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.

Wouldn’t mind it TBH, but probs wouldn’t buy it for real money.

As someone who did the alternative at one point, you’ve made the right choice.

Usually there are ad hoc marketplaces like even Facebook (blech), but even the thing I linked up there where there are a bunch of sysadmins looking for a quick buck by selling EOL stuff.

Try looking for it as if you were trying to buy used furniture.

The long and short is that ad companies own the internet now.

Doing something like that would be feasible until the app developers don’t counter it, and then it devolves into an arms race, but the OS you’re developing for and the browser is owned by an ad company.

It would be the Manifest V3 situation on steroids.

Man, China is not even siding with Russia. China is against the West, it’s just looking to gain as much as it can from the situation.

It’s as likely to annex Siberia as help.

the largest military power barring itself

Don’t make me laugh. China easily is a more competent and dangerous military power than Russia. Russia is maybe on par with Iran, though Iran has the fact that they are not embroiled in a war of attrition with a minor neighbour with no way out going for them.

Ironically Russia has shit both for quantity and quality of military production. I mean imported French tank optics? Hand assembled fighter jets? Whatever the fuck the Kuznetsov is?

Russia spends around 9% of its GDP on its military, if the EU did the same, the result would dwarf the US. No point in doing it though as Russia is not a threat to the EU militarily. Maybe as much as Syria is, if they implode and cause a refugee crisis.

Same is true for Russia. Except US corporate ghouls are already lining up to rebuild Ukraine. Who will do that for Russia? China? Don’t make me laugh.

Nah, Russia attacked because they think they are still the Soviet Union instead of the world’s number two gas station (behind the OPEC) in a world where oil is losing its importance.

Russia felt threatened in its sphere of influence by the fact that Ukrainian internal events made it align more with the west.

The reason the war didn’t end yet is that no one wants to deal with Russia collapsing again. The oh-so-crucial weapons shipments are mostly stuff from the last century, and a bunch of stuff the West wants to battle-test.

Again, Russia exists because the West and China allows it. It will cease to exist when they demand it. Russia is not a superpower with an own sphere of influence, and would do better to accept that before more people get killed for its false delusions of grandeur.

So buses and sidewalks and bikes are not reasonable, but this thing somehow is.