It's been dead for thirty years. Russia has done an admirable job using, reusing, and repurposing tools developed during the Soviet Union's existence, but that is all they have had going for them - aside from cash related to Mir and ISS and the associated launches, which kept the whole thing on life support.
This phrase saddens me, but it seems the most likely outcome.
When the power brokers in Moscow acknowledge that Putin has become a liability, they'll replace him so they can return to the kleptocratic status quo.
I highly doubt there will be a popular uprising against him, which at least would allow for a chance for democratic progress.
If there was no possibility to sell oil and gas, then it would be appropriate to discuss if a benevolent dictator might help to build a democracy. While this possibility persists nothing will help. Now it seems West is going to ban exports from Russia (I'm very excited), but there is China. China will benefit from supporting Russia on it's way to a North Korea scenario. So I believe there is no hope for a democracy in Russia.
I’m a software developer in Germany. If you can think of a way I could maybe help, mail me at mail@konstantinschubert.com
There is a direct and very strong correlation in Russia between person's level of education, his worth on the labour market and his disdain for the Russia's policy. While majority of Russians support fascist regime and criminal war against Ukraine, majority of those who leave now, especially those with fluent English and internationally valued skills absolutely do not.
Do countries accept refugees without passports? I can't imagine living a stateless/undocumented existence in some random country to be better than a relatively middle class life in russia.
Getting into EU using all legal (or illegal) ways and trying to get asylum is good option for people who actually running from war when their home being bombed. But if you're from IT and used to higher quality of life and also need some comfort to work efficiently then it's not an option - because finding a job takes time.
If ID/passport were a requirement, it would make no sense whatsoever... considering that you're likely fleeing a government that wants to kill you.
And for all it is western governments don’t have a good history of accepting refugees, let alone refugees who just decided the leave the country because it’s just not too good there.
That is literally not a refugee.
tell that to all the afghans in pakistan right now who can't get any documents from the .PK domestic offices of UNHCR
But in a larger context, it is all a consequence of Putin's rule. The guy is like Midas in reverse: everything he touches turns to shit.
Also its entirely possible the cost of a Soyuz launch is cheaper than a Falcon9 despite re-use, due to it being used for so long and slightly smaller.
Whether Amur will ever fly, or even become hardware ... I'm not holding my breath.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/russian-space-corpor...
There was a Raptor 1 full upclose to which he said something along the lines of, paraphrasing, "If you copy these then good luck to you, you're in for pain".
I'm sure they still know a thing or two about rocket engine design(!) but I can't help think that brain-drain will get the better of them sooner or later. These things require innovation, not just brute forcing old designs.
The idea that they could just build a reusable rocket is just not in the car.
Mostly what the Russian space program has been doing is announcing one absurd program after another. The amount of power-point designs announced by Russia is comical. They have announced a reusable rocket but like so many of the other projects, its mostly just propganda.
Some call Putin a "genius". I'd call him something different.
So why is Putin invading Ukraine now? There are several logical reasons if you understand Russian history, geography, psychology and demography.
In terms of history, in the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the west. Specifically, Moscow has been attacked and conquered six times in its history by foreign armies, and usually via the same routes. This is also where geography plays an important role in understanding the Russian invasion.
In terms of geography, the Carpathian Mountains are a natural land defence between the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea. Indeed, in the days of the USSR, under the Warsaw Pact, the Russians could project military power in the land gaps either side of the Carpathian Mountains on Baltic and Black Seas. This is where NATO expansion has worried the Russians because, post the USSR, I speculate they feel Moscow is exposed, and is being encircled by NATO.
I also speculate the psychology of the Russian leadership is one of paranoia of land invasion, and they want to push out territory (or at least project military power) to fight an invasion from the historical routes Russia has been invaded from. Post-communist Russia has been doing just this and is why Crimea was effectively annexed by Russia (because they wanted to project naval power into the Black Sea).
From a US perspective we like to think that the US was the biggest factor in the Allied win of WWII, but little thought is given to how important the Russians were and how many Russians lost their lives. This is where, most mainstream media has completely omitted the rise of far-right violence and politics in Ukraine. No one in the West wants to think they are supporting Nazis even if they are fending off the Russians. Please note that I am not saying that all Ukrainians are far-right, however I speculate that the Russians do care about the rise of the far right in Ukraine (as it is along their border), and from their perspective see it as stopping the rise of another WWII Nazi-Germany type situation.
