Zeleniykot is a name I haven't heard in a while! From Russian it means "green cat", he used to write really good articles about spave on Habr, good job continuing the work!
Yes, the word "lost" is ambiguous, but I didn't even notice the ambiguity until you pointed it out. I think the presence of the word "found" in the same sentence lead me to assume the "unknown location" sense rather than the "destroyed" sense.
Still baffles me how did Russian Empire/Soviets come from this to being a petty regional player who can barely take on a much weaker neighbor and being fully dependent on China.
I think we in the West underestimate just how severe the '90s were in Russia. You can observe the fall of the USSR by looking at a graph of average life expectancy in Russia, the scale of state failure was really enormous.
The saddest part is that while the 90s were severe, Russia could have changed for the better.. and the worst part is neighboring countries are suffering along with it.
There was a failure of institutional reform - in fact the only institution that seemed to have reformed was corruption, which changed from one elite to another.
A lot of the current state propaganda tries really hard to spin the narrative "democratic reform never again, look at the 90s"!
Like if democracy is something easy, and plug and play... Or like there's some magical impediment that doesn't allow Russians to go from serfdom to free citizens, as if it's too much for them.
For how many centuries did France iterate to implement democracy? The US had a brutal civil war. Japan had to pick itself up after WW2 and change part of the culture. Germany had to be rebuilt.
Now we're witnessing another upcoming 90s in Russia - who knows if it will be worse since Russia folded into a regional power.
Such a missed opportunity right next to a growing European Union, and China.
You should look into "shock therapy" and how western powers advised the Russian government at the time. Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years.
I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times. They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.
We'll see how the European Union will "grow" in the next years...
> I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times.
`I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along"` - in Latvia, national banks got smashed, sugar factory closed, steel factory closed, bus factory closed, state forced to take billions in debt from IMF just to stay afloat and avoid default, forced to follow way too often stupid, profit hindering and barely relevant EU regulations (e.g. lawn cutting length), take into account USA sanctions, comply with multiplying foreign auditors while trying to compete in markets with participants hundred times bigger in size. my whole life I've been an observer of "recovery of economy" that never arrives. for a teacher - it takes 75 years of work to afford a modest house. currently - I have no income and can afford only food for couple more months (with 15 years of software development experience across dozens of programming languages, tools, projects, business domains, companies and organizational structures) while marked as schizophrenic dissident, actively stalked and isolated from society. it's slightly harder than figuring out what brand of car your daughter wants as a gift for her sweet sixteen
...and what has Russia to do with it?
The Baltics wanted to be independent, they became independent and started getting rid of their industries in order to focus on service economy and EU integration.
All the propaganda I've heard tells me that they are prosperous rich countries now.../s
it's a neighboring country that is suffering along. apart from that - ethnic Russians are a huge minority here. economically - a majority. western world is incapable to tell the difference and sees everything Russian corrupted. it's a similar story in Ukraine but sharper cause of language similarities and much higher stakes (did you know that UA produced most if not all the helicopter engines for Russia?). Russian propaganda also compares their law enforcement mild compared to harsh one Belarus has. because there's like 30 different separatist groups in Russia.
those neighbouring countries had the opportunity to develop themselves. they all wanted independence and sometimes started great efforts to promote russophobia in order to emancipate themselves (the baltics are champions in this regard). but as soon as everything went north they immediately started to blame the russians for their own inept politicians and choices.
and yes, I know that there were good business relationships between rf and ua. so well indeed that even gas, stolen in transit to europe, was subsidised by russia ;)
So once again, the narrative of Russia having no agency...the government, the People, the elites, are all reactive without choice?
It's the narrative that Russia is a victim that invades other sovereign countries because of those countries, not because it's a choice, a continuous wrong choice by the way.
> Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years.
How's that different or worse from the current regime? In fact, how many Russians died in the wars of the 80s and 90s, and how many Russians have died under this regime? And for what - to try to justify a failed military operation in a country where they're unwanted?
If you don't see neighboring countries suffering, it's because you either don't care or you refuse to look.
> e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times.
