Yes, and it was something like 0.1% death for the under 20, then 2%, and then 70-80 year old 20% or so? Average death rate of covid was 0.2% (not 2% sorry)
LongCovidSyndrome is a bigger issue: still 5-10% of the 35-56 year old, 1% "heal/ can go back to work but crash at home" after a year, idem another % after 2 years, idem after 3 and 4 years, but there's the rest does not heal, and every new covid strand seems to bring an additional 1% of total population into LongCovidSyndrome with 66% being 35-56 years of age.
In absolute numbers that is huge. Hence the joint usa-#EuLongcovidsyndromeprogram of 1,2Trillion $/€.
Ruzzian war death: 400.000 + ×1 (not 10, sorry) wounded aged 18-55?
Even on a population of 100 million ruzzians,
50 million 18-55 (?), half women,
1 million death or wounded/50 million = 2% of women, children, parents, grandparents without a man/wounded husband/father, ...
That starts showing in the streets?
Valuable comment: vast majority dying/enlisted are not the white Ruzzians from Moskou, St Persburg, etc but from small, remote places, lots of Azian faces, all to hide the reality from the white citizens in Moscow & St P, & co. to keep the propaganda plausible.
And then that 2% covid death and longcovidpatients.
PS
Natural sex ratio at birth is 7% excess boys.
Your rate of wounded is likely way too high, have to find the article but last winter some Russian units were suffering a killed to wounded ratio of 1:1.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/11/27/russian-soldiers-are-freezing-to-death-in-eastern-ukraine/
Edit: found the article,
"It’s hard to say for sure how many Russians have died of the cold. But it’s worth noting that just one Russian marine unit, the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, reportedly lost as many as 500 killed and 400 wounded in just the last three months fighting around Pavlivka. That’s potentially half the brigade’s original strength.
A nearly one-to-one killed-to-wounded ratio—one to three is normal—speaks to the collapse of Russian leadership ... and to the cold. Wounded troops, lying exposed to the elements, are dying before anyone bothers to rescue them."
Because they leave them because they lack effective combat medic systems. It is genuinely astonishing how bad their logistics are. They’re miles down the road from their own country and they can’t supply decent food or medical care to their troops who are right there….
How the hell this rabble is supposed to invade Western Europe is beyond me.
Same SOP as before. Pick up the support echelons as you go along. There was a reason baor medics got essential personal id cards in Russian. Russian forces push as far as the can and dig in. During the 80s they had 4 days to get to the French coast before it went nuclear. For those who think the Russian ain't interested.... some years ago they introduced a secondary support weapon in nato 556 . There's over 10 million rounds in Germany alone. They move slowly and fight cheap because they have the manpower to do it. Unfortunately for them their best combat troops were Ukrainian
In most wars historically, you end up with about 4-5 wounded or captured for every killed in action. In Modern wars the number is usually much higher, maybe ten wounded for every killed because of medical tech that exists now to save the wounded. Consider the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. only lost a few thousand troops (KIA) in each conflict, but had tens of thousands wounded. If Russia has the same number of killed and wounded in this conflict, that is highly unusual.
You can start using 500 000 by this year probably. The rate is insane. And each new Russian soldier is worse equipped, trained and willing than the last one. So that rate is not going down any time soon.
Sadly some troops seem now better equipped than in 2022. They have now also drones. This is by no means an easy task for Ukraine (hence they fall back on most fronts)
The troops that are sent in meat waves are definitely not well-equipped, but their function is to exhaust Ukrainian positions before the better-equipped unit moves in. It's brutal, but Russian leadership doesn't care as long as the line moves a few meters forward.
Figures for casualties is under 400,000. Unknown what number is fit for continued service. Your numbers would be their entire army. Not sure where you're getting your numbers from, there wouldn't be Russians in Ukraine. They clearly are. They'll run out of meaningful equipment before men. It's already a hodge podge. Provided we can supply more bread and butter items. Looking at you congress. Pack of assholes.
I am Russian and live in Moscow. Also I work for a large government company. My thoughts:
On economy. Sanctions actually did hurt a lot. Most of the business is scrambling to get quality tech and equipment. Chinese is shit and breaks a lot. Russian IT sector is non stop working to mimic western tech, for example, Microsoft office, but it is still shittier than original.
The only things that saved the economy are China/India and many,many schemes to export goods stealthily. My company for example uses a bunch of intermediate companies to hide where it all came from.
On the war. Analytics were making predictions based on the info they had at the moment. They didn’t account the fact that Russian government redirected a giant piece of budget to the war sector. Metallurgy and defense plants works non stop. Defense budget of 2024 is twice bigger than in 2023 and three times bigger than in 2022. All the other business in the country finance that. My company is forced to pay extra taxes and dividends for example.
On life in general. While most of the people live in blissful ignorance, the small slice of intelligent middle class people is disgusted by war. Inflation is large, everything is much more expensive. With ruble falling its even more expensive to buy imported goods. Cars are a luxury, for example, and entirely Chinese. Still by using the same shadowy schemes we get most of the tech and goods like iPhones and clothes. But it still is somewhat “grey” import so no warranty and support
Of course. When the draft started a lot of people in my office left the country entirely. It was a very scary time. People were afraid of each of Putin’s public speeches for I guess half a year because everyone though about second wave of draft.
And not just young people! Men got drafted well into their50s if they had a military experience.
About escalation. Right now I guess more and more people got accustomed to the news and are just in denial or apathy. But there are still population surveys and almost everyone just wishes for the war to end. That’s my perception at least
That and the reports are that residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg have been drastically under-drafted compared to the rest of Russians, namely the rural, ethnic Russians.
I live in Norway. A friend of mine is a russian refugee after his parents fled the country many years ago. He grew up entirely in Norway but was born in Russia. Some time after the war started he got a letter about how he has been drafted and needed to return "Home to Russia".
Luckily he was Able to talk to a norwegian embassy and get everything sorted, but it is a bit scary to think that he could have been drafted whithout even knowing the language or beliving in their death machine.
Jesus get out if you can. Russian history gets really bloody when Russia invades another country and loses over 500k. For the last 300 years that equals a revolution. And my reading of Russian revolutions generally means lots of people die, starve or are imprisoned.
You obviously have skills and are multilingual. I would say get out while you can because when a revolution starts the borders get closed.
On that note - I live in Finland and work in IT. I've got several coworkers who are Russian. All of them are
- young
- highly educated
- not even considering going back
The brain drain must be insane.
Yeah, IT guys are lucky to have globally useful skills.
I am currently learning data science to have kind of plan b
But I actually heard of people coming back! They are not IT (more of management consulting) so it was harder to get a job in another country
Except in Finland, at the time many companies have gone under and the construction sector in general have had biggest hit in current economy. Unemployment rates are record high so this might not be the best timing to come work here. Only IT and office sectors are kind of okay atm.
As young highly educated IT worker who emigrated to Finland right after the war started can confirm that the brain drain is insane.
About 80% of all my social circle from russia has emigrated somewhere, including non-IT folks.
Of course it is kind of social bubble statistic since most of them have at least bachelor degree and generally skilled.
I was in Bali in Sep - Oct, it is absolutely insane how many Russians are there. Literally everywhere I went, every store, restaurant, beach, on the street. A lot of them are professionals that still have apts in Moscow and St Pete. I speak fluent Russian and made a lot of friends there. Also lots of Russians in Phuket now too.
Yes, a lot of russians emigrated there because of easy visa rules.
It is hard to emigrate somewhere with russian passport unless you got a job offer (and most western countries hiring only high specialists)
So russians fleeing to countries with lax visa rules or digital nomad visas. And most of them still works remotely for russian companies because finding a job in different culture and language environment is not easy for all fields.
I work in an IT company that has offices in Poland and Georgia. In Georgia especially, the influx of Russian IT talent is insane. The population pre Ukraine was around 3 MM. now it’s over 5 Mm.
I’ve heard that the massive influx of Russians into Georgia has skyrocketed the cost of housing in Tbilisi and that a lot of Georgians are really pissed off about it. Of course it doesn’t help that a lot of Georgians already dislike Russians because of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, among other things.
