China has placed themselves in a very good position as they are now pretty much the only ones that can sell technology to Russia, and, because of Russia's pariah status, I think that some of those contracts for energy that were put in place during the Olympics will be renegotiated in China's favor, as Russia has put themselves in a position where they can be squeezed by the remaining states that are willing to do business with them.
Maybe the US should do the same with their European allies (by encouraging them build an independent defense instead of toying with each country's interest at the expense of a strong EU that could keep Russia in check and allow the US to fully focus on China).
>> I think that some of those contracts for energy that were put in place during the Olympics will be renegotiated in China's favor, as Russia has put themselves in a position where they can be squeezed by the remaining states that are willing to do business with them.
> China is smart enough not to weaken their allies, when they need them to weight against their rivals.
This. I think China's going to chase after after raw power and advantage, not a derivative like those things like money. Money is for little people to scramble after (and even billionaires are little people at the scale of great powers).
Fun fact, China has greater gdp per capita than Russia(nominal, Russia is still ahead in in ppp).
Russia gdp per capita for 2020 was $10,127
China gdp per capita for 2020 was $10,500
Their descend into mineral rich vassal state of china seems inevitable. I wonder how much effect the economic transformation/collapse in the 90s had. They lost the status, economy, respect/fear, rule of law. Military and resources is about the only thing left. And military doesn’t look too great.
Anyway, lesson for the future: don’t rely on “invisible hand” and optimism to transform economy. China did it correctly, Russia didn’t.
I've lived in both and the difference between them is even starker in person. So much of Russias wealth is concentrated in so few hands. The median Chinese is doing so immeasurably better and that gap will only grow.
Russias a nuclear power which counts for a lot on the world stage but economically the country is in terrible shape even before the sanctions.
Russias economy is about the size of Spain tho that doesn’t account for the shadow economy run by the oligarchs but even that is probably negligible compared to the scale of national economies.
Russia is piss poor and it’s probably the best example of how much the wealth of a nation is dependent on its government and its civic institutions.
Russia isn’t just rich in a single resource and it has a highly educated and culturally rich society.
It has all the ingredients to be the most prosperous nation on the planet and yet nearly ever since it’s inception as a state (and I mean every iteration of it) it has had its head so high up its ass that it’s a world power nearly solely due to its remarkable ability to fail upwards.
China has about 10x Russia's population and from what you're saying about 10x the economy (and the economic gap is bound to increase)... So it's clear that any alliance and close relationship between Russia and China will turn out like the US and its allies, i.e. with the larger side firmly in charge.
I think at the moment China's objective has to be to maintain 'stability' in Russia. Indeed, it's clear that the West's play in the war in Ukraine is to attempt to destabilise Russia to the point that Putin is toppled, with the obvious objective to replace him him with a weak, Western-friendly (and not China-friendly) leader. Clearly China will not want that to happen.
> Fun fact, China has greater gdp per capita than Russia(nominal, Russia is still ahead in in ppp).
>Russia gdp per capita for 2020 was $10,127 China gdp per capita for 2020 was $10,500
Why is there such a huge discrepancy between the PPP adjusted numbers? My impression is that lower GDP countries tend to have their PPP adjusted up because the price of goods in those countries are also cheaper. However, china and russia have similar nominal GDPs. Are goods just super expensive in China for some reason?
I would not say there’s an abundance of farmland. Yes, it’s quite big, but most of the Russian territory actually has quite extreme climate conditions, not suitable for farming. And even good farmland is actually abandoned, which always surprised me. I was travelling by car from Saint Petersburg to Sochi every summer till 2016. Huge areas filled with nothing but weeds, or even worse — toxic and hard to eradicate hogweed. So food there usually a little bit cheaper (not much) just because it’s a lot lower quality.
Russia didn't do "“invisible hand” and optimism", they did laissez faire "no rules" capitalism and rapacious (eventually oligarchic) cronyism at scale.
The hand was an administrative machine that changed the appearance but none of the core substance of how the nation ran; Putin's very existence as a scion of that very machine bears that out. I still suspect that should he fall from power before he wishes to, it will be because a bunch of unknown "Putins" in a bureaucratic machine that do the actual heavy lifting will decide he's a become a liability, much as he did when rising to power in the first place.
> Russia didn't do "“invisible hand” and optimism", they did laissez faire "no rules" capitalism and rapacious (eventually oligarchic) cronyism at scale.
Most Invisible Hand models sketch that if each consumer is allowed to choose freely what to buy and each producer is allowed to choose freely what to sell and how to produce it, the market will settle on a product distribution and prices that are beneficial to all the individual members of a community, and hence to the community as a whole.
