AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
To be fair, their history wasn't pretty - and they aren't the cause of some of their historical miseries (plenty of examples from the 19 and 20th C with an atrocious loss in lives and property).
AoD
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2022/25 Russian-Ukrainian War
- Thread starter Towered
- Start date
To be fair, their history wasn't pretty - and they aren't the cause of some of their historical miseries (plenty of examples from the 19 and 20th C with an atrocious loss in lives and property).
AoD
kEiThZ
Superstar
A lot of that exacerbated by their own choices, notably driven by their cultural chauvinism where they believe, they are better than everybody else.
Towered
Superstar
One really wonders what that belief is grounded in, considering the low standard of living.
camdudetenger2018
New Member
3 years later and its still going on
Full Metal Junkie
Active Member
Full Metal Junkie
Active Member
It's no different than the cultural chauvinism of every superpower (past and present). Be that Americans of today, Brits during the days of the British Empire, etc. It's very easy for the society to fall into the trap of "we are the biggest, therefore we are the best". And while modern day Russia is no longer the superpower USSR once was, the memories of those days are still fresh in the cultural zeitgeist of Russians. It doesn't help that the entire Russian political system and propaganda machine are geared towards tapping into nostalgia for the good ol' days of the Soviet Union and spur the mass resentment towards how the Western democracies 'disrespected' Russia in the years following the Soviet Union dissolution. The resentment that is very reminiscent of 1930's Germany.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Agreed. Unfortunately, the Russians and their delusions are costing the lives of others.
PS. Nice fella.
PS. Nice fella.
Full Metal Junkie
Active Member
A well researched summary on the latest ongoings in the war:
kEiThZ
Superstar
I wish Ukraine gets the weapons somehow to completely dismantle the Russian oil and gas sector. Given how quickly the energy transition is going, Russia will never be able to rebuild it in time to fund further Imperialism again. They have a long history of reviving Imperial dreams every time oil prices go up.
afransen
Senior Member
I'm not sure people realize that renewables are creating a price cap on fossil fuels. Demand destruction accelerates any time there is a spike in prices and once it's gone, it's gone for a long time as renewables investments last for decades. Solar is already essentially the cheapest new form of electrical generation, and solar + battery is getting to be very competitive with fossil fuel generation. The main bottleneck is grid connection queues and transmission capacity.
Full Metal Junkie
Active Member
Some majorly crappy news for the Ukrainian war effort:
www.pravda.com.ua
Basically, if you read between the lines of the official statements and first-hand accounts, the picture is bleak. Severe manpower shortages on the Ukrainian side have lead to sizeable Russian infiltrations through the porous frontlines. There are hundreds of russian soldiers deep behind enemy lines in the city of Pokrovsk. It is only a matter of time until the city is overrun. Which would be very bad in and of itself, since it is considered to be "gateway to the rest of Donbas" due to its strategic location - a logistics hub that russian forces can use as a staging ground for the push to claim the rest of the Donetsk region.
But on top of that, when Porrovsk falls, a sizeable chunk of Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad will become operationally encircled since their only supply line is going through Pokrovksk:
map source: DeepState
And based on how Ukrainian command has recently handled similar situation in Bakhmut, prepare yourself for the worst case scenario here. Unfortunately commander Syrski is a notable downgrade from Zaluzhny, who oversaw UAF for the first 2 years of the conflict. Zaluzhny valued soldiers' lives over territorial losses. Syrski, on the other hand, has a very Soviet way of thinking about his forces: expendables. Frontline troops never get a retreat order no matter how sh!tty a situation they find themselves in. Instead they inevitably get a "hold your ground to the last man standing" order.
So yeah, instead of recognizing the defense of this pocket as a lost cause and an orderly retreat by UAF right now, what you will read about in the news in the coming weeks is a large encirclement and a miraculous retreat of a few lucky soldiers who managed to survive the ensuing slaughter.
At least 250 Russians in Pokrovsk, Ukrainian troops walk 10-15 km to reach positions – UP
Ukrainska Pravda has learnt that at least 250 Russian troops are in Pokrovsk – they are engaging in firefights and killing Ukrainian soldiers, particularly drone operators, at their positions. Logistics into the city are fully controlled by Russian drones, forcing Ukrainian soldiers to walk...
www.pravda.com.ua
Basically, if you read between the lines of the official statements and first-hand accounts, the picture is bleak. Severe manpower shortages on the Ukrainian side have lead to sizeable Russian infiltrations through the porous frontlines. There are hundreds of russian soldiers deep behind enemy lines in the city of Pokrovsk. It is only a matter of time until the city is overrun. Which would be very bad in and of itself, since it is considered to be "gateway to the rest of Donbas" due to its strategic location - a logistics hub that russian forces can use as a staging ground for the push to claim the rest of the Donetsk region.
