this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Russia’s war in Ukraine is already in its 17th month. In that time, President Vladimir Putin has clearly demonstrated that he is not bothered by losses — whether they be financial, material, or human. His war will go on as long as he needs. And, judging by how the authorities have woven the so-called “special military operation” into Russian life, that will be a long time.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So they’re raiding their welfare fund to sustain the war. Thing is, according to the newsletter, the fund will go from 6.8 to 2.5 trillion rubles in 1 year. And this is to be an eternal war? What do they do once everyone’s pensions are wiped out?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

no one is counting on pensions here. even if you have worked all your life in 2 companies at the same time with salary near 4000$ at mounth, you will receive pension only $160 per month.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are these the real Russian pensions? I am confused as you used dollars and not rubles.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No one would understand what the amount in rubles means here. I suspect that even in dollars it is difficult to understand.

For example, is it possible to survive in Russia on $ 160 a month? The answer is - if you have a living space in a property or a country house, then yes, although this will make you save a lot on food, and in some cases you will starve a little.

In general, if you are interested in delving into the topic, there are a lot of social benefits for pensioners in Russia. For example, you can not pay land tax if you live outside the city, do not pay tax for a car, do not pay for public transport and in some cases for train tickets. Medical care is also free, although queues usually line up for several weeks in advance. But almost all of these benefits are provided not by the pension fund, but by other.

I can't speak for everyone, but many of my friends pensioners who have suburban plots are engaged in gardening to save on food. In any case, in the western part of Russia, where the climate allows.

In any case, in numbers, the situation is still exactly like this. My father has not worked officially for half his life and receives a pension of 13,000 rubles. 143$. My mother worked almost all her life at two jobs with a high salary and receives 18,000 rubles. 197$. Almost all pensioners rely on children to provide money or work to death.

And proof for you:

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thx for the explanation. So pensions in Russia suck. Sad

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (36 children)

Russia is so weak and pathetic. I'd call them a joke but their war crimes aren't funny.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Russian economy is set to completely reverse last year’s slump – something Putin has recently highlighted. Manufacturing and construction lead the way, alongside retail. In a broad sense, all three sectors are beneficiaries of the war. The defense sector, working in three shifts, is boosting production: in June, for example, the biggest increases were in finished metal products (+45.8% year-on-year); computers, electronics and optics (+71.6% year-on-year), radar equipment (+75.4% year-on-year) and electrical equipment (+32.1% year-on-year). Production capacities are running at their maximum.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

something Putin has recently highlighted

so, we now know it gonna do the opposite nice

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So whats the plan? How can this end?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (6 children)

He can wait to see if Trump becomes president, because we all know how it will end with his BFF in charge.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Any Republican, really. Just listen to Fox or the Republicans in Congress.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is the long game, because if Trump wins, he can get the US out of NATO and that's a constitutional crisis at home, and a serious flashpoint to drive Europe back into squabbling.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Not with this supreme court.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

America is far from the only country providing support to Ukraine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

No, but it is definitely the singlemost important contributor by far.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Once US turns off the tap this war ends immediately. It's really that simple.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sort of like the war in Afghanistan. It'll go on for a very long time

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Russia's committing way more resources into this conflict than they ever did for previous similar operations though. Ukraine is claiming they killed/wounded over 200000 Russian soldiers. That's not anywhere near comparable to previous post WWII conflicts.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ukraine claims a lot of things, it's called war propaganda. We won't know what the actual losses are on each side until the war is over. It's certainly absurd to take Ukrainian numbers uncritically. In fact, it doesn't even match up with Ukraine having done multiple mobilizations now while Russia has only done one. If Russia was losing anywhere close to manpower Ukraine claims, then they would've had to do multiple mobilizations by now as well. Also, as many military experts have pointed out, this is primarily an artillery war and Russia has a huge artillery advantage over Ukraine. That's where vast majority of casualties comes from.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Russia never really stopped mobilizing men. They started the mobilization back in autumn, then passed several reforms to allow them to keep mobilizing men in a less conspicuous way, like making the delivery of the mobilization letter electronic and without receipt, adding restrictions to those who don't go the conscription office and other laws. All these were done in the winter and thousands of reports of electronic mobilization letters surfaced during these months on the internet. It's a steady stream conscripts rather than big batches, but the result it's the same.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Human resources yeah, but financial? I'm not sure. The Iraq war cost 3 trillion dollars.

