nortex97 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Tough times ahead for Russias economy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-war-economy-soviet-union-spending-workers-flee-imf-2024-2

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Not really. Per IMF FP interview; RT source/report on it:
https://www.rt.com/business/592355-russia-economy-growth-imf/

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The Russian economy has been growing faster than many economists projected, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath admitted on Monday in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.


Russian GDP climbed by 3.6% in 2023 and the country's authorities expect growth of at least 2.3% this year.

The IMF significantly raised its growth forecast for the Russian economy earlier this year, projecting 2.6% growth in 2024. The estimate is a sharp increase from its October forecast of a 1.1% gain. The forecast for 2025 was also increased by 0.1 percentage point from the October estimate, to 1.1%.

The Washington-based financial institution has been repeatedly criticized for what has been seen as a very optimistic assessment of Russia's economy despite the intense pressure the West is placing on the country over the Ukraine military operation.

"Russia's growth has come in stronger than we expected, we revised it up by a percentage, and a percentage and a half this year," Gopinath said. "So, we are squarely positive growth territory, it has done better than we expected."

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More. Growth will probably slow down though if/as oil and gas prices are kept down, and they can't continue to ramp (further) up defense spending. I am however confused how their gold reserves have continued to rise through the conflict, as they have been paying the Iranians in gold bullion apparently.

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Their measurable GDP growth is building tanks that blow up in Ukraine. GDP growth without that context poorly captures the state of the economy for the same reason that the broken window fallacy can measure higher GDP growth, yet, isn't healthy or beneficial GDP growth. Also, the number they report publically is political and likely inflated, similar to China.

Edit: also they are a petrostate and oil prices have been high to very high to extremely high relative to the last decade this entire war. If these price conditions had occurred naturally and there was no war, it's likely they would have seen 7+% GDP growth the last 3 years. In fact most best guesses for GDP growth that try to normalize for the counterfactual scenario suggest Russia has lost 7-8% GDP relative to the no war scenario. That's a lot.

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GDP growth, yet, isn't healthy or beneficial GDP growth. Also, the number they report publically is political and likely inflated, similar to China.

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Exactly which is why it's absurd to quote Russian state media sources as refutation to anything. They will always paint a positive picture for Russia.

Just remember, if Russia wasn't being hurt by sanctions they wouldn't be trying to get them removed.

Russia is a raw materials economy. They can harvest and mine and pump and show a profit for a while. But most of their industrial and commercial equipment is western. If they can't import a lot of it, they can try to replace it with substandard Chinese equipment to an extent, but at some point their ability to keep their industrial output up will slow as their machinery of industry breaks down. They have a limited window in which to operate and appear healthy as an economy under sanctions that restrict many industrial imports.

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IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath admitted on Monday in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.

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The same could be noted for any economy measure put out, regards to political motivation. The IMF first deputy etc. guy would be well positioned to note your points, if accurate, relative to the credibility question. The IMF is anything but pro-Russia, imho.

Now, sanctions may be expanded, though;

The EU is expected to announce a 13th package of Russia-related sanctions that targets entities in six foreign countries.
The targets include four firms from China and one each from Kazakhstan, Serbia, India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Turkey. https://t.co/PiIiHM6k96

— Velina Tchakarova (@vtchakarova) February 13, 2024

Does it matter if their reported GDP isn't 100% reflective of the real situation?

The Soviet Union was in an awful state economically from the 60's until its dissolution compared to the west, and nobody knew it until after the fact. That's 30 years of crappy living standards and economic outlook, yet no social unrest and no move to topple the government.

The important thing is that the sanctions aren't doing anything to stop Russia's ability to produce weapons of war. Anything short of physically destroying their production and severing their trade ties with China is a fools errand.

Nice thread about how drone swarms will soon make it nearly impossible to get supplies to the front lines.

1/4 Russia's Starshe Eddy telegram channel on the importance of drones: "Just a year and a half ago, I would not have thought that FPV drones could solve such problems as isolating the battlefield - and not just at the tactical level, but at the operational level." pic.twitter.com/7C5U0AOyen

— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) February 13, 2024

Counter: Supplies delivered by drone.

nortex97 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Tough times ahead for Russias economy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-war-economy-soviet-union-spending-workers-flee-imf-2024-2

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Not really. Per IMF FP interview; RT source/report on it:
https://www.rt.com/business/592355-russia-economy-growth-imf/

Quote:

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The Russian economy has been growing faster than many economists projected, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath admitted on Monday in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.