Lastly, demography plays a part because Russia has had several 'baby busts', that is not enough babies have been born. I speculate that the Russian leadership believes that if Russia does not plug the geographic routes for invasion now, it never will.
Sadly, I also don’t see Russia stopping with Ukraine. If the Russians will stop at nothing to gain geographic security this puts Russia in a direct confrontation with NATO member states. I also worry about the second order consequences, like the loss of life and suffering that will happen due to a loss of Ukrainian wheat crops, and the loss of global crops due to sanctions on fertilizers from Russia.
Who is going to attack a nuclear power in a land war in the 21st century?
From Moscow's perspective Ukraine could have a Nazi party take over at some point in the future. Those Nazis may think about finishing the job Hitler failed to do and take Moscow.
No it can't. Ukraine doesn't and can't have nukes. Russia has thousands of nukes. This doesn't even begin to make sense. Nobody can invade a nuclear power, let alone one with as many nukes as Russia.
> From Moscow's perspective Ukraine could have a Nazi party take over at some point in the future.
This is their propaganda. It's that logical fallacy; anything could happen, therefore this. Far-right gets very little support in Ukrainian elections, and neo-nazism is a bigger problem in Russia, Poland and Hungary than in Ukraine. Maybe Russia should be scared of Hungary; fair enough. But Ukraine? Azov is a large problem that needs to be dealt with, but it has nothing to do with neo-Nazis inside Ukrainian politics or leadership or broader society. If they wanted Ukraine to deal with Azov, they would stop threatening Ukraine, and then Ukraine wouldn't have the need for Azov. If you create an intense need for defence, then of course Azov isn't going to be dealt with. Azov is purely the fault of Russia.
I get that's part of what the propaganda is saying, and therefore some part of the population will believe it strongly. I am just saying it is not believable.
As far as the USSR collapse having nothing to do with external powers, that is an interesting take, I thought the Cold War was a big part of it, but maybe not?
They (Azov battalion ) are 1000 - 1500 (depending on source) people , and apparently only 10% - 20% of them are self proclaimed Nazis. Even if all of them are, It would surprise me if this was even the biggest Ukraian Nazi group.
Most Westerner nations have more, hell In US you would be hard pressed to find a state that has less of them.
Not trying to excuse them. Any white supremacist and/or nazi has no place in modern society. Just trying to put things in perspective. If Azov is all the nazis that Ukraine has, they are better than most western countries.
Please enlighten me, what other European country not only gave the arms to a Neo-Nazi gang (making it a government supported armed gang), absolved them of from any persecution from their misdeeds (including torture of civilians, as documented by OHCHR) AND incorporated it as a full featured unit in it's own army?
Complete with a wolfsangel, black sun and reichsadler on the coat of arms, you know, a long standing historical symbols of Ukraine along with vyshyvanka ?
Can you imagine something happening in a present day Germany? Poland? Latvi... well, in Latvia it could happen just fine, sure thing.
The problem is not in Azov, the problem is what there is too many nazi (real nazi, adoring AH and German nazi, not just 'extremely nationalistic' ones) everywhere in Ukraine, including government AND army. If the layer of shit in the cake is only 2% it is still a cake with a shit layer.
> If Azov is all the nazis that Ukraine has, they are better than most western countries.
No, Azov isn't 'all the nazis' sadly. In the first week of war there was enough UPA flags in the videos to tell that.
Look at Mariupol right now. The only reason it's still standing is because of Azov. This shows that the tolerance of Azov was unfortunately necessary in order to stop Russian aggression. If you are upset by Azov, blame Russia.
Oh, sure, the shit started only month ago and there was nobody else to defend except a Nazi unit of a regular army, amirite? And it didn't existed for 8 previous years, right?
> the blame for tolerance of Azov is purely on Russian aggression.
... blame for tolerance? What?
> The only reason it's still standing is because of Azov
Or maybe they just don't want to surrender because they somehow know they would receive the same treatment they gave all those years?
> This shows that the tolerance of Azov was unfortunately necessary in order to stop Russian aggression
And now you are justifying a literal Nazis... Or maybe you are just actually sympathize with them?
Moscow doesn't care about Nazis; it's essentially a fascist state itself, and has been backing neo-Nazi groups among the separatists in sponsors (like the Sparta battalion) before Azov was involved in the conflict, much less incorporated into the National Guard.
