Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

There are several elements to the dynamics at play here.

Russia has been one of the world's leading immigrant nations over the past 25 years or so. According to several anti-immigration posters here, this should mean that Russia is now weaker than ever before with so much troublesome diversity, but my point is that Russia's high levels of immigration have been sufficient to maintain and even slightly grow Russia's population over the period.

Yet the path forward is more difficult. Not only will immigration to Russia likely be lower in the years and decades ahead than it has been to date, but the demographics of the existing population are worsening. High levels of immigration have allowed Russia to put off its demographic reckoning for the last two decades, but will likely prove insufficient to maintain Russia's population going forward. The path forward is one of decline, and this stands in contrast to ongoing growth or at least steady-state maintenance in the USA and most of the other major powers around Russia.

Since this was offtopic there I moved it to the Russian thread instead of the South Korean one.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Next I think you missed something I was being even harder on the Russian Army after all the industry delivered maybe 400 not 570 and that was during peacetime. Without restrictions and older configurations.
now factor in the Russian MIC has been kept alive via foreign cash infusions infusions that given the current events don’t look like they are going to be happening anywhere near as often driving Russia’s PPP out and of course NS1/2 cut means the Russian budget is significantly lower so money is going to be a big issue.

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You do not get it. The Russian government bought over 600 tanks, but that factory produced way more than those 600 T-90 tanks.
572 tanks for Algeria. 200 for Azerbaijan. 75 for Iraq. 40 for Turkmenistan. 44 for Uganda. 64 for Vietnam. And then there is the Indian order. They built at least 248 tanks for India. And produced 409 knockdown tank kits for India to assemble. That is basically a whole disassembled tank. So the factory itself can certainly build a lot more tanks than what the Russian government ordered. And that is one tank factory. The Russians also have the tank factory at Omsk which used to make T-80s and is currently upgrading T-80BVs to T-80BVMs.

Each T-90 tank costs like 3 million USD if they bought it new. You think Russia cannot get 3 billion to make a thousand tanks if they wanted to? A nuclear submarine costs more than twice that and they are building nine of them. Also none of the components are imported from the West.

The time when the Russian MIC was living off foreign cash infusions alone was back in the 1990s when the Russian government couldn't even collect taxes properly. The oil industry was privatized and crooks like Mikhail Khodorkovsky from Yukos used shell companies to masquerade their profits. They announced they sold oil for a given price, but it was sold to their own shell company, which resold it for way more. He kept the money in foreign bank accounts. That time is long gone.

The T-90 was not ordered in larger numbers because the Russian Defense Ministry cancelled all orders in 2012 with the expectation that the T-14 Armata would enter production in 2015. We know how well that went.

As for demographics just annexing the Donbass is an extra 5 million people.

Lethe said:

1. Over the past two decades, emerging from the chaos of the 1990s, Russia has slowly and gradually re-established its credentials as a great power. Russia went from being a nation that NATO could all but ignore in the Balkans in the late 1990s, to a nation that, when the US and its European and Middle Eastern allies said that Assad must go, was able to say "no, Assad will not go" and make that reality. With the catastrophic failure of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin has thrown all that progress away.

2. I mean that Russia has been "reforming" its armed services for the past twenty years. Major, highly publicised reforms. Yet the invasion of Ukraine has shone the cold light of day upon those reforms and revealed them as totally inadequate, if not actually a sham. Yet plawolf's contention is that, after "reforming" for decades, now we will see the real reforms.

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Interesting interpretation.

1. So, by your definition a great power is the one whom can't convince her neighbrought to stop to station USA military weapons on its soil, and don't contionou enemy behaviour agaisnt him ?

By your definition "great power" is the one whom willing to use military, like in Syiria, means using military means in Ukraine makng Russia bigger and more imporant "great power".

2. Have you think about that the perceived defficiency between the USA and Russian military intervention is due to the comitment to Russians to stick to the rules of war, international law and conventions, and spare the civilians and related infrastructure, if its possible?
You know, like not strike a family with Hellfire missiles, because they have a barrel of water in a car trunk.

Lethe said:

I am posting here rather than in the Ukraine War thread as I do not wish my post to be deleted as off-topic.



If Russia could not modernise and reform its forces during a 20 year period characterised by a stable population courtesy of high immigration, moderate economic growth, relatively open access to western technologies, and a government predisposed to think in terms of national security and embark on any number of military reforms, then what hope does it have in the years and decades ahead, which will be characterised by economic and technological isolation, a falling population, and anemic economic growth? The Gods of history are cruel and there is little reason to think that they will permit Moscow to re-roll the dice. This affair could well mark the beginning of a permanent and irrevocable diminution in Russia's status in the world. History is littered with empires and powers long extinguished or relegated to mere shadows of their former glory, and it is hubris to imagine that Russia is immune to such a fate. As observers our task is to assess things as objectively and dispassionately as we are able, and everything I see points in one direction: decline.

