Russia's 2019 military spend was 65 billion USD, or 58.6 billion EUR. Clearly they are not blowing through an entire year's defense budget in three days (that would be over 100x the usual rate of spend!).
Or another sanity-check figure: Russia's entire 2020 GDP would pay for only 67 days of war at this run-rate. In other words, the country is using over 500% of its productive output on the war (a neat trick without any imports!)
For reference, in 1940 the United States spent 1.64% of its GDP on defense. In 1945 it spent 37.19%.
I'm as hopeful as anyone for Ukraine to survive this awful war with her sovereignty intact, but we must be realistic.
Another estimate was a lot less based on the cost of previous operations.
"Firstly, Russian ordnance is generally less sophisticated and cheaper than US kit. Secondly, Russian military vehicles do not use petroleum, but diesel – a fuel that is cheaper and offers a better range.
He also estimated the cost of equipment losses in the first four days of fighting. Ten aircraft, at an average price tag of $30 million per airframe, would cost $300 million. One hundred armored fighting vehicles – troop carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, mobile artillery and tanks – which cost an average of $5 million each, would hit the Russian taxpayer with a $500 million bill.
The source then estimated the daily cost of keeping a Russian soldier – a cheaper fighting man than his US counterpart – in the field to be approximately $1,000. He multiplied that by the upper estimate of Russia’s force level in Ukraine – 200,000 troops.
For one day, that would be $200 million. Over four days, troop maintenance costs would total $800 million.
So the total cost for four days of combat operations in Ukraine would be in the region of $1.6 billion – the source added it could rise to $2 billion. But even that upper range would put daily costs to the Kremlin of its invasion at about $500 million."
> Clearly they are not blowing through an entire year's defense budget in three days (that would be over 100x the usual rate of spend!).
The figure in the article includes losses; indeed, it speaks of costs, not spending.
Of course losses can obliterate many years of budget, if you're losing permanent assets that took literal decades to build up! Armies don't get rebuilt from scratch every year.
Russia does not normally buy 5 advanced fighter jets every day, so their peace time military budget is not a relevant comparison. The numbers in the article also seem to include future costs that might be ammortized over 50 years or something. So in short: the numbers are just wild guesses, but not nonsensical.
The report and your figures are in USD. But the rouble, the currency Russia actually uses to pay for salaries, equipment, etc., has crashed, and we don't even know what was the course when the report's estimations were made.
Furthermore, the losses they've suffered are significant, and most of that equipment is decades old, acquired under Soviet "budgets".
I can’t see the article because the server isn’t happy with all the attention, the headline makes me assume that this is total cost to Russia including e.g. sanctions.
The foreign reserves that were frozen (which I know is different from “seized”) were 2-4 months GDP depending on which estimate I use for how much was frozen.
I’ve not seen any estimate for the economic impact from reduction in trade.
This gets to something I've been wondering about, what is the winning condition for Russia now?
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any time soon, they seem determined to fight for every inch. The cost of occupying them is going to be astronomical and tie up their military fighting a guerilla war.
I assume the expectation was that they would invade, the ukranian government would run away and they could impose a puppet government, but that just doesn't look likely now.
I may be very wrong, but I just don't see what the endgame is for Russia that doesnt bleed their economy dry in the process.
> I assume the expectation was that they would invade, the ukranian government would run away and they could impose a puppet government
That was absolutely the expectation. Russian state media recently accidentally published an article written before the invasion that was supposed to be an account of their swift victory and Ukraine’s reintegration in to Russia.
I'm guessing at this point it's dominate Ukraine at any means necessary and ride out sanctions until they start to slacken after countries like Germany, etc need gas and are willing to accept that Ukraine is an extinct country to get it.
And, unfortunately, that just may be what happens. A lot of countries are too lazy with investing in renewables or nuclear and they're in for some very hard times if they need to rely on gas to be shipped in or piped around Ukraine/Russia, so I can imagine sanctions being loosened in under a year for many countries. At least France was smart enough to go for nuclear and can probably hold a moral high ground as long as they want and the US has shown they'll hold grudges for decades (see Cuba and Iran).
