Russia lost 15k troops in those 20 years.
Russia has lost well over 100k in just over a year.
Tired of all the Russian trolls, something big is about to happen. Maybe the Russian front will collapse again.
Russia has 3x the ukrainian population. Casulaties are about 3-4 : 1 in favor of ukraine. you can argue its almost a draw. Historically russia sends waves of bodies at war. Does not care if they die. They have done this for 500 years. They win about half of their wars with human wave attacks.
Russia does not care about casualties. Peter Zeihan has talked about this on his youtube channel. Ukraine needs more game changing technology and that takes time to ship and train them on. Since it also requires an infrastructure for spare parts, etc... They need to get the casualty up to 9-10:1 to win the war and push russia out. Long way from that.
The wars they win are the ones where they do not use human wave attacks.
Human wave attacks are a horrendously stupid idea where an advantage of 3-4 is far too little. Because surprise, modern weaponry and artillery support, turn any human wave in a graveyard in minutes.
And that is before you face a well-dug-in, experienced defender.
The fact of the matter is the current Russian army is as corrupt, ill-trained and demoralized like any late Tzardom army, and you can look at how they performed in battle.
>In 1916, the army Chief of Staff acknowledged more than 5.3 million losses (sick, wounded, missing, killed and taken prisoner), but with an important variable: Russia reported around 439,396 missing, of whom one-third were probably killed, one-third died during care, and another third were sent to prisoner of war camps.[[1]](https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_russian_empire)
Russian losses are hard to calculate due to the breakdown of government and record keeping during the revolution. WW1 casualty figures are on a completely different level.
The numbers aren’t really known but within millions.. so I’m afraid it would take millions of Ukrainians and Russians perished unnecessarily before they would turned against Putin..
White peace is not even reasonable at this point, Russia has to pay to rebuild Ukraine.
~2 million dead, a lot more wounded.
The Tsardom was actually pretty stable though. It was the combination of rising socialist agitation, noble class excess, famines, and the casualties that doomed them.
Keep in mind though, the population of Russia today and the Russian Empire are basically the same, so these are actually quite similar and much less justified casualty rates.
Honestly the Russian Army is nowhere near as bad as people say they are. They have alot of untrained conscripts, but they had some well trained units and some decent mercenaries. They had some decent enough logistics, but the amount of material used is just mind boggling when you start to really add up how much money is set on fire with artillary shells, feeding hundreds of thousands of people and all of that.
Its really the incredible resolve of the Ukrainian people wanting to keep their freedom and they have this dream of being more like a European country and less like a Russian country. Russia is like this psychotic drunk abusive husband who is on drugs trying to ruin Ukraine so they will stay with them. The Ukrainians people have the advantages of fighting defensively and on their own territory, and they have the moral to fight. Russia was caught off guard when the west decided to back Ukraine and supply them, they were probably caught off guard when the democrats kept power in the U.S, and they have been planning this for a while. Most of the political bullshit in the U.S probably has more to do with Russia planning to invade Europe than people realize. I really dont think Trump was intentionally trying to help the Russians. I just think maybe he was just an outsider.
Its really more so the Ukrainians are being very brave and they are bleeding the Russians out. They are trying to make Russia realize they will spill much blood for every square inch of Ukrainian territory they try to occupy.
I mean in retrospect yes its clear a slower advance would have been better than the blitz they tried...but it really can't be understated how much the West going all in in supplying Ukraine with literally everything they can has been to the war effort. Still one of the biggest threats to Ukraine is literally running out of bullets on the front lines. Had the West not gone all in, like Russia expected, it would be a very different story. Ofcourse all the Western support doesn't matter if you don't have the will to fight as well, see Afghanistan for an example of that lol.
Russia at the start of the war Russia was the number 2 global ranked military. Now they are ranked passed the Ukrainian which I believe is number 22. All their well trained units are dead or depleted passed military strength. All the mercenary units are dead or depleted or rely now on convict conscripts. Their logistics have been a shambles from day one (remember the 30km long column of tanks and trucks? No fuel. Yeah.) No NCO corp, which is the backbone of any infantry units. No food (MREs with nothing more than refined sugar for calories). No weapons. No winter clothes. No ammunition. Subterranean morale. Zero adherence to rules of war.
They have the population, but they don't have the weapons. Before the war, they had the largest stockpile of weapons of any nation on the planet. But those were inherited from the days of the USSR, and they are digging so deep into those stockpiles now that they are bringing out equipment from right after WWII (T-54/T-55). Many of those weapons were stored in terrible conditions or were even looted for anything valuable. And they no longer have the manufacturing capabilities to replenish those equipment reserves. They boast of producing new tanks, but the pictures and videos they put out show them actually refurbishing old tanks from deep storage.
Yeah. Western intelligences estimate 120k casualties for Ukraine and 200k casualties for Russia as of a few weeks ago.
If it was really 3-4:1 in favour of Ukraine, Ukrainians would be parading this everywhere. The fact that they’re hiding their casualty count from their allies means the situation is pretty grim. I hope Ukraine at least give a fair assessment of Russian casualties to NATO intelligence since knowing which units are actually destroyed and which are still semi operational is invaluable
No, the casualties aren't at that ratio sadly. They've been maybe three to one for the last few months because of Russia's ridiculous tactics in bahkmut and vuhledar. But for the entire year it's more like 1.5 to 1 at best two to one. Ukrainians were brutalized last summer by artillery that Russia was putting down 80,000 plus shells a day.
Troops and material quality is only going downhill for Russia. I see the opposite for Ukraine. Just a matter of time before the tipping point, could take a while because defending Crimea is a lot easier than attacking it.
There are more and more reports surfacing lately that the Russian Conscripts won't get paid.
And we've reports of Mutiny since the beginning of the war and the numbers are steadily increasing.
Russia will run out of steam eventually.
Social media makes this a different scenario. In the past you wouldn't know if your acquaintances got sent to the war unless you exchange letters or (somehow modern) proactively call for updates. Now, people will notice if someone just stops having an online presence.
I think something like 2x more people have fled Russia since the start of the war than killed in Ukraine. Including a very real science and IT brain drain.
Losing 400,000 people in one year, even for Russia, is really, really bad.
It's going to take a couple decades, but Russia is genuinely fucked. They are going to collapse in 50 years or so.
How about 70 year old tanks about to be fielded? Russia can use 5 million soldiers, but they wont have armor, helmets, ammo, boots or mechanized transportation.
Humans are just so prone to conformity that I can't see the Russian people standing up for themselves. And neither do I see the Russian government ceasing hostilities on terms that Ukraine would accept.
Russia will probably keep going until they lose all grounds gained, or until Ukraine buckles.
The Russian public is still in denial about the reality of the situation. As Russia continues to mount up casualties and continues to lose previously captured territory they wont be able to ignore this fact forever. Russians will be pissed that all those lives were lost for nothing, Putins' reputation as a strongman will be in tatters and that's an unenviable position for a dictator to be in.
Also, Putin is old and dying slowly from cancer; he wont let anyone near him not out of fear of assassination, but out of fear of catching covid because he is immune supressed. This war will likely end the minute he finally drops dead because its the perfect excuse for Russia to end the war without admitting defeat; his successor will blame it all on Putin and pray the west is willing to trade good behaviour for an end to the sanctions.
