It is worth noting that panicked reports are spreading on Ukrainian social media that during the detonation of an ammunition depot in Khmelnytsky, a large batch of British tank ammunition with depleted uranium, which was recently brought to Ukraine along with Storm Shadow missiles, was also destroyed. As a result of a large explosion, particles of depleted uranium can scatter on the territory of the region, which, taking into account the experience of Yugoslavia and Iraq, could lead to an outbreak of cancer in the medium term. There are already reports that the radiation background allegedly increased in Khmelnitsky. Let’s wait for the actual confirmation.
The West is on a timer for a confrontation with China over Taiwan. They have to start something by 2025 otherwise it will be too late and China will have pulled too far ahead. The more Russia drains the West’s resources into Ukraine the more time China has to prepare, possibly even avoiding a conflict altogether if Russia can keep the West busy until China becomes militarily unassailable.
The West’s neoliberal economic model doesn’t allow it to ramp up their military production anywhere near as fast as they need it. Russia’s semi-nationalized model is better but obviously only a socialist economy like China’s can utilize a country’s resources to their full potential. That being said it seems that Russia already outproduces the entire collective West in terms of munitions, and is arguably also ahead in a number of military fields.
As for the manpower losses, this is a difficult subject to discuss because we’re talking about human beings here, it feels very cynical to reduce the discussion to just numbers. But frankly in relative terms it’s really not that much. Not compared to the size of the country, and nowhere close to the losses in other historical conflicts.
And not only has this conflict triggered an expansion of the Russian armed forces, but when you add the newly incorporated western regions plus the influx of refugees from the rest of Ukraine, Russia actually comes out ahead by quite a bit in terms of mobilization potential. The biggest issue is the time it takes to train new recruits to the level that they can replace the lost soldiers. There’s no way around that.
Minimizing those kinds of losses that take time to replace is a big part of why Russia fights this conflict the way it does. Plus the public opinion in Russia wouldn’t accept losses on the scale of those that Ukraine is currently experiencing. Just put things into perspective and remember that Ukraine, with its significantly smaller population, is still able to plug the gaps and keep putting up a fight when they have taken somewhere between five to ten times the losses that Russia has.
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I have no idea if that is true. It could be, it makes sense from a strategic point of view even for a bourgeois government. However, knowing how deep the infatuation with liberal economic ideology runs in current Russian government, i have my doubts that they can bring themselves to do it.
If it does happen it will be because of a combination of two factors: the pressure to improve the performance of the military industries for the war, and the success story of China which is evident for all Russians to see and which may cause them to decide to emulate some of China’s economic policies.