I can see a few winning conditions for Xi. Maybe the most significant reasonably independent country (previously not exclusively West nor CCP aligned) has been almost entirely ejected by the West in a handful of days. And it's not quite North Korea, there are significant resources to be had, as well as territory at the doorstep of both Europe and the US.
As an aside, I wonder if EU/US realized that they are not leaving themselves any options except to maintain the sanctions forever in the event they are not a viable aggression deterrent, which paves the way for Russia to head nowhere else but to become Xi's puppet. Putting tinfoil hat on, I wonder whether any politicians of dubious associations had the time to lobby for this (I recall MI6 discovered a CCP-paid agent in UK lawmaking system just last year).
To answer your question, if Putin is acting in accord with Xi, then there may be some winning conditions for Putin that we do not know about. (As a Russian, I have little doubt that a Venn diagram of winning conditions for Putin and winning conditions for the country as a whole would be two circles.)
If the west is willing to keep the economic sanctions on (and that's a big if). Russia as we knew it is over. There should be a few requirements for removal of sanctions. (in no order)
1) russian denuclearification (due to using the threat of nuclear weapons as an umbrella over a conventional war)
2) agree to remove themselves from UN Security Council as a permanent member (due to invading another sovereign state with basically complete worldwide condemnation, one can try to equate it to US moves, but none of them have been as universally condenmed, so yes, quantity matters in this regard).
3) complete pullback from Ukraine
4) reparations paid to Ukraine.
5) I've even argue to having to give up their european enclave.
if they refuse, they will cease to be effectively an independent state and will simple become a chinese vassal state.
so the Q is, what matters more to Russian pride. being an independent state that can mostly chart one's own destiny, but being a pale remnant of what they once were. Or having fake power but really simply being under the total control of china.
>Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any time soon, they seem determined to fight for every inch. The cost of occupying them is going to be astronomical and tie up their military fighting a guerilla war.
I don't think your wrong, the "official" military will be gone away soon, but then the real struggle begins for russia.
Just look at Afghanistan in 1979, if the west continues to support the guerillas/mudschahidin/freedom-fighters etc.
If Ukrainians don't start to fight each others (like in Chechnya) this is going to be a nightmare for Russia.
Putin doubling down and still losing seems like a chance. Probably naively, I believe it is a chance for encompassing reforms. For the last Soviet remnants to be flushed out. I suspect almost all Russians below say 40 years of age are just done. They gaze west or onto their smartphones and see what live can be like. Not perfect either, but a huge step up. Yet the reigning elite is too entrenched still, which a decisive, including economical, defeat of Russia in Ukraine might change. Here is to hoping.
(Naturally, the West also has an 'entrenched elite'; it's always greener, yadda yadda. Yet average western life is objectively much better than current Russian)
An endpoint for Russia for the war always was and is a return to the negotiation table. They’re far off the course that they expected for that, but they might not be so quick to quit right now because they need to rebound. At the least they need the spirit of Ukraine to be broken more than it is now, and a few days/weeks of shelling/rockets/blasts should probably get them there
Russia will absorb Ukraine, and since there is nothing stopping them at the moment probably Moldova and Georgia as well. Lukashenko will give Belarus to Russia.
Once all of these places have been assimilated, they are now all Russia. You can no longer support the citizens of these areas because they will all be Russians.
Russia will continue to isolate themselves and attempt to turn everyone within their borders against the west.
They already practiced cutting themselves off from the entire internet last year, so they likely know how bad things will get.
Russia can sustain itself if it wants because it is so large, so it appears they are attempting to build some sort of enclave at any cost.
Frankly at this point my expectation is that Russia levels the cities it can't capture, kills Zelensky, declares a new puppet government to be in charge and then leads a continuous permawar against the inevitable insurgency.
