I'm really rooting for Ukraine here, and it looks like they are well on their way to succeeding pushing Russia out.
But the corruption issue ... for this particular problem, old habits unfortunately die really, really hard.
When corruption has become interwoven into the fabric of a society the way it has in Ukraine, and for such a long time, rooting it out will be very, very hard.
This kind of stuff typically requires two generations to die out and a super strong, long-term political will.
I hope they'll pull it off, but it won't be easy.
Government spending is how the Brussels economy works (there's technically 11 and in practice about 7 different governments, all of whom have similar needs), and you get government spending assigned to you by "knowing" government deciders ...
I thought I was clear? I mean the western corruption isn't in any shape or form comparable to Russian corruption, and how it pervaded all the Eastern Bloc. It does take long time to root it out, as it affects and degrades the whole society. You really, really can't compare it to what we have in the west, and everybody is better off when they get to escape it.
The system there is entirely hierarchical. Think organized Mafia as seen in movies, but but much wider both vertically and horizontally.
In that system, as an individual, you have only two path in life: poverty no matter your educational level and talent, or having a patron within the corrupt hierarchy.
If you get a patron, your life is going to be good as long as you remain in his good graces, and he remains on the good grades of his patron, and so on, all the way up to Putin. If any link in the chain above you breaks, you're back to poverty. So you now have a whole set of duties toward your entire "clan", starting with your patron and going all the way up.
There's no justice or fairness anywhere in this system, only loyalty, and the ocasional disloyalty disputes as the upper layers fight for domination.
And there's no private property either. All property is Putin's, who grants access to slices of it to his immediate underlings, who in turn grant access to theirs, and so on, until you too get yours. That grant can be revoked at any time, for any reason whatsoever.
Compared to that, corruption in normal countries is extremely simple, generally having one layer or two, not being so comprehensive that it encompasses the whole of society, and not structured in such a way that your life depends on it, to the point that in most countries you can rise and prosper in society without taking part in corruption, even if it's harder to do so.
In Russia and its satellites this simply isn't the case.
Not perfect, but doing pretty well, and the effects can be seen.
In my view what really did them in was Poland's EU accession later on. It gave young men alternatives to joining organised crime as foot soldiers.
Of course many criminals emigrated as well, but on foreign turf they weren't nearly as successful.
Right now it's demographics, with the average age of a felon going from ~20 to ~34 between 2000 and now. These people focus on e-commerce scams.
It is part of every society, but Ukrainians and the west perceive it as a problem for Ukraine while, say, Danes do not, although Denmark [1] is utterly corrupt in its own ways.
Corruption is problem only for states that underwent recent political transitions and where class struggle has not been a thing for various reasons. Ukraine improves quickly, but signs of improvement are not in the corruption perception indices but in people manifesting their opinions on the streets, like in the recent ousting, then re-hiring of the Defense Minister.
> Overall then, the promise of strategic airpower, that it could win wars entirely or primarily from the skies, turns out so far to have been largely a mirage
> Instead, efforts to use strategic bombing to coerce surrender have repeatedly shown that being bombed hardens civilian resolve to continue resisting. By contrast, bombing can have some effect on industrial production, but only in wars where that production matters and is available to be bombed
> Crucially, the coercive effect of these bombing efforts is not only limited, but it is also not delivered via popular will but rather through the political calculus of the leadership
https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...
The russian oil refineries that have been very successfully attacked seem to meet the definition of this. One obviously useful thing for the Ukrainians to do is to cut off the supply of refined diesel and petrol to the Russian army's vehicles.
If this also has the effect of causing significant pain to the russian domestic economy (lack of fuel for general civilian vehicle uses of all types), it has the additional benefit of being a very real and public pain point causing dissatisfaction with the average russian civilian.
And yet we must never forget that there is no such thing as a wunder waffe and reducing German cities to rubble did not break the civilian resolve.
Throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine I saw a common pattern: one side gains a technological or doctrinal advantage, may or may not make progress, the other side adapts and the situation levels out again.
0 - https://xcancel.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/20733425637973812...
Let's say theoretically that Ukraine successfully takes 90% of Russia's oil refineries out of action and this crashes the domestic petrol/diesel supply so thoroughly that plowing, seeding and harvesting with mechanized agriculture equipment also crashes in Russia. Or there is a breakdown of cold chain transport warehousing/trucking and grocery supply due to lack of diesel fuel for all of the trucking. Could it result in a collapse of the russian state and civil war? Very possibly.
