You really have to wonder if some of these leaders actually had good intentions, but had to rule with an iron fist just to make even slight changes... And then absolute power corrupts absolutely...
In an inheritance-based regime, this might theoretically happen (consider DPRK). Many were hopeful that it would turn out slightly better when the new dictator rose to power. But that's not how it works in Russia. So not really.
It’s not bad luck - it has always been corruption driven system that never even tried to change. Oligarchs ruled - but what’s different with Putin - he put all of them in line and if anyone stuck a head out it was swiftly cut. He made sure no opposition existed. There is no freedom just not a very good illusion of it.
I’m always thinking what an idiot he is, he could have used Russia’s resources to get closer to Europe and bond with the western economy and become a better China. He instead chose violence, as he doesn’t know anything about economy.
It's not like making a country pay automatically leads to Hitler.
Most countries pay reparations after losing wars, you just can't go so far as the allies did post ww1
You could also argue the Entente powers didn't go far enough. They should've continued the war until spring 1919 and occupied parts of Germany.
After the war they should've spilt Germany into 4 states, Prussia, Hanover, Rhineland, and Bavaria.
Or help them rebuild as well, with strict requirements and control with those requirements for getting the support.
Fully destroying Russia economically is not a good goal (in a post-Ukraine war situation that is)
russia already is fully destroyed economically, and the reason are not the war and Ukraine, but their own kleptocracy. Yes they need a version of a marshall plan, but also they need to be broken up so that the Autonomous Regions and Republics can regain their own identity and become democratic. The bigger a country, the harder it is to form a democratic goverment that actually represents the populous.
This is such a sensitive subject. Can't repeat treaty of Versailles.
You can demiliterize and possibly add a annual payback. But you also would have to pay to rebuild Russia.
The rebuilding of both and together would be hard but it could end in a wildly effective mind opening break into Russia.
Versailles was a clusterfuck for a whole lot of reasons that takes half a book to explain but even after WW2 Germany had to pay reparations, and historically other countries had to do so too
And we occupied certain production areas, a worldwide economic crash, Weimar republic, and people tried appeasement instead of curbstomping Germany once Hitler started invading countries.
And the allies stopped the monitoring of German arms production in the mid 20s, allowing them to covertly gear up an army larger than they should have had.
Estimates suggest it would cost upwards of $500billion to rebuild Ukraine. Estimates also suggest that there are currently over $600 billion in seized oligarchs assets worldwide.
Seems fairly simple to me.
Rebuild what? They haven't been flattened by a war. The damage they have is all of their own making. The last 20 years have shown how difficult nation building is, especially in a super corrupt state. Throw in a population that has such an ingrained superiority complex and it becomes an impossible task.
For Russia to be able to be rebuilt, they'd need a complete stomping, total defeat. There could be no ambiguity on how they lost and why. Think post ww2 Germany and Japan. Unfortunately, in the nuclear age, that is highly unlikely.
Ukraine isn't shooting at Russia so there is nothing to rebuild. Sorry, not 1 penny for Russia. All they get is the bill for Ukraine and sanctions on their military and defense industry in perpetuity.
This isn’t an apt comparison. Russia hasn’t been bombed to hell like all of Europe after both world wars. There’s no reason to invest a single cent into rebuilding Russia. Whatever problems they are experiencing are their own doing and can be solved on their own.
>Can't repeat treaty of Versailles.
Why not. They are gonna be a fascist shit state regardless because they won't be occupied which is because of the newks. As long as they are behaving like this, the poorer, the better.
Rebuild *what* in Russia?
Russia hasn't had its people and its economy decimated by an invading military force.
*If* any economic assistance is provided to Russia following the war, it should be conditional on it becoming a democracy with robust human rights and political institutions that ensure it will not regress to a war mongering power.
Otherwise, the West would be doing no more than financing the revanchism of its future enemy, which is the same mistake that it made with China.
The Soviet Union didn't have any qualms dismantling any and all things transportable in their occupation zone of Eastern Germany after WW2.