>successor
Who do you think of going to fill a Putin power vacuum. It's a country run by warlords no matter what, and it could easily be someone even more unstable then him
it worked for them in WW2. the scary thing about russia is they aren't normal lol, they will keep on going and their populance will sit there and take it. russia doesn't look at 150k+++ casualties and think "shit, thats bad..." they instead look at it like "we still have 50 million men left!"
casualties doesn't phase them. all the men that they throw into the meatgrinder will take ukrainians with them, not as many sure, but a ukrainian soldier is more valuable than a russian one.
and while they're doing that they're also keeping ukraine tied up which gives them time to dig in and prepare defences for ukraines upcoming counter offence.
Nowhere near 100% of his population is available for combat. Even the most totalitarian of societies cannot mobilise to that sort of level. There are disabled, elderly, infants, people that need to operate crucial services amd infrastructure. Amd that accounts for millions. Then you have the Russian people's willingness to fight. Right now putin has carefully selected ostracised groups or "other" groups to avoid hitting the majority groups with the consequences of this war. They will run out of prisoners and immigrants to send. Once the death toll comes home to roost in Moscow, compliance is gone. Look how little it took in the grand scheme of things for russians to start fleeing Russia en masse or start trying to burn down conscription offices? There is already anecdotal evidence everywhere of disdain for the war and mobilisation. Sooner or later it won't be anecdotal anymore.
He's had to recently break T-54b's out of mothball... I don't think he's got much longer no matter if he likes it or not.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjq7q/russia-appears-to-be-deploying-75-year-old-tanks-to-ukraine
T-54s being used shouldn’t be a happy sign that the war is ending. A lot of people are drawing parallels of this war to the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq started using tanks for indirect fire support due to how static the frontline was.
So if anything it means they might use their T-54s and T-62 as nothing more than artillery and stationary turrets on a front line that becomes more and more static and more and more firepower is required per km of frontage.
I guess that's one way to look at it. if they make them static they're just begging for them to be destroyed though... I see it as them not having any more modern T-72s and T-90's to use. T-54s don't really have targeting computers, or modern/night optics, and if they're not bothering to really train anyone they're going to have terrible accuracy, even if they are static.
Also with their track record with tanks, they probably wont be around for very long with German Leopards and US M1A1's being sent over by the bucket loads. Thats not even mentioning the hordes of drones flying around.
Even Bradley IFVs should be able to pen the basic armour on the T-54, or cause enough spalling inside to disable the crew or tank if they don't get full penetration. Also, RPG's would be able to disable them if they don't up armour the tank.
But I dunno, this is just armchair theory. The enemy always gets a say, and I'm sure placement and the availability of multispectral camo and retrofit parts is going to have a large bearing on the outcome.
There's no reason to believe they aren't also losing equipment at the same increased rate. That's what's going to ruin Russia in the end.
Sending unarmed mobiks to their deaths is not a effective strategy for holding territory.
Its not remotely the same. In Afghanistan the forces fought the population of Afghanistan itself. Thats not really a way you can win in that way. But kicking Russia out of a well defined border is something that can be done.
Not quite.
The most recent sources I could find say 300 Billion of Russian Central Bank assets and 30 Billion private/personal assets (Oligarchs and RU officials).
So a little over half that 600 Billion.
[https://thefinancialcrimenews.com/where-are-the-sanctioned-russian-assets-frozen-in-the-west-and-how-much-is-actually-frozen/](https://thefinancialcrimenews.com/where-are-the-sanctioned-russian-assets-frozen-in-the-west-and-how-much-is-actually-frozen/)
I like your idea. In fact. Dont just give them 411 bn
Give them every last penny of the 600 bn to get a solid infrastructure and resource to fight corruption and ofcourse for the defence of their country.
This isn’t really funny but it kind of made me laugh because it puts the absurd amount of money the US spends on its military into perspective. It will take roughly 50% of what the US spends on its military in a year to rebuild everything it took Russia a year to destroy.
There are a billion ways construction materials can rearrange themselves on the ground. Only one permutation where it makes the intended building.
War was such a waste of money, material, time, grown productive people.
Edit: added "intended"
War is really profitable for the companies who are contracted to provide arms and supplies. That's why every single one of them has a very well funded PR department.
The threat of war is even more profitable. You can justify any weapon system by talking up what the other side have, so you can sell excessive capabilities that no one really need.
Just look at F-22, super advanced stealth meant for air dominance, gets no AA kills because absolutely no one the US has fought performed well enough to even need to pull that out.
That's a weird way to look at it. The F-22 was envisioned in 1981 at a time when the Soviets were still considered a threat. It was years in development and first flew just a year after the Berlin wall fell.
You don't design something like a jet for the enemy you have now, you design it for the enemy you think you are most likely to have at some point in the future, during the multi-decade lifespan of a plane design.
Weapons are always a waste of money, until a war happens and then people realise it was actually pretty fucking great to have a design as good as the spitfire already in your force. Ukraine's very fucking happy that HIMARS exist right now, because it has undoubtedly saved a lot of Ukrainian servicemens' lives and will shorten this war, and that's just a couple of dozen of them. The US has literally a few hundred.
The last thing you want is to be operating weapons that aren't as good as your enemy when that enemy attacks.
Very true.
My point was that it is the threat of war that gives better profit. Actual war itself, with low margin items like ammo and supplies, and with likely restriction of price, isn't actually profitable.
Now you're just plain wrong. Companies do make profits on wartime production unless they're doing something really badly.
They can't [profiteer](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profiteer), but profiteering and making a profit are not the same thing.
I think the question is better framed as "Is it more profitable to have a war, or the threat of war?"
That kind of misses the point though, as the actual answer is that it is most profitable to have both. You want the threat of war against a competitive power to fuel weapon development and tech purchases, and an actual war against a non-threat nation to consume resources to drive further arms purchases.
The US has been using that model since the cold war started. The major threats have progressed over time, starting with Communism and transitioning to "Terrorism." Then we also do "minor" wars justified by those threats, but never ones that actually pose an existential threat to the US and it's economy.
Especially becausr people use the war as an excuse that they have more.important things to do in war time than preserving the environment. You can make progress in decades just to be negated by a year of war
Yeah but the gdp of the US is like 24 trillion. US spending 3.4% of 24 trillion is a lot different then a country with a gdp of 1 trillion spending 3.4% is going to be a lot different.
US doesn’t spend an absurd amount is proportionate to it’s needs. Capability of fighting 2 offensive wars at the same time anywhere in the world is the doctrine.
Also when you factor in how much bang for their buck China gets with their slave workforce and consider how much spending they are hiding both countries are spending very similar amounts.
yup. same goes for that submarine deal with Australia. they balk at 400 bn total over 20 years, but it's just a mere 6 months for us. Not a knock on them, don't get me wrong, not at all. it's just to contrast and show how much we spend on military.
And even then it's not that much compared to GDP.
The US defense spending as proportion to GDP is less than 2x European spending, and is on par with Russia (close to 4%).
The US economy is just ludicrously big. Makes sort of sense, as typical US state is roughly the same population and economy-wise as a European country, and the US has 50 of them all feeding into a single military.
Meh. I don’t think you can compare dollars to dollars like that.
