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Comment by bloomingkales | Hacker News Reader

How can you afford an indefinite war against a nuclear power? He will just drag you into a quagmire, which always works against the west. I'm genuinely curious what strategy Europe will have here to squeeze Russia.

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Nukes don't give Russia infinite resources. Russia's economy is suffering. They've mostly ran out of modern tanks (except for the T-14 which still hasn't seen combat somehow), they're using donkeys for trucks now, their artillery has lost the punch it had two years ago. They're mostly sending demoralized soldiers in deadly human wave assaults, and dropping bombs on cities. That's all they've got left.

Russia has the economy of a medium-sized EU nation. The EU is vastly more powerful. If the EU wants to, they can give Ukraine everything they need to win. Only they're divided and unwilling to believe in their strength after 80 years of dependency on the US.

>Russia has the economy of a medium-sized EU nation. The EU is vastly more powerful.

This is why GDP is a useless metric. Last year it was reported Russia was manufacturing 3x more artillery shells than the US and whole EU combined.[1] Billion-dollar cosmetics and luxury goods industries don't translate well into battlefield success.

>If the EU wants to, they can give Ukraine everything they need to win.

Except manpower, which Ukraine needs and doesn't have.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery...

This is hopeful news, because we need a leader right now.

https://thehill.com/homenews/5170019-european-union-diplomat...

> EU’s top diplomat: ‘The free world needs a new leader’

> Only they're divided and unwilling to believe in their strength after 80 years of dependency on the US.

And perhaps a tiny bit cautious about escalating a conflict with a neighbouring country that happens to have the world's second largest nuclear arsenal?

I’ve heard (can’t recall source) that a good proportion of Russia’s nuclear arsenal hasn’t been maintained and is no longer operational.

That is absolutely a possibility, but not a certainty, and a very dangerous gamble to make. That said, Europe probably does need its own nuclear deterrent and its own anti-ballistic missile defense.

But is that a game of Russian roulette you'd want to play?

No one wants to play that game. The Russians boast about the nuclear bombs, then suddenly goes quiet.

They were going to use them if Ukraine entered Russian soil!

Then they declared that parts of Ukraine was Russia. Ukraine took back some cities on supposedly "holy Russian soil" and nothing happened.

Then Ukraine took a chunk out of (actually) Russian Kursk. Suddenly no talk of nukes for a while.

What would they do with the nukes? Suicide?

The nukes are to help with the Second Coming of Jesus. No, really:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Orthodoxy

They only need one working nuke out of their 6000. I'm sure at least one of them is operational.

If they only have one and they use it, they've effectively solved the Russia problem themselves.

Even if not “operational” you could strap the warhead to a conventional bomb and really ruin a cities next few hundred years.

Afghanistan could afford an indefinite war against a superpower twice in the past 50 years.

Not being flat as a pancake could have played a role, though.

We burn cash at the front and the richest nation wins.

Especially when that nuclear power is Russia. After all, if we had to credit a single country, Russia defeated both Napoleon and Hitler.

Does this confer from the depth of history, current Russia some magical abilities in the present?

This is magical thinking. Russia is near bankrupt.

> Russia is near bankrupt.

First, I've been hearing it all my life. More often after 2014, and very often since 2022. In 2022, it was "russia has days left of reserves".

Second, nationalism was always (since 1300s?) strong in there. It always united russians against the enemy even if they hated the goverment. That's why every incrusion attempt always failed.

Sure. We don't need incursions. They can stay and be nationalistic all they want.

We need to keep applying pressure until something breaks. There's a constant refrain of "Sanctions don't work. Please stop the sanctions." from the Kremlin.

> Sanctions don't work. Please stop the sanctions.

Examples? All I can see is majority of russians living their life as usual. Sure some transplants in Moscow are sad that their consumarism routine got distracted, but that is it.

As for money frozen in EU, IIRC most of it aren't realted to the goverment and just happened to be in trasit when sanctions started.

Every oligarch knows that Putin is the hand that feeds and biting it at best gets you in prison at worst an express descend to the ground.

In general I don't think sanctions work. They're clearly not working against Russia. EU countries still use tons of Russian gas, they just pay 5X more than they used to because now they have to stick their fingers in the ears and cover their eyes and buy the gas re-routed through India or Azerbaijan at a premium while they pretend they are no longer buying Russian gas. It is quite silly.

but sanctions clearly destroyed Syria.

Pure cope, how well did the sanctions strategy work? I hear US companies are returning soon

But they lost to Afghanistan and Finland.

