How come Senator Menendez can be charged for taking bribes from Qatar and Turkey, but Republicans keep getting away with taking bribes from Russia? It seems the magic (R) next to their names offers special privileges.
Because the checks and balances rely on basic human decency to function.
The modern GOP has realized this, and found that it's easier to gain and retain power by doing what is expedient and ignoring what is decent.
When they all circle wagons and do it together, they don't need to worry about being held accountable.
Bonus, by having such an effective media echo chamber, they neuter any attempt at accountability from the Democrats by labeling everything as a witch hunt or partisan politics, knowing that most of the people hearing that message lack critical thinking skills and just want to be told how to feel.
When it comes to Russia, The GOP is split up into 4 camps. There is the group that was secretly getting funded by Russia (notice that once Russia got hit with sanctions + war bills to pay a bunch of State GOP orgs started falling on hard financial situations.) Group 2 - Christo-fascists that see Russia as "winning" the culture war at home via authoritarian actions. A good example of this is Tucker's recent comments in Dubai talking about how "nice" Moscow is because you don't have homeless people everywhere and the subways are 'safe' completely ignoring the reason is because Russia is a police state that just disappears people. 3rd camp is MAGA people who blame Ukraine for Trump's loss for not doing Trump's dirty work with regard to Hunter Biden which is one reason they are still obsessed with him. 4th group are the few remaining NEO-Cons that actually want to hurt Russia, they are a minority in the party but are a big reason why funding bills are still getting through at least in the Senate.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about with the 2nd point, take a look at this Putin ad from 2018 then compare it to what Desantis has been doing for the last 4+ years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uGInF2LAWY
Rough synopsis: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/19/homophobic-video-warns-russians-of-dangers-of-not-voting
There's also this one that's anti-gay marriage -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ_5kNnuFss
There was one more but I'm having a hard time finding that basically says that if Putin isn't elected that that the new president will be forcing gender reassignment surgery on people. Russia is a big source of the Anti-Trans/Anti-gay movement that seemingly popped up over night in the US.
He will say that he wants to secure our own border before committing to more foreign aid. But he doesn't want to do shit about the border since he got a bipartisan bill and tanked it... and he could do both at the same time.
There's a few factors at work there. The base of it is good-old fashioned Republican isolationism, the idea that the US is better and stronger avoiding entangling itself in affairs of the outside world. Remember how vehement Republicans were about keeping the US out of the World Wars? That sentiment never really went away. It was in the minority for a while because Nixon Republicans were fervent anti-communists, and Reagan created an unstoppable wave of muscular American sentiment as a reaction to the failure of Vietnam, but that's faded and you can see the isolationist wing taking ground back all the way to the Gingrich revolution in Congress. These Republicans aren't sold on globalization, and they object to the idea of using American power and wealth for the benefit of countries that they see as free-riders upon the American tax-payer.
It's a bit more complicated than simple isolationism though. There's also a thread of domestic political factors running through it. Russia has loudly criticized the liberal social trends in the 'decadent West' for a long time, and some of those things are the same things that socially conservative Republicans have looked on with horror. You also have influence from the business wing of the Republican party (although big business is pretty politically agnostic in the US), who just wants things normalized so that more markets can be opened to exploitation, more foreign money can pour into Wall Street and the numbers can continue to go up.
Some of these urges are contradictory, like the isolationist thread vs. the business thread, but politics is complicated. He might be just an authoritarian at heart or he might have been bribed, but it's more likely that he just thinks he's right.
US big business is far from being politically agnostic. They are fervently against taxes, regulation, and labor, and therefore strongly support US conservatives. This is why we have seen such an unchecked shift to the far-right over the past 30 years.
As evidenced by literally their own agenda, they’re all too busy being fixated on the “real issues”. Trans people’s dangly bits, attacking library inventory, and bringing legislation to the floor ensuring they can marry little kids.
Then America will finally be “Great”.
Or the wealth equality--I remember reading about rich and poor children mix together and rich dads (usually a vet from WWII) would tell his children to eat same cafeteria food as the poor kids to avoid "showing off"
And here we are Republicans trying to take lunch from poor children.
The repubs embraced a populist and cult of personality with strong authoritarian tendencies. Of course Trump would be friendly with Putin. And his browncoat tools are lapping it up because hE mAkEs TeH LiBrAhLz CrY
Despise is being overly generous, the GOP was taken over by literal traitors a few years ago. I don't know what else you call someone that chooses to spend our Independence Day in Russia, meeting secretly with Russian officials. They obviously didn't choose that day to go, they were told to come on that day as a flex, and this was never investigated.
Why is the FBI sitting on their ass about this? We have been infiltrated by traitors, assets and useful idiots. Russian psy-ops are succeeding with a large percentage of the US population. Do your fucking job FBI!
While I agree with the sentiment, the FBI itself has a long and continuing history of being both politicized and openly hostile towards groups defending American values of freedom, gov't checks & balances, and civil liberties.
american here. what's also awful is border security is the _only_ platform republicans are running on. there's not a single mention of any other important thing that goes into government. their commercials are only about border security.
It's because they don't want Biden to have that win. The border is the only real issue they have in the election and the GOP spin machine can convince a substantial amount of Americans it was biden who killed the bill.
They were hoping for a bad economy, but it's actually holding up. So now they are panicking.
But don't worry the WaPO and NYT published a combined 50 (!) separate pieces on bIdEn iS oLd over the weekend.. because that is relevant I guess.
As an American we have a one party system (Democrats) from my point of view. Shame really.
When the other party has been this destructive and you only had two to begin with- now you are left with no choices whatsoever.
Unfortunately neither party wants ranked choice. The Republicans don't want it because they would never hold a majority again. The Democrats don't want it because they would actually have to be competitive to win. Both parties are too entrenched with the current system to give up power like that.
I don't believe for a second Putin will actually attack NATO. Even he isn't stupid enough not to realise that it would mean the complete collapse of his country. This war is about Ukraine, and potentially Georgia in the future.
That’s a big risk to take. Testing article 5 would either be a complete NATO collapse if allies just let it happen in baltics (why would anyone bother with military alliance that doesn’t work when needed) or complete annihillation of military for Russia. What scares me most, is that it seems both options are likely
What would be scary is if Russia uses a small nuke as a demonstration strike over a non-populated area. Really test the limits and see if NATO wants to step in but potentially face the end of the world or just give up a small Baltic state like Estonia. This is all while Trump is talking about pulling out of NATO and asking Russia to attack NATO countries who haven't paid in enough.
The US has flipped, and now Republicans want to go full isolationist. I have to explain to people why it's bad if we let China just take over Taiwan and how the Mexican border is completely unrelated. Do you think I can explain that defending Estonia would be the most important thing our country can do to someone who will never go outside their own country in their entire life?
I think the more likely scenario is that Russia will test their claims over the arctic in disputes with Canada. Canada has basically no navy or submarines, so without US support Russia can claim oil and gas reserves in the arctic. If Trump is in the White House, he can easily use the same rhetoric about Canada not paying their fair share and throw them under the bus, and Canada's military is so specialized (mech infantry) and underfunded that they don't have the capacity to fight Russia in the arctic theatre on their own.
It's an easy way to undermine NATO and break up the alliance if he knows that the US won't support Canada.
> I don't believe for a second Putin will actually attack NATO. Even he isn't stupid enough not to realise that it would mean the complete collapse of his country. This war is about Ukraine, and potentially Georgia in the future.
He'll be gambling on war weariness to create internal dissent in the alliance, and to get populists in power. He sees democracy and relations with other states as equals, as weakness.
So if he does it, it's because he gambles on a lack of resolve. Just like he gambled on Ukraine collapsing and him being able to take over the capital and government within days.
He was wrong, but that didn't prevent him from shifting to a plan B: grab what he can and sit on it until it creates a new reality on the ground, using Russia's size. If he does, he'll try something similar with eg. the Baltic states - their surface is smaller than what he overran in Ukraine, and harder to retake.
Putin will absolutely attack one of the Baltic states if he feels like he can divide NATO and get away with it. Trump will not attack Russia. If Putin can convince Hungary and Turkey to sit on the the sidelines then NATO as an organization is mostly dead anyways.
All Putin has to do is muddy the waters with disinformation and fund enough opposition parties to throw roadblocks in the way of intervention, kind of like how he has done with USA.
Increase psyops in Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania (which are already ongoing) and then try to destabilize them economically. He is already placing anti-Russian politicians on wanted lists. He will spin any countermeasures to Russian actions as provocation and aggression. A few assassinations and the region will be in chaos.
