Ukraine’s economy seems to be growing again | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine’s economy seems to be growing again

economist.com

Last time I tried pointing out objective truth about the conflict and point to UN observers (OSCE) data on the the continuous bombing of Donbass in the past 8 years (14k civillians killed according to western numbers, I don't even know the Russian ones), I was promptly shadowbanned as was every other comment not strictly critical of Russia. People thinking this attack was unprovoked, should check trusted sources(UN observers, non-profits) and immediately stop relying on social media as their information source. Unfortunately that means HN too for everything political.

As a person who studied propaganda as part of my communicology education I have to point out the role social media plays in the current conflict: - social media moderators are the new gatekeepers of information

- most social media moderators are working for free - they are working for the gratification

- they restrict information according to their own personal biases. They are not the kind of people that check the of information presented. They would rarely go against the will of the community

- the resulting effect is an echo chamber in which everyone is in virtual agreement over important issues. This forces most people to rethink their positions or face being ostracized

- people that persist, will get continuously silenced until they leave the community

- since this is also happening to this forum, expect a drop in comment quality, because many posters are leaving as they are dissuaded from participating in the community

In this thread we're talking about the upswing of the Ukranian economy, right after having a big chunk of their infrastructure destroyed in the past few days of bombing. So in case you're wondering how it's possible people believe such nonsense, this is your explanation. They either don't and leave, or for the sake of inclusion in the community, change their views to whatever is being displayed as the overwhelmingly supported position.

There is only a slim chance this post won't be removed after minutes and I will probably leave after that.

"Here in the U.S., the war has also exposed the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of an ideologically diverse set of foreign-policy commentators: the “anti-imperialists” who routinely justify blatant acts of imperial conquest, and the “realists” who make arguments unmoored from reality."

This is actually a nice list of people missing the official narrative:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/anti-war-c...

Based on my limited experience, major supporters of Russia invasion among US citizens are either far-right, or far-left. Horseshoe theory has never been so evident.

Many communists in Europe openly support Russia. Maybe they never got the news about 1991. Or Maybe all that talk of anti imperialism was bullshit all along

John Mearsheimer may be conservative. But he's not far right.

And Kissinger is Kissinger.

No Mearsheimer just extremely conceited to the point he refuses to admit how dead wrong he's been about this whole thing. He actually said that there was no evidence Putin was an imperialist during a debate(the audience laughed at him).

So the same reaction this audience has to the idea of evolution? You mean similar to people in this thread openly mocking the idea Ukraine couldn't have economic growth this week?

What was the audiences reaction when they found out over 1mil died by US hands in Iraq over fabricated evidence by Dick Cheney? He's been proclaimed a hero? I see how this works.

What about the murder of Epstein to hide the fact there are some high profile pedophiles in leadership positions in Washington? I bet the story that he was killed, while all those cameras malfunctioned simultaneously has been laughed at way more often. So miracles do happen?

Laughing audiences are not a measure of how true or false something is. Only how socially enforced the viewpoint is.

Mearsheimer got it right already in 2015:

"and the end result is that Ukraine is going to be wrecked"

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592

I think you are preaching to the choir. Thinking with your own brain is hard, that's why some people like to delegate this task.

> objective truth about the conflict and point to UN observers (OSCE) data on the the continuous bombing of Donbass in the past 8 years (14k civillians killed according to western numbers

This is a misrepresentation of facts at best. The "14k" figure being cited here is the total sum of all casualties [1], including 4.400 Ukrainian soldiers and 6.500 Russian & pro-Russian militants. The number of civilian casualties during the entire conflict is 3.404, 8.8% of which are actually attributed to a single incident: The shootdown of MH17 in 2014, where all 298 passangers on board were killed after the aircraft was shot down by Russian militants.

[1] https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-...

From the report you linked:

During the entire conflict period, from 14 April 2014 to 31 December 2021, OHCHR recorded a total of 3,106 conflict-related civilian deaths (1,852 men, 1,072 women, 102 boys, 50 girls, and 30 adults whose sex is unknown). Taking into account the 298 deaths on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on 17 July 2014, the total death toll of the conflict on civilians has reached at least 3,404. The number of injured civilians is estimated to exceed 7,000.