Warfare is 'the continuation of politics by other means' - it is politics. It ends when there is a political solution that sufficiently reduces the incentive to fight - people are sufficiently satisfied and/or too scared. Political leaders regularly forget this essential - the US went into Iraq, rapidly defeated the Iraqi military, but lacking a political solution they remained for over a decade. The same thing happened in Afghanistan - you can see what happened when the US finally left, almost immediately, sans a political solution. Note that, when political solutions seem unavailable, many invaders tend to persist regardless.
What political solution would eliminate the incentive for Ukrainians to fight? Lots of egocentric attackers think, 'the people will welcome us!' - which is kind of like going into your neighbors house with a gun, taking over, and feeling sure that they will welcome you. But wrapped up in their insulated egos, they still think it: Putin seemed to have thought it about Ukraine.
That fantasy has been dispelled with a vengence; right now it's very hard to imagine the Ukrainians accepting any Russian-backed goverment. Putin's only option might be a fear-based government. If you think that's too difficult, remember that the Soviet Union ruled Ukraine (and other places) in that manner for generations - and that was after taking their food and starving to death a large portion of the population in the 1930s. However, it would permanently brand Russia as brutal dictators. Another alternative is Ukraine's leadership surrenders to reduce civilian suffering - Zelensky is very popular, afaik; would enough Ukrainians follow his lead?
Putin doesn't want lose face, so he pumps more money into it than his supporters are okay with and their patience runs out befor Ukraine loses.
His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support.
the official goals are "demilitarization" and "denazification",
As far as demilitarization goes, it seems the Ukrainian fleet, air defenses and bases have been mostly destroyed by stand-off weapons, and an encirclement maneuver is appearing (North and South prongs).
As for "denazification", it would appear most of what Putin calls nazis are concentrated on the border with the Donetsk and Lougansk sectors, in deep positions but with a no man's land behind them (flat and vulnerable to artillery).
The West is winning the media war, but Ukraine is definitely NOT winning the war for now (they mostly cannot counter-attack)
there is a fair chance that this cost is a part of the deal he has with his cronies. "you can make bank all you like, as long as you pay me some and when I decide to make a move you're behind me all the way"...
> This gets to something I've been wondering about, what is the winning condition for Russia now?
Before the invasion? The West is lazy and does nothing. (see Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine 2014) Now? Unicorns and fairy dust.
Russia is relevant on the world stage for a few reasons:
1. They have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
2. They're big bad bullies who give people offers they can't refuse.
3. They're a significant producer of crude oil and natural gas. (they do not have significant capacity to refine crude oil)
They've overplayed their hand regarding #2. Lots of countries are falling over themselves to join NATO and/or the EU. It's been shown that as a world power that their military ... well it sucks. They have a locally significant military, not a global one.
Their best customer for crude oil and natural gas is the EU. The EU is now all-in on relieving themselves of the need to buy any sort of fossil fuels, and especially not from Russia. They can sell crude oil and natural gas to China still, but China doesn't really need those things. They need refined gasoline; but China is as fit to develop those capabilities as Russia is.
They could absolutely crush and subjugate Ukraine by conscripting 200,000 or so more troops, and just lay waste to Ukraine. Carpet bomb and heavy artillery barrages of all population centers. This would accomplish #2, but would completely negate #3.
They could simply say, "oops, our bad," and withdraw all forces and keep #3. It's possible but not particularly likely that the Finnish and Georgian requests to join NATO and the EU respectively would stall and fizzle out.
Perhaps most importantly... there's no outcome that doesn't make Putin look like a fool. He looks like an idiot in every conceivable outcome. The only situation in which Putin does not look like an absolute dunce is if they do Holodomor 2.0 and and scorch the earth of Ukraine, completely alienate themselves from almost the entire Earth, and simply submit themselves to being a ring bearer to China. Putin still looks like a fool in the history books, but until he dies 5-20 years from now he can continue to pretend to be a strongman. Maybe that's good enough for him, I dunno.
