Quote (ofthevoid @ 30 Dec 2023 21:58)
1.They control most of the valuable parts of Ukraine, which is most of the Donbass (which has gas, oil and other minerals) and Crimea which has extremely high strategic importance to them. It doesn't matter since when they hold that territory.
Lul? It absolutely does matter that they already controlled the Donbass and Crimea before the invasion. If those places had been the primary target, this whole war would have been unnecessary. The costs of this war have to weighed against the gains Russia made thanks to this war - namely the land bridge from Donetsk to Crimea and a few bombed out cities like Sieverodonetsk, Bakhmut, Mariupol and (in a couple of months) Avdiivka, which are all lying in ruins.
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2.Our billions and their billions are not the same. They get way more bang for their buck because our industry is parasitic and profit maximizing in nature. The corpos basically get blank checks and charge the US government whatever they like. Thats how we end up running low on supplies of 155mm shells even though we far outspend them, to the tune of almost 10:1.
One post ago, you were boasting about what an accomplishment it was for Russia to hold off the Ukrainian counteroffensive although it was fueled by oh-so-much military spending by the West. Now, you turn around and stress that all this Western military spending doesn't actually amount to much.
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Quote (Malopox @ 30 Dec 2023 20:16)
Regarding this article again:
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However, the analysis can’t end with just having a lot of big factories. The quality of what they make also plays an important role. And on this score Russia falls down, as it remains heavily dependent on Western technology, as bne IntelliNews reported in a deep dive into Russia’s precision tools sector, the Kremlin’s soft sanctions underbelly.
This ties in nicely with what I had been saying all along:
Quote (Black XistenZ @ 30 Dec 2023 19:40)
The reality is that Russian manufacturing (as well as other industries) will fall even further behind technologically than they already were to begin with.