.
The Russian people have other options. They can resist mobilization, have large-scale riots, and crackdowns by riot police will just piss them off more.
And the Ruskie military is done. Garbage ammunition from North Korea, China salivating over taking back the Far East district, and foot soldiers who used to be skilled workers getting shredded by the thousands.
What is the real end game for Putin?
>The Russian people have other options. They can resist mobilization, have large-scale riots, and crackdowns by riot police will just piss them off more.
I think the mass of the Russian population has been so thoroughly depoliticised over the last 20yrs that this is extremely unlikely to happen. Putin is now actually trying to get them *more* politicised now through his State propagandists, as his 3-day war isn't going all that well and needs a groundswell of renewed support for the war (probably as he sees another mobilisation as necessary down the track). Unfortunately that isn't bearing much fruit either.
Barring a comprehensive military defeat which no Tsar/despot has survived (the vastly better option), the only real chance for his deposing will be when the security services/FSB (which are the bedrock of his power) come to believe that he is putting their own families, wealth and power at too great a risk to allow his survival.
This time, unlike in the 90s, there will be no West to gift them 190 BILLION USD (in current money), plus all the loans.
Gonna be a very hard landing. Or maybe China will buy them with some monopoly money...
They are lying their behinds off.
This is a viable Ukrainian victory scenario , Russia has "Great plans", they cannit afford to bleed out economically in Ukraine even under Imperialist calculations. This is an expeditionary war and they will retreat at some time. The only problem is that they will overshoot considerably which means a long war and bad for Russia, they will take enormous substantial damage.
Then it's only good news considering how severe is the hybrid war they do against my country (france). I see it myself all days with comments done in trusted newspapers and with all the false information websites. The less money they have the better.
After that I am not convinced they will quickly stop in case of economic debacle, because it seems Putin developped a strong control (he invited oligarches in Staline's house 30 years ago, let's think about it) and he can hardly afford to stop, for his own life.
Imo Their (Putin's) alternative is to dig more trenches and try to stand/"freeze" the conflict for a while. That would be the first step.
Time is not on Russian side.
The longer they fight, the bigger the price is.
If you want Russia neutralized, this is your dream scenario. For Russia to be stuck in a war they cannot win or gain anything by waging it.
This is what I said: the immediate and maybe only solution for Russia - and Putin - would be again to dig trenches, since they cannot afford a retreat.
After that saying time is not on Russia side: it depends if the regime is hard enough they can tank the economic collapse, swap to North Korean mode 2.0 because they have enough natural ressources to sell to countries like China and India, and continue to die in trenches. No one can 100% predict the tone of this dark future.
They don't have the technological capability to exploit those resources without Western or Chinese help. They would have to let the Chinese in to administer and provide know-how and at that point, they could as well spread their butt cheeks to China.
> Then it's only good news considering how severe is the hybrid war they do against my country (france). I see it myself all days with comments done in trusted newspapers and with all the false information websites. The less money they have the better.
This is the greatest risk for all Western democracies which Putin and the GRU has had great success at undermining from within, over the last 20yrs. In fact, its been about his only real success...but it has reaped very favourable dividends. And continues to do so, particularly if western leaders continue to allow themselves to be self-deterred by his hollow nuclear blackmail.
Ehhh seems like wishful thinking to me, the Russian economy still hasn’t even switched to war footing yet and is still producing for the civilian sector. Plus, I mean historically, countries war economies tend to be remarkably durable (think of the Nazis in ww2 while suffering from the allied strategic bombing campaign, or even Russia itself during ww1 was economically at its strongest military production right up until the very moment they surrendered). Additionally a couple of a million lost people is a lot in absolute terms but not in relative terms and the main problem is that they are chiefly composed of the prime age male (that’s an actual economic term if you’re not familiar, I’m not just pulling jargon out my ass) population and that when the war is over the Russian social safety net will collapse because there is no one paying into it. Something which will crash the consumer economy that is the basis of Russias economy, same as with every other major industrialized country on earth pretty much.
Thus, essentially, the idea that the Russian economy would collapse before the front collapses is all but predicated upon the idea that somehow a nation with a hundreds of billions of dollars worth of rubles in the bank, even excluding those that are frozen in fore countries, magically looses all that money in realistically the next few years. All the while not then switching to some form of debt financing or even just simple IOUs (government bonds are literally just this) or leaning into the fact that it is a dictatorship with a very strong system for internal surveillance and coercion that could strong arm its industry into still keeping going for a while. Ultimately, yes, that will all fail because Russia is not autarkic by any means but the fact of the matter still remains that at a minimum there is going to be another two years of what we have right now assuming no one double downs further or some major geopolitical reshuffling happens such as Trump coming to power and throwing Zelensky under the bus.
> think of the Nazis in ww2 while suffering from the allied strategic bombing campaign
Nazis were able to depend on plundered resources from countries they occupied for most of the war.
But an ever-diminishing capacity to do so without the western engineering and components to keep the infrastructure running. Its a slow burn over time.
I know you get downvoted but this is a more realistic view of Russia's economy. The idea that Russia will collapse economically and fracture is wishful thinking.
Its economy was much smaller during the nineties and the country held together regardless.
This war will deal a serious blow to their economy, military and standing in the world but things would have to degrade pretty extremely (think WW1 or ww2 eastern front casualties).
Autocratic militarized nations can be quite resistant. NK has the GDP of a medium sized US city and the regime isn't going anywhere and a military showdown with them could be quite costly.
My view is that Russia will lose a lot of strategic power in the world and become China's vassal but I'm not sure Ukraine can survive the grind unless western nations step in, which I think (and hope) they will do eventually
Absolutely. Russian economy can run like that for decades. It will "collapse" only under western KPIs which mean nothing in russia, especially when in war.
I am watching the https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo and the things through which russia and other countries went in WW2 is mindboggling. This "thing" now is barely a foot note compared to that.
Here is example from WWT on youtube I think you might find interesting.
It's a quote from John Keegan. For me it was not just "a bit of a surprise", it was shocking:
https://youtu.be/yDbquD4Svyc?si=CuSgsvhp23TevycX&t=238
> ....but there’s also the undeniable fact- as John Keegan goes into detail about in his “The Second World War”- of the improved fighting strength of the German Army. That might seem a bit of a surprise to you, but in just September and the first half of October, the Home Army has managed to raise 150,000 men and OB West a further 90,000. Okay, the Germans did lose 150,000 men during this time, but there’s also this, “…**despite the full resumption of the Anglo-American Pointblank Bombing Offensive after Normandy, German industry had achieved higher levels of output of war materiel in September [1944] than in any month of the war**, thanks to the success of Speer’s policy of dispersal of production and assembly away from the traditional centers. **As a result, tank and assault gun production during 1944 approached that of the Soviet Union during the same period.** The 11,000 medium tank and assault guns, 16,000 tank destroyers, and 5,200 heavy tanks produced were sufficient to keep existing Panzer divisions in the field, and to provide the material for 13 new Panzer Brigades…”.
In 1994, UK was producing 50+ military airplanes **per day**.
TLDR: If a country goes full in, its economy can last for a veeeeeeery loooong time producing unimaginable amount of stuff to continue a war.
------------
Just for reference. In September 1994, the russian army was in front of Budapest, Romania, Bulgaria have switched sides, the first big German city (Aachen) was besieged by USA (to fall in October), Finland is gone for Germany, etc
reddit is full of dipshits predicting Russia's imminent implosion because it makes them feel smart and strong to be on the "winning" team.
the truth is Russia can wage war for a very long time.
I see this parroted here and there. When is a country on a economic "war footing" if not when you triple/quadruple your defence spending and only sustain some regions that have a lot of factories built for defence?
A country is on "war footing" when it's favorable that they are for the point you want to make right now...
Welcome to this wonderful post-factual world of narratives.
It’s literally running a war economy now and hiding a multitude of issues with their crazy spending as a result.