And mind you, you're talking about the victors (mostly) the Korean war cost the lives of 2 million people. As did the Vietnam war.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't you mean generated trillions of dollars (for private war profiteers)?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing about corruption is that it's very inefficient. Spending a trillion dollars on weapons translates to only a couple of billions in the pockets of profiteers, the rest is used to actually make the weapons, move them in place, and to pay the people using them.

So with a useless war, you waste far more than you would if you just have the money to the profiteers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The money would be wasted on things like super yachts anyways. At least a good chunk of this waste goes to things like feeding and housing soldiers and contractors and paying those people and all the people who make the food, supplies, etc. Seems less wasteful than just giving it to billionaires. Granted, the weapons, when they actually function at all, can be used to cause harm to many people...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rule of Acquisition number 34: War is good for business.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A lot of western oligarchs are making very good profits off this war. Here's an undercover interview with a Blackrock recruiter who openly says Blackrock is making money and they want the war to keep going https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOhAgYonAY4

Anybody who thinks that the west is there to protect Ukraine and defend democracy is brain damaged.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=WOhAgYonAY4

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

that is, 0.6% of the total number of people who can be drafted into the army.

The current political regime is not particularly concerned about military losses. even if we take into account the 2 million Russians who left, 200,000 people still make up about 1% of the number of conscripts. Even if we assume that half of them will somehow manage to escape from the Ministry of Defense, 15 million people can still be called up into the army.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can call a lot of people, but the reality is that the Russian army gradually shifts from trained soldiers with tanks and artillery to Igor with a gun.

Their losses will skyrocket the moment they can't provide sufficient counter-battery fire and air defence for their troops anymore.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

the Russian army has never been well trained. Almost the entire composition of the army below the officers are forcibly conscripted civilians. the number of contractors is ridiculously small.

the Russian army has never been contracted. And a year of training of a forcibly conscripted person always gives approximately the same result.

UPD: if we lived in the world of starcraft, Russia would undoubtedly be Zerg. In general, the command and tactics are applied accordingly - a swarm of Zerg. I am generally surprised that conscripts are at least given weapons.

when I served in the army on universal conscription for 2.5 years of compulsory conscription many, years ago, I fired from a machine gun about 2 times. This is the average level of training of a Russian soldier.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can't really send every man able to hold a gun directly to the front without your economy completely collapsing. Even 1% of your abled men being suddenly dead is very serious in terms of the economy. Plus all the injured coming home from the war now suddenly being a burden rather than a productive asset to your economy.

Definitely not good for either country

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This number takes into account every men from the age bracket 15 to to 55, according to rosstat numbers. https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/Bul_chislen_nasel-pv_01-01-2022.pdf
This assumes a lot given that realistically there is no real way to know how many people are really living there. This is absolutely not the number of people who are eligible to be conscripted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

By the contract, a person of any age can now be called up until the rifle falls out of his hands. So it's even less than it could theoretically be required. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/28/05/2022/6291e8e79a7947008579486b

In the Russian Federation, the same resolution on conscripts can be issued one day at any time.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The plan is to profit from war, and that's the thing, it never ends.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I see the Russia shills and trolls have finally started to move on from reddit now lol. LarkinDePark, Yogthos. RIP.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Bud those "Russian shills" have been here much longer than you

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

You joined one month ago

Yogthos' account is 4 years old.

At least this indicates that he is a human with an opinion that he stated on a highly nieche community and not a paid actor that only joins and starts to influence consensus after a community grows.

You on the other hand...

Jk, but think before you misrepresent a community and people as being shills.

For sake of completeness: account dates can be manipulated by the owner of the instance the account is registered on

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is one of the things I pointed out in the post on the permanent war. Russia since the beginning dumped into the war old and outdated equipment. They sent to the front those who they considered the less valuable soldiers at the same time initially they avoided to send recruits from the draft to minimise the political backlash within Russia.

Since the beginning they handled it as a long term attrition war.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's not true. They lost most of their so-called "elite" units at the beginning of the war, thinking it would be a very short war and that these units would just walk into Kyiv. Units which they are incapable of replacing in any meaningful way.

The mobilisation only came months after their initiation of the war, when they realised it would not be a short term affair.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's also been the view of actual military people in NATO, but you'll never hear about this in the mainstream media

https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup, and the US military-industrial-complex has been frothing at the mouth for another long-term war they can profit off of, and they've got their wish.

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