Russia is hedging that the "pariah state" label will wear off pretty quickly. The current US government has as recently as March floated the idea of normalising business ties, and constantly flip-flops it's position.
However, the biggest loser has definitely been Europe (including Britain). High energy prices have cascaded the cost of living crisis, which in turn has led to a rightward shift in politics. As a continent, we are unprepared for any sort of defence, having used the US as a backstop for years and now the US constantly toys with the idea of dropping NATO support. Alone, we don't have enough manpower, ammunition, and we haven't been keeping up with the evolution of modern warfare (drones and related technology) taking place in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Remember Russia in 3 years had: - 1 Military coup;
- Lost 50% of the Black Sea Fleet and it's now unusable;
- 1.000.000+ casualties (dead and severely wounded)
- Mass exodus of qualified young people;
- Lost Military allies from CSTO and rendered the alliance into a joke;
- Completely lost presence in the Middle East (I don't see how they will recover from it);
- Losing influence in neighboring countries;
The list goes on, like demographic collapse, etc
So, I find it hard to see Europe as the loser here; at worst, Europe is doing "ok".
Higher energy prices, and increased defence spending (from a low starting point) to meet the new US governments requirements are exacerbating the cost of living crisis continent wide. Europe already wasn't innovating, and is now losing the small amount of industry it does have, to energy prices, to China's entry into EV production, and EU regulation. The demands to spend more on our own defence by the US administration comes from a US administration which has flirted with the idea of not even defending NATO.
The cost of living crisis, coupled with "AI" (LLM) is hollowing out an already pretty hollow service economy across Europe, and is creating disillusionment which is causing Europeans to shift to either extreme side of the political spectrum. In my country, the UK, Reform, a politically inept and untested party is currently leading in the polls for the next election. This party, as well as many like it in Europe, is even leading in the polls despite well known Russian political influence in them.
On top of this, the demographic crisis, while not made worse by tons of dead men sent off to war and exodus, is still affecting Europe and the only reason it isn't notable to many people is due to immigration filling the gaps. Immigration, which is lowering wages and in many peoples eyes, changing their cultural landscape for the worse, increasing their likelihood in voting for fringe political parties.
As much as Russia might lose from this war, they'll probably rebuild their army to a higher degree than European forces are right now. We hear constantly about ammunition and weapons shortages across Europe, failure to meet requirements for what Ukraine needs to fight back, and a general unwillingness from the population to even fight. Russia has oil, gas, and mineral wealth, which will always be of importance to Europe whenever this war does end. Europe is so reliant, that whatever words are spoken, the EU has spent more on Russian energy than it has sent in aid to Ukraine.
Energy prices are going down, and have been going down consistently ( https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil ) and the new US Admin wants them even lower, and they're not alone. So that's settled. Defense spending will also be met with investment, jobs, etc.
But if you think Europe is having it bad in terms of using taxpayers money to fund wars... what do you think is happening to Russian taxpayers money, with a much smaller economy?
> The cost of living crisis, coupled with "AI" (LLM) is hollowing out an already pretty hollow service economy across Europe, and is creating disillusionment which is causing Europeans to shift to either extreme side of the political spectrum.
Inflation is affecting everyone. Not Europe in any particular way.
Again, if you think that's bad for Europe, you look at Russia is being completely destroyed with inflation. I don't even think they're reporting the fake numbers of how bad things are, every quarter they prohibit more data from coming out...
> On top of this, the demographic crisis, while not made worse by tons of dead men sent off to war and exodus, is still affecting Europe and the only reason it isn't notable to many people is due to immigration filling the gaps.
Again, if you think that's a problem in Europe... how does Russia compare with qualified people leaving, 1.000.000 young men casualties, low birth rates, aging population? Europe isn't speedrunning its demographic collapse like Russia is.
> As much as Russia might lose from this war, they'll probably rebuild their army to a higher degree than European forces are right now.
So, to sum it up, you highlighted a few points that are by many orders of magnitude worse in Russia. Even counting energy, since Ukraine has been taking out distribution and refining capacity (and my guess is that it will get worse) - somehow you still think Europe is in a worse shape and position.
And a lot of your claims don't make much logical sense: "Europe is in bad shape, they can't even properly help Ukraine", in a context of Russia with 1.000.000+ casualties, max military production capacity, using North Korean Army help, and failing to make any meaningful gains at heavy costs...