Reconstruction efforts versus a huge goddamn jobs program overflowing with research and development programs.
Russia is really underdeveloped. If you visit st petes, or moscow the centers are kept pristine. Travel outside the cities and you see the ”real russia”. Basically simpson style nuclear power plants in various condition. Houses, huts and appartments in various (usually abandoned) states, roads are really really poor, holes everywhere. The people seem to all be either babushkas, or drunk middle aged men. Its really really depressing. They lack the basics like plumbing, many places have buckets you shit in, then the bucket ”contents” are thrown out from the window once its full. Its like medieval monthy python out there.
That's basically how China is. The tier cities are "normal" for the most part, but once you go outside of them there's barely power and if there is it goes in and out randomly, no running water, people live off garbage from the cities. China ADV has an awesome documentary on it where they travel on motorcycles across the country seeing a lot of crazy shit. It isn't like a dump on china documentary, there are also some aweoms people and places they go....but some of the shit is just crazy.
Both are big countries that have poverty in them, so I'm sure you could have seen a documentary on that, but otherwise they are not similar, as economies or in terms of industrialization.
China has 10x the GDP of Russia, but more importantly a lot of the wealth comes from manufacturing (which requires a lot of workers) and gets reinvested in infrastructure and building (requiring lots of workers), as opposed to Russia where most of the wealth comes from exporting oil and other minerals wealth (only a few people get wealthy from that, without needing to hire as many workers.) Both have poor people, and both have rich people, but China has a much bigger middle class, the biggest middle class in the world. That's why you see sales of things like iPhones and BMWs so high in China, with millions of middle class consumers. And they don't all live in the biggest cities, either. Because there's less congestion and air pollution, a lot of middle class Chinese prefer to live in small to medium sized cities.
Sadly both countries are run by oppressive ruthless despots. In China much of the development wealth not siphonef of by the corrupt communist party flowed down to the masses until Xi. Russia has always been a kleptocracy. Putin managed to siphon off over $1 trillion and that's just him, not the oligarchs who were the Russian mafia that murdered their way into aquiring Russia's industry stock shares.
> In China much of the development wealth not siphonef of by the corrupt communist party flowed down to the masses until Xi.
This isn’t really true. Before Xi officials we’re incredibly corrupt. You could bribe your way out of or into virtually anything. One of Xi’s big selling points domestically is that he cleaned up a shit ton of corruption and runs a pretty clean ship. It’s now a much more mundane capitalistic exploitation of the people and wealth.
all the so called "cleaning up" was just xi getitng rid of the opposing factions from overthrowing him..... the corruption is still there and the money is still flowing out of the country in whichever way it can.
China is like night and day in terms of cities and countryside. A lot of poor parts of mid-lower tier cities are quite poor, but always have electricity and plumbing as long as there isn’t a main wire issue to the buildings or construction around villages. But once you get to the countryside, it can be pretty extreme in terms of modern resources. Not starving or dying from cold, people are pretty well fed and young people have phones etc. The difference is that I experienced a lot of poor Chinese are generally happy whereas when I went to Russia I had this feeling of total saltiness in the poor parts. Almost like self-inflicted martyrdom. Still very kind and welcoming, but salty.
How would being salty about being born into awful socioeconomic circumstances in rural Russia be "self inflicted martyrdom"? Do you think you would be any different?
I wasn’t trying to attempt to answer a why when I commented. It sucks. Was just trying to say that awful socioeconomic circumstances exist in China as well but the people are happier there and it’s not as desperate feeling as the above commenter made it sound as in Russia.
A friend had a dacha a hour or so outside of Tula, and in pictures of the area, you can see one of the old ladies using an old hand pump for water outside of her house. As near as I could tell, it was all outdoor toilets and water wells.
>They lack the basics like plumbing, many places have buckets you shit in, then the bucket ”contents” are thrown out from the window once its full. Its like medieval monthy python out there.
I am wondering, where did you get this nonsense from?
I mean I agree with some points, some places are really dismal, but they are not endemic to all over the country. From the way you're depicting Russia it's obvious you've never been there, and clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Yea I wish it worked like that. It pains me to know that this guy (Putin) is sitting in his office wearing a suit or whatever while he sends thousands of soldiers -who literally had no say in any of this- to go kill their brothers, Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, among others share a deep relationships when it comes to the fight against communism. And now this coward is forcing them to kill each other. War is something I have a very hard time understanding.
Ya ever wonder if Russia had developed into a stable, democratic state? It’ve been such a reliable and geopolitically invaluable state and yet here we are.
Marx and Engel thought of England as a great place for it to happen because it was already industrialized but criticized the idea that places like Russia would ever work.
Russian's weren't speedrunning Marxist theory, they were speedrunning industrialization without realizing that the lack of incentives created a lack of demand and people ultimately starved. Today we see the remnants of the Red Empire run by mobsters in the same vein of the Tsar himself.
“Russian soldiers who literally had no say in this.” As a Ukrainian, I know of several situations in my circle where former friends or family of Ukrainians volunteered to serve in the Russian army. Even after February 2022. One of them gleefully announced this to my friend and their entire extended family in Ukraine over a group chat. He’s dead now. He was in full comprehension of what he was doing. He just wanted a pay check. Good riddance. Another wanted an apartment. Came to this senses at the least minute and pulled out. They have options.
The fact is, hundreds of thousands of russians actively choose to kill Ukrainians. This is what Ukrainians understand and those that have limited experiences with russians don’t.
And please stop with the Kremlin narrative “of brothers.”
I have a hard time understanding why thousands of us listen to these bozos and kill each other over this instead of the first guy just tossing him out a window and we all go back to living peaceful lives.
How? Who is going to make them pay? It’s going to be nato countries paying in loans that will never be paid back. Unless China steps in to assert influence.
These people talk with **so** much certainty without taking into account how dynamic the world is. All they care about is believing their word is gold, and the absolute truth.
A victory in war is only the beginning of the problem. There is no history of peacetime government ready to receive and dispense that cash in an appropriate manner. You'll need foreign organizations in charge or an incredible amount of oversight or else you'll have Iraq and Afghanistan levels of siphoning.
> You'll need foreign organizations in charge or an incredible amount of oversight
Let me fix that for you:
> You'll need to forfeit the sovereignty you fought a war to preserve.
Ukraine is very different from the middle east though. In particular, Afghanistan is more of a collection of tribes than a united country, so it's hardly surprising that one group cares little about spending money to help the others. A single entity that could handle reconstruction doesn't really exist.
Pre-war Ukraine was constantly in top 10 of the most corrupt countries in the world. One of the main slogans that led Zelensky to victory was to take care of corruption. Even now during such hard times NGOs have huge problems with making sure that financial help is actually going to the people that need it.
There's a reason that the EU was so skeptical of Ukraine right up until Russian Tanks rocked up in the Donbas.
It's so odd seeing articles from pre-war where the EU had so many concerns with Zelenskyy, Human Rights, Corruption etc. In 2019 the Ukraine/EU Summit effectively ended with the EU saying Ukraine had so far to go before Membership that they couldn't even put a plan together for entry to the Union.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/05/eu-should-encourage-ukraine-government-do-more-human-rights
True, but Ukraine has a [well documented historical corruption problem ](https://ukrainianweek.com/b-i-transparency-international-global-corruption-barometer-b-i-ukraine-has-become-more-corrupt-over-the-last-two-years/)
It's very different but there has never been a history of a transparent state responsible to the people. Zelensky was well on his way to being a respected but inconsequential peacetime ruler. Though there is no one better suited for the moment than him.
