Ukrainian War Developments

Abominable said:

Russia is hardly poor though. Just their income from oil and gas alone is Saudi Arabia level. Obviously they have more population, but the military spending is about the same.

America is rich (soon to be was), and they've started more wars than everyone else.

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Well, is Russia rich enough to provide Ukraine a brighter future of GDP growth and wealth as a result of a Ukraine-Russian strategic partnership, comparing to Ukraine joining the EU (or at least an EU-Ukraine strategic partnership)?

I ask you this because Russia (and to a much less extent, EU) has made it clear that Ukraine-Russia and Ukraine-EU were mutual exclusive, at least prior to this war. If Russia forces Ukraine to choose between Ukraine-Russia and Ukraine-EU, what competitive advantage can Russia offer?

Jingle Bells said:

Well, is Russia rich enough to provide Ukraine a brighter future of GDP growth and wealth as a result of a Ukraine-Russian strategic partnership, comparing to Ukraine joining the EU (or at least an EU-Ukraine strategic partnership)?

I ask you this because Russia (and to a much less extent, EU) has made it clear that Ukraine-Russia and Ukraine-EU were mutual exclusive, at least prior to this war. If Russia forces Ukraine to choose between Ukraine-Russia and Ukraine-EU, what competitive advantage can Russia offer?

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I doubt they can. But it isn't always about money. If it was Afghanistan would have become the 51st state of America.

Richard Santos said:

You have it backwards. The fact that starting from the same place, some can get rich while others remain poor shows poverty is not the cause but the effect. The fact that the effect can Itself also cause many further bad things does not make the effect the root cause.

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Well, yeah, of course, everything other than God (as the philosophical concept) is effectively an effect of some cause. This is unless if our ontology is based on Occasionalism.
But just like I have said earlier, Russia needs to first solve the problem of poverty. This statement implies finding all the causes of poverty, and finding and applying viable and proven solutions to pull the country out of poverty and into the wealthy.

Abominable said:

I doubt they can. But it isn't always about money. If it was Afghanistan would have become the 51st state of America.

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Afghanistan probably started as a resource grab then morphed into a forward operating base against China as they realized things were going to change.

Drive article comprehensively debunking Russia's lies about the murders it committed in Kramatorsk today:

If Ukraine can operate without interference from the non partnering side, then there is no doubt ukraine will do better partnering with the EU than with russia. EU provides a market 10 times bigger and offer many different examples of how to solve many of ukrainian’s internal problems which russia also have but have not managed to solved herself.

Russia can only offer ukraine a marginally brighter future because russia’s own future is not that much brighter, while EU can decline quite a lot and still be brighter than Russia.

the main barrier for Ukraine partnering with the EU, beside the difficulty of imagining russia would not interfere, is would the EU have a basket case like Ukraine?

But, if Ukraine were to partner with Russia, it will remain forever unknown whether EU would have had ukraine farther down the line. So ukraine will never ever be grateful to russia for the slightly brighter future russia might give her because it would always be resentful that Russia robbed Ukraine of a much brighter future.

the fundamental problem for russia is it has not solved the problem to be an effective competitive value added economy despite having a number of not insubstantial advantages for achieving that goal.

Interesting

"U.S Defense and Intelligence Officials are reporting that the Russia Military is now Mobilizing more than 60,000 Reservists to send into Combat Operations in Ukraine in the next few weeks, though the number of Reservist could be Increased quite rapidly if the Need Arises."

Richard Santos said:

If Ukraine can operate without interference from the non partnering side, then there is no doubt ukraine will do better partnering with the EU than with russia. EU provides a market 10 times bigger and offer many different examples of how to solve many of ukrainian’s internal problems which russia also have but have not managed to solved herself.

Russia can only offer ukraine a marginally brighter future because russia’s own future is not that much brighter, while EU can decline quite a lot and still be brighter than Russia.

the main barrier for Ukraine partnering with the EU, beside the difficulty of imagining russia would not interfere, is would the EU have a basket case like Ukraine?

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For a small country like Ukraine, the primary concern should be, "who is our biggest security threat and how do we avoid it". Money is secondary if your country will not exist.

reservior dogs said:

For a small country like Ukraine, the primary concern should be, "who is our biggest security threat and how do we avoid it". Money is secondary if your country will not exist.

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Ukraine will not exist?

I see no progress on the ground that indicates Ukraine will not exist. Russia's objectives has been narrowed significantly to the east with it's withdrawal from Kiev, I don't know where this sentiment comes from that "Ukraine will not exist"?

Abominable said:

I doubt they can. But it isn't always about money. If it was Afghanistan would have become the 51st state of America.

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It is about money. I replied to you in private chat on this, because I don't want to get banned talking about the US.

Like I said, Russia would have to provide big enough economic cake for both Russia and the other neighboring non-aligned former-USSR/Warsaw-Pact state to really alleviate them out of poverty and into steadily and visibly building wealth. Ukraine would not had to been forced to choose between Russia and EU back at Yanukovych's time, there would have been no need for Euro-maidan. and Ukraine won't be stuck with abysmally low per-capita GDP for more than two decades with literally no growth. Without Euro-maidan and Yanukovych's ousting, there would have been no Donbass secession. Without these situations, there will be no need to kick Russian navy out of Crimea, and thus Russia would not need to take Crimea by force.

We have to remember all of these actually started more a decade ago. And the biggest root cause has always been poverty: aka. Ukraine's inability to get rich.