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Russia just gained +3 million population via Ukrainian refugees and +6 million via annexation. That's +6% of their prewar population which would've taken years of natural growth. It is a one time demographic booster shot, to be sure, but one of Russian speaking, educated immigrants. Unlike CIS immigrants, they'll can never go back to Ukraine even if they wanted to, and they've all had Russian passports passed out to them that would've taken CIS immigrants years to earn.

In addition, Russia is inflicting economic attrition that would otherwise have been impossible to inflict in peacetime. The war isn't even over, and right now, you have the entire west reacting to Russian moves.

At worst, Russia is inflicting disproportionate damage, dragging the EU down with it and weakening westbloc as a whole, so that China gets a better chance. This may be because Putin identifies that Russia cannot go for #1 alone, and it's better to clear the way for China so Russia can at least be an ally of #1, rather than nothing.

Just a quick snapshot generated using the UN World Population Prospects 2022 data portal tool:




The numbers and order jump around a bit depending on which year you are looking at, but the basic takeaway does not: Russia's demographic trendlines are worse than most of the other strategic players in her environment. I may put together a more robust chart later that tries to capture aggregate change from e.g. 2025 to 2060 or something.

Lethe said:

Just a quick snapshot generated using the UN World Population Prospects 2022 data portal tool:



The numbers and order jump around a bit depending on which year you are looking at, but the basic takeaway does not: Russia's demographic trendlines are worse than most of the other strategic players in her environment. I may put together a more robust chart later that tries to capture aggregate change from e.g. 2025 to 2060 or something.

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Russia has low fertility rare because the population can't afford children, because they work more for same level of living than the USA counterpart.

Means the USA consume more than makes, Russia consume less than make.

So, the best way to counter is to make the Russian people more rich, and that require to decouple from the USA centric world, where every country serving the great americans interest.

Anlsvrthng said:

Interesting interpretation.

1. So, by your definition a great power is the one whom can't convince her neighbrought to stop to station USA military weapons on its soil, and don't contionou enemy behaviour agaisnt him ?

By your definition "great power" is the one whom willing to use military, like in Syiria, means using military means in Ukraine makng Russia bigger and more imporant "great power".

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A great power is a nation that other nations are forced to take account of in considering their actions and policies, as one must account for gravity or the weather. Taiwan cannot declare itself an independent sovereign state because it lives in the shadow of China which would not tolerate this. One does not need to be invading or bombing other countries in order to be a great power, but clashes of arms are typically where those claims to greatness are both forged and tested.

Anlsvrthng said:

2. Have you think about that the perceived defficiency between the USA and Russian military intervention is due to the comitment to Russians to stick to the rules of war, international law and conventions, and spare the civilians and related infrastructure, if its possible?
You know, like not strike a family with Hellfire missiles, because they have a barrel of water in a car trunk.

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In historical terms, it doesn't matter. There is only victory and defeat, because victory allows one to create a new narrative reality. In historical terms, Russia's crime is not that it chose to invade Ukraine, but that it has so comprehensively failed in the attempt. History tells us that nations can butcher their way to victory and, in the decades and centuries to come, few people will even remember, let alone care. The great age of European imperialism (and its later American echo) is full of such crimes against humanity. These nations (including my own) have never been held to account for their crimes and never will be. Only a few malcontents like myself even pretend to care or educate themselves about such things. Even today, as Pacific Island nations fret about their very survival in the face of sea level changes that they played no part in causing while the large and wealthy nations that are actually responsible do nothing, we see the ongoing relevance of Thucydides dictum that the strong do as they will while the weak suffer what they must.

Indeed, I suspect that this is one of the reasons folks are so resistant to my gloomy thesis. For much of recent history, Russia has been the largest and most consistent thorn in the side of western hegemony, with all its attendant crimes and self-satisfied mythologies. While acknowledging Russia's own crimes and shortcomings, folks like myself have nonetheless derived some satisfaction from Russia's role as spoiler of Euro-American dreams, as a nation that has been able to assert its independence in the face of the messianic ideologies of the west. The idea that Russia may no longer be able to perform this role going forward is a bitter pill to swallow. And yet, history is made of such bitter pills. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote, the God of history is an atheist and nothing about his world is meant to be. "The Rains of Castamere" from Game of Thrones strikes the appropriate elegiac tone:

Lethe said:

Defeat can certainly be useful and there is a wide literature on this subject. But the kind of wholesale productive reinvention that you describe is just one possible outcome and not, in my view, the most likely one. No doubt there will be piecemeal reforms, and earnest attempts at more, but we should all be well acquainted with the idea that, when faced with difficult and uncomfortable truths, a great many people will prefer to embrace comforting and often destructive illusions rather than undertake the hard work of self-examination and self-renewal. I honestly see the collective Russian psyche as descending into a very dark place in these coming years and decades, because a narrative of failure and decline is a very difficult one to bear. Perhaps too difficult for any culture to bear.



I have no doubt that China can and will preserve Russian strength to the extent that Beijing believes it is useful to do so. As others have posted, Beijing's goal is to make use of Russia's enormous resource endowment to enhance China's national security, while preserving the country as a useful ally or, in minimal terms, denying Russia to The Enemy. But none of this is incompatible with a Russia that has been greatly diminished, isolated, and is all but inert on the world stage. Beijing does not need Russia to be a great power.