In Vietnam when the NVA attacked a chain of US military bases simultaneously they lost every single battle, by a huge margin. It wasn't even close, the USA suffered about a quarter as many casualties, yet it broke the back of US commitment to the war. That's because the NVA could take 110k casualties and maintain their commitment, but for the USA about 25k casualties was intolerable.
On the battlefield Russia is losing masses of troops, but as Vlad Vexler points out, because these are mostly essentially paid mercenaries this is seen by the Russian population as a transactional risk they are taking.
Direct pain for the general civilian population is another matter. Most Russians seem oblivious to the fact they are actually in a war with a neighbouring country. They seem utterly bewildered by the fact Ukraine is even attacking Russia at all, it doesn't seem to make any sense to them. This is why the government has done everything they can to avoid resorting to a wave of conscription, they want the whole thing to seem very distant and abstract.
I think the pain tolerance of the Russian population over this is minimal, bringing it home to them is really important. The only thing is they have no accessible ways to translate that into political action, but if they are ever going to wake up, prods like this play an important role IMHO.
And Avito in this case would be your first target if only Avito was not a craigslist "alternative".
The real reason for attacking WB is that it has deeper connection to Putins pals and has larger logistic centers with lots of goods. WB won't be able to compensate this for the sellers and this will hurt a lot.
It won't metter much for military oprations (if you are a soldier you ca just order from Avito or Ali) but this can disrupt internal logistics and hurt the economy greatly.
Even after 4 years of war, when the conflict directly affects them, Russian civilians seem genuinely bewildered. They have difficulty comprehending why this is happening to them. They've hardly felt they've been in a war at all, for them it's mainly been an economic downturn.
Political article by British news outlet which openly states that they are in war with Russia on a HackerNews. Great.
I agree with the general sentiment though!
Also, most recent developments on the battlefield are driven by Ukraine's own innovations - better drones, interceptor drones, their own cruise missiles, etc. All the lessons are being absorbed by Europe and the US.
By far most credit should go to the Ukrainians. They are the ones under attack, they are the ones defending democracy and freedom, and they are the ones who are resisting the Russians against all odds.
And by saying "to the last Ukrainian" you're spreading a Russian-propaganda narrative. This slogan has been repeatedly used by Russian officials (including Putin, Peskov, Zakharova, Matviyenko), it's a recurring theme in the Russian information space and it's used by Russian bots.
Well, lets's be honets: not always. But, yes, he's a your typical example of a paid bot or a genuine low IQ nationalist. Quite a few of them here.
In WW2 it was the second major aggressor of course. WW1 Germany declared war before Russia invaded, so debatable. Wasn't an aggressor in the Napoleonic wars as far as my history knowledge serves me.
The ukrainian leadership has been quite clear that attacks such as this against valid munitions-warehousing facilities will cease once the russians withdraw from the territory they have temporarily occupied and back to their original borders.
You mean if Iran did what the US are doing? I am guessing the US would cry foul and say it was unfair. Maybe follow it up and say something like "if they don't stop we will erase their civilisation"
If US was using walmart to supply troops, even if its mostly used by civilians it could make it a legitimate target
>If US was using walmart to supply troops, even if its mostly used by civilians it could make it a legitimate target
RIP all the Walmarts within a 20 min drive of a US military base but most of all RIP to the Ford dealerships for your role in supplying young enlisted gentlemen with logistical materiel (Mustangs)
That being said the modern war logisitcs (and economy) are sort if wild. Imagine the USA and Canada were in a land war and you needed parts for a bunch of drones. Rather than turning to your goverment or official military industrial complex, you'd turn to Temu resellers on Amazon to get your fiberoptic spool. Which means it's a legitimate target, but I suspect that it's also a great way to impact a lot of Russian citizens without fire bombing them.
Does this not very simply constitute yet another large scale attack by Russia on civilian infrastructure?
But mostly, this site in Russia is a legitimate target because it supplies the Russian military.
> intended to ideologically attack and manipulate civilians by terror
Do you mean ... rid Russian civilians of the notion that they can ignore the war that Russia started, because it's happening "over there, not here" ?
Well, yes, that too. No doubt the civilians are complaining now that it's not fair. It wasn't fair when the missiles went the other way, but they could ignore that. Public opinion matters, less so in Russia but it still matters.