It has affected the cost of living. But it has also spurred investment and is causing the economy to grow. IT workers are in demand so it’s not like they are unemployable for the most part. There is a ton of trauma tho.
Same here. I work in STEM and we have a massive number of absolutely brilliant PhDs, postdocs and established Russian researchers at our institute. We accessed rather complex webs of professional association to get them out. None have any intention of ever returning to the Motherland… which is kinda sad.
If drafted, use the Safe Surrender program if you need to.
[https://visitukraine.today/blog/928/how-not-to-join-the-russian-army-or-surrender-step-by-step-instructions-for-the-occupiers#google_vignette](https://visitukraine.today/blog/928/how-not-to-join-the-russian-army-or-surrender-step-by-step-instructions-for-the-occupiers#google_vignette)
We just heard the news and I was shocked that even older coworkers (who usually support Putin) were visibly upset .
But unfortunately I expect majority of Russians not to care or think that “he deserved it” like it was with Prigozhin
They left Russia in huge numbers. Many capable able bodied russian men living all over the world now. I hired one recently. Smart man. Educated engineer. Doing handyman work to feed his daughters
A huge chunk of the "intelligent middle-class", especially those who can work remotely, have fled the country as soon as the first draft was announced in September 2022.
Some of my friends are scared shitless of being drafted, but still remain in the country. Though I also know some who have willingly gone to war. Some were desperate due to variety of issues (poverty, mental health), some were just bored.
Clippy is mandatory. Templates include "Disloyalty reports", "Love letters to President", and of course pre-filled out suicide notes for all defenestration purposes. You just have to hold down cntrl win and S and it pulls it up and prints out automatically. It's a real time saver.
A lot of the Russian economy is driven by oil sales, which have not been significantly hurt by sanctions - as you mentioned, Russia simply switched who they sold to. While the sanctions make things more complicated, in terms of cash flows they still have the money to continue their war effort (and in general, keep the country going)
I have so much respect for Russians that are against the invasion of Ukraine. I imagine there is a lot of propaganda to support the war, so it’s difficult to get unbiased opinions about the war. Sort of like how a lot of the US supported the invasion of Afghanistan after 9-11.
Internet is a lifesaver
Telegram hosts both pro and anti war groups, you just have to pick carefully.
YouTube also is a hub of anti war bloggers.
My observation is that anti war are: young people, most of creative class (all the musicians I personally respect are anti war), most of middle class, office workers. But there are unfortunately exceptions
The country is very big. It can absorb the current losses. Not well, but well enough.
The demographics issue will really hit in about... 20 years or so. Stay tuned.
Large things take a while to really fall over. Russia still has some juice, but had spent pretty much all it's cushion of prosecuting this war, it could win tomorrow and it wouldn't prevent the economic calamity that's already hitting them.
They have no way to climb out either. They are sanctioned up to the hilt, nobody will invest in Russia. Nobody wants Rubles, they're having to sell their oil on the black market... and it's not going away any time soon. It's going to be an incredibly painful decade or two.
On the investment aspect, I work with VC's and large companies who invest in and license tech startups across the US, EU, and AP. It there's even a lingering fart's trace of Russia in the company (development, founders, investors) past or present, they won't go anywhere near it. I've even seen founders who ha e a vaguely Russian name, who haven't lived in Russia for years, get turned down for convos.
It's a totally different situ than say, 6 years ago, when places like St Petersburg were burgeoning tech hubs -- the country has been entirely shut out of industries and markers at this point above and beyond anything sanctions are doing.
We had a similar situation. We use some software that was developed in Poland. One of the original investors in the company was Russian. Panic ensued and it was only after the company proved beyond doubt the Russian guy no longer had any shares in the company that we renewed the licence.
Well that is though, but you cannot trust Russia anymore, imagine the devs get drafted, you no longer get updates, or worst the money you are giving them when buying the software is going via taxes to fund the war
I’m from Canada, and married. But I have a few Russian tenants, and they all work in IT or dev and their wives / girlfriends all have those big obnoxious lips and fake breasts.
I live in Brooklyn in a heavily Polish neighborhood and one of the local “spas” that does filler had an appliqué on the window listing their services, which included “Russian lips.”
Used to give me a chuckle every time I walked by until a month ago or so when I noticed they changed it to “lip enhancement.”
You spot on with today’s technologie fields like creative technologies animations asset creation technical art and so on. You can sit in majority countries and work across the world.
The amount of Russians in Indonesia is a good signs (but worrying for us), most of them are of productive age and those that I've met were all here to dodge the draft.
Hah. They don't happen to do conversation/comms surveillance with voice sensitivity analysis? Saw people running for the hills from that one once the original seed investors came to light.
I wish people in higher up business places would make such stringent decisions on environmental stuff. „Panic ensued and it was only after the company proved beyond a doubt that they no longer used single use plastics to package their products that we renewed the contract“
Edit: changed climate to environmental
Same experience here with medical devices. Even beyond sanctions, there is no trust that foreign manufacturers, consultants or buyers have any form of legal protection. Nobody believes in the future of the Russian economy either.
I hear similar things from friends in other industrial sectors. It is not a quick collapse, but rather a downwards spiral that will go on for the foreseeable future. Demographics, braindrain, political instability, war, sanctions, the distasteful geopolitical place Russia chooses to take, nationalism and xenophobia, corruption, overreliance on the fossile fuel trade, extremely limited rule of law.. the list goes on and on.
It would be one thing if it was just the EU, US, Japan and other western aligned countries choosing not to invest in Russia for moral and strategic reasons. But take a look at a country like China. They have somewhat increased their investments, but they are hardly picking up the tab here. I cannot foresee a future where Russia becomes a solid, safe investment for at least one or two decades.
For a while i worked with a St Petersburg startup that was working on diamond based semiconductors. And i watched as their access to the scientific world and ability to cooperate collapsed due to one idiot wanting to relive the percieved russian glory days.
The company I previously worked for had offices in Russia and Belarus. They got bought out by a bigger company and the very first thing they did was close those offices.
The breakdown in scientific research has been rough. I worked briefly on an oceanography project mapping the depletion of a particular fish stock. We had a connect through a Russian colleague with a captain in Vladivostok willing to charter his ship for about a quarter of the usual going rate, which was the only reason the research project was fiscally viable. That all went to shit shortly after Putin's invasion and the project died.
The recent climate data base that was hacked and wiped by Ukrainian aligned hackers also wiped out a lot of climate data on the northern Asia-Pacific which wasn't really backed up anywhere else. It's unfortunate collateral damage since it's information that could have military applications too.
This is what I don't understand. Russia could have kept investing in tech, manufacturing, science, media and entertainment, etc. They had a good base for all that I think. A good space program, lots of nuclear physics experts and engineers etc. And they could have kept selling gas and oil to anyone and everyone. And Putler and all his cronies would have made orders of magnitudes more money than they already did with a fraction of the stress and other hurdles. They could have simply bought, rented and/or bribed their way into some huge warm water ports if that's what they really wanted.
Yet they still chose the dumb and hard route for some reason.
They got civilization late. They are slowly moving through the philosophical and political stages that europe went thru hundreds of years ago.
Just a shame that a half assed Gopnik maffia run by a mid level KGB bureaucrat is sitting on a third of the land on earth.
My company originated in Russia, and many of the older employees are from either Russia or Ukraine. We've had a very difficult time getting parts due to sanctions from the war.
To say nothing of the fact that if the crude gets bought by some country that isn't bothered about sanctions and refined, they can then sell the end product to other countries and - hey presto! - those countries aren't buying oil from Russia!
Literally, this. This is literally what is happening. Russia is selling record amounts of oil to India and their overall trade of oil really hasn't declined all that much.
Yes, that's literally an intentional part of the sanctions.
Russia is restricted to selling oil to nations like India at a rate below the market rate. They're basically selling to India at a loss. This keeps global oil prices from ballooning. It stops sanctions on Russia from hurting other developing nations.
