Month: January 2026

Ukraine Part 3

poetoftruth Uncategorized , , , , ,

When the war broke out, the two sides were not even close to being equal. In terms of machines, tanks, APC, Artillery, the Russians has a ten to one advantage. Now, the Russians have no machines to use and are sending in men on horses. Shades of war long ago. The Ukes have a problem with this as they really do not like killing innocent horses. So, instead, they drop munitions nearby to scare the horse and hopefully unseat the rider. Once separated, they then target the man and let the horse run free to be collected later by one side or the other.

There are no replacements coming in from outside as no one will sell to Russia and inside they do not have enough parts to make new ones. They used to be able to refurbish the battle damaged but now even that is too hard.

You may have heard about the death of two pilots when their ejector seat malfunctioned and triggered while stationed inside a hanger. The explosion sent both men through the roof, killing them on contact. The equipment is not designed for sustained combat like they are using it for. What they can repair is iffy at best. At worst, deadly.

Manpower. Russi has so many men under arms, so many troops and so many solders that in just sheer numbers they should have won. Well, they might be. Any battle where the causalties are under four to one, better five to one: for ever one Uke hurt or killed, they had better have killed or injured four or five Russians.

Even the Chechens are running out of men to send. Remember this blood bath from a few years ago? Well anyone who could fight was drafted into this war effort and like the rest of Russia, they are tapped out of anyone more to send.

On the opposite side, the Uke have equipment funneling in from Europe and NATO. They have better tech and better intelligence. Many a times, you have manufacturers onside offering to test this system or that bomb for free, all in service of winning the war but they want to get as much information as they can to better the weapons system or use it for selling to other Western governments. Right now, they are using drones and bots to guard from the sky and on the ground. Using heat seeing and inferred veiwing, the machines are killing Russians who enter their killing field. It is entirely possible that many a man from Russia having entered into the machine’s kill range are dying without knowing their killer is nothing but a bot.

Europe and USA emptied out all their old hardware in droves and shipped it to Ukraine. Now with no strategic reserves left, they are ramping up their war effort in factories all over the west to get their strategic reserves back up to normal and send even more to Ukraine.

Ukes are not getting replacements in the numbers they need but they are not losing as many men either. What trickles in from the West are men and women there to take up arms to defend Ukraine. They are committed to the cause unlike Russia who send mercenaries and prisoners to die at the front.

As the war drags on, there is a stalemate on the front line. Russia will attack with overwhelming men. One battle, had 170 000 men on the Russian side, heading towards a line held by less than 10K! So the Ukes retreat until more troops arrive. The other weapons systems, from artillery to drones to jets make Russia pay for every step they take. But with the willingness to slaughter a generation, they keep sending men forward and the Uke keep killing them. They are getting very good at killing them.

Demographics will take 100 years or longer to repair the damage done in 4 years of war to the male population. Russia’s population is 143 million people. NATO combined has a billion people including 40 million Ukes. Something like a seven to one advanatage in just simple population. Was injuries and death will only effect the Ukes and the rest of the NATO countries can keep doing what they have been doing before, during and after this war is over.

Economics, the economy may be so damaged that it may not recover. Post war, there will be no men to work so they have to import men from other countries. The women will naturally marry what is available, not bother to try to find a suitable Russian male as there are none. So they try to sell oil but no money for capital to repair the many step process before it gets to the port, let alone to a new market. People will have looked for other suppliers to get their oil and might be reluctant to seek a new arrangement at Russia is unreliable.

Government spending and borrowing to feed the war effort may take generations before they can lower taxes to anythung pre war. And even then that is iffy.

You may have seen the recent attack on Kyve using hypersonic weapons. This was seen as a warning to the west. Yes, ya sure. I often take a sledge hammer to hit a peanut. The Ukes have nothing that would stop such a weapon. The Americans might but they are not speaking about it. You use such weapons for a reason not to send anyone a message. Their use was a simple message, not of strength but of weakness and how little there is left to fight with. Russia did not use such a weapon to say watch out, they used it because the stock of bombs was gone and all they had left was this.