I'm not even stating the fact that Russia will inevitably have to surrender that territory back to Ukraine, in the future anyway, because no country will ever recognize their occupied territory as part of Russia.
So to sum up your "Europe is unable, and Russia is giving their max" scope doesn't help your case at all, just shows that Russia has massive unrecoverable problems, even trying with everything they have...
You ended up supporting what I said. Europe is OK, while Russia can collapse at any moment - that's being on the line.
Just to bring you back to reality: no European country had part of their military going on a straight line to its capital to take down the government, and that happened to Russia around 2 years ago - that's not a good sign.
What peace deal?
Even if that's true, the content you assume will be in it (even before considering the probability of your predicted content being wrong) may have as much bearing for Russia (or any othe nation’s) near term prospects as the eventual content of the peace deals ending the Israeli-Palestinian war or the US-North Korea war have on any nation’s near-term prospects.
If this is true, we're doomed. Everyone will want to have nuclear weapons in order not to end up like Ukraine. After that point it's just a matter of time until something goes wrong.
Russia must not win to avoid a nuclear war.
Less credibly, because the Russian government says a lot that isn't really true, Medvedev has been quoted saying "a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads".
Once you've got a fission bomb, by all accounts it's not that hard to use it as a primary to power a fusion bomb.
A single 1 MT bomb detonating at low orbital altitude above central USA would likely cause enough physical damage to the power grid to kill 60-90% of the population within a year, even with no shockwave getting anywhere near the ground.
* people often forget they got nukes, they were very quiet about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...
Define „hard“ then. Both started early in 1960s, both had access to uranium (North Korea is actually mining it - not every country can do that), both used foreign support for their nuclear programs. Neither achieved ICBM range to deliver nuclear warheads to any location on this planet or had submarine component. Ukraine may have theoretical ability to design and produce nuclear weapons, but it is a technologically advanced nation far ahead of many developing countries and it is not going to have resources for a nuclear program any time soon being heavily dependent on foreign aid.
Who is forcing it, Russia? lmao
>the regime can collapse at any moment
How exactly? What evidence do you have for it? All even marginally visible opposition is pushed out of the country and became irrelevant, some are dead, many convicted in absentia to decade-long prison sentences. Mass protests are rare and practically never challenge the order, mainly aiming at some local problems. From economic perspective there are some problems, but as a matter of fact inequality is now lower than before the war thanks to generous payouts to veterans and their families, who may have never seen that money in their life.
Didn't the brightest minds in the Kremlin believe that the last time too?
There are many plausible scenarios, such as the worsening of socio-economic conditions, to the point where local governments stop following the central government and begin implementing their own policies shaped by local grassroots movements, leading to the total loss of control by Moscow. A repeat of 1989-1991. In that turmoil, nobody will care about Donbas or Crimea, as long as they can have food on their table.
We seem to be seeing the same recipe in action: extremely costly war for no clear purpose, economic stagnation, de facto bankruptcies of entire large sectors like mining and metallurgy.
Missing ingredients: low oil prices over extended time periods (6 years in the 1980s).
The 1,000,000 casualties thing keeps popping up, but nobody can confirm this. We have to take Ukrainian sources at their word. Regardless of who you support, during a conflict you have to take BOTH sides claims with a pinch of salt. They are both producing fanatical numbers right now, because those numbers have the dual purpose of inspiring morale amongst those still fighting.
The brain drain caused by the mass exodus of Russians fearing conscription isn't permanent. Already many of these people have returned.
The Wagner Coup didn't amount to much. It got half way before they worked out they didn't have the means, stopped, and the leader was killed and the group restructured within the Russian military.
They lost influence with neighbours, but honestly did they ever really have much in Europe anyway?
In my view Europe loses, because it's completely beholden to Russian energy interests. Now that those are gone, they are paying higher back-marked rates for the same oil and gas (via other routes), or more expensive American energy. This is exacerbating cost of living crises continent wide and is boosting fringe political parties who will cascade the damage (and who are also, in many cases, Russian influenced and funded).
I don't have any stake or real investment in this (although I don't think invading forces should get what they want), but I feel the other poster does.
As for housing crisis, that's something that is defined by how markets work currently - where political influence buys squeeze in building permits and good profits from speculating on this market buy political influence. And of course, there's dual market structure in many cities with subsidized housing that reduces pressure for reform for significant number of voters. We need a big political reboot to overcome that and transition from old party structure practically everywhere, it is already happening, it is uncomfortable to see due to uncertainties in this process, but it is good. The war may have some effect on that, accelerating the process.