In Russian-style cronyism, the freedom of producers in particular was corrupted by the need to pay heed to everyone with political muscle. No sensible producer who valued personal safety would compete with the mining company of an oligarch in a development, for example.
the former can take any number of forms, the latter is a very specific set of political arrangements that leverage the former, but aren't bound by it either (hence why so many Russian oligarchs were putting their money in various other jurisdictions, in any number of legal, if altogether off-putting ways...like buying UK football teams, swathes of residential and commercial properties, etc.
It's baffled me for years that Russia is making such an obvious geopolitical mistake by not becoming an EU style country aligned in that direction. Culturally, Russia and China are dramatically different and Russia is going to end up as a glorified North Korea under its current leadership. Putin and his cronies just want to loot all that they can while they can.
There is nothing to be baffled about. There was a time when Russia would have gladly joined the EU and or NATO but they were rebuffed. Why? The real reason is Russia united with Europe would enable a true Eurasian competitor to the USA to arise. The subjugation of Europe by the United States seven decades after the 2nd world war is rather pathetic.
After the fall of communism there was a time when western Eurasia could have united. But some people deliberately stoked nationalism (in Yugoslavia, the Baltics, etc) so it was not to be. The war in Ukraine is a late repercussion of this path taken.
The idea that Putin is in it for the money is stupid. When you control a nation state for life money doesn't matter much.
Money is a proxy for power for those lacking real power.
"The real reason is Russia united with Europe would enable a true Eurasian competitor to the USA to arise." -- this is plainly ridiculous.
Russia was not able to join the EU at the time due to its oligarchy and systemic corruption, very weak democratic institutions, lack of understanding and enforcement of some basic human rights. It was clearly incompatible with the EU values and has actually severely degraded in that regard since then.
"Russia was not able to join the EU at the time due to its oligarchy and systemic corruption, very weak democratic institutions, lack of understanding and enforcement of some basic human rights. It was clearly incompatible with the EU values and has actually severely degraded in that regard since then."
All these apply to an even greater extent in Ukraine.
> Why? The real reason is Russia united with Europe would enable a true Eurasian competitor to the USA to arise.
You have to be joking, have you been in Russia and EU countries at the time? Europe an Russia are incompatible always been, always will be. Ukraine is a culturally European country because for centuries it has been egalitarian autonomous and self sufficient, since the times of Ukranian Cossacks. Russia and Muscovy culture is authoritarian, so it's that simple.
You have to be joking. Ukraine has existed as a "country" only for a few decades.
The very name means borderland. Pull up a map from 1930 show me the country Ukraine? How about 1830? How about 1730 (then a big part was still under the Turks). How about 1630?
America has existed as a country longer than Odessa has been a city.
The USA certainly tried to, but were rebuffed by the superpower of the time, Britain.
Anyway, back on topic, I don't think the corruption in Ukraine can be denied. Its every hit as bad as in Russia, and it could also be a wealthy country.
It's slightly more democratic than Russia, but only slightly.
Trust me, most of former eastern block hasn’t been much better. Mine country certainly lacked it. There were no laws against most of the stuff that happened. You took a loan and had no collateral? Perfectly fine.
90s was the second biggest theft of last century(after commie nationalization/theft). All wealth concentrated in hands of few who then use the economic power as a leverage over politics.
I am pretty sure we got saved by EU, otherwise whole eastern block would be similar to Ukraine/Russia/Moldavia. EU forced a lot of laws and reforms that really helped and were needed.
Many comments here are speculating on future China exploitation of Russia as a result of this situation.
On Twitter there has been a discussion about several high-profile Russian government and private individuals who may each have a motive to assassinate Putin. Unfortunately I couldn't find the link to it, but as an example, here are a couple recent incidents[0][1] showing a divide between Putin and the FSB.
I wonder if risk of this China-Russia relation will contribute to any such motivations, and if so, to what degree.
EDIT: Poignant comment from the YouTube video showing an exchange between the FSB head and Putin: "Sergei is giving off the vibes that Putin is the only one who knows where his wife and kids are"
> EDIT: Poignant comment from the YouTube video showing an exchange between the FSB head and Putin: "Sergei is giving off the vibes that Putin is the only one who knows where his wife and kids are"
It's a spectacle, most of the stuff Putin puts on video are just smoke and mirrors
China is going to take all the resources Russia can offer and benefit form it, Russia has just cemented itself as a second rate state on par with those in Africa that China is currently plundering. Congratulations Putin, you played yourself.
Someone has pointed out that in Qing dynasty china has about 12m sq Km not only 9.7m sq Km, mostly lost to Russia through unfair treaties (possibly except the first one). Good luck when Russia is a junior partner.
