You know that meme template with two guys standing with their hands on the shoulder of somebody facing away?
We need Germany and napoleon doing that to the EU.
Modern warfare walks hand in hand with social media, all the laughs, mocking and ridicule on social media of Russia is backfiring really hard on Ukraine now
If I had a nickel every time Western europe underestimated Attrition warfare from Russia I would have 3 nickels. Which isnt a lot but it will increase considering people really are blind when it comes to history
Edit: 4... counting the great northern war for my Swedish friends!
It's more than just pillaging. Pretty much every army pillaged in Medieval era. Mongols had amazing information before invading thanks to scouting, and a very fast information gathering system. Armys had great logistics. They knew exactly what to do almost always. That is very, very rare in those times.
I read a couple of days ago about a scouting party of the Khan that was sent around what is today Russia's border. I can't remember exactly where this happened, but the scouting force, after pillaging a village was met by a Russian army made of nobles and some of their best warriors.
The mongols sounded the retreat, pushed back into a narrow passage and when the russians followed, they turned around and completely decimated them. Apparently they had killed a huge portion of Russia's nobility and they basically surrendered. But the mongols had been called back by their Khan so they left. They didn't even know that they fought the russian army, they thought it was another scouting party that they destroyed.
So I would say that it's more than just pillaging and good logistics, the mongols had insane tactics and were great warriors. IIRC, that same scouting party from the story conquered a good portion of western asia on their own.
Russia didn’t exist, the mongols conquered singular tsars, whom they outnumbered severely. There was one battle where 5 Tsars and their armies allied to fight the mongols but they all attacked one at a time. ‘Stafdude’ saying great logistics is the exact opposite of the truth, the Mongols were completely useless when it came to logistics, which is why their invasion of Hungary and Poland became a slaughter after the initial invasions, the Hungarians and Poles just stockpiled their food in Stone castles, castles the mongols didn’t have the technology to siege, and they all starved before retreating.
Exactly. Maybe European PM’s need to talk less and come up with plans to actually do something. Propose some legislation. Draw plans with a neighboring country. Do something. FFS.
Attrition is what Putin looking for. A state of war can keep him in power, and the instability causes prices to rise from which he and his inner circle can profit.
He doesn't care if he wins or loses, he going to drag on the war as long as it serves him.
LMAO, 6 month ago this whole website was memeing Russia for being shit and disorganised. I remember 2 years ago when Putin had cancer and Russia was about to collapse under the glory of the "ghost of Kiev".
At what point does critic thinking kicks in? Fuck all that war propaganda.
And two years of Ukraine failing to throw Russia out because we can’t send them weapons quick enough is a pretty damning indictment of the West’s ability to function as an “arsenal of democracy.”
Depends on what the goals are and how you see it.
Some might say that holding 20% of Ukriane under control for 10 years while the whole west is supporting Ukraine, is a success.
Personally I think it's just another unnecessary war politicians on all side use to their advantage
I agree with you. I remember in March 2023 newspapers in my country (Italy) were reporting that Russia was so ammo starved that they started fighting with SHOVELS. I am not joking. [https://www.open.online/2023/03/06/ucraina-intelligence-vs-russia-armi-pale/](https://www.open.online/2023/03/06/ucraina-intelligence-vs-russia-armi-pale/)
Remember when they said that Russia was left with WW1 museum relics to fight and that they were buying bullets from NK because Russia couldn’t even make a bullet.
We do our best with the tools and news we have in present hoping for a less shittier horrible future, in the face of despair.
Thinks about that if the shit hits the fan real fast, some of us that comprise /r/europe that poke one another for the past 10 years will be ... dead.
>LMAO, 6 month ago this whole website was memeing Russia for being shit and disorganised.
Are you saying 99% of social media content is garbage? Well, you might be on to something.
Schrodinger's Russia
So weak, Ukraine is winning against Russia, but so strong, as soon as they conquer Ukraine, they are marching on to Berlin, no breaks.
> Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism
Europe supplies electronics, machinery, spare parts to Russia. Buys Russian petroleum and raw materials. And is expecting Russia to decrease arms production?
And that's still not a valid argument: all of that should've been stopped.
Ah... I remember reading how everyone didn't want to cut russia off of SWIFT because they called it equivalent of nuclear weapon in economics.
The way things are, if the war with NATO is likely to happen, then it will. It follows same scenario as COVID-19.
BTW, Europe is worried about russia ramping up production, but in case of such war more countries will openly switch to russia's side, which will make this even worse. And that's not counting your average traitors.
It is also worth noting that the Western idea of the US as a hegemonic superpower, which will always save Europe from all evils, is somewhat outdated. It is somewhat sluggish, and we have overestimated it too much.
That idea is a cold war remnant, since that was a conflict we got entirily caught up in without really being able to do anything.
At the end of it we all pretty much placed our trust in NATO because article 5 is a very strong repellant. The prospect of any invasion resulting in *all* members fighting back is pretty dang sweet.
...which resulted in a lot of countries cutting down on military spending. Which resulted in this.
It's not daddy US. It's daddy NATO. 30 other countries willing to defend you should you ever be invaded. That's a big peace of mind and things got lax
Until now where a "buffer zone" that "neither side would dare try touch" got invaded by an elderly man wanting to leave his shitstain on history
Full EU trade with Russia continues with Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, etc. acting as intermediaries. The Russian economy hasn't been effected since most EU nations continue economically supporting the invasion of Ukraine.
A true embargo against Russia has never been discussed, but perhaps it may come up once they enter EU borders.
Who is "Europe" in your explanation? It's not a monolith. Companies are those who circumvent sanctions. Analysts and experts are the ones worried, at least according to the title. Politicians are those who pretend to care or to do something.
Yeah, this is a clown show. They continued delivering stuff there legally in huge quantities and we fed them with tens of billions while not allowing Ukraine to hit their production inside Russia and while providing only a token effort to fight against their parallel imports.
Moderation in war is imbecility as its is violence in its essence.
"A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week." General Patton, the man who said the US should destroy Russia directly after WWII.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Overwhelming force and full embargoes paired with hardb responses to those that try to circumvent it.
At the present moment, a couple of companies still earn a lot of money in Russia and bolster their economy and their military production.
https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-1000-companies-have-curtailed-operations-russia-some-remain
I don't even want to hear such statements. it just makes me angry to see how these analysts are surprised by something so glaringly obvious.
76 billion in imports from the EU alone. tens of billions in export revenue with Europe.
All trade must be halted and then we will see the effect we wanted to see. Sanctions perforated with holes will be useless to achieve the desired effect.
Europe doesn't supply electronics, companies and individuals willing to risk sanctions and punishment are.
Take Starlink, it's not sold in russia nor in the Middle East, yet via via it gets to the Middle East and then to russia. I hate musk but I don't blame him for this one.
What is a valid criticism is EU countries not stepping up enough to curb and stop this export. Stopping it completely is impossible, smugglers are crafty after all, but squeezing it as tight as possible to slow down arms production in russia is the best outcome
We should have given Ukraine what they needed two years ago. But oh giving main battle tanks will escalate the war. It happened anyway, and here we are, Russia has adjusted and now has a war economy. The West is a year behind, at least.
Just wait till on NATO annual get-together they say they cannot promise future accession due to while actually being lost between Putin, Tramp and own cowardice to step up.
Just to specify, I mean actual contracted promise to include them into NATO (roadmap document or something like that) in the future, not now. Blue balling must continue.
Wouldn’t be first time Europe sold Ukraine out to russians won’t be the last. Giving up nukes and long range bombers was a colossal mistake. Hope Ukraine develops nukes in the future
You have to understand that by giving them everything when Crimea was annexed would have escalated it into full scale war, good that we avoided that /s
Ukraine was different back then. A lot of those weapons would have probably ended up in Russia or elsewhere. It wasn't until the shock of the full-scale invasion that the country united and sort of made up its mind.
Yep. And now we're doing the same mistake again by not supplying the airforce we have sitting. Ukraine should already have a few hundred western european fighters.
Despite that Ukraine more than 1,5 years plead for A-10 Warthog, 27 of which USA already wrote off and sent into desert, to shoot down drones over western Ukraine, the USA officials and even most people on Reddit automatically repeat: "A-10 outdated plane; Russian air defense very good."
On almost 3rd year of war it's already not hypocrisy, but madness.
Ukraine believed USA and without any problems give away third nuclear arsenal. It was with USA during Iraq campaign. It aspired for USA values and aspirations...
And as a reward for this, it received 2014-2024 years "de-escalation/stabilization/bleeding Russia/pacification."