Yeah, and Ukraine surrendered its nukes, and look at what's happening. And Russia got funding from USA and the perks of the USSR, with all the contributions from other countries of the union.
> They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.
Ukraine did basically nothing?
- They have one of the strongest national identities in Europe; Russia doesn't even come close to them in this regard (remember the world witnessed the Wagner coup).
- They have one of the strongest and most competent armies in the world.
> So once again, the narrative of Russia having no agency...the government, the People, the elites, are all reactive without choice?
No, that's not the narrative. It's you assumption.
> How's that different or worse from the current regime?
The current regime made sure that the oligarchic caste doesn't meddle in politics and applied measures that critical resources, money and industries stay within russian borders and don't get off shored. The nineties were wild in that regard. Ukraine never really managed to get oligarchs under control. Look at Poroshenko, Kolomoyski, Mindich and the people around Ze and his party.
> how many Russians died in the wars of the 80s and 90
By supporting radical islamists, I mean "freedom fighters", in Afghanistan the US made sure to bleed out the soviets - good job. It backfired a few years down the road for them. The first Chechen war began when a bunch of radical islamists started to harass / massacre the russian population in Grozny. Bad decisions, a decimated and demoralized army didn't help to win a war which was also side tracked by arms deals to the chechens by some government officials and yet again oligarchs. It counts as a 'forgotten war' in Russia. Read up on what happened during the time when Chechnya was 'independent' and why it led to the Second Chechen war. Exercise for the reader ;)
> If you don't see neighboring countries suffering, it's because you either don't care or you refuse to look.
Sure man, but it's not Russias fault, is it?
> Yeah, and Ukraine surrendered its nukes, and look at what's happening.
It weren't 'their' nukes. Those were Russian nukes stationed there and the ukrainian state didn't have the means or the expertise to maintain the arsenal anyway.
> They have one of the strongest national identities in Europe
Do you mean the partying people in Kiev, the far right nationalists or the poor bastards getting dragged from the streets to fight in the mud for strips of land which were considered full of 'terrorists' from 2014 on. Or do you mean the ethnic russian population in the eastern part which was bombed constantly during the so called ATO?
UA is a multiethnic country, it was held together by a constitution which guaranteed the different groups freedoms of language and culture. This constitution was gradually dismantled after the 2014 coup. Don't be fooled by nafo propaganda.
> remember the world witnessed the Wagner coup
Where's the connection between the mutiny of a war lord and national identity?
> They have one of the strongest and most competent armies in the world.
So does Russia. It comes with the fact that both armies are fighting a peer opponent. I don't think that any army right now, besides UA and RF, has this kind of expertise in modern warfare. (Abducting presidents from third world countries and bombing civilians in the middle east for 20 years has no particular training effect, I suppose.)
> They will join the European Union and NATO
I highly doubt it.
I'm constantly in awe by the power of western propaganda, the bigotry and lack of knowledge and respect from people who consider themselves and their culture as the pinnacle of human civilisation. Speaking as a half Russian, half Ukrainian living in central europe, btw.
EDIT: just skimmed through your comment history, fuck me for wasting my time replying to you.
even after some really good explanations and hints by other, capable people, you haven't learned a thing during the last months.
Don't bother replying.
The Chechen Wars did not start because islamists started killing Russian people-it started because Islamists wanted independence from RF.
Russia does not have the strongest army. Blinken summarized it pretty well: Russian Army is not the second strongest in the world, it is the second strongest in Ukraine.
About Ukrainian identity: this type of struggles unite people into a nation.
I do not know you personally, but your writing like a Russian shill.
> It weren't 'their' nukes. Those were Russian nukes stationed there and the ukrainian state didn't have the means or the expertise to maintain the arsenal anyway.
Nonsense. That might be the case initially for ICBMs stationed there, but it would be trivial for them to crack tactical nukes and have a bootleg force de frappe. The only reason they fave up nukes is because they’re were pressured by both Russia AND the West. Ignoring the whole economy impact, if anyone could predict full scale Russian invasion.
> Speaking as a half Russian, half Ukrainian living in central europe, btw.
