this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
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GDP is a funny thing. So because Russia's currency has cratered like a Boeing aircraft, the PPP-adjusted value of its GDP has skyrocketed. That doesn't mean it's doing well.
Russian inflation is at 10% and its government is spending almost half its federal budget on the war, and still not winning. 11% of the world is Russia, by far the largest country on Earth, and yet the total amount of revenue its government has to spend half of on that war is just above Spain's, which might explain why it is failing to defeat an enemy which it outweighs, outnumbers, and is outspending all by at least 10 to 1. Its standard of living for ordinary people is 50th in the world, roughly even with famously pleasant places like Kuwait and Romania (And no hate to people who live in those places, just saying your government is badly representing your interests. Give me another year here in the US and I might well be in that part of the list alongside you, or lower.)
I have no room to be giving criticism to any government, living in the US as mentioned, but if you are holding up Russia as an example of competent government you are reading the chart upside down.
its doing a lot better than the us gives it credit, you can admit that surely. 'still not winning' is certainly debatable because you need to be winning before you've won... that victory looms very clearly on the horizon when compared to ukraine and the west's ambitions falling short. so if russia is not winning, ukraine must not be losing, either.
Cousin, it is fighting an enemy smaller than some of its individual US-state-equivalents, also mobilizing its entire economy behind the effort, for more than twice as long now as the US was in World War 2, and has still managed to lose some of its own territory. It is not surprising to me that Ukraine is suffering and its victory is not assured. It is surprising to me that Russia is still struggling so much to penetrate further than 100 km beyond the border.
I have no idea what the most likely outcome is. If I had to guess, I would say it would be a partition of the country and a peace agreement, however much the Ukrainian leadership doesn't want that. But, I also would have guessed that Zelensky would be dead and the country defeated within a month of the 2022 offensive.
right but you're leaving out the united states' full backing and complicity within the eu which justifies harmful russophobia and threatens to extend this conflict indefinitely- it has been laid out time and again that russia must also have security guarantees, but the west in their infinite arrogance will not entertain such thoughts. (except to buy time to re-arm and prepare ukraine for war)
how many billions of people are under US sanctions in the world? its a non zero integer
I am not. That's why I said 10 to 1 instead of much more. That said, I actually had it a little bit wrong, I just now looked up the real numbers.
The US plus all partners has sent about $150 billion in total, it looks like, up until the middle of last year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/
As of the beginning of last year, Russia had spent about $211 billion: https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/02/16/ukraine-war-has-cost-russia-up-to-211-billion-pentagon-says/
We can add to that a little, maybe 25% to say that the war went on for six more months before it's an apples-to-apples comparison more or less, but the point is, by that metric, Russia outspent Ukraine-plus-allies by just under 2-to-1. Without counting PPP.
I actually couldn't find exact PPP numbers for Russia, and it's been going wild during the war. All I could find was that in 2022 it was 29 to 1. I'm not going to try to claim that's the number, that was right during the currency crash. That does explain why their PPP-adjusted GDP is so high. They're doing great!
So, the punchline (I've been digging up numbers as writing this): This is, more or less, what I was looking at that made me say Russia was outspending Ukraine+allies by 10 to 1: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/12/russias-2024-military-spending-surpassed-eu-uk-combined-in-ppp-terms-study-a87974
Russia's PPP-adjusted defense spending is just under half a trillion per year. That's what I understood it to be. So, they've been fighting for three years now, means a trillion and a half dollars on their side, versus $150 billion on the other side from allies plus whatever minuscule amount of money Ukraine was able to add to that. Plus rivers of Ukrainian blood. Means Russia is fielding 10 times more military kit than Ukraine is, and still not winning, and they've been at it for three years.
They may be making progress (they're inching forward month by month, yes), and Ukraine may collapse because of any number of reasons. It's still not a good advertisement for Russia's military or economic prowess. They have been mobilizing their entire formidably-sized country to try to win this thing.
but are you prepared to laugh at russia's incompetence as OP does? that's where this begins.. the hubris and arrogance to ridicule a nation under what were intended to be CRUSHING sanctions-- for merely persisting and succeeding in their efforts... what do you suppose that territory gained by russia amounts to in the way of resource wealth? 60 percent of the rare earths in ukraine are in the east and or controlled by russia- if early peace talks were successful, ukraine would be more whole than it is- and as long as it continues, it will likely lose more ground.. that is my prediction anyway.
Yeah, the arrogance. Imagine the gall for us to be sending rockets and drones into their apartment buildings and power stations, and then giving them haughty lectures about peace and our urgent need for "security." I wish the US weren't doing that. It sure is a war crime, and something we should stop doing.
yes it was hubris and arrogance that created the conditions for the war, and hubris and arrogance that prevent it from ending sooner. and denial -- more than you can believe!
My guy you sound like Skeletor
the more than you believe is lifted off of a meme-tier pep guardiola's post match talk.. but close enough
What I believe is lifted from specific sources. I made sure to cite them and made what I thought was a relevant point about where the arrogance and violence in the equation is coming from. Not that you're wrong (and especially if you wanted to talk about how the West doesn't really care about Ukraine all that much or their suffering), but you're missing a more important point.