They keep the seat on the security council though.
Devil's advocate here: can we — for the sake of the argument — assume for a sec that what Russia's been saying is true, and that their goal is: not having Nato in Ukraine?
Because if we can — for the sake of the argument — assume that, their winning condition is achieved. Ukraine, being in the middle of a military conflict, won't be admitted to Nato.
How would that be possible? I guess the article is vague enough that you can maybe take into account the total cost to Russia not inclusive of military costs but even then, this is incredibly dubious.
They do seem to specify at some point that this is about direct war expenses. Now keep in mind, the total russian military budget is only 60 billion $ per year (!!). At that rate, Russia would be not only be spending their yearly war budget every 3 days, but would also spend more money in a year than the USA did in 20 years in the notoriously expensive war in Afghanistan. Russia hasn't even deployed all of the forces it committed to the invasion, and those weren't a majority of it's armed forces to begin with. Yet they will be spending 5 years of military budget by the second week of war?
It just makes absolutely no sense even if we were to take all the ukrainian figures at face value (regardless of how extremely unreliable they have been, for example we don't have any proof for any of the 27 claimed downed russian aircrafts while we do have footage for pretty much everything else in the war). It's okay to trust the ukrainian side a lot more, but you still have to keep in mind that war propaganda is probably not a good source for a report. Nevermind that even the absolute best case scenario where all ukrainian claims end up being true still do not come even close to being enough to back up the article's claims
The report is so vague, the figures so outlandish and the sources are either terrible or absent that it's hard to even believe that actual researchers have ended up with these conclusions.
I saw another estimate as 500mil/day based on number of soldiers and published costs for iraq war. It could easily be even lower as their soldiers and everything are cheaper and their supply lines are shorter.
Is troop morale likely to be an issue if Russians are worried about their currency and financial situations at home? Would they be getting paid reliably or even in a position to check their accounts?
I recommend this video from a Finnish army intelligence expert & researcher to those trying to understand logic behind Russia's actions. It's in Finnish but English subtitles should be good enough. Really awakening stuff at least for me.
Let’s say Putin succeeds in capturing and subduing some or all of Ukraine and integrating it into Russia. Who’s going to pay the reconstruction bill? They must have caused a hundred billion dollars worth of damage already, with more to come. How is Russia going to afford to rebuild the smoking ruin they inherit?
Romans did not build roads, they made others build roads for them. Crusaders did not build castles, Palestinians and Turks were made to build castles for them.
I guess these numbers we see in the west are a matter of perspective eh [1]? Other estimates say it's a calculated low cost ($500M) war.
Has the world gone insane? People in the west are cheering on war escalations as if it's some fun weekend recreational activity. People on HN are posting suggestions to join the ukrainian forces, because I guess all those weapons they bought at walmart need to be put to use somehow.
The West thinks that China isn't on Russias side because they didn't Veto the UN resolution as well, but they're just smart enough to take note of everything that is happening to make sure that they have contingencies of everything that is happening. You'll probably see them further removing reserves from foreign countries, further pushing CIPS across the global south, etc.
Japan has joined the west in sanctioning Belarus. The EU has passed a resolution to ban Russian media outlets(and encryption, not in the same go). Apple Wallet kicked out russian banks, UK is freezing Russian assets, rating agencies have downgraded russia to junk status, all without UN mandate. All the semblance of international law has been thrown out the window. I can't help but ask, if this is what the West is willing to do for Ukraine without joining the EU or NATO what would have happened if it had joined either?
Best case, everyone in the global south will pull out of the wests financial systems over the next couple of the decades further embolstering China and we'll see more non google/apple choice in the smartphone/tech market and governments outside of the west returning to a more cash based society and this will blow over with some collateral damage. Worst case this doesn't just blow over and Russia is backed in such a corner that is in fact no option but full scale war with the west.
