Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

Nonsense.  Russia produced a grand total of 210 tanks in all of 2023, a sevenfold increase from the year prior.....according to russia....and no one believes that number.  Certainly not the russian soldiers.  Their ability to replace tanks is not an indication of a huge war industry, but of a huge stockpile of soviet era gear in armored boneyards.  If those 5/6/7 series tanks were brand new, fully functional, and not stripped for parts, they would still be obsolete.  Their armor can be defeated by 20+mm depleted uranium rounds and their main cannons are outranged by contemporary shoulder fired AT systems.  Ukraine has destroyed ten times as many tanks as russia can produced in the course of a year...and this is limited only to independent visually confirmed losses.  In sum, russia has lost decades of it's own production, and decades of the production of a country that no longer exists which it has no hope of matching, all so that it can launch mechanized meat assaults with a horrific cost to crew - which are even harder for russia to come by and take even longer to produce than a decent tank.  Ironically, ukraine was the heart of soviet war production, and to this day makes the most modern and combat capable version of the ubiquitous 7 series soviet tank.  For Some Odd Reason™ the russian forces haven't even tried to take out their refineries and production facilities.  Choosing to level apartment blocks instead.

Fun fact.  The Bradley is credited with more tank kills than any contemporary mbt, and not by a little.  In the battle of 73 Easting two Bradley IFVs from ghost troop, separated from their Abrams, ambushed 9 T72 tanks.  They destroyed 5 of them, crippled the others...and then just left without a scratch.  If we're looking at boneyards as "production" the us has 3700 in storage, all of them better maintained than any active armor in the russian military, and it's cheaper to send them to ukraine than to dismantle them, as already ordered by the dod.  This is why putins regime feels that the most crucial factor in their invasion of ukraine is buying off republicans in the united states, and even there, the dipshit is overpaying.  They're so far up the donalds asshole they'd fuck ukraine for free.

I forgot to add a link here. But Business Insider says 100 / month.
 
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-r...les-2024-1
 
We have to remember that gun-sales is the other half of their economy (the first being oil and Gas). While European countries (like France) were mostly suppliers to the Russian Armed forces before the Syrian and Ukrainian countries, many third world countries (African countries, India, Pakistan) were and are still very interested in Russian airplanes, Tanks, Mechanized vehicles, missile systems etc.
 
Other parenthesis:

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The populist government of Turkey got us kicked out of the F-35 program in order to be able to get Russian made S-400’s that are operational and just sitting in a military hangar right now. Greece (our main strategic rival in the region) recently gave its S-400’s to Ukraine and is getting (if I am correct) some 40 F-35’s while these guys are celebrating on Coca-Cola and mineral water for being able to get F-16’s in return for letting Finland join Nato

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So Russia is still a gigantic monster in military terms. If MAGA politicians keep blocking aid to Ukraine I don’t think Russia will win. Europeans are already ready to step in if Trump is reelected. But I think they will still start to do more damage on Ukrainians.
 
Also, Ukrainian pilots love these F-16’s. I recently saw one in a recent public event. It’s still such a versatile plane that can put Ukrainians back on the offensive against the badly organized Russian army.

  https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-f-16s-exce...22722.html
 

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On MAGA: 

Societies always have a DNA. America is a 300 years old Democracy. In Brazil Jair Bolsonaro is now banned from leaving Brazil:

https://www.france24.com/en/americas/202...mpted-coup
 
There has been and will be right and left wing populists all around the world. But I don’t think they can be successful if we don’t underestimate them. (Never estimate a movement that takes its power from the lower instincts, ignorance and self-centered attitude of a group of people that is seen as “the main element” or “majority” of a society).
 
And this figure is the same in Russia too. I think I could have managed to fit in somehow if I had to live in the Soviet Union. But the level of propaganda, misinformation, and manipulation of heard like behavior is simply madness right now. All normal Russians have either left the country or are looking for ways to leave the country (and that’s normal).
 
So Hello to Pablo once again. This is the madness I am talking about:



+ a small comment on the center left wing of the US political spectrum:




“Taylor Swift is Joining Joe Biden’s Political campaign”
 
Comic Joe Biden is saying:
 
“I want to say thank you to Michael Jackson for his support to our election campaign”