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Discussion (72 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I'm really rooting for Ukraine here, and it looks like they are well on their way to succeeding pushing Russia out.
But the corruption issue ... for this particular problem, old habits unfortunately die really, really hard.
When corruption has become interwoven into the fabric of a society the way it has in Ukraine, and for such a long time, rooting it out will be very, very hard.
This kind of stuff typically requires two generations to die out and a super strong, long-term political will.
I hope they'll pull it off, but it won't be easy.
Not perfect, but doing pretty well, and the effects can be seen.
It is part of every society, but Ukrainians and the west perceive it as a problem for Ukraine while, say, Danes do not, although Denmark [1] is utterly corrupt in its own ways.
Corruption is problem only for states that underwent recent political transitions and where class struggle has not been a thing for various reasons. Ukraine improves quickly, but signs of improvement are not in the corruption perception indices but in people manifesting their opinions on the streets, like in the recent ousting, then re-hiring of the Defense Minister.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32482555/
> Overall then, the promise of strategic airpower, that it could win wars entirely or primarily from the skies, turns out so far to have been largely a mirage
> Instead, efforts to use strategic bombing to coerce surrender have repeatedly shown that being bombed hardens civilian resolve to continue resisting. By contrast, bombing can have some effect on industrial production, but only in wars where that production matters and is available to be bombed
> Crucially, the coercive effect of these bombing efforts is not only limited, but it is also not delivered via popular will but rather through the political calculus of the leadership
https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
The russian oil refineries that have been very successfully attacked seem to meet the definition of this. One obviously useful thing for the Ukrainians to do is to cut off the supply of refined diesel and petrol to the Russian army's vehicles.
If this also has the effect of causing significant pain to the russian domestic economy (lack of fuel for general civilian vehicle uses of all types), it has the additional benefit of being a very real and public pain point causing dissatisfaction with the average russian civilian.
And yet we must never forget that there is no such thing as a wunder waffe and reducing German cities to rubble did not break the civilian resolve.
Throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine I saw a common pattern: one side gains a technological or doctrinal advantage, may or may not make progress, the other side adapts and the situation levels out again.
0 - https://xcancel.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/20733425637973812...
Let's say theoretically that Ukraine successfully takes 90% of Russia's oil refineries out of action and this crashes the domestic petrol/diesel supply so thoroughly that plowing, seeding and harvesting with mechanized agriculture equipment also crashes in Russia. Or there is a breakdown of cold chain transport warehousing/trucking and grocery supply due to lack of diesel fuel for all of the trucking. Could it result in a collapse of the russian state and civil war? Very possibly.
In Vietnam when the NVA attacked a chain of US military bases simultaneously they lost every single battle, by a huge margin. It wasn't even close, the USA suffered about a quarter as many casualties, yet it broke the back of US commitment to the war. That's because the NVA could take 110k casualties and maintain their commitment, but for the USA about 25k casualties was intolerable.
On the battlefield Russia is losing masses of troops, but as Vlad Vexler points out, because these are mostly essentially paid mercenaries this is seen by the Russian population as a transactional risk they are taking.
Direct pain for the general civilian population is another matter. Most Russians seem oblivious to the fact they are actually in a war with a neighbouring country. They seem utterly bewildered by the fact Ukraine is even attacking Russia at all, it doesn't seem to make any sense to them. This is why the government has done everything they can to avoid resorting to a wave of conscription, they want the whole thing to seem very distant and abstract.
I think the pain tolerance of the Russian population over this is minimal, bringing it home to them is really important. The only thing is they have no accessible ways to translate that into political action, but if they are ever going to wake up, prods like this play an important role IMHO.
And Avito in this case would be your first target if only Avito was not a craigslist "alternative".
The real reason for attacking WB is that it has deeper connection to Putins pals and has larger logistic centers with lots of goods. WB won't be able to compensate this for the sellers and this will hurt a lot.
It won't metter much for military oprations (if you are a soldier you ca just order from Avito or Ali) but this can disrupt internal logistics and hurt the economy greatly.
Even after 4 years of war, when the conflict directly affects them, Russian civilians seem genuinely bewildered. They have difficulty comprehending why this is happening to them. They've hardly felt they've been in a war at all, for them it's mainly been an economic downturn.
Political article by British news outlet which openly states that they are in war with Russia on a HackerNews. Great.
I agree with the general sentiment though!
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8DZMpx--UA
The fourth largest economy in the world? With a deep reservoir of resources and a huge energy and industrial base and bordering China?
Ok guy.
anyway russia has a high GDP for sure but guess what it did the last 4 years? It threw that money into ukraine without getting anything from it.
No new schools, no teachers / educated kids, no housing, no streets. Instead taking out massive loans, reducing their reservers.
And now no one is willing to buy russian bonds.
Russia is hurting itself A LOT and is now going after retirement money.
Russia HAS to start selling oil again but has to spend a lot of time and money on fixing what got destroyed while the war is still ongoing and the tacktik clearly shows how well it works. Ukraine will not stop tomorrow just because.
As long as russia is not winning or stoping this, its very very expensive for everyone in russia.
Collapse no clue how you would define it but at least from a world power russia already collapsed. The only two things keeping russia at this 'level' is their oil and the nuclear threat.
>No new schools, no teachers / educated kids, no housing, no streets.
Is factually false on all accounts. (not sure I understand the "no streets" part though, are you talking about fixing pavement as a national sport?)