Speaking as a standard-issue vatnik, rather, hitting all the traditional made-up grieviances of the national victim narrative that is supposed to legitimize Putin and his buddies robbing the country blind. And as always, the most passionate patriots live abroad.
Since your post is dead already, I'll respond here:
> speaking as someone who has an interest in history
If you have interest in history, then why are you clinging to the meme-level Soviet boomer grudges? It's strange to see the USSR mismanage itself to the brink of starvation and then watch Russians blame foreign governments, who to the best of their abilities provided aid and expertise to help find a way out of that situation.
Sure, you can say that their advice was often misguided, but as much as Yeltsin was shocked to see what a regular western supermarket looked like, Europeans and Americans were shocked to see the poverty of the USSR and couldn't even fully grasp that kind of life. You can entertain our western friends by describing how plastic bags with foreign logos like Sony or Adidas were treated like luxury items in the USSR in the 1980s and carefully folded and stored after every use, or how it was children's chore to cut up newspapers for toilet paper because that's the best many could access; or how it was common even for the best and brightest engineers to put in a full day of work, and then go and work on small plots of land in the evening to grow food for their families. It was an unbelievable shithole.
The difficulties that followed the dissolution of the USSR were of your own making, in no way limited to Russia alone. To survive, the entire former USSR and the Eastern Bloc had to pivot overnight to producing something globally useful instead of milling screws at artificial prices for the now-extinct Soviet arms industry. Most swallowed their pride, did what needed to be done, and ultimately saw a meteoric rise in living standards.
Russians turned out to be pussies who balked at the first difficulties and allowed the KGB dinosaurs who had led the USSR into disaster to crawl back and take the lead again. And by the look of it, Russia is heading toward a rerun of the late 1980s and early 1990s, bogged down in pointless wars as its economy rapidly deteriorates.
The narratives you've thrown around are a cheap cope, assigning blame for Russia's failure to modernize to external actors. All of us who lived in the USSR and its aftermath and have an IQ above room temperature know that it is unfiltered bullshit. What interests me is why you cling to it. What would happen if you let go of the victimhood narratives and actually faced the fact that Russians fucked up the ample opportunities they had?
It's the same with the current war against Ukraine, which was lost in the first three weeks, and now is just a meatgrinder with no prospect of success. Why is it so difficult to admit that you fucked up, and let it go? The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope, and quite pathetic as such. Nobody's forcing you to hold these views in Germany, so why do you hold them?
Interesting where are you from and how old are you?
> The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope, and quite pathetic as such.
The narratives about the benevolent West reaching out it's hand to help and framing every perspective which contradicts yours as "victimhood" (your post history) is also quite pathetic.
> Nobody's forcing you to hold these views in Germany, so why do you hold them?
Free will? My own opinion? Gut feeling? Literature? Culture? Personal history and experiences? Nobody is forcing you to spew russophobia, insults and outright NAFO propaganda but here you are.
> The narratives about the benevolent West reaching out it's hand to help and framing every perspective which contradicts yours as "victimhood" (your post history) is also quite pathetic.
But that is exactly that - strange Russian victimhood. The entire USSR and the Eastern Bloc went through a societal collapse, yet Russians treat it as an exceptional event that affected only them and believe it was an intentional humiliation.
Enough time has passed that people who were in top leadership positions at the time have retired, and their memoirs and internal documents have been published. None of these sources show any such intentions, quite the opposite, people like Swedish PM Carl Bildt were scared stiff of potential humanitarian disasters and millions of potential refugees and they did everything they could to stabilize the socio-economic conditions in the former USSR. I vividly remember the photo of the first western cargo ship with a grain shipment in the port of Leningrad, and the celebratory tone that accompanied the photo in the newspaper. Now it's suddenly all forgotten.
Instead of getting credit for their hard work, they are blamed for the fact that Russians fucked up the USSR to the point that it was on the verge of starvation.
> Free will? My own opinion? Gut feeling? Literature? Culture? Personal history and experiences?
Arguments like "coup in Kyiv" are demonstrably false. Only ignorance can defend them.