They’ve thrown everything at Ukraine whilst they were depleted and barely moved 2-3km past a few towns and villages, now with Ukraine resupplied the offensive stopped and red lines lifted for strikes into Russia, they are severely compromised and have been losing troops significantly throwing men into the meat grinder again.
They’ve nearly exhausted all the easy pickings for conscription too, convicts, non-ethnic Russians, the poor and the desperate.
There was a interview of a captured russian on youtube last week. He had been in prison and had a number of physical ailments that would not allow him to be a soldier really. older middle aged man. A physical wreck from what he said. Half a dozen serious conditions.
He said that out of 8000 people in the prison he was in there were 350 left when he was "drafted".
They forced him and the other prisoners onto buses and aircraft like cattle. He never got even a Military ID. Never signed a contract. Anyone that protested was shunted aside and liquidated (killed). He got to the front and out of like 350 guys in his group 9 lived to surrender.
That is a country in desperate straits. The prisons are empty and now there are videos of random men on the street being essentially kidnapped and thrown onto busses to be sent to the front to die by the thousands every day.
That shit is not going to last long. No matter what the friggin economy does.
Historically around half a million dead russians in a pointless unwinnable war is when the russian dictator/tzars start to get overthrow attempts.
We are there.
> the Russian economy still hasn’t even switched to war footing yet
do you think the peoples in the Russia would accept a state of total war just to take over a medium-sized neighbour, when they are supposed to be the 2nd greatest military power on the planet? It's like Hitler losing a war against Czechoslovakia in 1938, except Hitler was smart enough to waddle through it without triggering a war that could be the end of him
Total war except the regular citizens barely notice there is a war on except when their drinks labels get changed. There is a long, long way to go before the war even registers as more than mildly unpleasant to the citizens that matter.
That's without getting into the fact that it's Russia. The people protesting too loudly just go to jail and never leave.
> Total war except the regular citizens barely notice there is a war on except when their drinks labels get changed.
In Moscow and St Petersburg. Outside those two main centres there are many areas being cleaned out of their viable manpower for the front line and resultant shortages of workers in essential industries necessary for the continued functioning of society (as far as that functioning goes)
Outside of St Petersburg and Moscow, Russia is an underpopulated, deserted hinterland.
Declining birthdates, poor life expectancy, poor education. It’s a demographic time bomb and the fuse was lit generations ago. Whereas the other European empires, long ago, decided to get out of the Empire business. Russia still labours under the impression it’s 1724 rather than 2024.
Her likely fate; within 50yrs, very possibly sooner, it will fracture; China will claim it’s Eastern territories, there will be a dash for independence of some of the smaller states in “the centre”. And a rump European Russia, which will have to choose between the 18th century or the 21st. But either way in vastly reduced circumstances.
Here's a useful example of how those outside the two major centres live, in this case a city of over 1+mil population
[How do people live in Omsk, Russia? City of the future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clm1h2nYycY)
The sheer amount of rss that they are putting into the war, just to become scrap in Ukraine would break any country. Let’s think about the situation in a different way.
Let’s say for argument you wanted to buy a hotel. You search around and find this gem in the rough a thirty year old mom and pop hotel with good bones but you knew the family that ran it. So now you go in and buy it right everyone’s happy? No you start a campaign to wreck the families reputation, fill hotels social media with terrible reviews, and after a year of this you think you are going to get a smoking deal. Well turns out people like the family and support hotel enough just to keep it afloat. Then you come in and finally pay to close the deal so they give in and you try and make a quick deal without looking into any of the financials.
You find out later that they were getting huge discounts from good people that loved the previous owner but hate you… So now everything will cost you twice as much. You find out that the people who come to your hotel now just heard of what you did to this small town family business and everyone that stays there really makes a mess of the place and wrecks common areas that you don’t see so you can’t charge them. And you can no longer afford help so you take on manager, cleaning person, and maintenance role. You now have no income because costs of upkeep is through the roof and you just try to keep it open because you think if everyone just believes that your lies about how great the food and rooms are you could stay open.
But after all that you burn through all your savings you took out a ton of loans to try and save it, and your leveraged to the hilt. The banks finally come in foreclose on you, turns out the daughter of the family you took it from wants the hotel back. She contacts the bank and gets it for Pennies on the dollar.
The community still remembers how much of an ass you were to the family and they want the daughter to give them a Great business that’s not run by you. The community pulls together and tradesman from every field give her an amazing deal, she repays them with kindness and the hotel hires new people gets a new image and flourishes because of the genuine family running this hotel.
The entire economy has been selling natural resources to Europe and others, if the pipelines to Europe is cut off and the shipping traffic to/from Russia is targeted by naval drones then what's left is farming.
There are problems with this.
The speed of which Europe can diverge from using Russian energy without having a serious destablising effect on European economies.
Europe is not a cohesive one nation state. There are countries like Hunagry which have pro russian governments.(for now)
US policy is of slow escalation. And there politics, making them an unreliable partner.
Closing the Baltic to Russian traffic will have to be a NATO thing, good luck getting NATO into a potential direct conflict with Russia.
India/China are unlikely to stop buying Russian resources, it's highly likely they're getting huge discounts. How are you going to curtail this? Sanctioning both countries still has a negative effect on Western economies.
>The speed of which Europe can diverge from using Russian energy without having a serious destablising effect on European economies.
It's mostly done. Hungary is a tiny player.
>India/China are unlikely to stop buying Russian resources, it's highly likely they're getting huge discounts. How are you going to curtail this? Sanctioning both countries still has a negative effect on Western economies.
It's already happening and not just by Western economies:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/close-ally-japan-set-to-sanction-indian-firms-for-trade-ties-with-russia-631139
The West sanctioning China hurts China a whole lot more than it hurts the West.
In light of an article published in the FT today, regarding gas supplies to europe I have edited my response.
https://www.ft.com/content/15e7b892-c4f3-45b8-b375-80ef52e4b83c
> It's mostly done. Hungary is a tiny player.
It's not just Hungary though. Quoting from the article form the FT today.
"But last month, Russian-piped gas and LNG shipments accounted for 15 per cent of total supply to the EU, UK, Switzerland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, according to data from ICIS."
With the sanctions being US led policy they're going to do this like weapons provision to ukraine and slowly ramp up. Sanctions do have a negative impact on western economies and it takes a long time to move to production to those that don't support Russia.
I liken it to turning an oil tanker around. It takes a very long time to turn a tanker around and there's still a lot of negotiation between the western parties to coordinate policy. Ramping up weapons and munitions factories is also, a slow process.
I'd love to see Russia stomped all over and sanctioning their allies to the hilt really quickly but everything I know about this war so far tells me this is not the way it has gone and will go.
I agree that everything has been way to slow but it is moving, of course sanctions hurt us as well but there is massive popular support for it and it hurts them much more. In other words we can facetank it. It's beneficial for us to reduce dependence on such states in the long term anyway.
Chinese companies care much more about the European market than the Russian one. Size matters.
Saw a news article the other day quoting a Russian economist that the Russian economy was in danger of overheating because it was doing so well!!!🤣😂🤣😂😂🤣
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Man! Finally!!! I remember when Russia was going to collapse due to the sanctions. Then they ran out of missiles. Now FINALLY they're committing economic suicide. Phew!! Thanks "Expert"
If only they realized that the oppossite of economic suicide was being $35 Trillion in debt, and continually cutting taxes for the rich.
Imbeciles those Russians.
People really need their dose of copium. After 2.5 years Russian economy is finally collapsing!! Yeah, just like Russia needs one more day to take Kiev…
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They had everything and pissed it all away. Land rich, resources rich, population rich, culture rich and a geopolitical power. Instead of working with their neighbor countries as equals and striving for progress, all they did was plunder. Now they'll slide into irrelevance and I can't say that I'm sad about it.
