Are you serious ? Realistically the war has only lasted 3 months. 3 months is not a long time for a war. Wars last for years. 3 months and you're already comparing this to the Iran-Iraq war ? I'm sorry but I don't think it's a fair comparison.
Are you actually keeping up with what is going on in the Donbas ? Things are not looking good for Ukraine. Russia recently took 2400 more prisoners at Mariupol and liberated the entire city. Severodonetsk is the large bastion under Ukrainian control in the Lugansk region and it's surrounded from the north, east and south east.
The Popasnaya bulge keeps growing and they're now on the verge of outflanking the entire Severodonetsk area from the west. Russia recently blew up the bridge leading into Severodonetsk so there are now 2000-3000 Ukranian troops basically surrounded with nowhere to go.
At Izium and other locations, all Ukranian counter offensives have failed miserably. In a recent failed offensive, Ukraine lost 300+ troops and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles. Russia is currently 30 km away from Kramatorsk from the north. When Severodonetsk falls they will have be able to storm Kramatorsk from the north and east, from 3 pincers.
Currently there is an 11km Russian convoy heading to the Donbas to reinforce/strengthen Russian positions before the final push to Kramatorsk. If Kramatorsk falls, the battle for the Donbas is basically over. After that if Ukraine doesn't want to negotiate Russia will likely go for Odessa.
The Ukrainians were able to prevent the Russians from taking or surrounding their major cities and they deserve credit for that, but the fact of the matter is that the Russians never intended to fight for those cities. They believed that the central government would flee and that those cities would fall.
Essentially they were expecting a situation similar to Crimea. When they realized that the Ukrainians would not fold and were willing to fight, they quickly adapted to the situation and changed their priorities. Since then the Russians have been steadily making progress and the way things are going now, I'm guessing that this war will last another 3-4 months, with Russia coming out on top.
As you can see with the above map, the Popasnaya bulge is expanding towards a main road that leads to Severodonetsk. As I mentioned the Russians destroyed the bridge leading out of Severodonetsk, therefore 2000-3000 Ukrainians troops in Severodonetsk are now trapped with nowhere to go. If the Russians outflank them from the west, it's all over.
In Mariupol the Ukrainian high command made the mistake of ordering their troops to remain in the city even after they were surrounded. This ultimately led to the capture of 4000 or more Ukrainian troops. However now in Severodonetsk, even if the Ukrainians want to break out to avoid encirclement, they won't be able to. So the Ukrainians can't reinforce the town and their troops can't escape the town even when an encirclement seems inevitable. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Donbass offensive is still very slow and grinding for both sides. 90% of Russia‘s current gains were made in first 2 weeks. So everything has gone largely as I thought it would when everyone was saying Russia is going to take over everything.
Not even retired Russian generals are calling it a successful campaign. It was designed as a blitzkreig now it’s morphed into Iran and Iraq war basically in terms of the grind.
I don’t know how anyone can look at that war and not say Ukrainian resistance was very formidable. Yes Eastern Ukraine is now bombed to bits. Most people here were saying Kiyv will fall. Now we are waiting for Donbass and Luchnask to fall.
I don’t know. But 1.1T is far fetched given where GDP was in 2012 (start of Toman’s
Fall to 2,500-3,000)
That would mean we would have had double digit GDP growth for most years after 2012 which we know is not true. Iran GDP contracted several of those years.
And GDP like all economic indicators need to be taken in conjunction with other indicators like unemployment, wage growth, average income, inflation, etc
example USA is #1 GDP correct?
1970: Average home price 17,000 USD
2022: Average home price 400,000+ USD
1970: Average median income 10,000 USD
2022: Average median household income 65,000 USD
Which America was more prosperous for the average citizen?
I suggest adding up the IMF and World Bank figures and dividing them by two, thereby getting an average.
1.7 trillion + 200 billion = 1.9 trillion divided by 2 = 950 billion
The previous IMF figure was 1.4 trillion so let's say 800 billion ? That seems more than fair. Because you can't disregard the IMF figure but at the same time you can't disregard the World Bank figure, so then take an average, does that make sense ?
So roughly $290 billion. Hm, that's not really stellar but it's not too shabby either.
I see potential to do a lot of things annually.
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warsawinstitute.org
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