These monthly reports by the OHCHR give a breakdown of the specific causes and locations of casualties. From an earlier report:

During the last six months, from 1 October 2019 to 31 March 2020, 84.4 per cent of civilian casualties resulting from shelling and SALW fire were recorded in territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’ (27: two killed and 25 injured), and 15.6 percent (five: one killed and four injured) in Government-controlled territory. (https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/conflict-related-civili...)

The bulk of civilian casualties since 2014 has been in the rebel regions and inflicted by Ukrainian government forces.

> From the report you linked

Thanks for citing the relevant part. It shows OP is clearly wrong about "14k civilians killed".

> These monthly reports by the OHCHR give a breakdown of the specific causes and locations of casualties. From an earlier report:

> The bulk of civilian casualties since 2014 has been in the rebel regions and inflicted by Ukrainian government forces.

Again, this is another misrepresentation of facts. You are quoting a single monthly report with 3 civilians killed (in total), and are attempting to mislead by 1) extrapolating it to the entire conflict since 2014 and 2) asserting the "bulk" of casualties to be inflicted by Ukraine (The UN report makes no such assertion whatsoever).

In 2014, frontlines were highly fluid - going that far back, the term "rebel regions" is essentially meaningless since the borders of these entities did at one point reach Slovyansk (a city that remains under Ukrainian control to this day).

> You are quoting a single monthly report..and are attempting to mislead by 1) extrapolating it to the entire conflict since 2014 and 2) asserting the "bulk" of casualties to be inflicted by Ukraine...

Instead of a representative month, let's look at annual statistics. This table is from the OHCHR document you linked (page 2). Even over a four year period, the numbers are about the same. In my opinion, 81.4% definitely counts as the "bulk" of something.

  Civilian casualties caused by active hostilities[1]
  in 2018-2021, per territory
  
           Rebel      Government  No Man's  Total
           Territory  Territory   Land
  2018     128        27          7         162
  2019     85         18          2         105
  2020     61         9           0         70
  2021     36         8           0         44
  Total    310        62          9         381
  Percent  81.4       16.3        2.3       100.0
  
  [1] shelling, SALW fire, and UAV strikes

There is a question of how representative these numbers are for the entire conflict, since the nature of the fighting changed after the Minsk agreements. From the same document (page 3), we see a drastic decline in deaths.

  Civilian deaths by year
  2014 -- 2084
  2015 -- 954
  2016 -- 112
  2017 -- 117
  2018 -- 55
  2019 -- 27
  2020 -- 26
  2021 -- 25

The decline after 2015 is due to the kinetic phase of the conflict ending around that time. Low-intensity mutual shelling was carried out afterwards for the whole duration of the conflict. The entire post-2015 period only accounts for 10.6% of all civilian deaths. The active phase of the Russian-backed insurrection was undeniably the most lethal & most destructive.

The imbalance in casualties after the frontlines were frozen is an interesting observation. The post-2015 lines of contact ran roughly along the edges of the capital cities of the self-proclaimed rebel republics, as both entities failed to secure more viable & defensible borders. On the other hand, there were no comparable government-held settlements anywhere near the line of contact. In this situation, any kind of fighting would more adversely effect the side with the disadvantageous LoCs.

According to your numbers, 310 civilians died in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine from 2018-2021. Obviously 310 too many, but civilian losses are unfortunately an ugly part of warfare, because war takes place where people live. And of course there are higher numbers of casualties in occupied territories, because that is what they are fighting about.

But to put that 310 number into perspective...

458 civilians were exhumed from mass-graves in Bucha in Ukraine. Many summarily executed (gunshots to the back of the head), with hands tied behind their backs, clear signs of torture etc etc.

That was just ONE village under Russian occupation. Just ONE. The same or similar happened many, many other places, most of them still in Russian-occupied territories, where the mass-graves have not yet been exhumed.

When one day Mariupol is liberated and the truth comes out about what there, it will make Bucha look like a school-yard argument.

Most of us have left already so the community is at its lowest point.

> People thinking this attack was unprovoked, should check trusted sources

If the attack was indeed provoked, why does Russian government and media constantly needs to lie about the reasons? Nuclear weapons, US-funded biolabs, Crucified Boy story, Ukraine plans to attack Russia/Belarus, etc?

> continuous bombing of Donbass in the past 8 years (14k civillians killed according to western numbers

Russia solution seems to be to bomb Donbass even more with even more casualties in 7 months. No matter how you feel about Ukraine, Russians aren't the good guys here.

