Ukraine - Russia Conflict
- Thread starter randomradio
- Start date
So, what have we learned?
- russia's growth figure are very lopsided. The 3.6% growth from 2023 was buoyed by defense spending (growth by sector had defense-related industries with around 30% growth, but as a whole the entire industry sector only had a growth of 3.5%, so non-defense-related industries are in recession) and to a lesser extent by a construction bubble similar to China's but at a much smaller scale.
- outside of defense industry and construction, rest of russian economy is in recession.
- in order to feed this defense industry, russia is taxing all the others, cannibalizing its economy to fund the war.
- there's a huge inflation, much higher than the official figures.
- there's a looming household debt going on.
- foreign investment is gone. Even China avoids investing in russia.
- at the rate they're going, the russian National Wealth Fund will be fully emptied of liquidity before the end of the year.
- russia has tried, and failed, to borrow from China.
- russia is failing to raise money through bonds.
- russian debt service is increasing quickly, though not as quickly as war expenditures.
- russian infrastructure is in freefall.
- russian agriculture will have terrible harvests this year. They're already at the point where they're looking to import apples from North Korea.
A few months ago, I said that 2024 would be a difficult year for Ukraine; but that 2025 would be a difficult year for russia. The Kremlin will simply not have the way to keep going with the current tempo, they'll be forced to slow down or their economy will collapse, again. With a slow down, russia might manage to sustain a reduced war effort longer, but that means they won't have the means to prevent Ukraine from retaking lost ground. Best case the russian can hope for is to slow down the Ukrainian advance, similar to the retaking of Kherson in 2023.
If russia collapses economically, it'll be a complete rout of the russian forces who one day will discover that logistics had abruptly disappeared because chaos reign in russia and nothing works anymore.
In neither case does russia wins. There's no pathway to russian victory anymore. Even if Trump wins the elections, russia is doomed.
One of the Russian snipers from the 40th Guards Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet spoke about combat work in Ukraine. To protect against drones and thermal imagers, snipers use special camouflage