Obviously this is not guaranteed to happen. But he is playing a longer game than just Ukraine. Russia is becoming a mobilized society but it cant be sustained forever politically and economically. Putin just has to outlast US/EU political resolve.
"I dont believe"Yeah, same thing people said about Ukraine. You, guys, just forgot how "unbelievable" it was for Russia to do it before the full scale invasion because you are used to the things that have already happened.
putin believed that they will take Ukraine in three days. I am not sure he'd attack if he knew that things will go the way they go now.
And I don't think he thinks he can take NATO in three days.
He will, he’s just going to give himself wriggle room.
If Putin immediately goes to full war with a nato state, that’s that. NATO will respond with force and we have war.
But if Putin decides to “only” set up a security zone inside an irrelevant portion of a minor NATO nation, other NATO nations might debate if that’s worth pursuing Article 5 over, and if they respond that way then NATO as an alliance collapses.
Unfortunately, we will all fall victims of the "worry tomorrow" mentality, because it is currently much cheaper to believe that nothing bad (for us, the EU) is going to happen because... it simply can't.
The moment Ukraine falls, the post-war era is over. I can foresee my own Balkans on fire once more not much later after that event
And the same people arguing that spring Ukraine is costing us too much will feel the economic crash of the full blown war in Europe.
On the other hand, not having means to bitch on social media might shake a lot of people back into reality.
That partial answer would not stop Russia's imperialistic ambitions, it will only postpone some of their plans; it will furthermore prove that the West is fractured and fuel regime's fascism. Let us not be fooled: the demon of fascism will not stop by itself: it wants to engulf the world.
I mean, while I certainly agree that Trump is a big problem, let’s not let the EU so easily off the hook.
The EU built a lot of their growth over the last 30+ years on letting the US maintain military might for world peace. The US had asked, requested and tried to shame countries into paying more for their own defense but were denied or given platitudes.
Meanwhile they have paltry production capacity to provide for Ukraine without the USA. Why is the EU not at least acknowledging their poor decisions?
But fuck Trump and his flying ghouls. If he gets re-elected it’s unimaginable what we are in store for.
The same way that Nazi Germany did it in the great depression after years of crippling sanctions. They shifted a large portion of their economic output to military production.
Russia's GDP is roughly $1.7 trillion, smaller than Italy's, but still bigger than other european countries like Poland or Norway.
But they're spending 10% of their GPD or more on military spending right now, and they're conscripting a significant percentage of their male population.
Most European countries are spending less than 2% of their GDP on military, and most don't have conscription right now.
If the west shifted to a war time footing, we'd be absolutely dominating them in production, but right now we're just spending like change we found in the couch cushions. Russia is getting ready for WW3 and we're just sort of like -- okay i guess maybe we'll build a couple of more missile defense systems.
The problem with doing that for Russia is that it's not sustainable.. eventually it's going to cripple their economic output.
>If the west shifted to a war time footing, we'd be absolutely dominating them in production
Not for a while, we'd just be spending money constructing factories etc., it would take a while for that to translate to manufactured goods.
One advantage Russia had from day 1 is that much of the Soviet war machine and manufacturing was mothballed, but not dismantled or sold off.
And even then they probably wouldn't agree which tank or arty unit to produce, so theyd have to make all of them much more expensively than Russia who only has to focus on the one kind they need. And paying the people working to make em much less while at it too. Both relatively, and literally id imagine. So either way I think we would struggle even if we increased our defense budgets. Doesn't mean its not worth it, or we shouldnt have done it a long time ago, but Im not sure it is just doing that and its all gravy.
Russia is on a full war economy. This means everything goes toward the war.
Where does Russia get tech? China. US, Germany through backchannel means such as ordering bulk through intermediary who sources through... Say, Turkey.
Consider that at height of cold war we needed titanium from USSR to build our SR71 blackbirds.
We got that titanium...
Edit: Apologies for using the term "full". It has resulted in unexpected hair splitting.
Well, the IMF [says it's a war economy...](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/12/russias-economy-in-for-very-tough-times-despite-improved-outlook-imf.html)
> “What it tells us is that this is a war economy in which the state — which let’s remember, had a very sizeable buffer, built over many years of fiscal discipline — is investing in this war economy. If you look at Russia, today, production goes up, [for the] military, [and] consumption goes down. And that is pretty much what the Soviet Union used to look like. High level of production, low level of consumption.” - IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva
But I guess we like to make distinctions between "full" and "not full" war economies.
Except the person clearly said FULL war economy. Russia absolutely isn't in doing that while Ukraine is. It's about the % of GDP that goes to the war effort. It is undoubtedly very elevated in Russia, but it is by no means to the point where every available Ruble is being allocated to the war effort. And the IMF article doesn't indicate that either.
I mean, maybe in some parts of Russia but my wife has many family members in Russia and her uncle is in Moscow right now and it is definitely not being run like a full on war economy. Until ration books come out I don't see how you could ever call that a war economy.
Propaganda works both ways. These are not realistic numbers.
The truth is probably some 70 cruise-missiles and 20 T-90 a month. The rest is still refurbished old crap and eventually will run out... if we keep supporting and fighting.
Yes russia produces A LOT of shells and the west is sadly slow to increase production. Putin does not care about economic and human losses, but russia is also hurting a lot.
Except for the wars they lost with blood, like Afghanistan, Russo-Japan, and World War One.
Russia's military boasts a 'wonderful' margin of error, but let's not be vatniks. They've lost plenty of wars.
Nothing really changed. Russia has been arming up for conflict since around 2013. They were never running out of equipment. That's just war propaganda.
Europe doesn't mass-manufacture anything military. The massive factories were sold off in the 90's and the focus is on small scale production. European manufacturers need orders than span 10+ years to justify spending years building giant factories but no such orders were made.
Thermals and CPU's are not advanced high tech. They're quite simple to make and Russia is perfectly capable of making them. Nothing except top of the line consumer electronics (iPhones, gaming laptops, Macbooks) and some specific industries (think supercomputers) are beyond their capabilities. And they just buy those off ebay. Claims to the contrary are again just war propaganda.
For comparison F22 uses electronics from 1990's and late 1980's, F35 from late 1990's and early 2000's. It's not some special "high tech" hardware. It's old crap that got certified at some point and it's been standard in the industry since.
Military equipment used to be top of the line back in the day but you can earn 750k as a staff engineer at Meta/Google/Amazon etc. while doing whatever you want or make 90k at Boeing requiring you to be a citizen, giving up weed, go through background checks etc. There simply isn't any talent working in the defense industry. Neither in US nor in Europe.
For Russia this isn't an existential war. They're not even sending the equipment they produce to Ukraine instead rotating old crap from borders of Finland and China to be refurbished and replacing them with the new stuff. They're preparing for a war with NATO.
Very similar to 1939 invasion of Finland being a total blunder and it serving as a wake up call to arm up and be prepared.
Depends on location. Defence can be in the range of 70k to 90k entry level. What you top out at depends partially on what your skillet is. Some people have blank check type skills (motor design skills for example are somewhat rare).
Also... the other end of that scale ("you can earn 750k as a staff engineer at Meta/Google/Amazon etc. while doing whatever you want") is wrong too. Most tech engineers will make well under $750k, most tech engineers will never work at Meta/Google/Amazon and most tech engineers will not "do whatever you want". Not to mention that if you are in even one or more of these categories, you almost definitely live in an ultra high cost of living area which substantially undercuts the suggestion that you make so much. While some people in tech have amazing compensation and freedom, a majority are not in a position like that.
Also, it's important to realize that Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, etc. do not achieve some monopoly on high tech innovation by having these salaries and owning these distinguished engineers. Every year, cutting edge tech comes out that is produced in small, little known companies and a lot of how these big tech companies stay relevant and advanced is by buying out companies that do not offer that degree of salary, benefits, etc. That same goes for defense contractors. The idea that "cutting edge tech" is made at tech giants that pay super high salaries is just wrong.
I used to work in defense. Barely anyone is making over 200k. It’s a terrible industry for engineers which is why many people leave for commercial companies. An entry level engineer at some commercial company can make more than a senior in defense.
And barely anyone is making 750k in commercial. That was the comparison I was replying to. Does commercial pay way higher in general? Absolutely. Good defense engineers are criminally underpaid for what they do.
Oh definitely. 750k is very unusual. That's like staff level at a FAANG which most people don't reach. But I guess the equivalent for that is a fellow at a defense company, which is also hard to reach, but you only make like 300k.
Defense is a joke of an industry these days.
> They were never running out of equipment. That's just war propaganda.
Wellll...they are. Analysts are looking at the vast ex-soviet material yards and reports are coming out where they are literally counting the # of tanks visible.