Russia is more than just a petrostate to become vassalized. They have the largest nuclear arsenal and an advanced Military-Industrial Complex. Its true that they will be more dependent on Chinese financing but its unlikely that they will be beholden to China the same way Saudis are with the US.
It's an asset in that other countries either invading or dealing internally with civil wars get no fly zones instituted on them when they don't have nukes.
That's true - but how does that put bread on the table? (With the possible exception of invading other countries to steal their bread - which we can see isn't working out great for them right now).
Or creating a walled garden that is safe to play in and then take the usual 30% "app store" premium. I am not suggesting this in the context of Russia here, but in general. A state that has the military power to impose order in places where it is scarce may create value. An example could be a peaceful middle east that produces more and some of that goes to the one who maintains peace and makes everybody abide by the rules.
> They have plenty of bread, they're a net exporter of food.
Bread, soon that will be the only thing they will be able to eat. And as we speak they are destroying bread factories of Ukranian people.
There goes a joke, the Russian finds Aladdin's Magic Lamp. The Genie comes out and says: you have only one wish, I'll grant anything and the Ukrainian gets double of the same wish. The Russian thinks, then says: poke my eye out.
They certainly did have one at one point - but don't let memories of the cold war taint your view. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been extremely inept and most of that lack of competence is the fact that the military-industrial funding levels established by the USSR were unsustainable by the USSR and Russia has been completely unable to match them while being robbed left and right by oligarchs.
Sure it may not be the best but they’re still pretty good.
I would also want to be careful about differentiating between Russian military performance and the effectiveness of its MIC. Russian Military failures seem to be largely tactical; their weapon systems seem to be working as expected.
Given the state of their military, I wouldn't doubt that the majority of those are a bigger risk to Russia than to anyone else
> and an advanced Military-Industrial Complex
Kinda. Still dependent on some western technologies. But yes they could help China in some aspects. (just don't get surprised when China doesn't respect IP exchange contracts)
> Given the state of their military, I wouldn't doubt that the majority of those are a bigger risk to Russia than to anyone else
Yea, I kinda wonder about the state of those weapons, considering how much effort and money has to go into maintenance for nuclear weapons. Are most of them even functional at this point? Even a tiny bit of neglect can cause nuclear warheads and the components for ICBMs (and other advanced weapons) to degrade and become nearly unusable.
Certainly a trajectory that looks and feels very likely now.
But if China tries to wrap the cord too tight around Russia... tries to salami slice Siberia or something like that... it may find itself the prime target of Russia's ire.
And the ballistic missile flight times between Russia and China are a little bit of a different story than US-Russia.
The only case that China would be interested in Siberia (and it is extremely far fetched) is if Russia became an enemy state that refused to trade with China. Otherwise China can get whatever it wants from Siberia from mutually beneficial trade.
I will also note for thousands of years that China except for the brief period when it was a part of the Mongol empire has never expanded beyond its basic territory, i.e. limited by the extent of rice agriculture.
These memes (Putin is in it for the money, China covets Siberia) are basically Reddit tier thinking in my opinion.
Indeed, we're basically watching the real-time implosion of a super-power (if Russia could've been called that), and Chinese institutions will own just about every bit of intangible (and soon tangible) infrastructure that matters.
In his drive to reconstruct the USSR, Putin may have just given that mandate for a communist super-power and counterbalance to the United States to the CCP instead.
Yes, they could have. For a long time, they absolutely were. In the sense that their arsenal is still operational and capable of mass death, it still is. But that is the only way that they remain a super-power.
This is a war of attrition where Ukraine gets enormous supplies from rich Western countries for free, but Russia cannot replenish any equipment loss. No one will sell them new Soviet-style helicopters and fighter jets that their pilots are qualified to fly.
Every piece of heavy equipment that is destroyed with Javelins, NLAWs and Stingers is an irreplaceable loss for the attacking army. Unlike defense, you cannot sustain your attack if your offensive equipment gets blown into pieces or runs out of fuel.
This will end in a collapse of massive proportions.
This is just false; the only way you could say russia is failing badly to conquer ukraine is if you only read the ukrainian government's PR releases. It's been like a week and a half; even the Americans took a longer time to go through the extremely weakened state of Iraq in 2003. I get supporting ukraine but there's no need to fall for delusional war propaganda, just look at the map and tallies of confirmed casualties (for example we only have proof of 2 actual russian air losses, a far cry from the 35-40 claimed by the ukrainian side). It's totally counterproductive and does not help the ukrainian side to be so wildly optimistic when the situation on the ground isn't.
