To be honest, I didn't think Russia would make it to two years. I expected riots, revolution, putin getting killed, etc. It's pretty insane how indifferent the majority of the Russian population is. That makes it even more scary.
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
890 points (97.4% liked)
World News
39082 readers
2839 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
They did protest. And everyone was arrested. Then they protested the arrests. And everyone was arrested. Then people just silently stood in groups holding blank signs. And everyone was arrested.
So only another military coup could free Russia from Putin's firm grasp.
But that's why he kept his own military led by weak leadership. And the only paramilitary group he allowed to gain strength ended up attempting a coup against him.
And what a whimsical coup it was
Yeah, that was a wild couple of days. Not that Prigozhin and his merry bunch of neo-Nazis would have been that more tempting as leaders of Russia. So the prospects for Russians have usually been "and then it got worse" so it's hard to blame them for not putting their necks on the line for the next despot.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Only a very small minority did protest, that's why it didn't work.
That's because Russian "law enforcement" is actually terror, they do everything for the large part of citizens to be too afraid to even speak up not to mention doing anything.
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
It’s pretty insane how indifferent the majority of the Russian population is.
It's identical in the US. 4 years of Trump and all we got was a pro Trump attempted coup.
load more comments
(3 replies)
They don't know the war is going badly. They don't know what Western society knows about the war. They're fed state approved propaganda and nothing more. They're also plastered constantly which kills motivation for political upheaval.
load more comments
(11 replies)
load more comments
(11 replies)
If we could harness the energy of Regan spinning in his grave, we'd have a limitless supply of energy.
Imagine telling any conservative, during the Cold War era, that we could completely fuck Russia's military power and readiness, for years to come, by sending weapons to a relatively small country. They would be rushing to arm anyone and everyone they could, unintended consequences be damned. And yet, here we are with the GOP blocking exactly that sort of activity. And even better, there is a very real possibility that we aren't arming future terrorists this time around. Maybe that's the GOP's problem, Russia losing in Ukraine won't create an excuse in 20 years to kill more brown people.
If we could harness the energy of Regan spinning in his grave, we’d have a limitless supply of energy.
I had always thought the same thing about Nixon, after he sees what Trump gets away with.
Ya, it's pretty bad when you can look at Nixon as a "stand up guy" compared to Trump. He at least had the decency to recognize that he had been caught in his bullshit, resign and go away.
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(39 replies)
Russia had a total standing military of approximately 900,000 active-duty troops
Of the 360,000 troops that entered Ukraine, including contract and conscript personnel, Russia has lost 315,000 on the battlefield, according to the assessment.
So roughly 87.5% of the initial troops was lost, like the article said so that checks out.
900,000 - 315,000 still means 585,000 troops remaining, and that's outside the conscription efforts.
Russia has announced plans to increase the size of the armed forces to 1.5 million.
Still a considerable force, as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
Brutal numbers. Let’s not forget that Russia can’t just move all its troops west, they still need to protect other borders and regions.
I really hope the US passes a proper aid, and even more so that EU gets themselves together and continues support. Infuriating to see that while Ukrainians are fighting for their lives (and unintentionally also for the safety of Europe), the politicians are haggling over fucking pocket change.
The only way Russia can win if the west stops Ukraine’s support, and they grind them up over the next years. This would be a catastrophic strategic failure, and would mean the end of global US/NATO influence, motivating the start of many more annexations (definitely Taiwan as a start).
Yes, for all the people saying "it's not that many", this is a huge number. No military campaign can withstand 80% losses. That's like the losses Napoleon took invading Russia. Or Hitler, invading Russia...
Guys, I'm thinking this invading thing is hard in this part of the world.
There are plenty of people that have had success invading Russia.
On horseback.
From the east.
Mongolia, what's up? You've had a good break, now's your time to shine again.
load more comments
(5 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
as long as the supply chain is able to back it up.
The amount of heavy lifting this clause is doing cannot b overstated
load more comments
(4 replies)
I can't even imagine what 300,000 human corpses does to a place. How do you even manage that over a short period and fairly small location?
It's not 300,000 corpses. It's 300,000 casualties. That includes KIA, MIA, POW, Injured, etc.
You build mobile crematoriums.
Russian use of those is contested, but it is an efficient way to deal with a problem like that. There was some media buzz about those things about a year ago or so.
load more comments
(1 replies)
But how many of the 585,000 are front line troops? I imagine most of them are support staff. It's like a 3:1 ratio or higher support to front line.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(11 replies)
You know, sometimes I feel bad about gambling some money away on the stock market and feel a bit like a failure. But then I come across posts like these and I remember that at least I do not fuck up on a colossal scale like this.
I remember that at least I do not fuck up on a colossal scale like this.
There is always Thomas Midgley, who invented leaded gasoline and Freon (CFC).
Not only invented them, but poisoned the hell outta himself trying to prove they were safe.
And then when he was too bedridden to do anything, he invented an automated bed to help him move around and strangled himself to death in the ropes.
Truly an inspiration.
Sounds like he won a magical monkey paw from that weird stall at the fair that nobody else seems to remember.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
That's doesn't seem sustainable
Frankly I don't care. The US wastes trillions of dollars on military spending. We have the most advanced military in the world by a mile but all too often it ends up using it to defend someone else's financial interests or to pad the pockets of people that make their money through a war economy.
Russia can get fucked. Every cent spent on the defense of Ukraine is a fully realized fuck you to our enemy. Ukraine did what we could never do. They essentially removed Russia from the equation. Yeah they have many poorly maintained nukes but they know we will fuck their ass if they touch them. They will not be posing a real threat to anyone for generations.
We aren't spending this money on the American people and we never were going to do that anyway. Our choices are we fund people actually fighting for their life or we allow that money to get sucked into the military industrial complex for no real return. They're already getting theirs out of this, the only question that remains is do you back Republicans that have made up a nothing burger about this money because they've arbitrarily decided this is the 96th hill they'll die on, or do you you want to see the money you pay in taxes actually get put to a meaningful purpose.
Saying that it doesn't go to the American people isn't strictly true. It's not like it's cash shipped across the Atlantic. The money spent on weapons to Ukraine is injected into local American economies where weapons are produced, as wages that let people consume products which goes to the wages of people who sell those products wages in turn.
Frankly, it may come to be seen as, in terms of bang for the buck, the single most effective use of US military funding in history.
Think about it: Russia went from being considered a peer-state of the US to the second most effective army currently conducting combat operations in Ukraine. That’s embarrassing any way you spin it. They have utterly destroyed any real vestige of conventional military power they had, and Ukraine is the one who shattered not only that reputation, but also the capability.
And not just in terms of physical assets - Putin called up training officers and sent them to the front. You just… you don’t do that. It means that instead of taking another year or two to train a new generation of officers to competence… it takes 10, and even then they’re not very good, because all the institutional knowledge those instructors had was lost. The only reason they’re even considered these days is because they’re a nuclear state.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
It really is the cheapest way to destroy an enemy.
- You don't need to send your own men to die.
- You don't need to a full scale invasion, just let them bleed dry.
- Be the "good guy" in supporting Ukraine.
There really is only win win for the US.
We also got to see what Russia was capable of in a war, which was priceless.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Depends on how many citizens you can threaten/coerce into replacing them.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
An unfortunate fact is that we're never going to beat Russia primarily by killing russians. Russians should be killed when they try to steal and rape our countries and peoples in order to immediately stop them from doing that, but the only way to properly win this is to somehow get to the leaders or their wallets.
load more comments
(10 replies)
view more: next ›