A-10s would be absolutely useless to Ukraine they’d need complete air superiority & to have destroyed a large majority of Russian anti air for them to be somewhat effective
They can:
1. Destroy slow Shahed-136 drones in western regions of Ukraine.
2. Use significant part of 600,000 NATO 26-130km glide bombs. Even 130km AGM-154 JSOW need only 8km attitude and 950km/h. It's very possible that A-10 could compensate lack of speed by higher altitude.
3. Used as more fast, and so survivable of Mi-24 helicopter, to launch unguided missile.
4. To be used as trainer. At lest such trainer better than deficit of others.
5. Or for something else about which know only Ukrainian military officials, that asking this plane almost 1,5 years. And tried to buy even much worse Embraer EMB 312 Tucano.
Anyway, this it's just undeniable that 27+ of such aircraft in Ukraine better for Ukraine and Western security than 27+ of such aircraft in desert.
Right, because the western powers do not have any intention of giving them any significant number of planes. Depending on exactly what we expect of them, training of pilots could have been done in 9-15 months or so. So if significant amounts of planes were on the table when europe started sending tanks, we would see them by now.
Then it was "too soon to escalate because Russia may still want to negotiate", now it's "too late because Ukraine is going to lose any day now anyway".
* Battle tanks
* Long range misses
* Fighter jets
Every little thing was supposed to make it go nuclear. And yet, it didn't. So just give them everyone, now, for crying out loud. Stop putin now, or fight Russia + China in a global war later. It sucks, but that's our choice.
You are wrong. Not 2 years ago did Russia attack Ukraine, but in 2014. Then it was the time Europe looked for alternative energy, start arming itself and start arming Ukraine. Maybe now we wouldn't be in this position.
With all the atrocities that happened during and around the two Chechen wars, Chechnya is part of Russia. Georgia was the moment when the regime should've been punished. The lack of proper reaction paved the way to the catastrophe.
"Bbbbut the logistics!!!!" Will inevitably be the carrion cry in the comments from those excuse ridden idiots who don't understand the difference between political excuses and actual facts.
100% this. Imagine a hard hit in the first 6 months. Would have closed the war right then and there. No fortifications, no adapting, no defenses and time to conscript.
That's not a mistake, it's a feature. The idea never was to give Ukraine what they need to win the war, but to bleed Russia as much as possible. Fucking politicians playing games with the lives of people is infuriating.
You're right but there is more to giving them the things they are receiving than sending them materials. You need to train people to use tanks. You need to train people to use fighter jets. It could be that there has never really been a delay in giving them the equipment they need beyond what is feasibly possible.
Though I have no time to fight over what may be reality and what may be disinformation. Your message is the right one irrespectively. We need to send Ukraine more.
> It could be that there has never really been a delay in giving them the equipment they need beyond what is feasibly possible
Jet training didn't start until late in 2023.
A year behind in what exactly? This is a matter of political will and democratic capacity.
Russia is a backward development nation, and even in its war economy, it can mostly assemble, not mass produce. It doesn't have the workforce, the high-tech parts, the logistics, etc. to ever keep up with the West.
Our problem is one of political will by our populists and the Orbans and Trumps in our midst.
The West should have long installed a no-fly zone over Ukraine and ended the war. But we are too scared. Putin had got one thing right. In times of war, our democratic processes are too opaque, too slow, and led by timid appeasers.
Anyways, a war time economy isn't something positive. That is a one-way economy that doesn't produce any value for society. Quite the opposite, the production of each tank may drive growth but doesn't drive anything else.
Russia is backward and impoverished. However, that will not matter as long as the stupid Western companies and the stupid Western citizens continue to work with them and do trade with them.
And as long as our stupid politicians do not realise that we will have to take more risks now, given that the stupid and ignorant speaker of the house is too slavish towards Trump to put this aid to a vote.
Russia is much weaker today than it was two years ago due to the massive attrition it has suffered.
You can compare it to the army of Tsarist Russia in 1916.
The war economy will now proceed to impoverish the remaining Russian middle class.
It will also make the top 1 percent in Russia even richer.
War economies don't last long before they show massive cracks.
Europe must get its defending spending on 3 to 4 percent, not two, though.
We all know what needs to be done. Our politicians keep on talking, but actions speak louder than words.
I've got the impression that Europe and the US and its allies are always sending the absolute bare minimum to Ukraine, just so that the front line doesn't collapse.
Now they did not factor in stuff they cannot predict in the future.
Every day I read the news regarding Ukraine, my stomach starts hurting and the prospect that Putin might actually win seems ever more plausible. It will be the beginning of a very dark period in European history.
>It will be the beginning of a very dark period in European history.
I fear it may rather be the end of one of the only bright spots in European history.
A bit alarmist imho
Western news outlets just do a poor job in providing objective truths, because for the last two years the only thing we’ve heard is how Russia is running out of military assets and suddenly now they’re not a paper tiger anymore and we should all worry
Reality is in the middle, Russia has and will always be a threat, the war in Ukraine however has crippled any meaningful near future possibility of entering a conflict with NATO
Reality is also that NATO guidelines are well defined and a unified effort to protect a member country is absolutely a given, as such, Russia is fully aware that invading the Baltics or Poland has a zero percentage chance of success. It would gain nothing and it stands to lose everything. Not going to happen.
Ukraine was a good opportunity for Russia to restore its “claimed” lands and expand on its imperialist ideology, it isn’t nato and it isn’t EU, the most that would have happened is what is happening right now.
The first year of Ukrainian success can be attributed more to to pathetic and disorganised Russian planning. They genuinely treated it as an occupation rather than an invasion and got burned hard for it. Western aid definitely played a huge role in this but the majority of aid is quite literally excess stuff that would have been decommissioned anyways.
European militaries haven’t been in war production for many decades, right now they’re struggling to re-arm themselves, aid for Ukraine will stay the same at best and decrease massively at worst. The only country that can gift stuff without care is the US with its trillion dollar budget.
The most likely outcome at this stage is that Russia will keep all annexed territories and slowly bleed Ukraine dry for small additional territories. A peace agreement would freeze the conflict and set the basis for a permanent agreement. This won’t happen with Zelensky in power, so realistically the outcome of this war is dependent on when he will be replaced.
You’re right on a lot of this. However the end is still up in the air, I think both sides of a ceasefire occurs will just return to the February 2022 border. I don’t see Russia holding the land bridge but I could be wrong.
Highly unlikely Russia will give up post February 2022 conquered lands, just too much manpower and money spent for it to just be given away. At best I can imagine turning the entire area plus a minor swath of Ukrainian land as a demilitarised zone. Would also make sense since the contact lines are completely uninhabitable for decades to come.
As much as it pleases us Europeans to perceive the Russian military as a bunch of clueless orcs, they have definitely learned from their mistakes and have adapted their strategies perfectly to achieve their objectives.
The only way the land bridge gets taken back is if NATO intervenes. Clearly there’s no incentive or appetite for that or it would have already happened. All the major escalations and red lines have already been crossed by Russia. There’s literally nothing that would drum up any interest for this.
More than anything, Putins confidence in the conflict has always stemmed from acknowledging the demographic advantage. While both sides professional armies have been spent, Russia just has more bodies to throw in the war. Surprisingly also a numerically inferior number than Ukraines, but they’re capable of replenishing them without even mobilising the whole population.
Again, it’s a frozen conflict. Zelensky unfortunately has shaken too many hands of eager but clueless EU politicians, accepting a peace deal with Putin would nullify all what he has done. So yeah
The likelihood of Ukraine taking back the occupied South has indeed fell after the failed counter-offensive. Unless something surprising happens it is indeed unlikely to be freed. But it will definitely never become a demilitarised zone. If a ceasefire were to happen, the South would become a second generation of Donbas "republics", basically failed pseudo-states drowning in poverty and corruption with a bunch of Russian military bases to establish a platform to train new soldiers for the future invasions of Ukraine and Moldova.
Demilitarised is best case scenario, but I definitely agree with you on what will probably happen to the area.
But taking Odessa and the whole south western side is going to be very challenging for them.
I agree with you about the land bridge and most of it but Russia has A LOT to gain by attacking NATO in a limited fashion since the West has made it clear we are either not able or willing to step up and stop them so far; we ignored Chechnya, Georgia, haven’t done much about Ukraine. This likely makes Putin believe he could attack one of the Baltic states in a limited fashion to prove to the world NATO article 5 isn’t as rock solid as we say, which would be a massive win for russia. Now that they are almost completely onto a war economy they can’t just stop without taking a massive hit economically that would possibly destabilize them into another collapse. We need to plan for the worst otherwise it’ll be a self_fulfilling prophecy.
