As a Ukrainian at war since day 1 – I don't buy it. They will sell their gas at discount to China until the very end. Military force is the only way to get them to the death zone.
> They will sell their gas at discount to China until the very end.
Yes and no. There's a minimum price they need to sell it, and somewhere in between they may not actually make enough between the minimum and sale price to actually fund their military. Nevermind the awesome job you guys are doing blowing up refineries and other industrial facilities. It'll be good when Europe stops importing Russian gas and steps up their seizure of sanctioned ships too.
Sanctions can and will work against Russia. Part of the strain they face today is due to these sanctions, it just takes awhile and in the meantime, unfortunately, there are people dying.
I favor harsher sanctions against Russia but let's not be too optimistic. It doesn't take much funding to recruit a poor, desperate guy from the outer provinces, hand him a surplus rifle, and send him into a human wave attack. In a perverse sort of way, killing off those guys might actually be reducing Russian government expenses.
The bad thing is, they always did this and it worked.
The good thing is, those russians stopped growing back with birthrates being one of the lowest in the world.
We might just see a world without any russians in a few decades. What a dream
Probably the parent lives in one of the countries neighboring with Russia and unfortunately Russia is very unfriendly towards its neighbors, invading them when it wants, so you live in constant fear. From that perspective, this is just a variation of "I want to live in peace" expressed in an extreme way.
Many welcomed the Nazis when they invaded Eastern Europe because they relieved them from the Soviets. When literal Nazis are perceived as the better option you can imagine the alternative isn't very shiny.
Part of Russian propaganda over the years has been this view of the "clean Red Army". You see it all over the Internet. "American history books teach it wrong". It was the Soviets, they insist, that fought the good war and good victory over the Nazis and western powers only fought the frail, old German army in the west.
Reality on the ground is much different. While the Soviets did bear the brunt of the Nazi onslaught, what is often overlooked is their own culpability in the war (invading and splitting Poland in partnership with the Nazis, &c) and their evil annexations of peoples and countries that were nearby as part of their own power-grab. In other words, part of the reason they were in the war in the first place is because they joined the Nazis in effectively kicking it off, at least in Europe.
Soviet apologists also tend to forget that the United States and other anglo powers* simultaneously fought the Nazis in the west, took down the Japanese, invaded and liberated Italy, the Philippines, and more, fought and won in North Africa, and did all of this while providing the Soviets with the equipment they needed to stay in the war. Nevermind staging additional campaigns and operations, such as those in China to aid them against Japanese occupation.
* I don't intend to suggest that it was only the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada that fought the good fight because we undoubtedly received heroic contributions from numerous allies and friends during the war.
To be fair, American propaganda had the same effect. For example, in South America, if you ask the average person about WW2, people will talk about USA mostly. Most people would be surprised if you told them that URSS had 24 million deaths, almost 50x what USA had. I'm not saying that USA didn't play a major role, but it's weird how it is the only country besides Germany that is ingrained in America (continent) mind when you talk about WW2
>When literal Nazis are perceived as the better option you can imagine the alternative isn't very shiny.
Nice story. One problem though: they eagerly joined Nazis in exterminating Jews.
The ideology of nationalists aligned quite well, be it German Nazis, Baltic states, Hungarians or Western Ukrainians.
That stuff isn't working very well at the moment though. The poor desperate guys are getting killed by drones faster than they can be recruited. And Russia's other thing at sending missile at cities is quite expensive.
Maybe you should update your epistemology and stop listening to the guys that said so; I listen to the experts who say (since 2022) sanctions hurt, but russia is like a big tree - even if you poison it, it won't fall on the next day; it doesn't help that russia has disproportionately big spy network - people will take more abuse before they rebel against their government.
It is a known strawman argument. The sanctions weren't introduced because someone was convinced they will make Russia fail or what not, they were introduced because this was the only thing we could do barring military action that nobody was ready for. We knew they will have a negative impact on Russian economy but nobody was hoping for a miracle. Countries like Iran or North Korea were living under sanctions for years and they are much smaller. I haven't seen anybody arguing otherwise, barring YouTube clickbaity "Russia is falling" videos.
I don't think there are strategic lies here. Russia's war machine and their economy have taken a massive hit from sanctions. The news/media cycle and "experts" obviously want to make money and recycle the same stories and "any day now" kind of rhetoric, but that doesn't make sanctions any less of a great option.
It's also possible to run an economy on empty for a long, long time provided there's a war on. Look at Germany, who literally ran the country on empty throughout all of WWII, books like Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" cover this in great detail. There was a saying in the last few years, "enjoy the war, the peace will be terrible", and it was, because once you took the wartime tourniquet off all the toxins flooded your body. It wasn't until the Marshall Plan that the bare subsistence life was slowly eradicated.
Now, can you see anyone giving Putin's kleptocracy a few trillion dollars to rebuild Рашка? The Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany because the US realised that without that as the economic powerhouse of Europe the place would be a basket case in need of US support for decades, but when you're just a gas station masquerading as a country (McCain) no-one's going to bail you out except insofar as it keeps the gas flowing, and if you look at places like Nigeria you don't need much to keep the gas flowing.
> can you see anyone giving Putin's kleptocracy a few trillion dollars
Unfortunately, if the leaks are true, they might actually be discussing that.
"Fortunately" Putin is more bent on having the whole Donbas which Ukraine will not give so I don't believe this happens in the near future - which is bad for Russia as a country.
Russia has one of the biggest war chests in the world, huge reserves of carbon fuel that it can afford to sell under market rates, and is supported by China. It can sustain even hardest sanctions for a long while, lifting them certainly wouldn’t help.
> huge reserves of carbon fuel that it can afford to sell under market rates,
Under market rates sure, but it must still be profitable. China and India know that, so they're going to drive down the price to the extent they can so that it's just barely profitable. But you can't just profit from the oil and gas, you need to profit enough to buy fighter jets and tanks, and all sorts of other things.
Russia sells wheat too. Minerals too. Weapons. You will be surprised the oil part isnt at 100% as what western media is telling you. Plus this source is mostly based on what western finance can see. BRICS dont submit data to westrrn finance analysyst anymore since 3 years ago. Anything you want to buy stock or trade you must absolutely ignore western hypes. Incredibly unreliable.
Russia had been under sanctions since 2014 and in January of 2015 its economy was already "in tatters", as reported by Obama in the State of the Union that year. Then, in March of 2022, great Joe Biden proclaimed that he has turned "ruble into rubble". I am sure the 20 packages of sanctions since then destroyed anything that left and it's really just vacuum in place of Russian economy now... Why end the lies if you can call anyone pointing them out a Russian bot?
Any form of exaggeration is counter-productive. Russian economy is going slowly down, with the main cause being the war or Putin's need to fund it, and in a part also because of sanctions. But it can be low for decades, Russians will never go out on streets about it. But hopefully when Putin dies Russia returns to normal relations with the rest of the world and this bad epoch can end.
