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excellent video. too bad the far leftists won't bother to watch it. they should watch it and learn something. the video i posted gives a good current breakdown of events on the ground. we all know Russia didn't really want to conquer all of Ukraine now that they said so (nudge nudge wink wink) so they will "settle" for all of Ukraine's coastline and their resource rich east. too bad because they could have used all that Ukraine wheat for their own.
interesting that in this video the author points out that Crimea is turning out to be a costly victory for Russia. seems like they didn't go far enough at the time and a major river has been dammed up since 2014 on the Ukraine side that effectively cut off water supplies to Crimea. this is costing Russia millions in revenue a year and caused them to have to build an expensive desalination plant to in part make up for this.
as the author points out one of the first things the Russians did when they attacked from Crimea is blow up that dam.
ya know I was partially right when I predicted that the russians would try to create a land bridge to crimea and landlock UKR. their drive stalled at Mikoliv, so Odessa is off the table for now.
I didn't anticipate that they would also take the Northeast part of ukr. from what I gather, RUS apparently wants all of eastern UKR up to the Dneiper river. their drive stalled. maybe they will get there eventually.
I didn't know about the oil/gas deposit in East UKR and the damming of the river.
so, this is a war of envy, they didn't want UKR to have the good stuff since they're not part of the federation.
ya know I was partially right when I predicted that the russians would try to create a land bridge to crimea and landlock UKR. their drive stalled at Mikoliv, so Odessa is off the table for now.
I didn't anticipate that they would also take the Northeast part of ukr. from what I gather, RUS apparently wants all of eastern UKR up to the Dneiper river. their drive stalled. maybe they will get there eventually.
I didn't know about the oil/gas deposit in East UKR and the damming of the river.
so, this is a war of envy, they didn't want UKR to have the good stuff since they're not part of the federation.
it's all about Vlad Putin reestablishing the Czarist Empire/USSR
I can buy the Russian empire angle but not the USSR which included most of eastern europe which is a bridge too far in their current state.
if Putin could bring back the USSR he would. these KGB types are like the Gestapo. fanatics. the real hard core believers. he'd probably want not just their former territories like all of Ukraine back but as much of western Europe he can take.
given the shockingly poor showing of the Russia military in Ukraine that would fail. in the 50's and 60's the Soviet army was feared mainly due to its sheer size but in the 70's the Soviet model began to show its weaknesses in Afghanistan, which turned into their version of Vietnam. the difference was the US goal was not to win but to keep the South Vietnam army from losing.
the USSR invaded Afghanistan fully intending to win and got bogged down into a siege they weren't able to maintain and they eventually had to retreat with their tails dragging the ground.
if Putin could bring back the USSR he would. these KGB types are like the Gestapo. fanatics. the real hard core believers. he'd probably want not just their former territories like all of Ukraine back but as much of western Europe he can take.
given the shockingly poor showing of the Russia military in Ukraine that would fail. in the 50's and 60's the Soviet army was feared mainly due to its sheer size but in the 70's the Soviet model began to show its weaknesses in Afghanistan, which turned into their version of Vietnam. the difference was the US goal was not to win but to keep the South Vietnam army from losing.
the USSR invaded Afghanistan fully intending to win and got bogged down into a siege they weren't able to maintain and they eventually had to retreat with their tails dragging the ground.
population of the soviet union was larger. about 350 million. its army was about 3.5 million.
Russia on the other hand; its population is about 150 million. its army is about 1 million.
I have to wonder about the effectiveness of the 3.5 million man soviet army in the late 70's, 80's, they drink alot of vodka/alcohol and they get it in some strange dangerous ways like drinking an aircraft transmission fluid according to one account.
one thing about the soviet population, they were making babies at 7 to 1. however, the down trend started with the soviets I think in the 80's. by the time the 90s came, the population down trend was starting to show fewer births.
if russia's claim is to be believed, Kyiv was a decoy mission; they really wanted eastern UKR.
I just think they did not put in enough troops to really do the job. 200,000? I think they needed something like 400,000. I should note that is almost half of their current army.
Although generally I don't make much of a habit of watching videos as I prefer to read instead, I watched and recommend this one based on who narrated it.
Peter Zeihan was an analyst for years with the excellent Stratfor geopolitics consultancy, and was said to be their "de facto chief economist" for a few years.
Additionally, he wrote Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World, which I consider one of the top ten books I read in 2020 or 2021.
An intereting topic about which I have corresponded with several people in recent weeks
I'm surprised this thread didn't get more play, since the postwar future of Russia should be considered a topic of great import for the whole world. (Perhaps that's because it offers less opportunity for partisan sniping and insult-hurling than many other threads!)
Of course, Russia is nothing more than a pipsqueak nation in demographic and economic terms, accounting for only about 1.7% of both the globe's population and its GDP. In fact, its GDP is markedly less than that of the State of Texas, which has about 20% of Russia's population of roughly 145 million (which in turn is barely half that of the USSR's 1980s peak of about 280 million).
