This conflict will continue because NATO will want it to continue since it is totally consuming Russia and also stopping them from helping or arming anyone else like China, Iran or N.Korea.

If Kiev or another strategic city like Odessa is in danger, NATO aid will pour in to help. But if Ukraine start to push Russia back too hard, aid will reduce so the Russia continue to be in the fight.

From a NATO standpoint, this fight is Slavs on Slavs and bleeding out Russia massively. Russia's Navy and Airforce is has been shown up as useless and the Army is being consumed by meat wave attacks.

Economic wise, Russia can no longer sell any arms nor will anybody trust the effectiveness of Russia weapons. France has now overtaken Russia as a bigger arms seller.

Need to remember that the EU is basically at the start of re-arming itself. Once it gets up and running, Ukraine will get massive influx of arms. EU states know if the fight doesn't happen in Ukraine, it will be at their borders.

Anyway its probably not in China interest to see Ukraine lose as well. Because immediately, Taiwan, Japan, S.Korea and even SEA nations will go nuclear because they now know its the law of the jungle and US is not there to help them even at no cost of lives.

Its true that Russia is 3 times bigger than Ukraine, but on the other hand Ukraine is in defense, and attacker suffers heavier losses.
Also the will of average defender to defend is stronger than the will of average Russian to attack.
Also Ukraine receives some funding from EU and other countries.
So the outcome is not really clear. We dont know how long Russia can keep on its war economy, and how much is Putin going to risk. Ussr was struggling for several years before going bankrupt.
As a war continues, more and more Ukrainian people want some kind of compromise deal, hovewer Russians arent interested yet, because they still have some tanks and human resources to convert for land gains.

That's an understatement

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/04/03/russian-military-almost-completely-reconstituted-us-official-says/

There are different reports. Many people say that Russia is nów going towards lower quality army, and that they are mostly refurbishing older vehicles, which is easier than building new ones but need a source of vehicles so not sustainable in the long run.

Russia has moved its economy to a war economy. you even said so yourself. We saw reports last year that Russia was modernizing its army. how do you consider this with the comments "Russia is now going towards lower quality army" ? Understand I dont disagree with you relating to Russia's lack of understanding re: quality, and focus more on quantity. This is widely accepted. I would argue that yes, they are focused on quantity, but that they are upgrading the hard way and therefore the risk is that one falls into the trap that Russia does not have advanced weapons or experienced troops.

Ukraine has superior morale, and superior trained troops. This is also widely accepted.

This post was edited by ferdia on Apr 6 2024 05:09am

Absolutely Russia is managing to recruit X amount of unexperienced meat-soldiers and it stops here, everything else is fucked.
https://news.yahoo.com/instead-32-000-crippled-russian-133500445.html






I think It's not as simple, even if some of it is true:

- Nato is a treaty which could even be betrayed in case of severe war, yet what EU want is not the same than US, but it is true that for all a weaknened Russia is a good thing considering the hybrid war of agression Putin conducts since 2 decades.
- Battle field can evolve faster than decisions or production, and Europe is slow, but since Russia has proven itself to be extremely ineffective, well, maybe the whole assistance/weapons/amunitions will be ready in time.
- Seems russia helped NK & Iran with technologies or so: NK doing hypersonic tests recently and for Iran i guess they have been paid in enriched Uranium or fighter jets.
- Like many said it was Putin's historical mistake with EU rearming itself and Finland soon hosting Nato bases. Yes.
- China want stability and money: an endless non globally conflictual war is arranging them since they can suck up Russian economy to death like vampires. Making it their slave. For Taiwan they have time, the most important is to constantly winning influence over it, without destroying it.

This post was edited by Meanwhile on Apr 6 2024 05:31am

Coming from a user who insisted the Russians were down to fighting with old rusty WW2 equipment, lol

The exact opposite is true Russia has plenty reserves that are already trained and just waiting to be deployed and Ukrainian press gangs are desperately pulling people from the streets, hotels, gyms, wherever they can find them.

Also: Russia outproduces the combined West by like 7 times (!!!) when it comes to artillery shells and they've also massively increased missile and drone production.

Another missile and drone strike happened last night, more power stations were targeted. Western media don't even report this shit anymore

Ukrainian morale has hit an all time low, people snatching press gangs are on the hunt everywhere because the stream of volunteers has dried up.

ye but its still quite high.

if you made 10 euro today and 20 euro tomorrow you could say you have increased your income by alot.
but if you made 1000 euro two weeks ago and 1500 euro three weeks ago you would understand its all relative.

TLDR: relatively Ukraine morale, both army and people, is, again, relatively high, all things considered.

This post was edited by ferdia on Apr 6 2024 06:35am

What I mean is that Russia is now getting their tanks and other equipment replacements out of their old cold-war time stocks.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/15/how-to-outfight-russia-destroy-at-least-4500-armored-vehicles-a-year-for-two-years-and-do-it-without-american-help/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-relying-old-stocks-after-losing-3000-tanks-ukraine-leading-military-2024-02-13/

War economy cannot be kept forever, the war economy cannibalises its own economic future. Non-military infrastructure suffers because investments are diverted.
If you build and blowup a grenade it will add 50USD (or whatever is grenade cost) to your country GDP. But this is empty GDP.

And we both agree Russians shouldnt be underestimated. Although they are only 140mln people, while NATO is 7 times bigger, its true that regimes can spend more resources on war, than democracies, also NATO is not a single country.
NATO is:
- USA on another continent, that takes care of their Mexico border and defends Taiwan
- France and Germany who dont really spend enough of their military and sadly dont have leadership ambitions for the whole Europe.
- UK who have their own island and are reducing ties with continental Europe
- Turkey, Hungary that are not really that much allied with rest of us
- some uninterested countries like Italy, Spain
- finally some eastern European countries, that are not strong enough to fight 140mln Russia on their own

So the best way for Europe to prevent future war with Russia is to build up its military. Its sad because this money could be better spend on luxuries or preventing climate changes, but what can one do.