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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 days ago

If they're looking for a good location, Hague is just perfect.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, me too. Looks like this year will be make it or break it.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (4 children)

US' help was critical so far and when it was paused for six months Ukraine noticed.

On the other hand, when it was paused, Ukraine noticed, but didn't immediately fail. On top of that there were recent reports that Ukraine has enough supplies until summer. On top of that there Zelensky's statement that Ukraine is now producing up to 30% of what it needs in the battlefield. And on top of that, while US help was significant, the contributions from other countries were also nontrivial and many of them invested into increasing production.

So all in all, US' help was and stays important (even if it was quite often a little too late), but if it stops, I believe Ukraine can still win, but that will be quite bad for the States as Trump will not be able to claim this victory and also the military industry will lose quite a lot of advertisement when Ukraine wins with Owen, German, French, Korean or any other weapons.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

And do it begins. Musk wants to become the new Hitler.

How soon till we start making time travel films about going back to stop him?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Not just opened by their military, but also apparently explicitly under sanctions.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So now they're going to conscript him?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Fun fact. An average tenure for a CEO is 4 years. I will not be taking further questions.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

That bad, huh? Good.

Traditionally the rulers in moscovia had seen speaking to the "people" as a disgusting necessity in times of crisis. And of course, there's nothing to brag about in times of crisis.

Thus the old soviet conclusion was that if a politician speaks, that's because things are bad. And since they will never admit a mistake, they will lie.

Thus this statement should be interpreted as "the food market is collapsing".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Amen, brother! 🙌

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Indeed, the point is that despite a "small" percentage, it's not 50 times, nor 40 times, but at best 0.5 times longer. Which is still too much damage to Ukraine, but we still can win.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

While this might sound like ruzzia can continue like this 50 times longer, the reality is quite different. Let's have a look. https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/unemployment-rate

Their unemployment rate hit the historic low in September 2023. Yes, they still have 1.8 million unemployed, but since the number stayed the same while there's a demand for human force, those are actually likely unemployable ones.

Before the war they had roughly double of that amount of unemployed ones.

So looks like

  1. They already employed everybody they could
  2. They already sent to war (and lost) everyone who wasn't bringing much value

Add to that about quarter a million (assuming only 25% are men of that age) of who left (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_emigration_during_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine)

So yeah, they only lost 2% of potential soldiers, but it appears that already since a year ago they lost all "spare" men and every single one they scrape now is a) likely not fit for military b) was involved in military economy

Yes, they can continue like this for a while, but the cost of each new soldier will be bigger and bigger, the quality and equipment lower and lower. And the system will snap way before all of them are "expended". Ukraine says summer next year ( https://www.kyivpost.com/post/39020 ) given all this I tend to believe that forecast.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago
58
sanctions work (open.substack.com)
 

2.5 years to halve the reserves, the spend cannot be linear and I also don't think they need to get to zero to have a collapse.

... The economy is being funded by the cash reserves, which increases inflation, which leads to another round of interest rate hikes to combat inflation, which makes it harder to borrow money, which is necessary for economic growth. Eventually, the cash reserves will run out. It took 2.5 years to deplete half the Russian reserves. Russia withdrew $37 billion to cover deficits in December 2022. It withdrew $20 billion to cover deficits in December 2023. It only has $54 billion left.

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