> The Yanukovych treason trial revealed various witness testimonies and
other evidence that he fled from Kyiv and then Ukraine not because of
his responsibility for the Maidan massacre but because of a number of
assassination attempts by the Maidan forces, in particular the far right,
and after their attempts to capture him and his residence near Kyiv and
likely execute him (Katchanovski, 2020, 2023a).
Witnesses testified at the Yanukovych treason trial that right after the
Maidan massacre the presidential motorcade was shot at a checkpoint,
which was manned by activists with Right Sector and Svoboda flags and
that the bullets hit one of the cars and a gun of one of the Yanukovych
bodyguards. Helicopter pilots, who flew Yanukovych in Ukraine after the
massacre, testified that the air traffic controllers relayed them an order
from Maidan leaders to land the helicopter with Yanukovych under threat
of its being shot-down by military planes. The witness testimonies also
referred to information received by his security personnel about a plan
involving Svoboda activists to assassinate him during a congress in Kharkiv
where he flew after the Maidan massacre, and then on the road near
Melitopol (See Eks-okhoronets’, 2018; Katchanovski, 2020, 2023a).
Lmaooo, who the fuck is this guy, I want to smoke what he smokes.
Was so afraid for his life that you can see more than 10 packed bags, family and multiple pets in the open.
don't know man - somehow he doesn't waste time on dead hn posts in order to convince other people of nafo trash. instead he's doing research, publishes peer reviewed articles and writes books about whats happening in his home country. perhaps you and libertine should do the same instead of posting bbc clips and wikipedia articles.
if you're so inclined, you can just hop his citations. yes, sometimes he cites his own papers but you can follow the path until you'll find the original source. his sources are for the most part stenographs, reputable news articles, witness interviews and for the maidan massacre he analyzed all the footage from news reels and cctvs he and his colleagues could find.
and by the way: he's Ukrainian, lives in a nato country (Canada) and works at a legit university. was it you or libertine who asked me why I think what I think, 'despite' living in Germany - here's another specimen for you.
reality hits hard, boys.
edit: it was mopsi whos mind was blown. fitting name for a shiba inu;)
> No, that's not the narrative. It's you assumption.
No, it's a narrative propagandized and rooted, and your replies just show that.
> The current regime made sure that the oligarchic caste doesn't meddle in politics
The current regime is an oligarchy. No one claims Ukraine was perfect, or didn't have corruption. But their people clearly wanted to change that and be part of the EU.
That's the beauty of democracy, you're not stuck with one guy.
> Exercise for the reader ;)
The true question is why are you avoiding talking about the much larger losses in Ukraine? The only comparison are loses from WW2.
How can you even complain about the rest with an abhorrent amount of casualties Russia is suffering, and causing, and again, for what? I mean, Westerners are complaining about importing labor due to the lack of opportunities... and Russia is importing Indian labor because they're losing their young men in a pointless war with a country that was at peace and posed no threat... All because of bad intel and a miscalculation that should have easily ended in a resignation in any other country.
But somehow, you put the accountability on everyone else. The war could have been stopped on the same day.
> Sure man, but it's not Russias fault, is it?
Isn't? What about Moldova? Georgia? Ukraine? The constant meddling in politics, threats of economic and military action?
> Do you mean the partying people in Kiev
No, I mean the people who in the 90's chose to be an independent state, and refused to welcome occupiers. Remember that in the occupied territories, the Russian regime had to organize demonstrations of support for the invasion? That's how absurd this all is.
> Where's the connection between the mutiny of a war lord and national identity?
Well, the owner of a state-sponsored PMC was marching towards Moscow, and some people were cheering for him, and the rest? Silent, no one seemed to care that much for the coup, everyone was waiting on the sidelines. Does that look like engaged people with their national identity? Where were the protests? The revolt for what was happening?
Ukrainians, even during the war shown their protests against the government.
> Abducting presidents from third world countries and bombing civilians in the middle east for 20 years has no particular training effect, I suppose.
Wait but wasn't Ukraine considered a third-world country, where Russia tried to abduct its president and failed? Are you talking about Russia bombing civilians in Syria?