But targeting military logistics matters more.
1) https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/russia-strikes-nova-poshta-t...
If the current global crisis ever ends, how the world deals with human rights violations on both sides of this conflict will reveal whether any of this actually matters, or whether it’s all just a slugfest where the only objective is to determine who comes out on top.
Besides this, the laws only exist when there's something to enforce them. Has anything (apart from Ukraine's "kinetic sanctions") been enforcing much on the invader to make them obey those "laws"? At least treating POWs with dignity (like Ukraine generally does btw) and not putting them through the Gulag system that russia has revived with newfound cruelty?
there is no law in war.
Please country a only fight with this type of attacks so that the people you kill are only people forced to fight against you to protect themselves but not the civilians.
War is war. You kill and destroy a country thats it.
Its not a conflict? Russia/Putin started to attack Ukraine. Thats it, russia is bad, ukraine is not.
Oh no don't use cluster bombs they are bad / different bad than normal bombs.
Btw. if countries like the USA wouldn't create cluster bombs, Saudi Arabia couldn't use them against civilians.
https://www.newsweek.com/china-news-reacts-after-russia-chan...
Apparently they still regularly do: https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-china-ur...
I am happy that some cooler heads prevail.
Insert “are we the bad guys” meme.
aims to obtain nuclear weapons
After a certain country shredded a nuclear deal and made it increasingly hard for international organizations to do inspections.
supports 4+ terrorist organizations in the Middle East
Because the US has never supported, funded, and trained terrorist organizations?
---
In this case, in contrast to Ukraine, it's also possible that both sides are the bad guys.
Depends on the leader and the country. Abducting or killing Hitler would be fine. The problem in this case was that killing the leader isn't enough to change the regime. But the regime is objectively evil and much more so than the US.
> After a certain country shredded a nuclear deal and made it increasingly hard for international organizations to do inspections.
Fair point, but the issue with the previous deal was that it forced Iran just to pause the program. Now they're possibly invulnerable and it may be the case that there's no way to stop them from developing nukes. The regime should have been removed when Iran didn't have thousands of ballistic missiles.
International law and organizations exist to avoid this issue. But the US and Russia (and maybe China) have been systematically undermining international institutions because they like to be able to attack someone at their convenience and not be held responsible for it.
> if Iran managed to carry out similar attacks
Iran did manage to attack Amazon facilities, just not in the US: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/21/iran-war-update-five-things-...
...and the US also attacked 'civilian infrastructure' in Iran:
https://www.dw.com/en/us-strikes-on-southern-iran-infrastruc...
Not sure why Ukraine should be singled out and berated for attacks on what are essentially dual use facilities. At least Ukraine doesn't do obious terror attacks against civilians like Russia does.
you mean like this "Russia Hits Nova Poshta Hub in Zaporizhzhia, Drone Attacks Kill 2 in Sumy" https://www.kyivpost.com/post/72051 March 17, 2026 ?
also https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/23/europe/russia-ukraine-con...
"A search for “military supplies” on the Wildberries website Thursday yielded over 78,000 items, including body armor, first aid kits and rations. The site also offers drone equipment, including FPV goggles and kit that can be used on the battlefield."
No.
Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This is probably why your comment is getting downvoted.
I know about the guidelines, I've been on here since 2010, like yourself.
The fourth largest economy in the world? With a deep reservoir of resources and a huge energy and industrial base and bordering China?
Ok guy.
anyway russia has a high GDP for sure but guess what it did the last 4 years? It threw that money into ukraine without getting anything from it.
No new schools, no teachers / educated kids, no housing, no streets. Instead taking out massive loans, reducing their reservers.
And now no one is willing to buy russian bonds.
Russia is hurting itself A LOT and is now going after retirement money.
Russia HAS to start selling oil again but has to spend a lot of time and money on fixing what got destroyed while the war is still ongoing and the tacktik clearly shows how well it works. Ukraine will not stop tomorrow just because.
As long as russia is not winning or stoping this, its very very expensive for everyone in russia.
Collapse no clue how you would define it but at least from a world power russia already collapsed. The only two things keeping russia at this 'level' is their oil and the nuclear threat.
>No new schools, no teachers / educated kids, no housing, no streets.
Is factually false on all accounts. (not sure I understand the "no streets" part though, are you talking about fixing pavement as a national sport?)