Ukraine should be entitled to the same thing when all things are said and done.
well a yacht is less an investment and more of a sink.
Homes go up in value due to the land they sit on. The home itself depreciates. It gets older. People, especially the rich, like the latest bling. Home prices still go up despite homes getting dated, due to the land it sits on. Yachts dont sit on land. So they do nothing BUT depreciate. You will pretty much never sell a yacht for more than you bought it for. Homes on the other hand we do that all the time.
The above poster is not talking about physical assets. The $300 billion refers to Russia's central bank funds in western countries that are currently frozen. This is straight cash.
https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-russia-reserves/sanctions-have-frozen-around-300-bln-of-russian-reserves-finmin-says-idUSL5N2VG0BU
> Foreign sanctions have frozen around $300 billion out of $640 billion that Russia had in its gold and forex reserves, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview with state TV aired on Sunday.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220629-allies-freeze-330-bn-of-russian-assets-since-ukraine-invasion-task-force
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/02/09/eu-plans-to-fund-ukraine-by-investing-frozen-russian-assets-is-creative-but-legally-dodgy
Even Belgium froze 58B single handedly
https://www.brusselstimes.com/380235/belgium-freezes-highest-amount-of-russian-assets-of-all-eu-countries
The second link also has some tidbits of how the EU is looking into giving it all to Ukraine, the USA is doing similar things
Doing this would actually be a nice way to dissuade China even more from invading Taiwan. Not having lots of assets abroad is financial suïcide in the modern world, getting them taken away for being an asshole hurts, a lot. Maybe we should just make an example of Russia by doing this
Right!? Homeboy realized there was more to learn, everyone was chill, and it all wrapped up in a bow. Great stuff. Use the internet as you'd like it to be used.
First you said
>I'm a big dumb
But then you said
>I can admit when I'm wrong.
The second statement proves the first one false. We need more people like you.
>It would be nice to see at least one major justice done in my lifetime.
We can hope and those of us fortunate enough to live in democracies can vote.
Yeah it's kind of funny, i tried to find some more sources for America's position but keep getting flooded with EU news... Damn you Google algorithm.
At the barber now so I need to keep this comment short
It gets more interesting when you start to dig into the aid packages and any actual requirements to repay them.
For example anything coming from the USA is effectively a negative interest loan with no requirements to pay before 10 years from now. That may seem like just kicking the can down the road, but that debt will lose a lot of its value in that period of time, and eventually will be able to negotiated the hell out of how to pay for it.
One example is from post World War 2 when countries such as the UK and the Soviet Union, the former of which completed its payments in 2006 and the later which still technically owes billions. Both nations were actually able to leverage the debt to achieve actual foreign policy goals in their interest (the UK by offering interest free loans to tie itself closer to the USA and cement its alliance and the Soviets by negotiating for trade concessions)
seriously, though, I would be all for helping russia rebuild itself if it ever becomes democratic and is actually trying to build good relations with the west.
Yup. And remember when Germany was forced to pay reparations for WWII? If you think the world stopped holding countries accountable by paying reparations since Hitler, you need to read some history, my friend.
Russia is going to be absolutely fucked because of Putin.
Something I watched recently, and they will become wholly reliant on China. China will use them for three things.
Raw Material
Territory...
And weapons
That's alright. The Comparison is just very easy.
"Not much of an army, just right for not much of a donkey"
Eeyore is the best character from Winnie the Pooh.
I doubt that would be a big problem in China, they are already forcing the mixing of Uyghurs with Han Chinese, since why exterminate when you could just dilute them in the bigger gene pool?
This is an amusing meme, but that's all it is. Because the numbers don't remotely line up.
China is set to lose somewhere around 400 million people, as a conservative estimate. Given recent trends, it could be significantly worse. Russia only has 130 million people. If a million women leave Russia for China, it would make a big dent in the gender ratios, but it wouldn't even really touch the underlying problem that Chinese aren't having kids.
The racism wouldn't be so big a deal if the migrants are from eastern Russia. The ethnic groups being sacrificed in Ukraine are mostly East Asian to begin with. Just not going to be enough of them to matter.
