It's just sad to see those young men going into a completely useless ~~war~~ special military operation. A lot of them won't come home, a lot will return mutilated. Putin is a sick piece of shit.
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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This whole war was illegal , time for Russian to rise up against Putin.
Not likely. Far too few there have the mindset to think that it could work. Putin is just one small leap in the collective imagination away from destruction but it doesn't look like the populace will ever cross that gap.
Honestly, that window of opportunity for Russians has closed, possibly for a very long time. By now, much of the gov is designed to quickly and brutally control opposition and protests.
For contrast: Just on the other side of the border a decade ago, tens of thousands of courageous Ukrainians seized a very similar opportunity. They fought and died for it, did not give up, and won the battle. Fuck Putin and his Yanukovych puppets, hello Zelenskyy and EU. But Ukrainians are still fighting to finish the war. They should be incredibly proud of their achievements so far.
Unfortunately a large portion of the population supports the war and putin. Just look at the level of support just from russians living abroad. It's most of their population that is all on board.
Russia was never not a propaganda and fear controlled dictatorship, they only changed the paint job from time to time. It's almost impressive or at least very difficult for one to free themselves from that and open their mind when they, their parents and their parents and so on grew up like that.
I'm not saying it's not their fault I just think there's nuance to that.
I'd give them a pass pre-internet, but today? In the age were everything is connected, and russia wasn't like NK which controls everything their citizens see, they have access to the Internet. Which at bare minimum gives them some views outside of the propaganda, they shouldn't be this supportive of this war.
I don't think you have an idea of how much of an information bubble Russia is in? In case you haven't noticed the "western" internet speaks almost universally English. Unless you're in some niche national community you're unlikely to see any other language. We're speaking English right now and that's not my first language. Last time I checked something like 1 in 20 Russians understand English and even less can actually speak it. The vast majority of the Russian population, despite having near full access to the internet, are locked in the Russian sphere of information. And their primary search tool, Yandex, is majority owned by the oligarchs.
When you live in Russia you really have to go out of your way to escape the Russian propaganda. The vast majority of people in any country would never go to such lengths to get an broader view of a subject. Most probably wouldn't even understand they need a broader view than what their regular media feeds them.
it's russian internet they mostly use though.
There’s probably not mucb overlap between those conscripted and those who read and write Western languages.
… or maybe, do they have access to the internet? Sure, educated people do, Muscovites do, but what about people who have been conscripted from?
You really have to wonder where the breaking point is at this point.
The British gave time, the Americans gave money, the Soviets gave blood.
The Russian capacity to throw seemly endless bodies toward a goal is virtually part of their mythos. The above quote is from Stalin in regards to defeating the Nazis. The situation couldn't be more different, other than in the propaganda coming from Putin.
That's when people bred like rabbits, Russian fertitility has been dropping for decades and their 21-30 cohort is one of the smallest anongst the population.
It just shows how effective top down propaganda is.
Propaganda? It's called oppression. It's literally illegal for people to complain about this.
I won’t disagree, but the controlled narrative the Kremlin pushes is still very much the definition of propaganda.
And you need the propaganda to have effective oppression.
Putin has to have his official narrative in order to mandate that anything else is a lie.
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I can't remember what podcast I was listening to, maybe a Dan Carlin series, but it was talking about how in this post industrialization + propaganda era the breaking point for nations is far FAR more extreme than it was in the before times.
I'm not sure there is one anymore.
Dwarfed though it is by the heartbreaking tragedy being inflicted on Ukraine, it's tragic too to see Putin's militaristic propaganda embed itself so completely, even among the country's youth.
I doubt even a full mobilisation would cause sufficient unrest to end the war now, nor would an even higher rate of Russian casualties cause Putin to cease his tyrannical conquest.
The last Russian revolution in 1917 was driven by military losses and lack of food. Putin has been avoiding Russian losses by using Indians, Cubans, and prisoners instead of the Russian population. Not sure how they're doing on food.
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I’m sure they’re not coming from Moscow. I wish they weren’t forced to be evil, to commit atrocities, to be maimed, emotionally scarred, to be lost to their parents. They haven’t even lived yet.
Goddamn this corrupt mob in russia.
Ah yes, Russian conscripts! Known for such classics as “immediately surrendering because they don’t want to die for nothing in some maniacs war”.
It’s unfortunate that Ukraine can’t afford to take a little time to let Russians surrender peacefully. I expect they'd get a lot more
There was just a story about a group of surrendering Russian soldiers getting shelled by Russian artillery. It isn't 100% clear that it was intentional, but its hard to not envision it as a throwback to the Soviet penal legions of old.
I'm sure by now they have figured out (or rediscovered, more likely) tactics to minimize the risk of their conscripts folding, sadly.
It's a confirmed fact they ordered troops in fallback lines to shoot any fleeing Russian troops trying to pull back on some of the fronts.