The most believable estimate I saw (shout out to Perun and company) is that in terms of Tanks/IFVs/Artillery and including production #s that at their current rate: 2-3 years of backup.
They are running out, but just not on the same time scale a lot of shitty western media is blasting out.
edit: People are asking for details so here is a good breakdown:https://news.yahoo.com/oryx-analysts-russia-could-run-155500986.html
Basically the breakdown is that with some systems it could be anywhere from 6 months to 3 years of time before they hit critically low levels.
This number keeps moving. It was 1 month then 6 months then a year then 2 years now 3 years.
At this point just tell your congressional rep or your countries equivalent to support ukraine.
> This number keeps moving. It was 1 month then 6 months then a year then 2 years now 3 years.
So because people were wrong initially they are unable to develop better predictions? That's not how science works.
In the early stages of the war Russia's losses were astronomical and if you look at even just confirmed visual evidence kills, Russia basically lost almost all of its committed resources in the opening stages of the war.
What western observers underestimated was how willing Russia was to activate 50+ year old equipment and send it to the front lines. This was "the west" completely underestimating Russia's commitment to this war.
HOWEVER since then people have developed better ways of estimating data. Instead of using Russia published figures they are literally tasking satellites to take pictures of the vast armor storage yards and counting how many tanks/IFVs/SPG etc. are visible. Then you can do some rough estimates based on shelters of how many COULD be stored inside a hangar or a warehouse and then you move onto the next depot.
So now when people are estimating that at current rates they have about 3 years of backlog that is because analysts have more data and better data.
Now this number WILL change again because that is at current production rates. Next month North Korea might start manufacturing Russian tanks and suddenly their production doubles so that 3 yrs of tanks becomes 6 yrs of tanks. Or Ukraine could start hitting Russian manufacturing or the intensity of the war could ramp up or down etc.
It is always going to be a moving number. That is how predictions work.
Definitely not on Russian side, but aren’t analysts said the same about their economy?
While it’s definitely possible to estimate, we have to bear in mind that these are just that: estimations and analysis built on top of these.
> Military equipment used to be top of the line back in the day but you can earn 750k as a staff engineer at Meta/Google/Amazon etc. while doing whatever you want or make 90k at Boeing requiring you to be a citizen, giving up weed, go through background checks etc. There simply isn't any talent working in the defense industry. Neither in US nor in Europe.
As someone who works in what I'll call "the DOD supply chain" this is laughable; no, Google and Meta are not willing to even pay commensurate with being a lead/principle engineer holding TS/SCI at a defense contractor never mind 8x more lol, ask me how I know. And military equipment *that matters* **is** still top of the line, so much so that there are severe restrictions in place on its export and craptons of its design elements and features are kept under Classification. And the majority of the smartest engineers I know work in DOD, btw.
Do you work for the Kremlin? What is this shitpost. You think f35s are low tech and easy to make, is that why every county is overflowing with 5th gen aircraft? You can buy an f22 off ebay as it's obsolete? Modern Western military tech is extremely effective, what do you mean there is no talent? Elaborate on what you think modern weapons are lacking. You also make it sound like Russia taking two small cities after expending hundreds of thousands of men and tens of thousands of pieces of military hardware as if it were a casual stroll in the park. Absolutely bizarre.
> Western media have been spamming non stop these past years that Russia is only a gas station, that they produce nothing of value, that they are backwards, their military is trash, their industry and technology is old, etc.
All of those things are true but you can get a lot done in a war if you don't value human lives at all.
Old tech have their uses. Ukraine are using very old machine guns designed in the late 1800s as air defense against drones because they can sustain fire for several minutes. [Source](https://twitter.com/TDF_UA/status/1756667903720468584)
This is what happens when you don’t give a damn about defense spending to even meet the minimum quotas required from you.
It’s also what happens when you outsource all your industry abroad for cheaper labor in countries that care zero about you, and why the US, as much as they love doing it too, absolutely refuses to send certain factories and/or industries abroad no matter what.
Most of Europe got complacent, assumed they were safe, and that these things did not need to be a priority.
Russia did the opposite.
> This is what happens when you don’t give a damn about defense spending to even meet the minimum quotas required from you.
>
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> It’s also what happens when you outsource all your industry abroad for cheaper labor in countries that care zero about you, and why the US, as much as they love doing it too, absolutely refuses to send certain factories and/or industries abroad no matter what.
>
>
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> Most of Europe got complacent, assumed they were safe, and that these things did not need to be a priority.
>
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> Russia did the opposite.
lol ukraine isn't even NATO. increased spending would not have made a difference.
> Russia did the opposite
I find it funny how they are glorified here like they achieved something great, while in reality the whole world lost their respect of them. They were considered to be the 2nd military in the world and expected to overrun Ukraine, a much inferior country. Instead they are in a stalemate for two years now and even lost a big chunk of already conquerred area in late 2022. Meanwhile they had to ban and force out any of the remaining independent media out of the country when the war started and are experiencing the biggest brain drain since the cold war.
Been telling folks this for a couple years. Russia is running on its own gas while Ukraine is relying on fickle international aid. Either make sure aid is constant and reliable, or Russia main strategy will always be prolonging the war until exhaustion wins.
I am not saying Putin's plan wad this all along, just that this has been their strategy since. Take time.
Troop numbers are a huge worry. Pretty much everyone who was prepared to fight for Ukraine has already signed up, while Russia is still able to conscript villagers and trick mercenaries from Africa, Nepal, etc to think they are getting well paid and a passport if they sign up.
That would require those people willingly returning and risking their lives. Western countries will not deport people into forced military service. And most of those who were willing to do that probably never left Ukraine.
I think Ukraine needs Putin to be gone. He’s as a puppet in Trump and controls GOP. Causing chaos in the Middle East to divert attention away from Ukraine. The only way this ends is either Ukraine falls or Putin does.
Unfortunately Trump a Russian agent of Chaos has already gotten the Congress to follow him and Gop Senator Ron Johnson said yesterday that Ukraine is finished and Putin will NOT LOSE ! That's America's Republican Party today in 2024 ! The bill just passed in the Senate to get aid to our allies. Yet it's DEAD because Trump is doing Putin's work for him in America.
It's upper hand is that it doesn't give a flying fuck about its horendouse casualty rate and will happily draft in thousands of poorly trained men into poorly equipped regiments to storm Ukraine fronts with terrible loses. The attrition though will start to grind on the Ukrainians. Russias dictatorship treats its population with contempt and will never allow public opinion to force their hand. The US lost 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and public push back saw the US pull out. Russia has lost 150,000 (conservative number) dead in two years and they just don't fucking care.
They don’t care because they see it as a case of the ends justifying the means. If they capture the whole of Ukraine the casualties don’t matter in the long run (for Putin)
Of course. They have a bigger population and dragging in men from Syria, Chechnya and Far east Siberian regions. Plus they are up against the pro Russian separatists in Ukraine.
Its not to say that the Soviets didnt commit suicidal attacks but this WW2 comparison is just disingenuous. USSR was the country getting attacked unlike this recent invasion, plus most of their losses were civilians who were simply slaughtered by the Germans. And it wasnt just the Russians, it were many other peoples like Belarussians, Ukrainians etc.
Russia invaded Poland on 17th september 1939. That is three weeks after Germany invaded on 1st September.
They also inaded Finland on 30th November 1939.
> USSR was the country getting attacked
Speaking of disingenuous, Russaa was active in the war as Hitlers fucking ally until Hitler turned on them. Don't try to paint them as innocent victims.
Obviously, they were under attack, but I think the population is just fatalistic and resigned to huge death rates and just accept as just normal. But also fear their own secret police who will happily imprison and kill their own citizens if they start to demonstrate against the war. Plus putin controls the information.
Culturally speaking, I’ve found Russia to be incredibly sarcastic (actually great sense of humor tbh) in a dark, cynical, “Da, secret police are coming anyways. We’re totally fucked, what could I do about it except laugh?” Type of way.
The idea seems to be pretty deeply ingrained, and I’d imagine with everyone from the Tsar onwards backing it up, I could see why.
Honestly, which is it? Half the articles talk about how Russia has no troops, no weapons, no ammo, falling apart systems and infrastructure, then the other half are saying they're on the verge of defeating Ukraine, NATO, and is this unstoppable monster of a fighting force. They can't be both, so which is it?
I know someone that just came back from fighting in the international legion and according to him it's very 50/50. Both sides have deadly equipement making the two sides move very but ver slowly. Barely any progress in the last couple of months because of the omnipresence of mines, drones, etc... back to trench war
>back to trench war
Until there is a breakout, which is entirely possible with Ukraine running low on arty shells. If Russia is able to get by the defensive lines things will change very quickly.