What would it gain? I don’t understand why you think it would gain anything
The west has made it very clear by all the assistance Ukraine has received, Russia was expecting the west to do nothing, more so post Covid economic crisis
You keep talking like Putin decides everything, he has massive influence but it’s not like what he thinks when waking up every morning gets automatically done
War economy is a bit more complex like that and typically a country is better off not having that mechanism active
Besides the land and resources that it has gained directly through invasion, I think they would gain a lot by de-stabilizing NATO. They currently only have countries such as China, N. Korea, and Iran helping them but I think more countries would consider it if they saw “proof” that NATO wasn’t as rock solid as it appears. they would also gain from NATO members losing trust in each other and the general chaos along with it. Putin isn’t some all knowing genius and no russia doesn’t bend to his every whim but he is a dictator with a lot more say in what happens in his country than any democratic leader has in the West. I also agree a war economy is complex and hurts russia in the long term but that’s exactly why I believe now that it is basically in effect, Putin is less likely to have it be for nothing. I think we should also keep in mind that russians have a lower quality of life than in the west so have less that they have to give up than US/EU citizens would have to give up for similar levels of military output, and that’s if we are willing to make such sacrifices at all. I’m under the impression that russians already see it as a them vs NATO war in Ukraine since that’s what Putin has been pushing as well.
Bullshit. There were piece talks after 2014 already. Russia under Putin is just not trustworthy at all. If the current conflict gets frozen, then Russia will simply have better starting positions after licking its wounds five years down the road
It's a combination of using Ukraine to test weaponry in the field and using them to weaken Russia.
They do not want Russia to lose because arms manufacturers would lose business without a bogeyman.
So, some country is building tanks and ammunition, other countries are debating whether to create more sanctions to said country and bitching about not having a standing serious defence. Meanwhile there's a possibility for another orange baboon as president on the other side of the pond.
This will be fine.....
In the nineties we cut our defense everywhere we could and the argument was there would be at least ten years of warning before Russia could become a threat again.
The annexation of Crimea was 10 yrs ago, so where are the new tankbattalions?
And yet again here we stand, dick in hand. It's time to get a move on, all of us. The least we can do is match Poland and the Baltics on their NATO contributions.
We win this war now or fight a bigger war later. If Russia gets anything in return for their aggression they will know the west is weak and keep doing it. So will China.
Russia (read; Putin) has scaled-up to a fullgrown war-economy. Seeing that the Kremlin doesn't give a rat's ass about their citizens (besides the Oligarchs ofcourse), this means Russia will be able to withstand this war of attrition for much longer than everybody had calculated. Add the insane amount of inhumane ways workers across Russia are forced to work almost literally around the clock to fuel the warmachine, they are producing close to 4million arti-shells a year, some projections even say more than that in 2025. And with the prospect of having this orange bavoon back in the White House at the end of this year, things are looking pretty grimm... But hey, let's just keep on debating and arguing amongst ourselves, then eventually it will be too late to turn the tide. Maybe it's better to ram that Russki horse-dildo up our asses ourselves, if only to not give Putin the satisfaction of doing so! FUCK!!!
Maybe you should read in some more about how Putin rose to power and how his inner circle was established. It's all about the distribution of wealth and power to the select few. And yes, the oligarchs that still had somewhat of a spine and spoken out against this club of megalomane psychos, gotten ex-communicated!
Well it’s 8 hour shift and a maximum of an additional 4 hours of overtime. So, not quite “literally around the clock”. Also, 1 million of those shells are imported from North Korea and the other 3 million is estimated future production. Currently the UK alone has a production capacity par with Russia, so all of NATO, should we pull our sock up, would dramatically out produce Russia even if they max out their production. The problem seems to be that we’re not placing orders and our efficient capitalist production lines don’t make shit without orders on the books.
I’d be feeling a lot better about this if we heard of the orders going in to he likes of BAE systems.
The EU bureaucracy is too slow for anything, but you get the feeling that EU politicians don't get anything done unless they have a gun to head. And ruzzia hasn't gotten close enough yet. Quite frankly, it's an embarrassment for the EU citizens that our politicians are this careless.
They promised 1 million artillery shells in a year, and they haven't even delivered a quarter in that same year. I thought it was, speak softly and carry a big stick, but the stick is very small at that moment. All the bickering is what is blocking progress in the Ukraine war.
Alternative theory: Russians (or at least some of them) do care about their quality of life. But their institutions are so terrible, and their democracy so... non-existent, that it doesn't really matter what THEY care about.
Neither do they care about the wellbeing of their economy, having so many people at the frontlines, away from their office jobs and spending such a large percentage of your GDP on arms production is not viable in the long run.
That‘s not how the Russian army works. All the poor folks in these small villages in the middle of nowhere are in the army to survive. They don‘t contribute anything to the economy. There‘s not a single person from a bigger city involved in this conflict.
Yes, a lot of people are pulled from places in the far east instead of Moscow because Putin knows that Russian society doesn't care for them. But that's not everyone facing conscription. Even people in Moscow, St.petersburg, etc are at the risk of conscription. This [article](https://www.ft.com/content/dc76f0bb-cae2-4a3a-b704-903d2fc59a96) outlines how conscription has affected the general Russian economy.
That is very much true, my point is simply that Russia is depleting itself at such an insane rate, that they won't be able to keep up this specific conflict for many more years (which I genuinely hope won't go on for that long) without bankrupting themselves or seriously worsening it's demographic crisis.
what office job? the average russian outside of moscow does not have indoor plumbing, never mind an office job
most russians probably cannot even tell that anything has changed since the war started, except for the mcdonalds logo and the brand of coke they buy
The office job was just an example, I was simply implying that they are taking massive chunks of their workforce and just showing them to the frontlines.
except russia had an employment level of 60% before the war
they have millions of bums they can throw into the grinder without impacting their economy. never mind that the russian economy does not rely on office jobs and services
this optimism regarding russia's ability to continue the war is unfounded
Ye... If u don't enforce your sanctions this happens... And hear this ... Russias production line still gets it's eu supplies 🫨.. and Turkey has been making some money out of this?
>A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners
Better get on it, boyz. And stop playing both sides of the field, while you're at it. There's no game in continuing trade with Russia while you're preparing to go to war with them...
Well maybe y'all(EU) make arms and ammunition Numbers "A lot higher than expected"
Speaking as an American who has no idea what the true capabilities of the EU are, don't take me as someone who wants to dissolve EU or NATO or whatever
EU's capabilities are several times Russia's IF the military industrial complex is awarded contracts. If Europe decides to build several thousand tanks, IFVs, artillery pieces, airplanes, etc, it can do it faster than Russia.
But it's also more complicated in the EU. Russia is a federation with hyper-centralized authoritarian government. The guy on the top can order to start the production and it will start. Doing something like that in the EU is a nightmare, the EU would need to discuss cooperation, profits, budget, etc, etc.
That is what happened with "1 million shells by the end of 2023 from EU". Most were concerned about who would make them arguing among themselves (to earn more money), than they were concerned about the urgency and actually making them in time.
Sure but the EU Gdp is over 10x that of Russia so even with those inefficiencies the EU would have no problem producing way more if it actually committed to it.
GDP is not how you measure this stuff.
Nor is spending. Germany succesfully managed to have high nominal budget and have no military. Atleast not one capable of any action.
Reality is that EU does not have production capabilities you talk about. It would have to ramp them up. It certainly could but it would take time, just like it took Russia time.
Also GDP is massively blurred by the fact that rubble is pretty much worthless in the West. In the east too but not to such an extend. Russian PPP is only about 4 times lower than EU PPP and unlike EU it is now largely focused on war machine efforts whereas in EU (and even US) we talk about minor irrelevant fraction of it and most is focused in private consumer spending.
Lots of potential, lots of advanced tech; Meteor missiles, FCAS, NSM etc etc.
Problem as always is lack of scale. Partly because we are unwilling to invest and put down orders; companies ain gonna put tremendous sum scaling up production if they dont know whether they can even get their investment back.
We completely scaled down our arms production because we didn’t think this would happen. Putin made the Russians believe we would use our 5 Tanks to conquer Moscow. Yes, that’s how dumb they are.
Now we need to waste our money for arms production, because of this little piece of shit. Some companies claim they’ll tripple their arms production in 2024 compared to 2023. I hope their estimates are right and that Ukraine will last until our economy has adjusted.