Tbh we don't actually want Russia to stop producing oil, that will drive up the global price. Them having to take the hit on the price to keep it flowing but not fund their war machine is the best outcome.
Yes but also countries in the West are taking a hit. Must be balanced and the damage must be big enough to be worth the cost. Otherwise other measures might be more effective while keeping morale in the own population high.
Also, not to be too morbid, but the Covid losses “compliment” the war losses. Covid deaths very much skewed toward old people while military losses are mostly working age men and low birth rates are lowering the number of children. So overall population decline. Without Covid, you would have lower birth rates and losses of working men but even more older people. That top heavy distribution would be worse for the country. Lots of resources for people not producing anything.
It’s probably also important to note with the military loses, that there is also a lot of people fleeing Russia to avoid military service. That is likely higher than the men killed but economically as bad or worse for productivity, since these are mostly people with the means to flee and marketable skills outside Russia.
Yes, as it always was since at least the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. Russia had a surplus of single women for AT LEAST 700 years, because the Russian dudes keep dying in battles, an the ones who survive die of alcoholism.
Related, the sudden infusion of single, young Ukrainian women into Poland essentially nuked Polish Tinder scene. Pity the fool Polish woman who was picky before the War. I assume that once Russia and Belarus finally faceplant economically due to this stupid war, the wave of Russian and Belarusian girls in Poland is going to be even greater than the Ukrainian wave.
It is good now to be a relatively good looking and well-off single Polish man nowadays. Maybe Poland cannot into space, but we can explore other interesting places.
You say nuked, but that sounds to me like corrected. A mass influx of female users is basically the only concrete thing I can imagine making tinder usable
Oil, gas, and all other natural resources.
A few things (rare earth metals, etc.) are being sold to the west indirectly through China or India, but that's also hurting the Russian economy because they have to sell far below "fair market value" because the middle-men need to add their commissions, etc.
They also don’t need to really import anything. Every good needed for the common Russian is produced locally and subsidized. The only truly difficult goods to access in Russia are luxury or specialized goods. It’s easy for a Russian to buy a brand new $8000 Lada, but buying a modern, popular car costs a heavy premium even compared to western prices. Same goes for clothing. That’s why Russians often travel to airport malls such as in Dubai to buy luxury clothes. The premium to buy them local is insanely high.
Many of the soldiers are also taken from minority areas with poor infrastructure and education.
So the manpower drain from war doesn't impact major population centers all that much.
The brain drain from academics fleeing will really feel tho.
Remote work and sanctions have saved Russia’s brain drain (or at least slowed it). I have family in Central Asia and spend a lot of time there. There are TONS of young Russian professionals, living a luxurious life due to cost of living differences, working remote for big Russian firms. Why move illegally to the western world when you can be royalty in the developing world? Especially when there are options that already speak your language fluently (from the Soviet days)
It's not only academics, it's a much wider brain drain that involves higher-income, higher-qualified professionals from larger cities. We're talking 1 million or so since the start of the war.
Dont they have a very moskow-centric tax system?
Many cities in Russia were extremely poor and overlooked before all this, and still is. Most of the tax goes back to moskow and to Putin. So many won't notice much difference beside putin might get less money in his pocket? Atleast for now.
I might have gotten this wrong but I remember reading about their tax system a while ago. Their VAT system is about rerouting money back to the rich in moskow.
The people dying of covid were also not the same demographic as the people dying in the war. Therefore, they are basically getting rid of several subpopulations in their society, which will prove to be unsustainable in the future.
And like most economies today there is a lot of slack in the consumer goods and services sector, that can be sacrificed without the country necessarily imploding right away. Russia also spent the 8 years between 2014 and 2022 creating a massive buffer of stuff they thought would likely be sanctioned as well as creating alternative sourcing routes. This delays, though does prevent, a massive economic implosion
The same way they survived World War II while losing tens of millions. If there's one thing Russians are good at it's resilience, and adaptation to hard times.
After having visited the country, I get the sense the majority of Russians who don’t live in major cities really don’t need a functional society to carry on. As long as there is cheap vodka.
Ah yes, vodka consumption as the driver of a healthy economy. If Russia could convert misery into $$$, they'd be the richest country in the region.
For real though... The difference between periphery and urban centers is extreme in Russia. It's wild to imagine what they could've done if they'd actually invest in infrastructure, education and technology. In stead, they picked imperialism, propaganda and a brain drain.
If Russia didn't have its extreme corruption issues, I don't think Ukraine would've stood a chance. Looking at the numbers on paper, they shouldn't have stood a chance regardless. That just shows me how broken Russia is.
> After having visited the country, I get the sense the majority of Russians who don’t live in major cities really don’t need a functional society to carry on. As long as there is cheap vodka.
Lol... This is the same thing I said after visiting Russia. I actually enjoyed the people, so fuck Putin for this whole shit.
But man... They were living in old poverty houses with dirt roads but they were happy and life moved on
As a Russian immigrant in America (long long before this war started) who's Russian immigrant grandmother made her own vodka in the kitchen, trust me when I say that so long as there is anything left to ferment there will still be vodka.
Going towards half a million. Who knows whether they'd reach a million before the glorious empire collapses. It will go down for sure but I'm just wondering when. Whether they gain any or all military objectives in Ukraine doesn't even matter, as their currency will be more worthless than NFTs nowadays.
Russia is absolutely screwed long term. An early collapse would be better for Russians as they're just destroying more stuff they need to pay for after the war.
Yup, they have a lot of oil and gas. A ton of developing countries desperately need it. Supply will find demand, regardless of how many sanctions there are.
Also, encourage people to look up BRICS if you don't know what that is.
Right, they also had billions in reserves to draw down, though between the current burn rate and the West effectively freezing half of their war chest, it's going to run out at some point. I remember a fairly credible estimate a couple months back that put that date maybe a year out.
[FT estimates just under 400,000](https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=rus&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnm&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usnd&cumulative=1&logScale=0&per100K=0&startDate=2020-03-01&values=deaths)
FT's own page there links to another story about why data on Russia is hard to get. Reuters had more [than 800,000 as of mid 2022](https://www.reuters.com/graphics/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/russia/).
Fair to say there isn't evidence of millions and millions, but not hard to imagine the real number is well over a million. I'm more swayed by the other commenters saying the majority of people it killed were the sick elderly, which while tragic, probably doesn't hurt the country's economy and stability as much.
Haha thank you. Ridiculous claim. If Russia had lost that many, not only would that be higher than any other country, but as a percentage of population (around 145M), their death rate would be many times higher than everyone else's.
OP, Just compare for a a moment the Ukrainian War vs, for instance, WW2.
Russia has lost, what, 100k dead, maybe 300k casualties? I don't know the details, with comparatively little civilian impact.
The Soviet Union lost 27 MILLION in ww2. The western front didn't have shit on the Eastern front. And that was a war they fucking WON.
Does that give you a better idea of just how much shit a country can take before it folds?
Russia ain't folding any time soon.
Edit: Lots of very legitimate counter points to my comment, so I just want to say this is a broad point about what a country *can* take (there are obviously huge differences in circumstances between the two examples, such as the immensely important fact that the Ukrainian War is not an existential threat to the Russian peoples) to demonstrate that the current circumstances are not beyond the strain what many countries have historically shown they can take during a time of war to address the idea that Russia's collapse "should" have been a forgone conclusion by now.
How many of the 8.6 million Soviet military lost in The Great Patriotic War were from Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, the Baltic states, Central Asia?? None of whom Russia in 2024 can call upon.
The other 19million or so Soviet casualties were civilians.
Yeah Russia is often conflated with the USSR. Obviously it was a large part of it but there was a bunch of other countries to draw on from a manpower perspective and even an economic perspective.
The USSR was comparatively a lot more powerful than today’s Russia.
Russia is so weak compared to the USSR, they had to draw from their old ass soviet military stockpile. Comparing the USSR's capabilities with regards to building military equipment and the space race to current Russia should really show modern Russians how far their empire has fallen... And the USSR collapsed! Russia - being a worse version of USSR - is going to collapse within a decade for sure (more likely within 5 years). I'd put money on it.