> I'm constantly in awe by the power of western propaganda, the bigotry and lack of knowledge and respect from people who consider themselves and their culture as the pinnacle of human civilisation.
The "west" is too big and too different for a single propaganda thread - that's just an old soviet thought pattern, that the USA controls everyone. And again, here comes the "russophobia" narrative.
Let that sink in into the "russophobia": No one in Western countries cared about NATO until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 (so after Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine in 2014), and the vast majority didn't even know what the point of it was. Russia was supplying energy to German industry, with prospects of expansion. And China, with the Belt & Road initiative linking China to Europe. These are just a few things that were going on before the biggest strategic blunder in modern Europe - and you refuse to see this. In fact, you choose to think it was the other way around lol
> COVID dropped US life expectancy by about 2 years.
It was a temporary blip. The most recent life expectancy numbers, published last month by the CDC, show that the life expectancy in the US rebounded, and it is at a historical all time high, for both sexes:
It’s because the soviets were investing the full output of their nation in the military and space program to sprint forward on that front. While the U.S. was doing all that as just a side hustle.
The Soviets tried to transition from an economy focused on war and heavy industry to a consumer oriented economy, and they failed massively. See the book 'Building a ruin'.
They never actually put a full effort into building a consumer oriented economy.
The authorities would say something about a new food program or a housing program but only as motivational goals. Main players always saw getting people less economically dependent on the state as a major threat.
Making people economically miserable was never a goal, but when building consumer economy would start showing promise the state would reestablish control (see for example Kosygin reforms).
Exactly; the Soviet Union famously tried to reform its political institutions before reforming its economy. The Chinese looked at that and decided never to reform their political system.
I'm not sure the Soviets ultimately ever really tried to make the transition, when confronted with the reality that the ruling dogma that they represented no longer worked, they couldn't handle the collapses in the periphery.
Also see the 'lost years' of the Japanese economy, or the Chinese as they try to make the transition now.
It is terribly hard, but the USSR had their heads well in the sand at that point.
Just one thing: the western semiconductors went illegally to Soviet Union through German Democratic Republic. That’s why area about Dresden is called Silicon Saxony and from my viewpoint is doing fine right now. There was no Intel in Soviet Union. No Traitorous eight. Only talented guys trying to copy last generation western parts or working on workarounds while the west was innovating. The backwardness accumulated in Soviet Union over time in semiconductor design and manufacturing areas and the whole industry became obsolete. You couldn’t see it in the other side of the pond or Iron Curtain. Many novel Soviet things were happening outside of current russia. I think, Ukraine was big in ship and plane building, but that’s not my domain.
The USSR spent its demographic and industrial transition on this. When you have a booming population and a low industrial base, you can squeeze the people a lot harder: they still see that their lives are improving and the lives of their children will improve even more. This means you can continuously consume their savings via inflation, stoking the national economy.
South Korea famously did this very well, turning from a war-torn former dominion of Japan into an industrial and cultural powerhouse.
The Soviets went all-in on building a military-industrial complex without growing their civilian economy, basically eating all the gains their growing population provided. Very charitably, you could say they went all-in, expecting to win the conflict with the West and get their economies "for free", but badly miscalculated their chances.
Ah yes, the good old “everything good from the Soviet Union was because of non-Russian soviets and everything bad about was because of the Russian soviets”. It’s astounding that open bigotry is tolerated here.
Just wait 10 years. If the EU decides not to forget this Ukrainian war then the EU will not do business with Russia for a generation. In that case Russia will be proper fucked.
then just read some history books from different perspectives and make you own conclusions. it's rather baffling to see how many tech people on hn are die hard believers of old clichés and western war propaganda.
Westerner's fascination with russia is what baffles me.
Only 'special' weapon russia has is a disregard to human life westerners can't even comprehend for some reason. They call it 'winter' or some other silly thing. All their 'achievements' can be traced to inhumane treatment of enslaved peoples. Whatever achievement you think russia had - you just just lift the top soil, no need to dig deep, to be absolutely disgusted by what it was built on.
Ukraine is not weaker, it is smaller. Big difference. It was a powerhouse of the USSR, producing majority of talent. Be it in Ukraine or deported to Siberia. Russia is, and always was, a parasite on other peoples.
