Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 392

On February 27 2023 20:19 KlaCkoN wrote:


I think it's true that Russia's economy is and will continue to suffer greatly and that over the next 20 years or so they will be reduced to something like Iran - lots of smart people but without the industrial or scientific infrastructure to undertake any remotely difficult projects.
I also think that that people should not delude themselves into thinking that the sanctions have any particular impact on the war itself. In WW2 the allies flat out bombed the German economy for a year and the war machine kept running. It only stopped with physical occupation of the country. The sanctions the west are leveraging on Russia are obviously minuscule compared to large scale carpet bombings of industrial centers and I think it is foolish to except them to have any real impact on the next few years of the war.
That said, I also think people should be careful about proclaiming victory in the energy war. Europe made it through this winter by permanently shutting down a lot of heavy industry. The worries expressed in the earlier links in this quote chain are all very real. To add some more to the examples given, Intel has reversed/paused their decision of building a new fab in Germany, and BASF is shutting down ammonia production in Europe.
This will presumably continue over the next few years as energy costs stabilize at several-x times the price in the US or China. The outlook is made hilariously worse by the US Inflation Reduction Act which promises immense subsidies for companies to relocate emerging green industries to the US, which the EU has neither the political unity nor fiscal power to counter.
The question should not be whether this war is hurting Russia or Europe more, the answer is obviously Russia, but rather what can be done by the EU or its member states to maintain future prosperity rather than falling into middle income stagnation as this war makes industry structurally noncompetitive on the continent in the long term. Personally I am quite pessimistic. So yea, Russia might become Iran or even North Korea in a decade or two, but Schadenfreude is not a particularly good substitute for prosperity.
Of course the war is not a choice, but the true victory condition is much much harder than 'doing better than Russia'. I think much more urgency needs to be put on making a European economy without Russia viable in the long term. Shutting down industry and then celebrating as gas storage levels are high is amazingly dumb.

On February 28 2023 18:52 Ardias wrote:
From one of the Russian soldiers on the front (Kupiansk area), a month ago:

"Morale is high. I suppose there will be no big action till spring, since nobody wants to lose warm roof over the head (meaning well-consructed and properly inhabited trenches and dugouts). Had a officer from Army Command visiting, he said that nobody will be discharged in 2023, and operation will be on for 5 years at least. So there is a clear planning horizon as well as understanding of necessity of victory over Ukraine".

For understanding - he isn't from fresh mobilized, it's his second tour in Ukraine (first was in spring-summer 2022).

On February 28 2023 20:24 ZeroByte13 wrote:
This seems doubtful. "operation will be on for 5 years at least" seems like a very bad plan from both
1. propaganda point of view, as this basically means "don't expect any success from this extremely costly operation any time soon"
2. realistic point of view - no need to explain, I guess, why it's super bad for the country.

I.e. what I mean is why would anyone say that even if it's true, and why would this be good for morale?