Whether you like it, or not, history is on our side. We will bury you
Because we all know the Soviet Union and Russia are exactly the same thing and the Russian military is definitely as powerful and as capable as the Soviet Union, no doubt. Please pay no attention to the complete lack of victory in Ukraine.
When has either the Soviet Union or Russia “won” anything in the last 150 years?
Their “win” in WWII was throwing as many bodies as possible and starving their own cities to delay the Germans long enough for winter to set in.
Soviet casualties were 4.5x higher than Axis casualties in operation Barbarossa. They lost 21k aircraft to 2800 for the Germans. 20k tanks destroyed vs 2700 for the Germans. And 4.5 million casualties compared to 1 million for the Germans.
I wouldn’t call that “burying” anyone. The biggest effect it had was weakening the Germans enough for the Allies to finish the job on the Western Front and bail the Soviets out.
The Soviets lost in Afghanistan in the 80s because of the US funding the Mujahideen.
Their biggest victory in the last century was taking Crimea because nobody else stepped up to help Ukraine like we are now.
Russia has nukes. That’s it. Beyond that they’re worthless militarily.
@echodot@MicroWave It should be noted that, despite Khrushchev's penchant for measuring penis size in megatonnes by proxy, he did not, in fact, bury much of anything.
I think they're at least partially right, Russia's strategy appears to be throw as many men at the problem to keep the front line stalemate going in the hopes the Western donations eventually dry up, then throw even more men at Ukraine until they can win. An obvious pyrrhic victory to most, but when did hundreds of thousands of deaths and a decimated economy ever trump expansionism for Putin and his cronies?
US GDP: $76339 per capita. x1.8% = 1374.102
UK GDP $45850 per capita x 0.4% = 183.4
RUS GDP $15607 per capita x 1.5% = 234.11
RU can expect growth, but their GDP is still shit. 1.5% growth puts the UK economy at just under 3x the Russian one. I know which currency I'd trust more and where (all other things being equal, which they're not) I'd invest.
It's not about your investment. The reality is that the war doesn't have any negative impact on Russia at the moment. And if the oil war will continue to progress the way it goes right now, the Russian economy will only get better.
We need to think about other measures if we want to help Ukraine, because sanctions don't do shit.
I disagree with your assessments - Russia is experiencing negative impact on a national level (they just grew NATO!) and on the personal level. Sanctions could be working better but are still effective, nonviolent methods to effect change. Add other measures to them, sure, but don't take them away as some sanctions (including older legislation like the Magnitsky act) target the exact people being dicks.