Why would it? The 'much weaker neighbour' in question and other satellites did most of the work on these kinds of projects. Korolev was Ukrainian, they launched from Kazakhstan. The most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov, are Ukrainian. Odessa shipyard was the main ship manufacturer.
One of the mistakes in viewing Russia/USSR is applying similar social/cultural patterns typical for the Western civilization. But they are a very different culture and mentality.
Their space achievements are an impressive proof of how far one can go in faking progress at scale by massive technology theft, enslavement, and violence. You can really achieve a lot this way! Rockets and nuclear devices have been designed by captured Nazi scientists and imprisoned engineers (later designs by home-grown engineers have been largely based on those designs). Key technologies were not invented but stolen, copied, and reverse-engineered. Factories designed and built by US design bureaus (before WW2). Cheap labour provided by enslaved peasants who didn't even have the freedom to move to a big city. Borders closed to prevent brain outflow. And lots lots of violence against their own people just for the sake of "looking like a global power".
And since it was always fake, no major technology went out of the USSR and became widespread globally such as computers, networks, internet, software stacks, protocols, etc. Nothing major and widely useful came out of the USSR or post-USSR Russia.
So what you see with Russia happening now, is just the bubble popping. Long due.
You're not surprised the same happened to every other large empire in history, but the USSR baffles you? What about the British Empire? Dutch? France? Austria-Hungary, ffs? The same will happen to the US one day.
Despite what some of the replies say, it isn't because of their fall, but because we beleived the stories of their rise.
In the 1960s, some American economists were starting to argue & beleive that "communism" was just a better economic model. Then it all came to a crashing halt.
Once you get past the basics of industrialising serfs, ie they started from a sadly much lower starting point than most Western economies of the time, and account for the compound growth the West had gone through in the 18th & 19th centuries, and then are finally able to look past their Potemkin villages of the 20th century, they were left with no way to proceed. No market signals, no major improvements in consumption. Yes, they had a large (miltary focused) industrial sector, and a large primary economy (as they do now), but their bureaucracy, nepotism & corruption were always going to catch up with them.
Without economic growth, as they got through the 'easy' phases of industrialisation, the periphery was always going to be a problem, then the core.
I'm not sure the "fully dependent on China" slight is needed though, as it could apply to a good chunk of the West at this point. Still, as Europe has learnt with reliance on Russia, these things can be at least factored in.
Let me remind you of three things:
1) This weaker neighbor is aided and funded by a block of countries with a total population of 1b, 6 times that of Russia.
2) The same block is doing all it can to crash the Russian economy.
3) Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
Because your first comment is inflammatory, and wrong.
Ukraine is far from being a "weaker neighbor" – it's proven to have more of a backbone than all of NATO.
And that "loosing land" part which seems so compelling: those are strategic withdrawals, forcing russians to haemorrhage men and equipment for Pyrrhic advances. Right now, those advances are being reversed: AFU is making significant gains around Zaporizhzhia, and massing troops near Kharkiv for possibly another major offensive.
1. Ukraine is merely a manforce provider. NATO does everything else.
2. Loosing land is pure math. About 500 sq.km per month, often more. Ukrainian advances remain to be an illusion.
> Yes, extensively aided and funded, no matter how you try to avoid this fact
I literally gave you the number, this is the fact: West has provided less than percent of their economies over 5 years.
> Russia has more sanctions applied that any country ever did.
That's what attacking your neighbour does, yes. And it's far, far from 'all it can' part.
> Still it is Russia gaining land and NATO ally, which runs on NATO money and NATO weapons, retreating.
Russia took less than percent of Ukrainian soil every year after initial shock gains. This is hilariously bad performance for the great power that fights against donated scraps. It's not even high end tech (F-35s, last gen Euro-fighters).
> NATO has arrived indeed. NATO ally (or protectorate) has huge and obvious manpower loss.