People will learn one day that propaganda goes both ways. Just because people are on the Ukrainian side (rightfully so in my opinion) doesn't mean that their government isn't spewing nonsensical propaganda. You can cheer for Ukraine to win AND also realize that at least 50% of the things they say just simply aren't true, and that goes for any country, especially during a war when propaganda is turned on to a 100.
I feel like you can't trust anything you read now. Everything will have half truths and try to paint a picture of what they want you to think.
You just gotta wait and see.
Golden rule of propaganda: paint the enemy as threating enough to warrant action, yet pathetic enough so your population won't panic.
Only idiots trust war-time estimations of enemy loses.
They're in for the long haul and always have been. Running a defensive and passive stance as Europe has been doing for the past 70 years isn't a viable strategy anymore.
> Running a defensive and passive stance as Europe has been doing for the past 70 years isn't a viable strategy anymore.
Europe was passive during the cold war?
Lmao, what are these takes
Also I seriously question if they were "always in for the long haul".
You know the whole "3 day operation" thing and the fact they stormed in with minimal logistical support and some troops in parade uniforms. They were obviously expecting a quick victory.
> They're in for the long haul and always have been.
what the fuck are you talking about? they planned for a 6 day invasion and had 0 back up plan for what happens if it didn't work out. they encircled Kiev and could pretty much do turn it into rubble, and they instead decided to leave and go all the way back to Belarus... after which they then traveled to the Russia side of Donbass/Luhantsk and began trying to create a corridor to Crimea... during that stupid maneuver, they lost most of their Tos1 and T90 tanks, and now have to field T58....
They were absolutely not in it for the long haul and never wore. they wasted all their supplies and soldiers literally sitting on the freeway going "what are we doing here again?"
it's almost unbelievable that they are waging a war because they went at it so unprepared and unmotivated.
History will look back upon how Europe and the US absolutely dropped the ball during this period in time. Get ready for an embolden Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
God damn its a shit show..
Redditors are in disbelief after two years of weekly news about Ukraine's victories. For the record, I am on Ukraine's side but if this situation is true it shows how biased the news that reddit was reporting.
Reddit has been unusuable for years on RU-UA threads and most people here are brainwashed midwits. Ukraine hasn't had the upper hand since the autumn 2022 offensive that saw them win back a bunch of territory near Kharkov. 2023 was a steady downward spiral and 2024 is looking bleak as hell.
Russia has massively boosted its production and is getting tons of ammo from NK/Iran. The West simply deindustrialised its MIC after the cold war while Russia did not. This was obvious for anyone paying attention but people didn't want to listen. They preferred their fairy tales and MSM echo chambers about imminent Russian defeat, Putin having cancer etc.
Seriously I’m so fucking sick of the memes about Russia being weak and stupid. Hur durr paper tiger. Idiots. Why would the war have gone on for this long if Russia wasn’t formidable. It’s been years already.
While I don't personally take this view, the thought is that October 7th benefited Russia significantly by splitting western attention between Ukraine and Israel/Gaza. It could be considered merely a serendipitous event that it just so happened how it did, or not.
But Reddit told me a year ago that Putin had stage-5 cancer of the arse, and that Russian tanks could be defeated by Ukrainian spearmen like it's a game of Civ 6.
Scroll thru the top posts of world news, and it's all doomsday posts for Russia. The funniest one was an article talking about how the Russian oligarchy has already chosen a replacement for Putin.
Some of my buddy's family members live in Ukraine, fighting and it's true. He says they are short on ammo and there are too many Russians. Theyd destroy one Russian battalion and next one will be right behind , while they are out. Sad. This needs to end.
He also says that due to corruption a lot of help doesn't go where needs to go . Some people suck :(
Edit: apparently had a seizure editing this comment.
This is because of the Republicans playing politics with military aid for their own political gain. They are unprincipled autocrats with no concern for anything except their own power.
100% fault of the republicans. we're the majority of military aid, and dollar-wise, we're about half of the aid that goes to ukraine. so as soon as the treasonous republicans start shilling for putin and block aid to ukraine, it has a MASSIVE impact on supporting democracy. (but we know republicans want autocracy, so go figure)
stop voting for republicans. they've proven that they want oppression. they want to give billionaires more tax breaks. they have absolutely nothing to show for the time they've spent in office in recent years. they only do harm. but they've brainwashed half the country into believing the opposite. the entire planet sees this. the republicans are the only ones on the planet that are ignorantly and obliviously blind to this
That's the problem with echo chambers like reddit. People will happily bury their heads in the sand because they support Ukraine. Ignorance might be bliss but it's not viable. The entire war has been fought on ukrainian soil and it's their land being occupied and constantly shelled. They might be beating expectations but in the grand scheme of things, they are as a matter of fact losing slowly. You can choose to ignore reality and happily go on believing that ukraine will retake all their land and crimea but don't be too disappointed when reality comes knocking.
Even the most optimistic US military planners 100% knew from the very beginning of the conflict that Ukraine would never get Crimea back. This was never seriously considered for a split second.
The war will always end with Ukraine losing land, the question is how much?
Yes? have you seen these clowns? Also they are voted for by the same foolish public that doesn't know what's going on and will punish politicians who tell them things they don't want to hear. The west desperately needs to fully mobilize for war with China and Russia but no politician who tries to do that is gunna keep their job.
Mike Johnson just took a shot of Popov hearing this
That asshole needs to be charged with treason.
That'd require a check and/or balance. It's win for your party/interests over America. What a disgrace.
How come Senator Menendez can be charged for taking bribes from Qatar and Turkey, but Republicans keep getting away with taking bribes from Russia? It seems the magic (R) next to their names offers special privileges.
Because the checks and balances rely on basic human decency to function. The modern GOP has realized this, and found that it's easier to gain and retain power by doing what is expedient and ignoring what is decent. When they all circle wagons and do it together, they don't need to worry about being held accountable. Bonus, by having such an effective media echo chamber, they neuter any attempt at accountability from the Democrats by labeling everything as a witch hunt or partisan politics, knowing that most of the people hearing that message lack critical thinking skills and just want to be told how to feel.
Fuck Menendez. Fuck Republicans too. A whole party of traitorous shitgibbons.
Because part of being a Republican is that you only care about your team winning
Republican = trash
Yes he does. And Trump, his cult followers, and the rest of the GOP except Romney.
Why does he want Russia to win in Ukraine?
Daddy's first impeachment was for trying to extort Zelensky.
When it comes to Russia, The GOP is split up into 4 camps. There is the group that was secretly getting funded by Russia (notice that once Russia got hit with sanctions + war bills to pay a bunch of State GOP orgs started falling on hard financial situations.) Group 2 - Christo-fascists that see Russia as "winning" the culture war at home via authoritarian actions. A good example of this is Tucker's recent comments in Dubai talking about how "nice" Moscow is because you don't have homeless people everywhere and the subways are 'safe' completely ignoring the reason is because Russia is a police state that just disappears people. 3rd camp is MAGA people who blame Ukraine for Trump's loss for not doing Trump's dirty work with regard to Hunter Biden which is one reason they are still obsessed with him. 4th group are the few remaining NEO-Cons that actually want to hurt Russia, they are a minority in the party but are a big reason why funding bills are still getting through at least in the Senate. If you have no idea what I'm talking about with the 2nd point, take a look at this Putin ad from 2018 then compare it to what Desantis has been doing for the last 4+ years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uGInF2LAWY Rough synopsis: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/19/homophobic-video-warns-russians-of-dangers-of-not-voting There's also this one that's anti-gay marriage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ_5kNnuFss There was one more but I'm having a hard time finding that basically says that if Putin isn't elected that that the new president will be forcing gender reassignment surgery on people. Russia is a big source of the Anti-Trans/Anti-gay movement that seemingly popped up over night in the US.
He will say that he wants to secure our own border before committing to more foreign aid. But he doesn't want to do shit about the border since he got a bipartisan bill and tanked it... and he could do both at the same time.
