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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Sure, a Ruble buys you fewer international goods than a dollar, but has much more buying power in Russia.

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.

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Tanks these days aren't raw steel, rubber and a few other things anymore.

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.

Unfortunately they are able to replace quality by quantity. Their tech in Ukraine is from 50s and 60s (I know by first hand experience) but they are just too many...

Depends on how China responds. The world is in a proxy war with Russia via Ukraine.

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.

"The world" is not. The US and their allies are. The rest of the world is sitting this out at best. Go check some Indian, African, and South American coverage. It's very eye-opening.

I did follow Indian coverage for a while for that exact reason, but it didn't seem that different from BBC or CNN (except heavy focus on Indian students as you would expect) so I stopped. Had this changed?

They don't cover it that well, doesn't mean people across the World stopped despising Russians for what they are doing right now.

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.

One thing Indian media does better than Western media is not to rebroadcast Zelensky indiscriminately. Let's face it: it's a propaganda. They should extract informational content, not quote verbatim. Just as you would do so for Russian media.

Your not wrong. I wish news would try and put things In proper context.

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.

Disagree. No one is obliged to be recipient of psyop by state actor.

> is not to rebroadcast Zelensky indiscriminately. Let's face it: it's a propaganda.

What is exactly? Most of the time he just asks the World for help, do you mean it's not genuine!?

China may also decide that the far east russian territories, which are already under heavy Chinese influence, may look cute under Chinese flag.

> Russia can't make all of that at the same level as the rest of the world combined.

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?)).

> they haven't sent over the majority of their equipment,

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

Some of that is a locality issue. Due to a mix of bad planning and Ukraine resisting rather more effectively than expected, Russian forces don't have enough equipment near the front lines so are falling back on what they can find for now. There is better equipment available elsewhere, but Russia is fairly large and getting that reinforcing equipment from one part to another is not an instantaneous process.

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?

CNN good enough? https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news...

Possibly, depending on who their source “a US official” actually is.

If so, I have given Russian military strength far too much credit.

> they'll have plenty in reserve

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.

> Russia can't make all of that at the same level as the rest of the world combined.

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).

The CANZUK and EU economies put together are 60% or more. It's about economies, not population.

And if sanctions truly kick in, Mexico and Brazil especially won't be trading long with Russia...

Just before I went on lunch,I watched someone in Russia going to a shop with a camera and just filming some random stuff and how much it costs, like fruit,veg,etc. An average pensioner was sitting on probably $200-300 pension. Now it's more like $100. A kilograme of cucumbers was like $2 if converted from rubles..The video was shot during the weekend, when the exchange rate wasn't as bad as it is today.

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