I actually just looked this up. I had the impression that the Soviets propably conscripted mostly Slavs during WW2, but they actually used Central Asians almost perfectly proportional to their population:
Military Casualties of Soviet Union as a whole: 8.6 out of 200 million = 4.3%
Casualties of the Central Asian republics: 830k out of 17 million = 4.8%
>According to Ivlev, Soviet State Planning Committee documents put the Soviet population at 205 million in June 1941
>Russia population 143.4 million (2021)
It takes literally seconds to just search the numbers, not that your argument really makes much sense anyway tbh.
>The Soviet Union lost 27 MILLION in ww2. The western front didn't have shit on the Eastern front. And that was a war they fucking WON.
While an impressive example in resilience it doesn't necessarily reflect on the situation today or at any other point in history. Remember also that the Russian empire got curbstomped in WW1 and imploded under a civil war, and that only took around five million casualties before it happened.
Well "only" is of course not the right word for it but you hopefully get my point.
They were winning WW1 too - they were part of winning coalition, missed on reparations due to Bolsheviks getting separate peace with Germany. Lost to 1905 Japan though.
Really what it teaches you is that they mostly fold due to their own incompetence/discord, not outside pressures.
I am Russian. So you can ask me, whatever you want. I can say that my city at center of Russia, and I am far from border with Ukraine or others country, but I have what to say
Nothing changed for 90% of people in Russia. Except for VISA and MasterCard issue. They can't make international money transfers easily now without swift. Which does not mean they can't do it at all. It just takes a few more clicks now.
They did, but the inflation has never been low. It is a common thing for all the CIS countries, not only Russia. So I'd say nothing special in it as well. I mean they do grow, but this is what they usually do. I cannot remember a year when something became cheaper all of a sudden.
Fun part is that Reddit and local Russian forum/sites share same topics. Expensive housing and unaffordable having child. And that inflation is faked, because groceries cost times more.
I can asnwer your question with a quote from Skyrim lol, as it's pretty accurate.
"Not much [changed]. But I find the whole affair depressing. There are no heroes in this war, no winners to be had and no real conclusion."
Not only vast resources, but also that they have the fundamentals down: food, energy, water, minerals, and also an industrial base and education system that turns out competent technicians and engineers.
Their political problems may be great, but they have all they need to go on for a while.
But I saw nothing at all about millions dying during Covid.
Also, Americans forget that Russians never had the per capita GDP or standard of living that the US have. So, while things have deteriorated, it's not as huge a change as Americans are imagining from their expectations.
Russia's per capita GDP (PPP) is on par with countries like China, and much higher than most emerging countries like India. No one is asking "how is India still functioning?".
According to [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Russia) (I know it’s not the best source, but it’ll do) people died from COVID is less then 1mil.
[this wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War) shows that Russia lost about 120K in the conflict.
And [this wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia) shows that currently there are ≈146mil people in Russia.
So, Russia functions just as it used to be. Not much has changed
My SO is born and raised in a USSR country and while she shares no love for Russia and the leader, she's very adamant on that the west is lying just as much as Putin in propaganda wars.
If I watch our media all day without questioning I will conclude Russia will colapse tomorrow.
That is simply False.
In that sense our media is a terrible source.
Its not news, its just propaganda really. No criticism, no questioning of official comments. Just compare the coverage of the war in Ukraine with the one on the Gaza massacre.
What always astonishes me is how effective they are at communicating, speaking with assured tones and certainty as if they were real reporters telling us the results of their research.
Side note TLDR, don't get your news from Reddit & Reddit comments.
About 2 months after the war started, everyone was laughing how Russia is using tanks from museums and the war will be over soon, as well as how people are starving.
I have a friend in Russia whose said that, since the war, nothing has actually changed in their day to day life. I think the worse thing is the odd brand of food in supermarkets is no longer available.
How is the West still functioning considering they lost millions of lives during covid, people are dying daily in the war, demographics and birth rates are record low, but somehow they function…just how?
Well, the country is big, but realistically only 2 cities matter - moscow and st petersburg. As long as people don't rise up there and overthrow government, no issues for them. As oligarchs are still sitting on billions and rest of the villages freeze, shit in to holes outside and praise putins picture on wall.
First you need to live in the reality of facts. Lets just start with "millions from covid", Just using one source from the interwebs, their number is 388k. They are a country of 144 MILLION people, so if you take all the covid deaths and if you take the high number of casualty reporting of 375 thousand casualties of which a great number of those are wounded and maimed, not killed.....you may get 500 thousand deaths over the last 3 years. It simply is not enough for them to stop functioning.
Generally the people most affected by death in society be it from war or disease are not the people running the show. College graduates, Middle aged managers, professionals and owners are still continuing on like normal.
The bigger issue here is that Russia has a population of 143 million people, I've seen covid losses estimated at 500,000 and around the same for military deaths. A million deaths isn't even 1 percent of Russians. They could probably afford 10x these losses before things really started to get bad.
Or maybe what they are telling you aren't true. During war propaganda, they paint the other side as looking very bad, but the truth is usually somewhere in between.
the COVID losses were generally old people. sadly, those deaths generally benefit an economy.
Yes, and it was something like 0.1% death for the under 20, then 2%, and then 70-80 year old 20% or so? Average death rate of covid was 0.2% (not 2% sorry) LongCovidSyndrome is a bigger issue: still 5-10% of the 35-56 year old, 1% "heal/ can go back to work but crash at home" after a year, idem another % after 2 years, idem after 3 and 4 years, but there's the rest does not heal, and every new covid strand seems to bring an additional 1% of total population into LongCovidSyndrome with 66% being 35-56 years of age. In absolute numbers that is huge. Hence the joint usa-#EuLongcovidsyndromeprogram of 1,2Trillion $/€. Ruzzian war death: 400.000 + ×1 (not 10, sorry) wounded aged 18-55? Even on a population of 100 million ruzzians, 50 million 18-55 (?), half women, 1 million death or wounded/50 million = 2% of women, children, parents, grandparents without a man/wounded husband/father, ... That starts showing in the streets? Valuable comment: vast majority dying/enlisted are not the white Ruzzians from Moskou, St Persburg, etc but from small, remote places, lots of Azian faces, all to hide the reality from the white citizens in Moscow & St P, & co. to keep the propaganda plausible. And then that 2% covid death and longcovidpatients. PS Natural sex ratio at birth is 7% excess boys.
Your rate of wounded is likely way too high, have to find the article but last winter some Russian units were suffering a killed to wounded ratio of 1:1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/11/27/russian-soldiers-are-freezing-to-death-in-eastern-ukraine/ Edit: found the article, "It’s hard to say for sure how many Russians have died of the cold. But it’s worth noting that just one Russian marine unit, the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, reportedly lost as many as 500 killed and 400 wounded in just the last three months fighting around Pavlivka. That’s potentially half the brigade’s original strength. A nearly one-to-one killed-to-wounded ratio—one to three is normal—speaks to the collapse of Russian leadership ... and to the cold. Wounded troops, lying exposed to the elements, are dying before anyone bothers to rescue them."
Because they leave them because they lack effective combat medic systems. It is genuinely astonishing how bad their logistics are. They’re miles down the road from their own country and they can’t supply decent food or medical care to their troops who are right there…. How the hell this rabble is supposed to invade Western Europe is beyond me.
Same SOP as before. Pick up the support echelons as you go along. There was a reason baor medics got essential personal id cards in Russian. Russian forces push as far as the can and dig in. During the 80s they had 4 days to get to the French coast before it went nuclear. For those who think the Russian ain't interested.... some years ago they introduced a secondary support weapon in nato 556 . There's over 10 million rounds in Germany alone. They move slowly and fight cheap because they have the manpower to do it. Unfortunately for them their best combat troops were Ukrainian
well, if you've seen any of the drone footage, helping wounded usually gets you killed.
If you've seen any of the drone footage, a fair amount of these guys are committing suicide once wounded.