But on top of that, when Porrovsk falls, a sizeable chunk of Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad will become operationally encircled since their only supply line is going through Pokrovksk:
map source: DeepState
And based on how Ukrainian command has recently handled similar situation in Bakhmut, prepare yourself for the worst case scenario here. Unfortunately commander Syrski is a notable downgrade from Zaluzhny, who oversaw UAF for the first 2 years of the conflict. Zaluzhny valued soldiers' lives over territorial losses. Syrski, on the other hand, has a very Soviet way of thinking about his forces: expendables. Frontline troops never get a retreat order no matter how sh!tty a situation they find themselves in. Instead they inevitably get a "hold your ground to the last man standing" order.
So yeah, instead of recognizing the defense of this pocket as a lost cause and an orderly retreat by UAF right now, what you will read about in the news in the coming weeks is a large encirclement and a miraculous retreat of a few lucky soldiers who managed to survive the ensuing slaughter.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
To a point. That demand destruction is not enough to put a hard cap yet. It's more behavioural economics. OPEC knows they need to keep prices low enough to slow the transition and not create a recession. When we start getting to the point where 50% of global car sales are EVs (around 2030), I think that's when you will really start seeing oil price ceilings. Right now though, keep in mind that even 20% of new car sales being EVs is not enough demand destruction yet. Road transport is 50% of global oil consumption. But of that, personal vehicles are probably half. And that 25% of oil consumption is spread out over a fleet that takes 15 years to roll over. So even if new car sales were 100% EV tomorrow, it would still take 15 years till that 25% of global oil consumption was zeroed out. This is why you don't see real panic from OPEC yet. Global oil demand is still growing. But once peak oil is actually confirmed, you'll start seeing policies and mindsets change completely as they all fight to maximize revenue on the way down.
This is a rare moment where I am cheering on China. At 50% share of new car sales in 2025, China is 5 years ahead of their own schedule. If China is at 100% in 2035 and also exporting massively to the Global South then, basically that will mark the start point of the decline of petrostates. We should start to see real panic in 2030 if the current pace of Chinese EV developments is sustained by then. A world where petrostates have less influence would be nice. Albeit, we'll get the new geopolitical challenge of dealing with China as the first electrostate when they are substantially unconstrained from fossil fuel imports.
Sidenote: While on exchange in the US, I did a postgrad certificate in cleantech at an American service academy, specifically because of my interest in how cleantech and climate change would drive geopolitics. There were so many smart people that taught the program given the talent bench in the US on this stuff. I had classmates who were special forces and Marines motivated to develop solar panels and electric vehicles based on the combat advantages of their time in Afghanistan. That was Trump 1. Really sad to see Trump 2 decimate that intellectual capacity. Having had that experience I used to think it silly to hear talk about the Chinese winning the 21st century. Watching Trump willfully dismantle all that intellectual and institutional capacity out of ideological zeal, I am not sure the US will be top dog in 2050, let alone 2100.
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lenaitch
Senior Member
And the other half is commercial transportation. Along with marine and rail, that will be another nut to crack. It might depend on 'the next big battery breakthrough' which we have been hearing is 'just around the corner' for about a decade.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I get the skepticism. But I think it's happening a lot sooner than you think right now. The turnaround from lab to product is insane in China. They went from LFP batteries being a nice cheap fringe idea to half of all car batteries sold globally in five years. The same thing could happen with sodium ion shortly.
Also, I think the North American perspective is ridiculously out of synch with the world. We live in a continent where rail electrification is low and diesel is cheap (vs. global standards). In the rest of the world, where fuel is expensive, they will operationalize new tech and simply change ops to accommodate the new tech and lower their costs. They have to ship less in a truck to accommodate battery weight? A Canadian or American will scoff at that idea. A Chinese or European trucker won't. So I don' think the breakthroughs are as necessary as you suggest. And the pace at which trucking is starting to electrify outside North America certainly seems to hint at that. Increasingly, we're starting to see that if the cost is low enough, practices will change to take advantage.
I suspect we're heading for a world where North America is the new Cuba. Automotively speaking.....
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Yes, but Russia has not been a superpower since the 1980s, and even that was perhaps a farcical example. Not that the Russia people, as you rightly point out had any independent notion of their place in the world. I expect France has more nuclear weapons capability that Russia today. Russia was at its highest economic strength relative to the rest of the word from about 1815 after it defeated Napoleon at Moscow to the 1850s, and was a decisive player in European diplomacy until its defeat in the Crimean War (1853–56). After that the country was a backward mess, getting trounced in WW1 and set to lose WW2 if not for aid from the USA and Britain (including the Dominions). Nowadays, Russia's rapidly declining population of 143 million (including one million casualties in Ukraine, so far) and ridiculous GDP per capita of about USD $12,500 show the country as the sham it is.