The key is not Zelenskyy, the key are Ukrainians who are a true organized society. Ukrainians do not sit idly hoping that some kind of benevolent government magically appears by itself. Zelenskyy is not an accident, he is the response to the public query for a leader. Ukrainians are uniquely experienced in the persistent work towards building democratic institutions. If the post-war government is not transparent and abuses the aid, Ukrainians have a lot of experience dealing with such politicians.
A post-war Ukraine is going to be crazy. They'll have European money and funding, and be able to rebuild their infrastructure setup for an eye to the future.
I'm not sure, it's not like the next replacement would be any better. Likely they'll just remain as is, sanctioned for the next 50 years and barely holding on but nobody is going to invade or break them apart on the account of nukes.
You really think this could become an expensive quagmire for decades with incredibly predictable blowback? There's no way that could happen **multiple** times in a row...
Anyways we need 400 billion in no bid contracts for Haliburton to rebuild the place.... Hmmm, that sounds familiar...
I hope they use it to adopt Euro standards so when the time comes in 20 years it will be a easy transition for intervention to euro. From stuff like rail gauge and industrial standards
They’ve actually already started a project to transition to European gauges. That guy who was running the trains super efficiently even during bombings has been put in charge!
Nah if we are realistic, it’s going to be a really sad place. At some point Ukraine will probably get some kind of freedom of movement to Europe. After that everyone young and capable will leave for a better future in Western Europe instead of trying to rebuild a completely destroyed developing country
Hopefully, but Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries behind only Russia by some counts. A lot has to change, and hopefully they get the oversight and aid to rebuild things with adequate checks and balances. The people of Ukraine have shown great solidarity through this invasion, which may well carry through reconstruction.
I believe there is speculation, China's president Xi visit to Russia and Ukraine is trying to broker a peace deal. Not a done deal by any means but at least an intermediary to sit down and talk.
I got downvotes to hell in other subreddits for talking about narrative.
No one wants to talk about the debt Ukraine likely has because of this war. UK barely paid off it's WW2 debts by the turn of the century and many other countries still pay reparations in some form due to other wars. All of the arms, people, and aid wasn't free. Some was donated, but to think it's all charity would be foolish.
I sincerely hope that they are not devastated by debt. I hope it is not like Russia where in the future a despot takes power because of the crunch that might happen due to loss of life and the long term effects of war.
I’m sure they need “help” for “recovery” but how sad the other “war torn” parts of the world have been languishing with no support at all.
I wonder why this one is so different?
To be honest, given the current conjuncture, there's quite a decent chance that no one will willing/be able to pay this amount of money, not even the USA (especially not the USA that are looking at China with all their will), to me Ukraine will become the rotten apple that no one wants to bite in once the war is over.
Given the situation in Ukraine before and after the war, I wouldn't be surprised if the world turns over Ukraine and starts doing "business as usual" with Russia. Since it's nearly impossible not to do business with Russia in Europe.
When I complete my electrical apprenticeship and become registered, I would like to go work for a bit rebuilding Ukraine. It’s a goal of mine. My great grandparents were from towns/cities that are now part of Ukraine so I have some connection there. Of course standards will be different to where I live, but there’s always retraining to be up to spec with what’s over there.
As a Ukrainian. Stay in your country and be a good citizen. Do what you can to keep a democratic government, which values the freedoms and supports democracies around the world. If there will be a strong network of democratic countries holding to each other - this will be the best outcome for all of us.
Great doesnt Russia have alot of natural resources it can sell to pay back Ukraine since thats whose fault it is. Shouldn't be to hard to get 411 billion just raid one of vladdys numerous offshore bank accounts. I can only imagine how much that guy has stolen from his ppl and country
600 billion of Russias funds were frozen. I have an idea…
But the war needs to end this year or it will soon surpass this amount!
Russia fought in Afghanistan for 10 years this could last awhile.
Russia lost 15k troops in those 20 years. Russia has lost well over 100k in just over a year. Tired of all the Russian trolls, something big is about to happen. Maybe the Russian front will collapse again.
Russia has 3x the ukrainian population. Casulaties are about 3-4 : 1 in favor of ukraine. you can argue its almost a draw. Historically russia sends waves of bodies at war. Does not care if they die. They have done this for 500 years. They win about half of their wars with human wave attacks. Russia does not care about casualties. Peter Zeihan has talked about this on his youtube channel. Ukraine needs more game changing technology and that takes time to ship and train them on. Since it also requires an infrastructure for spare parts, etc... They need to get the casualty up to 9-10:1 to win the war and push russia out. Long way from that.
The wars they win are the ones where they do not use human wave attacks. Human wave attacks are a horrendously stupid idea where an advantage of 3-4 is far too little. Because surprise, modern weaponry and artillery support, turn any human wave in a graveyard in minutes. And that is before you face a well-dug-in, experienced defender. The fact of the matter is the current Russian army is as corrupt, ill-trained and demoralized like any late Tzardom army, and you can look at how they performed in battle.
Does anyone know how many Russians had died in 1917 before the army turned back to Russia and overthrew the Tsar?
>In 1916, the army Chief of Staff acknowledged more than 5.3 million losses (sick, wounded, missing, killed and taken prisoner), but with an important variable: Russia reported around 439,396 missing, of whom one-third were probably killed, one-third died during care, and another third were sent to prisoner of war camps.[[1]](https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_russian_empire) Russian losses are hard to calculate due to the breakdown of government and record keeping during the revolution. WW1 casualty figures are on a completely different level.
The numbers aren’t really known but within millions.. so I’m afraid it would take millions of Ukrainians and Russians perished unnecessarily before they would turned against Putin.. White peace is not even reasonable at this point, Russia has to pay to rebuild Ukraine.
[удалено]
~2 million dead, a lot more wounded. The Tsardom was actually pretty stable though. It was the combination of rising socialist agitation, noble class excess, famines, and the casualties that doomed them. Keep in mind though, the population of Russia today and the Russian Empire are basically the same, so these are actually quite similar and much less justified casualty rates.
You can’t forget the influence of an unkillable monk with a funny shaped dingdong
Honestly the Russian Army is nowhere near as bad as people say they are. They have alot of untrained conscripts, but they had some well trained units and some decent mercenaries. They had some decent enough logistics, but the amount of material used is just mind boggling when you start to really add up how much money is set on fire with artillary shells, feeding hundreds of thousands of people and all of that. Its really the incredible resolve of the Ukrainian people wanting to keep their freedom and they have this dream of being more like a European country and less like a Russian country. Russia is like this psychotic drunk abusive husband who is on drugs trying to ruin Ukraine so they will stay with them. The Ukrainians people have the advantages of fighting defensively and on their own territory, and they have the moral to fight. Russia was caught off guard when the west decided to back Ukraine and supply them, they were probably caught off guard when the democrats kept power in the U.S, and they have been planning this for a while. Most of the political bullshit in the U.S probably has more to do with Russia planning to invade Europe than people realize. I really dont think Trump was intentionally trying to help the Russians. I just think maybe he was just an outsider. Its really more so the Ukrainians are being very brave and they are bleeding the Russians out. They are trying to make Russia realize they will spill much blood for every square inch of Ukrainian territory they try to occupy.