There has never been a more just war than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the sense that no other war has had so many different incompatible justifications

This attack is unprovoked. You're claiming a visit of Merkel is enough to start a war?

Let's be real here.

Gas was found in Crimea in 2008 and it could replace Russian gas.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/world/europe/in-taking-cr...

Whatever Russia is claiming about NATO, that ain't it.

Fuck Russia.

And I'm saying that as a European citizen who is helping Ukranians where i can in my city.

What's so ridiculous to you about the article? I don't know shit about Ukraine, but when you go to zero there's nowhere to go from there but up, so it doesn't sound insane to me that right now it's going up.

(I agree that something about the framing seems weird, because it talks about "economic success" but then cites things like "a budget deficit of $38bn next year, equivalent to 19% of pre-war GDP," which doesn't really spark joy.)

> believe such nonsense,

It's not non-sense. Damage to existing stock and GDP growth are very different things. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it devastated the city. The loss to the US was estimated to be above $100 billion. Still, as far as the GDP was concerned, it was not impacted. GDP is by definition "gross domestic product", and I'll emphasize "product" here.

Do the citizens of Ukraine produce more stuff now than they did 6 months ago, or one year ago, or 5 years ago. Well, for one thing, they probably produce more weapons, munitions and military materiel. They are busy fixing stuff destroyed by the invaders. To me it sounds completely plausible that their GDP is increasing, even as their country is being bombed by Russia.

> People thinking this attack was unprovoked, should check trusted sources(UN observers, non-profits)

FYI, UN observers released a report just 2 days ago.

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/A-77-533-A...

Sounds like you're saying that Ukrainians somehow provoked this:

- Russian armed forces have shot at civilians attempting to flee

- summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, ill-treatment, rape and other sexual violence committed in areas occupied by Russian armed forces

- Children have become the victims of the full spectrum of violations investigated by the Commission, including indiscriminate attacks, torture, and rape, suffering the predictable psychological consequences

- Victims range from four to over 80 years old. Perpetrators raped the women and girls in their homes or took them and raped them in unoccupied dwellings. In most cases, these acts also amount to torture and cruel or inhumane treatment for the victims and for relatives who were forced to watch.

I would recommend everyone saying Ukraine should just concede to read this report. Would you give the same advice if this was happening to your country?

It is very cynic to stipulate a growth when the country lost its industrial regions due to Russian invasion By the way the historical issue of corruption is not yet answered

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-is-ukraine-such-an-eco...

The Russians are still actively attacking including destroying infrastructure with loitering munitions. This is so premature as to be either foolish or manipulation.

You listed two options but you're forgetting a third: you have almost no reliable information or context so the actual choices made aren't interpretable by you in any meaningful way

One of the most informative and interesting things one can do to help evaluate the statements being made today from a site are to test the statements made in months past, and see how it panned out. Here is the archive for The Economist. [1]

Of course past failure or success doesn't really mean the same will continue, but it at least gives a broad indicator that's much better than nothing. The war began on February 24th.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/https://www.econ...

when someone tries to sell you a donkey as a purebred stallion, they're either a thief or an idiot. You could say 'well I don't have reliable context' and buy that donkey but I wouldn't.

I think that Ukraine's economy is in a war footing and can't reasonably be compared to non-war metrics. I am sure that many or most Ukrainians are working and producing the hardest they've ever done. But the returns they are working for are not financial. Not strictly.

You just can't apply normal standards. Ukraine is bustling; even flaring up. Can they sustain it? I hope they can, long enough. They're certainly managing better than Russia.

You feel very alive and alert when somebody pulls a gun on you; doesn't mean that's a healthy way to live.

Is this literally a joke? We've sent billions of dollars to their country in weapons, the country is literally a war zone and has an elaborate history of corruption.

The only folks economically growing from this calamity are execs at American defense companies.

I'll cite Economics Explained video on the subject - this is propaganda plain and simple. It's insane the lengths to which we as America are willing to prop up a war we had no business getting involved in or stoking :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCt-jsnUnXo

>The only folks economically growing from this calamity are execs at American defense companies.

The Ukrainian oligarchs are probably doing pretty well.

This is some accounting magic. Maybe theyre including the value of the weapondry NATO and company are shipping in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com