The Economist is reporting that Russia is currently spending 40% of its GDP on the war effort. 40%!!

Tbh I’m surprised its not more, if you compare to the level of aid given by US, Europe and combine with Ukraines own spend.  It probably dwarfs what Russia is spending

See some commentry suggesting the BS naval office might have been joining that conference from a hospital bed as he is proped up on a pillow.

But what is that actually? A big percentage of a small number? Russia, Canada and Italy have similar GDP numbers but only two of these countries could boast indoor toilets…

Plus, how much will get syphoned into the pockets of who knows who….

Doesn’t really matter how much of your GDP you commit if all your engineers and computer whizzes are either being shovelled into the front lines or have already fled the country to avoid being drafted so that you can’t produce the more advanced systems or develop new ones.

Also worth noting that Russia is having to go to these lengths just to barely hold Ukraine at bay at a time when they still have the advantage of Soviet era reserves and manufacturing capacity, that advantage is dwindling rapidly as Western domestic production ramps up and even the old Soviet reserves start to run dry.

As always, the deciding factor will be whether or not the West can remain united and stay the course.

The Economist is reporting that Russia is currently spending 40% of its GDP on the war effort. 40%!!

For comparison, the UK went to 52% in 1945.

I can’t see how Russia can continue at that level.

Also, the equipment differences are only going to increase, unless the orange shit gibbon gets elected.

But what is that actually? A big percentage of a small number? Russia, Canada and Italy have similar GDP numbers but only two of these countries could boast indoor toilets…

More pessimistically it’s an illustration of how hard it is to win a war. It’s almost winter again and despite everything the west has thrown into it the Ukraine hasn’t made much progress. We’ve been talking about laying the groundwork for the spring counteroffensive with various types of bombing campaigns since this time last year. Maybe we should just have been more specific about which spring.

For a bit of perspective, the US spent 2.5% of their GDP on the Apollo Moon Program, and that is still thought of as mind boggllingly huge amount. 40% is just staggering. It makes you wonder how that can be sustainable.
Perun did an interesting bit on war economies, and how they are able to keep functioning…until they don’t

See some commentry suggesting the BS naval office might have been joining that conference from a hospital bed as he is proped up on a pillow.

I thought that but on closer inspection it looks similar to the seats the other participants are leaning against, some in different colors. But maybe they’re all leaning against pillows/it’s a pillow made to look like a chair

 unless the orange shit gibbon gets elected.

something thats very much underpriced, Ukraine need to solidify support as much as they can in the face of a Trump victory

The fog of war and the the difficulty of getting any reliable data out of Russia means that both the Russian Economy and their ability to hold the the line in Ukraine will look rock solid… until it suddenly doesn’t.

The longer and harder you cook the books the harder and faster your economy falls when it can’t be sustained anymore.

The more you hollow out your back lines and reserve units to try and prevent the enemy gaining even an inch of ground, the more devastating it will be if they do ever break through.

The more you lie to, browbeat and oppress your population the faster and harder they will turn against you when their patience finally snaps.

Russia is currently doubling down on all these factors, betting that they can stave off disaster long enough for the Western coalition to fracture. Right now Trump, Tucker Carlson and the MAGA crowd are worth more to them than a dozen armored divisions.

thinking about it, you don’t hear much mentioned about sanctions in the press recently.  have the west decided they don’t seem to have crippled russia like the said they would?

still how much longer can this keep going.

also far fewer threats of escalation, nukes and the like.  that kind of worries me as its when people go quiet on stuff it’s more concerning than if they are shouting and blustering

Sanctions are slow, murky, boring and don’t make good headlines, hence little press coverage.

Did they stop Russian dead in its tracks? No! Are they making everything Russia is trying to do much, much harder and are they vital for giving Ukraine the best possible chance of winning, yes!

Is the threat of secondary sanctions making companies and nations who’d otherwise happily and openly supply the Russian military keep them at arms length as they don’t want to be cut out of Western Markets, also Yes! See China and Chinese companies for clear examples of that.