You seem to believe the West is doing very little to help Ukraine. You say they only contribute a tiny fraction of their economy, but you ignore that that fraction is coming on top of their own budgets which are already quite constrained as well as increased spending on their own militaries due to the situation + pressure by the US, and that many countries, especially Germany, lost an enormous amount of money by becoming severely less competitive after rejecting Russian oil and gas , which had made energy prices much lower before the war.
What do you think Europe can do more? Do you support tax hikes to allow more money to be sent? Do you want a direct military involvement and are you prepared to be drafted, or have your children be, to the front lines, even if that means direct attacks by drones/missiles on many of your cities in retaliation ?
Most people answer no to those questions, otherwise they would be demanding that and in a democracy people do get what they want if the majority agrees, yet we don’t see anyone in Europe going to the streets or even signing major petitions or anything like that!
GP said Western block (+1bn people) are fighting with Ukrainians against Russians which is factually incorrect. Everything in your comment about my assumptions is just a figment of your imagination.
> Do you support tax hikes to allow more money to be sent? Do you want a direct military involvement and are you prepared to be drafted, or have your children be, to the front lines, even if that means direct attacks by drones/missiles on many of your cities in retaliation ? Most people answer no to those questions, otherwise they would be demanding that and in a democracy people do get what they want if the majority agrees, yet we don’t see anyone in Europe going to the streets or even signing major petitions or anything like that!
I see, another one. I must've rattled the hive with my comment, haha.
NATO is not involved at all. If NATO got involved the conventional war in the Ukraine would be over in less than a year (and maybe a nuclear war would start …)
NATO is involved by both weapons and money.
These are main things that let a war go on.
Ukraine's role is a limited and minor one: providing manpower.
(NATO also provides some manpower, BTW).
‘[weapons and money] these are the main things that let a war go.’ - your reply is not serious. Your reply did not include manpower as the main thing in war.
The fact that Russia's leadership has the same kind of borderline delusional take on Ukraine and its army is, ironically, a significant reason why Russia's army has been so hilariously bad on the battlefield against Ukrainians, considering the hugely lopsided advantage in resources. I'm all for it, keep it up!
Moreover, NATO is justified to do whatever it takes to keep Russia from auctioning its stockpile. That means protecting it from internal collapse, not winning too decisively, even benefitting Putin when necessary. With START falling apart, Russia lost a tool that was buying some time.
> Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
Last I saw (this weekend), the union of Ukraine+friends, was losing land at about 50-75 metres a day.
As well as bopping off 35,000 enemy combatants a month off the 2026 Christmas party list.
And russia can't (or haven't) matched those losses with recruitment.
a single soldier, perhaps two, sent 20km into opposing territory (the advance, the territory gained) doesn't mean actually controlling the ground. Just ask Vlad.
If Russia looses 35000 a month, why does Ukraine:
a) Loose land and cities constantly
b) Mobilize people brutally on streets
c) Keep its bordera closed for men
That's the type of stuff that happens when you're at war. Would you rather Ukraine fight this war with the intent to lose? Russia is fighting to win, why can't Ukraine?
So Russia has catastrophic losses yet there's no mobilization.
Ukraine is said to loose very few men, yet they have to beat people on streets to mobilize them.
Meanwhile, Russian borders are open.
Dude, I was always told that Russia could just roll to Berlin because of all the remaining might of the Soviet Union. I read books by authors like Tom Clancy that lionized Russian might.
And here we are in 2026. An inconsequential country like Ukraine only has to beat people up in the streets and close their borders for men and they can reduce the speed of the Russian bear to meters per day. Make sure all your nukes are working, cause clearly not much else is impressive in your military.
Oh no, allies come to the aid of their allies! China, Iran, and North Korea are more than happy to supply your country, but they're not interested in doing it as loans and gifts. Funny how Russia's incapable of having true long-term allies. Like it's rotten or something.
You’re not even trying to troll properly, are you? Jesus, it takes like a second to find that Ukraine’s population pre war was ~40 mil, Russia’s population ~140 mil. Active personal in Ukraine was ~200k, in Russia ~900k. So ~3x population and ~4x military force. And that is ignoring weapon and turf superiority, huge advantage of first hit and the West dragging their feet.
Russian army is a complete joke. Russia is a raketeer with nukes.