Saying the same thing without exaggerating doesn't make it true. Russian economy is growing, it's the rate of growth is going down. As for Russia returning to normal relations with the rest of the world: it's normal already. Russia cooperates with the majority of the world's population in China, India, Brazil etc.
Or, as Reshetnikov says, Russia's economy will continue to slow down in the first half of 2026. The prices will continue to increase, soldiers will continue to die in thousands. India announced they will not buy Russian oil, so the only major buyer will be China, driving the price even further down.
I have several friends in Russia, and I do wish them well, but it will be difficult to get back to normal as long as Putin is alive.
I am not sure where did you get this, there is no such announcement publicly available.
> but it will be difficult to get back to normal as long as Putin is alive
There won't be a return to the 1990s-2000s subservient state, which you seem to be calling "normal". Whomever comes to replace Putin is going to be way more nationalist than the guy who spent more than half of his life in the USSR, being a Party member, and working in the field of internationalist politics.
> 1990s-2000s subservient state, which you seem to be calling "normal".
No need to go that far, I visited Moscow a few times before 2014 and it was more or less fine. I'd say 2 decades behind the West but OK. What is now is a big mess with Russia being an international pariah. This is bad and also unfair to millions of people who don't care about imperialistic ambitions of Putin and just want to live their lives in peace.
As a strong supporter of Ukraine, I would say ultimately wars are won or lost by economic forces (the side that can't afford it any more loses). That's how the USSR lost the Cold War, and all I can hope is that all of Europe really has your back in this one.
World War 2 was not won due to the economy. And while it is true that the USSR "lost" the Cold War, they actually spent too much and entered a recurring debt from which they could no longer get out. There was no direct war here, which is different to e. g. world war 2 (at the least USA versus Germany). USSR and USA only fought some proxy wars.
World War 2 was won due to the economy. Only the Allied side had the economic strength to replace all of their material war losses and more. In some categories of munitions the USA out produced Japan by a factor of >1000. US Navy gunners could afford to fill the sky with steel because they had unlimited supplies. The enemy had to count every shot.
It was literally won due to the economy. The moment Germans failed to knock out Soviets and Japanese pulled Americans into the fight their days were numbered due to insane industrial base of the both countries. Soviet meat waves, industry + lend lease won Europe and US finished Japanese.
I agree it's an unfortunate way of presenting it but Stalin was a guy who didn't care for anyone's life and was literally sending people in waves to die with the NKVD sadists shooting scared young boys whenever they tried to run away from the horror of war. Dead if you go, dead if you don't. It's romanticized an celebrated today, but it was a mass tragedy incomparable to one that happened to ny other country in recent history.
Didn't their war in Afghanistan precipitate their downfall?
So many pivotal decisions in WW2 were economic in nature. Lend lease? Germany's late switch to a war economy? The Allies' much larger manufacturing capabilities?
You could also argue that the cold war stayed cold because of the West's economic might. It set a military and living standard that the USSR bankrupted itself trying to match.
Russia will win on this one. Productions are largely internal. What they lack they get from China. Ukraine loss so many men. Their populations will just go down from now on. USA and China are on the verge of recessions. I really doubt USA will prioritize Ukraine over Israel or China ignoring its own needs. Cede the land and rebuilt. Better to cut losses now than even more loss.
As per Clausevitz, wars end either when you kill every last soldier or the ones who are still alive decide not to fight. I can't see the former happening. So it's about ratcheting the pain of continuing to something unbearable. To the level where Russia can't make enough cash selling resources to make more tanks and bombs and also feed people.
The issue is of course that Russians seem incredibly resilient against the latter. They seem happy when Russia wins another 5m^2 of territory even if materially they are massively affected.
But even then if Russia can no longer recruit "marginal" people and the alternative to peace is even larger losses, people might reassess.
The higher the economic cost in the meantime, the sooner this moment comes.
But who? People watching the national TV and followers of war bloggers for sure. But for the rest the current situation is just a very dark fragment in the history of Russia and everybody is just waiting for it to end.
they are not happy, they are distracted and vaguely know it's not going well.
the "russian firehose" approach and vryanyo (institutional lying) means they're bombarded with info but also know most of it is BS, but not necessarily how or why.
they know it's not going well but at this point much of the economy is on war-footing and if they're not drafted they're probably getting paid okay. STFU and keep your head down and you won't get drafted.
It’s very difficult to utterly destroy a country’s military force, particularly a country as huge as Russia, which has also a sizeable population. Ukraine cannot do it on its own and I see no appetite from anybody else to do it, so I think it is unlikely to happen.
Of course, it is also very difficult to utterly destroy a country’s economic power. Unfortunately, in Russia’s case, they have the raw materials and a population they can basically enslave. Hitting hard at refineries is a good strategy, it’s a weak point in the whole structure. Hopefully it’ll be enough.
Honestly, I don’t see an easy or clean way out of this. One possibility is that they’ll grind themselves badly enough to become completely irrelevant. Unfortunately that means a good chunk of Ukraine gets ground down along the way. One can hope for a coup, but then whatever comes after might well be worse.
Then, hopefully Ukraine can rebuild as a free nation.
Russia's military force currently relies on men willing to die for money. That could change. But Putin seems reluctant to force the general population to die in Ukraine.
Classic economic theory suggests that the amount you need offer to people willing to die goes up over time.
For Ukraine the main thing is to get to the point that Russia doesn't attack any more. There is no need for Ukraine to concur any part of Russia. Even getting the currently occupied land back is mostly optional.
This war has already changed. Near-stalemate on the front lines, exchange of strikes on civilian infrastructure (Ukraine made to Belgorod what Russia made to Kiev). It‘s a nuclear war without nukes, aiming at strategic defeat without advancing armies. And Russia definitely has more resources for it.
A few days ago Ukraine knocked out central heating infrastructure in Belgorod, a regional capital with 350k people, which is unlikely to be repaired until spring. Two civilians repairing it from previous strikes were killed. Whether this is rare or not, it doesn’t change anything about what I said about changing character of the war: both sides largely gave up on trying to win on the battlefield and now attack energy infrastructure of each other, putting pressure on civilian population.
When you knock out primary energy source in a large city instead of attacking military consumers, it has one goal - terror. Most people suffering from it will be civilians. There will likely be deaths. Look at the recent terrorist attack in Berlin by far left extremists: blackout of a single district resulted in at least one known direct casualty. How many people will die of hypothermia or inability to get help being locked in a high rise residential building? This is happening now in many places in Ukraine as well as in border regions of Russia. I do think it’s the same as targeting civilians directly.
>When you knock out primary energy source in a large city instead of attacking military consumers, it has one goal - terror.
Not if that city's industry is contributing to the war effort.