I think you guys(especially the europeans) ought to ask your grandparents(if they're still alive) how fun the last world war was, since asking Lybians is out of the question(they're stuck on boats). Iraq which was basically a massacre and destruction of Iraq left thousands in the west traumatized and millions decimated over there. And that's a country that has nowhere near the support nor the military capability russia had.
yup, seems the dominant voice on this on HN thinks the West has a moral advantage (it doesn't, Yemen Libya Guatemala, etc).
Most people don't seem to know the difference between what we are seeing in Ukraine and a real Total War (mass bombardments on cities, every night).
We bombed Serbia back to the stone age (infrastructures and civilians alike), so it must be hard to reconcile that with the current "limited" onslaught in Ukraine.
[+] [-] nwiswell|4 years ago|reply
Russia's 2019 military spend was 65 billion USD, or 58.6 billion EUR. Clearly they are not blowing through an entire year's defense budget in three days (that would be over 100x the usual rate of spend!).
Or another sanity-check figure: Russia's entire 2020 GDP would pay for only 67 days of war at this run-rate. In other words, the country is using over 500% of its productive output on the war (a neat trick without any imports!)
For reference, in 1940 the United States spent 1.64% of its GDP on defense. In 1945 it spent 37.19%.
I'm as hopeful as anyone for Ukraine to survive this awful war with her sovereignty intact, but we must be realistic.
[+] [-] rjzzleep|4 years ago|reply
"Firstly, Russian ordnance is generally less sophisticated and cheaper than US kit. Secondly, Russian military vehicles do not use petroleum, but diesel – a fuel that is cheaper and offers a better range.
He also estimated the cost of equipment losses in the first four days of fighting. Ten aircraft, at an average price tag of $30 million per airframe, would cost $300 million. One hundred armored fighting vehicles – troop carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, mobile artillery and tanks – which cost an average of $5 million each, would hit the Russian taxpayer with a $500 million bill.
The source then estimated the daily cost of keeping a Russian soldier – a cheaper fighting man than his US counterpart – in the field to be approximately $1,000. He multiplied that by the upper estimate of Russia’s force level in Ukraine – 200,000 troops.
For one day, that would be $200 million. Over four days, troop maintenance costs would total $800 million.
So the total cost for four days of combat operations in Ukraine would be in the region of $1.6 billion – the source added it could rise to $2 billion. But even that upper range would put daily costs to the Kremlin of its invasion at about $500 million."
https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/russias-low-cost-war-can-endur...
[+] [-] piaste|4 years ago|reply
The figure in the article includes losses; indeed, it speaks of costs, not spending.
Of course losses can obliterate many years of budget, if you're losing permanent assets that took literal decades to build up! Armies don't get rebuilt from scratch every year.
[+] [-] bartimus|4 years ago|reply
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-revealed-secret-batt...
[+] [-] ftrobro|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sofixa|4 years ago|reply
Furthermore, the losses they've suffered are significant, and most of that equipment is decades old, acquired under Soviet "budgets".
[+] [-] ksec|4 years ago|reply
I am willing to bet 90% of people will believe that number when it is printed by the press or shared on social media.
It is so sad we live in a world where 99.9% of news are either factually incorrect or completely taken out of context.
[+] [-] ben_w|4 years ago|reply
The foreign reserves that were frozen (which I know is different from “seized”) were 2-4 months GDP depending on which estimate I use for how much was frozen.
I’ve not seen any estimate for the economic impact from reduction in trade.
[+] [-] robert_foss|4 years ago|reply
But it isn't particularly hard to imagine a higher spend rate during a large scale active conflict than during peace times.
[+] [-] asimpletune|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] raxxorrax|4 years ago|reply
Think of consultancy more of a wellness program instead of substantial help.
[+] [-] noneeeed|4 years ago|reply
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any time soon, they seem determined to fight for every inch. The cost of occupying them is going to be astronomical and tie up their military fighting a guerilla war.
I assume the expectation was that they would invade, the ukranian government would run away and they could impose a puppet government, but that just doesn't look likely now.