It only cares that Ukraine has a government now (not potentially in the future) that it isn't a willing puppet of Russia like the Yanukovych government was, or like Lukashenko’s government in Belarus is.
That anyone can even entertain that Russia is WORRIED about Nazis or far-right poltics in Ukraine is laughable, they WANT that government. It's propaganda 101.
I'm also not sure Ukraine would have had the ability to be a Nazi-Germani situation, their military stands no chance. What would they have tried to conquer and not quickly been pushed back from doing so?
This is why I feel that argument makes no sense to me, and sounds like a big pretext for something else, which in my opinion is more about Putin's holding on to his power and authoritarianism.
Personally, I think Russia's best future is to do what Ukraine was trying to do. Become a part of the west, democratize properly with real term limits and all, tackle corruption, regulate your oligarch to favor more competition, etc.
My thoughts though is that Putin is the one that loses most if Russia were to do that, and he was afraid that Ukraine would set an example, if Ukraine did it and it turned out good for them and their people, Putin would be put in a bad spot.
But I'm interested in your thoughts, because it's true I don't know as much about the geopolitics around Russia.
I think a lot has been made of comments about the far-right elements in Ukraine, but it is coming from my analysis that politics is becoming bifurcated and extreme on both ends of the political divide. You quite rightly point out that there are far right movements in more places than Ukraine, and I completely agree. I worry a lot about the rise of nationalism and I think any politician is a fool to ignore it... sadly many of them have exploited division and nationalism for their own ends. Indeed, Putin can be exploiting it as an excuse for the war, but we should acknowledge that there is a modicum of truth to it, which makes the propaganda effective.
As for Putin's holding on to his power and authoritarianism, I think there is an element of that, but there are all the people under him that have vested interests in continuing the regime. In the West we think that democracy is the best system, and I think we don't question that. If you do question it, you'll see that it's actually quite fragile and relies on belief in the legitimacy of the elections, and a stable society where wealth inequality doesn't get out of hand. Increasingly the West is doubting elections Brexit/Trump/Biden, society is unstable with protests and riots, and wealth inequality is growing to historical extremes. Indeed, the Russian, Chinese revolutions and Hitler's rise to power came out of a similar situation.
Lastly, I haven't mentioned speculation that Ukraine could be sitting on vast offshore oil and gas reserves in the Black Sea. If this is correct, Ukraine would be of prime interest to the EU and probably fast track EU and, or NATO membership. Obviously, this would threaten Russian interests.
I hope that helps explain my thinking. I'm not an expert. I just tried to refactor my thinking and I just tried to start from first principles. I hope all the death and destruction stops.
If I was a military strategist, I would want geographical strategic advantage and maximum future flexibility.
Should the world allow it to happen? All countries have had centuries of wars. I don't see why Russia qualifies for an exception allowing it to genocide Ukrainians.
For the people not familiar with related terms - the UN definition of genocide https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml. Putin was very clear in his editorial and speeches that the destruction of Ukrainian ethnic and national identity is the main goal of the war.
It shocked me that I never considered that I would see an invasion, and let's be frank, a war in Europe.
Of course, I think there should be a halt to the hostilities... but I believe in seeing the world as it is and dealing with that, with a view to work towards what it should be. Sadly, the US and others like the UK, won't risk a NATO/Russian war. That's the only way I see the Ukrainian invasion ending.
Edit: nor, for that matter, can a buffer state affect a bioweapon
If I was saying to somebody we should invade Russia they would understand that it was a joke, because nobody gets away with invading Russia. Nobody. It never ends well. Russia is not the place people go make a name for themselves as conquerors. It is the place conquerors go to die.
NATO doesn't do this. Or at least if it does, it's remarkably poorly reported by some of the press in the UK that I would expect to gleefully report if it were true.
Also, if you want 'second order consequences' take a moment to think about the brain drain of many under-30 Russians (I'm picking an arbitrary age), that have grown up with the Internet and western food. They're leaving as we type.
Then, there's the demographic problem. There are fewer young men in Russia.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/03/russia-demography-birth...
Even fewer due to COVID, and now due to the events of the last few weeks. And who knows how many Russian teens and 20-somethings will be dead in a month or two?
How do you "protect yourself" from perceived invasion from the west with fewer and fewer people in the army? Bigger weapons? I hope not.