Ukraine

poetoftruth Uncategorized , , , , ,

Talking about the economy. The numbers are scary in Russia.

The people withdrew in 2025 from savings 1 trillion rubles from banks.
Which makes no sense to me, so how can that number make sense to anyone else. In USD, it’s about 340 billion dollars American. Which seems to me to be a lot. Another way to compare would be with the total government budget. Well, what the government says is its budget. They budgeted 340 billion rubles for the year 2025 according to Wiki. Is that because they need the extra cash, or because they no longer trust their money in banks?

In terms of assets, one of the largest Russian banks has assets of a little over 50 trillion rubles. But two things to keep in mind, how much of that money is frozen in foreign assets, and how much is locked up in loans. Our next topic. The Russian banking system is under stress. The government pressured the banks to loan money to industries that supplies weapons and armour for the war effort. Those companies in turn are paid for by the Russian government contracts. So, see if you spot the problem, The government gives banks money to give to arms industry, then pays the arms industry to make weapons. So, who is doing what again? Or is it simpler to see the money comes from the government on both ends? The government has to find that money somewhere. And it is not from imports or exports. Sanctions.

How bad is it? Let’s talk gas.
Both the USA and Russia export oil and gas. The price of gas in the USA is lower than in Russia. Not by a lot, mind you, within a range of 10 cents to 25 cents per unit. So not a great difference. Except, the USA pays in American dollars, where Russians pay in paper money called rubles. Oh, and one other thing, The average American income is about 7–8 times what the average Russian makes. Yet they pay the same price for gas?

In terms of industry, the Russian Education department has created a new program for students. You can get high school credit for working in military arms factories. In fact, you can just start working now, and forgo the whole book learning. Just work in the industry and forget the need to read or write. You can start your new factory career at the ripe old age of 12. And in 5 years you can get your high school degree. And a real one, not some fake thing. Issued by the state. Verified by the state.
Why?
The simple answer, you do not need to read or write if your life span will end at 18 in a Ukrainian ditch somewhere.
Russians don’t have enough people to work in factories any more, all excess workers drained to the front line. So they are brining them out of class to work for so many years before they join the military and sadly end up dead. Russia has a legal rule for military. If you volunteer, very stupid of you, you can be sent anywhere in the world to fight and die for the motherland. If you are drafted, and all males at the age of 18 are, you cannot be sent outside of Russia. Isn’t that safe? Well no. Russia lost territory to Ukraine a few years ago. So all draftees are sent to fight in that area. And according to Uke Intelligence, captured draftees are sent anywhere the government wants along the front line regardless of status.

Russians are paid to volunteer, except we are finding that they are no longer paid up front. They get paid over the course of their enlistment. Why? It saves the government so much money. If you are dead, no more money. If you are severely wounded, well, sorry you did not serve out the term. No money, and commanders are ordering solders to hand over bank cards and pins before battle so they can drain any money left in their accounts.

Industry, is running out of necessities. So they are shutting down shifts and closing the plant on Wednesday to give people an extra day off… without pay.

Russian banks report that 13% of all business loans are considered compromised, i.e. not being paid fully, properly or on time. 26% of all loans are listed in the same condition. One industry CEO described the growth rate for the company as negative, but still as growth. People who report bad news find windows very tempting to jump from, or is that pushed? So, we can assume that the numbers reported are worse than they seem and more than they expect.

Ukraine

poetoftruth Uncategorized , , , , ,

We started to talk about the Ukraine war.

First a few facts.
The Russian military has not changed their strategies since the last Crimean war 1853-56.
All frontal assault and what they call meat charges. Put as many bodies in harms way and hope they cross the distance and kill the other side.
This was last seen in Iran Iraq war where Iran tried to kill Iraq.
Also, WWI in the trench warfare
It did not work then, and it will not work now.