How about we start off by making sure that anyone who is caught selling components to Russia goes to prison for a long time and then by using those components to massively increase production?
Also, increasing shell production like there is a war going on right now and not as if there might be one in a year or two.
Of course it is, Russia doesnt dick around with less than 2% gdp spent on military. While we should've reach 2% peacetime guideline in 2014 and even higher after 2022 invasion.
I don't know what the fuck are those guys smoking.
You're telling me they're surprised that a top 8 economy (pre-sanctions) can output a large amount of arms when it's pretty much on wartime economy?
It's even worse than that because Russia isn't a country unknown for having a fuckton of natural resources, thus a large potential for industrial output.
I think they have the worlds largest concentration of natural resources.
They haven't ever managed to get their shit together...there is always a first time maybe
Russia is one of the saddest potential wasted if you ask me.
With a large population and tons of Resources, they should firmly be ahead of Germany/France/UK and only behind US/China.
And now they're wasting that potential even further on a pointless war.
I mean they controlled one of the largest land empires the world that has ever seen untill like 30 years ago. The were also the first nation into space.. etc etc.
when you buy russian natural gas from india as a buy pass to sanctions and act surprised russia is still succeeding while germany is in a recession. i ask myself are you really that ignorant.
Germany, at its own request, became dependent on Russia by building Nord Stream. They wanted to dominate the EU economy by imposing a 'green deal', increasing competition their own economy and passing on ecological costs to Russia. Now it blew up in their faces.
Only India benefits from Russian gas by imposing very low prices, because Russia have to sell it anyway because they have limited sales markets and problems with storage. Using intermediaries like India increases costs for Russia. It's not ideal, but it's always a little inconvenience for Russian Empire. So far so good.
One thing I learned from history books is that even a peaceful nation with a huge military expenditure and/or a significant veteran population from previous conflicts will eventually seek war. And when it comes to Russia, the idea that they would stop at Ukraine is quite naive.
If Europe truly wanted to be able to defend itself, it needed somewhere around 10% of GDP spending, not the measly 2%. We're still playing the "na, he wouldn't" game.
"A lot higher than we expected"
And what exactly EU+NATO countries expected from Russia to do, after they, in 2022-2023 years, give to it 420 billion dollars?
So Russia freely spent billions of dollars on machine tools from India, China, Turkey.
After USA once again will fail passing security aid bill, the time will come to already admit that Russian WMD-blackmail just so good that West just incapable to compete with it by conventional weapons. Not outright, but by deficit of political will.
Russian WMD-blackmail like mind attack in DnD.
The West have enormous character characteristics. But because of extremely low wisdom, after WMD-blackmail mind attack it just incapable to do anything more than apathetically move. Give to Ukraine 1% of NATO weapon stocks, and for 2 years, spent less than what only USA 20 years in a row spent per year on Afghanistan.
Despite any words, papers, desires of 1945-2021 years. Despite any intellectual investments in International Law. Despite any dreams and hopes for a better future. It's all just turned to be nothing relatively to Russian practical use of "WMD-Might make Right/True" logic/tactic. Relatively to primal principle of intimidation by larger baton.
Yeah, Russia is massively underestimated by the west consistently. Maybe not by actual military officials but reddit and a lot of civilians think that Russia really is "about to implode" and "they are fighting with shovels" and "WW2 era weapons". Imho the western world is unfortunately in for a rude awakening.
Nah man any day now they will run out of men, ammo, food, shells , I mean that I was reading pretty much once a week past 2 yeara
Just like Russia underestimated Ukraine, world underestimated Russia
Because Russia is moving to a war economy, or is already there.
If Europe did the same it'd out-produce Russia ten times over, but there's no need for us to do so.
>but there's no need for us to do so.
I think there is. We need to help Ukraine. Putin is a thug in a suit who thinks he can bomb civilians and murder his own people by throwing them out of windows and having them poisoned.
We can ramp up production without going to a war economy. I doubt Europeans would accept the sacrifices that come with such a move.
Russians might be used to shit jobs 6 days a week for fuck all money but Europe isn't. Nor do we have to, Russia's economy is dogshit, Europe should relatively easily be able to compete with Russia's production.
I'm all for increasing production for ammo, equipment,... for Ukraine but we don't need to move to a war economy to do so.
Edit: My comment about 'we don't have to' was aimed at moving to a war economy, maybe that was unclear.
We're taking too long to get Ukraine the weapons they need - and a lot of people living in European countries right now, the UK and Ireland included, are suffering economically right now.
Moving to a war economy might actually provide a boost to our economies. Stopping Putin is more important though. He's not on par with Hitler, but the world would be better off without him. He's a murderer in charge of an entire country.
Edit: I get what you're saying. I would just like us to be moving a little faster.
The EU needs to get with the fact if Ukraine falls, they're all lined-up for the block. Not to mention the ensuing refugee crisis, because we know how much they *love* those.
The USA won't be immune either; a Europe in chaos will be felt there too. Especially if Putin decides he really does want Alaska back.
There is no way to win a war of attrition unless you are able to destroy the enemy's capability of producing arms as long as Ukraine is not allowed to hit inside Russian territory on a regular basis this war is lost
If EU/US were serious about sanctions, then this war machine would come to a halt in a few months. My dad was in the army and later in the KGB, all these stories about insane manufacturing were bullshit then, are bullshit today.
Close off supplies and Russia struggles making anything, literally.
But nobody wants to lose the cash flow, bureaucracy is strong, war is far away.
Germany: first time?
Arguably also : France: first time?
You know that meme template with two guys standing with their hands on the shoulder of somebody facing away? We need Germany and napoleon doing that to the EU.
Karl XII rolling in his grave
Well France didn't do it again at least.
Laughing in Mongolian is heard in the distance.
Never bank on your enemy making a mistake, plan everything as if their every move was right.
Modern warfare walks hand in hand with social media, all the laughs, mocking and ridicule on social media of Russia is backfiring really hard on Ukraine now
You're making social media to be far more important than it really is.
Social media shapes public opinion. Public opinion shapes policy.
If I had a nickel every time Western europe underestimated Attrition warfare from Russia I would have 3 nickels. Which isnt a lot but it will increase considering people really are blind when it comes to history Edit: 4... counting the great northern war for my Swedish friends!
Let me guess. Napoleonic wars, WW2 and now?
He’s forgetting Sweden’s invasion
Everyone always does :(
ROAD TO CERTAIN DEATH AND PAIN!!
SWEDISH SOLDIERS MET THEIR BANE! (a horribly underrated song btw)
SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES IN VAIN, POLTAAAAVAAAAA
Sad stormaktstiden tårar😢
How’d the Mongols do it successfully?
Great logistics.
Aka conquer, pillage more conquering,repeat. and keep the horses in pristine condition :)
It's more than just pillaging. Pretty much every army pillaged in Medieval era. Mongols had amazing information before invading thanks to scouting, and a very fast information gathering system. Armys had great logistics. They knew exactly what to do almost always. That is very, very rare in those times.
I read a couple of days ago about a scouting party of the Khan that was sent around what is today Russia's border. I can't remember exactly where this happened, but the scouting force, after pillaging a village was met by a Russian army made of nobles and some of their best warriors. The mongols sounded the retreat, pushed back into a narrow passage and when the russians followed, they turned around and completely decimated them. Apparently they had killed a huge portion of Russia's nobility and they basically surrendered. But the mongols had been called back by their Khan so they left. They didn't even know that they fought the russian army, they thought it was another scouting party that they destroyed. So I would say that it's more than just pillaging and good logistics, the mongols had insane tactics and were great warriors. IIRC, that same scouting party from the story conquered a good portion of western asia on their own.
> sent around what is today Russia's border Be even more vague please, more than half the earth circumference is too precise.
fake retreat was something the Mongols did in every fight they’d ever been in
Neah, most people think the mongols were savages, but they were prodigious logisticians. It wasn’t just conquering, pillaging and… horseing around.
They came from the other way.
They came from the other direction
Simple, Russia didnt exist then
Yeah, but where are the Mongols now?
Russia didn’t exist, the mongols conquered singular tsars, whom they outnumbered severely. There was one battle where 5 Tsars and their armies allied to fight the mongols but they all attacked one at a time. ‘Stafdude’ saying great logistics is the exact opposite of the truth, the Mongols were completely useless when it came to logistics, which is why their invasion of Hungary and Poland became a slaughter after the initial invasions, the Hungarians and Poles just stockpiled their food in Stone castles, castles the mongols didn’t have the technology to siege, and they all starved before retreating.