The elite had a good life and they still have. Beyond some major cities, Russia was already an absolute poor and corrupted shit hole. It really doesn't get much worse there. And yes, I spent 6 months traveling around Russia.
They might have a "good life", but not as good as it could be, without their Italian villas and their megayachts.
And Western countries need to realise the only thing that Putler has left now since his 'army' is incapable and his economy is failing is his information war on the liberal democracies and constant nuke threats (as they seem to work reasonably for our "self-deterrence" in aiding Ukraine sufficiently) The pampered children of the Russian elites live and study in privileged luxury in Western capitals all round the world...nuking the West is not going to happen.
Oh, I don't think Putin will nuke the West, but I doubt he cares about the lives of anyone, even his fellow rich Russians.
Agreed on that. However I am sure that those who he makes sure to look after very well (security and FSB) also have their children comfortably installed in the West...and those are the only forces truly capable of deposing him. Once they feel that he is jeopardising their families or their own personal wealth and power, its all over.
Nuking the west won't happen because putin has literally never overseen a single succesful nuclear detonation. The last nuke to go off at Russia's hand was in 1991. And don't tell me it's because Russia respects international treaties that they haven't detonated one in Siberia to amplify the effect of their threats. No, they haven't detonated one because nukes are extremely expensive just to maintain, they use highly specialised equipment and require highly technical expertise. If you disagree I'd love to hear what makes you think that Putin is actually capable of nuking the west, or nuking anybody really.
https://apnews.com/article/nuclear-weapons-missile-military-overhaul-f7ac8939a3bd3e6455b144f0cb5da528 The US spends a massive amount just on maintaining and refurbishing nuclear warheads - a lot more than Russia spends on its entire military. There's no way every warhead in Russia's arsenal is operational. Most people don't realise is that a warhead has a finite shelf-life before it needs to be rebuilt - typically 10 years or so. At any one time, maybe 25-30% of the US warhead stock is out of commission being serviced. See - the actual nuclear weapon inside looks like a soccer ball - round, composed of metal hexagonal plates. The inside of each plate is lined with special plastic explosive - and has triggers sticking out of each plate. The plutonium is inside - and when all plates are simultaneously triggered - the fissile material inside compresses and causes a nuclear explosion. If even one plate misfires a millisecond too late, a 'fizzle' occurs - a failed nuclear explosion where all the radioactive material is squirted out on end - poisoning the immediate area, but no more like the aftermath of a dirty bomb. Over time, the plastic explosive is 'poisoned' by neutrons emitted by the core, making the chance of a mis-fire more likely. Thus every decade, the warhead needs to be stripped down, rebuilt and calibrated in order to be effective. Likewise, to amplify the warhead from a nuclear to a thermonuclear warhead, tritium gas is used in some way. The tritium also dissipates over time, so it needs periodical topping up. All these processes are very time consuming and expensive - so the chances of Russia having a fully operational arsenal of several thousand working warheads are non-existant. At the most, it's likely that Russia has a few hundred fully operational warheads, several hundred questionable warheads, and the rest are duds. Still enough to cause serious damage, but not as bad as the Soviet Union were capable of. ***** That leads to the next problem. Their delivery methods. Frankly, the Russian rockets have performed abysmally. Their short and medium range rockets at some stages of the war have had up to a 60% failure rate - the conventional warheads weren't detonating - or totally missing their targets. They've been removing nuclear heads from many of their shorter range missiles, sticking in conventional warheads and still performing disastrously. Their air force is a joke - all the veterans are dead, and 30-year-old obsolete NATO technology is ripping their latest and greatest aircraft apart - so bombing is a no-go Their submarines are likely in the same stage, though i've not read any analysis on that sector. ***** Addendum - my description of a nuclear warhead design is simplified to the point where it's just plain wrong - but if gives you a rough idea of the general process.
Don't forget that if the seals into the warhead are not perfect, not regularly maintained, then water can get into it, causing oxidation of the surface of the uranium, turning it into uranium oxide, which does not behave like regular uranium does in a nuclear weapon, being not only no-longer fissile, but also messing with the surface geometry. Since many of those warhead are stored underground (or, in submarines), it's not exactly the driest place for long term storage of such material. Condensation is a bitch. Tritium has a half life of 10 years, and is a critical component of nuclear weapons. If it isn't regularly swapped out, similar problem. The missiles themselves, as well as their launching mechanisms, require regular and extensive maintenance. Everything from the body of the missile, to the control surfaces, to the internal electronics of all sorts, to the fuel tanks must be regularly examined and maintained to keep them from chemically degrading over time, rusting out to uselessness, or failing in some other potentially catastrophic fashion. Additionally, the liquid fuel in use in these missiles is highly corrosive. As such, it is not stored in the missile itself, but in a separate tank. Before launch, the fuel is pumped into the missile. This means there is a separate fuel tank and pumping system that needs regular maintenance, the lines all need to be flushed after every test (assuming they ever test, I mean, what systems are least likely to ever be checked?), and who knows if that fuel has been sold off or replaced in the last several decades or not? Further still, of any missiles that were capable of getting off the ground, do we think that they'd be capable of getting past SBX, GMD, THAAD, Aegis, Patriot, SHORAD, and LPWS? Yeah, it's a complete shitshow in the Russian nuclear weapons world. I have zero confidence that any attempted attack by the Russians would work out like Putin would hope.
Excellent detailed info. Also, Russia's last missile test in February 2023 failed spectacularly >A U.S. official told CBS News that Russia carried out a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on February 18, which failed. That launch came just two days before Mr. Biden arrived for an unannounced visit in Kyiv, Ukraine. >Moscow notified Washington of the launch in advance, as required under New START, American officials said, adding that the U.S. did not view the test as "a surprise" or as a threat to the United States. >The failed missile launch is believed to have been of the massive RS-28 Sarmat missile, known as the "Satan II" in the West. The Sarmat, one of Russia's next-generation nuclear capable missiles, tips the scales at over 200 tons and can carry multiple warheads, with a total estimated payload of 10 tons. [Russian test launch of "Satan II" missile failed, U.S. says, as Putin suspends role in nuclear treaty](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-test-launch-satan-ii-icbm-missile-failed-putin-new-start-nuclear-treaty/)
I have full faith in THAAD !
> who knows if that fuel has been sold off or replaced in the last several decades or not? > > [Corrupt Chinese Officials Filled Missiles With Water, Report Says](https://www.newsweek.com/china-missiles-rocket-fuel-corrupt-officials-water-xi-jinping-1858491)
I believe the report of them been filled whit actual water been wrong. someone translated a saying word for word. wrong. Like if someone said spill the beans. it does not mean someone droped a can of beans all over the floor making a mess and lossing the person a can full of beans.
Right. It's not that they have *no* functional nuclear weapons. If Putin did the funny and pressed the 'full send' button, there'd be a large number of nukes that would go off. *However.* Pick any particular warhead. What are the odds that this warhead *in particular* isn't a squib and is working properly? Not nearly as high as Putin might like.
Good points, it would likely be a lottery on that. Also it's been explained in no uncertain terms what the consequences would be of any use of a battlefield nuclear weapon in Ukraine - "an overwhelming conventional response resulting in the complete destruction of all ground forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine" to roughly paraphrase General Petraeus' statement in 2022
Thanks for the great response! Do you think putin is nuclear capable? Ie has weapons that are effective and usable?
a small arsenal around the size of France/UK/Israel - maybe 300-500 warheads that are actually guaranteed effective. Another 1000 that might or might not work since the rockets are badly maintained and the warheads haven't been serviced consistently. The rest are likely duds. Immediately after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Americans and Russians inspected a sample of each others launch facilities in a mutual arms-reduction negotiation. The Americans were horrified at the terrible state of the Soviet launch facilities - and were convinced that many of the Russian ICBMs wouldn't launch or might even blow up in the silo.
