speaking of which … Interesting read on why the russians are not flying fixed-win in Ukraine
(spoiler: they are - amongst other reasons - afraid of shooting themselves out of the sky)
I think he’s talking about major weapons systems, such as MBTs or APCs, or fighter jets. And he’s right. Ukraine actually does have its own armaments system and can produce weapons, albeit they are modernized or upgraded versions of old designs, but a lot of their heavy industry is in the east…and, Russia can build a lot more and a lot better. The limiting factor for Russia is and has been money. It’s why they have cutting-edge designs and have built only a handful. Even trying to upgrade all of their existing equipment hasn’t been possible.
It’s what has been frustrating in discussions in the past. People compare raw numbers. The US Abrams design is decades old, for instance. But, unlike the Russians, all of the Abrams that are listed in the US OOB is upgraded, though not all to the highest version. This simply isn’t true for the Russian equipment, and it boils down to money. I don’t see Russia being able to replace its losses as quickly as it’s taking them any time soon, but if they can find the money they can replace them, especially the old stuff being upgraded. They have a LOT of that sort of thing sitting around in storage.
The cost of a Russian MBT is something around $5m. That would buy you 50+ Javelin missiles. The world is willing to supply as many of those as Ukraine can use, for free. And certainly they’ll have no shortage of people willing to wield them. (same with SAMs)
So Russia will have to fund the MBT replacements out of rapidly diminishing coffers and Ukraine can pop away for free. At some point the economics really start to matter.
Or $8 million. It depends on when and who is making the claim. I saw a cite from 2015 that claimed each new MBT that would replace their T-72s and T-90s would cost $8 million each and they would have 30% replacements per year. Counting on my own fingers and toes, that should mean they have replaced all of those things by now, right? 
Basically, even if that figure was or is true (which I am skeptical of, depending on what ‘new’ tank design we are talking about, and what upgrade package it is), the Russian military only has a budget of around $40 billion a year or so. With that, they have to not only maintain all of the stuff they have, pay the troops and for expendables, but buy new stuff for their navy, air force, rocket force, ground forces, and nuclear forces. And all of those have a bunch of sub-branches. Then you have the massive and systemic corruption, second only to (maybe) the Chinese in the scope of it. This is the same budget, basically, as Germany…and Russia has far, far broader scope of the military than Germany. And, frankly, Germany has let its military lapse to pretty horrible levels in the last decade or so. Something that, at least on the German side, seems to be changing quite a bit in a very short time frame.
And that was before the sanctions currently hitting them. I think your point that ‘at some point the economics really start to matter’ is probably one of those sooner rather than later things that is exactly what is going to happen.
What, Ukraine doesn’t have Amazon Prime?
you are probably right, and assuming that at least some portion of that
$40billion is overseas purchases then the tanking rouble (pun intended) means that figure just got a whole lot bigger.
Russia is winning the war. It’s a few days slower than it should be, but they’re still winning. It appears they sent in the cannon fodder first, which wouldn’t be the first time, but they’ve taken a lot of ground and have yet to launch an attempt to take Kyiv.
How would you know they were losing?
Then, even after the war, we might not agree who won. If I was a NATO leader right now, I’d be thinking how we could use the shock of the nuclear plant fire to pressure all sides to accept Finlandization. Putin might look like a winner at first, but if a Marshall plan for Ukraine gave Kyiv an economic boom while Russia stagnated, the look would shift.
If they conquer Ukraine, which is now their openly stated intent, we’ll know.
Did I miss yet another scary part of this?
From the article:
“Leadership may be hesitant to commit to large-scale combat operations which would show up the gap between external perceptions and the reality of their capabilities,” Bronk noted.
This was my first thought and I hope he’s right. For some reason, western intelligence often turns out to have overestimated USSR/Russian capabilities.
I don’t think think I’ve seen any verifiable amount of losses of Russian equipment. Lots of stories and rumors along with some badly filmed videos is about it. The story about Ukrainians destroying a 56 vehicle column is widespread, but I haven’t seen any videos of 56 burned out vehicles. It’s not like they don’t have cell phones.
Depends on how they conquer. If it’s like the US “conquered” Afghanistan or Iraq, they may wish they just stayed home. I’m not sure they could monetarily keep up an insurgent war for 20 years. Especially if NATO keeps up the arms supplies and the sanctions hold. They would basically have to commit genocide on ethnic Ukrainians to pacify the country.
Unfortunately, yes:
I’ve seen reports that this is another way to extend the suffering to civilians by cutting off power. Although given what might happen and the prevailing winds – it is not a sane action.
I generally consider it poor form to want someone dead without cause, but Czar Dobby really needs to go. I’m not fussy - thallium or polonium in his food/drink, straight-up bullet, whatever, but getting rid of him seems like the only way to avoid Chernobyl 2.0 or worse.
From the progress maps I’ve seen, it seems likely the Russians may, although not as fast as expected, achieve a large scale encirclement of everything of value east of the Dniepr, while penetrating to keep the key centers on the right bank under fire, or else turn straight west to Transdnistria/Odessa to do the overall landlocking move. That puts Ukraine on the losing end of a set-piece war and requiring a pivot to insurgency.
Me either, at least not so far.
It reminds me of Arab media in the Iraq war’s early days when 55 Americans killed was a regular headline.
When 52 American diplomats were held hostage in Iran, I think it became ingrained in the minds of many in the Middle East that around 50 was the number needed to get Americans to take an interest.
I wonder if major news companies have a hard time getting actual war correspondents into active war zones theses days, or if they feel they don’t need them with the proliferation of phone videos they can acquire. I can’t blame reporters for opting out, but the power of well shot videos with professional commentary as it’s happening could be a big morale boost for Ukrainians and their backers. It wouldn’t even need to be video of them destroying a Russian convoy. Even a video of Ukrainians seeking shelter from artillery barrages would be helpful in stirring up some backing for them.
I know how much everyone loves me posting YouTube videos, but I thought I’d post this one. Basically, it talks about a lot of the stuff that’s been brought up but does a fairly good job of putting stuff into context and scale. It talks about the issues Russia has had so far, gives some speculation on why they have had those issues…and also puts those issues into context. I don’t always agree with the guy who does this channel, but this was pretty well done and I’m in general agreement with most of his points. It’s about a 10-minute video for anyone interested.
link?