The problem is lower poduction numbers increase the cost per unit. The F35 has escaped this trap. The Vigen and the Puma have not. The Puma is the most expensive IFV with the most negative reputation. In case of the F35 the bad reputation has evaporated. The Puma may have been only a great loss of money.
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Russia lost Germany as a provider of Euros for energy. Who cares about Malls? Germay has provided Russia with a lot of industral eq. Spare parts are no longer (legaly) avaiable. After the bombing of Northstream 1 (saving GAZPROM) and the ignored offer of selling natural gas via the remaining line of Northstream 2, Russian propaganda still want to sell the message that Germany will stab Ukraine in the back.
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Actually you should care about malls as they are a good indicator of how the civilian populace is spending money and how the economy is doing as a whole.
Militarily the sanctions are hurting Russia bad and there is lots of proof to back this up and this is what hurts Russia the most.
With that being said while initially sanctions hurt the Russian public they are still spending money which means they have a good amount of disposable income still which means that the Russians are not seeing the sanctions affect their everyday life.
Add to that major brands are finding ways to sneak back into Russia as letâs face it money rules the rest drools.
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That is a valid point. But the Russian public was not the target of the sanctions and any Russian owned ⏠or $ spent for French parfume or Italian fashion is lost for the war economy. So I am only looking for dual use products like electronics avaiable to consumers. The shortages of (some) consumer goods in North Amercica became very bad news in the Axis powers in the early 1940th.
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From media: ÄeskĂĄ provided 125 ifw or apc to Ukraine.
My guess is that almost all of them are (after a year) improved BMP2s
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Interesting 4 part story/adventure, I wonder what you think. Back from the front: a British volunteer in Ukraine - YouTube
Rand has some interesting insights which are sobering. They have lots of experience and publish lots of research. Well make up your own mind.
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From the conclusions:
âTerritorial control, although immensely important to Ukraine, is not the most important dimension of the warâs future for the United States. We conclude that, in addition to averting possible escalation to a Russia-NATO war or Russian nuclear use, avoiding a long war is also a higher priority for the United States than facilitating significantly more Ukrainian territorial control. Furthermore, the U.S. ability to micromanage where the line is ultimately drawn is highly constrained since the U.S. military is not directly involved in the fighting. Enabling Ukraineâs territorial control is also far from the only instrument available to the United States to affect the trajectory of the war. We have highlighted several other toolsâpotentially more potent onesâthat Washington can use to steer the war toward a trajectory that better promotes U.S. interests. Whereas the United States cannot determine the territorial outcome of the war directly, it will have direct control over these policies.â
Thank you, that was very sobering. The US has only direct control over the US support to Ukraine. Nobody has any control over the Russian evaluation of the future politics of the US (the US and the rest of The West will get freezed and will drop support to Ukraine).
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Let me add my own 2 bits to feedback on this. This is usual is a US centered report in that the US cares about this and can do that.
We all agree that the US has limited control here but I feel that regardless of how we want to handle Ukraine, we have responsibilities to the NATO countries bordering Russia who are taking this very seriously and consider the outcome critical to their survival. I cannot imagine a scenario where we can pull back our support of Ukraine without it causing serious repercussions within NATO. We all started the ball rolling and now the only way to stop it would be for all of Nato to agree to stop it. If that happens I feel Ukraine would fight on and we would have to see this for years.
Rand says good this and bad this but I donât see concrete recommendations for how to manage this to an endgame. That is the problem with warsâŠ.it is always easier to start them than to stop them. There is no way to get these countries to a peace table as long as the 2 sides cannot agree on where the borders will be. They are so far apart right now. I feel that Russia doesnât care about borders because they will pound Ukraine to rubble and gobble it up. You canât negotiate that.
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There are always those who would like the conflict to keep going as long as possible because it is in their interest , either they are making money on it or they want to weaken Russia.
For the most part I think most regular people want is to end the war as soon as possible , people are suffering and dying and that is not a good thing.
But as long as Putin is not willing to back down , and Ukraine is realistic that they will not be able to get back all the land Russia stole or get revenge for all the suffering Putin caused it will be a long war.
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After I have done more reading:
But this paper argues in favor to do that. Use the stick of canceling support to force Ukraine to cede land to Russia and use the carrot of lifting sanctions to Russia. Russia is spending a lot to divide the west, this paper paints the US as a country that backstabs allies, like the Kurds.
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The Rand corporation doesnât make a strong case for Ukraineâs conditional surrender. It doesnât explain how Ukraine would deter Russia after Russia takes it territory. It doesnât explain the ramifications of the alliance between Russia and China. It doesnât address the certain terrorism that Russia will cause abroad if it takes territory at this point. This isnât 2014, and Rand thinks it is. At this point, America needs to be far more focused on the broad threat that Russia has cultivated in many ways because Russiaâs close allies like China and Venezuela are actively threatening America.