>Most people suffering from it will be civilians. There will likely be deaths.
You can say that about Western sanctions on Russia too. How many people have died because of a single MRI scanner or cancer drug that couldn't be bought by a Russian hospital?
Was it the "nuclear war without nukes" since the day the West imposed blanket sanctions on Russian economy?
Or did that "nuclear war without nukes" started in 2014-2015 when the Ukraine cut electricity and water supply to Crimea? "It has one goal - terror", right?
I really don’t understand your point. Are you questioning the choice of metaphor?
Ukraine cutting supply of electricity and water to Crimea did demonstrate the attitude of the Ukrainian government to people it considered once their citizen. It obviously wasn’t a part of the current chapter of the war.
Yes, there is nothing like 'nuclear war without nukes' that is happening here. And I was trying to demonstrate that your logic seem to lead to conclusion that the 'nuclear war without nukes' started in 2014.
My argument is that you can't bring strategic defeat without leveling cities or utterly destroying the power generation and electric grid. And that's not what is happening in the Ukraine or even Belgorod for that matter
In this war strategic victory is not the destruction of the state, but the control over development trajectory of the rival for the foreseeable future. Russian objective is and was not to annex entire Ukraine, but to ensure that it does not become menacing part of NATO infrastructure (they are surprisingly content with Ukraine joining EU). This is political goal and thus can be pursued through hybrid warfare, which includes psychological pressure on Ukrainian population, to ensure that current administration will loose political support and will be pressured into a peace deal on terms favorable for Russia. Ukraine does the same to achieve the opposite goal, but of course with much less success.
The whole story with territorial question is part of this: possible peace settlement could include just splitting Donbas region on the current front line, so that Putin could claim victory and Ukraine could just say they did what they could. But Russia wants more, they need Donbas in original borders, which is unacceptable to Ukraine. Why? Because if this question will be settled in the peace deal, it may open Ukraine eventually path to NATO. They want to create permanent tension the same way as it happened to Georgia, deferring the final settlement by a hundred years (see Taiwan as an example, which occupies China for decades).
>In this war strategic victory is not the destruction of the state, but the control over development trajectory of the rival for the foreseeable future.
No, it wouldn't be victory, it would be compromise. And the Ukraine isn't Russia's rival, it's just cannon fodder for the West.
>they are surprisingly content with Ukraine joining EU
Kremlin says that. Doesn't have to be true.
>which is unacceptable to Ukraine
Why is it unacceptable to the Ukraine?
I see why it's unacceptable for current regime in Kiev because they can't just say "we actually don't need Donbass, never mind hundreds of thousands lives we wasted defending it".
> Even getting the currently occupied land back is mostly optional.
That's only true in the short term.
If Russia gets out of the war with Ukraine with territory gains, that only serves as incentive to start up again after Russia can regroup. After all, Putin's stated long-term goal is to take the entire country (among others) and restore the USSR.
Of course, taking back the occupied land is also easier said than done, as it would severely weaken Putin domestically to have expended all these resources and lives for nothing. There's no way he can allow that.
There is the issue that Russia tends to attack weak countries. The Baltic countries are small and also something Russia would like to have. But part of NATO.
Ukraine was seen as easy to take over. But that was clearly a wrong assessment.
> "I have said many times that the Russian and Ukrainian people are one nation, in fact. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours [...] But you know we have an old parable, an old rule: wherever a Russian soldier steps, it is ours."
Also, looking at Russian track record specifically, is Georgia, which was militarily defeated in 2008, part of Russia? Did they formally annex Abkhazia or Transnistria? Does Lukashenko report to Putin?
That's misunderstanding the model of actors. "Russia" isn't "Putin". "Countries" act in the best interests of their power structure, not their leaders.
Basically: the way this ends is when the collective will of the power centers (generally the armed forces, though not always) decide that they'll be wealthier and happier with Putin gone than by following more orders.
And obviously that's an unstable/unpredictable equilibrium, because groups don't decide collectively like that and exactly how a coup works is never known until it does. But it's the way literally every other government of every other failed state has fallen[1], and there's no reason to think this one will fare any differently.
[1] Well, there's "unexpected death of the leader" thing too.
However putin is a good representative of russian people who easily travel to other country 5000+ km to die for cash and imperial narratives. If putin dies tomorrow war wouldn't stop.
> That's misunderstanding the model of actors. "Russia" isn't "Putin". "Countries" act in the best interests of their power structure, not their leaders.
No, I am not misunderstanding. For all intents and purposes, at the moment Putin’s will is Russia’s will. And it looks like he knows his weaknesses within the country and is willing to let marginal populations bear the weight of his ambitions while keeping his power base comfortable enough. Of course he might end up like Stalin, at which point who knows? But it might not be much better for Ukraine, and in the meantime Putin keeps giving the orders.
> Basically: the way this ends is when the collective will of the power centers (generally the armed forces, though not always) decide that they'll be wealthier and happier with Putin gone than by following more orders.
He can get most soldiers rich enough for this to drag on for quite a long time. They probably would be happier elsewhere, but they don’t have a say. The generals is another problem, but so far Putin is quite effective at finding loyal ones.
"There will not be a coup" is on the tombstone of like every failed leader ever. Economics doesn't change. Countries aren't people, even if the people running them try desperately to make you think so.
I'm not saying that Putin is going to be deposed next week, or year, or even ever. I'm saying that the Russian government is no less susceptible to the circumstances that produce coups than any other failed state, and failed states are the circumstances that produce coups.
At the end of the day, all government is ultimately by the consent of the governed. But predicting how and when that consent will be withdrawn that's is hard part.
Except that Russia isn’t failed state. It’s politically stable (even more than before war), can mostly serve its population. The fact that it’s currently engaged in an expensive war, changes nothing.
Every day that passes, Ukraine gets stronger: more domestic defense production of what's currently the cutting edge of warfare; deeper financial integration and relationships with Europe; more aid lined up; European powers taking more responsibility for supporting Ukraine and seeing it win, not just survive. They have the largest and most competent army in Europe that's fought Russia to a standstill.
Every day that passes, Russia gets weaker: more oil sold in crude form only, since they don't have refining capacity to export gasoline; foreign currency reserves shrinking, since China is their main customer; another 35k casualties every month, with mounting costs for enlistment bonuses and death benefits; outer provinces stripped of men of fighting age, North Korea unwilling to send more soldiers, African recruits drying up; inflation raging, industries shutting down, and all economic indicators heading south.
It's terrible that Ukraine is trapped in this slugfest, but at this point, time favours Ukraine.
Ukraine domestic defense production has the slight problem of being continuously bombed, lacking manpower, reliable (or any!) electricity. Are you sure it is growing? Perhaps explosively...