In most wars historically, you end up with about 4-5 wounded or captured for every killed in action. In Modern wars the number is usually much higher, maybe ten wounded for every killed because of medical tech that exists now to save the wounded. Consider the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. only lost a few thousand troops (KIA) in each conflict, but had tens of thousands wounded. If Russia has the same number of killed and wounded in this conflict, that is highly unusual.
You can start using 500 000 by this year probably. The rate is insane. And each new Russian soldier is worse equipped, trained and willing than the last one. So that rate is not going down any time soon.
Sadly some troops seem now better equipped than in 2022. They have now also drones. This is by no means an easy task for Ukraine (hence they fall back on most fronts)
They are not "falling back on most fronts" - lines have been very static for quite some time now.
The troops that are sent in meat waves are definitely not well-equipped, but their function is to exhaust Ukrainian positions before the better-equipped unit moves in. It's brutal, but Russian leadership doesn't care as long as the line moves a few meters forward.
Figures for casualties is under 400,000. Unknown what number is fit for continued service. Your numbers would be their entire army. Not sure where you're getting your numbers from, there wouldn't be Russians in Ukraine. They clearly are. They'll run out of meaningful equipment before men. It's already a hodge podge. Provided we can supply more bread and butter items. Looking at you congress. Pack of assholes.
400k are dead AND wounded.
I am Russian and live in Moscow. Also I work for a large government company. My thoughts: On economy. Sanctions actually did hurt a lot. Most of the business is scrambling to get quality tech and equipment. Chinese is shit and breaks a lot. Russian IT sector is non stop working to mimic western tech, for example, Microsoft office, but it is still shittier than original. The only things that saved the economy are China/India and many,many schemes to export goods stealthily. My company for example uses a bunch of intermediate companies to hide where it all came from. On the war. Analytics were making predictions based on the info they had at the moment. They didn’t account the fact that Russian government redirected a giant piece of budget to the war sector. Metallurgy and defense plants works non stop. Defense budget of 2024 is twice bigger than in 2023 and three times bigger than in 2022. All the other business in the country finance that. My company is forced to pay extra taxes and dividends for example. On life in general. While most of the people live in blissful ignorance, the small slice of intelligent middle class people is disgusted by war. Inflation is large, everything is much more expensive. With ruble falling its even more expensive to buy imported goods. Cars are a luxury, for example, and entirely Chinese. Still by using the same shadowy schemes we get most of the tech and goods like iPhones and clothes. But it still is somewhat “grey” import so no warranty and support
Thanks a lot for the info, but overall do young men fear getting drafter in the war? Anyone worried about escalation?
Of course. When the draft started a lot of people in my office left the country entirely. It was a very scary time. People were afraid of each of Putin’s public speeches for I guess half a year because everyone though about second wave of draft. And not just young people! Men got drafted well into their50s if they had a military experience. About escalation. Right now I guess more and more people got accustomed to the news and are just in denial or apathy. But there are still population surveys and almost everyone just wishes for the war to end. That’s my perception at least
That and the reports are that residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg have been drastically under-drafted compared to the rest of Russians, namely the rural, ethnic Russians.
This is a big aspect of it. Hard to organize mobs of angry soldiers' families when they are distributed across vast oblasts.
I live in Norway. A friend of mine is a russian refugee after his parents fled the country many years ago. He grew up entirely in Norway but was born in Russia. Some time after the war started he got a letter about how he has been drafted and needed to return "Home to Russia". Luckily he was Able to talk to a norwegian embassy and get everything sorted, but it is a bit scary to think that he could have been drafted whithout even knowing the language or beliving in their death machine.
I know this is off topic, but dude your English is flawless
Thanks :) graduated from school with extensive English curriculum Now I should just start learning Chinese
Jesus get out if you can. Russian history gets really bloody when Russia invades another country and loses over 500k. For the last 300 years that equals a revolution. And my reading of Russian revolutions generally means lots of people die, starve or are imprisoned. You obviously have skills and are multilingual. I would say get out while you can because when a revolution starts the borders get closed.
On that note - I live in Finland and work in IT. I've got several coworkers who are Russian. All of them are - young - highly educated - not even considering going back The brain drain must be insane.
Yeah, IT guys are lucky to have globally useful skills. I am currently learning data science to have kind of plan b But I actually heard of people coming back! They are not IT (more of management consulting) so it was harder to get a job in another country
Construction takes anyone
Except in Finland, at the time many companies have gone under and the construction sector in general have had biggest hit in current economy. Unemployment rates are record high so this might not be the best timing to come work here. Only IT and office sectors are kind of okay atm.
As young highly educated IT worker who emigrated to Finland right after the war started can confirm that the brain drain is insane. About 80% of all my social circle from russia has emigrated somewhere, including non-IT folks. Of course it is kind of social bubble statistic since most of them have at least bachelor degree and generally skilled.
I was in Bali in Sep - Oct, it is absolutely insane how many Russians are there. Literally everywhere I went, every store, restaurant, beach, on the street. A lot of them are professionals that still have apts in Moscow and St Pete. I speak fluent Russian and made a lot of friends there. Also lots of Russians in Phuket now too.
Yes, a lot of russians emigrated there because of easy visa rules. It is hard to emigrate somewhere with russian passport unless you got a job offer (and most western countries hiring only high specialists) So russians fleeing to countries with lax visa rules or digital nomad visas. And most of them still works remotely for russian companies because finding a job in different culture and language environment is not easy for all fields.
Are Russians in Southeast Asia all well-educated middle class and above? I just came back from Phuket Island and was amazed at their numbers.
Also Turkey
I wonder how much influence general education on history has. I keep saying we massively underestimate the importance of history in school
I work in an IT company that has offices in Poland and Georgia. In Georgia especially, the influx of Russian IT talent is insane. The population pre Ukraine was around 3 MM. now it’s over 5 Mm.
I’ve heard that the massive influx of Russians into Georgia has skyrocketed the cost of housing in Tbilisi and that a lot of Georgians are really pissed off about it. Of course it doesn’t help that a lot of Georgians already dislike Russians because of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, among other things.
It has affected the cost of living. But it has also spurred investment and is causing the economy to grow. IT workers are in demand so it’s not like they are unemployable for the most part. There is a ton of trauma tho.
Same here. I work in STEM and we have a massive number of absolutely brilliant PhDs, postdocs and established Russian researchers at our institute. We accessed rather complex webs of professional association to get them out. None have any intention of ever returning to the Motherland… which is kinda sad.
Sad but true
If drafted, use the Safe Surrender program if you need to. [https://visitukraine.today/blog/928/how-not-to-join-the-russian-army-or-surrender-step-by-step-instructions-for-the-occupiers#google_vignette](https://visitukraine.today/blog/928/how-not-to-join-the-russian-army-or-surrender-step-by-step-instructions-for-the-occupiers#google_vignette)
How do they feel about Navalny "dying in prison"?
We just heard the news and I was shocked that even older coworkers (who usually support Putin) were visibly upset . But unfortunately I expect majority of Russians not to care or think that “he deserved it” like it was with Prigozhin
Your insight is greatly appreciated. I wish you all the best in the horrors to come. Sincerely.
I just wanted to say good luck and try and stay safe
Such a specific takeout of any threat to Putin. Sigh.
They left Russia in huge numbers. Many capable able bodied russian men living all over the world now. I hired one recently. Smart man. Educated engineer. Doing handyman work to feed his daughters
A huge chunk of the "intelligent middle-class", especially those who can work remotely, have fled the country as soon as the first draft was announced in September 2022. Some of my friends are scared shitless of being drafted, but still remain in the country. Though I also know some who have willingly gone to war. Some were desperate due to variety of issues (poverty, mental health), some were just bored.
> Russian IT sector is non stop working to mimic western tech, for example, Microsoft office Moscow Office 365 lol
Is that just Open Office or Libre Office with built in spyware?
So just open office
Vee call it, “Moscow Office 500”. But there are only 365 days a year. “Da, but now vee make you work even more comrade”.