Not even close :) the US handed over equipment it was going to destroy. If the US put 20% into Ukraine as it did into Iraq the war would be over in Ukraine's favor
The 1990s happened.
And a lot happened in the last quarter century, so you should update yor world model (preferably without resorting to MSM propaganda).
As to why why Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are sticking together, it is because they they don't want to hang separately.
As to why the West has lost its proxy war against a petty regional player, that is something for the history books.
I hope for the same, but it's based on the assumption that space exploration will be human-driven. Unfortunately it's possible that it will be robot-driven instead and museums will stay on earth.
I seriously doubt we will stay on earth like that. Humans have always been explorers and pioneers. You can only look at something through a screen for so long before you get the itch that you cant scratch through a screen. Humans will inevitably leave this planet.
Robots on other planets is a rough process. Most planets, lacking atmosphere, have dust that gets EVERYWHERE, and its really bad for mechanical, electrical operations. The moon has a static charge that causes the regolith powder to seep into the smallest cracks. Humanoid robots will not last long, and all other forms are just a single failure from uselessness. Until they can either self-repair, or repair others (meaning n+1 minimum robots sent), it will not be useful for long exploration. And, honestly, id be pretty worried to find robots that could self-repair or repair others. Thats just a small step away from self-replication, and that leads down other scary paths.
Please no — I hope that all these landers and probes are left in place. Ideally with an exclusion zone around them to keep the landscape pristine. (We don't want a bunch of tourists messing up the first footprints on the moon, for example.)
How come there's not more sattelites around the moon taking high resolution, high zoom photos to for example find this object? We can see beachball-sized objects on consumer-available photos (e.g. google maps/earth), and that's from over 100 km up through an atmosphere. I guess the answer is "nobody paid for it" but still.
While the ore other factors that make Lunar observation satellites harder to do and more expensive (harder to communicate with due to distance, different thermal environment, no protection from radiation by the Van Allen belts, etc.) one big issue is that low Lunar orbit is by default unstable:
Basically the gravitational field of the Moon is "lumpy", resulting in deceleration of low orbiting bodies as they are pulled around in orbit, until they crash into the surface.
There might still be dead probes from the 1960s/1970s orbiting Mars, but there are no inactive spacecraft orbiting around the Moon. There are now some specific orbits known that you can place a spacecraft in to reduce the effects but I don't think even that works to 100% percent efficiency & thing will still go down quite quickly of you loose control and can't do course corrections.
Most high resolution "satellite" imagery on Google Maps etc is actually stitched from photographs taken from cameras attached to small aeroplanes which fly at a low altitude even compared to commercial flights let alone 100km.
There are a few high resolution satellites but there frame is very small and not suited for complete coverage. If they are geostationary they cant look anywhere, or they have to look at an angle giving oblique photos. If they are moving then they are only over the part of the earth once per several days (weeks/months?)
So while these images of the landers are from a satellite orbiting the moon, the satellite is orbiting with an eccentric polar orbit, and the images it takes may be perfect for it's mission but might not be good enough to identify small 1960's landers.
> There are a few high resolution satellites but there frame is very small and not suited for complete coverage. If they are geostationary they cant look anywhere, or they have to look at an angle giving oblique photos. If they are moving then they are only over the part of the earth once per several days (weeks/months?)
Pleiades Neo advertises 30cm resolution with possibility for twice a day visits for a location. They are operating on sun-synchronous orbits with afaik global coverage. They also advertise that they can capture up to 2 million km² daily. So Earth imaging satellites are pretty good these days.
That being said, it is true that Google Maps etc heavily rely on aerial imagery instead of satellites.
missions to examine space craft that have been in space/moon for decades could be quite profitable, as these will provide engineering feedback as to what parts are still operable and how things failed and what might be done to effect repairs, as this is how aviation reached the level of reliability that it enjoys today, but with space bieng even less forgiving.
We are getting lots of data about operations in LEO, and some from Mars, but the moon is tough, too much dust,no atmosphere, not enough gravity, and very wide temperiture/radiation swings that last for weeks,and actualy more difficult to build for than mars or leo.