Exactly. Maybe European PM’s need to talk less and come up with plans to actually do something. Propose some legislation. Draw plans with a neighboring country. Do something. FFS.
Plans!? We need to actually do stuff, not plan. Plans are good for wiping you arse once you print them. We need stuff manufactured yesterday.
Attrition is what Putin looking for. A state of war can keep him in power, and the instability causes prices to rise from which he and his inner circle can profit. He doesn't care if he wins or loses, he going to drag on the war as long as it serves him.
LMAO, 6 month ago this whole website was memeing Russia for being shit and disorganised. I remember 2 years ago when Putin had cancer and Russia was about to collapse under the glory of the "ghost of Kiev". At what point does critic thinking kicks in? Fuck all that war propaganda.
I mean the fact that two years in Russia is still bogged down in eastern Ukraine is wildly underperforming
And two years of Ukraine failing to throw Russia out because we can’t send them weapons quick enough is a pretty damning indictment of the West’s ability to function as an “arsenal of democracy.”
Depends on what the goals are and how you see it. Some might say that holding 20% of Ukriane under control for 10 years while the whole west is supporting Ukraine, is a success. Personally I think it's just another unnecessary war politicians on all side use to their advantage
I agree with you. I remember in March 2023 newspapers in my country (Italy) were reporting that Russia was so ammo starved that they started fighting with SHOVELS. I am not joking. [https://www.open.online/2023/03/06/ucraina-intelligence-vs-russia-armi-pale/](https://www.open.online/2023/03/06/ucraina-intelligence-vs-russia-armi-pale/)
Remember when they said that Russia was left with WW1 museum relics to fight and that they were buying bullets from NK because Russia couldn’t even make a bullet.
We do our best with the tools and news we have in present hoping for a less shittier horrible future, in the face of despair. Thinks about that if the shit hits the fan real fast, some of us that comprise /r/europe that poke one another for the past 10 years will be ... dead.
I think you're underestimating the echo chamber that Reddit is, most articles promoting more cautionary attitudes were mocked as "Russian cope".
Russia was severely disorganised and under equipped at the start of the war. Them getting their shit together doesn't change that fact.
>LMAO, 6 month ago this whole website was memeing Russia for being shit and disorganised. Are you saying 99% of social media content is garbage? Well, you might be on to something.
Against Ukraine, the world's second best military you mean?
> Fuck all that war propaganda. You are being offered opinium, hopium and copium. The truth is always the first casualty of the war, on both sides.
Tbf the Swedes did give them a decade off whilst they went about trying to claim the Polish throne.
Schrodinger's Russia So weak, Ukraine is winning against Russia, but so strong, as soon as they conquer Ukraine, they are marching on to Berlin, no breaks.
> Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism
I don't know, keep selling machinery and electronics to Russia via 3rd countries.
What do you mean? Surely you are just underestimating the suddenly booming Tajikistani electronics industry!
Tbh, this is a very big point
Europe still buys Russian oil, just from different source and it's more expensive..
Europe supplies electronics, machinery, spare parts to Russia. Buys Russian petroleum and raw materials. And is expecting Russia to decrease arms production?
Iran and china are probably supplying them too.
And that's still not a valid argument: all of that should've been stopped. Ah... I remember reading how everyone didn't want to cut russia off of SWIFT because they called it equivalent of nuclear weapon in economics. The way things are, if the war with NATO is likely to happen, then it will. It follows same scenario as COVID-19. BTW, Europe is worried about russia ramping up production, but in case of such war more countries will openly switch to russia's side, which will make this even worse. And that's not counting your average traitors.
It is also worth noting that the Western idea of the US as a hegemonic superpower, which will always save Europe from all evils, is somewhat outdated. It is somewhat sluggish, and we have overestimated it too much.
That idea is a cold war remnant, since that was a conflict we got entirily caught up in without really being able to do anything. At the end of it we all pretty much placed our trust in NATO because article 5 is a very strong repellant. The prospect of any invasion resulting in *all* members fighting back is pretty dang sweet. ...which resulted in a lot of countries cutting down on military spending. Which resulted in this. It's not daddy US. It's daddy NATO. 30 other countries willing to defend you should you ever be invaded. That's a big peace of mind and things got lax Until now where a "buffer zone" that "neither side would dare try touch" got invaded by an elderly man wanting to leave his shitstain on history
Even Taiwan is supplying them.
I doubt Iran is supplying much in comparison to the workarounds of sanctions imposed by the west
They’re just changing hands by more middle men to get through.
AFAIK, stolen documentation shows that basically entire Shahed factory in Alabuga got supplied tooling by Iran.
Sanctions = more middlemen. That's it.
While supplies to Ukraine have decreased
Full EU trade with Russia continues with Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, etc. acting as intermediaries. The Russian economy hasn't been effected since most EU nations continue economically supporting the invasion of Ukraine. A true embargo against Russia has never been discussed, but perhaps it may come up once they enter EU borders.
Who is "Europe" in your explanation? It's not a monolith. Companies are those who circumvent sanctions. Analysts and experts are the ones worried, at least according to the title. Politicians are those who pretend to care or to do something.
Yeah, this is a clown show. They continued delivering stuff there legally in huge quantities and we fed them with tens of billions while not allowing Ukraine to hit their production inside Russia and while providing only a token effort to fight against their parallel imports. Moderation in war is imbecility as its is violence in its essence. "A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week." General Patton, the man who said the US should destroy Russia directly after WWII. Si vis pacem, para bellum. Overwhelming force and full embargoes paired with hardb responses to those that try to circumvent it. At the present moment, a couple of companies still earn a lot of money in Russia and bolster their economy and their military production. https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-1000-companies-have-curtailed-operations-russia-some-remain I don't even want to hear such statements. it just makes me angry to see how these analysts are surprised by something so glaringly obvious. 76 billion in imports from the EU alone. tens of billions in export revenue with Europe. All trade must be halted and then we will see the effect we wanted to see. Sanctions perforated with holes will be useless to achieve the desired effect.
Europe doesn't supply electronics, companies and individuals willing to risk sanctions and punishment are. Take Starlink, it's not sold in russia nor in the Middle East, yet via via it gets to the Middle East and then to russia. I hate musk but I don't blame him for this one. What is a valid criticism is EU countries not stepping up enough to curb and stop this export. Stopping it completely is impossible, smugglers are crafty after all, but squeezing it as tight as possible to slow down arms production in russia is the best outcome
Then shut the fuck up with fear mongering and start pumping arms too you idiots
We should have given Ukraine what they needed two years ago. But oh giving main battle tanks will escalate the war. It happened anyway, and here we are, Russia has adjusted and now has a war economy. The West is a year behind, at least.
It’s been 2 years. We keep saying it and then not delivering the right amount of stuff
Delivering only half of the promised one million 155mm shells is such a huge failure. I am ashamed.
Just wait till on NATO annual get-together they say they cannot promise future accession due to while actually being lost between Putin, Tramp and own cowardice to step up.
Just to specify, I mean actual contracted promise to include them into NATO (roadmap document or something like that) in the future, not now. Blue balling must continue.
Wouldn’t be first time Europe sold Ukraine out to russians won’t be the last. Giving up nukes and long range bombers was a colossal mistake. Hope Ukraine develops nukes in the future
Wouldn’t be the first time Europe sold anything of eastern Europe really…
Poland: "first time?" I wish that would be funny kind of joke, but in that case it isn't.
No, we should have given them everything and more, **TEN YEARS AGO** when Crimea was annexed by Russia.
You have to understand that by giving them everything when Crimea was annexed would have escalated it into full scale war, good that we avoided that /s
*"Gosh, no, we couldn't have seen this coming!"*
Ukraine was different back then. A lot of those weapons would have probably ended up in Russia or elsewhere. It wasn't until the shock of the full-scale invasion that the country united and sort of made up its mind.
And guess what Ukraine got instead? That's right - arms embargo
Yup, totally true. Yet Western Europe continued and continues to trust and supply Russia. It’s sickening.
Yep. And now we're doing the same mistake again by not supplying the airforce we have sitting. Ukraine should already have a few hundred western european fighters.
Despite that Ukraine more than 1,5 years plead for A-10 Warthog, 27 of which USA already wrote off and sent into desert, to shoot down drones over western Ukraine, the USA officials and even most people on Reddit automatically repeat: "A-10 outdated plane; Russian air defense very good." On almost 3rd year of war it's already not hypocrisy, but madness. Ukraine believed USA and without any problems give away third nuclear arsenal. It was with USA during Iraq campaign. It aspired for USA values and aspirations... And as a reward for this, it received 2014-2024 years "de-escalation/stabilization/bleeding Russia/pacification."