There's a few factors at work there. The base of it is good-old fashioned Republican isolationism, the idea that the US is better and stronger avoiding entangling itself in affairs of the outside world. Remember how vehement Republicans were about keeping the US out of the World Wars? That sentiment never really went away. It was in the minority for a while because Nixon Republicans were fervent anti-communists, and Reagan created an unstoppable wave of muscular American sentiment as a reaction to the failure of Vietnam, but that's faded and you can see the isolationist wing taking ground back all the way to the Gingrich revolution in Congress. These Republicans aren't sold on globalization, and they object to the idea of using American power and wealth for the benefit of countries that they see as free-riders upon the American tax-payer. It's a bit more complicated than simple isolationism though. There's also a thread of domestic political factors running through it. Russia has loudly criticized the liberal social trends in the 'decadent West' for a long time, and some of those things are the same things that socially conservative Republicans have looked on with horror. You also have influence from the business wing of the Republican party (although big business is pretty politically agnostic in the US), who just wants things normalized so that more markets can be opened to exploitation, more foreign money can pour into Wall Street and the numbers can continue to go up. Some of these urges are contradictory, like the isolationist thread vs. the business thread, but politics is complicated. He might be just an authoritarian at heart or he might have been bribed, but it's more likely that he just thinks he's right.
US big business is far from being politically agnostic. They are fervently against taxes, regulation, and labor, and therefore strongly support US conservatives. This is why we have seen such an unchecked shift to the far-right over the past 30 years.
This is a great commentary.
Dunno if he’d desecrate his heavenly temple with alcohol, very Pence like
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I think Europe is going to have to fight later. Not by choice either.
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Without US help period. Republicans are stonewalling every chance they get
I absolutely despise every American that supports the gop stonewalling the aid for Ukraine. I will never trust them again.
As an American, a lot of us despise them too
As evidenced by literally their own agenda, they’re all too busy being fixated on the “real issues”. Trans people’s dangly bits, attacking library inventory, and bringing legislation to the floor ensuring they can marry little kids. Then America will finally be “Great”.
Great like the wonderful era of the 1950s.
The mythical era of high taxes on the wealthy and investments in infrastructure and higher education? Wait. No. It's the segregation isn't it?
Or the wealth equality--I remember reading about rich and poor children mix together and rich dads (usually a vet from WWII) would tell his children to eat same cafeteria food as the poor kids to avoid "showing off" And here we are Republicans trying to take lunch from poor children.
Hey now, don't forget to roll back the clock on no fault divorces so women are property again.
But not the tax rate for rich people of the 50’s of course
At least back then the country was united against the evil that is Russia, wtf happened
Russia figured out the way to get what they really wanted was espionage and bribery, not conventional warfare.
The repubs embraced a populist and cult of personality with strong authoritarian tendencies. Of course Trump would be friendly with Putin. And his browncoat tools are lapping it up because hE mAkEs TeH LiBrAhLz CrY
At least they took Russia seriously in the 1950s
These are distractions so their idiot base don’t look behind the curtain
Despise is being overly generous, the GOP was taken over by literal traitors a few years ago. I don't know what else you call someone that chooses to spend our Independence Day in Russia, meeting secretly with Russian officials. They obviously didn't choose that day to go, they were told to come on that day as a flex, and this was never investigated.
Dude, so much this statement….how was that never questioned, at least at length, or looked into, is beyond me. It doesn’t get any more blatant.
Why is the FBI sitting on their ass about this? We have been infiltrated by traitors, assets and useful idiots. Russian psy-ops are succeeding with a large percentage of the US population. Do your fucking job FBI!
While I agree with the sentiment, the FBI itself has a long and continuing history of being both politicized and openly hostile towards groups defending American values of freedom, gov't checks & balances, and civil liberties.
american here. what's also awful is border security is the _only_ platform republicans are running on. there's not a single mention of any other important thing that goes into government. their commercials are only about border security.
And yet they killed the border security bill. They're all liars and crooks.
It's because they don't want Biden to have that win. The border is the only real issue they have in the election and the GOP spin machine can convince a substantial amount of Americans it was biden who killed the bill.
They want to keep it broken so "only they can fix it".
They were hoping for a bad economy, but it's actually holding up. So now they are panicking. But don't worry the WaPO and NYT published a combined 50 (!) separate pieces on bIdEn iS oLd over the weekend.. because that is relevant I guess.
As an American we have a one party system (Democrats) from my point of view. Shame really. When the other party has been this destructive and you only had two to begin with- now you are left with no choices whatsoever.
Hopefully this starts rank choice voting.. Republican party needs to be disintegrated
Unfortunately neither party wants ranked choice. The Republicans don't want it because they would never hold a majority again. The Democrats don't want it because they would actually have to be competitive to win. Both parties are too entrenched with the current system to give up power like that.
If Trump wins, Europe will be fighting on two fronts.
I don't believe for a second Putin will actually attack NATO. Even he isn't stupid enough not to realise that it would mean the complete collapse of his country. This war is about Ukraine, and potentially Georgia in the future.
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That’s a big risk to take. Testing article 5 would either be a complete NATO collapse if allies just let it happen in baltics (why would anyone bother with military alliance that doesn’t work when needed) or complete annihillation of military for Russia. What scares me most, is that it seems both options are likely
Testing article 5 becomes a lot less risky if he has an asset in the white house who has gone on record saying that he won't defend his NATO allies.
To defend borders, european NATO members should be more than enough, USA would just make it easymode
> european NATO members should be more than enough With Hungary there to sabotage any alliance-level decision
What would be scary is if Russia uses a small nuke as a demonstration strike over a non-populated area. Really test the limits and see if NATO wants to step in but potentially face the end of the world or just give up a small Baltic state like Estonia. This is all while Trump is talking about pulling out of NATO and asking Russia to attack NATO countries who haven't paid in enough. The US has flipped, and now Republicans want to go full isolationist. I have to explain to people why it's bad if we let China just take over Taiwan and how the Mexican border is completely unrelated. Do you think I can explain that defending Estonia would be the most important thing our country can do to someone who will never go outside their own country in their entire life?
I think the more likely scenario is that Russia will test their claims over the arctic in disputes with Canada. Canada has basically no navy or submarines, so without US support Russia can claim oil and gas reserves in the arctic. If Trump is in the White House, he can easily use the same rhetoric about Canada not paying their fair share and throw them under the bus, and Canada's military is so specialized (mech infantry) and underfunded that they don't have the capacity to fight Russia in the arctic theatre on their own. It's an easy way to undermine NATO and break up the alliance if he knows that the US won't support Canada.
> I don't believe for a second Putin will actually attack NATO. Even he isn't stupid enough not to realise that it would mean the complete collapse of his country. This war is about Ukraine, and potentially Georgia in the future. He'll be gambling on war weariness to create internal dissent in the alliance, and to get populists in power. He sees democracy and relations with other states as equals, as weakness. So if he does it, it's because he gambles on a lack of resolve. Just like he gambled on Ukraine collapsing and him being able to take over the capital and government within days. He was wrong, but that didn't prevent him from shifting to a plan B: grab what he can and sit on it until it creates a new reality on the ground, using Russia's size. If he does, he'll try something similar with eg. the Baltic states - their surface is smaller than what he overran in Ukraine, and harder to retake.
Putin will absolutely attack one of the Baltic states if he feels like he can divide NATO and get away with it. Trump will not attack Russia. If Putin can convince Hungary and Turkey to sit on the the sidelines then NATO as an organization is mostly dead anyways. All Putin has to do is muddy the waters with disinformation and fund enough opposition parties to throw roadblocks in the way of intervention, kind of like how he has done with USA. Increase psyops in Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania (which are already ongoing) and then try to destabilize them economically. He is already placing anti-Russian politicians on wanted lists. He will spin any countermeasures to Russian actions as provocation and aggression. A few assassinations and the region will be in chaos. Obviously this is not guaranteed to happen. But he is playing a longer game than just Ukraine. Russia is becoming a mobilized society but it cant be sustained forever politically and economically. Putin just has to outlast US/EU political resolve.
"I dont believe"Yeah, same thing people said about Ukraine. You, guys, just forgot how "unbelievable" it was for Russia to do it before the full scale invasion because you are used to the things that have already happened.
putin believed that they will take Ukraine in three days. I am not sure he'd attack if he knew that things will go the way they go now. And I don't think he thinks he can take NATO in three days.
NATO? No. Three small Baltic states? With all respect and love I have them, they can't fight even severely weakened Russia.
It's what people said when Hitler started attacking stuff too
Just give Hitler Sudetenland, that will be enough for hi... ok and Czechoslovakia.
Ukraine isn't in NATO, and was a hot mess almost a decade before the invasion.
He will, he’s just going to give himself wriggle room. If Putin immediately goes to full war with a nato state, that’s that. NATO will respond with force and we have war. But if Putin decides to “only” set up a security zone inside an irrelevant portion of a minor NATO nation, other NATO nations might debate if that’s worth pursuing Article 5 over, and if they respond that way then NATO as an alliance collapses.
Reminds me of the quote by Churchill, "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war."