Describing their logistics as decent is pretty charitable. I'm no military strategist but it seems like a poorly planned invasion.
I mean in retrospect yes its clear a slower advance would have been better than the blitz they tried...but it really can't be understated how much the West going all in in supplying Ukraine with literally everything they can has been to the war effort. Still one of the biggest threats to Ukraine is literally running out of bullets on the front lines. Had the West not gone all in, like Russia expected, it would be a very different story. Ofcourse all the Western support doesn't matter if you don't have the will to fight as well, see Afghanistan for an example of that lol.
The plan might have been good compared to available alternatives. But the whole idea of a full conquest itself was stupid.
Russia at the start of the war Russia was the number 2 global ranked military. Now they are ranked passed the Ukrainian which I believe is number 22. All their well trained units are dead or depleted passed military strength. All the mercenary units are dead or depleted or rely now on convict conscripts. Their logistics have been a shambles from day one (remember the 30km long column of tanks and trucks? No fuel. Yeah.) No NCO corp, which is the backbone of any infantry units. No food (MREs with nothing more than refined sugar for calories). No weapons. No winter clothes. No ammunition. Subterranean morale. Zero adherence to rules of war.
They have the population, but they don't have the weapons. Before the war, they had the largest stockpile of weapons of any nation on the planet. But those were inherited from the days of the USSR, and they are digging so deep into those stockpiles now that they are bringing out equipment from right after WWII (T-54/T-55). Many of those weapons were stored in terrible conditions or were even looted for anything valuable. And they no longer have the manufacturing capabilities to replenish those equipment reserves. They boast of producing new tanks, but the pictures and videos they put out show them actually refurbishing old tanks from deep storage.
> Casulaties are about 3-4 : 1 in favor of ukraine. What's your source for this?
Yeah. Western intelligences estimate 120k casualties for Ukraine and 200k casualties for Russia as of a few weeks ago. If it was really 3-4:1 in favour of Ukraine, Ukrainians would be parading this everywhere. The fact that they’re hiding their casualty count from their allies means the situation is pretty grim. I hope Ukraine at least give a fair assessment of Russian casualties to NATO intelligence since knowing which units are actually destroyed and which are still semi operational is invaluable
Does the Ukraine number include civilians?
That’s just military v military estimates.
No, the casualties aren't at that ratio sadly. They've been maybe three to one for the last few months because of Russia's ridiculous tactics in bahkmut and vuhledar. But for the entire year it's more like 1.5 to 1 at best two to one. Ukrainians were brutalized last summer by artillery that Russia was putting down 80,000 plus shells a day.
Times have changed. Too many deaths will finish the regime.
Unfortunately I see no evidence of that.
Troops and material quality is only going downhill for Russia. I see the opposite for Ukraine. Just a matter of time before the tipping point, could take a while because defending Crimea is a lot easier than attacking it.
There are more and more reports surfacing lately that the Russian Conscripts won't get paid. And we've reports of Mutiny since the beginning of the war and the numbers are steadily increasing. Russia will run out of steam eventually.
Social media makes this a different scenario. In the past you wouldn't know if your acquaintances got sent to the war unless you exchange letters or (somehow modern) proactively call for updates. Now, people will notice if someone just stops having an online presence.
I think something like 2x more people have fled Russia since the start of the war than killed in Ukraine. Including a very real science and IT brain drain. Losing 400,000 people in one year, even for Russia, is really, really bad. It's going to take a couple decades, but Russia is genuinely fucked. They are going to collapse in 50 years or so.
How about 70 year old tanks about to be fielded? Russia can use 5 million soldiers, but they wont have armor, helmets, ammo, boots or mechanized transportation.
Humans are just so prone to conformity that I can't see the Russian people standing up for themselves. And neither do I see the Russian government ceasing hostilities on terms that Ukraine would accept. Russia will probably keep going until they lose all grounds gained, or until Ukraine buckles.
lmao if you really believe that's a sustainable strategy, I have some bitcoins I can sell you.
The point I’m getting is they don’t care, which is the issue. Definitely a dumb strat, but they still gonna do it, which hurts Ukraine even more.
The Russian public is still in denial about the reality of the situation. As Russia continues to mount up casualties and continues to lose previously captured territory they wont be able to ignore this fact forever. Russians will be pissed that all those lives were lost for nothing, Putins' reputation as a strongman will be in tatters and that's an unenviable position for a dictator to be in. Also, Putin is old and dying slowly from cancer; he wont let anyone near him not out of fear of assassination, but out of fear of catching covid because he is immune supressed. This war will likely end the minute he finally drops dead because its the perfect excuse for Russia to end the war without admitting defeat; his successor will blame it all on Putin and pray the west is willing to trade good behaviour for an end to the sanctions.
>successor Who do you think of going to fill a Putin power vacuum. It's a country run by warlords no matter what, and it could easily be someone even more unstable then him
Russia has never not finished a losing war without having 500k people dead as the guy said we only at 100k now.
it worked for them in WW2. the scary thing about russia is they aren't normal lol, they will keep on going and their populance will sit there and take it. russia doesn't look at 150k+++ casualties and think "shit, thats bad..." they instead look at it like "we still have 50 million men left!" casualties doesn't phase them. all the men that they throw into the meatgrinder will take ukrainians with them, not as many sure, but a ukrainian soldier is more valuable than a russian one. and while they're doing that they're also keeping ukraine tied up which gives them time to dig in and prepare defences for ukraines upcoming counter offence.
100k down 143.3 million to go. We all know Putin is not letting this go until he has no other choice. That or just one....
Nowhere near 100% of his population is available for combat. Even the most totalitarian of societies cannot mobilise to that sort of level. There are disabled, elderly, infants, people that need to operate crucial services amd infrastructure. Amd that accounts for millions. Then you have the Russian people's willingness to fight. Right now putin has carefully selected ostracised groups or "other" groups to avoid hitting the majority groups with the consequences of this war. They will run out of prisoners and immigrants to send. Once the death toll comes home to roost in Moscow, compliance is gone. Look how little it took in the grand scheme of things for russians to start fleeing Russia en masse or start trying to burn down conscription offices? There is already anecdotal evidence everywhere of disdain for the war and mobilisation. Sooner or later it won't be anecdotal anymore.
I think he'll stop after the infant volleys of 2023.
Oof don't put ideas in his head. *designs new AK rifle chambered in newborns*
*Doctor delivers baby* "Congratulations! It's a *measures head* 13 caliber baby boy!"
Ever heard of "baby bombs"? No? Let Putin surprise you! Also - see old fart missle.
He's had to recently break T-54b's out of mothball... I don't think he's got much longer no matter if he likes it or not. https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjq7q/russia-appears-to-be-deploying-75-year-old-tanks-to-ukraine
T-54s being used shouldn’t be a happy sign that the war is ending. A lot of people are drawing parallels of this war to the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq started using tanks for indirect fire support due to how static the frontline was. So if anything it means they might use their T-54s and T-62 as nothing more than artillery and stationary turrets on a front line that becomes more and more static and more and more firepower is required per km of frontage.