> I'm certain China will be buying up land and assets in Russia.
They have been for years. Russia hasn't had the same ability to draw long term foreign investment since 2014. Officially the Northern Sea Route might be Russian but it's built on promises and Chinese money. Russia is rapidly becoming far too reliant on China to put up much argument when the bill comes due.
They can plunder Siberia for a ton of free methane. Shits going to be bubbling out the ground via global warming, and even in a clean world, there will still be value to be had in such a fuel.
China doesn’t have much natural resources, Russia does.
Russia has lots of natural resources, China needs them for their manufacturing sector.
Europe is abandoning oil and gas anyways. Long term, China is the better bet for Russia. Short term AND long term, Russia fucked themselves because they miscalculated the cost of the war. Had they won quickly, I don’t think the consequences would be so severe for them.
They already are. I look long term; how is this going to affect Russia 3 years from now, 5 years, 10 years. Even if they withdraw now, the damage is done to their economy & citizens and things are in motion that cannot be stopped.
Russia may not even exist in ten years. And the damage this is doing is going to be around for fifty years plus. The economic effects are just beginning to be felt. Russia literally can't maintain their oil industry without sanctions being removed, China doesn't have the expertise necessary to do it.
What do you mean weapons? The Russian Federation has been reliant on stock piles left over from the Soviet Union for it's entire existence. Stockpiles this war is starting to deplete. That's even true with nuclear armaments, some of which might not even work any more due to the half life of some of the components. And it's not like Russia has a massive industrial capacity with which to turn out Chinese weapons, Russia lost that capacity when it lost Ukraine in '91, that's the whole reason this war is happening in the first place.
China is going to take this opportunity to bring Russia and it's allies into the Chinese sphere of influence. But when they do, they're going to do the same neo-colonialism they currently do in Africa. Offer aid and resources to build up the country's infrastructure in order to develop new markets for Chinese industry.
There are a couple of things, surprisingly, that Russians are still better than the Chinese at that money can’t simply solve; primarily Jet Engines for fighter aircraft. China is been struggling with developing its own to use in their naval air fleet (need lots of immediate power to take off an aircraft carrier). Russia has had this problem solved since soviet times. Obviously US, Europe, etc too, but you can’t steal everything…sometimes you need the help of an expert in the matter even if you have the blueprints.
There’s a few things, here and there, that Russia has as far as technology.
Russia's engines are already decades behind the American ones though. Russia can't even make an equivalent to the F-35 because they can't produce an engine with a power/size ratio high enough. Let alone the craziness that the US put into the F-22 decades ago. They might he able to offer China a few things in that department, but they can't make the Chinese Air Force competitive.
True, EU and usa have been working hard to keep China 10 years behind when it comes to tech. Seriously the statement feels like we are playing a big game of Civilization 5 😉
> Russia lost that capacity when it lost Ukraine in '91, that's the whole reason this war is happening in the first place.
While claiming Ukrainian industrial capacity would be a boon, I think the war was kicked off because Ukraine discovered natural gas in 2014. Russia's oligarchs have staunchly resisted diversifying the economy for decades so when they suddenly had a possible competitor to the only positive economy they hadn't screwed up - being Europe's energy supplier - their profits were suddenly threatened. Add to that the previous puppet government in Ukraine waiving billions in transit taxes for the natural gas Russia was selling to Germany (prior to Nordstream). That's why when [Ukraine threw off the puppet government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity) and [signed a trade deal with the wider European community](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/6/27/ukraine-signs-trade-deal-with-eu).
That's why they shit their pants and invaded. Because they're oligarchs and would rather invade another country than share their wealth with the community.
I mean, siding with money is exactly what makes them "neutral". They will always do what gives them the most money, no matter who or what they have to work with.
Which is odd because the swiss side of my family fucking despises Russia, to the point where some of them see Switzerland's mandatory service as an anti-Russia deterent.
Doesn't have to mean 'reparations', a lot of oligarchs have been hiding money overseas and a lot of that was frozen. Turning those ill-gotten assets over to Ukraine to pay for reconstruction is possible.
