Not necessarily. I would speculate Ukraine's military collapsing (in part) and larger Russian gains being made after all that has happened since 2022 may now be unacceptable to a number of them in NATO bordering Russia (regardless what Biden + US thinks and what the US are willing to accept as an outcome, vs the risks of intervening more strongly/getting deeper involved).
When push comes to shove, if Ukraine doesn't have enough soldiers, they may start sending people to help behind the lines (hence these kinds of comments and kite flying).
4,500,000 cabbages per year from the Eastern field alone 😂
I would love to know what outlandish reports Shoigu sent to Putin for years about state of Russian equipment and military, and how the hell he stayed alive this long
I think that the up to date figure is 4,500,000 +++++ per year !!!!!!!
They're emptying the tank every week but the catch is they refill it the week after.
Let's say for example (made up numbers) they produce 30 New tanks in a month. They'll all be sent to the front and destroyed. Let's say they refurbish 300 T64/72/80 tanks a month they're all sent to the front and destroyed.
Every month the stock pile of tanks to refurbish gets smaller. They'll be prioritising those in better condition which take less work. Some will be sent for upgrades and a new paint job.
Could be 2 years but eventually they'll be down to T64/55 plus whatever new tanks they can produce. Same logic goes for artillery and IFV/APC's.
They already can't meet the monthly needs hence why you see golf buggies and dirt bikes but they'll still have a certain amount of these weapons for a few years yet.
Kite flying I wonder or are European nations sensing great danger and things need to change
Russia = cabbages.
Nicely summarised.
A better analogy would be if Russia was the largest cabbage farmer but was unable to grow much else and spent their whole time talking about how much cabbage they were producing and how jealous the rest of the world was and that the Wests inability to supply as much cabbage shows their inability to grow food. And when the West points out that it has a cornucopia of other foodstuffs and cabbage, while essential roughage, really isnt the only thing you should eat all day every day, Russia ignores this because it goes against the cabbage obsession they have bet their house on. Its more like that
I suspect the economist is there to start finding out where the money is gone? Its no secret that everyone slices a piece off the top, but at Shoigu's level he should have the most possible visibility to understand this. You put a square peg in a square hole, if you just wanted someone to put in better tactics, you'd get a military expert. If you put in a financial expert, you have to assume he's finally hit the point where the corruption is too expensive to ignore and he needs to start rooting it out. I'm guessing he'll be there for a few months at best, have a report of where the funds have been skimmed from, and then someone to actively stamp out all this will be put in place instead. But then I didn't think he'd invade in the first place, so I'm obviously not in sync with the man
Ay Russian's have a great "farm" surely. It's just they need contractors to actually farm it.
Without western help, infrastructure and technology in refineries and gas extraction, piping and advanced mining techniques they'll have to turn even more to China.
The Chinese won't be making that a remotely fair deal for Russia though. They'll fillet the Russian economy and leave the Russian's with a few crumbs.
It'll make western petrol chemical arrangements/development look like charity by comparison.
Well you would say I am an idealist from your perspective! Almost anyone would be I think going by your "output" on here.
It is not a normal business deal though is it? It is not comparable to what was going on with that tank maintenance facility in Poland either. The Czechs are more of a diplomatic itermediary here I think.
If the shells don't come there will be no money paid I assume. Even if they do come I think we'd need more specifics on how the grafting/thieving Czechs profit from it (other than potentially helping Ukraine survive, hard to value but definitely worth something to the Czech govt.?)
If the shells do materialise, you are never going to get some kind of offical confirmation of names of all of these countries/details of what is going on. They don't want to anger Russia. That is the whole point of all this obscurity around it. In addition I would say Russia would be working overtime trying to persuade any country with shells who is neutral to either stay out of this "scheme", or preferably, if they can be fired from Russia's guns, to supply them to their military instead!
How in the hell do Ukrainians "profit" off having the Russian army f-ck up their country and murder their people? That is quite some statement, and a real headscratcher.
I'd say the economist that replaced him is more likely to meet his demise than Shoigu. He'll be blamed for failure of the war due to his cutbacks and they'll off him. Shoigu will be feathering Putins nest from elsewhere.
I really do wonder how much Russia has left in the tank (pardon the pun), but since footage of troops making their way to the front on scrambler bikes and unarmoured dessert cross vehicles you do wonder if all they've left is belief.
The saying goes every army is ready for the last war, and it seems that Russia was prepared for a war from the last century when borders were drawn by where tanks stopped rolling. They're having multi million dollar tanks being destroyed by $50 grenades dropped from drones adapted from the type of drone kits you'd get in the middle isle of aldi/lidl.
*Russia “claims” to produce 3 million shells a year
Russia is producing around 3 million shells per year (it has it's own looming issues with maintaining that level of production). It's military is centered around artillery.