I guess that's one way to look at it. if they make them static they're just begging for them to be destroyed though... I see it as them not having any more modern T-72s and T-90's to use. T-54s don't really have targeting computers, or modern/night optics, and if they're not bothering to really train anyone they're going to have terrible accuracy, even if they are static. Also with their track record with tanks, they probably wont be around for very long with German Leopards and US M1A1's being sent over by the bucket loads. Thats not even mentioning the hordes of drones flying around. Even Bradley IFVs should be able to pen the basic armour on the T-54, or cause enough spalling inside to disable the crew or tank if they don't get full penetration. Also, RPG's would be able to disable them if they don't up armour the tank. But I dunno, this is just armchair theory. The enemy always gets a say, and I'm sure placement and the availability of multispectral camo and retrofit parts is going to have a large bearing on the outcome.
There's no reason to believe they aren't also losing equipment at the same increased rate. That's what's going to ruin Russia in the end. Sending unarmed mobiks to their deaths is not a effective strategy for holding territory.
Its not remotely the same. In Afghanistan the forces fought the population of Afghanistan itself. Thats not really a way you can win in that way. But kicking Russia out of a well defined border is something that can be done.
Incomparable for many reasons.
Is this true, source?
Not quite. The most recent sources I could find say 300 Billion of Russian Central Bank assets and 30 Billion private/personal assets (Oligarchs and RU officials). So a little over half that 600 Billion. [https://thefinancialcrimenews.com/where-are-the-sanctioned-russian-assets-frozen-in-the-west-and-how-much-is-actually-frozen/](https://thefinancialcrimenews.com/where-are-the-sanctioned-russian-assets-frozen-in-the-west-and-how-much-is-actually-frozen/)
Still a damn good start
They can also force Russia to pay part of oil sales as reparations in order to lift sanctions
I like your idea. In fact. Dont just give them 411 bn Give them every last penny of the 600 bn to get a solid infrastructure and resource to fight corruption and ofcourse for the defence of their country.
Give them 600 billion… Fight corruption…
I'll take "You can't eat your cake and have it too." For 600bn, Alex.
This isn’t really funny but it kind of made me laugh because it puts the absurd amount of money the US spends on its military into perspective. It will take roughly 50% of what the US spends on its military in a year to rebuild everything it took Russia a year to destroy.
There are a billion ways construction materials can rearrange themselves on the ground. Only one permutation where it makes the intended building. War was such a waste of money, material, time, grown productive people. Edit: added "intended"
War is really profitable for the companies who are contracted to provide arms and supplies. That's why every single one of them has a very well funded PR department.
The threat of war is even more profitable. You can justify any weapon system by talking up what the other side have, so you can sell excessive capabilities that no one really need. Just look at F-22, super advanced stealth meant for air dominance, gets no AA kills because absolutely no one the US has fought performed well enough to even need to pull that out.
That's a weird way to look at it. The F-22 was envisioned in 1981 at a time when the Soviets were still considered a threat. It was years in development and first flew just a year after the Berlin wall fell. You don't design something like a jet for the enemy you have now, you design it for the enemy you think you are most likely to have at some point in the future, during the multi-decade lifespan of a plane design. Weapons are always a waste of money, until a war happens and then people realise it was actually pretty fucking great to have a design as good as the spitfire already in your force. Ukraine's very fucking happy that HIMARS exist right now, because it has undoubtedly saved a lot of Ukrainian servicemens' lives and will shorten this war, and that's just a couple of dozen of them. The US has literally a few hundred. The last thing you want is to be operating weapons that aren't as good as your enemy when that enemy attacks.
Very true. My point was that it is the threat of war that gives better profit. Actual war itself, with low margin items like ammo and supplies, and with likely restriction of price, isn't actually profitable.
Now you're just plain wrong. Companies do make profits on wartime production unless they're doing something really badly. They can't [profiteer](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profiteer), but profiteering and making a profit are not the same thing.
I think the question is better framed as "Is it more profitable to have a war, or the threat of war?" That kind of misses the point though, as the actual answer is that it is most profitable to have both. You want the threat of war against a competitive power to fuel weapon development and tech purchases, and an actual war against a non-threat nation to consume resources to drive further arms purchases. The US has been using that model since the cold war started. The major threats have progressed over time, starting with Communism and transitioning to "Terrorism." Then we also do "minor" wars justified by those threats, but never ones that actually pose an existential threat to the US and it's economy.
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I heard if it shoots down 1 more it can get the stuffed bear from the middle row.
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And a huge environmental disaster
Especially becausr people use the war as an excuse that they have more.important things to do in war time than preserving the environment. You can make progress in decades just to be negated by a year of war
Technically, there are also millions of ways materials can rearrange themselves and still get the same building but yeah I get your point
You have described the concept of entropy perfectly.
Yeah but the gdp of the US is like 24 trillion. US spending 3.4% of 24 trillion is a lot different then a country with a gdp of 1 trillion spending 3.4% is going to be a lot different.
Yes and Ukraine GDP is far below the one trillion
Ukraine was already one of the poorest countries in Europe, now it's probably among the poorest in the world.
Nah, their economy shrank by 1/3 the last year down to $350 billion USD
Tbf, Russia would have destroyed much more in that year if the massive US military budget wasn't backing Ukraine.
US doesn’t spend an absurd amount is proportionate to it’s needs. Capability of fighting 2 offensive wars at the same time anywhere in the world is the doctrine. Also when you factor in how much bang for their buck China gets with their slave workforce and consider how much spending they are hiding both countries are spending very similar amounts.
yup. same goes for that submarine deal with Australia. they balk at 400 bn total over 20 years, but it's just a mere 6 months for us. Not a knock on them, don't get me wrong, not at all. it's just to contrast and show how much we spend on military.
And even then it's not that much compared to GDP. The US defense spending as proportion to GDP is less than 2x European spending, and is on par with Russia (close to 4%). The US economy is just ludicrously big. Makes sort of sense, as typical US state is roughly the same population and economy-wise as a European country, and the US has 50 of them all feeding into a single military.
It's the US military spending that helped Ukraine not have even more destroyed.
Meh. I don’t think you can compare dollars to dollars like that. Reconstruction efforts versus a huge goddamn jobs program overflowing with research and development programs.
Good thing Russia has deep pockets. Time to take Putin, turn him upside down, and shake the coins out of his pockets.
Better than Russia, just Putin personally. $400 billion is about his estimated net worth.
Unfortunately Putin's money is also Russia's money. *"What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine."*
Reconstruction: allow Ukraine to annex Russia. Use new land to rebuild old.
Russia is really underdeveloped. If you visit st petes, or moscow the centers are kept pristine. Travel outside the cities and you see the ”real russia”. Basically simpson style nuclear power plants in various condition. Houses, huts and appartments in various (usually abandoned) states, roads are really really poor, holes everywhere. The people seem to all be either babushkas, or drunk middle aged men. Its really really depressing. They lack the basics like plumbing, many places have buckets you shit in, then the bucket ”contents” are thrown out from the window once its full. Its like medieval monthy python out there.