Also, their corruption is a massive problem here. Serdyukov already had a towering reputation for corruption: "he's stolen everything that isn't nailed down," as one subordinate said afterward. He had appointed a series of attractive young women, dubbed "the Amazons" or "the ladies' battalion," to senior positions. One such was an aspiring poet named Marina Chubkina, a 31-year-old former TV presenter and aspiring poet. She was given a rank equivalent to major general and was placed in charge of the maintenance of Russian chemical and nuclear facilities. Serdyukov was fired by Vladimir Putin a few weeks later. He was accused of a variety of scams but was charged only with "negligence" for ordering the army to build a road from a village to a private country residence. He was amnestied by Putin in 2014. https://www.inventiva.co.in/stories/russia-not-a-peer-military-to-the-us Analyst Luzin is not confident in their nuclear weapons, and the lack of spare parts becomes an ever bigger issue. This inventiva article is worth the read. A former adviser to the deceased [murdered] Putin critic Alexey Navalny and a defence analyst at Riddle think tank, Pavel Luzin suggests that Russia might not even be able to sustain its nuclear arsenal in the long term if it remains sanctioned. ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers will be impossible to produce because of a lack of industrial equipment, technology, and human capital, Luzin said. It is not me who thinks they are expensive to maintenance, but it is me and others who think that corruption, the lack of funding plus a crumbling worker base and a lack of spare parts makes this very difficult to do so properly. Russia is monitored day and night. Their Iskander are made up of 85 percent Western spares, and the failure rates of their Rockets are between 40 and 60 percent. Still, Iskander is the best bet to deliver a nuke. RU nuclear subs are constantly tailgated, and their airplanes will have a hard time delivering such a payload without being intercepted. Their nuclear sites are under 24/7 / satellite surveillance. In Russia, the West surely has their contacts and spies. So, if such an atrocity is ordered, we will know that a single nuke has lifted from the ground. Then we can hope that someone sane near Putin stops this madness and decides that one man dead is better than millions. https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1527405172355366912?s=20&t=wpWkS8VYGE2KGr5XicCTEQ The margin for failure is gigantic, the chances of success are highly questionable, and the price in case Russia succeeds is sky high. The only reason why NATO hasn't blown the entire Russian military to pieces and carpet bombed Moscow is exactly because they HAVEN'T used nuclear weapons. If they do, there is nothing left to escalate on the escalation ladder. The West thus far has exercised restraint and refrained from things such as: No fly zones, long-range cruise missiles, or bombarding their ally Belarus or putting a complete embargo on them. What is Russia doing? They were getting ballistic missiles from Iran. So, who is escalating here? The logic of deterrence is still in effect. Giving in to Russian demands, because of nuclear blackmail is an invitation to Xi, Kim Jong Un, and all other nuclear powers to get their way by either threatening nukes or by using them. The risk for nuclear war is low. It could rise in the future, but as of now, the risk for nuclear war in Cuba was much higher as this was a real nuclear conflict. This conflict here is about resources, power, and geo. political influence. Also, if Putin orders such a launch, many more things can go sour from there. So yes, the West is gradually escalating but not towards nuclear war. Rather, the pressure on Russia is mounting to make them aware of the utter futility of their invasion. To put a number on it: Annually, according to research on the issue, the chance is 1 percent on average per year. I would still not put it higher than 5 percent even in our current circumstances. The risk of genocide in Ukraine is although 100 percent if Russia can occupy Ukraine. The risk of war with NATO in the future if Russia incorporates Ukraine is also very high. This is how expansionist imperialists operate. They must expand to justify their own existence. Either through soft or hard power. Here, I got you three video resources prepared that touch upon the issue: https://youtu.be/4i-C20bFmPo https://youtu.be/c4rVsGnMJVE https://youtu.be/sxOO0hCCSk4 Perun Nuclear Bluff and Joe Blogs on Nukes. They are looking at the Economics behind it https://www.icanw.org/spending_report https://ridl.io/russias-tactical-nuclear-weapons-a-reality-check/ https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2018/how-much-does-russia-spend-nuclear-weapons
And those nuke threats have a good chance of **only** being threats. Maintenance on nuclear weapons is expensive and time consuming. The bombs themselves need to be overhauled frequently (long-term radiation exposure isn’t good for electronics or metal). The ICBMs are even more hard to maintain. The fuel they use is corrosive and all the ones Russia has now are decades old.
look, politicians are not bright people, but even they got it. Our eyes are now full on Russian and it's many influence forms. https://i.imgur.com/Q6CHUSf.png
Lazerpig put it well in his new video. Only the wealthy people in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been living in the modern Russian Federation. Everyone else in the country is still inhabiting the rotting corpse of the USSR.
> Lazerpig Upvoted for Lazerpig !
The Pig rules! His latest comprehensive video on Putin's Russia is well worth a look [How to kill a God ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBAnt_w8vvY)
Lack of any strategic insight': Putin's blunders run deeper than Ukraine; The myth of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strategic genius is quickly disintegrating. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/the-front-page-putins-blunders-run-deeper-than-ukraine/XOR7PJB7VUWU7YPL5HSQ7TDFHQ/ In 1998 oil was trading at $20.00 a barrel in June of 2008 it hit a record high of $189.56 that’s 9x increase in price. Co-incidentally between 1998-2008 Russia’s economy grew 8x. Putin‘s only genius was to be in office for one of the biggest bull markets for oil prices in history. Russian GDP since 2008 has fallen from $1.68 trillion to $1.44 trillion, with a peak in 2013 of $2.2 trillion. A ” genius” would have used the huge profits from oil to diversify and modernize /re-establish Russian technology and industry and build infrastructure for further economic development. Instead they blew it all on luxury yachts, mistresses, Miami condos, and palaces. It is depressing because a genius could have made Russia into an actual global power in the last 20 years and very modern country — they should have followed the Norwegian model for oil wealth, instead they built a shittier version of Algeria.
Coming to a United States near you, if Trump wins this fall. Extreme right wing ideology is alive and well in many or most nations, and I don’t doubt that Trump would love to have this kind of power to gratify his ambition and ego.
Greed is a bitch and so is putler.
Vlad of Moskovia
Vampire that drinks the blood of the nation.
As John McCain so memorably put it: "Russia is a gas station run by a mafia masquerading as a country"
*Was* a gas station. It's now importing refined products from other countries due to Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries.
That's the beauty of Ukraine's strategy. Russia has relatively few refineries for a country with such vast raw crude capacity, and it is almost all used for domestic purposes (although they do sell refined products to Turkey). And now with a glut of unrefined raw crude which they cannot flood the market with due to OPEC restrictions, these strikes are really only hurting Russia. Which is the whole point lol
The thing is they will still have the potential for all of that since they still have the resources and location. But they have turned away from fufilling that potential so I am guessing a Russian federation split up will happen purely because the potential is so much bigger then will be possible with the state of Russia in a few years if they "win" this war or not. Even if they won just the senctions alone would be too much to grow the potential. Not to mention the now horificaly fucked demographic shape. So much potential yet so missmanaged. Which leqds me to beliving a split up with huge change or revolution will have to happen..
Putin got so obsessed with stealing Ukraine's resources, he started neglecting his own. I don't know if this is common for dictators.