Their largest and most competent army is mostly dead and maimed, they rely on catching unwilling men on the streets and herding them to the front. You believe 35k Russian casualties each month, and at the same time you believe Ukrainian official figures of 55k casualties overall, right?
European powers taking responsibility for supporting Ukraine by continuously arguing where/how should they get emergency funds to 'lend' to Ukraine, so its finances do not collapse within the next 2 month.
Man, how can you believe this nonsense?
Time does not favour Ukraine. It does not favour Russia (or Europe) either, it favours mostly China.
It produces its own Neptune cruise missiles (100+), and developed the Flamingo cruise missile. It has its own self-propelled howitzer, and has built more than 200 to date. It rebuilt its bullet manufacturing, replacing the loss of its luhansk facility. They've massively expanded domestic production of 155mm shells.
Whether or not it's under constant bombardment, Ukraine is now supplying 50% of its consumable supplies; in 2022, it was under 5%. Ukraine actually exports some weapons and drone tech to finance other purchases.
Its manpower crisis has been continually overstated by Russian propaganda. At the moment, they have 800k+ in their army. They rejected a bill recently to lower the conscription age to 25 from 27. They have an untapped pool of manpower aged 18-27 that they're avoiding if possible (as has been possible so far).
Whether or not Europeans are arguing a lot, they're still providing massive material and financial aid to Ukraine, which still has a functioning economy and social welfare system. Their gov't pensions go out on time and in full. They're not experiencing hyperinflation. There's a reason that Ukrainians as a population aren't willing to accept the kind of crap settlements Trump is pushing.
> Man, how can you believe this nonsense?
You're the one spouting Russian disinformation, especially after looking at your other comments. If you're not getting paid for this, you should be.
I agree with your point overall but realistically speaking, its not like the death of Ukraine will fix Russias economy, even if it did: not in a single day.
You can exhaust yourself completely and be dead on your feet.
There is a strain of thought in Russian political circles that they'll be doomed anyway due to lack of defensible borders if they fail to capture Ukraine. This could explain some of their actions that otherwise seem irrational and counterproductive.
It doesn't seem to make any sense: nobody was invading Russia until Russia decided part of Ukraine was Russia (and then Ukraine invaded it), and why would Ukraine be a more defensible border than the actual border? Ukraine borders NATO, after all.
From the Russian perspective it actually does make a bit of sense, in a twisted sort of way. They were invaded from the west before, most recently by Hitler and before that by Napoleon. There are no good natural defenses to protect Moscow and so they seek to establish defense in depth with additional buffer territory. (I write this not to justify recent Russian acts of aggression but to explain some of their internal strategic thinking.)
Ukraine is also very hard to completely destroy, either militarily or economically. And Ukraine is in an existential struggle, I don’t see the Ukrainians caving.
But then what, become a part of China?
I don't think Russia could defend themselves from an attack of a lesser nation right now, and I truly wish one of them would take opportunity
China doesn't want Russia to implode. That would only create problems for no real gain. But they'll take advantage of Russia's weakness to get cheap raw materials and perhaps some territorial concessions.
They need Russia to guard their back, the last thing they need is a USA-friendly regime in Russia.
You are all talking about 'just a bit longer and Russia will implode'.
Look at the state of Ukraine, who is going to implode sooner, Russia or Ukraine?
Heck, look at the state of Europe and USA! USA is a political nutcase, and Europe has deep divisions and is overflowing with incompetence and impotence. Plus enormous debts, both in USA and in Europe.
Why do you imagine Ukraine's desire for sovereignty would be exhausted before Russia's stomach for economic hardship? Do you really think the Russia public has the stamina even for the 4 more years it will take them to capture the rest of Donbas?
As someone with no firsthand knowledge at all, I am inclined to believe your position is correct. But I also think the Economist is making an important point: Russia's continued prosecution of this war will shred their internal economy with consequences lasting for decades or centuries. What people often underestimate is just how much damage an economy can suffer before breaking down entirely.
But Putin doesn't care about that, so the war will continue until something changes militarily.
The EU is rich enough to support Ukraine for a very long time. During that time it is likely that Ukraine develops better and better weapons. This requires Russian army to improve as well.
It's not clear how the Russian army will improve when the economy declines.
The EU is rich enough but will they stay "willing enough"? Unfortunately, many EU parties that are gaining popularity are also against spending money on Ukraine
The EU, well NATO has the problem what Russia will do when it is no longer at war with Ukraine. There is also the question what the US would if Russia attacks a NATO country.
So European NATO countries basically need to keep supporting Ukraine while they try to becomes militarily independent of the US.
EU just needs to support Ukraine until Russia has dug themselves into a hole that will take generations to recover from. Their might be a point where the war hasn't ended but Russia is no longer seen as a threat by the EU.
One issue is that Europe got caught with it pants down. It likely that Europe will keep improving its defense long after it is no long necessary from an economic point of view. Supporting Ukraine in destroying whatever Russia manages to produce is a sound strategy in this context.
If Russia really becomes weaker and the war winds down a bit, then supporting Ukraine is likely to become cheaper as well. But as long as Russia manages to send tons of drones and missiles to Ukraine, Europe should be worried. So Ukraine will remain a testing ground for air defense for a while.
There is also the issue with the Baltic countries and to some extent Finland. Those countries are terrified that Russia will do something stupid.
The EU as a whole is rich enough, the problem is that its the elites that are rich, not the ordinary citizens. However, the burden of support (via taxes and cutting welfare) will be places on ordinary citizens. Hence, the need to flame the war rhetoric. Still, there is no real support for forever war among EU citizenry.
Even if there is enough support for economic/material support of Ukraine, the matter of sending your man to die on the eastern front is an altogether different matter. Even Poland is not willing to do that. I mean, 'I am afraid of dying in a war, so I better go die in a war, to prevent that.'
Thank you for your esteemed presence. I've got an unsatisfied hankering for kneeling since george Floyd died, but now that you're here, take that kneel.
The article is not as unrealistic as that, the author does point out that Putin is not just looking at the state of Russia, he’s also looking at the relative state of Ukraine and its support from the West.
The death zone isn’t the point at which they die, it’s the point at which they are consuming their own long term strength and capacity to recover in order to sustain their effort .
To our utter shame, we have never actually committed to Ukrainian victory or Russian defeat, but merely to tenuous Ukrainian survival. I firmly believe this war would already be over, or effectively so, if Ukraine’s allies had spent what we have up till now in the first 2 years. Even from a cynical financial point of view it would have been the better policy.
I don't think doubling the support would have been nearly enough to ensure Ukrainian victory.
The fundamental issue is that Russia has not fully committed to winning the war either. While losing the war would be an existential threat to the Putin regime, not winning it is not. As long as the war drags on, there are more effective uses for Russian resources to ensure the stability of the regime. But if the war becomes an existential threat, Russia could mobilize its entire economy.
