The defence against poo-tin begins with no longer giving him any of our money
A years-long war of attrition, guerilla warfare and cannon fodder in 4K HDR Dolby Atmos, for every country without nuclear deterrence, either by themselves or an allied nation (France mostly).
Europe needs to put serious money in chip fabs and counter-drone technology cause if Ukraine falls and Russia seizes their drone factories the drones are gonna be flying in by the thousands.
This newspaper shares ownership with the Daily Mail, and is parroting Russian-aligned talking points, cites “some experts” and so on.
I could go point by point over how it enlarges problems, glosses over stuff when it’s inconvenient, but I’m just tired of it.
Russia could pull an Iran and kill anfew dozen to a few hundred Europeans, and we’d kill Putin and his extended family and party members on like day 2.
We spent 0.5% of our GDP to pay one of their former allies to fight them to exhaustion. Yes, they have replaced their one million troops and several thousand armoured vehicles by drafing the second million that they wouldn’t before and bringing back relics to life. We can spend another half a percent, can they afford another million people?
Big “I don’t care about gas prices, I’m still fueling my car for 20” energy. It works until someone asks how much fuel you’re getting for it and how often do you have to go.
Money spent doesn’t directly translate to capability. Capability doesn’t directly translate to willingness to use it. Russia can spend a fraction and still end up with more weapons and soldiers, resulting in a bigger effective military.
Russia still has nuclear weapons and threatening to use has lead to European leaders hesitating in supporting Ukraine.
Killing Putin and his family isn’t that easy. First you need to know where he is. European intelligence isn’t that great without American support. Remember how lots of Europeans doubted Russia‘s planned invasion right up until it happened. Russia also still has large bunkers and so on left over from the Cold War, where Putin could hide out indefinitely.
Europe doesn’t have unity either. Coordinating will take time and compromises might result in a more cautious reaction to Russian aggression.
Let’s look at a scenario in 2030. Germany has an AfD government and France is run by Front National, in the UK it’s Farage. Russia invades a Baltic country over a fabricated pretext. Poland and Finland react quickly, the Scandinavians fly some air strikes. Germany, UK, France, Hungary, Austria, condemn what’s happening talk about deescalation, and don’t send any military support, maybe even do an arms embargo on the Nordics and Poland in the name of peace. Italy, Spain, and the smaller countries don’t want to risk picking the wrong side and only lament. After a few weeks of righting Russia captures the Baltics and declares a desire for peace and negotiations. Only Poland keeps on fighting Russia by invading Kaliningrad. Poland is sanctioned by the UN and only arms smuggled from Ukraine keep them going. Russia ethnically cleanses the Baltics. Two weeks later Poland ethnically cleanses Kaliningrad of all Russians. Poland and Russia keep fighting a protracted war of attrition for years.
Your scenario fails at the point that not declaring war on Russia if they invade a member state goes against the very basic agreements of the EU, so it would collapse the EU and all the member state economies.
Even AfD has only two choices if Russia invades Poland, sending the Bundeswehr or total economic collapse.
Failing a complete overhaul of the EU to be lesser, needing complete unanimity, the EU is a tight military alliance, tighter than NATO.
Russia had a PPP advantage, and probably still does, but it’s reduced a lot due to inflation caused by the war and the sanctions.
Russia’s army – often described as battered and exhausted – can’t be underestimated.
This is what the experts say, and it’s because Russia has turned into a war economy, and is producing military equipment like crazy.
an estimated 1.2 million casualties since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine
That’s the opposite of Russian propaganda, because they are using the Ukrainian numbers!
Daily mail is often criticized here, but at least it’s not Murdoch and at least it’s not American, and it seems to me this article is pretty decent.
But that’s the big lie, they are not producing what they claim, they are refurbishing it! They are replacing T-90s with BMP-1s and claim “we have more AFVs than at the start of the war!”
There are different kinds of Russian propaganda, to quote the Cold War Americans, you should never over- or underestimate them. This is going for the former, others go for the latter.
Supporting Ukraine is still the cheapest way to exhaust the invasion. Russia is running a campaign to scare people to hoard munitions for themselves.
Last I heard Russia is making about 100 tanks per month. Compared to what they had that is not much, but probably more than what Europe is capable of.
But it’s more the new stuff that makes them dangerous, like the drones and missiles.
I 100% agree that supporting Ukraine is our best strategy, and hopefully when Russia lose that war, their appetite for more will vanish.
We are also already learning from Ukraine how to defend against Russia, so Ukraine is our most important ally now, which is amazing since we can’t trust USA anymore.That’s the point, it claims to make 100 per month, but that’s their claim including refurbs. In reality, their modern tank production in a war economy is around the same as the EU’s in peacetime, except even their “new” production is a lot of hull modernisations rather than new builds. And that does not even count with the fact that there is a big difference between the combat effectiveness of a T-90 or T-80 BVM and a new Leopard.
They are dangerous, but not to that degree. That 100 is more like 20-30 in reality, while we put out around 20-ish, but it’s direct orders rather than perpetual serial production because we’re at peace.
I don’t know how many refurbs it includes these days. As I understand it, the lots are pretty empty.
There are still things there, just not much that is younger than 50 years or easily repairable.
But a rusty T-72 hull without a turret or engine may still start a new life as a “new” T-90.
will it be counted as such by osint nerds pouring over photos, though?
their “new” production is a lot of hull modernisations
Yeah their new tanks should be pretty awful, and the armor not very good.
IDK why, but a lot of high level politicians such as state leaders, warn that Russia might be planning to attack EU/NATO.
I don’t really understand why that should be the case, because I think we will be way superior if they do. Especially since we are learning from Ukraine, plus we have our own technologies that are better than what Russia has.The Russian economy is also collapsing now, so the idea that Russia should be able to wage a perpetual war is false IMO.
I think two reasons. One is that Russia is already attacking, the hybrid war is in full swing.
The other is that we actually had to send soldiers to our borders in preparation if an invasion this year, but it wasn’t Russia but the US who was planning to invade.
the hybrid war is in full swing.
The hybrid war has been going on for decades, where Russia has undermined EU/NATO/USA.
but it wasn’t Russia but the US who was planning to invade.
Yes I think that is a HUGE part of it, European politicians just don’t say it directly, because they don’t want to anger Trump more than necessary, but everybody knows we can’t trust USA anymore. Russia succeeded probably more than Putin ever dreamt of with USA, and Brexit was also in part his doing. Russian ties to Boris Johnson and Farage are well documented.
And obviously Hungarian and Slovakian governments are also heavily compromised by Russia.
But USA must stand as his greatest achievement, but I suspect Putin didn’t foresee the Europeans so determination to built a better defense for ourselves.
This is why Ukraine has to win the war. Preparing for a large scale war with Russia is just much more expensive. At the same time Russia will be in deep trouble if they lose the war. The economy will need to transition away from the sugar highs of the war economy, causing massive unemplyoment. At the same time the population is shrinking and that will likely accelerate, as Central Asia due to not fighting a war, is catching up with Russia. So no migrants from there. At the same time many Russians will leave the country.
Other then Russia, Europe is in a very defensable position. The only big potential problem is Turkey. Other then that, large scale wars will probably be limited or further away.
i dont see them do anything about PUTIN.