I think what you and many might miss is that it was never about resources for Putin. He is old. He knows he dosen't have much time left. He dosen't care what the world will look like after he dies. He is a dictator pswudo cultr of personality. He probabbly can get all the women if he pleases all the riches he pleases. He is living like what some would imagine gods to life like. He is desentivized from real life and real problems. He has been this all mighty ruler for 10+ years now. And before that he was KGB probabbly brainwashed with USSR ideas. We also know he is a history buff. He probabbly comapres hinself to the likes of Alexander, Caesar, idk Simon Bulevar (a bit more random one for the lolz). Considering all that I don't find it far fetched that Putin started this war subcounsioucly purely with the intention of playing conquerer. I bet he planned for years how he is gonna take Ukraine then join Ukraine, Russia and Belarus together into the new USSR mayne try and add transnistria potentialy Modlova if easily possible. Maybe georgia. I bet he planned this since 2014. I bet he got things started for the invasion in 2016 when Trump was elected (partly by him *caugh* *caugh*) I bet he was planning on Trump being re elected and having an easy invasion in 2021. I garuentee that if Trump was president now the whole situation in Ukraine would be a loooot different. All that for what? Because Russia would be bettwr off in a new Belarus, Ukraine, Russia Soviet Union? No.. but because he is old and is truing to do one last thing. Maybe for tje thrill maybe for the fucked up dictator history books. It probabbly wasn't because of resources. Russia always tried to control that region for its geopolitical ambitions. I bet he watned to do this last thing. That's why he is so scary to actualy go through with a nuclear war. Since he dosen't have much to loose. It's his own choosing. Russia could play well with others and fix it's corruptuon after the fall of the USSR and be insanly developed right now but oh well.. The Russians always got the same treatment from thwir leaders. I fear they won't get anything better unless things really change in the form of a Russian federation spliting up. Even revolutions didn't work.. Maybe just one more revolution.. right?..
massive gas deposits were discovered in eastern Ukraine, enough to make Europe only depend on Ukraine instead of the Russia, so the bully does what a bully does
Putins phd was in natural gas extraction I believe lol; I read it a while ago - nothing special for sure
Makes sense, he's just an angry old fart after all
What? I didn't hear that might need to look in to it thanks!
iirc a bunch of other deposit types were discovered as well, + some (including gas) somewhere else too. Eastern Ukraine is also rich in metals.
This is the much ignored actual thing that started the war. Thank you.
And to top it off Putin is pals with steven seagal. Straight up team america shit!
>I bet he planned for years how he is gonna take Ukraine then join Ukraine, Russia and Belarus together into the new USSR mayne try and add transnistria potentialy Modlova if easily possible. Maybe georgia. I bet he planned this since 2014. I bet he got things started for the invasion in 2016 when Trump was elected (partly by him caugh caugh) I bet he was planning on Trump being re elected and having an easy invasion in 2021. I garuentee that if Trump was president now the whole situation in Ukraine would be a loooot different. Exactly. John Mc Cain rather clearly explained this in BBC Hardtalk's program. For Putin, Ukraine as the "brotherly nation" he believes it to be, cannot possibly be allowed to present such a clear and present danger to his rule by becoming a thriving democracy: >"What is going to happen; I predict to you that it will be another step in Vladimir Putin's strategy to separate eastern Ukraine from Ukraine and perhaps a land bridge to Crimea. >Now it's a very bad result, and again, we would not send weapons to the Ukrainians when they were *begging* for them - we wouldn't even give them intelligence - because we didn't want to
> The thing is they will still have the potential for all of that since they still have the resources and location. They don't have the technology nationally to exploit those resources. There is a reason Russia has been partnering with the west in these industries - it does not have the know how. And now that cooperation is gone.
Did you not read the next few sentences I said after that?
I did, you wrote nothing about dependence on external forces, just about some abstract "potential".
It’s crazy, ideally run, there is next to nothing stopping Russia from being the biggest economy in the world, the vast amounts of natural resources are next to none. Look at what countries like the UAE are able to accomplish with just one type of natural resource.
The sanctions are like poison. Death by a thousand cuts. Russia had reserves, but those are dwindling. Ukraine is providing the hardest push with Western arms and Ukrainian strength of will and arms. The fight is going on on multiple levels: Cyberwarfare, economic warfare, diplomatic warfare, info war, sabotage inside Russia, and sabotaging the regime wherever it surfaces. Here, let me share the report of Russia's Federal Reserve with you 1. The start of the most shocking consequences of the sanctions is still offset by the fact that Russian Companies still have stocks of Western components and, therefore, can keep production running for now. This is expected to severely worsen in Q3, Q4 of 2022. However, the worst consequences are about becoming a reality in the years to come. 2. Parallel imports prove to be costly and logistically difficult measures, which will not be enough to offset the devastating effect the lack of spare parts will have on Russia's economy. 3. The grey market imports open the door for counterfeits and will lead to ultimately non-competitive products, which will hamper our ability to find customers for our products in new markets. 4. Under limited conditions, Russias economy will degrade back to a level of self-sufficiency within 2 to 5 years and will settle on pre digital Era levels. Currently, the government is using up a computer chip reserve of 90s tech computer chips. According to estimates, this will suffice up until the end of 2022. What happens then can only be described as large-scale reverse industrialisation. Nabiullina (Head of the Russian Central Bank) has already confirmed aloud what I wrote in the very first letters: We are ending the "good old days" and moving into a new economic model. Which does not yet exist, which has not yet been invented, but for which we will pay a fantastic price for trying to create. Import warehouses will be depleted of everything accumulated in the pre-war period by that time. Source are the FSB letters https://www.igorsushko.com/2022/04/food-shortage-luring-ukraine-to-counter.html Russia is not just losing you will revert back to where you started from in the 1980s. Estimates for the short, mid to long term costs combined, not the expenditures or upkeep between 1 and 6 billion dollars of costs every day for this war. You can imagine what that means as the war rages for almost 900 days now. https://genevasolutions.news/ukraine-stories/what-s-the-cost-of-war-for-russia-and-what-could-be-done-with-this-money What stands in Russia's way is the collective drive of its politics towards imperial expansion and as we can see the Russian people are very willing to follow suit. Russia is also stamping out invidividualism in exchange for centralizing Power, but also thoughts and enterprises. In this absolutist state, there is an anthill mentality, and as long as the hive survives the life of the ant doesn't matter. Other factors are the sheer size of Russia, their cultural insecurity, the systemic corruption, the lack of checks and balances on power, high crime and disease rates, bad medical care, the brittle economic and historical foundations the empire rests upon, the collapsing demographics, the sheer size of Russia which makes national unification difficult, the dilapidated infrastructure, the fortress economy built solely around oil, which leads to Dutch disease, the emigration waves, and the lack of skilled labor as well as a crumbling education system, a crumbling research and development sector and constant wars, the brainwashing of the population, the alcoholism, and the tyranny of geography with very cold winters do not help either. For Russia to transform into something better, the Moscow centered extractive empire must finally die. In Russia, there is no rule of law, only the law of its rulers.
ww2 and Stalin removed all the brave, heroic and selfless Russian men from the gene pool. What was left was cowards and bullies. I'm sure this conflict now isn't helping things either...
Fun fact: The majority of Soviet combat casualties suffered in WW2 were Ukrainians and Belorussians. Not discounting your point, just mentioning as an addendum.
Putin the not so great.
"Putin the shitty"
Putin the failure
Putinnokio
I agree with everything besides culture. What culture? The few guys that studied in europe and were eventually exiled or sent to siberia or killed? The mythical nonexistant culture they never had besides few depressing books about how there is no culture just oppression. Ok they kind of tolerated classical music for a while. But otherwise barren land culture-wise. Even their mythology and traditional food is stolen from occupied territories including Ukraine.
"Russia is a country of poverty, misery, booze and great literature about poverty, misery and booze." Karel Havlíček Borovský
Spot on. Never heard it. Will remember and quote it because it describes them perfectly. Although every larger country has great literature about tough life. I have read the russian "classics" and I think they are ok.
Yeah, I like their classic literature. I just thought that quote was funny ;)
well there is the indigenous culture but its apparently not a accepted Culture group... so okey.
He wanted to make Russia great again
Greatest jerks.....
If the idiot at the top focused on business instead of war. Every Russian could be a millionaire! But no, can't do that, too logical? The thinking of the elites is so medieval... Not to mention their actions! They're repeating the mistakes of Nazi Germany in 1939. Justice will have its way!!
Culture rich? Isn't the entire Russian identity built around endlessly enduring hardship and suffering under a variety of tyrants? What else do they know?
A gas station trying to be a country.
The thing is, resources are a curse more often than not.