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The fundamental problems that plagued and ruined Russian military modernisation did not happen in a vacuum, and is indeed a good microcosm into the ills of modern Russian society at large, where corruption and cronyism is not only accepted, but a necessity in the lives of many, if not most Russians.

If left alone, those issues would be all but impossible for Russia to address and deal with.

But thankfully for the Russians, this is where the US and NATO will not be able to stop themselves from helping Putin out.

Russia unilaterally declaring an end of the SMO will not stop NATO support or probably even major combat operations as Ukraine continue to attack and shower Russian civilians with NATO shells and missiles.

I would dare say Putin’s strategy depends on continued material NATO support and Ukrainian intransigence.

Yes, it’s only natural to many to want to lick your wounds and sulk after a humiliating defeat rather than work hard to improve oneself to do better, but NATO and Ukraine will take that option away from Russia.

When the choice is do or die, few would chose to just lay down and die.

It would also be a vast mistake to view China as just a coloured western power. What you described is how a western power would (mis)treat is defeated and weakened allies to subjugate them into perpetual subservience, but that has never been how China behaves.

Even from a purely selfish geopolitical prospective, it makes most sense for China to want a strong and vibrant Russia to keep NATO pinned in Europe for no other reason than the idiotic, rabid, expansionist rhetoric being spewed by NATO leaders about wanting to stick their nose into China’s front yard in the ‘Indo-Pacific’, a term America specifically coined to aim at China.

There are a number of sad pro-NATO talking points that appear on every thread concerning Russia.

The main one is that "Russia's terrible performance in Ukraine means that it has lost its military reputation. It will take at least a decade to recover."

Do you see countries lining up to fight Russia? Is Russia's reputation plummeting in the world?

Aside from suicidal vassals like Poland and the Baltics, I don't see that happening.

Ukraine has areas Russia wants to liberate. If Poland or somebody decides to fight Russia, the conflict could easily start with an intensity that took 6+ months to acheive in Ukraine: downing of power grids and rail interchanges, mass deployment of suicide drones, etc...

Then there's the related issue of sanctions. The Western talking point is "Russia has suffered so much economic damage for this SMO, it's not worth it." Meanwhile, Russia so far has aced the Western sanctions, and trade is humming along. They've been sanction-proofing their military production as best as they can since 2014. This includes domestic production of thermal imagers, engines that Ukraine used to, military microchips on outdated wafer sizes, etc...

I know we're supposed to believe Russia can't produce a T-90 anymore, and soon the mobiks will be deploying in T-55s. Yet Russia didn't lose anywhere near the amount of troops and AFVs claimed by the West. The retain the full capability to produce AFVs off the assembly line, which they are visibly doing right now.

Instead of Russia buying shells from North Korea because of weak production capacity, it's actually the U.S.A. buying shells from South Korea because it can't produce 100,000 in a timely fashion.


Then there's the issue of Russia's standing in the world. It hasn't been this high since Russia emerged from the USSR. 85% of the world is tired of the U.S.A., and most are standing with Russia [just by remaining neutral and trading with Russia, against the orders of the hegemon].

The whole conflict is a fulcrum around which Russia is restructuring both domestic and foreign policy. Foreign-policy, it is making powerful new allies like Iran, which has already borne fruit. It is welding together a real anti-status-quo coalition.

The conflict is also empowering domestic elements that favour import-substitution-industrialization. I'm talking, ignore Western IP laws, copy everything useful, innovate where needed. Scrap collaborationist elements of their constitution that explicitly prevented that. Screw-over the attempted Western tech monopoly, control over energy, etc... Stop being just a primariy producer for the "golden billion." I mean, listen to the change in Putin's rhetoric when he uses terms like that.

This is what the two-dimensional "Russia is losing standing" "analyses" miss. Russia is divorcing itself from U.S.-dominated world-order. It is joining with powerful entities who are against the status-quo. It is removing much of the global-liberal economic ideology that hobbled it for 30 years, and moving its MIC to a more Soviet-model. Recognizing that liberalism was not the way to organize its military production.

Yes, Russia's military 'reforms' of the past decades were half-assed. It's being rectified now more than it ever was. 'Unthinkable' things like turning to Iran become thinkable. It will benefit more from such pragmatism if it is smart. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are dying in 40-60 year-old Western military vehicles. The thousands of lost Soviet-era AFVs have not been replaced.

So U.S.A. can trash-talk all it wants. It's talk, and Russia can prosecute this operation as long as it wants to, assuming Kremlin has the motivation.

Anlsvrthng said:

Russia has low fertility rare because the population can't afford children, because they work more for same level of living than the USA counterpart.

Means the USA consume more than makes, Russia consume less than make.

So, the best way to counter is to make the Russian people more rich, and that require to decouple from the USA centric world, where every country serving the great americans interest.

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Russia government has incentive for population growth and much greater population of Russia can afford vacation. so overall mental well being should be near the top.
even in 2007 population per capita who can afford travel to Saudi were near the top. this in addition among the top real estate buyers in Middleast.