I may be very wrong, but I just don't see what the endgame is for Russia that doesnt bleed their economy dry in the process.
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|4 years ago|reply
That was absolutely the expectation. Russian state media recently accidentally published an article written before the invasion that was supposed to be an account of their swift victory and Ukraine’s reintegration in to Russia.
https://briefs.fourthestate.org/2022/03/01/russian-state-new...
What the end game is now is anyones guess.
[+] [-] friedturkey|4 years ago|reply
And, unfortunately, that just may be what happens. A lot of countries are too lazy with investing in renewables or nuclear and they're in for some very hard times if they need to rely on gas to be shipped in or piped around Ukraine/Russia, so I can imagine sanctions being loosened in under a year for many countries. At least France was smart enough to go for nuclear and can probably hold a moral high ground as long as they want and the US has shown they'll hold grudges for decades (see Cuba and Iran).
[+] [-] throwaway290|4 years ago|reply
As an aside, I wonder if EU/US realized that they are not leaving themselves any options except to maintain the sanctions forever in the event they are not a viable aggression deterrent, which paves the way for Russia to head nowhere else but to become Xi's puppet. Putting tinfoil hat on, I wonder whether any politicians of dubious associations had the time to lobby for this (I recall MI6 discovered a CCP-paid agent in UK lawmaking system just last year).
To answer your question, if Putin is acting in accord with Xi, then there may be some winning conditions for Putin that we do not know about. (As a Russian, I have little doubt that a Venn diagram of winning conditions for Putin and winning conditions for the country as a whole would be two circles.)
[+] [-] compsciphd|4 years ago|reply
1) russian denuclearification (due to using the threat of nuclear weapons as an umbrella over a conventional war)
2) agree to remove themselves from UN Security Council as a permanent member (due to invading another sovereign state with basically complete worldwide condemnation, one can try to equate it to US moves, but none of them have been as universally condenmed, so yes, quantity matters in this regard).
3) complete pullback from Ukraine
4) reparations paid to Ukraine.
5) I've even argue to having to give up their european enclave.
if they refuse, they will cease to be effectively an independent state and will simple become a chinese vassal state.
so the Q is, what matters more to Russian pride. being an independent state that can mostly chart one's own destiny, but being a pale remnant of what they once were. Or having fake power but really simply being under the total control of china.
[+] [-] enaaem|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nix23|4 years ago|reply
I don't think your wrong, the "official" military will be gone away soon, but then the real struggle begins for russia.
Just look at Afghanistan in 1979, if the west continues to support the guerillas/mudschahidin/freedom-fighters etc.
If Ukrainians don't start to fight each others (like in Chechnya) this is going to be a nightmare for Russia.
Bit more info:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/24/c...
[+] [-] diarrhea|4 years ago|reply
(Naturally, the West also has an 'entrenched elite'; it's always greener, yadda yadda. Yet average western life is objectively much better than current Russian)
[+] [-] scyzoryk_xyz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dTal|4 years ago|reply
1) Ukraine fails to (independently) develop its recently discovered Black Sea oil/gas reserves, and fails in general to prosper as a democratic nation
2) Europe continues to buy oil/gas from Russia.
Therefore:
The military win condition is "make a mess". The diplomatic win condition is "get as many sanctions lifted as possible".
[+] [-] ratg13|4 years ago|reply
Russia will absorb Ukraine, and since there is nothing stopping them at the moment probably Moldova and Georgia as well. Lukashenko will give Belarus to Russia.
Once all of these places have been assimilated, they are now all Russia. You can no longer support the citizens of these areas because they will all be Russians.
Russia will continue to isolate themselves and attempt to turn everyone within their borders against the west.
They already practiced cutting themselves off from the entire internet last year, so they likely know how bad things will get.
Russia can sustain itself if it wants because it is so large, so it appears they are attempting to build some sort of enclave at any cost.