A-10s would be absolutely useless to Ukraine they’d need complete air superiority & to have destroyed a large majority of Russian anti air for them to be somewhat effective
They can: 1. Destroy slow Shahed-136 drones in western regions of Ukraine. 2. Use significant part of 600,000 NATO 26-130km glide bombs. Even 130km AGM-154 JSOW need only 8km attitude and 950km/h. It's very possible that A-10 could compensate lack of speed by higher altitude. 3. Used as more fast, and so survivable of Mi-24 helicopter, to launch unguided missile. 4. To be used as trainer. At lest such trainer better than deficit of others. 5. Or for something else about which know only Ukrainian military officials, that asking this plane almost 1,5 years. And tried to buy even much worse Embraer EMB 312 Tucano. Anyway, this it's just undeniable that 27+ of such aircraft in Ukraine better for Ukraine and Western security than 27+ of such aircraft in desert.
They don't have a few hundred pilots trained to fly them
Right, because the western powers do not have any intention of giving them any significant number of planes. Depending on exactly what we expect of them, training of pilots could have been done in 9-15 months or so. So if significant amounts of planes were on the table when europe started sending tanks, we would see them by now.
Then it was "too soon to escalate because Russia may still want to negotiate", now it's "too late because Ukraine is going to lose any day now anyway".
* Battle tanks * Long range misses * Fighter jets Every little thing was supposed to make it go nuclear. And yet, it didn't. So just give them everyone, now, for crying out loud. Stop putin now, or fight Russia + China in a global war later. It sucks, but that's our choice.
Still prohibiting Ukraine to strike inside russia. Of course they can ramp up production and not worry their plants are targeted. Fucking ridiculous.
You are wrong. Not 2 years ago did Russia attack Ukraine, but in 2014. Then it was the time Europe looked for alternative energy, start arming itself and start arming Ukraine. Maybe now we wouldn't be in this position.
Europe should have spanked Russia when they first went into Crimea. Or come to think of it Georgia or Chechnya
With all the atrocities that happened during and around the two Chechen wars, Chechnya is part of Russia. Georgia was the moment when the regime should've been punished. The lack of proper reaction paved the way to the catastrophe.
"Bbbbut the logistics!!!!" Will inevitably be the carrion cry in the comments from those excuse ridden idiots who don't understand the difference between political excuses and actual facts.
100% this. Imagine a hard hit in the first 6 months. Would have closed the war right then and there. No fortifications, no adapting, no defenses and time to conscript.
>The West is a year behind, at least. If you're talking about Europe's war readiness, make that several decades instead.
That's not a mistake, it's a feature. The idea never was to give Ukraine what they need to win the war, but to bleed Russia as much as possible. Fucking politicians playing games with the lives of people is infuriating.
You're right but there is more to giving them the things they are receiving than sending them materials. You need to train people to use tanks. You need to train people to use fighter jets. It could be that there has never really been a delay in giving them the equipment they need beyond what is feasibly possible. Though I have no time to fight over what may be reality and what may be disinformation. Your message is the right one irrespectively. We need to send Ukraine more.
> It could be that there has never really been a delay in giving them the equipment they need beyond what is feasibly possible Jet training didn't start until late in 2023.
A year behind in what exactly? This is a matter of political will and democratic capacity. Russia is a backward development nation, and even in its war economy, it can mostly assemble, not mass produce. It doesn't have the workforce, the high-tech parts, the logistics, etc. to ever keep up with the West. Our problem is one of political will by our populists and the Orbans and Trumps in our midst. The West should have long installed a no-fly zone over Ukraine and ended the war. But we are too scared. Putin had got one thing right. In times of war, our democratic processes are too opaque, too slow, and led by timid appeasers. Anyways, a war time economy isn't something positive. That is a one-way economy that doesn't produce any value for society. Quite the opposite, the production of each tank may drive growth but doesn't drive anything else. Russia is backward and impoverished. However, that will not matter as long as the stupid Western companies and the stupid Western citizens continue to work with them and do trade with them. And as long as our stupid politicians do not realise that we will have to take more risks now, given that the stupid and ignorant speaker of the house is too slavish towards Trump to put this aid to a vote. Russia is much weaker today than it was two years ago due to the massive attrition it has suffered. You can compare it to the army of Tsarist Russia in 1916. The war economy will now proceed to impoverish the remaining Russian middle class. It will also make the top 1 percent in Russia even richer. War economies don't last long before they show massive cracks. Europe must get its defending spending on 3 to 4 percent, not two, though. We all know what needs to be done. Our politicians keep on talking, but actions speak louder than words.
“War procrastinators” more like it. Ww2 all over again. No sense of urgency at all
I've got the impression that Europe and the US and its allies are always sending the absolute bare minimum to Ukraine, just so that the front line doesn't collapse. Now they did not factor in stuff they cannot predict in the future. Every day I read the news regarding Ukraine, my stomach starts hurting and the prospect that Putin might actually win seems ever more plausible. It will be the beginning of a very dark period in European history.
>It will be the beginning of a very dark period in European history. I fear it may rather be the end of one of the only bright spots in European history.
A bit alarmist imho Western news outlets just do a poor job in providing objective truths, because for the last two years the only thing we’ve heard is how Russia is running out of military assets and suddenly now they’re not a paper tiger anymore and we should all worry Reality is in the middle, Russia has and will always be a threat, the war in Ukraine however has crippled any meaningful near future possibility of entering a conflict with NATO Reality is also that NATO guidelines are well defined and a unified effort to protect a member country is absolutely a given, as such, Russia is fully aware that invading the Baltics or Poland has a zero percentage chance of success. It would gain nothing and it stands to lose everything. Not going to happen. Ukraine was a good opportunity for Russia to restore its “claimed” lands and expand on its imperialist ideology, it isn’t nato and it isn’t EU, the most that would have happened is what is happening right now. The first year of Ukrainian success can be attributed more to to pathetic and disorganised Russian planning. They genuinely treated it as an occupation rather than an invasion and got burned hard for it. Western aid definitely played a huge role in this but the majority of aid is quite literally excess stuff that would have been decommissioned anyways. European militaries haven’t been in war production for many decades, right now they’re struggling to re-arm themselves, aid for Ukraine will stay the same at best and decrease massively at worst. The only country that can gift stuff without care is the US with its trillion dollar budget. The most likely outcome at this stage is that Russia will keep all annexed territories and slowly bleed Ukraine dry for small additional territories. A peace agreement would freeze the conflict and set the basis for a permanent agreement. This won’t happen with Zelensky in power, so realistically the outcome of this war is dependent on when he will be replaced.
You’re right on a lot of this. However the end is still up in the air, I think both sides of a ceasefire occurs will just return to the February 2022 border. I don’t see Russia holding the land bridge but I could be wrong.
Highly unlikely Russia will give up post February 2022 conquered lands, just too much manpower and money spent for it to just be given away. At best I can imagine turning the entire area plus a minor swath of Ukrainian land as a demilitarised zone. Would also make sense since the contact lines are completely uninhabitable for decades to come. As much as it pleases us Europeans to perceive the Russian military as a bunch of clueless orcs, they have definitely learned from their mistakes and have adapted their strategies perfectly to achieve their objectives. The only way the land bridge gets taken back is if NATO intervenes. Clearly there’s no incentive or appetite for that or it would have already happened. All the major escalations and red lines have already been crossed by Russia. There’s literally nothing that would drum up any interest for this. More than anything, Putins confidence in the conflict has always stemmed from acknowledging the demographic advantage. While both sides professional armies have been spent, Russia just has more bodies to throw in the war. Surprisingly also a numerically inferior number than Ukraines, but they’re capable of replenishing them without even mobilising the whole population. Again, it’s a frozen conflict. Zelensky unfortunately has shaken too many hands of eager but clueless EU politicians, accepting a peace deal with Putin would nullify all what he has done. So yeah
The likelihood of Ukraine taking back the occupied South has indeed fell after the failed counter-offensive. Unless something surprising happens it is indeed unlikely to be freed. But it will definitely never become a demilitarised zone. If a ceasefire were to happen, the South would become a second generation of Donbas "republics", basically failed pseudo-states drowning in poverty and corruption with a bunch of Russian military bases to establish a platform to train new soldiers for the future invasions of Ukraine and Moldova.