Only now, before being sent into the attack, Russian are order to hand over their bank cards with pin, so the command staff can then transfer out any money the recruit would have in the bank, when they are killed. Things are that despicable. The officers know most if not all will die so they might as well make some money off the meat attack.

Russia may have lost some 1.4 million people killed or wounded sufficiently to never go back to the frontline. We know this as we have seen video captures of Russian troops on literal tree branches for crutches hobbling to the front. It is not pretty.

Russia used to have stockpiles of weapons. Literally, what do you do with old tanks, carriers, artillery etc? America has the same sort of stockpile in Arizona for planes. You can see it in Google Earth. Literally thousands of old planes left to rot in the desert. Russian depots are well known and wildly considered their class “C” reserves. Class A are the young troops, 18–30 years of age, just finished training, young fit and fully capable of using everything involved. Class B are those who are older 30-50. Out of shape but many still good to go. Anyone older, i.e. us, is class c. The good thing is these soldiers are trained on using older weapons systems so they need little training to use their old tanks. The problem is, in the last 10-20-30-50 years technology has improved, and older tanks do not survive modern fighting. Well, the Russian is using T34, last seen in WWII against the Nazi. Fitting perhaps as Russian propaganda says they are still fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

The depots, grown since the end of WWII were huge. It was seen as one of the deterrences for NATO as Russia did not have a lot of new tanks, they just had a lot of tanks. So much so, that this was a consideration for any war with Russia.

The last 4 years have seen those stockpiles shrink and disappear. Again, this is seen on things like Google Earth or any of the many YouTube channels covering things from the Ukraine side.

Money, sanctions are working in that you have a lot of things to burn through. You have a lot of supplies from Iran, China, North Korea. Etc. It takes time. Hence, why they shadow fleet was so important. It earned solid foreign money to pay for such supplies.

Ukraine, gets things on credit. Russia has to pay cash for things.
The Ukes know this and hit place where they know Russia will have a hard time to replace like their oil production facilities. They don’t have to destroy the place. Just knock it offline for a while and wait, once repairs are done, hit it again. The Ukes are getting very good at this after 4 years.

That leaves us the main consideration, the battlefront. Russia is by no means out of the war. They can send meat waves forward. Such that it becomes the question of: do I have enough bullets to kill as many men coming forward?
Treating a human life as a joke is never funny but the question still stands.

Here is what is new. The Ukes are short on man power so some extent. They have a smaller army but are getting real volunteers. IE ex combat troops from around the world show up at the airport to enlist. Many people from Uke communities in Canada send soldiers and recruits. Ex armed forces and pilots show up and form units.

The war however has a new element. Drones, both in the air and on the ground. A war drone cost anywhere from $300 to $10 000. The cheaper they are, the more they are there to suicide on tanks and vehicles or a man. All they have to do is carry bomb and poof you have a dead tank or worse a dead man. What to send for Christmas? Shotguns, they use fléchette round to hit the control cables and hopefully take out the drone as it is coming in to kill you…

You put a thousand of those in front of a meat wave attack, and it leaves a field of hamburger.

So where is this war? It’s been 4 years. Russian op plan said to surround Kyiv on Day 1 and invade Moldavia on day 3. Instead, they have gain only so much territory as they have lost. What people forget is that Ukes invaded Russian territory in the first year and are still sitting there.

So the meat grinder continues to operate. People keep dying. Russia keeps bringing in new people to die for them. The war is at a stalemate. Who can bleed the most? Who can afford to throw a generation of men? If you look at post WWII recovery and the gap with all the mean dying in the war, or post Afghanistan you will see the same gap in genders.

But all is not lost, Russia has just raised the tax on Vodka. 25% big deal you think. Let me explain. In Russia, the average age of death for men is like 60 before Ukraine happened. Why? They drink themselves to death very early. Drinking is their copping mechanism. Fine. So they raised the taxes why? Because they are running out of money and do this in desperation. If men cannot get booze, they will drink antifreeze or colon or anything that might have alcohol in it. So raising the price makes such measure more likely than not.