It’s quite telling that one of the most common lines being pumped out by Russian sock puppet accounts and their useful idiots in the West “is “the sanctions are ineffective so they should be lifted” Russia obviously doesn’t want to admit that these measures are doing anything but the arguments they’re setting their online disinfo operations to prioritize suggest they’re desperate to get them lifted.

have the west decided they don’t seem to have crippled russia like the said they would?

Not as effective as hoped, unfortunately

Not as effective as hoped, unfortunately

It’s very much in Russia’s interests to make it look like the sanctions aren’t doing anything, I suspect that the average Russian business owner, investor or analyst would, if given the freedom to speak honestly without fear of reprisals, would tell a very different story.

In Jan 2022 The rouble was worth €0.0134 now it’s worth $0.0103 that’s over 25% of it’s value gone. That’s just one metric but that’s still devastating and we know Russia has ploughed vast resources into propping it up.

In Jan 2022 The rouble was worth €0.0134 now it’s worth $0.0103 that’s over 25% of it’s value gone. That’s just one metric but that’s still devastating and we know Russia has ploughed vast resources into propping it up.

Didn’t I read something a while back about the Russian government basically seizing assets such as bank accounts, factories etc in an attempt to prop itself up?

Almost 25%

Sanctions aren’t just about trade with Russia but include individual Russians and Russian institutions, eg banks, media companies, etc.

This means that some very influential individuals have broadcast licences, money and other assets frozen within the EU, for example.

We also need to remember that the “west” isn’t everyone else and that plenty of countries will trade with Russia although many seem to be doing few favours and drive a hard bargain. The bottom line is that this still hurts

The EU, which includes UK, have sanctioned Russia since 2014, but the 2022-on sanctions have been much tougher. Russia responded by seizing assets of many “western” companies, while some others continue to do business under various exemptions

The G7 oil price cap on Russian oil exports has never really been effective and now that the price of Russian oil has breached the cap it’s believed that certain oil traders are making false declarations. Ironically, the G7-owned tankers that Russia relies upon may be breaching G7 sanctions because of this https://kse.ua/about-the-school/news/energy-sanctions-starts-biting-russia-but-their-stronger-enforcement-is-needed-to-deprive-russia-from-windfall-earnings-and-shorten-the-war/

Russia has been raising interest rates massively to shore up the Rubble, trying desperately to keep it from the 100/1$ mark.

They’ve banned exports of refined oil products, one of their major earners – the wheels are beginning to fall off.

If the sanctions are ineffective- why bother ending them? 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷‍♂️

One thing this conflict has taught me is that Russia always lies.

Russia shot down it’s own fighter jet today.

SU-35 Flanker too, one of their shiniest and most precious models they only have about 100 of these total and with the sanctions they’ll be seriously hard to replace.

Somewhere near Tokmak a Russian air defence guy is getting sent to to bed very early with no pudding.

Truly horrid images – and rightly drawing parallel with how Nazis treated people.

He is not a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp.
This is a show trial of tortured captive defenders of Mariupol taking place in russia right now.
What will it take for “Never Again” to truly mean Never? pic.twitter.com/0KjFYuHR6d

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 29, 2023

Well, the US government has been given more cash to avert an imminent shut down but the MAGA lot have only agreed on the condition Ukraine isn’t given any more aid… for the moment at least.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66973976

Right now Trump, Tucker Carlson and the MAGA crowd are worth more to them (Russia) than a dozen armored divisions.

The Republican maga crowd really are utter ****, I dearly hope they all suffer a long agonising debilitating illness

As a musing: I wonder if an emboldened Serbia could prove to be a potentially dangerous escalation.

**** bonkers that when this happens a great many US servicemen and women don’t get paid. And when it unfucks itself they don’t get the missing wages as backpay.

The mind boggles.