A regime change in Russia is the only way Ukraine could win the war. Maybe by a coup or by military force. Or maybe by an arrangement, where the current regime can retire comfortably in a third country without having to answer for its crimes.
Also many westerns forget (or have no clue) that in ruzzian mindset suffering is one of the greatest virtues. The more you suffer - the better ruzzian you are.
By western standards ruzzian economy is in collapse, but their citizens are willing to endure anything beyond western imagination. Not to mention that even before 2022 apart from Moscow and Saint Petersburg there are many towns that are like timecapsules 50+ years into the past.
TL;DR: I will believe ruzzina state collapse/death when I will see it, but now I don't hold my breath.
> If your competitors are also weakening—and if you believe you can tolerate the pain longer than they can—the calculus flips. Economic pressure that should drive compromise instead reinforces the logic of persistence.
I think everyone underestimates just how much misery Russia, and Russian citizens, can endure.
I think the problem is that there is not much data presented in this article - or other articles of that kind.
Systems are resilient - until they are not, and exhibit sudden factures and fast collapse.
The question is not whether Russia collapses or not, but who would be making profit from such a scenario, and who is keen on keeping the current state of affairs.
Russia is a glimpse into the future of America if nothing changes substantially in American political system. It’s a digital surveillance state, an oligarchy which co-opted technocratic elites into a ruling class and exploits mildly oppressed population without going to extremes. It has the technology and resources to maintain status quo for a very long time and absorb moderate shocks like this war.
They're certainly a fatalistic people. That's the real scary part about authoritarianism, people quit caring. They know their leaders are crooks and so on, that's just normal to many of them.
Is it so? They had changed form of government twice in less than a century. Not just head of state or ruling party, form of government. You assume that because their baseline is miserable they can tolerate a lot but there’s a big difference between living a miserable life unter a totalitarian regime barely affording basic necessities, and all the same but starving.
> They had changed form of government twice in less than a century.
IMHO ruzzia hasn't changed in ~450-500 years since Ivan the Terrible. No matter how they sell their way of governing to international scene - it's always a tzar rulling with iron fist. There were optimistic glimpses that they will grow out of it, but it always returns back to tzar.
On top of that current Russia isn’t actually “suffering”, certainly nowhere near 90s levels. Cheap crap from Russia replaced Western produce and those with money can buy grey goods. Putin is doing a “good” job insulating general population from the war.
lol you can call it crap if it makes you feel better, but McDonalds was replaced by the same vendors, making the same stuff sourced mostly locally as before, using the same processes that McDonalds used, they just don't send their revenue to the US anymore. Same for Ikea (majority of stuff sold at Ikea was sourced locally and continues under local brands), same for Starbucks - Shokoladnitsa is subjectively better and keeps all the $$ locally, but whatever. The level of myths and delusions people confidently post here on this topic is truly impressive.
Uhuh, and Coca Cola was replaced by… Coca Cola from near Asian republics. iPhones and GPUs imported for obscene prices. AutoVAZ is pretty much rebranded Chinese cars. Chinese mine and destroy Russian nature for cheap coal to reduce their emissions rate.
A "dead" centrally-planned economy can continue lurching forward like a zombie for a long, long time. No one should count on this ending the war any time soon.
I live in Dubai, UAE and I can see with my own eyes that the sanctions strategy doesn't work, here Russians buy whathever they like and send it to Russia. There are companies that do this. They hire workers from poor countries promising a good life here in Dubai and they send them in Ukraine to fight. To fight agains Russia we need to attack every nations that have deals with Russia. Let's sanction everyone who makes deals with Russia, let's really block everything that goes to Russia and then maybe the Russian economy with crash
I am not in Russia, but I have friends in Russia and visit Russia once a year or so.
From what I see there is no visible economy problems in Russia. Yes, there are some temporary issues in some areas, but generally it's resolved promptly.
There is some decrease of real salary/price increase, but not that significant. Probably situation in EU is worse.
It looks like economic block of Russian government is really professional and know what to do. It's not typical for government in Russia ;)
Also it helps that people are locked in country by western countries, so many stays in country and drives the economy.
Russian unemployment of 2.2% is a bad sign, not a good sign.
For practical purposes, unemployment around 4% means full employment, because there's always a portion of the population not working for some reason: taking time off, too dumb, don't want to work, unable to for reasons of temperment or psychological health, etc. At 4% (as the US has often been in the last few decades) it's really difficult to fill menial roles or unskilled factory jobs with people who know their ass from a hole in the ground.
Russia at 2.2% means many needed positions are going unfulfilled, crippling productivity and planning. It's a sign that the manpower needs of the war are draining productive workers, slowing their own economy at a time when they need more productivity to overcome sanctions and other economic effects.
This number doesn’t take into account immigration. Russian economy is supported by several millions of immigrants from Central Asia (the number much bigger than number of mobilized people). There was low unemployment before the war.
correct. they've mostly shifted to a militarized economy and all available labor is now gobbled up.
salaries are pretty good, relatively speaking, if you're in engineering or other STEM fields.
excess labor is being drained off to die horribly to drones in eastern Ukraine.
it's kind of like a fat guy starving to death -- for a minute all that weight loss will bring improvements to blood pressure, insulin, etc., but in a couple weeks he's not gonna feel so great
How does Russia have $73 billion dollars worth of debt. Who is buying Russian treasuries? Also how did the GDP grow by 1% in 2025, is that a function of the internal Defence spending activity?
Obviously domestic investors. EU sanctions locked them on domestic market and with current macro indicators buying Russian debt is a no-brainer.
> Also how did the GDP grow by 1% in 2025, is that a function of the internal Defence spending activity?
Russia poured a lot of money in the economy, so it wasn’t just military spending. Generous payouts to families of killed and wounded soldiers did magic to local property markets. It also accelerated inflation, which pushed people to spend more. At the same time imports from the West dropped, only partially compensated by Chinese. Central bank had to raise interest rates multiple times targeting inflation and preventing economy from overheating. Now it started dropping the rates, taking into account that borrowing already suppressed and military spending is lower this year.
I guess $73 billion is actually a pretty small number at the end of the day when you compare it to even a developing nation like India with $1.5 trillion of bonds issued.
All true, but I remember several articles in the Economist in the first year warning that no collapse was imminent, and basically that the Russian central bank had plenty of options to recalibrate the economy in the medium term. They made comparisons with other countries that have been subject to similar, or even much more severe sanctions.
Overall I think they’ve been the best source of analysis on this I’ve found. They were explaining what CDOs and such were, and why they were a systemic risk years before the collapse in 2008.
I agree the Economist may still be the best major finance / news publication. I trust it over nearly all the others though it’s gone downhill since McElthwaite left for Bloomberg
They are killing off their last and best generation of men, so yes the economy will suffer. I'm not questioning that part -- it's the repeated "russia will collapse any minute" propaganda, going on for 12+ years, that is very easy to see through.