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Venzuela actively threatering not some American states but the US? The madmangoverments of Venezuela have ruined the country, as far as I know. What am I missing?
HI there,
this is my first contribution on this forum, but I could not let that stand.
The population of Ukraine very clearly does not want to end the war at all costs. This is confirmed by polling by international agencies. It is also apparent by talking to Ukrainians, of which only a small minority will voice such an opinion.
I understand that this sounds unbelievable. Who would want to continue this catastrophe? Please consider this.
Ukraine is at war for 9 years from their point of view. Over this period, attempts to make agreements have been made, both from outside of Ukraine and from the inside. Zelensky himself was elected on the idea of ending the war by giving up Crimea (even though he never publicly confirmed this).
None of that has worked. As for now, Ukrainians have been convinced by the warmongering nature of the Russians that only through a clear and unambiguous show of strength, i.e. Russiaâs defeat, Ukraine can be safe.
An often heard saying sums this up: âIf we do not win the war, our children will fight it again.â
Realistically, Ukrainians know their history in as far as Russia cannot be trusted with any sort of agreements and prospects of peace through surrender are essentially null. Unfortunately, believing the opposite is purely wishful thinking.
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I do not think there are many people who can think for them self who would think Putin would not be back in a few years to take another stab at Ukraine if the war stops today and Putin gets what he wants
Putin probably thought it would be just as easy for Russia to repeat the landgrab of 2014.
I do not know if that if Ukraine does not win that their children would fight again .
I do not think that Putin would leave any children behind to continue, those left alive would be sent to reeducation camps and their culture and identity crushed out of them.
I know Russia is not the USSR but I think that Putin likes to think they are and the USSR has done it with other cultures , crushing and diluting the culture that does not fit or comply.
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Venezuela itself is not an active threat to anyone except its own people. Venezuela is only a threat by allowing those who dislike the US to use their resources, I.e. bases in Venezuela. China, Russia and Cuba have had goodwill cruises over here. Is it a threat in military terms not really. It is however a potential we watch.
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The latest news about the status of the German army, in German but if you select German subtitles first and then switch to automatic translation it is endurable:
Timothy Snyder adresses the discussion about nukes:
This is exactly what a blackmailer does, and (may godwin be upon us) there are parallels to the period of the runup to World War 2.
Back then, the German government led by Hitler kept making all sorts of demands, pledging every time it would be the last.
âWe just want to restore sovereignty over (1st) Saarland and (2nd) the Rheinlandâ
âWe just want to have this union with Austria, and as you can see the Austrians want this, tooâ
âWe only want Sudetenlandâ
âWe invaded to protect Bohemia and Moravia against certain foreign elements (or whatever the justification was), we intend to keep it autonomousâ
âAll we need is a corridor to Danzigâ
The parallel to Putin cannot be missed.
âWe just want to bring Crimea back into Russia where it used to beâ
âAbkhazia and South Ossetia are ethnically Russian, their people want to join usâ
âWe just want Donetsk and Luhanskâ
âOh, and Mariupolâ
He wonât stop, next on the list is likely Odessa and a corridor to Transnistria (Moldova east of the river Dnistr). And with all the pro Russian sympathizers in the west heâs hoping to mobilize and busy mobilizing, sooner or later, the Baltic States? Then tell his western puppets to sabotage efforts to mobilize NATO, and as we can see there would be plenty of collaborators for that, especially on the extreme right and extreme left, all under the guise of âpreventing warâ but in reality âhelping Putin winâ.
Under international law, no part of a country can declare itself independent or organize referendums aiming at such without the permission of the central authority of said country. This is why the opening phase, one year ago, contained a rush to Kyiv. The idea was to replace the current Ukraininan government and get a pro Russian government to approve the territorial transfers (which would still be illegal under international law but would give it a veneer of legality).
Russia started the war, Russia presented bogus arguments to justify itself, Russia is keeping the war going. Russia, and only Russia is preventing a settlement. If they withdraw right now, there can be an end to this war. Aggression should not be rewarded, and I am not living in the alternate reality where there is this conspiracy against Russia by getting Ukraine into EU and/or NATO. Ukraine decides what it wants to be a member of, and then those organizations decide whether they will accept Ukraine or not. Not Russia. Not anyone else.
Maybe Russia should ask itself why so many of its neighbors and former parts of its empires donât want anything to do with them anymore. Once they answer this question, they can adjust their own behavior accordingly.
Oh, and another interesting parallel.
1939: Germany said âPoland started itâ
2022: Russia said âUkraine started itâ
False in both cases.
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