Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Exactly. The EU-China trade is wotrh around half a trillion per year, the US trade that again. Russia-China trade? Under 100 billion. Always follow the money. Never mind that the international money has frozen Russia out of leasing, financing, shipping and insurance for the foreseeable future and now nation state level economic funds like Blackrock have placed their chips on the Ukraine spot. It simply boils down to them seeing no profits in backing Russia.

Russians go on about how "only X% of the world" is actually against them, the problem for them it's the richest percentage and by a goodly margin and far more importantly the majority of international money is against them and has serious leverage with Russia's "friends". So of course China told putin to chill the hell out. If every nation in the UN abstained in the votes for/against Russia, so long as the money said nope, they'd still be screwed.

I would not accept that. Germany has some of the best tanks and artillery systems in the world.

In theory. They also have some of the best submarines and a long history in making them a deadly weapons programme(U-Boats frightened Churchill a lot more than the Luftwaffe did) and yet a few years ago not a single one of their submarine fleet was ready for sea.

3-500 main battle tanks? I love where you're getting your figures from. The Germans have only 260 in service in total and the service readiness of those is in doubt after years of a lack of funding to the Bundeswehr. And in the last few days the tank manufacturers themselves have sounded warnings about supply.

“Even if the decision to send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv came tomorrow, the delivery would take until the start of next year,” Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Rheinmetall, which manufactures the battle vehicle’s gun, has 22 Leopard 2 and 88 older Leopard 1 tanks in its stocks. Getting the Leopard tanks ready for battle, however, would take several months and cost hundreds of millions of euros the company could not put up until the order was confirmed, Papperger said. “The vehicles must be completely dismantled and rebuilt,” he added.

500 tanks is a complete fantasy. This is one area where the Russians have gotten the drop on Europe. Their tanks may be out of date turret tossers and mismanaged with little infantry support, but they have them and lots of them and the means to support them, or support them enough. The quality of numbers. A crappy tank in the field is better than no tank, or one that needs 100k and six months to rebuild to fighting trim and a support system that doesn't yet exist in theatre.

Nevermind that only a moron in Germany would send all or most of their tanks to a war in another country. Never mind that doing so would be pretty much a direct action by NATO, or seen as one. Proxy wars are delicate things. Both sides need the air of deniability.

The Americans are extremely well kitted up. They didn't drop the ball like Europe did. Still, I can't see Abrams any time soon and calls for stuff like F-16's are IMHO a joke. What they have done is send a useful number of actually useful Bradleys, ammo and support systems for them. Plus all the other systems and backroom intel they're providing the Ukrainians. They should make a real difference on the ground and with the least support footprint. Look what a dozen or so HIMARS did and how much the Russians loath them.