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It's insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year. But allegedly it's getting way harder to get volunteers for the Russian military.
Ukraine entering Kursk was a wake up call, that showed Russians the propaganda was false.
Normally such an invasion would energize a population against the enemy, to protect their own country, but it has had the opposite effect in Russia, probably because the population is realising aspects of the propaganda more.
It's insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year. But allegedly it's getting way harder to get volunteers for the Russian military.
This is mainly a byproduct of transitioning to a war time economy. Before the mobilization they had a fairly large labour glut, now that they've geared to war time production they're having labor shortages.
The detrimental aspect to this transition is that they're going to have to rely on conscripts for their soldiers as they were already experiencing a really harsh population decline.
The most dangerous part of this whole war won't come for Russia until the war ends, regardless of victory or defeat. Their population decline coupled with the retooling of their domestic economy isn't something that can be undone without major consequences. So they're either going to have to continue the war footing to maintain their economy, or face an economic collapse similar in scope to the USSR.
Their economy is collapsing already, it's just not a quick collapse, but it's definitely already happening. National bank increased interest rate from 16 to 19% in a month, and the Ruble is still declining.
The economy is also declining, while at the same time overheating. (for instance worker shortage as you mention)
The Russian economy cannot handle the strain of the war, and they can't keep the economy up by being at war.
The Russian economy cannot handle the strain of the war, and they can't keep the economy up by being at war.
Unfortunately, the collapse is very slow. Their national wealth fund is currently their bread basket, and that is maintained by their energy exports. With the price of oil being so high, they should be able to sustain their current economy for a couple years at least. There will be shortages, especially in areas where they were reliant on imports.
However, from what I've read, oil would have to drop to around $60 a barrel to spur an economic collapse swift and bad enough to make the war unsustainable. That or the EU and US would actually have to militaristically enforce the energy embargo.
Unfortunately that’s the same threshold I’ve read for the US. Right now we’re way overproducing at the cost of the environment but I suppose it holds prices lower than otherwise. However US oil is generally more expensive processes, especially fracking, and supposedly not profitable when oil is under $60/bbl
Right now Brent Crude is just 71.28. Oil prices are going down.
Additionally Russia does not have the technical ability to fix all of the refineries that Ukraine has been blowing up nor do they have the ability to fix all of the upstream production problems being created.
Productions of raw products is dropping fastand those declines are going to both continue and accelerate.
O&G is not going to be propping up Russia's economy for much longer.
Right now Brent Crude is just 71.28. Oil prices are going down.
Yes, and as soon as it gets cold oil the price of oil will rise once again. It's not like countries are divesting from fossil fuels any time soon.
Additionally Russia does not have the technical ability to fix all of the refineries that Ukraine has been blowing up nor do they have the ability to fix all of the upstream production problems being created.
Russia isn't a technologically deprived nation, and they have one of the largest oil producing and refining operations in the world. They may not be able to repair the damages with imported parts as they would have 5 years ago, but refining tech isn't exactly a new science, or particularly complicated.
Productions of raw products is dropping fast](https://ycharts.com/indicators/russia_crude_oil_production)and those declines are going to both continue and accelerate.
If you examine that chart for the year it seems bad, but if you just click on the scale of 5 years, it's pretty much just average. The important thing to look at is exports, which have been rapidly increasing.
O&G is not going to be propping up Russia's economy for much longer.
I think that's a bit optimistic given that the West is hesitant to actually enforce the embargo, and are equally hesitant to divest from the fossil fuel sector.
We just don't have the spine to actually give an ultimatum of "you can do business with the US, or you can do business with Russia" to countries like India or China. That would be putting the interest of the nation and democracy in general, before the interest of private profit.
That's how these types of collapses work though.
Everything just barely holds together and then the literally straw that breaks the camel's back hits and then it all goes to shit in an instant.
They're keeping it together but at what cost? We can clearly see the social and demographic cost that will hit in a decade, we can see the economic costs hitting but how long till that manifests into something they can't policy their way out of is a big question.
Russia is spending its future, both economically and demographically, and can’t avoid the consequences. But will those consequences hit them in time to help Ukraine?
Even if they are able to grind down Ukraine, can they really be hoping the Ukrainian economy will help Russia rebuild, after its bombed to hell and back?
It’s insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year.
The driver is information asymmetry on the part of the volunteers. Yes, people are volunteering and dying for a few thousand dollars, but they don't know that.
They know they are volunteering for a few thousand. They don't know that it is certain death.
They're also being lied to. They're being told "oh, nothing to worry about, you'll be doing logistics support in the rear" and then when they get off the bus they get handed a rifle and sent to the front.
Yes that's most likely true, and I think they are beginning to suspect something is off, in part because Ukraine invaded.
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You spelled slaves wrong
This is also why he's trying to force his population to fuck and make babies at all costs
That's barely enough to cover three months of losses. Insane.
That's about the population of able-bodied active duty us marines. Unfathomable.
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