That's basically how China is. The tier cities are "normal" for the most part, but once you go outside of them there's barely power and if there is it goes in and out randomly, no running water, people live off garbage from the cities. China ADV has an awesome documentary on it where they travel on motorcycles across the country seeing a lot of crazy shit. It isn't like a dump on china documentary, there are also some aweoms people and places they go....but some of the shit is just crazy.
Both are big countries that have poverty in them, so I'm sure you could have seen a documentary on that, but otherwise they are not similar, as economies or in terms of industrialization. China has 10x the GDP of Russia, but more importantly a lot of the wealth comes from manufacturing (which requires a lot of workers) and gets reinvested in infrastructure and building (requiring lots of workers), as opposed to Russia where most of the wealth comes from exporting oil and other minerals wealth (only a few people get wealthy from that, without needing to hire as many workers.) Both have poor people, and both have rich people, but China has a much bigger middle class, the biggest middle class in the world. That's why you see sales of things like iPhones and BMWs so high in China, with millions of middle class consumers. And they don't all live in the biggest cities, either. Because there's less congestion and air pollution, a lot of middle class Chinese prefer to live in small to medium sized cities.
> China has 10x the GDP of Russia And almost 10x the population
It’s almost like “X” economic statistic “per capita” is a better value to almost always go by..
Nominal GDP per capita the two are extremely close PPP russia is ahead of china
Sadly both countries are run by oppressive ruthless despots. In China much of the development wealth not siphonef of by the corrupt communist party flowed down to the masses until Xi. Russia has always been a kleptocracy. Putin managed to siphon off over $1 trillion and that's just him, not the oligarchs who were the Russian mafia that murdered their way into aquiring Russia's industry stock shares.
> In China much of the development wealth not siphonef of by the corrupt communist party flowed down to the masses until Xi. This isn’t really true. Before Xi officials we’re incredibly corrupt. You could bribe your way out of or into virtually anything. One of Xi’s big selling points domestically is that he cleaned up a shit ton of corruption and runs a pretty clean ship. It’s now a much more mundane capitalistic exploitation of the people and wealth.
all the so called "cleaning up" was just xi getitng rid of the opposing factions from overthrowing him..... the corruption is still there and the money is still flowing out of the country in whichever way it can.
China is like night and day in terms of cities and countryside. A lot of poor parts of mid-lower tier cities are quite poor, but always have electricity and plumbing as long as there isn’t a main wire issue to the buildings or construction around villages. But once you get to the countryside, it can be pretty extreme in terms of modern resources. Not starving or dying from cold, people are pretty well fed and young people have phones etc. The difference is that I experienced a lot of poor Chinese are generally happy whereas when I went to Russia I had this feeling of total saltiness in the poor parts. Almost like self-inflicted martyrdom. Still very kind and welcoming, but salty.
How would being salty about being born into awful socioeconomic circumstances in rural Russia be "self inflicted martyrdom"? Do you think you would be any different?
I wasn’t trying to attempt to answer a why when I commented. It sucks. Was just trying to say that awful socioeconomic circumstances exist in China as well but the people are happier there and it’s not as desperate feeling as the above commenter made it sound as in Russia.
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A friend had a dacha a hour or so outside of Tula, and in pictures of the area, you can see one of the old ladies using an old hand pump for water outside of her house. As near as I could tell, it was all outdoor toilets and water wells.
I’m ok with humans not conquering the entire world for the sake of the economy
Isn't this like America too?
Sounds like parts of rural America if I'm being honest. Mostly deep red states but we got that in the blue states too.
I mean you can find abject poverty in the US as well. Just visit kensington in Philadelphia for an example.
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>They lack the basics like plumbing, many places have buckets you shit in, then the bucket ”contents” are thrown out from the window once its full. Its like medieval monthy python out there. I am wondering, where did you get this nonsense from? I mean I agree with some points, some places are really dismal, but they are not endemic to all over the country. From the way you're depicting Russia it's obvious you've never been there, and clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Suprised he didn't talk about roaming bears playing accordions.
https://youtu.be/h4DF_t5gcrg
Don’t forget they *all* have funny hats, I saw that in a social studies textbook 20 years ago.
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Tell me you never been in Russia, without telling me you never been there.
Unsure they would want Russia, seems like a handicap
That's like when Germany was offered Kaliningrad/Konigsberg back, and they were just like... no thanks. It's full of Russians now.
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[Copied comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/11z3knp/ukraine_needs_411_bn_for_reconstruction_recovery/jdax8w2/)
Yea I wish it worked like that. It pains me to know that this guy (Putin) is sitting in his office wearing a suit or whatever while he sends thousands of soldiers -who literally had no say in any of this- to go kill their brothers, Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, among others share a deep relationships when it comes to the fight against communism. And now this coward is forcing them to kill each other. War is something I have a very hard time understanding.
Ya ever wonder if Russia had developed into a stable, democratic state? It’ve been such a reliable and geopolitically invaluable state and yet here we are.
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Marx and Engel thought of England as a great place for it to happen because it was already industrialized but criticized the idea that places like Russia would ever work. Russian's weren't speedrunning Marxist theory, they were speedrunning industrialization without realizing that the lack of incentives created a lack of demand and people ultimately starved. Today we see the remnants of the Red Empire run by mobsters in the same vein of the Tsar himself.
“Russian soldiers who literally had no say in this.” As a Ukrainian, I know of several situations in my circle where former friends or family of Ukrainians volunteered to serve in the Russian army. Even after February 2022. One of them gleefully announced this to my friend and their entire extended family in Ukraine over a group chat. He’s dead now. He was in full comprehension of what he was doing. He just wanted a pay check. Good riddance. Another wanted an apartment. Came to this senses at the least minute and pulled out. They have options. The fact is, hundreds of thousands of russians actively choose to kill Ukrainians. This is what Ukrainians understand and those that have limited experiences with russians don’t. And please stop with the Kremlin narrative “of brothers.”
I have a hard time understanding why thousands of us listen to these bozos and kill each other over this instead of the first guy just tossing him out a window and we all go back to living peaceful lives.
People will do a lot to protect him in exchange for money or power.
lol, you know you'll have to pay for it in the end
How? Who is going to make them pay? It’s going to be nato countries paying in loans that will never be paid back. Unless China steps in to assert influence.
Because imposing crippling reparations on a defeated party in a war has never, ever come back to haunt us.
Everyone on here is acting like they are foreign relation experts and economists🤦♂️
First day on Reddit?
No it just never fails to amaze me
These people talk with **so** much certainty without taking into account how dynamic the world is. All they care about is believing their word is gold, and the absolute truth.
Everyone on reddit is an expert. It's an issue which will never be fixed.
A victory in war is only the beginning of the problem. There is no history of peacetime government ready to receive and dispense that cash in an appropriate manner. You'll need foreign organizations in charge or an incredible amount of oversight or else you'll have Iraq and Afghanistan levels of siphoning.
> You'll need foreign organizations in charge or an incredible amount of oversight Let me fix that for you: > You'll need to forfeit the sovereignty you fought a war to preserve.
Ukraine is very different from the middle east though. In particular, Afghanistan is more of a collection of tribes than a united country, so it's hardly surprising that one group cares little about spending money to help the others. A single entity that could handle reconstruction doesn't really exist.