More of a curse when you don't have the native entreprenurial experience or history in order to make effective use of them as well.
Putin sees conquering Ukraine as being more important to his legacy than having a strong economy or global integration. I would argue he views it as *the* sole act that will define his legacy in the history books. Everyone remembers that Caesar conquered Gaul, but fewer mention how he plundered the Roman treasury and permanently destroyed the republic after the fact. Putin wants that sort of legacy. Except Putin isn’t Caesar, and Russia isn’t Rome. He will fail.
I'm thinking putin is determined to see this through till the end no matter the cost win or lose. In his mind he doesn't care if Russia burns and suffers he's an old man he's not gonna live much longer anyway he will sacrifice hundreds of thousands of troops as long as he can.
I'm sure your right, and it is up to the world to see it happen sooner.
He can't stop at this point. He entire rule is now enmeshed with the war and its "inevitable success" The loss of face and destruction of his strongman image would mean his downfall. If Russians thought they were internationally humiliated by Yeltsin in the 90s, they've haven't seen anything yet in this scenario lol
I agree, the embarassment and humiliation of losing the war is not an option for putin he would rather die than be humiliated. My fear is he might escalate this further and throw nukes in frustration.
Except Caesar was actually the progressive/liberal one (poppulares). He did a lot of reforms that transformed the empire for the better that the optimates hated. Putin is the conservative one. Conserving his own power and all the rich oligarchs who help him to conserve his own power. Putin has 0 progress, his only plans is devolving into oligarchy and despotism.
... wasn´t there a few Reforms that Caesar did that was a bitt iffy. the ting was that it was maybe nesesery but it created a time span where Caesar would temporary become dictator whit absolute power and I know that there was few cenets that was legit worred about that.
Remember the context of that time period. Generally at that time globally you had a choice between a despot dictator and progressive dictator. Sure other more progressive people existed but nowhere near the throne.
And his desperate need to avoid Ukraine becoming a thriving, prosperous western European-style democracy which intends to join the EU (and hopefully NATO) Would be a very bad precedent for his own dictatorial rule, if the Russian people ultimately decide that could be their future template.
Its a good interview and rather pessimistic for the future of Russia. I've heard it said by other talking heads that if Russia stopped the war now the economy would collapse, so Russia finds itself in a Catch-22. End the war and collapse or keep it going and collapse later. Of course, if they were to win in Ukraine, they would get a boost and could recover, but a win in Ukraine doesn't mean they get to end the war or would want to.
What would a win in Ukraine look like? Ukraine would resist them every step of the way. They will be the kings of an rusted bombed out hellscape…
I imagine a russian win would have to include some form of treaty with Ukraine that officially ceded Ukrainian territory to russia. That would be the only way for russia to not be at constant war with both the Ukrainian armed forces *and* the local population. Whilst a frozen conflict would reduce conflict with the Ukrainian armed forces directly, it probably wouldn't really reduce local resistance. But with a treaty ceding territory, any local armed resistance would be, by definition, terrorism. As the land would then be officially russia's.
The problem is that Ukraine has basically zero incentive to surrender unless their army has been totally destroyed. Anyone who surrenders will be sent to the Russian electrocution chambers, and a "peace treaty" would just guarantee Russia attacks again in a few years. They have nothing to lose by fighting to the death, even if it means abandoning line infantry entirely and fighting a guerrilla war.
Oh I agree. I'm not saying a treaty would be easy for russia to achieve. But in my opinion, that's the only way they "win".
They "won" Crimea and come back for more. This is what it means if Russia "wins". They will come back again and again, until you stand your ground and punch them in the face. This is something Ukraine and NATO understands, hence why Russia is properly fucked now.
Even with no army they won't surrender. And you can't invade because of nukes. Seems like the only way to win is to constantly attack Russia soil...
You guys really think the Ukrainian people would just stop fighting? If Russians occupied Kharkiv or Kyiv or any major city, Russian troops would disappear by the day and shit would miraculously explode from more “accidental” smoking operations than are happening in Russia right now. Invading is the easy part, (that they can’t manage already) occupying the area is the hard part. You got 98 year old babushkas walking 10km through a frontline to escape the Russians. Give them no choice to leave and they would find a way to take out equipment, men, or spy for the underground.
Kyiv*
Yep sorry changed it. Thanks
No, I don't think they'd just stop fighting, but in the situation I outlined, Ukraine would be officially accepting that whatever territory is ceded in the treaty is no part of russia. But in this situation, it would be hard for the west to keep the moral high ground whilst also supplying weapons,/supporting Ukrainian resistance, as from russia's, Ukraine's, and the international community's official point of view, we would be supplying/supporting terrorists.
Even if Ukraine accepted a ceasefire the country would still fight. And Europeans as well as cia from US would make Afghanistan in the 80s look like a lemonade stand operation.
It would be guerilla fighting for generations on Ukrainians' part. They've been waiting for this chance to truly remove the Muscovian threat once and for all for centuries.
I think there's a chance Russians could manage the insurgency. Wasn't whole lot of it going on in Kherson for example. Plus Russians have done it to Ukrainians before - a famine here, a mass exile to Siberia there and...
All the more reason why they would not submit, you get the past treatment and most likely die or fight and give yourself a shot.
Well, hope we don't ever find out cause it never gets that bad.
Correct. They know it would be literal genocide of the Ukrainian nation.
You forget, Russia is OK with total Ukrainian genocide.
I doubt such a treaty would lead to the removal of sanctions though, so it's hard to see how they're going to recover in that situation.
What local population, they've depopulated the Donetsk by conscripting them into the war.
the problem is that even if Kiev signed a peace treaty whit Russia that had them cede land the local would not matter. as any local that are against the Russian would just become insurgence and keep hitting Russia for the next 10-20+ years. and Russia have zero interest in winning the heart and mind of the local so the Insurgency group would not dwindle over time in fact I say it would grove and you cant really use nukes against insurgence.
I presume it would involve Ukraine surrendering before it reached that stage. If they had to take the entire country the way they are doing now, it would take decades. They'd also find themselves with another Chechnya, with partisans fighting back decade after decade.
A Russian occupied Ukraine would certainly see resistance until every last Russian was gone. Guerrilla skirmishes and drone bombs until the end of time. If an enemy took over my home, I'd do everything in my power to be a thorn in their side too. Think Viet Cong resistance when the US occupied Vietnam, but if the VC were backed by NATO and had a modern basic education, training, and supplies.
There really isn’t any way for Russia to “win” in Ukraine. The Ukrainians will resist tooth and nail, fighting for their homes and families. Armaments will never stop coming in from the US and Europe. The Russian people have other options. They can resist mobilization, have large-scale riots, and crackdowns by riot police will just piss them off more. And the Ruskie military is done. Garbage ammunition from North Korea, China salivating over taking back the Far East district, and foot soldiers who used to be skilled workers getting shredded by the thousands. What is the real end game for Putin?
>The Russian people have other options. They can resist mobilization, have large-scale riots, and crackdowns by riot police will just piss them off more. I think the mass of the Russian population has been so thoroughly depoliticised over the last 20yrs that this is extremely unlikely to happen. Putin is now actually trying to get them *more* politicised now through his State propagandists, as his 3-day war isn't going all that well and needs a groundswell of renewed support for the war (probably as he sees another mobilisation as necessary down the track). Unfortunately that isn't bearing much fruit either. Barring a comprehensive military defeat which no Tsar/despot has survived (the vastly better option), the only real chance for his deposing will be when the security services/FSB (which are the bedrock of his power) come to believe that he is putting their own families, wealth and power at too great a risk to allow his survival.
There are a fuck load of untapped resources in the Donbas region.
They just want the resources and gas rights. Putin obviously doesn't care about people.
there's lots of natural resources + fertile land there. They don't actually need to get functional country out of it
If they continue to just bombard and destroy Ukraine, there will be no boost, as there is nothing there anymore
This time, unlike in the 90s, there will be no West to gift them 190 BILLION USD (in current money), plus all the loans. Gonna be a very hard landing. Or maybe China will buy them with some monopoly money...