I'm actually in awe. I wish I had lists like these for other "hot-button" issues where the common narrative is that things are constantly on the brink of some kind of catastrophe or resolution. Really puts things into perspective.
i recommend writing prompts for Gemini / ChatGPT along the lines of "as a history professor put X in perspective. Compare the evidence for / against. Be sure to include grounding on each fact ..."
So glad we don't have propaganda, only independent journalists who just coincidentally parrot the same think-tank talking points. See the wealth of articles that are even more obviously wrong predicting China's collapse.
Yes, it seems like that’s the propaganda. The free speech democratic West, instead of reporting about the objective truth, tells us half truths for their own benefit.
Western news resources aren’t controlled by government, unlike Russia. So they have incentive to post what generates clicks, not necessarily what reflects reality.
if they published anything for clicks they would have immediately published the Hunter Biden laptop story. The most salacious click-baity story in 20+ years and it was shelved. There's more to influence than "money"
90% of the media in the US is owned by 6 companies [1]. We, the people of the western civilization, are not those 6 companies. Most of us don't trust the media [2]. With that freedom of speech, these "news" agencies can be as biased as they want, lie in all sorts of ways (omission, etc), they mostly just can't slander/defame. Almost all are strongly aligned to the republican party or democratic, and all of them are aligned to common goals like oil and Israel. It's best to watch the news knowing that there's an attempt at manipulation. Luckily, with the anti-alignment of the news agencies, the "other side" will often loudly point out flaws.
The only hope for reasonable context/nuance over here is through independent journalists.
Don't just the world through the lens of a few billionaires.
> It has entered what mountaineers call the death zone: the altitude above 8,000 metres at which the human body consumes itself faster than it can be repaired.
> Over the past four years the Russian economy has bifurcated into two distinct metabolic systems... The body is metabolising its own muscle tissue for energy.
> A recession is like fatigue: rest and you recover. Russia’s condition is like altitude sickness: the longer you stay, the worse it gets, regardless of rest.
> But Vladimir Putin is not only watching his own oxygen gauge. He is watching the other climbers.
Always a fan of the writing style the Economist promotes.
I found the metaphors / analogons rather disturbing e.g. metabolism, etc. Does the human body have a Chinese assistent with an oxigen tent at 8000 metres?
I wonder if the end of Russia as a world threat is something that benefits or hurts the US.
The US runs a trillion dollar war machine, a multi-trillion dollar military industrial complex. It needs to feed it. It needs enemies. At the very least, it needs a constant threat to justify its existence (even if it has to create those threats).
If Russia ceases to be a threat, does the US begin to hassle more countries? Does it increase the Police State, does domestic surveillance become more prevalent. Are we already seeing these things?
A legitimate Russian threat might actually be good for the world and the American people.
It’s interesting, of course, but for example the Ukrainian budget depends on donations for about 60%, yet this dump doesn’t seem to rush to publish articles with equally loud headlines about Ukraine. Or about the US with its trillions in debt, or the UK, France, and most EU countries with huge debts exceeding their annual GDP.
I would add that it's really unclear, IMO, what the real state of the Russian economy is.
The main focus is on GDP growth, which indeed has been reported as decent - maybe a bit of a wobble recently but no more.
So, first of all, that number is kind of unverifiable. Hostile journalists have been silenced, independent institutions shattered or kicked out. Their GDP number might be accurate, but might also be inflated, and we'd never know. Russia is notorious for manipulating information for propaganda reasons and frankly I can't see why they wouldn't inflate their GDP prints. China was far more open when people were questioning its GDP and even then it was tea leaf prophecies.
Moreover, with Putin's (and incidentally Trump's) approach of never retreating and always doubling down, I'd expect Russia would act like it's business as usual until pretty much the day it collapses. As with the Titan sub, there will be some awkward creaking sounds then in one instant it will all go.
For the final straw, even if the GDP number is 100% right, increasingly it is driven by military spending. GDP is essentially the sum total of money spent in a country. And Russia is increasingly spending that money not on healthcare, schools, police, infrastructure and investments, and instead on military hardware being sent straight to be destroyed in Ukraine. You can do this for a little bit but, as the article points out, not forever, and mere GDP growth is not much of a sign of a strong economy.
There's just so much we don't know: if the GDP is real, what Russian gold reserves look like (apparently raided - but how much?), how their oil companies are holding up having siphoned every last Rouble meant for maintenance off to cash. Russia also lost something like an estimated 1.25M men. If for a back-of-the-envelope we assume half of Russia's prewar population is participating in labour force, that's almost 2% of the workforce permanently lost. And their loss rate ain't dropping.
EDIT some more caveats:
- GDP captures the official economy. It is unclear what the impact on the unofficial economy is, I can imagine larger than on the regular economy (but could make the opposite argument too).
- Even if Russia is not fudhing the final number, the incentives on individual surveyed subjects align with those of pumping GDP, especially in time of crisis - lower costs, higher income.
Russia‘s international reserves are at all time high at the moment (800B$), of which only 300B are frozen by sanctions. Doesn’t look like a sign of a death zone. The arguments for it are questionable:
>Consider the arithmetics of descent for the Kremlin. Russia’s defence sector now accounts for around 8% of GDP. Demobilising without falling into a crisis would require five conditions to be met simultaneously: credible security guarantees that satisfy the Kremlin’s threat perceptions (which in turn will determine the extent to which it rebuilds its military capabilities);
Likely result of a peace deal. Trump wants to sign it and focus on China, so some pragmatic arrangement to be expected.
> mass demobilisation with effective retraining programmes;
The easiest part. The scale of mobilization was relatively small compared to total workforce. Not sure why effective retraining sounds like a problem.
>at least partial sanctions relief for technology access;
Russia has gaps in electronics (can buy from China) and in aviation (sanctions likely to be lifted in exchange for opening transit routes). In software it is still ahead of Europe, having strong national players in AI, banking, marketplaces etc. It may need Western tech to roll out 5G, but given that they already plan it, they probably already have access to Chinese tech.
>a revolution in defence procurement that prioritises efficiency over budget absorption;
Not clear why this is relevant. The defense spending will wind down gradually, it is likely already more efficient than before the war.
> and a healthy ecosystem of small and mid-size firms capable of absorbing reallocated resources and boosting innovation.
Will likely happen as soon as tax relief will be affordable, i.e. in 1 or 2 years after the peace deal. Resilience of Russian SMEs is something developed over decades. It might happen that Dubai and South Caucasus Russian tech hubs will go home. Most importantly, there will be a huge amount of money spent on new territories similarly to infrastructure investments in Crimea, which will add few percentage of growth to GDP.
> The probability of all five converging is near zero.
This is the most interesting part of the article, but it left unexplained. Why?