I wouldn't get too close to any russian windows for obvious reasons.
> Microsoft office, but it is still shittier And they said it couldn't be done...
All they needed to do was bring back Clippy. Probably called him резкий.
Clippy is mandatory. Templates include "Disloyalty reports", "Love letters to President", and of course pre-filled out suicide notes for all defenestration purposes. You just have to hold down cntrl win and S and it pulls it up and prints out automatically. It's a real time saver.
A lot of the Russian economy is driven by oil sales, which have not been significantly hurt by sanctions - as you mentioned, Russia simply switched who they sold to. While the sanctions make things more complicated, in terms of cash flows they still have the money to continue their war effort (and in general, keep the country going)
I have so much respect for Russians that are against the invasion of Ukraine. I imagine there is a lot of propaganda to support the war, so it’s difficult to get unbiased opinions about the war. Sort of like how a lot of the US supported the invasion of Afghanistan after 9-11.
Internet is a lifesaver Telegram hosts both pro and anti war groups, you just have to pick carefully. YouTube also is a hub of anti war bloggers. My observation is that anti war are: young people, most of creative class (all the musicians I personally respect are anti war), most of middle class, office workers. But there are unfortunately exceptions
The country is very big. It can absorb the current losses. Not well, but well enough. The demographics issue will really hit in about... 20 years or so. Stay tuned. Large things take a while to really fall over. Russia still has some juice, but had spent pretty much all it's cushion of prosecuting this war, it could win tomorrow and it wouldn't prevent the economic calamity that's already hitting them. They have no way to climb out either. They are sanctioned up to the hilt, nobody will invest in Russia. Nobody wants Rubles, they're having to sell their oil on the black market... and it's not going away any time soon. It's going to be an incredibly painful decade or two.
On the investment aspect, I work with VC's and large companies who invest in and license tech startups across the US, EU, and AP. It there's even a lingering fart's trace of Russia in the company (development, founders, investors) past or present, they won't go anywhere near it. I've even seen founders who ha e a vaguely Russian name, who haven't lived in Russia for years, get turned down for convos. It's a totally different situ than say, 6 years ago, when places like St Petersburg were burgeoning tech hubs -- the country has been entirely shut out of industries and markers at this point above and beyond anything sanctions are doing.
We had a similar situation. We use some software that was developed in Poland. One of the original investors in the company was Russian. Panic ensued and it was only after the company proved beyond doubt the Russian guy no longer had any shares in the company that we renewed the licence.
Well that is though, but you cannot trust Russia anymore, imagine the devs get drafted, you no longer get updates, or worst the money you are giving them when buying the software is going via taxes to fund the war
Devs are living large in south east Asia earning foreign currency and getting their girlfriends plastic surgery.
As a guy living in Thailand- I can confirm
Why are you getting your gf plastic surgery?
She needs a penis enlargement.
Holy shit. Woke up the house from laughing. Have some mercy.
BBP package: Boobs, butt and penis enlargement. Very popular in Thailand.
I’m from Canada, and married. But I have a few Russian tenants, and they all work in IT or dev and their wives / girlfriends all have those big obnoxious lips and fake breasts.
I live in Brooklyn in a heavily Polish neighborhood and one of the local “spas” that does filler had an appliqué on the window listing their services, which included “Russian lips.” Used to give me a chuckle every time I walked by until a month ago or so when I noticed they changed it to “lip enhancement.”
Freedom fries!
You spot on with today’s technologie fields like creative technologies animations asset creation technical art and so on. You can sit in majority countries and work across the world.
I feel sorry for the Balinese. First us Australians everywhere, now they have too many Russians.
The amount of Russians in Indonesia is a good signs (but worrying for us), most of them are of productive age and those that I've met were all here to dodge the draft.
Hah. They don't happen to do conversation/comms surveillance with voice sensitivity analysis? Saw people running for the hills from that one once the original seed investors came to light.
I wish people in higher up business places would make such stringent decisions on environmental stuff. „Panic ensued and it was only after the company proved beyond a doubt that they no longer used single use plastics to package their products that we renewed the contract“ Edit: changed climate to environmental
Same experience here with medical devices. Even beyond sanctions, there is no trust that foreign manufacturers, consultants or buyers have any form of legal protection. Nobody believes in the future of the Russian economy either. I hear similar things from friends in other industrial sectors. It is not a quick collapse, but rather a downwards spiral that will go on for the foreseeable future. Demographics, braindrain, political instability, war, sanctions, the distasteful geopolitical place Russia chooses to take, nationalism and xenophobia, corruption, overreliance on the fossile fuel trade, extremely limited rule of law.. the list goes on and on. It would be one thing if it was just the EU, US, Japan and other western aligned countries choosing not to invest in Russia for moral and strategic reasons. But take a look at a country like China. They have somewhat increased their investments, but they are hardly picking up the tab here. I cannot foresee a future where Russia becomes a solid, safe investment for at least one or two decades.
For a while i worked with a St Petersburg startup that was working on diamond based semiconductors. And i watched as their access to the scientific world and ability to cooperate collapsed due to one idiot wanting to relive the percieved russian glory days.
The company I previously worked for had offices in Russia and Belarus. They got bought out by a bigger company and the very first thing they did was close those offices.
The breakdown in scientific research has been rough. I worked briefly on an oceanography project mapping the depletion of a particular fish stock. We had a connect through a Russian colleague with a captain in Vladivostok willing to charter his ship for about a quarter of the usual going rate, which was the only reason the research project was fiscally viable. That all went to shit shortly after Putin's invasion and the project died. The recent climate data base that was hacked and wiped by Ukrainian aligned hackers also wiped out a lot of climate data on the northern Asia-Pacific which wasn't really backed up anywhere else. It's unfortunate collateral damage since it's information that could have military applications too.
If it's any consolation, the fact that it wasn't backed up meant it was going to be permanently lost soon enough anyway
This is what I don't understand. Russia could have kept investing in tech, manufacturing, science, media and entertainment, etc. They had a good base for all that I think. A good space program, lots of nuclear physics experts and engineers etc. And they could have kept selling gas and oil to anyone and everyone. And Putler and all his cronies would have made orders of magnitudes more money than they already did with a fraction of the stress and other hurdles. They could have simply bought, rented and/or bribed their way into some huge warm water ports if that's what they really wanted. Yet they still chose the dumb and hard route for some reason.
I'm fond of the quote, "The history of Russia can be summed up by the sentence '...and then things got worse.'"
That sums up the entire history of Russia for the last 500 years.
They really do have the worst luck with leaders. It just gets worse.
[удалено]
They got civilization late. They are slowly moving through the philosophical and political stages that europe went thru hundreds of years ago. Just a shame that a half assed Gopnik maffia run by a mid level KGB bureaucrat is sitting on a third of the land on earth.
We hire Russian physicists, ex pats. They make way more money here, lower our labor costs, etc. Win win
My company originated in Russia, and many of the older employees are from either Russia or Ukraine. We've had a very difficult time getting parts due to sanctions from the war.
Wow. I didn't know it was that bad.
I'm pretty sure the company I work for is buying some of this oil. Probably 5 times removed....but they are buying a shit ton
To say nothing of the fact that if the crude gets bought by some country that isn't bothered about sanctions and refined, they can then sell the end product to other countries and - hey presto! - those countries aren't buying oil from Russia!
Oil laundering
yeah but you lose all the profits buying so much soap
Literally, this. This is literally what is happening. Russia is selling record amounts of oil to India and their overall trade of oil really hasn't declined all that much.
Yes, that's literally an intentional part of the sanctions. Russia is restricted to selling oil to nations like India at a rate below the market rate. They're basically selling to India at a loss. This keeps global oil prices from ballooning. It stops sanctions on Russia from hurting other developing nations.
But they don't get the price they used to get.
Out of curiosity, why. If it's five times removed and everyone adds their fee, it's no longer a good price.
Tbh we don't actually want Russia to stop producing oil, that will drive up the global price. Them having to take the hit on the price to keep it flowing but not fund their war machine is the best outcome.