[+] [-] hnbad|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolverine876|4 years ago|reply
Warfare is 'the continuation of politics by other means' - it is politics. It ends when there is a political solution that sufficiently reduces the incentive to fight - people are sufficiently satisfied and/or too scared. Political leaders regularly forget this essential - the US went into Iraq, rapidly defeated the Iraqi military, but lacking a political solution they remained for over a decade. The same thing happened in Afghanistan - you can see what happened when the US finally left, almost immediately, sans a political solution. Note that, when political solutions seem unavailable, many invaders tend to persist regardless.
What political solution would eliminate the incentive for Ukrainians to fight? Lots of egocentric attackers think, 'the people will welcome us!' - which is kind of like going into your neighbors house with a gun, taking over, and feeling sure that they will welcome you. But wrapped up in their insulated egos, they still think it: Putin seemed to have thought it about Ukraine.
That fantasy has been dispelled with a vengence; right now it's very hard to imagine the Ukrainians accepting any Russian-backed goverment. Putin's only option might be a fear-based government. If you think that's too difficult, remember that the Soviet Union ruled Ukraine (and other places) in that manner for generations - and that was after taking their food and starving to death a large portion of the population in the 1930s. However, it would permanently brand Russia as brutal dictators. Another alternative is Ukraine's leadership surrenders to reduce civilian suffering - Zelensky is very popular, afaik; would enough Ukrainians follow his lead?
[+] [-] k__|4 years ago|reply
My hope is:
Putin doesn't want lose face, so he pumps more money into it than his supporters are okay with and their patience runs out befor Ukraine loses.
His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support.
[+] [-] Nemrod67|4 years ago|reply
As far as demilitarization goes, it seems the Ukrainian fleet, air defenses and bases have been mostly destroyed by stand-off weapons, and an encirclement maneuver is appearing (North and South prongs).
As for "denazification", it would appear most of what Putin calls nazis are concentrated on the border with the Donetsk and Lougansk sectors, in deep positions but with a no man's land behind them (flat and vulnerable to artillery).
The West is winning the media war, but Ukraine is definitely NOT winning the war for now (they mostly cannot counter-attack)
[+] [-] senectus1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nwallin|4 years ago|reply
Before the invasion? The West is lazy and does nothing. (see Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine 2014) Now? Unicorns and fairy dust.
Russia is relevant on the world stage for a few reasons:
1. They have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. 2. They're big bad bullies who give people offers they can't refuse. 3. They're a significant producer of crude oil and natural gas. (they do not have significant capacity to refine crude oil)
They've overplayed their hand regarding #2. Lots of countries are falling over themselves to join NATO and/or the EU. It's been shown that as a world power that their military ... well it sucks. They have a locally significant military, not a global one.
Their best customer for crude oil and natural gas is the EU. The EU is now all-in on relieving themselves of the need to buy any sort of fossil fuels, and especially not from Russia. They can sell crude oil and natural gas to China still, but China doesn't really need those things. They need refined gasoline; but China is as fit to develop those capabilities as Russia is.
They could absolutely crush and subjugate Ukraine by conscripting 200,000 or so more troops, and just lay waste to Ukraine. Carpet bomb and heavy artillery barrages of all population centers. This would accomplish #2, but would completely negate #3.
They could simply say, "oops, our bad," and withdraw all forces and keep #3. It's possible but not particularly likely that the Finnish and Georgian requests to join NATO and the EU respectively would stall and fizzle out.
Perhaps most importantly... there's no outcome that doesn't make Putin look like a fool. He looks like an idiot in every conceivable outcome. The only situation in which Putin does not look like an absolute dunce is if they do Holodomor 2.0 and and scorch the earth of Ukraine, completely alienate themselves from almost the entire Earth, and simply submit themselves to being a ring bearer to China. Putin still looks like a fool in the history books, but until he dies 5-20 years from now he can continue to pretend to be a strongman. Maybe that's good enough for him, I dunno.
They keep the seat on the security council though.