Same story for 4 years long. "Russian economy is at the brink of a collapse." Yet it Somehow just keeps ok going year after year.
The truth is that the sanctions are only hurting the Eurozone more than Russia. Small minority (EU or the political west) cannot force meaningful sanctions on much larger group (BRICS). Unfortunately this is not the narrative anyone can say out loud lest they be labeled as "Putin's trolls" so the wishy-washy keeps on going on.
How do you think sanctions work? Economy is not powered by electricity, it took 4 years to crack down on their shadow fleet, God knows how many more escape hatches they have. China and India, and now US support them.
"China and India" this is the point exactly. BRICS is the largest economic union in the world. They don't need EU for anything therefore the sanctions are only self harming the Eurozone. This is the reality.
Not that you aren't factually right with regards to all modern technology being funded thru MIC, but USSR/Russia had exactly the same kind of MIC and has miserably failed at converting it to something profitable in the past. No reason to expect anything different this time - it's probably even worse because every successful entrepreneur that wouldn't leave the country ends up in prison. That said, there isn't much of good news for Ukraine either, sadly. The fat man slims down but the thin one starves to death.
USSR: kicked their educated jews out (twice -- pogroms & doctors plot), kicked most of their educated gentiles out in 1917, used up their remaining human capital as cannon fodder against hitler. Everything USSR had was gifted from the west to keep the west's military-industrial grift running (see Antony Sutton's works for details). They were a boogeyman used by western elites to extract wealth from their own taxcattle.
Modern Russia is a gas station and strip mine with decent relations to the south and the east. Not a phenomenal position, but a hell of a lot better than what they had. Building up their defense sector so that they don't get internationally looted again (i.e. the 90s) is the right move for them, and an unfortunate reality for us.
Aside from some factual errors, that's one way to look on things. Another one is that USSR's political top, however incompetent, released their personal fates are tied to their country, while the modern ones plan for a retirement elsewhere (or at least did so before SHTF in 2022).
> USSR: kicked their educated jews out (twice -- pogroms & doctors plot)
Sorry, that's not how it happen (source: my grandfather being a USSR Jew). Pogroms were before USSR (and were a huge factor in USSR becoming a thing) and before most Jews had access to upper education. The pre-WWII USSR was perhaps the most Jewish-friendly country in the world, or at least in Europe (however low of a bar it was at the time). After the purges and the war, with most of pre-revolution intellectual communists dead or worse and fresh-baked ex-peasant comrades now forming most of the bureaucracy, the pendulum came swinging back.
> kicked most of their educated gentiles out in 1917
Forced deportation was a few thousand cases, mostly humanitarians. Most of the educated gentiles left voluntary (showing their good judgement). And then emigration controls were put in place so the rest wouldn't leave - it's just 20's USSR weren't yet the totalitarian state it would latter become and had no machinery to prevent people from leaving.
> used up their remaining human capital as cannon fodder against hitler
Not like Stalin would not prefer to use cannon fodder elsewhere. It just wasn't an option at the time.
> Modern Russia is a gas station and strip mine with decent relations to the south and the east
That's what it was in the aughties. No more.
> Building up their defense sector
Russia already got damn nukes. That's the best defense against symmetric warfare the money can buy - and against asymmetric an inflated defense sector doesn't help much. Russia didn't built up defense sector because of any genuine or perceived threat, rather for the same reason USA does: it's a huge pork barrel.
> they don't get internationally looted again
Looted as in being sent food aid? (Well, truth to be told, this aid came with a heavy load of Mormon and Scientology cool-aid drinkers). The whole "90's looting" is tankies' legend. It was exactly the same kind of de-industrialization that happened in the West - except the social guards weren't in place and the state machine was totally collapsed. Which is certainly not a fault of any other nation.
> the right move for them, and an unfortunate reality for us.
The problem isn't "building up the defense sector". The problem is damn invading neighborhood country. Not only was it an asshole move, it was incredibly dumb because it leaves no good exit option. Even if the hostilities in Ukraine ends one way or another, the "new elite" aka bunch of goons with guns aren't going anywhere.
I know. Beside the point. The point is that 20th c. Russia/USSR's human capital had been obliterated.
> Russia already got damn nukes.
Old technology. Suicide. West has better weapons, like twitter (arab spring), autonomous drones, and whatever sonic/microwave mystery we used in Venezuela. Russia is behind.
> Looted as in being sent food aid?
Looted as in having state bureaucrats sell national assets to western corporations for pennies on the dollar, then buying soccer clubs in UK with their ill-gotten gains, as Russia's peasants starve and their birth rate collapses.
> The problem is damn invading neighborhood country.
NATO wants to put missiles on their doorstep. How would any other country respond? We would have glassed Cuba if Khrushchev hadn't taken his missiles back. US state department had been plotting the Zelensky revolution / Russia war since the Obama administration.
I am not a tankie. I am disgusted. We are skirting WWIII to prop-up the boomer pension ponzi scheme. We started shit in Ukraine (yes, WE started it) because the Russians were selling oil to Europe, diminishing the petrodollar in the process. It's also why we've kicked people's shit in from Afghanistan to Syria to Libya to Ukraine. Doesn't matter who you voted for, (D) or (R), the child molester uniparty was going to start that war regardless.
No. Putin started shit in Ukraine after the locals got feed up with his dear friend's blatant corruption and he took it personally. America was never ever a factor there. The world doesn't spin around USA, even Americans may think so.
> Zelensky revolution
Lol, Zelensky didn't came into public light until a year or so after the revolution.
he was the 2nd stage of the same (five eyes funded) revolution. install a puppet. bait putin. wreck economies throughout eurasia. profit. if you read the declassified correspondence of our baby-eater class, you will begin to see this for what it is, rather than some marvel capeshit fantasy of good vs evil.
I'm not related to the rest of the conversation, but the "NATO expansion" talking point is so egregious at this point that it's impossible to pass by and ignore.
> NATO wants to put missiles on their doorstep.
No they didn't. Joining NATO was never really on the table for Ukraine, because by the time there was political willpower, Russia had already created enough territorial disputes to prevent it from even being a hypothetical possibility. Not only was Ukraine never close to being in NATO, but you talk of "putting missiles" somewhere, which is like five steps further than that.
If they cared so much about NATO, you'd think they would've done something in 2004, no? When all the Baltic states were added into NATO, putting their borders 100km away from St. Petersburg and about as far from Moscow as Ukraine's borders are? And yet nothing happened...
Nothing was happening between NATO and Ukraine before full-scale war started. Russia could've kept the situation as it was indefinitely. They chose to go to war not because they were desperate and terrified of something, but because they thought they could win the war really easily.
Then when their war led to Finland joining NATO, Russia's official response was to look mildly displeased and forget about it soon after. Because they never cared about those borders. Those borders were close to them for close to 20 years then.