Europe, which has been asleep since WW2, has woken up slightly, and current projections are for shell production to increase to around 2 million per year by end of next year.
The US is on target for 1.2 million shells per year next summer (est. up to 100k per month, tripling current production)
@zerosquared "The fact that thousands are willingly going to fight for Russia"
Most of them are convinced they are natural born drone dodgers.
Some progress hopefully
It will be my last reply on this topic. You said you asked the same question than the OP and you were “censored”. I was just pointing out you didn’t ask that question. Your point was totally different.
Oh sorry I had no idea you are full of holy spirit living in a land of unicorns and fairies.
They introduced this scheme where they posed as intermediaries. Wanting to collect money supposedly knowing where supplies are and even claimed they can procure that amount. Guess what happened? When they were pressed into revealing sellers or directly connect buyer with sellers suddenly there was nowhere near what was promised so very little money fell in that trap.
Explain to me how intermediary profit in any business if standard definition of intermediary is diseased view in your opinion.
Everyone who can including ukrainians are trying to profit from this conflict. It was illustrated time and again like when us decided not to build tank repair shops in poland because what poles asked for it was beyond ridiculous.
The fact that thousands are willingly going to fight for Russia for much less and will not live long enough to gain Russian citizenship never mind enjoy their roubles is a direct counterpoint to your post.
If someone is an economic migrant then make it clear their choices are be sent back or hey what about this economic and citizenship opportunity here.
Philosophical scenarios aside, I think there is zero chance something like this happens for a couple of reasons:
If you think that refugees who run away from conflicts in their own country would find it more attractive to be enlisted and fight in another country military conflict then good luck to you. Not to mention that 9 out of 10 refugees are actually economic migrants I seriously doubt they would find Bakhmut more appealing than Rwanda no matter how much would you offer.
Another day. Another arms dump.
You do realise that likes of Rheinmetal are building factories in Ukraine itself right?
Lol. How can the Czech's profit off it exactly? Only people I could (conceivably) see profiting (dishonestly) are countries that get money and then don't deliver or deliver rubbish.
You are quite the cynic with a pretty diseased view of the world. Everyone is on the take eh, everyone is dirty and "grafting". Very Russian, to nationally stereotype.
You can talk and compare economy size as much as you want. In this case it is irrelevant.
To illustrate imagine western economy as a fancy penthouse apartments with top of the notch kitchen when russian is just a small farmhouse out in the sticks. It sure look that way, however, while your kitchen may be top notch you cant cook a meal before you go out and buy all ingredients you need. Not to mention you will have to hire someone who can cook it for you since you forgot how to do it yourself. There was quite a big arms industry in Czechoslovakia for example but it got dismantled, sold off and liquidated right after colour revolution as it was in direct competition with the usa. All of that skilled personnel left, schools closed and factories crumbled. This was the case with all ex-eastern bloc countries and I bet that they are now feeling sorry that happened.
That farmhouse out there is much better off as it sits on farmland which provide all they need and in abundance.
There are very little minerals left to exploit and use in the west which are needed for arms production and some of the most crucial needed are being sourced from china. A lot of green red tape will have to be dismantled in order to restart any remaining mining industry and even then it will take a years to accomplish. Not to mention that arms production is energy heavy and solar or wind are not going to cut it.
Good point, why are Russians still allowed into Europe?
There was an article today about how there are Russian nuclear technicians still working in Germany on their plants, I mean if that doesn’t ring alarm bells what will
I'm sure they wouldn't. It may not be their choice in any case if the Russians make it to the city.
They can melt all they want and Russian propaganda already insist anyone but Ukrainians are fighting them as they are at war with NATO yada yada and it’s difficult for them to admit that so many of them are being killed by mere Ukrainians.
There are plenty of positions in a modern military that don’t require being at the front line, tip of the spear sort of speak, I am sure plenty of help needed for example in logistics and repair. Being paid (and other benefits) and getting citizenship is not too different to what already happens for example in US military (where service is a well trodden path to citizenship) I am fairly sure that would be a more attractive option than being sent back to your country or … Rwanda
But anyways none of that matters without bullets and ammo and training
There's a dirty element to all this and I see it mentioned in Europe too.
Henceforth anyway. There'd be no luck in expelling people fleeing their own country from invasion while people from the invading country can walk around trouble free. If any Ukrainian be expected to go back and fight. Then any Russian should also be expected to leave and fight for Ukraine.
And all this because we don't actually want western soldiers in Ukraine.
We'd have RT presenters howling for western soldiers to go to Ukraine just so their sons can stay in London or Dublin.
That was a Czech graft. They promised million of shells if they collect enough of donations. Just a move for empty insignificant suits to get their 5 minutes of fame and some little money on the side.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