But, of course, it's of bona fide superpower status in terms of energy production and nuclear weapons capability. So when it threatens to throw its weight around, all global players need to be concerned.
Although I don't know whether Russia is likely to "die," any "victory" it manages to pull off in the current war will likely look very pyrrhic indeed.
One interesting thing to watch is whether it will eventually begin to look like ordinary Russians gain a better understanding of what the hell is actually happening. Most Russians only get state TV, which actually makes our most biased media myrmidons look like paragons of objectivity by comparison.
For instance, if you were watching TV "news" in Moscow, you "learned" that the massive advance on Kyiv in late February was a shrewd decoying maneuver designed to divert attention from the "real goal," a total takeover of large portions of Eastern Ukraine. (Because when an army is conducting a deception maneuver, it makes so much sense to get thousand of its soldiers killed and hundreds of its tanks destroyed!)
If that isn't ridiculous enough for you, you then would have "learned" that the ruble was now "gold-backed" and that Russia had now become the world's only nation to have put its currency on the "gold standard!"
When ordinary Russians go to the store to buy food and see big price increases amid sharply higher real world inflation (far worse in Russia than in the US), they surely must wonder what having a very weak fiat currency must look like if this is what you get with the "gold standard."
Then there's the China-Russia alliance that Putin and Xi were touting so enthusiastically a few months ago. Given the fact that Russia has spent the last few weeks destroying its international "brand," the CCP must surely be having some misgivings about cozying up so closely to such a pariah state.
I think one of the most interesting things to watch during the coming years will be the extent to which China and Russia can form an alliance that goes beyond a trade bloc including whatever Asian nations they can recruit, and then seeks to undermine or largely eliminate the US dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.
But since Russia is obviously a giant Potemkin village, and since I believe China is in a far weaker position that many believe, I'm hopeful that the grand project won't go all that well for Putin and Xi.
excellent video. too bad the far leftists won't bother to watch it. they should watch it and learn something. the video i posted gives a good current breakdown of events on the ground. we all know Russia didn't really want to conquer all of Ukraine now that they said so (nudge nudge wink wink) so they will "settle" for all of Ukraine's coastline and their resource rich east. too bad because they could have used all that Ukraine wheat for their own.
interesting that in this video the author points out that Crimea is turning out to be a costly victory for Russia. seems like they didn't go far enough at the time and a major river has been dammed up since 2014 on the Ukraine side that effectively cut off water supplies to Crimea. this is costing Russia millions in revenue a year and caused them to have to build an expensive desalination plant to in part make up for this.
as the author points out one of the first things the Russians did when they attacked from Crimea is blow up that dam.
I'm surprised this thread didn't get more play, since the postwar future of Russia should be considered a topic of great import for the whole world. (Perhaps that's because it offers less opportunity for partisan sniping and insult-hurling than many other threads!)
Of course, Russia is nothing more than a pipsqueak nation in demographic and economic terms, accounting for only about 1.7% of both the globe's population and its GDP. In fact, its GDP is markedly less than that of the State of Texas, which has about 20% of Russia's population of roughly 145 million (which in turn is barely half that of the USSR's 1980s peak of about 280 million).
But, of course, it's of bona fide superpower status in terms of energy production and nuclear weapons capability. So when it threatens to throw its weight around, all global players need to be concerned.
Although I don't know whether Russia is likely to "die," any "victory" it manages to pull off in the current war will likely look very pyrrhic indeed.
One interesting thing to watch is whether it will eventually begin to look like ordinary Russians gain a better understanding of what the hell is actually happening. Most Russians only get state TV, which actually makes our most biased media myrmidons look like paragons of objectivity by comparison.
For instance, if you were watching TV "news" in Moscow, you "learned" that the massive advance on Kyiv in late February was a shrewd decoying maneuver designed to divert attention from the "real goal," a total takeover of large portions of Eastern Ukraine. (Because when an army is conducting a deception maneuver, it makes so much sense to get thousand of its soldiers killed and hundreds of its tanks destroyed!)
If that isn't ridiculous enough for you, you then would have "learned" that the ruble was now "gold-backed" and that Russia had now become the world's only nation to have put its currency on the "gold standard!"
When ordinary Russians go to the store to buy food and see big price increases amid sharply higher real world inflation (far worse in Russia than in the US), they surely must wonder what having a very weak fiat currency must look like if this is what you get with the "gold standard."
Then there's the China-Russia alliance that Putin and Xi were touting so enthusiastically a few months ago. Given the fact that Russia has spent the last few weeks destroying its international "brand," the CCP must surely be having some misgivings about cozying up so closely to such a pariah state.
I think one of the most interesting things to watch during the coming years will be the extent to which China and Russia can form an alliance that goes beyond a trade bloc including whatever Asian nations they can recruit, and then seeks to undermine or largely eliminate the US dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.
But since Russia is obviously a giant Potemkin village, and since I believe China is in a far weaker position that many believe, I'm hopeful that the grand project won't go all that well for Putin and Xi.
how russia dies