Russia are losing their youth on two fronts.
Well done Putin, you've ruined your country for decades.
However, with regards to your statement about overt military operations threatening Russia, have you considered all the covert stuff? The CIA have been running operations in Ukraine for a long time and I think it would be fair to say that the Orange Revolution was helped along by Western intelligence agencies.
Quite possibly the economy could be better after COVID? Something that mostly kills off older retirees could reduce economic drain (although it depends on lots of factors).
“Covid-19 caused total life expectancy in Russia to fall by 2.32 years in 2020” - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/03/covid-has-caus...
Moreover, those invasions were all personal affairs. Dictatorial leaders like the Swedish kings, Napoleon or Hitler wanted to beat the Tsar/General-Secretary or whatever the master of the Russians called himself and take his possessions.
It was not like the majority of the citizens of those countries cared about the Russian lands and wanted them.
Now, when all the Western neighbors of Russia have democratic governments, continuing to say that there exists any danger of invasion for Russia is ridiculous.
While during the last 500 years there were a few failed attempts to invade Russia, on the other hand Russia has continuously invaded very successfully both its Western and its Eastern neighbors, becoming from a relatively small country one of the largest empires, and it remained the largest country after the British Empire decomposed.
On all the territories that they invaded, the Russians have implemented brutal policies against the natives, both during the Tsars and during the communists.
Especially during the 19th century, the Russians, while expanding continuously toward the West, claimed that they were "liberating" various populations from the non-Christian Ottoman exploitation.
In reality the new "Christian" rulers have always proved to be much greedier than the former Ottoman rulers and much more aggressive towards the non-Russian populations. The former Ottoman empire was much more tolerant towards minorities, regardless of their religion (as long as they paid the imposed taxes).
So no, any justification of Russia being some kind of victim of invasions, when it is Russia who invaded successfully and relentlessly all its neighbors during 500 years, and thus needing today some imaginary vital space for its protection, is completely baseless.
Moreover, because the post above mentions that the Russians would like to reach the Carpathian Mountains, supposedly for a better protection of their Western border, it is good to know that before WWII Russia/SSSR never reached until the Carpathian Mountains.
After WWII, according to the agreements with Roosevelt and Churchill, the Soviet Union incorporated large parts from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Those parts included a segment of the Carpathian Mountains and it is thus how Russia reached them.
However Stalin included much of what was taken from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania into Ukraine.
Therefore when Ukraine opted out of the Soviet Union, Russia lost the access to the Carpathians, so they probably regretted that Stalin has chosen to include those parts in Ukraine (which made more sense geographically) instead of in Russia proper.
Excuse me, are you considering WWII fatalities as "no long-term consequences"?
> while expanding continuously toward the West, claimed that they were "liberating"
And Nazi Germany claimed they were "liberating" [from the Red Plague] the countries they invade. Well, they liberated Jews, Poles, Slavs from their lives, I can't deny that.
At the end of WWII, the Soviet Union incorporated a few whole countries, the Baltic countries and large parts from its other neighbors, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, also some Japanese islands.
Besides these huge occupied territories, the Soviet Union stole huge amounts from the Eastern European countries occupied by it. A large number of German factories have been taken and moved piece by piece in Russia, where they constituted the basis of many Soviet industries after the war.
In all the other East European countries, especially during the first 2 decades after WWII, the Soviet Union continued to steal every year much of the useful production of various agricultural products and mineral resources, usually under the camouflage of mixed companies, partially owned by the Soviet Union and by the local country, but in which the Russians dictated, with the support of the Soviet army, which still occupied those countries.
Several East European countries had to pay huge war reparations to the Soviet Union, even if the history of the war was completely opposite from what the Russians claimed, i.e. it was Russia who attacked and occupied parts of those countries at the beginning of WWII and not the other way around. Nonetheless, the victims of the Russian invasions not only lost large territories, but they have also paid war reparations for defending themselves, continuously for about 20 years after WWII.
So yes for Russia, with the help of their US & British allies, WWII had unbelievably good consequences, better than any of the other wars initiated by Russia.
Of course the beneficiaries of all the wealth stolen from the neighbors of the Soviet Union were not the many millions of simple Soviet citizens, but only the communist leaders and their families, who have always secretly had access to many luxuries that were completely forbidden for normal people.