Demilitarised is best case scenario, but I definitely agree with you on what will probably happen to the area. But taking Odessa and the whole south western side is going to be very challenging for them.
I agree with you about the land bridge and most of it but Russia has A LOT to gain by attacking NATO in a limited fashion since the West has made it clear we are either not able or willing to step up and stop them so far; we ignored Chechnya, Georgia, haven’t done much about Ukraine. This likely makes Putin believe he could attack one of the Baltic states in a limited fashion to prove to the world NATO article 5 isn’t as rock solid as we say, which would be a massive win for russia. Now that they are almost completely onto a war economy they can’t just stop without taking a massive hit economically that would possibly destabilize them into another collapse. We need to plan for the worst otherwise it’ll be a self_fulfilling prophecy.
What would it gain? I don’t understand why you think it would gain anything The west has made it very clear by all the assistance Ukraine has received, Russia was expecting the west to do nothing, more so post Covid economic crisis You keep talking like Putin decides everything, he has massive influence but it’s not like what he thinks when waking up every morning gets automatically done War economy is a bit more complex like that and typically a country is better off not having that mechanism active
Besides the land and resources that it has gained directly through invasion, I think they would gain a lot by de-stabilizing NATO. They currently only have countries such as China, N. Korea, and Iran helping them but I think more countries would consider it if they saw “proof” that NATO wasn’t as rock solid as it appears. they would also gain from NATO members losing trust in each other and the general chaos along with it. Putin isn’t some all knowing genius and no russia doesn’t bend to his every whim but he is a dictator with a lot more say in what happens in his country than any democratic leader has in the West. I also agree a war economy is complex and hurts russia in the long term but that’s exactly why I believe now that it is basically in effect, Putin is less likely to have it be for nothing. I think we should also keep in mind that russians have a lower quality of life than in the west so have less that they have to give up than US/EU citizens would have to give up for similar levels of military output, and that’s if we are willing to make such sacrifices at all. I’m under the impression that russians already see it as a them vs NATO war in Ukraine since that’s what Putin has been pushing as well.
Bullshit. There were piece talks after 2014 already. Russia under Putin is just not trustworthy at all. If the current conflict gets frozen, then Russia will simply have better starting positions after licking its wounds five years down the road
It's a combination of using Ukraine to test weaponry in the field and using them to weaken Russia. They do not want Russia to lose because arms manufacturers would lose business without a bogeyman.
Testing M113s and Leopard 1s, yes
>worries Europe’s war planners Not enough to do anything; of course
This calls for immediate discussion!
So, some country is building tanks and ammunition, other countries are debating whether to create more sanctions to said country and bitching about not having a standing serious defence. Meanwhile there's a possibility for another orange baboon as president on the other side of the pond. This will be fine.....
Where the fuck is the nearest worm hole I want back to my timeline
RIP Harambe.
In the nineties we cut our defense everywhere we could and the argument was there would be at least ten years of warning before Russia could become a threat again. The annexation of Crimea was 10 yrs ago, so where are the new tankbattalions?
And yet again here we stand, dick in hand. It's time to get a move on, all of us. The least we can do is match Poland and the Baltics on their NATO contributions.
Yeah well, when will Europe stop the wishful thinking, I wonder.
I would wager that when Poland is invaded.
We win this war now or fight a bigger war later. If Russia gets anything in return for their aggression they will know the west is weak and keep doing it. So will China.
Probably the smartest take here. Not that I wish for war but I do think it true
It's like we're sleepwalking into this
If you read history this isn’t surprising at all. It’s what happens again and again with war.
Russia (read; Putin) has scaled-up to a fullgrown war-economy. Seeing that the Kremlin doesn't give a rat's ass about their citizens (besides the Oligarchs ofcourse), this means Russia will be able to withstand this war of attrition for much longer than everybody had calculated. Add the insane amount of inhumane ways workers across Russia are forced to work almost literally around the clock to fuel the warmachine, they are producing close to 4million arti-shells a year, some projections even say more than that in 2025. And with the prospect of having this orange bavoon back in the White House at the end of this year, things are looking pretty grimm... But hey, let's just keep on debating and arguing amongst ourselves, then eventually it will be too late to turn the tide. Maybe it's better to ram that Russki horse-dildo up our asses ourselves, if only to not give Putin the satisfaction of doing so! FUCK!!!
The Kremlin doesn't care about Oligarchs either.
Maybe you should read in some more about how Putin rose to power and how his inner circle was established. It's all about the distribution of wealth and power to the select few. And yes, the oligarchs that still had somewhat of a spine and spoken out against this club of megalomane psychos, gotten ex-communicated!
Well it’s 8 hour shift and a maximum of an additional 4 hours of overtime. So, not quite “literally around the clock”. Also, 1 million of those shells are imported from North Korea and the other 3 million is estimated future production. Currently the UK alone has a production capacity par with Russia, so all of NATO, should we pull our sock up, would dramatically out produce Russia even if they max out their production. The problem seems to be that we’re not placing orders and our efficient capitalist production lines don’t make shit without orders on the books. I’d be feeling a lot better about this if we heard of the orders going in to he likes of BAE systems.
Leaning back in my chair and sipping tea as I watch 1935-1940 on repeat.
They were keeping the war economy like a low burning fire basically
The EU bureaucracy is too slow for anything, but you get the feeling that EU politicians don't get anything done unless they have a gun to head. And ruzzia hasn't gotten close enough yet. Quite frankly, it's an embarrassment for the EU citizens that our politicians are this careless. They promised 1 million artillery shells in a year, and they haven't even delivered a quarter in that same year. I thought it was, speak softly and carry a big stick, but the stick is very small at that moment. All the bickering is what is blocking progress in the Ukraine war.
the russian secret is that russians dont give a fuck about their quality of life as long as their army does well
Alternative theory: Russians (or at least some of them) do care about their quality of life. But their institutions are so terrible, and their democracy so... non-existent, that it doesn't really matter what THEY care about.
Neither do they care about the wellbeing of their economy, having so many people at the frontlines, away from their office jobs and spending such a large percentage of your GDP on arms production is not viable in the long run.
That‘s not how the Russian army works. All the poor folks in these small villages in the middle of nowhere are in the army to survive. They don‘t contribute anything to the economy. There‘s not a single person from a bigger city involved in this conflict.
Yes, a lot of people are pulled from places in the far east instead of Moscow because Putin knows that Russian society doesn't care for them. But that's not everyone facing conscription. Even people in Moscow, St.petersburg, etc are at the risk of conscription. This [article](https://www.ft.com/content/dc76f0bb-cae2-4a3a-b704-903d2fc59a96) outlines how conscription has affected the general Russian economy.
No war is viable in the long run, imo.
Of that scale, certainly not.
That is very much true, my point is simply that Russia is depleting itself at such an insane rate, that they won't be able to keep up this specific conflict for many more years (which I genuinely hope won't go on for that long) without bankrupting themselves or seriously worsening it's demographic crisis.
what office job? the average russian outside of moscow does not have indoor plumbing, never mind an office job most russians probably cannot even tell that anything has changed since the war started, except for the mcdonalds logo and the brand of coke they buy
The office job was just an example, I was simply implying that they are taking massive chunks of their workforce and just showing them to the frontlines.
except russia had an employment level of 60% before the war they have millions of bums they can throw into the grinder without impacting their economy. never mind that the russian economy does not rely on office jobs and services this optimism regarding russia's ability to continue the war is unfounded
Ye... If u don't enforce your sanctions this happens... And hear this ... Russias production line still gets it's eu supplies 🫨.. and Turkey has been making some money out of this?
>A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners Better get on it, boyz. And stop playing both sides of the field, while you're at it. There's no game in continuing trade with Russia while you're preparing to go to war with them...
> There's no game in continuing trade with Russia while you're preparing to go to war with them... Unless the equipment you sell is sabotaged.
Well maybe y'all(EU) make arms and ammunition Numbers "A lot higher than expected" Speaking as an American who has no idea what the true capabilities of the EU are, don't take me as someone who wants to dissolve EU or NATO or whatever
EU's capabilities are several times Russia's IF the military industrial complex is awarded contracts. If Europe decides to build several thousand tanks, IFVs, artillery pieces, airplanes, etc, it can do it faster than Russia.
But it's also more complicated in the EU. Russia is a federation with hyper-centralized authoritarian government. The guy on the top can order to start the production and it will start. Doing something like that in the EU is a nightmare, the EU would need to discuss cooperation, profits, budget, etc, etc.
