Their GDP was on par with Spain (a country of far smaller size and natural wealth), but is fast approaching that of Portugal.
I mean, look at the flight of skilled workers out of their country, and the ruble halving in value in the space of a month.
The tank factories still exist, and the workers there still have jobs and can still make tanks. As long as they still get food and raw materials more tanks will come off the line, and Russia nowadays has enough food and plenty of raw materials.
The Ruble will buy less on international markets, but it still buys stuff within Russia. There will be severe inflation, sure, but that just means people will prioritise food and other essentials. As long as there are enough of those they can still work.
They're advanced alloys, a ton of electronics, etc.
Russia can't make all of that at the same level as the rest of the world combined.
Similar story for almost every advanced military product. And for civilian products.
The Russian population is in for a world of hurt.
China might decide to have a proxy war with the west via Russia. Or maybe not. Since The world is coming together hopefully discouraged shenanigans.
This is kind of similar to how Vietnam was a proxy war between the US and Russia.
edit: actually even Western media aren't doing good job, reporters are scared and shit themselves afraid of Russian fire strikes and don't go into areas where most of the fighting happens, some Czech media and other small nations do but that's it.
That said.
He’s a symbol of freedom and hope against oppression that many people need right now.
Let the people have their hero for now.
What is exactly? Most of the time he just asks the World for help, do you mean it's not genuine!?
Right now they don't have to, they just need to replace things at the level as Ukraine with just a little help from others. That is much more manageable than “the rest of the world combined”.
> The Russian population is in for a world of hurt.
Which Putin will blame on the rest of the world. While many in Russia are well aware that state run media (and anything else not banned) is often a pile of lies from on high, an awful lot of the general populace are not – disinformation from the top works (and not just in Russia & similar regimes, cf. the cult of Trump) and failing that many people who don't believe the official line will keep quiet about that for reasons of what continued quality of life is possible.
> The Russian population is in for a world of hurt.
The military will do OK for a while at least though. They haven't sent over the majority of their equipment, they'll have plenty in reserve and raw materials for making at least some more. Sales of oil & gas can be funnelled into buying more from outside if needed (massive exchange rate differences don't matter as much if export payments almost immediately go out on import payments, or they can start trading more directly if they have a willing trading partner (China perhaps?)).
Really? I thought they sent in like 75%. Here's their current reinforcements (see the Z letters): https://v.redd.it/qadkws73hwl81/DASH_720.mp4
I could be wrong of course. This isn't the first time I've heard the figure, but 75% seems rather a lot to have dedicated to this action at the outset. Do you have any reference for that figure?
If so, I have given Russian military strength far too much credit.
That's the big unknown. What part of their reserves is usable? We've already seen they are sending over 40 years old equipment from the Far East a few days ago.
They are still trading with China, India, Brazil, Mexico and a few other large countries... it's not exactly the whole world against Russia (if you include China and India as at least being neutral, that's already more than half the world population NOT against Russia).
And if sanctions truly kick in, Mexico and Brazil especially won't be trading long with Russia...
Could you please clarify if this has a meaning other than the mathematical meaning?
The ruble was 0.013 USD on Feb 7, and is 0.010 on Mar 8. Per my math, it has lost 23% of its value, not 50%.
Russia is big and I'm confident they have most resources needed to build their own tanks and the like without any foreign imports. But that's a gut feeling.