Russian GDP climbed by 3.6% in 2023 and the country's authorities expect growth of at least 2.3% this year.

The IMF significantly raised its growth forecast for the Russian economy earlier this year, projecting 2.6% growth in 2024. The estimate is a sharp increase from its October forecast of a 1.1% gain. The forecast for 2025 was also increased by 0.1 percentage point from the October estimate, to 1.1%.

The Washington-based financial institution has been repeatedly criticized for what has been seen as a very optimistic assessment of Russia's economy despite the intense pressure the West is placing on the country over the Ukraine military operation.

"Russia's growth has come in stronger than we expected, we revised it up by a percentage, and a percentage and a half this year," Gopinath said. "So, we are squarely positive growth territory, it has done better than we expected."

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More. Growth will probably slow down though if/as oil and gas prices are kept down, and they can't continue to ramp (further) up defense spending. I am however confused how their gold reserves have continued to rise through the conflict, as they have been paying the Iranians in gold bullion apparently.

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Grok:
Russia maintains its gold reserves through a combination of mining, purchasing, and trading. The country is one of the top gold producers in the world, with a significant portion of its gold coming from domestic mining operations. Additionally, Russia has been steadily increasing its gold reserves in recent years by purchasing gold from its domestic market and through international trade.

In 2023, the Central Bank of Russia added 1 million ounces (approximately 31 metric tonnes) of gold to its reserves, bringing the total to 2,330 metric tonnes. This increase is part of a larger trend of countries powered by commodities, such as Russia, China, and India, stockpiling gold.

Despite the challenges posed by sanctions, Russia has managed to maintain its gold reserves through strategic purchases and sales. For example, in 2024, the Central Bank of Russia reported a gain of 30 metric tonnes in its gold reserves, after a year of flatlining that was likely due to non-reporting rather than non-acquisition.

In conclusion, Russia maintains its gold reserves through a combination of domestic mining, strategic purchases, and international trade. Despite the challenges posed by sanctions, the country has continued to increase its gold holdings and remains one of the top gold producers in the world.

Thx. That all makes sense.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Counter: Supplies delivered by drone.

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True but ammo, food, and drinking water are heavy and the constant stream of drones would precisely locate your storage cache. Even if you deliver the supplies directly to the soldiers, you still give up your individual position.

The battlefield in 2030 will hardly be recognizable to Gulf War era soldiers.

Ukraine using a network of thousands of microphones to detect Russian drones.

INTERESTING

Some would have to be ground based, big enough to carry cargo, small enough to not be easily or worth individually targeting. Like remote driven ATV.

War is going to get weird, especially once you have area denial drone networks: kill anything that moves with the best available weapon on call.

lb3 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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Counter: Supplies delivered by drone.

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True but ammo, food, and drinking water are heavy and the constant stream of drones would precisely locate your storage cache. Even if you deliver the supplies directly to the soldiers, you still give up your individual position.

The battlefield in 2030 will hardly be recognizable to Gulf War era soldiers.

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Flying low with varied routing will mitigate detectability.

MARINES

nortex97 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Tough times ahead for Russias economy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-war-economy-soviet-union-spending-workers-flee-imf-2024-2

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Not really. Per IMF FP interview; RT source/report on it:
https://www.rt.com/business/592355-russia-economy-growth-imf/

Quote:

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The Russian economy has been growing faster than many economists projected, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath admitted on Monday in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.


Russian GDP climbed by 3.6% in 2023 and the country's authorities expect growth of at least 2.3% this year.

The IMF significantly raised its growth forecast for the Russian economy earlier this year, projecting 2.6% growth in 2024. The estimate is a sharp increase from its October forecast of a 1.1% gain. The forecast for 2025 was also increased by 0.1 percentage point from the October estimate, to 1.1%.

The Washington-based financial institution has been repeatedly criticized for what has been seen as a very optimistic assessment of Russia's economy despite the intense pressure the West is placing on the country over the Ukraine military operation.

"Russia's growth has come in stronger than we expected, we revised it up by a percentage, and a percentage and a half this year," Gopinath said. "So, we are squarely positive growth territory, it has done better than we expected."

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More. Growth will probably slow down though if/as oil and gas prices are kept down, and they can't continue to ramp (further) up defense spending. I am however confused how their gold reserves have continued to rise through the conflict, as they have been paying the Iranians in gold bullion apparently.