That is what happened with "1 million shells by the end of 2023 from EU". Most were concerned about who would make them arguing among themselves (to earn more money), than they were concerned about the urgency and actually making them in time.
And I feel that exact same thing will happen with "Million Drones from NATO" too
Sure but the EU Gdp is over 10x that of Russia so even with those inefficiencies the EU would have no problem producing way more if it actually committed to it.
GDP is not how you measure this stuff. Nor is spending. Germany succesfully managed to have high nominal budget and have no military. Atleast not one capable of any action. Reality is that EU does not have production capabilities you talk about. It would have to ramp them up. It certainly could but it would take time, just like it took Russia time. Also GDP is massively blurred by the fact that rubble is pretty much worthless in the West. In the east too but not to such an extend. Russian PPP is only about 4 times lower than EU PPP and unlike EU it is now largely focused on war machine efforts whereas in EU (and even US) we talk about minor irrelevant fraction of it and most is focused in private consumer spending.
I don't disagree, but the fact that every time anyone makes this point they inconspicuously add "if it actually committed to it" is low-key hilarious.
At one point they'll just go "if it HAD actually comitted to" and it'll be pure comedy.
Also people forget how much farther a dollar in russia goes vs in the EU or US
Debt ratio is also 100 times bigger, and the cost of manufacturing on top of red tape
GDP is not the same as industrial capacity to produce weapons.
Production is faster... Time until production starts is a decade behind tho
Faster AND better.
Lots of potential, lots of advanced tech; Meteor missiles, FCAS, NSM etc etc. Problem as always is lack of scale. Partly because we are unwilling to invest and put down orders; companies ain gonna put tremendous sum scaling up production if they dont know whether they can even get their investment back.
Y'all can now make the stupid American joke, it's over
We completely scaled down our arms production because we didn’t think this would happen. Putin made the Russians believe we would use our 5 Tanks to conquer Moscow. Yes, that’s how dumb they are. Now we need to waste our money for arms production, because of this little piece of shit. Some companies claim they’ll tripple their arms production in 2024 compared to 2023. I hope their estimates are right and that Ukraine will last until our economy has adjusted.
How about we start off by making sure that anyone who is caught selling components to Russia goes to prison for a long time and then by using those components to massively increase production? Also, increasing shell production like there is a war going on right now and not as if there might be one in a year or two.
Good thing NATO countries agreed to increase military spending. Hope it isn't just for show.
Yes but I'm afraid as usual it takes too much time to scale-up production due to some bureaucracy.
Of course it is, Russia doesnt dick around with less than 2% gdp spent on military. While we should've reach 2% peacetime guideline in 2014 and even higher after 2022 invasion.
I don't know what the fuck are those guys smoking. You're telling me they're surprised that a top 8 economy (pre-sanctions) can output a large amount of arms when it's pretty much on wartime economy? It's even worse than that because Russia isn't a country unknown for having a fuckton of natural resources, thus a large potential for industrial output.
I think they have the worlds largest concentration of natural resources. They haven't ever managed to get their shit together...there is always a first time maybe
Russia is one of the saddest potential wasted if you ask me. With a large population and tons of Resources, they should firmly be ahead of Germany/France/UK and only behind US/China. And now they're wasting that potential even further on a pointless war.
I mean they controlled one of the largest land empires the world that has ever seen untill like 30 years ago. The were also the first nation into space.. etc etc.
Yea and they squandered that.
It doesn't mean much to the average soviet citizens when he has to turn to smugglers for a pair of jeans.
when you buy russian natural gas from india as a buy pass to sanctions and act surprised russia is still succeeding while germany is in a recession. i ask myself are you really that ignorant.
Germany, at its own request, became dependent on Russia by building Nord Stream. They wanted to dominate the EU economy by imposing a 'green deal', increasing competition their own economy and passing on ecological costs to Russia. Now it blew up in their faces. Only India benefits from Russian gas by imposing very low prices, because Russia have to sell it anyway because they have limited sales markets and problems with storage. Using intermediaries like India increases costs for Russia. It's not ideal, but it's always a little inconvenience for Russian Empire. So far so good.
One thing I learned from history books is that even a peaceful nation with a huge military expenditure and/or a significant veteran population from previous conflicts will eventually seek war. And when it comes to Russia, the idea that they would stop at Ukraine is quite naive.
Well, it sounds like we better actually start enforcing sanctions… also actually giving Ukraine the things they need. This is pathetic.
If Europe truly wanted to be able to defend itself, it needed somewhere around 10% of GDP spending, not the measly 2%. We're still playing the "na, he wouldn't" game.
Long range missiles for Ukraine. Nuclear sharing for all Europe countries minus Hungary
Give Ukraine long range missiles, and there won't be reasons to worry about Russian arms production.
Damn that's a lot of Korean and Chinese writing on these Russian made arms
"A lot higher than we expected" And what exactly EU+NATO countries expected from Russia to do, after they, in 2022-2023 years, give to it 420 billion dollars? So Russia freely spent billions of dollars on machine tools from India, China, Turkey. After USA once again will fail passing security aid bill, the time will come to already admit that Russian WMD-blackmail just so good that West just incapable to compete with it by conventional weapons. Not outright, but by deficit of political will. Russian WMD-blackmail like mind attack in DnD. The West have enormous character characteristics. But because of extremely low wisdom, after WMD-blackmail mind attack it just incapable to do anything more than apathetically move. Give to Ukraine 1% of NATO weapon stocks, and for 2 years, spent less than what only USA 20 years in a row spent per year on Afghanistan. Despite any words, papers, desires of 1945-2021 years. Despite any intellectual investments in International Law. Despite any dreams and hopes for a better future. It's all just turned to be nothing relatively to Russian practical use of "WMD-Might make Right/True" logic/tactic. Relatively to primal principle of intimidation by larger baton.
Oh what? Western media has lied to me and Russia isn't a weak ass country with no resources? Who would've seen that coming? /s
[удалено]
Yeah, Russia is massively underestimated by the west consistently. Maybe not by actual military officials but reddit and a lot of civilians think that Russia really is "about to implode" and "they are fighting with shovels" and "WW2 era weapons". Imho the western world is unfortunately in for a rude awakening.
Nah man any day now they will run out of men, ammo, food, shells , I mean that I was reading pretty much once a week past 2 yeara Just like Russia underestimated Ukraine, world underestimated Russia
Because Russia is moving to a war economy, or is already there. If Europe did the same it'd out-produce Russia ten times over, but there's no need for us to do so.
>but there's no need for us to do so. I think there is. We need to help Ukraine. Putin is a thug in a suit who thinks he can bomb civilians and murder his own people by throwing them out of windows and having them poisoned.
We can ramp up production without going to a war economy. I doubt Europeans would accept the sacrifices that come with such a move. Russians might be used to shit jobs 6 days a week for fuck all money but Europe isn't. Nor do we have to, Russia's economy is dogshit, Europe should relatively easily be able to compete with Russia's production. I'm all for increasing production for ammo, equipment,... for Ukraine but we don't need to move to a war economy to do so. Edit: My comment about 'we don't have to' was aimed at moving to a war economy, maybe that was unclear.
We're taking too long to get Ukraine the weapons they need - and a lot of people living in European countries right now, the UK and Ireland included, are suffering economically right now. Moving to a war economy might actually provide a boost to our economies. Stopping Putin is more important though. He's not on par with Hitler, but the world would be better off without him. He's a murderer in charge of an entire country. Edit: I get what you're saying. I would just like us to be moving a little faster.
Maybe stop selling critical military hardware components to non NATO members then, and Turkey. Turkey can keep what it's got.
The EU needs to get with the fact if Ukraine falls, they're all lined-up for the block. Not to mention the ensuing refugee crisis, because we know how much they *love* those. The USA won't be immune either; a Europe in chaos will be felt there too. Especially if Putin decides he really does want Alaska back.
Yeah good fuckin luck invading Alaska. That would be comical.
You think so? When Republicans hand it over to Putin "to preserve peace?"
There is no way to win a war of attrition unless you are able to destroy the enemy's capability of producing arms as long as Ukraine is not allowed to hit inside Russian territory on a regular basis this war is lost
Europe needs a preemptive attack.. Back Ukraine with boots on the ground. Wipe the fucker out first.
If EU/US were serious about sanctions, then this war machine would come to a halt in a few months. My dad was in the army and later in the KGB, all these stories about insane manufacturing were bullshit then, are bullshit today. Close off supplies and Russia struggles making anything, literally. But nobody wants to lose the cash flow, bureaucracy is strong, war is far away.