On the economic stuff you can see the entire EU's data here. [1] The EU's total growth since the sanctions is around 2%. Russia's data not being seasonally adjusted just means that you need to compare quarter versus the same quarter prior, but it'll give an accurate growth estimate. And so Russia's total growth since the sanctions began is around 10%. So who got hurt more? It could only be Russia if one believes that, without the sanctions, they would have
dramatically outpaced the EU, since they're significantly outpacing EU economies with the sanctions. That seems beyond improbable, in which case the only conclusion seems to be that the EU is mostly just punching itself in the face, to spite Russia.
On the war stuff, the war has become a classical war of attrition. Both sides are fighting to the see who runs out of people first. Ukraine is fighting with something near to their max potential fighting force. They've locked all "fighting age" men in their country, are literally dragging people off the streets, and their are still facing major manpower issues. By contrast Russia is fighting with a small fraction of their overall potential having not even turned to a general mobilization. So Ukraine is losing when fighting with all of their might against Russia fighting with a fraction of theirs. This is the reason for the nonstop propaganda about Russia just about to declare a general mobilization, every single year. Without such happening, it makes it clear that this is an very one-sided war to anybody who's aware of the basic facts.
The point Pandora's Box is one of unforeseen consequences and regret. I was speaking of the decision to start intentionally targeting genuine civilian infrastructure, but as for the war as a whole it's the same story. If you take Russia back to 2022 and tell them what the situation would be today, more than 4 years later, they would 100% do it all again. If you do the same for Ukraine or the US, they certainly wouldn't have.
[1] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_08_10/def...
On the war stuff, the war has become a classical war of attrition. Both sides are fighting to the see who runs out of people first. Ukraine is fighting with something near to their max potential fighting force. They've locked all "fighting age" men in their country, are literally dragging people off the streets, and their are still facing major manpower issues. By contrast Russia is fighting with a small fraction of their overall potential having not even turned to a general mobilization. So Ukraine is losing when fighting with all of their might against Russia fighting with a fraction of theirs. This is the reason for the nonstop propaganda about Russia just about to declare a general mobilization, every single year. Without such happening, it makes it clear that this is an very one-sided war to anybody who's aware of the basic facts.
The point Pandora's Box is one of unforeseen consequences and regret. I was speaking of the decision to start intentionally targeting genuine civilian infrastructure, but as for the war as a whole it's the same story. If you take Russia back to 2022 and tell them what the situation would be today, more than 4 years later, they would 100% do it all again. If you do the same for Ukraine or the US, they certainly wouldn't have.
[1] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_08_10/def...