Russia has a population of around 143 million people. That makes it, in population terms, just over twice the size of the UK.
That population is declining based on UN data:
The median age is 40, as it is in the UK.
And Russia is now believed to be losing 30,000 soldiers a month in the war with Ukraine. The monthly figure is rising, not falling.
The total loss is now thought to amount to more than 500,000 people.
Many more have been wounded, some with lifetime disabilities, of course.
The situation is now so desperate that Russia is paying recruits the equivalent of around £40,000 to sign up to fight.
Despite that, as the FT notes, it is still struggling to secure the recruits it needs.
That is not surprising; actual war is a deadly business, and the one with Ukraine especially so, particularly on the Russian side.
With that many losses, there can be almost no one in Russia who does not know someone, or the family of someone, who has died.
And the net gains are negligible. The lesson from all this is that Putin's war is an exercise in vain folly pursued at cost to the people of Russia.
And despite this, we in the so-called West are told that Russia is the great threat that requires us to increase our defence spending considerably, although on what we do not know, except that this must come at the cost of sacrificing support to many of the most vulnerable people in the UK.
I keep asking, why?
If Russia is this depleted by war already, with a population that must have had enough of sacrifice, where is the threat coming from?
And if Russia cannot beat one vulnerable neighbour, why is it going to take on another one?
I accept that cyber warfare is a real risk because it can destabilise at a distance, and I think that possibility is real. But conventional warfare? I just don't get it.
So why are we going to spend so much on armaments for no good reason? And who is going to talk about what we might really need to do, and why, including how we can help people in need, except by spending fortunes to get them up to go to war?
If anyone would do that, we might get politics that was relevant to the needs of people in this country, rather than politics that simply panders to a thug in Washington and the military-industrial complex.
I look forward to the day when that happens.
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Back in the 80’s I visited what was then the USSR twice, the scale of death in the siege of Leningrad is almost unimaginable and of course seeing the tank traps on the motorway from Moscow Airport into Moscow brought home the reality of WW2 for the Soviet Union.
My father who had gone to Europe as part of the first wave of support troops after D-Day commented on the lack of old men and said that he shed a silent tear for the people of the USSR.
But now history is repeating itself. Putin is 73, he clearly isnt going to go on for ever and the war with Ukraine is gradually hollowing out the Russian economy. There are several risks
He could launch some kind of ‘Banzai’ charge against Europe – unlikely but not impossible
Who will replace him? And how? This could be interesting.
What are the likley threats from Russia? The evidence seems to suggest that there is a lot of activity going on that can be destabilising – and quite cheap eg fanning the flames of right wing activity, ‘accidental’ damage to undersea electricity and telecoms cable, other forms of ‘sabotage’ s and a persistent if low level and undefined threat along Europes borders.
Plus of course it has a massive stock of nuclear weapons
My immediate suggestions might be that we need to boost our resilience and tackle the factors that have allowed the right wing to grow – primarily but not only poverty – as happened in the Cold War and which would be worth doing anyway.
Part 2 – I overdid the words
We need the ability to protect our seas. Not necessarily a massively expensive project
We need to stop acting as concierge to the holders of dubious money – either return or seize it – which wont cost anyone other than The City.
Finally we need to watch, wait, learn and understand so we are prepared for what comes next and are in a position to understand and influence Putins Successor and those around us who are dealing with him – or her. .
Thanks
The figure for July was 42k (dead & wounded). Russian threat? probably revenge, somehow, sometime. The actual nature of the threat? Take a look at what is bring Russia to its knees (slowly): the attacks on oil refiners, warehouses etc etc. Power stations next, probably. Of course, what we really need against these threats is aircraft carriers, yup, that’ll do it & ballistic missile subs, etc.
There is currently no obvious end point in the war by Russia against Ukraine. What happens after the end point will determine if Russia is “a potential threat” or like Nazi Germany, reduced. There is some consensus (within Ukraine and elsewhere) that a lasting peace = breakup of Russia (an event that might suit China). Required reading: “The Closing of the Russian Mind” by Andrei Kolesnikov who Russian, lives in Russia and was only allowed to have the book published provided it was only in English. It is not a happy read. Russia is a long term problem. How we (not the USA, we Europeans) deal will it will show how more or less human we are.
Thanks, Mike