Previous day’s thread: https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4196543/posts
Summarizing this war:
A tragedy for Ukraine.
A disaster for RuZZia.
A strategic win for the USA.
The main reason Russia today struggles demographically is because the Order helped Russian oligarchs loot their own country during the 1990s, well described by conservative author Christopher Caldwell:
‘The transfer of Russia’s natural resources into the hands of KGB-connected Communists, who called themselves businessmen, was a tragic moment for Russia. It was also a shameful one for the West. Western political scientists provided the theft with ideological cover, presenting it as a “transition to capitalism.” Western corporations, including banks, provided the financing … The oligarchs … controlled the privatization … Since the state had owned everything under Communism, this was quite a payout.’
The resulting currency collapse impoverished Russians. Pensioners starved and froze in unheated apartments. There was no work. Young men and women couldn’t afford to start families, and turned to vodka, drugs, crime and prostitution. Life expectancy fell below Bangladesh’s. Russia’s population dropped by 2 million (from a 1992 census of 148.5 million) by 2000. This US-led catastrophe caused a long-lasting drop in fertility because young people quit having kids for a whole decade. Even today, Russia’s population is declining slowly, if UN figures can be trusted. There’s already a dearth of workers to support pensioners. Yet despite that, despite western sanctions and despite a war that the Order forced on it, Russia is flourishing – and winning. Sanctions have backfired: Russia is more self-sufficient than any other big economy.
There, things are getting worse for the Ukrainian army day by day.
The Ukraine wasted so many troops for impossible endeavors, to hold Bakhmut and in its the senseless 'counter-attack' against impregnable Russian lines, that it now lacks the troops to hold its defense lines.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's aid for Ukraine will be “massively expanded” next year, the foreign minister said Monday as Kyiv heads into its second winter since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.Germany has become one of Ukraine's top military suppliers since the war started in February 2022, sending material that includes tanks, armored personnel carriers, air defense systems and Patriot missile systems.
And the neo-soviets weep.