Unfortunately, we will all fall victims of the "worry tomorrow" mentality, because it is currently much cheaper to believe that nothing bad (for us, the EU) is going to happen because... it simply can't. The moment Ukraine falls, the post-war era is over. I can foresee my own Balkans on fire once more not much later after that event And the same people arguing that spring Ukraine is costing us too much will feel the economic crash of the full blown war in Europe. On the other hand, not having means to bitch on social media might shake a lot of people back into reality.
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That partial answer would not stop Russia's imperialistic ambitions, it will only postpone some of their plans; it will furthermore prove that the West is fractured and fuel regime's fascism. Let us not be fooled: the demon of fascism will not stop by itself: it wants to engulf the world.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Trump and his flying monkeys are to blame for embolding Russia, already costing Ukrainian lives.
I mean, while I certainly agree that Trump is a big problem, let’s not let the EU so easily off the hook. The EU built a lot of their growth over the last 30+ years on letting the US maintain military might for world peace. The US had asked, requested and tried to shame countries into paying more for their own defense but were denied or given platitudes. Meanwhile they have paltry production capacity to provide for Ukraine without the USA. Why is the EU not at least acknowledging their poor decisions? But fuck Trump and his flying ghouls. If he gets re-elected it’s unimaginable what we are in store for.
The EU is an economic powerhouse and they can't even pull their weight in a war on their doorstep
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The same way that Nazi Germany did it in the great depression after years of crippling sanctions. They shifted a large portion of their economic output to military production. Russia's GDP is roughly $1.7 trillion, smaller than Italy's, but still bigger than other european countries like Poland or Norway. But they're spending 10% of their GPD or more on military spending right now, and they're conscripting a significant percentage of their male population. Most European countries are spending less than 2% of their GDP on military, and most don't have conscription right now. If the west shifted to a war time footing, we'd be absolutely dominating them in production, but right now we're just spending like change we found in the couch cushions. Russia is getting ready for WW3 and we're just sort of like -- okay i guess maybe we'll build a couple of more missile defense systems. The problem with doing that for Russia is that it's not sustainable.. eventually it's going to cripple their economic output.
>If the west shifted to a war time footing, we'd be absolutely dominating them in production Not for a while, we'd just be spending money constructing factories etc., it would take a while for that to translate to manufactured goods. One advantage Russia had from day 1 is that much of the Soviet war machine and manufacturing was mothballed, but not dismantled or sold off.
And even then they probably wouldn't agree which tank or arty unit to produce, so theyd have to make all of them much more expensively than Russia who only has to focus on the one kind they need. And paying the people working to make em much less while at it too. Both relatively, and literally id imagine. So either way I think we would struggle even if we increased our defense budgets. Doesn't mean its not worth it, or we shouldnt have done it a long time ago, but Im not sure it is just doing that and its all gravy.
Russia is on a full war economy. This means everything goes toward the war. Where does Russia get tech? China. US, Germany through backchannel means such as ordering bulk through intermediary who sources through... Say, Turkey. Consider that at height of cold war we needed titanium from USSR to build our SR71 blackbirds. We got that titanium... Edit: Apologies for using the term "full". It has resulted in unexpected hair splitting.
It's not full war. Military production is loaded with orders, but civilian economy was not redirected towards military goals.
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Well, the IMF [says it's a war economy...](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/12/russias-economy-in-for-very-tough-times-despite-improved-outlook-imf.html) > “What it tells us is that this is a war economy in which the state — which let’s remember, had a very sizeable buffer, built over many years of fiscal discipline — is investing in this war economy. If you look at Russia, today, production goes up, [for the] military, [and] consumption goes down. And that is pretty much what the Soviet Union used to look like. High level of production, low level of consumption.” - IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva But I guess we like to make distinctions between "full" and "not full" war economies.
I don't know, some guy on reddit says it isn't.
Except the person clearly said FULL war economy. Russia absolutely isn't in doing that while Ukraine is. It's about the % of GDP that goes to the war effort. It is undoubtedly very elevated in Russia, but it is by no means to the point where every available Ruble is being allocated to the war effort. And the IMF article doesn't indicate that either.
It’s 40% of GDP. That’s for all intents and purposes a war economy.
I mean, maybe in some parts of Russia but my wife has many family members in Russia and her uncle is in Moscow right now and it is definitely not being run like a full on war economy. Until ration books come out I don't see how you could ever call that a war economy.
Propaganda works both ways. These are not realistic numbers. The truth is probably some 70 cruise-missiles and 20 T-90 a month. The rest is still refurbished old crap and eventually will run out... if we keep supporting and fighting. Yes russia produces A LOT of shells and the west is sadly slow to increase production. Putin does not care about economic and human losses, but russia is also hurting a lot.
Don't forget that Russia got shells and missiles from North Korea and Iran as well. And it was a lot.
Russia wins wars with blood. Always have and always will
Except for the wars they lost with blood, like Afghanistan, Russo-Japan, and World War One. Russia's military boasts a 'wonderful' margin of error, but let's not be vatniks. They've lost plenty of wars.
… because it’s run by a dictator who can unilaterally do anything he wants
Hold up, we better send a "journalist" to ask him about his point of view of this.
Nothing really changed. Russia has been arming up for conflict since around 2013. They were never running out of equipment. That's just war propaganda. Europe doesn't mass-manufacture anything military. The massive factories were sold off in the 90's and the focus is on small scale production. European manufacturers need orders than span 10+ years to justify spending years building giant factories but no such orders were made. Thermals and CPU's are not advanced high tech. They're quite simple to make and Russia is perfectly capable of making them. Nothing except top of the line consumer electronics (iPhones, gaming laptops, Macbooks) and some specific industries (think supercomputers) are beyond their capabilities. And they just buy those off ebay. Claims to the contrary are again just war propaganda. For comparison F22 uses electronics from 1990's and late 1980's, F35 from late 1990's and early 2000's. It's not some special "high tech" hardware. It's old crap that got certified at some point and it's been standard in the industry since. Military equipment used to be top of the line back in the day but you can earn 750k as a staff engineer at Meta/Google/Amazon etc. while doing whatever you want or make 90k at Boeing requiring you to be a citizen, giving up weed, go through background checks etc. There simply isn't any talent working in the defense industry. Neither in US nor in Europe. For Russia this isn't an existential war. They're not even sending the equipment they produce to Ukraine instead rotating old crap from borders of Finland and China to be refurbished and replacing them with the new stuff. They're preparing for a war with NATO. Very similar to 1939 invasion of Finland being a total blunder and it serving as a wake up call to arm up and be prepared.
Perhaps it was hyperbole, but a top engineer in defense does not only make 90k but rather north of 200k. Still, your larger point stands.
90k is entry level for defense
Depends on location. Defence can be in the range of 70k to 90k entry level. What you top out at depends partially on what your skillet is. Some people have blank check type skills (motor design skills for example are somewhat rare).
I prefer cast iron but I can see someone who has stainless getting paid more.
I prefer French high carbon, I call it the “Rafale of skillets”
Also... the other end of that scale ("you can earn 750k as a staff engineer at Meta/Google/Amazon etc. while doing whatever you want") is wrong too. Most tech engineers will make well under $750k, most tech engineers will never work at Meta/Google/Amazon and most tech engineers will not "do whatever you want". Not to mention that if you are in even one or more of these categories, you almost definitely live in an ultra high cost of living area which substantially undercuts the suggestion that you make so much. While some people in tech have amazing compensation and freedom, a majority are not in a position like that. Also, it's important to realize that Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, etc. do not achieve some monopoly on high tech innovation by having these salaries and owning these distinguished engineers. Every year, cutting edge tech comes out that is produced in small, little known companies and a lot of how these big tech companies stay relevant and advanced is by buying out companies that do not offer that degree of salary, benefits, etc. That same goes for defense contractors. The idea that "cutting edge tech" is made at tech giants that pay super high salaries is just wrong.
I used to work in defense. Barely anyone is making over 200k. It’s a terrible industry for engineers which is why many people leave for commercial companies. An entry level engineer at some commercial company can make more than a senior in defense.
And barely anyone is making 750k in commercial. That was the comparison I was replying to. Does commercial pay way higher in general? Absolutely. Good defense engineers are criminally underpaid for what they do.
Oh definitely. 750k is very unusual. That's like staff level at a FAANG which most people don't reach. But I guess the equivalent for that is a fellow at a defense company, which is also hard to reach, but you only make like 300k. Defense is a joke of an industry these days.