Russia may get what it wants, but Europe already got something from it too. 1. Major influx of workforce - many Ukrainians do not intend to go home according to polls 2. Push to a stronger union less dependent on America for defense 3. Push to less dependency on Russian oil and gas (yes, gas could have helped with transition to cleaner energy, but we may be doing well even without it)
Eventually - soon enough - Russian gas will be back. But Europe will come from this war stronger both militarily and politically and more united.
America is clear loser: what a mess it has become. Not being able to do anything with this conflict, it demonstrated that nuclear non-proliferation is dead. Nobody will give up their nuclear weapons now as Ukraine did in 1990s in exchange for empty promises of security guarantees.
Ukraine may have won some political independence at a very high cost and with some strings attached, but it has lost one third of its population and significant part of its territory - forever. And it is likely that it’s not going to get NATO membership. Was all of it worth it?..
Russia is an interesting case here. It‘s going to win. Sanctions don’t work. Foreign reserves are all time high. The economy is suffering mainly from self-inflicted damage, not for external reasons: enormous military budget and insufficient workforce (not least because Central Asian workers are hesitant to work in Russia now and their number was bigger than war casualties). Western brands left the country temporarily and many will come back. It has acquired new territories and will be actively spending there on reconstruction — that’s going to add extra points to GDP. It is hard to say, if the combined economic outcome will be positive or negative. Was it worth it?… It depends who answers. Politically it’s more stable than ever with national-conservatives in power, which is very important, because by 2030s it will be busy with the transition of power (and certainly not attacking NATO in Baltics as some delusional hotheads think). When the war ends it will be able to shift spending to social topics, which + the victory will give the necessary political capital for the transition.
Everyone there is doing fine.
The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
Lmao, food prices skyrocketed, quality plummeted, interest rates are at record highs, budget deficit. Totally doing fine, comrade.
As long as they don't say anything critical against the regime. Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243). Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder.
> The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
Yes, Russia, the known beacon of journalistic freedom. How many journalists have been murdered by the regime?
The fact that those Wikipedia sections / articles exist is very telling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attac...
> media control there by western media brands.
Anyone blindly lumping together all "western" media is not to be taken seriously. Especially when comparing with fucking Russia of all places. You can find plenty of disagreements in various "western" media (consider The Guardian vs Financial Times vs Le Figaro vs Le Monde vs NY Times vs Washington Post). Nobody dares contradict the official line in Russia, even calling the war a war, or they get tortured and murdered.
Chances for a civilian to die from war causes and gun violence combined in Russia are currently significantly lower than chances for American to die from gun violence.
> Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder.
Russia is currently recruiting contractors among conscripts and criminals. It’s not impossible to be sent to war illegally, but significant majority went there willingly (I have no idea why idiots arrested for drug possession choose to go to meat grinder, but they do it).
Overall, in most places there it’s safe enough to think about something else than how not to be killed. People are really doing fine (when internet works - it’s been shitty recently for air defense reasons).
And if you say somebody doing badly, you will get 10 years in gulag.
Many large businesses have returned to Russia. "No one is going to invest" is a naive childish thinking. They outperformed growth expectations in 2024, unemployment rate dropped from 5.8% in 2020 to 2.3% in 2025. GDP is surging, insane tech and energy investments from China. Plus Russia has a very low public debt. All in all, their economy is pretty resilient despite what they say in the mainstream media.
Because a massive amount of men were conscripted?
> GDP is surging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Spending ~30% of the country's budget on military hardware that will get blown up might look good, GDP wise, but is utterly unproductive.
That's an emotional oversimplification. Unemployment fell not because of conscription, but due to massive import substitution and rising labor demand in construction, logistics and manufacturing.
Despite sanctions, Russia's ruble-adjusted budget deficit remains manageable, and the trade balance is strong due to record energy exports. Military spending has driven industrial revitalization. Factories reopened, supply chains revamped and domestic R&D expanded.
Whether you agree with the morality or not, economically it’s not just money burned. It has multiplier effects: jobs, tech development and regional growth. Dismissing that is lazy.
Completely unthinkable.
Now Russia is so dependant on China that they could just ask nicely for it back and Russia would have to hand it over without China firing a shot.
Russia itself has been the biggest loser. Massive budget deficits, massive inflation. 1M of its smartest people have moved abroad. 1M Russian casualties in the war. Demographics and economy are disastrous.
That and Russia is now a pariah state. No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.