Well, the US government has been given more cash to avert an imminent shut down but the MAGA lot have only agreed on the condition Ukraine isn’t given any more aid… for the moment at least.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66973976

No NEW aid.. so presumably the ‘established’ aid regimen could/will continue, or am I looking for loopholes that are not there?

I’m just kinda trying to reverse engineer the comment, as the trumpists, or indeed the tories would, if the shoe was on the other foot.

So, if I understand this correctly, McCarthy caved and passed a continuing resolution with mostly Democrat votes, plus a few centrist Republicans. He’s a dead man walking, the MAGA crew only let him have the job because he promised he would let them hold the world to ransom whenever they felt like ****ing around.

Also the maga Caucus knows they lost pic.twitter.com/EGkpeBYyoR

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 1, 2023

I can’t say I really understand the US government stuff.  does that mean whe  the current ukraine aid deal runs out that is it.  no more?  in which case it seems putins plan of holding the counter offensive up as long as possible at huge loss has worked.  without us aid they are going to be stuffed when they run out of kit aren’t they?

It appears that McCarthy got mostly Democratic support for a continuing resolution to keep funding the US government, but without any extra money for Ukraine, and that there will be a separate bill for Ukraine money that will go to a simple up or down vote (so it should pass easily because only a vocal minority of Republicans are against helping Ukraine.) Even if that wasn’t passed, it wouldn’t just shut off Ukraine support, so keeping the US government running is important to helping Ukraine.

U.S. spending on Ukraine is broken out over a seven year period in the authorization. The new proposed authorization would also be multi-year. Spread over the authorized period these are not signficant expenditures. The biggest piece of this is spent in the US or on US goods and… pic.twitter.com/TND3oxjLhH

— Randy Mott (@randymot4) September 30, 2023

they don’t get the missing wages as backpay

W T F ?!?

they don’t get the missing wages as backpay

Service members will definitely get backpay if they miss paychecks during shutdown. It’s quite possible that contractors won’t get paid, but I think all full-time US government employees will get backpay.

Randy Mott makes a good point, it’ll be US defence cos getting the bulk of the cash, dangerous tiger for Donald to poke

also Randy Mott, kyuk, fnnnarrr

HOUSE DEM LEADERSHIP STATEMENT:

"When the House returns, we expect Speaker McCarthy to advance a bill to the House Floor for an up-or-down vote that supports Ukraine, consistent with his commitment to making sure that Vladimir Putin, Russia and authoritarianism are defeated. We… pic.twitter.com/L7GdQphaD2

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) September 30, 2023

The MAGA nutters have to either vote to sack McCarthy now or just accept that they’re going to be ignored from here on.

BREAKING — @mattgaetz on @CNNSotu:

“I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the band aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy."

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 1, 2023

all full-time US government employees will get backpay

Phew. I couldn’t grasp the idea that the USA system would be that broken.

The MAGA nutters have to either vote to sack McCarthy now or just accept that they’re going to be ignored from here on.

They’ll try to sack him, but are there enough waverers (trying to ride the Donald train but who genuinely fear what’ll happen if resistance to Putin’s violent expansionism is dropped by the USA) for them to fail. Let’s hope so.

are there enough waverers (trying to ride the Donald train but who genuinely fear what’ll happen if resistance to Putin’s violent expansionism is dropped by the USA) for them to fail.

If Democrats vote to support McCarthy, he’s safe. I doubt that they’ll do that though. If Democrats all vote against him, he’s finished, it would only take a handful of Republicans to have him ousted. I think it’s more likely, though, that Democrats will all just vote “present” and let the Republicans own it. If Democrats do that, I think McCarthy will survive and the MAGA group will just have to accept that they don’t have the veto power they thought they did.

The view of many house Dems. https://t.co/7dzFPVNAB8

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 1, 2023

Yeah I misread the email from my USMC buddy. It may take time, still a **** travesty that service members even have to have that concern.

Never crossed my radar in 24 years, yeah the odd pay cock-up but that’s to be expected with various pay spines and spec-pay etc.

But never a whole months wage. Ever.