Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Russians make a beautiful little doll, it's called a Matryoshka doll, and what makes it different from other dolls is that inside the first one, there's another smaller one, and another, and another etc. and that describes Russia. Churchill's description or Russia is also pretty good. He called Russia a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. In my opinion, the degrading of Russia as a Country or State is gathering force. Regardless of the war being in a stalemate situation presently, (and that's only if you go by territory lost or gained) Putin cannot achieve his original goals. His personal bank (Russian Wealth) is diminishing rapidly, Russian infrastructure is failing (Heating in apartment blocks failing due to lack of maintenance, as the engineers are all in Ukraine, and the heating issue is only one of thousands of similar breakdowns across the Country) Again, memories of communist times, crowds queuing for food. If this was happening in any normal Country, there would have been revolution a long time ago, long before it even got to this stage or anything like it. But this is Russia, and to my mind, it's like a train on its tracks, it can travel only in the direction of the tracks (and these are communist tracks) it can of course change direction, but that means changing tracks. And that's the problem, Russians basically fear changing tracks.

On 1, I don't get why it is "ropey", given what Russia has done, once the needed legal mechanisms are carefully put in place to do it - effectively as another Western sanction on Russia. edit: that it will mostly go to US defence contractors is, I would say, a conspiracy theory. The plan was that it be used to rebuild Ukraine post war, given its very unlikely we'll ever see Russia pay a cent of reparations for wrecking the country.

Russia are at least as hostile now to Western countries as the Soviet Union was in most dangerous days of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1980s.

That hostility should be fully reciprocated, tit for tat, cutting off relations as much as possible and burning bridges down by the US and EU.

Not taking these assets as using them as see fit to damage Russia is continuing a foolish pretense that things can be normal or will go back to business as usual soon. They won't and are more likely to get worse and move closer to a war involving EU countries in coming years, especially if things go as poorly for Ukraine as you seem to think they will (don't share that view, and am more hopeful).

Afaik Putin has enacted laws to allow Russia to expropriate assets of Western companies that try to exit Russia - the ones that tried to ride it out are trapped now (can't leave without taking the hit and writing off everything).

Think some have been taken in hand and effectively stripped anyway, because what they were doing was considered essential, and Putin wanted him/his oligarchs to control it rather than having them likely on a go slow or a wind down under control or management of a Western company (maybe headquartered in an "unfriendly" nation) during the war.

Russia also pirated a few bn Eur of leased aircraft to keep its domestic aviation going under sanctions - this seems to be down the memory hole now though. They have no leg to stand on if wailing and crying foul about their Western assets being taken off them, if and when it happens it will be just a delayed response to their own actions, because the wheels move slower in countries that are democratic.

Ukraine and Russia are changing the nature of war, with the drone asymmetry and the cost of defending against them, also have you not seen how an Iran proxy/alliy can fck up global trade with drones/missiles? The US should be very worried about the can of worms they are helping to open.

The US are actively working on there own systems involving drones for the last 20 years and anti drone systems along with half of the world unfortunately Ukraine and Russia didn't change anything really other than using fpv drones more .

The US invented Drone strikes 🤦

There's currently nothing stopping individual countries sending money but the problem there is not every country can afford to send tens of millions or billions , and it's not as if Ukraine has no money at all ,

The biggest complaint Orban currently has he wants the EU to oversee the distribution of any aid rather than handing out tens of billions over to the Ukrainian government

the focus in the tech was large multimillion dollar drones, the push in this war is the Lancet type drones and indeed the cheap FPV ones. Russia didnt have this tech in common use 2 years ago so thats a big change and if you belive russian hype the next gen Lancets will be networked in "swarms". The west should be concerned about the cost of systems like Patriot, a Patriot round costs over a millions dollars and the system costs $400m? the obvious strategy would be to exhaust/destroy them with drones costing 10-20K

We see with the Patriot system in Kyiv the vast majority of drones and missiles are shot down. It's an expensive system but it's effective. If the Russians or Chinese come up with a weapon to beat it then that will be a game changer, but so far they haven't. Is the Patriot system in Ukraine even the most modern one? I thought I read somewhere it wasn't, but I could well be mistaken

What missile is this? Do you have any articles about it? Thanks.

I found this article about Russia's use of electronic warfare https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/27/russia-electronic-warfare-turn-tide-war-ukraine/

The KH-22 an upgraded anti ship Missle as of last week they fired 10 and all 10 hit there targets zero interceptions,seem kinzhals are getting through too , only 39% of kinzhals have been successfully intercepted over Ukraine despite their intercepts earlier in the year

I asked if you had evidence that China was providing military technology to russia and you just posted a graph of electronic equipment and machinery that is being sent to russia from China. I don't think this is adequate evidence to back up the claims you are making. Maybe the spikes on the graph are wealthy russians getting some new washing machines or TVs for Christmas.

My other point about putin's forces not being stronger now was linked to figures I posted on the recorded losses they have suffered in Ukraine. The forces at the start of the war minus the numbers lost makes a smaller number with evidence I have seen that the very newest types of putin's weapons are being lost. If they wanted to start a war without the weapons being developed by modern armies elsewhere in the world for decades then that does not make them stronger now. The copperhead guided artillery round was first developed by the USA about 50years ago so to be celebrating putin's forces catching up with this type of technology since they attacked Ukraine is just sad.

I seriously doubt your idea that eliminating the bulk of their old equipment along with the lives of huge numbers of their young men somehow will help them evolve into something stronger militarily makes any sense.

they were good enough to take out NATO sourced armor over the summer, which is why you dont hear much about Leopards, Challengers or Abrahms anymore. No idea on the behind the lines use of them, if Ukraine dont have to ration their air defense systems thats one thing , if there is an attrition element to this thats different or its just the cost of doing business, fire a hundred drones, 15 of them hit the warehouses etc they are trying to take out?

How do you know all these missile's not shot down are hitting their targets? Russia has a history of inaccuracy with many missile strikes. AFAIK there wasn't even mass power outages after the most recent missile hits.

They might not be necessarily aiming for power stations,they previously targeted grain stores in Odessa causing serious damage and causing the price of grain to increase on the global market, people are dieing during these strikes too ,shahed drones are relatively slow moving targets and are easily dealth with using anti aircraft guns and Gepards , air launched ballistic missiles are a bigger problem and more difficult to shoot down , 61% of kinzhal Missles are getting through and so far 100% of KH-22s launched are getting through and hitting targets that's a problem that could get a lot worse