Russian land invasion fears as speculation for why Russia invaded, but this war started many years ago when Russia took Crimea and Crimea doesn't have a land connection with Russia. Russia shares a sea with Crimea, but not land. What Crimea does have is a lot of oil. So much so that it was a geopolitical threat to Europe's reliance on Russian oil.
This war isn't happening because of baby busts. It is happening because Russia raped Ukraine for oil, but then discovered that holding Crimea against Ukraine wasn't feasible. Crimea gets its water from Ukraine. Russia doesn't have a port for the sea that connects it with Crimea which is always usable. So it has to ship water in, but doesn't have a great means to do so when Ukraine is hostile.
It built a bridge, but that sort of infrastructure is vulnerable in the event of war.
Stealing Crimea turned out to be expensive. Meanwhile, Ukraine was modernizing its armies and pretty upset that its land was stolen from it.
So they call them nazis, which in this case really means people willing to defend their land, but who cares about actual meanings when you can just repeat Russian propaganda?
If Russia waits, Ukraine continues to modernize. Eventually the war starts on Ukraine's terms and instead of humiliating international defeat now they would have gotten a crushing and humiliating international rout later. The defeat is Ukraine retaking Crimea. It isn't an invasion of Moscow. The war with NATO that Russia is afraid of isn't NATO invading Moscow either. It is NATO supporting Ukraine's efforts to retake Crimea.
Which is why Russia was so desperate to do this now, even though it was a bad decision. Every moment they waited Ukraine was getting stronger. They wanted to win now to stop them from facing justice later. Except they miscalculated. Ukraine grew stronger faster than they realized. Moreover, their espionage wasn't as effective as they had hoped. They wanted to win quickly. They hoped to just take Ukraine and be done.
They didn't. They blundered. This blunder goes back many years. As far back as the invasion of Crimea itself.
The kicker? Oil isn't the currency of the future. They blundered over the resource that everyone is going to be trying to get away from.
If they think Moscow is too close to a border for safety, they should cry themselves to sleep and try to find friends to protect them. Is there any capital city in the world further from the closest border or ocean, besides Brasilia?
The idea that NATO would get its finger out of its ass to do that is basically impossible.
And even so, that ignore nuclear power.
I know more about Russian history then most people and was interested in the topic before this war, and Russia certainty has interest there. But strategically this was the worst single plan imaginable.
Keep in mind, the Russians that think like this mostly only speak Russian. If they speak any other language also, they choose to spend most of their time in the Russian-language world. They consider Russia their motherland, and aren't about to leave to nations they consider foreign and hostile just because things might be tough for a while. They're not listening to Western news even when they were allowed to, and they don't know or care much what Westerners think.
Are such types of people "ignorant", "uncultured", and whatever else you might call them? Kind of, yeah. But what nation can survive long without any such people, especially in the face of the invasions they've faced in the last few hundred years.
These are the people who are Putin's base and make up most of the Russian elite. They're also the ones that will decide whether he stays in power or goes. They really do think that those uppity Ukrainians had it coming, don't know their place, have no business considering themselves a country and cozying up to Nato, etc. I'm pretty sure if he does end up getting the boot, it will be because his backers are horrified at how much he let the once-mighty Red Army degrade and how vulnerable he let them become to the West, not because they realized that Ukraine deserves to be independent after all.
The trouble is, Putin and his crew spewed a little too much propaganda, and believed it a little too hard. They talked up how Ukraine was a bunch of drug-addled half-assed wannabe Nazis to themselves so hard that they actually believed it. They went in with a plan based around those assumptions. The trouble is, it seems they were quite wrong and are getting their asses handed to them. So what are they gonna do now? I don't think that pulling out and going home with their tail between their legs is gonna be a good option for Putin. Beats me what they'll actually do, but I'm afraid it won't be pretty.
If you really want to understand things, you need to understand that it's a different culture over there. They really do believe this stuff. The few Westernized people who think it's all terrible are a tiny, unrepresentative minority. Don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone everywhere is really just like us, with maybe just a couple of weird assholes in charge for some reason. Our enemies are sincere. America has made such assumptions more than once in our past, and got our asses handed to us over it. Now it's Russia's turn, at least as long we we don't screw things up even more than they did.
For Putin to stay in control of the country. And also, for majority of Russians, to finally have the moment of their fascist pride.
I've long suggested buying seaside plots there as a viable investment strategy, with the only issue not knowing where the coast will be :D