Interesting, oryx has usually been very reliable in the past but there are a few glaring discrepancies in his list. I can see at least a few pictures of double counted losses, and there seems to be comments on that in the article too. For example they show the gear of a downed pilot as proof of a shutdown aircraft (which is true!) But also show the wreckage of the plane he ejected from as another air loss...
The AN transport plane loss is also contested from what ive seen elsewhere. They also don't seem to be listing most confirmed ukrainian losses but that does not necessarily discredit their russian list
But yes it seems my own figure was wrong and outdated by a few days, yet even in the best case scenario we are a very very far cry from the ukrainian figures. It's really not even close, considering they claimed 25 aircraft kills a week ago and most of those pictures are from the past 3 days
A) The Russians absolutely have second sources for era Soviet equipment.
B) Their factories were the original source for a lot of this equipment. Russia is still the second largest arms dealer in the world, only behind the US. I'm sure Putin has no problem delaying export shipments if it comes to that in a "pray I don't alter the deal further" kind of way. And buying back some of his past customers' arms for a deal on future sales is probably something that could be made to happen.
I read that Russias manufacturing capabilities were already suffering before the war (possibly due to the covid supply chain issues, not sure), and that they are likely a few months out from being able to get manufacturing capacity to a level that could replace current losses (and may not even be able to due to sanctions).
Also, there are videos going around on twitter of Russian trains loaded with civilian cars and trucks supposedly headed to the front line. Assuming those videos are true, that means Russia is running out of military equipment. It is certainly possible that they are doing this for strategic reasons (maybe civilian vehicles use less gas, so easier to support logistically, etc..). But either way, this doesn't look good for them.
They don't need to immediately replace them. Russia has lost about a hundred tanks. They have nearly 13,000. They've lost about a dozen Su-27s, they have about 500.
And I'm a little more afraid for Ukraine having seen those civilian cars. It feels like Russia is going to start playing very dirty during the upcoming siege of Kiev. It sort of evens the playing field if the defenders also have to watch their backs everytime an unmarked civilian car drives by. It's a dirty move right out of Russia's playbook.
In the videos I saw, the cars were marked with the "Z". So at least for those particular vehicles, dirty tricks may be out of the question.
One other possible advantage is that Ukraine soldiers might be reluctant to fire anti-tank missiles at civilian vehicles from long range (I assume that the markings would be hard to see from that distance). And the missiles might cost more than the vehicles themselves, so might be a waste regardless. Small arms fire would probably be sufficient to stop the vehicles, but that would have to happen at closer range. So maybe the idea is that they can get in closer to the engagement point before receiving fire. Also, they can probably move faster and use less fuel, which considering their logistic challenges might actually be the main motivation.
So yeah, I could see this being strategic and not a desperation move. But either way, not the best look for their military. Hard to justify all of that spending on advanced hardware if at the end of the day they end up using civilian vehicles.
You can repaint a car about as easily as you can put a Z on it. And the Z on the train means that a conscript doesn't take lot shots at it just because they missed that the first few cars had a Z on them.
How many of those 13 000 tanks and 500 Su-27s are in deployable condition?
The former Soviet Union was excellent in production of impressive statistics, but the reality on the ground didn't quite match. And the Soviet way of thinking is very much alive in Putin's power circles. It is cheaper to produce impressive numbers than to actually take good care of equipment, and some people will swallow those numbers without thinking twice.
Westerners from well-run countries tend to trust government figures. This may work in Sweden or even in the USA, but in case of Russia, consider every published statistics as suspect.
If China aids Russia they may see the same sanctions Russia does, the CCP above all else wants the Chinese GDP to continue to grow. Maybe in 50 years if China becomes a wealthy nation they might start throwing stones but for now, they benefit from playing both sides and letting Russia get weakened and desperate.
We can't sanction China like that. We need too much of what they produce. The only thing that Russia produces that the West needs is oil and gas, which has not been sanctioned.
Also wheat, some rare metals and maybe even electricity soon if they are able to retain control over Ukraine NPPs (well only if EU considers them green enough).
We are watching them attack Ukraine. Whether or not they'll be able to conquer it is up in the air, and seeing how things are going, I'd bet against it.
You haven't been watching the war, have you? Russia can't even take Kyiv or Kharkiv even though they're pretty close to the Belarus and Russian borders...
Why would Russia want to start with extremely costly urban combat when the ukrainian forces are still a coherent fighting force? I get that it doesn't look good from a reddit-war perspective, but it would have been absolutely suicidal to go for the 2 biggest cities before encircling them or roughing up the ukrainian army first. This isn't a video game where you go for the capital city capture, and Russia isn't fighting a Twitter war. You can focus on the cities all you want, but the reality is that Russia is more interested in encircling cities while they mop up the entire country side; just look at how they have operated around mariupol.
