The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

rsemmes

Active Member
It would be interesting compare wartime stimulation of the economy with pre WW2 Germany and present day Russia ,did Germany believe it had no choice to invade Russia because of being unable to scale back its military economy . Similarly how easy would it be for Russia to resume its normal economy without a military focus
No, Germany did not "believe" that and it had nothing to do with the invasion of the USSR. The German economy was still recovering, but Hitler wanted more guns than butter; and he was planning a war around 1942. Also, the "German efficiency" was pretty inefficient.
It would be as easy as the Marshall Plan, but in an inefficient, Russian way. I think that Russia will re-stock, first of all; then, it will try to increase its international arms sales and last, years later, redirect the economy. Obviously, some production will move away form weapons as soon as, a bit after, there is a peace agreement.
 

rsemmes

Active Member
RTVE (Spanish BBC):
"La alta representante de la Unión Europea (UE) para Asuntos Exteriores y Seguridad, Kaja Kallas, ha afirmado que, tras la llamada del lunes entre el presidente estadounidense, Donald Trump, y su homólogo ruso, Vladímir Putin, Rusia sigue sin querer la paz, y que no hay más alternativa a presionarle con más sanciones."

"El presidente ucraniano ha acusado a Rusia de jugar a ganar tiempo para poder continuar la guerra y la ocupación de territorio.
Zelenski ha dicho que Ucrania no tiene dudas de que la guerra debe terminar en una mesa de negociaciones, pero debe haber propuetas claras y creíbles, y ha pedido más sanciones internacionales para presionar a Rusia."

Kallas says that Russia doesn't want peace. (Russia proposed the latest negotiations, Kiev left).

Zelenski accuses Russia of playing at winning time to fight the war on. (There is no need for Russian games, Ukraine, even with a translator, abandoned the negotiations. As an example, the shape of the table was an issue during the Paris negotiations to end the American participation in the Vietnam war; the war ended two years later with a clear NVM victory.)

Zelenski is not asking NATO to fight this war for him anymore, just for more sanctions. I wonder if he is expecting some "divine wind" to end this war in his favour.
 

KipPotapych

Well-Known Member
It HAS been reported. If it hadn't been, how would I have heard it?
A lot has been reported.

The point is that over three years later the “investigation is ongoing”. Or the Odesa fire, over 11 years later crickets is all we hear. Conclusions are rather obvious, as they are to the UN, Ukrainian courts, those who follow even a little bit, etc.

Oh, & in English "rouge" ('roozh') is red cosmetics for the face. "Rouge" is French for "red". The word you want is "rogue".

Rouge (cosmetics) - Wikipedia
Oh, thanks. I had no idea!

Seriously?
 

swerve

Super Moderator
Looting hasn't been "novel" for more than 2.000 years.

Efficiency, not looting. The peak of German war production was 1944, it has nothing to do with looting. I never read that USSR was withholding materials, what I read was that USSR forwarded materials before schedule at German request; Germany wanted those deliveries sooner because it was going to invade.
Yes, Hitler was the issue. A leader who wants things to be just as he wants them to be just because of his will is always an issue.
Looting as a method to keep the economy of an industrialised country functioning was novel.

The 1944 peak depended on several million foreign workers, & raw materials obtained very cheaply (or free, i.e. looted) from occupied countries. And it was a bit dodgy, too. More aircraft than in previous years - but fewer multi-engine aircraft & more single-engine. Quality went down, e.g. compare the Pz IV Ausf J to the Ausf H, or the shoddy army uniforms of 1944 to early war uniforms. There are arguments about how to account for the lower quality of what was produced.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
On the subject of Germany, I would add that looting is a key feature of fascist regimes, be it over-exploitation of their own working class, looting a target minority, or picking an external target for looting. None of this helps modern Russia. The territories they have taken are in bad shape to begin with, suffered major war damage, and the territories and populations taken are dwarfed by the size of the Russian economy. In other words those benefits aren't available to Russia.
 

KipPotapych

Well-Known Member
Ukrainians are setting up their own “motorcycle units” (companies, in this case). I posted about similar reports concerning a different brigade not that long ago.



So this is becoming a thing, certainly not due to the failures that Russians reportedly experience in their meat motocavalry attacks. I also immediately remembered a brief discussion we had about Vitaly and his comments on this very subject. His comments from earlier today:



Funny how that works. This is the post where the discussion of his previous comments began: The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread. And to be fair, what the poster he is replying to said (imagine the outcry if we had seen US marines throwing themselves at [Russian] trenches and barbed wire while being torn apart by artillery) had actually happened in this war; not word for word, of course, but he would be surprised how close he got with his description (think the Chosen Company, the reports from or about which I cited here a several times).


In other news, Rubio (in the Congress hearing) stated today:

There is no military solution to this crisis. It will have to end in a negotiated settlement and the fundamental challenge we are having in Ukraine is this: Russia wants what they do not currently have and are not entitled to and Ukraine wants what they cannot regain militarily. And that’s been the crux of the challenge.

I don’t believe there was anything more common sense that came out from this administration. To expand on his thought, what happens if a year from now we are still talking about this exact same thing and both sides propose the exact same or similar enough “conditions”? Though I personally doubt it would be the same because there will likely be more land captured by Russia, Ukraine in a weaker spot (or worse), without the American support, but Russia may be facing challenges of their own, such as economy, alleged depletion of the Soviet stock, etc.

One can also say that words matter and “what they currently do not have” means that eventually they will/might and “cannot regain militarily” means that there will be no de-jure recognition now of the territories Ukraine had lost and the possibility of Ukraine getting them back is open or to be determined (this is basically what Zelensky said a few months ago; in fact should be word for word or very close, but I am not currently interested in looking for that quote).

Anyway, Rubio also mentioned that imposing more sanctions on Russia would be counterproductive at this time because they would stop talking. Trump had since confirmed this thought:



So far, this whole thing is playing out exactly as expected.


Next thing I wanted to mention is concerned with this idea of mine:

So next year, they will (presumably) be able to respond to a crisis in the Balkans or some third-world countries. This, in turn, suggests that there is also a very obvious incentive for Europe to stall the actual “peace talks” between Russia and Ukraine at this point, letting Ukraine get hammered while appeasing to Zelensky’s delusion and probably knowing full well that very significant concessions will have to be made in order to stop this war.


Of course, the guy is as pro-Ukraine as they come and surely had no intention of putting it the way I did, but the concept is very obvious here.


More things I wanted to include into this post, but gotta go.


Edit: Just realized I didn’t include a reference for the Rubio Cogress hearing. Well, while I took notes, I did not get the time stamps this time, apologies. The entire hearing can be listened to here:


Edit 2: a quick search provided a more sensible option for the reference:



Note that their quote is not precise, but mine is.
 
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