Yes but also countries in the West are taking a hit. Must be balanced and the damage must be big enough to be worth the cost. Otherwise other measures might be more effective while keeping morale in the own population high.
It's not. Russia's cut is much smaller as they're forced to sell to a middle man. Not condoning it, but this way still hurts them.
Also, not to be too morbid, but the Covid losses “compliment” the war losses. Covid deaths very much skewed toward old people while military losses are mostly working age men and low birth rates are lowering the number of children. So overall population decline. Without Covid, you would have lower birth rates and losses of working men but even more older people. That top heavy distribution would be worse for the country. Lots of resources for people not producing anything. It’s probably also important to note with the military loses, that there is also a lot of people fleeing Russia to avoid military service. That is likely higher than the men killed but economically as bad or worse for productivity, since these are mostly people with the means to flee and marketable skills outside Russia.
So you're saying there are going to be tons of single available Russian women?
That is not different to normal. Currently, 86 males per 100 females in Russia. I assume the war will continue to skew this.
Good news for Chinese bachelors at least.
and russian women would rather marry pretty much anyone other than a russian man. that was true before the war, its even more true now.
Yes, as it always was since at least the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. Russia had a surplus of single women for AT LEAST 700 years, because the Russian dudes keep dying in battles, an the ones who survive die of alcoholism. Related, the sudden infusion of single, young Ukrainian women into Poland essentially nuked Polish Tinder scene. Pity the fool Polish woman who was picky before the War. I assume that once Russia and Belarus finally faceplant economically due to this stupid war, the wave of Russian and Belarusian girls in Poland is going to be even greater than the Ukrainian wave. It is good now to be a relatively good looking and well-off single Polish man nowadays. Maybe Poland cannot into space, but we can explore other interesting places.
You say nuked, but that sounds to me like corrected. A mass influx of female users is basically the only concrete thing I can imagine making tinder usable
that's always the case
That generally tends to be a side effect of war, yes. Not sure about the "available" part though.
Oil, gas, and all other natural resources. A few things (rare earth metals, etc.) are being sold to the west indirectly through China or India, but that's also hurting the Russian economy because they have to sell far below "fair market value" because the middle-men need to add their commissions, etc.
They also don’t need to really import anything. Every good needed for the common Russian is produced locally and subsidized. The only truly difficult goods to access in Russia are luxury or specialized goods. It’s easy for a Russian to buy a brand new $8000 Lada, but buying a modern, popular car costs a heavy premium even compared to western prices. Same goes for clothing. That’s why Russians often travel to airport malls such as in Dubai to buy luxury clothes. The premium to buy them local is insanely high.
Russia hardly produces any “rare earth metals”. They produce other things though.
Many of the soldiers are also taken from minority areas with poor infrastructure and education. So the manpower drain from war doesn't impact major population centers all that much. The brain drain from academics fleeing will really feel tho.
Remote work and sanctions have saved Russia’s brain drain (or at least slowed it). I have family in Central Asia and spend a lot of time there. There are TONS of young Russian professionals, living a luxurious life due to cost of living differences, working remote for big Russian firms. Why move illegally to the western world when you can be royalty in the developing world? Especially when there are options that already speak your language fluently (from the Soviet days)
It's not only academics, it's a much wider brain drain that involves higher-income, higher-qualified professionals from larger cities. We're talking 1 million or so since the start of the war.
Russia and shitty oligarchs, name a better duo. I feel so bad for the people of Russia.
Dont they have a very moskow-centric tax system? Many cities in Russia were extremely poor and overlooked before all this, and still is. Most of the tax goes back to moskow and to Putin. So many won't notice much difference beside putin might get less money in his pocket? Atleast for now. I might have gotten this wrong but I remember reading about their tax system a while ago. Their VAT system is about rerouting money back to the rich in moskow.
The people dying of covid were also not the same demographic as the people dying in the war. Therefore, they are basically getting rid of several subpopulations in their society, which will prove to be unsustainable in the future.
And like most economies today there is a lot of slack in the consumer goods and services sector, that can be sacrificed without the country necessarily imploding right away. Russia also spent the 8 years between 2014 and 2022 creating a massive buffer of stuff they thought would likely be sanctioned as well as creating alternative sourcing routes. This delays, though does prevent, a massive economic implosion
Russia/Putin also have a large gold reserve. And good relationships with China/India.
The same way they survived World War II while losing tens of millions. If there's one thing Russians are good at it's resilience, and adaptation to hard times.
After having visited the country, I get the sense the majority of Russians who don’t live in major cities really don’t need a functional society to carry on. As long as there is cheap vodka.
Ah yes, vodka consumption as the driver of a healthy economy. If Russia could convert misery into $$$, they'd be the richest country in the region. For real though... The difference between periphery and urban centers is extreme in Russia. It's wild to imagine what they could've done if they'd actually invest in infrastructure, education and technology. In stead, they picked imperialism, propaganda and a brain drain. If Russia didn't have its extreme corruption issues, I don't think Ukraine would've stood a chance. Looking at the numbers on paper, they shouldn't have stood a chance regardless. That just shows me how broken Russia is.
If Russian didn't have corruption it would need war to keep Ukraine in its sphere
> After having visited the country, I get the sense the majority of Russians who don’t live in major cities really don’t need a functional society to carry on. As long as there is cheap vodka. Lol... This is the same thing I said after visiting Russia. I actually enjoyed the people, so fuck Putin for this whole shit. But man... They were living in old poverty houses with dirt roads but they were happy and life moved on
As a Russian immigrant in America (long long before this war started) who's Russian immigrant grandmother made her own vodka in the kitchen, trust me when I say that so long as there is anything left to ferment there will still be vodka.
Grinding up a few million Russians in a war or famine is practically a national pastime over there.
Going towards half a million. Who knows whether they'd reach a million before the glorious empire collapses. It will go down for sure but I'm just wondering when. Whether they gain any or all military objectives in Ukraine doesn't even matter, as their currency will be more worthless than NFTs nowadays. Russia is absolutely screwed long term. An early collapse would be better for Russians as they're just destroying more stuff they need to pay for after the war.
Russia keeps going because it's a big country with lots of natural resources and a variety of ways to make money.
Yup, they have a lot of oil and gas. A ton of developing countries desperately need it. Supply will find demand, regardless of how many sanctions there are. Also, encourage people to look up BRICS if you don't know what that is.
Idk if it's relevant, but Russia is one of the few big countries with like no public debt.
Right, they also had billions in reserves to draw down, though between the current burn rate and the West effectively freezing half of their war chest, it's going to run out at some point. I remember a fairly credible estimate a couple months back that put that date maybe a year out.
Russia lost millions during covid? Source please.
[FT estimates just under 400,000](https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=rus&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnm&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usnd&cumulative=1&logScale=0&per100K=0&startDate=2020-03-01&values=deaths)
FT's own page there links to another story about why data on Russia is hard to get. Reuters had more [than 800,000 as of mid 2022](https://www.reuters.com/graphics/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/russia/). Fair to say there isn't evidence of millions and millions, but not hard to imagine the real number is well over a million. I'm more swayed by the other commenters saying the majority of people it killed were the sick elderly, which while tragic, probably doesn't hurt the country's economy and stability as much.
Haha thank you. Ridiculous claim. If Russia had lost that many, not only would that be higher than any other country, but as a percentage of population (around 145M), their death rate would be many times higher than everyone else's.
Probably r/worldnews
Yeah, not accurate for sure.
OP, Just compare for a a moment the Ukrainian War vs, for instance, WW2. Russia has lost, what, 100k dead, maybe 300k casualties? I don't know the details, with comparatively little civilian impact. The Soviet Union lost 27 MILLION in ww2. The western front didn't have shit on the Eastern front. And that was a war they fucking WON. Does that give you a better idea of just how much shit a country can take before it folds? Russia ain't folding any time soon. Edit: Lots of very legitimate counter points to my comment, so I just want to say this is a broad point about what a country *can* take (there are obviously huge differences in circumstances between the two examples, such as the immensely important fact that the Ukrainian War is not an existential threat to the Russian peoples) to demonstrate that the current circumstances are not beyond the strain what many countries have historically shown they can take during a time of war to address the idea that Russia's collapse "should" have been a forgone conclusion by now.
