Why Russia is not ready to fight forever, no matter what Medinsky says
"We don't want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two years, three years – however long it takes. We have been at war with Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight? Perhaps some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones. Russia is ready to fight forever," the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said during the talks in Istanbul, according to Economist journalist Oliver Carroll.
My God, my five-year-old is a better bluffer.
After the failure of "Kyiv in Three Days," the Russians shifted their economic policy to essentially the same regime as the Third Reich in the first half of the 1930s – pumping up credit and entering the production capacity curve with an overheating economy.
The Germans realized that either they would annex Austria and Czechoslovakia with their resources in time and continue to expand eastward, or the hungry people would demolish them. It was a very risky bet that paid off due to an incredible chain of favorable circumstances. And in particular, because of the willingness of Germans of that time to live by the belt, to stand in long lines for hours for butter, and to be proud of the weapons made for the Reich, not of their own wealth.
But Germany entered the 1930s extremely poor. Only 1% of households owned a car, 20 times less than in the United States and many times less than our neighbors in Europe. The Germans were not based on consumerism, they were based on resentment.
I don't believe that Muscovites and St. Petersburgers will be able to be transplanted from generous consumerism to respectability. And the Russian economy has already turned into a recession, and there is no increase in resources – the temporarily occupied Ukrainian lands are mostly scorched to ashes, they are liabilities, not productive assets.
Russia is not ready to fight forever, no matter what Medinsky says. Russia is now like a bear that has been woken up in the middle of winter and needs to find food urgently, otherwise it will die of exhaustion. And in Ukraine, there is no food to be found.
It is for these reasons that our European neighbors say that ending the war in Ukraine would mean Russia's imminent invasion of a European country. Putin and co. simply have no choice.
And that is why, I think, the French are now shipping us the entire annual production of Caesars, and the Germans, led by Merz, are ready to transfer long-range weapons. (I never cease to be amazed at this historical irony – the Germans and the French are now together our most reliable partners in the confrontation with the swamp empire).
They learned the lessons of history painfully, on their own skin, so they remember and understand what is coming.
Trump can imagine whatever he wants, but the reactor of the Russian economy has been overclocked and the point of no return has been passed – the graphite rods are already moving, and no truce will extinguish it. Quite the contrary, it can accelerate the explosion.