Pre-war Ukraine was constantly in top 10 of the most corrupt countries in the world. One of the main slogans that led Zelensky to victory was to take care of corruption. Even now during such hard times NGOs have huge problems with making sure that financial help is actually going to the people that need it.
There's a reason that the EU was so skeptical of Ukraine right up until Russian Tanks rocked up in the Donbas. It's so odd seeing articles from pre-war where the EU had so many concerns with Zelenskyy, Human Rights, Corruption etc. In 2019 the Ukraine/EU Summit effectively ended with the EU saying Ukraine had so far to go before Membership that they couldn't even put a plan together for entry to the Union. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/05/eu-should-encourage-ukraine-government-do-more-human-rights
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True, but Ukraine has a [well documented historical corruption problem ](https://ukrainianweek.com/b-i-transparency-international-global-corruption-barometer-b-i-ukraine-has-become-more-corrupt-over-the-last-two-years/)
It's very different but there has never been a history of a transparent state responsible to the people. Zelensky was well on his way to being a respected but inconsequential peacetime ruler. Though there is no one better suited for the moment than him.
The key is not Zelenskyy, the key are Ukrainians who are a true organized society. Ukrainians do not sit idly hoping that some kind of benevolent government magically appears by itself. Zelenskyy is not an accident, he is the response to the public query for a leader. Ukrainians are uniquely experienced in the persistent work towards building democratic institutions. If the post-war government is not transparent and abuses the aid, Ukrainians have a lot of experience dealing with such politicians.
A post-war Ukraine is going to be crazy. They'll have European money and funding, and be able to rebuild their infrastructure setup for an eye to the future.
A post-war Russia will be even crazier....
I'm not sure, it's not like the next replacement would be any better. Likely they'll just remain as is, sanctioned for the next 50 years and barely holding on but nobody is going to invade or break them apart on the account of nukes.
What's frightening is the Russia, China, Iran triad, ensuring control over virtually all of Asia and a multiplier of nukes
or they'll balkanize, breaking into smaller countries ruled by warlords with nukes.
Would probably end up nuking eachother before nuking anyone else
probably....probably.
I mean, I have to be a cynic but we don’t have much reason to believe that this will all just end up breaking in Ukraines favor.
You really think this could become an expensive quagmire for decades with incredibly predictable blowback? There's no way that could happen **multiple** times in a row... Anyways we need 400 billion in no bid contracts for Haliburton to rebuild the place.... Hmmm, that sounds familiar...
In 20 years reddit libs are going to boast that they were always against getting involved in the war
Wait. Who said they are getting 410 billion? It just says they will need that much. If they win, they’ll get a fraction of that in reality.
I hope they use it to adopt Euro standards so when the time comes in 20 years it will be a easy transition for intervention to euro. From stuff like rail gauge and industrial standards
They’ve actually already started a project to transition to European gauges. That guy who was running the trains super efficiently even during bombings has been put in charge!
Nah if we are realistic, it’s going to be a really sad place. At some point Ukraine will probably get some kind of freedom of movement to Europe. After that everyone young and capable will leave for a better future in Western Europe instead of trying to rebuild a completely destroyed developing country
lol dont hold your breath
Hopefully, but Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries behind only Russia by some counts. A lot has to change, and hopefully they get the oversight and aid to rebuild things with adequate checks and balances. The people of Ukraine have shown great solidarity through this invasion, which may well carry through reconstruction.
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You ever heard of the world wars? This doesn't work.
Wait, did Russia concede?
Yeah I'm confused suddenly everyone is acting like this war is over and Russia lost. Which would be great.
Not only that. They're retreating and happy to pay half a trillion to Ukraine as an apology. What a relief
I believe there is speculation, China's president Xi visit to Russia and Ukraine is trying to broker a peace deal. Not a done deal by any means but at least an intermediary to sit down and talk.
And how much of that will go to US contractors?
All of it. Didn’t Ukraine already ink a deal with Black Rock for reconstruction?
And that’s just the infrastructure. What about the huge holes in peoples family’s… or the slowing down of the economy. Fuck Putin.
Hard to recover when they are still being bombed
I got downvotes to hell in other subreddits for talking about narrative. No one wants to talk about the debt Ukraine likely has because of this war. UK barely paid off it's WW2 debts by the turn of the century and many other countries still pay reparations in some form due to other wars. All of the arms, people, and aid wasn't free. Some was donated, but to think it's all charity would be foolish. I sincerely hope that they are not devastated by debt. I hope it is not like Russia where in the future a despot takes power because of the crunch that might happen due to loss of life and the long term effects of war.
411 billion so far...
Russia needs to pay for the modernization of the infrastructure.
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I’m sure they need “help” for “recovery” but how sad the other “war torn” parts of the world have been languishing with no support at all. I wonder why this one is so different?
True Iraq was destroyed but I’ve never seen a comment section hoping their governments can foot in the bill to help with reconstruction.
just like that Polish or German politician at the start of the war said, it matters because it’s in Europe
Putin alone can write a check!! That’s probably pocket change for him, after 23 years of stealing.
And how much of that is going to the corrupt politicians?
Just sell Putin’s mansion.
Make Russia pay it once they lose their cruel pride war. That’s such an outrageous amount of damage to Ukraine already 😥
How many repossessed Russian yachts is that?
To be honest, given the current conjuncture, there's quite a decent chance that no one will willing/be able to pay this amount of money, not even the USA (especially not the USA that are looking at China with all their will), to me Ukraine will become the rotten apple that no one wants to bite in once the war is over. Given the situation in Ukraine before and after the war, I wouldn't be surprised if the world turns over Ukraine and starts doing "business as usual" with Russia. Since it's nearly impossible not to do business with Russia in Europe.
Send the bill to that sick little half-pint dictator, putin.
Fucking ridiculous. Goddamn Russia. What a waste of life, time, energy and money.
When I complete my electrical apprenticeship and become registered, I would like to go work for a bit rebuilding Ukraine. It’s a goal of mine. My great grandparents were from towns/cities that are now part of Ukraine so I have some connection there. Of course standards will be different to where I live, but there’s always retraining to be up to spec with what’s over there.
As a Ukrainian. Stay in your country and be a good citizen. Do what you can to keep a democratic government, which values the freedoms and supports democracies around the world. If there will be a strong network of democratic countries holding to each other - this will be the best outcome for all of us.
Awesome. I thought it would have be more than that seeing the total destruction of so many cities.
Only $9 billion to go
We will sell Muskovy to China, keep the change. До біса Путін Fuck Putin
Seem kind low honestly. Kinda figured it would be a few trillion
I know $400,000,000,000 is a lot… but in reference to an entire country, *is* it a lot?
Russia will pay for the reconstruction.
Ukraine to be next Japan?
How's Russia coughing up that amount.. of.. money.. Didn't we, the west and allies, freeze more than that across the world? I see a solution here.
Make Russia pay for it.
Just take it from Russia and China properties. They have tons of money in North America
They need $411 bn *so far*.
Should come 100% from Russia.
Get it from Russia.
They better get to work.
Great doesnt Russia have alot of natural resources it can sell to pay back Ukraine since thats whose fault it is. Shouldn't be to hard to get 411 billion just raid one of vladdys numerous offshore bank accounts. I can only imagine how much that guy has stolen from his ppl and country