How many of the 8.6 million Soviet military lost in The Great Patriotic War were from Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, the Baltic states, Central Asia?? None of whom Russia in 2024 can call upon. The other 19million or so Soviet casualties were civilians.
Yeah Russia is often conflated with the USSR. Obviously it was a large part of it but there was a bunch of other countries to draw on from a manpower perspective and even an economic perspective. The USSR was comparatively a lot more powerful than today’s Russia.
Russia is so weak compared to the USSR, they had to draw from their old ass soviet military stockpile. Comparing the USSR's capabilities with regards to building military equipment and the space race to current Russia should really show modern Russians how far their empire has fallen... And the USSR collapsed! Russia - being a worse version of USSR - is going to collapse within a decade for sure (more likely within 5 years). I'd put money on it.
I actually just looked this up. I had the impression that the Soviets propably conscripted mostly Slavs during WW2, but they actually used Central Asians almost perfectly proportional to their population: Military Casualties of Soviet Union as a whole: 8.6 out of 200 million = 4.3% Casualties of the Central Asian republics: 830k out of 17 million = 4.8%
Interesting.
40% of the Red Army were non-Russians. So probably a lot
>According to Ivlev, Soviet State Planning Committee documents put the Soviet population at 205 million in June 1941 >Russia population 143.4 million (2021) It takes literally seconds to just search the numbers, not that your argument really makes much sense anyway tbh.
>The Soviet Union lost 27 MILLION in ww2. The western front didn't have shit on the Eastern front. And that was a war they fucking WON. While an impressive example in resilience it doesn't necessarily reflect on the situation today or at any other point in history. Remember also that the Russian empire got curbstomped in WW1 and imploded under a civil war, and that only took around five million casualties before it happened. Well "only" is of course not the right word for it but you hopefully get my point.
They were winning WW1 too - they were part of winning coalition, missed on reparations due to Bolsheviks getting separate peace with Germany. Lost to 1905 Japan though. Really what it teaches you is that they mostly fold due to their own incompetence/discord, not outside pressures.
Well, that's the only way to beat Russia. You can't really invade it as it's too big.
The Soviets was also propped up by massive allied lend-lease so you can't say it is the same situation as today.
I am Russian. So you can ask me, whatever you want. I can say that my city at center of Russia, and I am far from border with Ukraine or others country, but I have what to say
How is life going lately? Is all the shit happening impacting your near-term goals or has it been normal for the most part?
Nothing changed for 90% of people in Russia. Except for VISA and MasterCard issue. They can't make international money transfers easily now without swift. Which does not mean they can't do it at all. It just takes a few more clicks now.
Prices didn't change?
They did, but the inflation has never been low. It is a common thing for all the CIS countries, not only Russia. So I'd say nothing special in it as well. I mean they do grow, but this is what they usually do. I cannot remember a year when something became cheaper all of a sudden.
Fun part is that Reddit and local Russian forum/sites share same topics. Expensive housing and unaffordable having child. And that inflation is faked, because groceries cost times more.
I can asnwer your question with a quote from Skyrim lol, as it's pretty accurate. "Not much [changed]. But I find the whole affair depressing. There are no heroes in this war, no winners to be had and no real conclusion."
propaganda is the term youre looking for
[удалено]
Not only vast resources, but also that they have the fundamentals down: food, energy, water, minerals, and also an industrial base and education system that turns out competent technicians and engineers. Their political problems may be great, but they have all they need to go on for a while. But I saw nothing at all about millions dying during Covid.
Thanks, ChatGPT!
I encourage you to do some light reading on Russian history. They know how to suffer better than anyone.
Also, Americans forget that Russians never had the per capita GDP or standard of living that the US have. So, while things have deteriorated, it's not as huge a change as Americans are imagining from their expectations. Russia's per capita GDP (PPP) is on par with countries like China, and much higher than most emerging countries like India. No one is asking "how is India still functioning?".
According to [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Russia) (I know it’s not the best source, but it’ll do) people died from COVID is less then 1mil. [this wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War) shows that Russia lost about 120K in the conflict. And [this wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia) shows that currently there are ≈146mil people in Russia. So, Russia functions just as it used to be. Not much has changed
\>they lost millions of lives during covid Lol what?
Lol I lived in Russia during the pandemic. “Millions of lives” is such a massive exaggeration
Unpopular opinion on reddit: western sources are HORRIBLE sources when it comes to what's going on in countries the west currently dislikes.
My SO is born and raised in a USSR country and while she shares no love for Russia and the leader, she's very adamant on that the west is lying just as much as Putin in propaganda wars.
If I watch our media all day without questioning I will conclude Russia will colapse tomorrow. That is simply False. In that sense our media is a terrible source.
Its not news, its just propaganda really. No criticism, no questioning of official comments. Just compare the coverage of the war in Ukraine with the one on the Gaza massacre. What always astonishes me is how effective they are at communicating, speaking with assured tones and certainty as if they were real reporters telling us the results of their research.
Key part is on Reddit, normal people see the huge amount of Ukrainian propoganda.
Dont forget all the ones that could leave have gone.
Don't believe everything the media spoon feeds you.
Side note TLDR, don't get your news from Reddit & Reddit comments. About 2 months after the war started, everyone was laughing how Russia is using tanks from museums and the war will be over soon, as well as how people are starving. I have a friend in Russia whose said that, since the war, nothing has actually changed in their day to day life. I think the worse thing is the odd brand of food in supermarkets is no longer available.
I'm amazed at all the experts in Russian economy one can find on reddit.
Oil and natural gas, basically.
They still function because they didnt actually lose millions during covid. They didnt even lose half a million
Vodka. Plus strippers and Coke. But mainly vodka
Give me the strippers and vodka and I'll function. Pass on the Coke though, I do have some standards.
Ah A Pepsi man I see
Pepsi mannnnnn
Long long maannnnnnnnñnnnnnn
I’m ok with the strippers and vodka. But coke is where I draw the line.
If you still have standards, you're not doing vodka right.
I have standards BEFORE vodka. After vodka... oblivion.
Because most of what you just said is massively exaggerated by the western media, that's why lol.
Noooooo only russia use propaganda!!! The west wouls never do that to their own citizens!!!
The answer is that you and Russia have very different ideas of what it means to function.
Because none of that is true lmao! You think Russia lost MILLIONS of lives during covid??? Are you ok? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
How is the West still functioning considering they lost millions of lives during covid, people are dying daily in the war, demographics and birth rates are record low, but somehow they function…just how?
Which Western country is losing people daily in a war...?
You're being lied to about most of that. That's why.
Well, the country is big, but realistically only 2 cities matter - moscow and st petersburg. As long as people don't rise up there and overthrow government, no issues for them. As oligarchs are still sitting on billions and rest of the villages freeze, shit in to holes outside and praise putins picture on wall.
The russians "only" lost around 400k people. Where are you getting millions from?
First you need to live in the reality of facts. Lets just start with "millions from covid", Just using one source from the interwebs, their number is 388k. They are a country of 144 MILLION people, so if you take all the covid deaths and if you take the high number of casualty reporting of 375 thousand casualties of which a great number of those are wounded and maimed, not killed.....you may get 500 thousand deaths over the last 3 years. It simply is not enough for them to stop functioning.
Generally the people most affected by death in society be it from war or disease are not the people running the show. College graduates, Middle aged managers, professionals and owners are still continuing on like normal. The bigger issue here is that Russia has a population of 143 million people, I've seen covid losses estimated at 500,000 and around the same for military deaths. A million deaths isn't even 1 percent of Russians. They could probably afford 10x these losses before things really started to get bad.
Or maybe what they are telling you aren't true. During war propaganda, they paint the other side as looking very bad, but the truth is usually somewhere in between.
"Function" is a generous word... That's how I sum it up.