And a naval engagement to the Czech Foreign Legion :) Russia has historically been very good at killing off invading armies through attrition, but that's not necessarily a strength when they're the invading army in similarly inhospitable conditions

Everyone who invades Afghanistan loses - the only winning move is not to play.

They didn't lose to Finland, they forced them to sign a treaty whereby Finland gave up territory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Peace_Treaty

Finland fought exceptionally well, which shocked the world, but they still lost the winter war.

they use winter like a nuclear deterrent. It’s as good as having an ocean.

Russia didn't lose to Afghanistan, rather Russia, Ukraine and Belarus dismantled the Soviet era occupation force. In fact the pro-Soviet government of Afghanistan lasted 3 more years on its own - unlike the US installed government which collapsed before US troops left.

That's not true. The last Soviet soldier has left Afghanistan way before the USSR disintegrated.

So, Russia, Ukraine and Belurus lost to Afghanistan.

Easy to defend mega land with harsh winters (but not so harsh anymore as they were during those failed campaigns), especially when both defeated invading armies severely underestimated... cold weather. Nobody is really invading russia here, whole world just wants to be left alone from them, including all former soviet republics (funnily this includes Belarus too).

That's not saying anything about their offensive capabilities, which as whole world sees are a fraction of what was thought about them. They really are supremely ineffective, corrupt and lazy in numbers and levels that cripple whole war for them. They can't produce enough new armed vehicles and their stockpiles from cold war are running very thin as per independent satellite analyses, they use stolen motorbikes, donkeys and golf karts for troopers now (with corresponding death rate). Their nuclear weapons are just a guarantee they won't be attacked on Moscow conventionally or nuclear in any way, nothing more. As we see all other 'doctrines' and 'red lines' fell apart with long lasting incursion in Kursk so that was just an empty bullshit.

They know all this, their country is falling into inflation spiral which can easily end up with people's revolt and I believe puttin' realizes how fragile his relatively soft power grip on russia is. Plus he has positioned himself as an arbiter between various power clans within his hierarchy, not as a single supreme single ruler whom everybody fears for life like in North Korea for example. He desperately needs to finish this war within a year or two since he is an extremely paranoid person. But he has some sort of effective reach or control over orange man and we saw what we saw, who knows why.

Only thing the Russian people have to fear is falling out of a balcony in a hotel, those things are REALLY dangerous

The trick is to avoid invading them and make them come out to play.

>Russia defeated both Napoleon and Hitler.

In Russia. In fact it was Russia's winter the one who did most of the work. The Russian army was always very bad.

Now Putin is Napoleon or Hitler invading other countries.

Myth. Russia had superior tanks and manpower. German high command had no idea of the depth of Russias armament industry or the number of troops (see eg the Hitler/Mannheim conversation).

Yes the winters did help, but they were still outnumbered, and outproduced.

Nonsense. Yes on tanks and manpower, but the Russians would've starved without lend lease. Both in Industry and in aggregate.

The only reason they could make all those tanks in the first place was because of American trucks.

A few million Soviets starving would not have changed the outcome.

> After all, if we had to credit a single country, Russia defeated both Napoleon and Hitler.

So did the UK, so what’s your point?

My point is that the Russian people have a capacity for self-sacrifice that shouldn't be underestimated, especially when their (perceived) sovereignty is threatened.

During WW2, for example, the Soviets lost a total of 20-27 million dead. Only China, a country almost three times as populous, came close at 15-20 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_...

The British Empire lost less than 500,000.

The only sovereignty being threatened here is Ukraine's.

That's the important bit. Russia needs to source soldiers from prisoners and North Koreans.

My theory is Russia can continue to produce long range weapons and drones in factories near the Urals or even beyond in Siberia, far out of reach of anything the Ukrainians can get their hands on, and just outproduce the Ukrainians as long as it takes.

They're certainly trying. Had you asked me before the full scale invasion, I would have answered differently. But Ukraine still stands, and it's looking more and more like a Finland-like situation. After all the repatrionization propaganda that doesn't look good for Putin. And the Russian economy absolutely suffers from this, we just don't know how much.

The Soviet Union lost 20m+ dead because they faced an existential threat from an enemy that intentionally massacred many millions of people who lived there (including people who weren't particularly enamoured with the idea of a Soviet Union or Stalin as leader)

The situation isn't quite that bad in either Russia or Ukraine which was also one of the constituent parts of the Soviet Union. But it's certainly closer in Ukraine, even if most Russians hold an irrational level of enthusiasm for the war

It won't be indefinite, eventually the nukes will fly. On a long enough timescale, whether it's this war or the next or the one after that we humans are going to pull the nuclear trigger. The question is "for what reason?" This seems as good a reason as you can have. Much better than an accident or miscalculation.

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