Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 14 2024 12:16am)
Man, if living under Russian rule is so much better, the Ukrainians have to be the biggest morons in history to prefer living in the EU. Dito for the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians etc. pp., who all couldn't wait to join the EU and NATO, because they had actual, first-hand experience with living under Russian rule and collectively said "never again". But what do they know, they're probably all suffering from collective Russophobia, right?
I'd say that the majority of the Ukrainian people chose the pro-Russian side and rejected the EU, so yeah they must know something. It was a minority pro-western movement that overthrew the government after the Russia-aligned president who was formerly the Russia-aligned governor of the most populous, and Russia-aligned oblast, aligned himself with Russia instead of the EU. And that caused a civil war where that half the country willingly joined with Russia.
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On a more general note: it is completely trivial and a non-argument to note that places which are living in peace and can actually go through with rebuilding efforts look better than places which continue to be shelled on a weekly basis...
The vast majority of western Ukraine hasn't been shelled frequently and even major population centers in central Ukraine like Odessa and Kyiv have been 'mostly' unscathed, certainly not reduced to rubble like Mariupol was. And yet while the US and EU supply weapons and military advisors to Ukraine, Russia has been sending engineers and contractors to rebuild cities like Mariupol. That entire western half of Ukraine you say looks bad on a map, still looks like Dilbert's Elbonia. Russia built the largest bridge in Europe, the EU debated whether to put tariffs on their wartime ally to protect their domestic grain industry. Russia gave citizenship to people in the annexed territories. Brussels hosted the exiled self-titled mayor of Mariupol to chair a conference where he made grandiose plans for reconstruction of a city Russia now holds, like he's some disgraced prince-in-exile petitioning a foreign court in the middle ages. Zelensky makes big speeches about how Russia is 'stealing their harvest' as he lays claim to the resources of oblasts that voted to join Russia. The US and EU's biggest pitch for funding Ukraine post-war has been to
steal Russian assets, rather than invest their own. If their whole country is to be funded by international piracy, their best case scenario is Somalia 2.0. Too bad Russia still holds the black sea. Maybe they'll actually steal an equal amount of western Ukraine's harvest trying to leave the Odessa port.
When we look at the history of every proxy war fought on America's behalf by our allies, be they afghans or iraqis or jesus christ, the kurds (!), and then we look at the reality today of rapidly withering support from the west- more economic risk than military- does this all add up to a rosy picture?
This same point in the Afghan and Iraq wars we were sending USACE overseas on hazard pay to build roads and bridges and dams for them, our main military expense wasn't bombs or IED shielding for humvees, it was contractors and construction. And even with that leg up, they collapsed and all that money was wasted. What makes Ukraine more fertile soil for reconstruction? Because it sure ain't the infertile soil in the west, just a bunch of people waist deep in mud and wearing funny hats
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That's not categorically true. I just looked up some pre-war data:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_subdivisions_by_GDP_per_capitaIf you list the GDP of Ukrainian oblasts by GDP per capita in 2013, you will see that 10 of the 13 oblasts with the highest pre-war GDP are currently being controlled by Ukraine, not Russia. This includes very populous oblasts like Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv or Odessa. Luhansk and Crimea are actually surprisingly far down the list. In a list weighted by population, Luhansk and Crimea would rank firmly in the bottom half.
Here's a visualization with 2008 data:
https://i.imgur.com/WsSYOIW.jpgYes, the stuff in Western Ukraine looks bad on the map, but there aren't actually a lot of people living there.
Its the same thing we've been talking about, eastern ukraine is richer in resources and more populous, Russia already holds the lion's share, and Kharkiv is still on the front lines. I've said a few times Odessa has been our biggest gain in this war, but there's also a dubious prospect of how valuable it will remain when so much of its importance as a black sea port came from transit of resources out of eastern ukraine and through the black sea. Its not like NATO didn't have black sea ports already. And its also a bit of a question whether in the coming year western Ukraine will even be able to hold onto the farmlands around Kharkiv and Donetsk. Any cracks form and the most critical farmlands still held by the west are right past the unharvestable front lines right now.
How much of western ukraine sums up to a net negative for the EU welfare state that already struggles with migrants draining their resources?
This post was edited by Goomshill on Jan 14 2024 07:16am