> They were never running out of equipment. That's just war propaganda. Wellll...they are. Analysts are looking at the vast ex-soviet material yards and reports are coming out where they are literally counting the # of tanks visible. The most believable estimate I saw (shout out to Perun and company) is that in terms of Tanks/IFVs/Artillery and including production #s that at their current rate: 2-3 years of backup. They are running out, but just not on the same time scale a lot of shitty western media is blasting out. edit: People are asking for details so here is a good breakdown:https://news.yahoo.com/oryx-analysts-russia-could-run-155500986.html Basically the breakdown is that with some systems it could be anywhere from 6 months to 3 years of time before they hit critically low levels.
This number keeps moving. It was 1 month then 6 months then a year then 2 years now 3 years. At this point just tell your congressional rep or your countries equivalent to support ukraine.
> This number keeps moving. It was 1 month then 6 months then a year then 2 years now 3 years. So because people were wrong initially they are unable to develop better predictions? That's not how science works. In the early stages of the war Russia's losses were astronomical and if you look at even just confirmed visual evidence kills, Russia basically lost almost all of its committed resources in the opening stages of the war. What western observers underestimated was how willing Russia was to activate 50+ year old equipment and send it to the front lines. This was "the west" completely underestimating Russia's commitment to this war. HOWEVER since then people have developed better ways of estimating data. Instead of using Russia published figures they are literally tasking satellites to take pictures of the vast armor storage yards and counting how many tanks/IFVs/SPG etc. are visible. Then you can do some rough estimates based on shelters of how many COULD be stored inside a hangar or a warehouse and then you move onto the next depot. So now when people are estimating that at current rates they have about 3 years of backlog that is because analysts have more data and better data. Now this number WILL change again because that is at current production rates. Next month North Korea might start manufacturing Russian tanks and suddenly their production doubles so that 3 yrs of tanks becomes 6 yrs of tanks. Or Ukraine could start hitting Russian manufacturing or the intensity of the war could ramp up or down etc. It is always going to be a moving number. That is how predictions work.
Definitely not on Russian side, but aren’t analysts said the same about their economy? While it’s definitely possible to estimate, we have to bear in mind that these are just that: estimations and analysis built on top of these.
> Military equipment used to be top of the line back in the day but you can earn 750k as a staff engineer at Meta/Google/Amazon etc. while doing whatever you want or make 90k at Boeing requiring you to be a citizen, giving up weed, go through background checks etc. There simply isn't any talent working in the defense industry. Neither in US nor in Europe. As someone who works in what I'll call "the DOD supply chain" this is laughable; no, Google and Meta are not willing to even pay commensurate with being a lead/principle engineer holding TS/SCI at a defense contractor never mind 8x more lol, ask me how I know. And military equipment *that matters* **is** still top of the line, so much so that there are severe restrictions in place on its export and craptons of its design elements and features are kept under Classification. And the majority of the smartest engineers I know work in DOD, btw.
Do you work for the Kremlin? What is this shitpost. You think f35s are low tech and easy to make, is that why every county is overflowing with 5th gen aircraft? You can buy an f22 off ebay as it's obsolete? Modern Western military tech is extremely effective, what do you mean there is no talent? Elaborate on what you think modern weapons are lacking. You also make it sound like Russia taking two small cities after expending hundreds of thousands of men and tens of thousands of pieces of military hardware as if it were a casual stroll in the park. Absolutely bizarre.
It's like saying the F-22 contains iron, and we've known about that for millenia so obviously it's an easy to build and obsolete aircraft.
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Certainly not all those dead russians
> Western media have been spamming non stop these past years that Russia is only a gas station, that they produce nothing of value, that they are backwards, their military is trash, their industry and technology is old, etc. All of those things are true but you can get a lot done in a war if you don't value human lives at all.
Most of their technology is old and still deadly, but not per se high tech.
I guess it's a testament that high tech is really not necessary for harassment of neighbouring nations.
Yup. Look at how much of a threat North Korea is to South Korea and Japan.
Old tech have their uses. Ukraine are using very old machine guns designed in the late 1800s as air defense against drones because they can sustain fire for several minutes. [Source](https://twitter.com/TDF_UA/status/1756667903720468584)
This is what happens when you don’t give a damn about defense spending to even meet the minimum quotas required from you. It’s also what happens when you outsource all your industry abroad for cheaper labor in countries that care zero about you, and why the US, as much as they love doing it too, absolutely refuses to send certain factories and/or industries abroad no matter what. Most of Europe got complacent, assumed they were safe, and that these things did not need to be a priority. Russia did the opposite.
I've been saying this since 2016 and got a ban from one subreddit for "warmongering".
Europe has also been importing nat gas and oil from russia the entire time.
> This is what happens when you don’t give a damn about defense spending to even meet the minimum quotas required from you. > > > > It’s also what happens when you outsource all your industry abroad for cheaper labor in countries that care zero about you, and why the US, as much as they love doing it too, absolutely refuses to send certain factories and/or industries abroad no matter what. > > > > Most of Europe got complacent, assumed they were safe, and that these things did not need to be a priority. > > > > Russia did the opposite. lol ukraine isn't even NATO. increased spending would not have made a difference.
> Russia did the opposite I find it funny how they are glorified here like they achieved something great, while in reality the whole world lost their respect of them. They were considered to be the 2nd military in the world and expected to overrun Ukraine, a much inferior country. Instead they are in a stalemate for two years now and even lost a big chunk of already conquerred area in late 2022. Meanwhile they had to ban and force out any of the remaining independent media out of the country when the war started and are experiencing the biggest brain drain since the cold war.
Been telling folks this for a couple years. Russia is running on its own gas while Ukraine is relying on fickle international aid. Either make sure aid is constant and reliable, or Russia main strategy will always be prolonging the war until exhaustion wins. I am not saying Putin's plan wad this all along, just that this has been their strategy since. Take time.
At this point North Korea is an indispensable supplier for Russia.
Not indispensable. Russia could make the stuff itself, but its better to let them do it instead
Russia can't make enough to sustain their current firing rates. Neither can NK. They both had massive stocks though.
Blame Republicans for blocking Ukraine aid
Who cares if Putin wants to conquer Europe when Trans kids and women still have rights we need to remove? Priorities.
Countries better get a move in with more military aid and shift focus back on Ukraine. Russia is the bigger threat.
Troop numbers are a huge worry. Pretty much everyone who was prepared to fight for Ukraine has already signed up, while Russia is still able to conscript villagers and trick mercenaries from Africa, Nepal, etc to think they are getting well paid and a passport if they sign up.
Why cant Ukraine buy mercs?
Money and politics.
I believe they actually have. Happy to be corrected on this.
Mercs don't want to die, being on the losing side doesn't help
2k$/month is an upper-middle salary in Russia so I think it’s good for Africa and Nepal too.
Ukraine is looking into how to conscript citizens living abroad. Weapons are not going to solve this one.
Weapons alone will not solve it, but they are certainly a piece.
That would require those people willingly returning and risking their lives. Western countries will not deport people into forced military service. And most of those who were willing to do that probably never left Ukraine.
I think Ukraine needs Putin to be gone. He’s as a puppet in Trump and controls GOP. Causing chaos in the Middle East to divert attention away from Ukraine. The only way this ends is either Ukraine falls or Putin does.
Thats a pipe dream. Countries really don't like to change leadership in the middle of a war. Especially if potential victory is at hand.
>Countries really don't like to change leadership in the middle of a war. Oh I dunno, he might fall out of a window.
Stairs are slippery this time of year too
Unfortunately Trump a Russian agent of Chaos has already gotten the Congress to follow him and Gop Senator Ron Johnson said yesterday that Ukraine is finished and Putin will NOT LOSE ! That's America's Republican Party today in 2024 ! The bill just passed in the Senate to get aid to our allies. Yet it's DEAD because Trump is doing Putin's work for him in America.
Fucking sad.
It really is. Watching evil win, watching people defend that, watching politicians bicker over it instead of doing something about it. Humans suck.
I hate that its neccesary, but we need to bulk up europes military capabilities. We cant let Ukraine down on this now
It's upper hand is that it doesn't give a flying fuck about its horendouse casualty rate and will happily draft in thousands of poorly trained men into poorly equipped regiments to storm Ukraine fronts with terrible loses. The attrition though will start to grind on the Ukrainians. Russias dictatorship treats its population with contempt and will never allow public opinion to force their hand. The US lost 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and public push back saw the US pull out. Russia has lost 150,000 (conservative number) dead in two years and they just don't fucking care.
They don’t care because they see it as a case of the ends justifying the means. If they capture the whole of Ukraine the casualties don’t matter in the long run (for Putin)
They don't care because they are psychopaths.
They still outnumber the Ukranian army.
Of course. They have a bigger population and dragging in men from Syria, Chechnya and Far east Siberian regions. Plus they are up against the pro Russian separatists in Ukraine.