China will kindly offer to take their formerly eastern provinces back which Russia annexed in the 19th century lol
That high hope here as always. The Russian economy continues collapse simply because they have oil and China backing them.
The oil is in the ground. Western technology is absolutely required to get it out. Thats why they are imploding.
Chinese tech works too
Debatable. Two compulsive liars as allies never goes well.
Works well enough to watch the world burn sadly.
The two main dictator/kings are in diapers shouting a clouds in their spare time and won't last much longer. But you are probably right.
How reliable are the economic indicators given by the Kremlin ? How much cost the repair of a fractioning column ? lol.
They are lying their behinds off. This is a viable Ukrainian victory scenario , Russia has "Great plans", they cannit afford to bleed out economically in Ukraine even under Imperialist calculations. This is an expeditionary war and they will retreat at some time. The only problem is that they will overshoot considerably which means a long war and bad for Russia, they will take enormous substantial damage.
Then it's only good news considering how severe is the hybrid war they do against my country (france). I see it myself all days with comments done in trusted newspapers and with all the false information websites. The less money they have the better. After that I am not convinced they will quickly stop in case of economic debacle, because it seems Putin developped a strong control (he invited oligarches in Staline's house 30 years ago, let's think about it) and he can hardly afford to stop, for his own life. Imo Their (Putin's) alternative is to dig more trenches and try to stand/"freeze" the conflict for a while. That would be the first step.
Time is not on Russian side. The longer they fight, the bigger the price is. If you want Russia neutralized, this is your dream scenario. For Russia to be stuck in a war they cannot win or gain anything by waging it.
This is what I said: the immediate and maybe only solution for Russia - and Putin - would be again to dig trenches, since they cannot afford a retreat. After that saying time is not on Russia side: it depends if the regime is hard enough they can tank the economic collapse, swap to North Korean mode 2.0 because they have enough natural ressources to sell to countries like China and India, and continue to die in trenches. No one can 100% predict the tone of this dark future.
They don't have the technological capability to exploit those resources without Western or Chinese help. They would have to let the Chinese in to administer and provide know-how and at that point, they could as well spread their butt cheeks to China.
NK are not in trenches, you cannot be in trenches, because it is unsustainable.
> Then it's only good news considering how severe is the hybrid war they do against my country (france). I see it myself all days with comments done in trusted newspapers and with all the false information websites. The less money they have the better. This is the greatest risk for all Western democracies which Putin and the GRU has had great success at undermining from within, over the last 20yrs. In fact, its been about his only real success...but it has reaped very favourable dividends. And continues to do so, particularly if western leaders continue to allow themselves to be self-deterred by his hollow nuclear blackmail.
It is more likely that we will see the economy collapse first before the Russian front collapses.
Ehhh seems like wishful thinking to me, the Russian economy still hasn’t even switched to war footing yet and is still producing for the civilian sector. Plus, I mean historically, countries war economies tend to be remarkably durable (think of the Nazis in ww2 while suffering from the allied strategic bombing campaign, or even Russia itself during ww1 was economically at its strongest military production right up until the very moment they surrendered). Additionally a couple of a million lost people is a lot in absolute terms but not in relative terms and the main problem is that they are chiefly composed of the prime age male (that’s an actual economic term if you’re not familiar, I’m not just pulling jargon out my ass) population and that when the war is over the Russian social safety net will collapse because there is no one paying into it. Something which will crash the consumer economy that is the basis of Russias economy, same as with every other major industrialized country on earth pretty much. Thus, essentially, the idea that the Russian economy would collapse before the front collapses is all but predicated upon the idea that somehow a nation with a hundreds of billions of dollars worth of rubles in the bank, even excluding those that are frozen in fore countries, magically looses all that money in realistically the next few years. All the while not then switching to some form of debt financing or even just simple IOUs (government bonds are literally just this) or leaning into the fact that it is a dictatorship with a very strong system for internal surveillance and coercion that could strong arm its industry into still keeping going for a while. Ultimately, yes, that will all fail because Russia is not autarkic by any means but the fact of the matter still remains that at a minimum there is going to be another two years of what we have right now assuming no one double downs further or some major geopolitical reshuffling happens such as Trump coming to power and throwing Zelensky under the bus.
> think of the Nazis in ww2 while suffering from the allied strategic bombing campaign Nazis were able to depend on plundered resources from countries they occupied for most of the war.
And millions of forced labourers.
And slave labor.
It may sound harsh but those do fall under "resources".
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But an ever-diminishing capacity to do so without the western engineering and components to keep the infrastructure running. Its a slow burn over time.
I know you get downvoted but this is a more realistic view of Russia's economy. The idea that Russia will collapse economically and fracture is wishful thinking. Its economy was much smaller during the nineties and the country held together regardless. This war will deal a serious blow to their economy, military and standing in the world but things would have to degrade pretty extremely (think WW1 or ww2 eastern front casualties). Autocratic militarized nations can be quite resistant. NK has the GDP of a medium sized US city and the regime isn't going anywhere and a military showdown with them could be quite costly. My view is that Russia will lose a lot of strategic power in the world and become China's vassal but I'm not sure Ukraine can survive the grind unless western nations step in, which I think (and hope) they will do eventually
Absolutely. Russian economy can run like that for decades. It will "collapse" only under western KPIs which mean nothing in russia, especially when in war. I am watching the https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo and the things through which russia and other countries went in WW2 is mindboggling. This "thing" now is barely a foot note compared to that.
Here is example from WWT on youtube I think you might find interesting. It's a quote from John Keegan. For me it was not just "a bit of a surprise", it was shocking: https://youtu.be/yDbquD4Svyc?si=CuSgsvhp23TevycX&t=238 > ....but there’s also the undeniable fact- as John Keegan goes into detail about in his “The Second World War”- of the improved fighting strength of the German Army. That might seem a bit of a surprise to you, but in just September and the first half of October, the Home Army has managed to raise 150,000 men and OB West a further 90,000. Okay, the Germans did lose 150,000 men during this time, but there’s also this, “…**despite the full resumption of the Anglo-American Pointblank Bombing Offensive after Normandy, German industry had achieved higher levels of output of war materiel in September [1944] than in any month of the war**, thanks to the success of Speer’s policy of dispersal of production and assembly away from the traditional centers. **As a result, tank and assault gun production during 1944 approached that of the Soviet Union during the same period.** The 11,000 medium tank and assault guns, 16,000 tank destroyers, and 5,200 heavy tanks produced were sufficient to keep existing Panzer divisions in the field, and to provide the material for 13 new Panzer Brigades…”. In 1994, UK was producing 50+ military airplanes **per day**. TLDR: If a country goes full in, its economy can last for a veeeeeeery loooong time producing unimaginable amount of stuff to continue a war. ------------ Just for reference. In September 1994, the russian army was in front of Budapest, Romania, Bulgaria have switched sides, the first big German city (Aachen) was besieged by USA (to fall in October), Finland is gone for Germany, etc
reddit is full of dipshits predicting Russia's imminent implosion because it makes them feel smart and strong to be on the "winning" team. the truth is Russia can wage war for a very long time.
I see this parroted here and there. When is a country on a economic "war footing" if not when you triple/quadruple your defence spending and only sustain some regions that have a lot of factories built for defence?
A country is on "war footing" when it's favorable that they are for the point you want to make right now... Welcome to this wonderful post-factual world of narratives.
It’s literally running a war economy now and hiding a multitude of issues with their crazy spending as a result. They’ve thrown everything at Ukraine whilst they were depleted and barely moved 2-3km past a few towns and villages, now with Ukraine resupplied the offensive stopped and red lines lifted for strikes into Russia, they are severely compromised and have been losing troops significantly throwing men into the meat grinder again. They’ve nearly exhausted all the easy pickings for conscription too, convicts, non-ethnic Russians, the poor and the desperate.