> US state department had been plotting the Zelensky revolution
The "Zelensky revolution"? The one where Zelenskyy suddenly hopped off the stage and became a US-backed revolutionary leader? Not knowing that he was elected a full government change after the revolution, all the way in 2019, shows that you know nothing of Ukrainian politics despite being so confident about it.
There's a weird consensus between Americans who really love and really hate their country that the US has its hands in all the cookie jars, and that nothing in the world can happen without America's involvement. Ukraine has a student protest that snowballs out of control due to escalations, resulting in the country preferring democratic countries over the bright future of becoming a Belarus-like slave state? Must have been the US. Sure, this definitely was something the US liked a lot, but the connections to it are a lot more tenuous than things the US did meddle in. Stop trying to pretend that Ukrainians have no agency and are just a cardboard cutout with Uncle Sam standing behind it. The US has a lot of power, and it has access to lots of variables they can tweak to try and influence the situation, but the primary parties here are Russia and Ukraine.
> done something in 2004, no? When all the Baltic states were added into NATO
Russians weren't happy about that either, but they were too weak to do anything other than complain. Now they are strong enough to retaliate. George Kennan was absolutely gutted by how stupid that expansion was[1].
> Stop trying to pretend that Ukrainians have no agency and are just a cardboard cutout with Uncle Sam standing behind it.
90%+ of mankind does what the signals (radio/newspaper/television/movies/music/textbooks/social media) tell them to do. Money controls the signals. Our Epstein class controls the money (global reserve currency). At least it used to. Ukrainians get the "fell for it" award. Only way to survive this onslaught is to block the outside signals the way the Iranians or the Chinese do. Europeans are slow, because they are only beginning to figure this out.
Their war would have been over before it began if it weren't for the funds and equipment we have furnished.
GUIs are weaponry that we point at one another? You seem to be captive to some overriding viewpoint, to the point that you can't actually evaluate reality.
PARC. Where Papert & Kay ran experiments on children for the military. All to answer the question: how fast can we get an above-average peasant trained on our symbol-processing apparati (radars, dashboards, etc). The answer: kinda fast. If you would think about it for a moment, you won't even need this history lesson to see that GUI is mostly a weapon. Facebook: weapon. Twitter: weapon. Excel: mostly a weapon. Photoshop: mostly a weapon. Web browser: weapon...
Right, it must be biggest country in the world with the economy size of Italy, ostracized by everyone except other outcasts, fully dependent on selling cheap carbon fuel under market rates, and that struggles to occupy Donbass for 12 years.
There’s a decent article in the Economist right now warning of Brazilification in the west. A particular kind of debt fuelled economic death spiral on which Brazil is unfortunately a pioneer.
That is the very basis of our currency, and the basic idea is a good one in an idea-heavy economy more reliant on innovation than natural resource constraints. Also, if truly becomes too much we will just have one of the many many currency changes. My grandparents lived with about five (could be as many as seven) currencies throughout their (German) lives, for example.
As long as the real values remain, the factories, the people, the roads, the buildings, that is not a problem overall. It's not like people can emigrate to alien worlds, and on earth the places with the best real economy will be where they will go - have to go.
Money is the carrot dangled in front of us to keep us moving and to create real value things. The carrot can be updated and changed if the current one starts to lose its appeal, it is not what ultimately matters. The point of view of an individual and the big picture are very different things.
And I'll just use this opportunity to recommend David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" - a wonderful book about the history of economy, demonstrating how it always boils down to effective use of debt.
There are tons of great parts in it, but one that really stuck with me is his analysis of the social dynamics whereby when someone brings you a gift or otherwise does something expensive for you, you are temporarily in debt to them, and the polite expectation is that you always pay it back in a way whereby you give more than you owe, such that they will then be in debt to you (generally for approximately the same amount), and the relationship can continue oscillating, with each of you being in debt about half the time. Paying back exactly what you were given and not a penny more is thus considered to be an indication that you want to discontinue the relationship.
I'm not sure why you ask me what I say. I left it as a written comment for you to peruse at any time and as many times as you want to see what I'm saying.
The only way is just to cede the land and move on. Keep the people alive. 100 years later one can renegotiate. This kind of copium hope wishing the economy collapse or something like Mongol collapse is just not practical. The longer this drag on, the lesser fertile men exist in Ukraine and the population recovery will take even longer while Russian outbirth in the long run. Sometime to win one has to abide by time. Joan or Arc and King Goujian of Yue demonstrated that principle well either by divine intervention or human vengeance. Russia is doing very well. You can check with your Russians or Northern China friends that see the conditions with their eyes and not western propaganda.
No, the Ukraine didn't cede anything. They cut water and electricity to Crimea to punish Crimeans and they were building up the army with Western help.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this site is now dumber for having read it.
They don't just want land though. They want 'denazification' which means overthrowing the government and making it like Belarus or Bucha.
I think the way is to support Ukraine to win rather than the 'escalation management' of Biden or the taking bribes to pressure Ukraine to surrender of Trump.
They are not doing so badly recently. 200 sq km taken back last week.
Care to share how to achieve that? Especially since Ukraine is running low on men.
Should we (the West) send men to fight in Ukraine? What else would make a difference? Do we really want WW3?
Ukraine is not doing great. Selective news selection, notwithstanding. They did occupy some territory in Kursk, did not help them much in the long run either.
'Denazification' means 'regime change', the western standard. Its just that the US is much better at it.
We view Belarus as a total vassal of Putin. Still, there were/are no Belarusian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. That could not have been said about e.g. European soldiers in Afghanistan, or UK soldiers in Iraq.
We keep insisting on Ukraine in NATO ... well, now it is not sure thing there will be a meaningful NATO around by the time the Ukraine war ends.
Ukraine has an 800k+ man army, and has rejected expansion of conscription to those under 27. They literally have everyone under 27 left to conscript. They're not facing a manpower shortage. That's Russian propaganda.
No one is insisting on Ukraine in NATO. NATO has been continually refusing, officially and unofficially, membership for Ukraine because it's actively involved in a war. The NATO charter automatically rejects membership for any party actively engaged in hostilities, defensively or otherwise. Ukraine will never be in NATO unless it has an actual peace with Russia. Talk of Ukraine joining NATO is, again, Russian disinformation trying to blame NATO expansion for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So several sources report this. I assume this may be more "realistic"
than in the last 3 years ago or so.
My problem with this is that many of these "news media" have a certain
propaganda spin. Yes, Russia's propaganda puts any other propaganda
to shame, but that does not mean others don't use propaganda either.
The most prevalent change is how suddenly in Europe, more debt will
be made by upgrading arms. I am not saying this is not understandable,
so I am not necessarily against that; in fact, Europeans need a
nuclear arsenal under EU control anyway. But at the same time one
should not blindly adopt propaganda used by others. One always has
to look what happens to taxpayer's money or who finances something.