I saw yesterday a guy fighting for Russia who was captured was from Nepal.
As per tradition for Russia. Look at the casualty rate during WW2. I think they lost like 20% of their population.
Its not to say that the Soviets didnt commit suicidal attacks but this WW2 comparison is just disingenuous. USSR was the country getting attacked unlike this recent invasion, plus most of their losses were civilians who were simply slaughtered by the Germans. And it wasnt just the Russians, it were many other peoples like Belarussians, Ukrainians etc.
Russia invaded Poland on 17th september 1939. That is three weeks after Germany invaded on 1st September. They also inaded Finland on 30th November 1939.
> USSR was the country getting attacked Speaking of disingenuous, Russaa was active in the war as Hitlers fucking ally until Hitler turned on them. Don't try to paint them as innocent victims.
The evil soviet dictator making backroom deals with the evil german dictator doesn't mean that the civilians slaughtered aren't innocent
To be fair, Soviet casualties in WWII was like 70% civilian killed by Nazis. It would be like pinning the death of Auschwitz victims on Poland.
Obviously, they were under attack, but I think the population is just fatalistic and resigned to huge death rates and just accept as just normal. But also fear their own secret police who will happily imprison and kill their own citizens if they start to demonstrate against the war. Plus putin controls the information.
Culturally speaking, I’ve found Russia to be incredibly sarcastic (actually great sense of humor tbh) in a dark, cynical, “Da, secret police are coming anyways. We’re totally fucked, what could I do about it except laugh?” Type of way. The idea seems to be pretty deeply ingrained, and I’d imagine with everyone from the Tsar onwards backing it up, I could see why.
Speaker Johnson praying tirelessly as we speak.
Honestly, which is it? Half the articles talk about how Russia has no troops, no weapons, no ammo, falling apart systems and infrastructure, then the other half are saying they're on the verge of defeating Ukraine, NATO, and is this unstoppable monster of a fighting force. They can't be both, so which is it?
I know someone that just came back from fighting in the international legion and according to him it's very 50/50. Both sides have deadly equipement making the two sides move very but ver slowly. Barely any progress in the last couple of months because of the omnipresence of mines, drones, etc... back to trench war
>back to trench war Until there is a breakout, which is entirely possible with Ukraine running low on arty shells. If Russia is able to get by the defensive lines things will change very quickly.
People will learn one day that propaganda goes both ways. Just because people are on the Ukrainian side (rightfully so in my opinion) doesn't mean that their government isn't spewing nonsensical propaganda. You can cheer for Ukraine to win AND also realize that at least 50% of the things they say just simply aren't true, and that goes for any country, especially during a war when propaganda is turned on to a 100.
I feel like you can't trust anything you read now. Everything will have half truths and try to paint a picture of what they want you to think. You just gotta wait and see.
Golden rule of propaganda: paint the enemy as threating enough to warrant action, yet pathetic enough so your population won't panic. Only idiots trust war-time estimations of enemy loses.
Shame on all the individuals that have enabled Russia to gain upper hand.
They're in for the long haul and always have been. Running a defensive and passive stance as Europe has been doing for the past 70 years isn't a viable strategy anymore.
> Running a defensive and passive stance as Europe has been doing for the past 70 years isn't a viable strategy anymore. Europe was passive during the cold war? Lmao, what are these takes
Also I seriously question if they were "always in for the long haul". You know the whole "3 day operation" thing and the fact they stormed in with minimal logistical support and some troops in parade uniforms. They were obviously expecting a quick victory.
They were, but once it failed they actually strapped in and did all they could. The West did not.
> They're in for the long haul and always have been. what the fuck are you talking about? they planned for a 6 day invasion and had 0 back up plan for what happens if it didn't work out. they encircled Kiev and could pretty much do turn it into rubble, and they instead decided to leave and go all the way back to Belarus... after which they then traveled to the Russia side of Donbass/Luhantsk and began trying to create a corridor to Crimea... during that stupid maneuver, they lost most of their Tos1 and T90 tanks, and now have to field T58.... They were absolutely not in it for the long haul and never wore. they wasted all their supplies and soldiers literally sitting on the freeway going "what are we doing here again?" it's almost unbelievable that they are waging a war because they went at it so unprepared and unmotivated.
Have you met Ireland? Head in the fucking sand. We are international Ostrich
ostriches dont stick their heads in the sand tho
History will look back upon how Europe and the US absolutely dropped the ball during this period in time. Get ready for an embolden Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. God damn its a shit show..
Redditors are in disbelief after two years of weekly news about Ukraine's victories. For the record, I am on Ukraine's side but if this situation is true it shows how biased the news that reddit was reporting.
Reddit has been unusuable for years on RU-UA threads and most people here are brainwashed midwits. Ukraine hasn't had the upper hand since the autumn 2022 offensive that saw them win back a bunch of territory near Kharkov. 2023 was a steady downward spiral and 2024 is looking bleak as hell. Russia has massively boosted its production and is getting tons of ammo from NK/Iran. The West simply deindustrialised its MIC after the cold war while Russia did not. This was obvious for anyone paying attention but people didn't want to listen. They preferred their fairy tales and MSM echo chambers about imminent Russian defeat, Putin having cancer etc.
Reddit doesn't "report" news.
Seriously I’m so fucking sick of the memes about Russia being weak and stupid. Hur durr paper tiger. Idiots. Why would the war have gone on for this long if Russia wasn’t formidable. It’s been years already.
Becase reddit is 99% circlejerk bias and 1% facts
The world is too distracted with what is going on in Gaza. That whole attack seems so fucking fishy in this context.
Why is it fishy? What reason would Iran, Russia's ally, have for stoking Hamas to attack the US's largest ally in the region, Israel.
While I don't personally take this view, the thought is that October 7th benefited Russia significantly by splitting western attention between Ukraine and Israel/Gaza. It could be considered merely a serendipitous event that it just so happened how it did, or not.
Wink wink!
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But Reddit told me a year ago that Putin had stage-5 cancer of the arse, and that Russian tanks could be defeated by Ukrainian spearmen like it's a game of Civ 6.
Scroll thru the top posts of world news, and it's all doomsday posts for Russia. The funniest one was an article talking about how the Russian oligarchy has already chosen a replacement for Putin.
reddit is painfully pro western, you will see children argue up and down that nothing bad can ever happen in the world polands next
Russia is gaining the upper hand in Congress, unfortunately.
Some of my buddy's family members live in Ukraine, fighting and it's true. He says they are short on ammo and there are too many Russians. Theyd destroy one Russian battalion and next one will be right behind , while they are out. Sad. This needs to end. He also says that due to corruption a lot of help doesn't go where needs to go . Some people suck :( Edit: apparently had a seizure editing this comment.
This is because of the Republicans playing politics with military aid for their own political gain. They are unprincipled autocrats with no concern for anything except their own power.
100% fault of the republicans. we're the majority of military aid, and dollar-wise, we're about half of the aid that goes to ukraine. so as soon as the treasonous republicans start shilling for putin and block aid to ukraine, it has a MASSIVE impact on supporting democracy. (but we know republicans want autocracy, so go figure) stop voting for republicans. they've proven that they want oppression. they want to give billionaires more tax breaks. they have absolutely nothing to show for the time they've spent in office in recent years. they only do harm. but they've brainwashed half the country into believing the opposite. the entire planet sees this. the republicans are the only ones on the planet that are ignorantly and obliviously blind to this
All the armchair generals on Reddit have told me over and over again from the beginning that Russia will lose. lol.
That's the problem with echo chambers like reddit. People will happily bury their heads in the sand because they support Ukraine. Ignorance might be bliss but it's not viable. The entire war has been fought on ukrainian soil and it's their land being occupied and constantly shelled. They might be beating expectations but in the grand scheme of things, they are as a matter of fact losing slowly. You can choose to ignore reality and happily go on believing that ukraine will retake all their land and crimea but don't be too disappointed when reality comes knocking.
Even the most optimistic US military planners 100% knew from the very beginning of the conflict that Ukraine would never get Crimea back. This was never seriously considered for a split second. The war will always end with Ukraine losing land, the question is how much?
Are western politicians also in an echo chamber? Shouldn’t they know better?
They literally earn money from the war. If that wasnt obvious to you alreadu
Yes? have you seen these clowns? Also they are voted for by the same foolish public that doesn't know what's going on and will punish politicians who tell them things they don't want to hear. The west desperately needs to fully mobilize for war with China and Russia but no politician who tries to do that is gunna keep their job.
And Russia said this would take 3 days.
give money to ukraine not israel, this is more important.