this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2023
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First of all, the same is not true for Russia at all. Even western media admits that the war isn't actually costing Russia all that much, and that Russian economy is actually projected to grow while EU is already in recession. And yeah, China as well as the rest of Asia has replaced all the trade Russia was doing with the west at this point. The only thing laughable here is that people could be so ignorant not to know the basic facts of the situation.
CSTO is dead in the water, Russia has officially denied military aid to member states at war. Kazakhstan is warming up to China and the EU. Russia lost more than 2000 tanks. A sizeable portion of its navy is defunct. It has had to mobilize conscripts. No matter how they put nice numbers out, it does cost Russian society a lot. Even if you don't count anything else, even by conservative estimates, 50000 Russian men are dead.
Saying that the war barely cost anything to Russia is an affront to their memory. Those are 50000 people with families, dreams, kids who will never see them again because Russia apparently needs a "sphere of influence".
Also, the EU is not in recession, Germany is by some counts, other states are doing fine. The war is not in the top 3 discussed issues in my EU country right now, it comes right after farmer subsidies, housing prices and whether we can all continue working from home.
Also, just to put it in perspective, Russia's economy is around the same size as Italy's. It can grow a lot until it will be a match for Germany, let alone the EU or the US.
This alternate universe you inhabit sounds fascinating.
First, EU is very much in recession, and the situation is only getting worse https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/08/euro-zone-enters-recession-after-germany-ireland-growth-revision.html
Also, Russia's economy is absolutely not the size of Italy, and it's frankly incredible that anybody actually believes that https://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-we-please-stop-comparing-russia%E2%80%99s-economy-italy%E2%80%99s-206404
And the only study done in western media that actually shows any methodology only managed to account for 16k losses, so not sure where you're pulling your numbers from, presumably same place you got your 2k tanks figure https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/media-public-data-suggests-over-16-000-russian-soldiers-have-been-killed-during-first-year-of-all-out-war