[+] [-] maratc|4 years ago|reply
Because if we can — for the sake of the argument — assume that, their winning condition is achieved. Ukraine, being in the middle of a military conflict, won't be admitted to Nato.
[+] [-] mardifoufs|4 years ago|reply
They do seem to specify at some point that this is about direct war expenses. Now keep in mind, the total russian military budget is only 60 billion $ per year (!!). At that rate, Russia would be not only be spending their yearly war budget every 3 days, but would also spend more money in a year than the USA did in 20 years in the notoriously expensive war in Afghanistan. Russia hasn't even deployed all of the forces it committed to the invasion, and those weren't a majority of it's armed forces to begin with. Yet they will be spending 5 years of military budget by the second week of war?
It just makes absolutely no sense even if we were to take all the ukrainian figures at face value (regardless of how extremely unreliable they have been, for example we don't have any proof for any of the 27 claimed downed russian aircrafts while we do have footage for pretty much everything else in the war). It's okay to trust the ukrainian side a lot more, but you still have to keep in mind that war propaganda is probably not a good source for a report. Nevermind that even the absolute best case scenario where all ukrainian claims end up being true still do not come even close to being enough to back up the article's claims
The report is so vague, the figures so outlandish and the sources are either terrible or absent that it's hard to even believe that actual researchers have ended up with these conclusions.
[+] [-] yread|4 years ago|reply
So, who knows.
[+] [-] prawn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erddfre3423|4 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw
[+] [-] samarama|4 years ago|reply
Maybe it costs $20B/day overall including sanctions, but military spend only should come out at around $2B.
[+] [-] trevormcneal|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waste_monk|4 years ago|reply
What the hell are they meant to do, roll over and die? The problem starts and ends at Russia.
[+] [-] jl6|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncmncm|4 years ago|reply
Romans did not build roads, they made others build roads for them. Crusaders did not build castles, Palestinians and Turks were made to build castles for them.
[+] [-] rjzzleep|4 years ago|reply
Has the world gone insane? People in the west are cheering on war escalations as if it's some fun weekend recreational activity. People on HN are posting suggestions to join the ukrainian forces, because I guess all those weapons they bought at walmart need to be put to use somehow.
The West thinks that China isn't on Russias side because they didn't Veto the UN resolution as well, but they're just smart enough to take note of everything that is happening to make sure that they have contingencies of everything that is happening. You'll probably see them further removing reserves from foreign countries, further pushing CIPS across the global south, etc.
Japan has joined the west in sanctioning Belarus. The EU has passed a resolution to ban Russian media outlets(and encryption, not in the same go). Apple Wallet kicked out russian banks, UK is freezing Russian assets, rating agencies have downgraded russia to junk status, all without UN mandate. All the semblance of international law has been thrown out the window. I can't help but ask, if this is what the West is willing to do for Ukraine without joining the EU or NATO what would have happened if it had joined either?
Best case, everyone in the global south will pull out of the wests financial systems over the next couple of the decades further embolstering China and we'll see more non google/apple choice in the smartphone/tech market and governments outside of the west returning to a more cash based society and this will blow over with some collateral damage. Worst case this doesn't just blow over and Russia is backed in such a corner that is in fact no option but full scale war with the west.
I think you guys(especially the europeans) ought to ask your grandparents(if they're still alive) how fun the last world war was, since asking Lybians is out of the question(they're stuck on boats). Iraq which was basically a massacre and destruction of Iraq left thousands in the west traumatized and millions decimated over there. And that's a country that has nowhere near the support nor the military capability russia had.
[1] https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/russias-low-cost-war-can-endur...
[+] [-] another_story|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nemrod67|4 years ago|reply
Most people don't seem to know the difference between what we are seeing in Ukraine and a real Total War (mass bombardments on cities, every night).
We bombed Serbia back to the stone age (infrastructures and civilians alike), so it must be hard to reconcile that with the current "limited" onslaught in Ukraine.
[+] [-] Mashimo|4 years ago|reply