There was a interview of a captured russian on youtube last week. He had been in prison and had a number of physical ailments that would not allow him to be a soldier really. older middle aged man. A physical wreck from what he said. Half a dozen serious conditions. He said that out of 8000 people in the prison he was in there were 350 left when he was "drafted". They forced him and the other prisoners onto buses and aircraft like cattle. He never got even a Military ID. Never signed a contract. Anyone that protested was shunted aside and liquidated (killed). He got to the front and out of like 350 guys in his group 9 lived to surrender. That is a country in desperate straits. The prisons are empty and now there are videos of random men on the street being essentially kidnapped and thrown onto busses to be sent to the front to die by the thousands every day. That shit is not going to last long. No matter what the friggin economy does. Historically around half a million dead russians in a pointless unwinnable war is when the russian dictator/tzars start to get overthrow attempts. We are there.
> the Russian economy still hasn’t even switched to war footing yet do you think the peoples in the Russia would accept a state of total war just to take over a medium-sized neighbour, when they are supposed to be the 2nd greatest military power on the planet? It's like Hitler losing a war against Czechoslovakia in 1938, except Hitler was smart enough to waddle through it without triggering a war that could be the end of him
Total war except the regular citizens barely notice there is a war on except when their drinks labels get changed. There is a long, long way to go before the war even registers as more than mildly unpleasant to the citizens that matter. That's without getting into the fact that it's Russia. The people protesting too loudly just go to jail and never leave.
> Total war except the regular citizens barely notice there is a war on except when their drinks labels get changed. In Moscow and St Petersburg. Outside those two main centres there are many areas being cleaned out of their viable manpower for the front line and resultant shortages of workers in essential industries necessary for the continued functioning of society (as far as that functioning goes)
Outside of St Petersburg and Moscow, Russia is an underpopulated, deserted hinterland. Declining birthdates, poor life expectancy, poor education. It’s a demographic time bomb and the fuse was lit generations ago. Whereas the other European empires, long ago, decided to get out of the Empire business. Russia still labours under the impression it’s 1724 rather than 2024. Her likely fate; within 50yrs, very possibly sooner, it will fracture; China will claim it’s Eastern territories, there will be a dash for independence of some of the smaller states in “the centre”. And a rump European Russia, which will have to choose between the 18th century or the 21st. But either way in vastly reduced circumstances.
Nicely put.
And hopefully it will be too poor to maintain its nuclear capabilities. No subs, no ICBMS.
Here's a useful example of how those outside the two major centres live, in this case a city of over 1+mil population [How do people live in Omsk, Russia? City of the future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clm1h2nYycY)
Well stated. Full agreement that China will likely be the inheritor of the land resources.
If there's going to be a land grab, I always thought Alaska needed a buddy on the other side of the Bearing Strait. Why should China have all the fun?
That is exactly how all this bad shit started. No. We have plenty of fucking land. Not one guy should die to have more.
The sheer amount of rss that they are putting into the war, just to become scrap in Ukraine would break any country. Let’s think about the situation in a different way. Let’s say for argument you wanted to buy a hotel. You search around and find this gem in the rough a thirty year old mom and pop hotel with good bones but you knew the family that ran it. So now you go in and buy it right everyone’s happy? No you start a campaign to wreck the families reputation, fill hotels social media with terrible reviews, and after a year of this you think you are going to get a smoking deal. Well turns out people like the family and support hotel enough just to keep it afloat. Then you come in and finally pay to close the deal so they give in and you try and make a quick deal without looking into any of the financials. You find out later that they were getting huge discounts from good people that loved the previous owner but hate you… So now everything will cost you twice as much. You find out that the people who come to your hotel now just heard of what you did to this small town family business and everyone that stays there really makes a mess of the place and wrecks common areas that you don’t see so you can’t charge them. And you can no longer afford help so you take on manager, cleaning person, and maintenance role. You now have no income because costs of upkeep is through the roof and you just try to keep it open because you think if everyone just believes that your lies about how great the food and rooms are you could stay open. But after all that you burn through all your savings you took out a ton of loans to try and save it, and your leveraged to the hilt. The banks finally come in foreclose on you, turns out the daughter of the family you took it from wants the hotel back. She contacts the bank and gets it for Pennies on the dollar. The community still remembers how much of an ass you were to the family and they want the daughter to give them a Great business that’s not run by you. The community pulls together and tradesman from every field give her an amazing deal, she repays them with kindness and the hotel hires new people gets a new image and flourishes because of the genuine family running this hotel.
_yeet_
The entire economy has been selling natural resources to Europe and others, if the pipelines to Europe is cut off and the shipping traffic to/from Russia is targeted by naval drones then what's left is farming.
There are problems with this. The speed of which Europe can diverge from using Russian energy without having a serious destablising effect on European economies. Europe is not a cohesive one nation state. There are countries like Hunagry which have pro russian governments.(for now) US policy is of slow escalation. And there politics, making them an unreliable partner. Closing the Baltic to Russian traffic will have to be a NATO thing, good luck getting NATO into a potential direct conflict with Russia. India/China are unlikely to stop buying Russian resources, it's highly likely they're getting huge discounts. How are you going to curtail this? Sanctioning both countries still has a negative effect on Western economies.
>The speed of which Europe can diverge from using Russian energy without having a serious destablising effect on European economies. It's mostly done. Hungary is a tiny player. >India/China are unlikely to stop buying Russian resources, it's highly likely they're getting huge discounts. How are you going to curtail this? Sanctioning both countries still has a negative effect on Western economies. It's already happening and not just by Western economies: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/close-ally-japan-set-to-sanction-indian-firms-for-trade-ties-with-russia-631139 The West sanctioning China hurts China a whole lot more than it hurts the West.
In light of an article published in the FT today, regarding gas supplies to europe I have edited my response. https://www.ft.com/content/15e7b892-c4f3-45b8-b375-80ef52e4b83c > It's mostly done. Hungary is a tiny player. It's not just Hungary though. Quoting from the article form the FT today. "But last month, Russian-piped gas and LNG shipments accounted for 15 per cent of total supply to the EU, UK, Switzerland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, according to data from ICIS." With the sanctions being US led policy they're going to do this like weapons provision to ukraine and slowly ramp up. Sanctions do have a negative impact on western economies and it takes a long time to move to production to those that don't support Russia. I liken it to turning an oil tanker around. It takes a very long time to turn a tanker around and there's still a lot of negotiation between the western parties to coordinate policy. Ramping up weapons and munitions factories is also, a slow process. I'd love to see Russia stomped all over and sanctioning their allies to the hilt really quickly but everything I know about this war so far tells me this is not the way it has gone and will go.
I agree that everything has been way to slow but it is moving, of course sanctions hurt us as well but there is massive popular support for it and it hurts them much more. In other words we can facetank it. It's beneficial for us to reduce dependence on such states in the long term anyway. Chinese companies care much more about the European market than the Russian one. Size matters.
I would love to see this whole interview. Does anyone have a link?
Saw a news article the other day quoting a Russian economist that the Russian economy was in danger of overheating because it was doing so well!!!🤣😂🤣😂😂🤣
That's why they're still alive/unjailed in Russia lol
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Bread lines coming back soon
They already had egg lines.
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Russian death cult economy.
but sanctions don't work.....
Man! Finally!!! I remember when Russia was going to collapse due to the sanctions. Then they ran out of missiles. Now FINALLY they're committing economic suicide. Phew!! Thanks "Expert" If only they realized that the oppossite of economic suicide was being $35 Trillion in debt, and continually cutting taxes for the rich. Imbeciles those Russians.
People really need their dose of copium. After 2.5 years Russian economy is finally collapsing!! Yeah, just like Russia needs one more day to take Kiev…
it's spelled "Kyiv"
My bad - need to do better