Those are 2 massively populated cities, and the much much better American forces had a very hard time fighting much weaker opponents in fallujah 17 years ago. If you support the ukrainian side, you should stress how critical the situation is on the ground instead of downplaying how bad it is on the ground to make the russians look weak on the internet.
> Why would Russia want to start with extremely costly urban combat when the ukrainian forces are still a coherent fighting force?
Did you not pay attention to the first weekend of fighting? Your analysis is correct but the Russians did try to take the 2 largest cities right away. There's massive wrecked convoys outside both Kyiv and Kharkiv.
And it was extremely costly. And now the Russians look extremely weak.
And now they're slowly making progress doing what you think they should to win. And they will win if the Russian oligarchs and military support them until the end. But that last point is a huge question mark.
They tried to take the gostomel airport, and pushed toward kiev but didn't make actual efforts into pushing beyond the suburbs. The gostomel operation was costly but AFAIK they still hold the airport. The convoys being wrecked are again either unconfirmed or didn't seem to massively alter their progression on that front. Obviously the russians are still taking a lot of losses, but imo it's not nearly close enough to stall them in any significant manner.
(I'd have also expected the russians the be doing way way worse, since the ukrainian army has still been pretty throughouly trained by western advisors in the past 7 years. And after the mess that was the 2008 georgian war, I thought the russian army to be far less capable than the relatively professional army we have seen since they invaded.)
I have not see any effort to actually push through kiev or Kharkov. If anything the push for Kharkov only happened mid last week, and most of the actually important events have been on the crimean/southern front .
>I'd have also expected the russians the be doing way way worse, since the ukrainian army has still been pretty throughouly trained by western advisors in the past 7 years. And after the mess that was the 2008 georgian war, I thought the russian army to be far less capable than the relatively professional army we have seen since they invaded.
That's a huge amount of territory gained, especially when you keep in mind that the russians invaded with roughly the same amount of men that Ukraine is defending it's territory with.
This would've been completely impossible back in 2008
I am sure Russia will win territory when they truly want to, I think the issue is how can they hold territory long term. perhaps they can slice the country up into manageable pieces such that insurgency doesn't render the conquest moot, but maybe not.
Agreed completely. I think that Russia will easily "win" militarily and it's foolish to think they are getting demolished in Ukraine but as you said I literally cannot see them holding the territory long term.
Not only because there will be an insurgency but also because the invasion was imo such a foolish, pointless and borderline suicidal move for Russia. the best hope for them and ukraine will be to pull out after "winning" and hopefully negotiate a truce where they don't occupy Ukraine but get the sanctions on them pulled off in exchange.
So far. One can be surprised they haven't taken these cities earlier, but I wouldn't bet Ukraine won't accept Putin's requests at some point in exchange for the end of the war. (commitment not to enter NATO/Europe + demilitarization + recognition of Crimea being part of Russia + independence of Donetsk and Luhansk republics). Neither NATO nor Europe wants to intervene and China will continue to support Russia to compensate for the sanctions.
> I wouldn't bet Ukraine won't accept Putin's requests at some point in exchange for the end of the war
Except in the negotiations in Belarus whose content hasn't been disclosed, Putin has never released terms that Ukraine alone could meet; his ultimatum before the war had most of its terms directed at NATO, not Ukraine, though the gun was pointed at Ukraine.
Presumably, terms for Ukraine alone would be much steeper to make up for what he won't be getting from NATO.
There is no way Ukraine accepts the same demands that Russia had at the start of the war. I think the most they'll give is recognize the territory Russia or separatists had at the start of the war, and that's only if Russia makes serious push on central Kyiv. No way they give up on NATO at this point knowing Russia could just do it again in a few years
Why change tactics when things are working out for NATO
The longer and more devastating the war, the better. Ukraine doesn't have to win for a NATO victory, russia just has to be damaged militarily and fanatically.
I would have agreed with you day one of the invasion but things have shifted dramatically. Now that so much of NATO has put its weight behind it, Ukraine must win. If Ukraine loses it shows how weak NATO is when it unites (which it has done as has been spoken about ad nausea in the media).
I think that is a valid point, but it also very clear to the public that NATO is not putting its full weight behind it, and that it is not willing to engage directly militarily.
I think the public barometer of success will be based more on damage to Russia, than the outcome for Ukraine. If people see Russia suffer for the invasion and know that NATO held back, they will tolerate the outcome