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Keep reading. But it's funny that you responded with RT's slanted feel good everything is wonderful take.

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But heavy wartime spending is the central driver of this growth, and not necessarily a reflection of a robust economy. The country's defense and security spending is estimated to account for roughly 40% of Russia's entire budget this year, as the Kremlin works to keep pressure up in its war on Ukraine.

"This pivot toward a militarized economy threatens social and developmental needs," Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center scholar Alexandra Prokopenko wrote in Foreign Affairs last month. To meet its expenditures, the state has depleted the liquid assets in Russia's national wealth fund by over 44% since the February 2022 invasion.

At the same time, the two-year conflict has significantly reduced Russia's labor supply, with the country 5 million workers short in 2023, a December report calculated. While some workers were pulled to fight in Ukraine, over 800,000 are estimated to have fled the country.

This has weighed heavily on Russia's economy, with workforce vacancies hitting 6.8% in mid-2023. The fact that many of those leaving are highly-skilled and educated may end up reducing Russian living standards to on-par with former Soviet republics, the Atlantic Council projected in August.

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They are in for a world of hurt long-term due to Putin's invasion. Putin won't care because he will be dead and Russia will be screwed - back to the bad ole days of Soviet Union destitution.

rgag12 said:

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The Soviet Union was in an awful state economically from the 60's until its dissolution compared to the west, and nobody knew it until after the fact. That's 30 years of crappy living standards and economic outlook, yet no social unrest and no move to topple the government.

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Wait, I thought social unrest did happen and the Soviet Union collapsed?

Why did Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan leave if it wasn't because of crappy living standards and economic outlook?

rgag12 said:

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The Soviet Union was in an awful state economically from the 60's until its dissolution compared to the west, and nobody knew it until after the fact. That's 30 years of crappy living standards and economic outlook, yet no social unrest and no move to topple the government.

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I think the lack of social unrest had a lot more to do with raising kids on propaganda, controlling information on the outside world, and being able to imprison people with impunity.

It also wasn't really 30 years. Plenty of unrest in the 80's after people started to realize just how many soldiers were being killed in Afghanistan, and there was that whole invasion of Czechoslovakia thing in 1968.

I think it was known that they weren't doing well economically. It wasn't known to what extent, but it's like any bankruptcy: gradual, and then all of a sudden. You can look at your neighbor who has big ass house and new cars and a boat and know he's leveraged to the hilt because he's just an assistant manager at Footlocker, but you can't predict the exact moment he's going to fall through and declare bankruptcy.

International Legion takes a trench with a platoon of orcs. Brits, Aussies, Americans. Multiple Gopro and drone views with labels etc.

Quite insane footage. Comments say 22 Orcs KIA 2 POWs and only 2 WIA and loss of 1 Hummer from the good guys.

For those that might not understand how hard it is to take back land from an entrenched enemy this is a good example. These guys went through significant ammo count and at the end of the fight so exhausted and dehydrated they could probably barely stand up. At least one of the WIA was from suicide drone.

https://funker530.com/video/nsfw-insane-15-minute-international-legion-assault-near-avdiivka/

Russia's armor losses are staggering, and persistently high personnel casualties have kept units below strength. It can only fully replace lost armor with progressively older and less capable vehicles, and it is unable to adequately train and equip its casualty replacements.

"The report estimates that since February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Moscow's combat vehicle losses have neared 8,800, of which more than 3,000 were tanks.

"To put that into perspective, Russia's tank battlefield losses are greater than the number it had when it launched its offensive against Ukraine in 2022," Bastian Giegerich, the director of IISS, said during an online event held Feb. 13."

LOSSES

MouthBQ98 said:

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Some would have to be ground based, big enough to carry cargo, small enough to not be easily or worth individually targeting. Like remote driven ATV.

War is going to get weird, especially once you have area denial drone networks: kill anything that moves with the best available weapon on call.

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Machine learning for live target identification is wild enough but we need some treaties to prevent auto engagement.

Russia finally really did hit HIMARS, a grand total of two to be exact.

Today's SITREP.

That damage doesn't look all that significant. Those will definitely be back on the fight soon.

74OA said:

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Russia finally really did hit HIMARS, a grand total of two to be exact.

Today's SITREP.

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Yeah it looks like they hit them with a few heavy rocks or something …. Those two bad boys will be back in action in a few weeks… but Ukraine needs to keep hiding them well

The Ukrainians are claiming to have sunk another Russian warship this morning in the Black Sea, the Caesar Kunikov.