Russia - threadbanned users in OP

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.

Another day. Another arms dump.

Philosophical scenarios aside, I think there is zero chance something like this happens for a couple of reasons:

1. No western country would send men, against their will, to a country where they're going to be conscripted (It's one of the reasons why migrants don't get send back to Eritrea). Even if the politicians decided to do it, it would almost certainly be blocked in the courts.
2. It wouldn't be in Ukraine's interest from a PR point of view to make veiled threats against EU member nations. Zelensky understands this kind of thing innately and has been very successful in that area. Trying to strong-arm countries into doing something that large portions of their public would find morally unconscionable would be a sure-fire way to permanently burn any support they have in those countries.

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.

Some progress hopefully

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)

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.

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 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

Russia = cabbages.

Nicely summarised.

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.

The Estonian army has, what, 4000-5000 active personnel. So if they sent troops, it would only be a token force at best. Sending troops would only make sense if everyone else did the same, but there are no signs of that kind of thing happening.