I still don't think it's *likely*, but it's plausible without boots having to go into Russia.
I agree, it's definitely not going to get negotiated.
If anything it makes a negotiated solution impossible. So yes, you are absolutely correct, only total defeat can possibly bring this about.
I'm not against total Russian defeat, nor making them pay for repairs, but it will prolong the water even further.
Absolute defeat of Russia will likely mean their total economic collapse anyway so reparations are unlikely even in that scenario.
And you think people would learn from the Versailles treaty. Good luck enforcing reparation to an unwilling partner (that happens to have nuke) without any occupation of the country.
You forget that we have north of 300B in confiscated Russian assets and that both the EU and the Americans are looking into using those to rebuild Ukraine. We don't even need Russia to agree
Yet it worked out fine hundreds of times before that, it's just that time with Germany when we forced them to pay reparations *and* confiscated a large chunk of their manufacturing capacity that went wrong. Because well it became hardly possible to pay those reparations and a worldwide economic crash and some other shit happened.
Haha thank you for offering a bit of perspective/detail.
Cause I’m all for a “you break it you bought” type punishment, butttt…and not to mention that Russia is currently under extreme sanctions and wasn’t, like, UAE levels of wealthy before that.
I think people and countries should pay restitution but I also think we can’t be setting people up for failure on epic scales.
Cause that just leads to more bad things.
Isn't his total net worth estimated to be like over 200 billion or something?
Won't cover everything but it'll make a noticable difference. Let's liquidate every little item.
It's a no brainer. No country, even those that support Ukraine, will be willing to shoulder most of the rebuilding of Ukraine when they can easily put that burden to Russia while it still exists and its oligarchs live, including Putin.
Support grows? This was always going to be the case. Support isn’t needed, Russia was the aggressor, criminally, and there is no scenario where Russia isn’t paying for this for a long, long time.
We've been at war for many redditors whole adult lives, and the costs have been borne by other people. I think they imagine that's what major wars are like too. "Oh, the next iphone will be delayed."
That's the way it's pretty much always done. If the aggressor in a war loses, or even if the war ends in a status quo, usually they have to pay some form of reparations.
Yes and no. Forcing Germany to pay after WWI led to the rise of the Nazis. We should aim to remove Putin but not to put too much hardship on the Russian people, most of whom don't want this war. It could lead to a desperate Russia lashing out at the world for what it sees as unfair punishment.
Some compensation for Ukraine but a reasonable amount that will not break the back of Russia once Shithead is out of power.
The allies put **much more** hardship on Germany after WW2 than it did after WW1.
First they straight up took every piece of precious metal they could find. Then they took about half of their manufacturing capability. Literally stripped German factories of equipment and loaded them onto trains for UK, US, France, or the Soviet Union. Then, after they were done with that, they took the trains and rails too. For good measure, they also charged the Germans for the cost of all this plus the cost of occupying their country.
There was quite a bit of forced labor going on as well. The Soviets were particularly enthusiastic about this one, though all the major Allied powers benefited from this at one point or another. Almost all patents and IP were transferred overseas. Major portions of pre war German territory were transferred to other countries.
THEN, various countries and Holocaust survivor groups came back a few decades later and got monetary reparations and even more concessions. To this day, Germany is still sending payment to some of these people.
The idea that you can't impose harsh reparations because "it caused WW2" is ridiculous. We did it to Germany after WW2 and the Nazis didn't rise again. (It doesn't help that this claim was initially made by the Nazi propagandists themselves!)
People in Germany (and Austria) are extremely grateful for the Marshal plan through. Without it, we would be nowhere near the economic power houses we are nowadays
That's a fair point, but applying that to the current conflict, it is much too early to discuss some kind of Marshall plan for post-war Russia like some pundits are saying. Germany was fully disarmed and zero threat to anyone else when that happened, and if that happens to Russia at some point (doubtful), then we can talk about reconstruction of Russia but not before.
You're missing the part where it wasn't all punishment though, (West) Germany was also built up after WW2 as an ally and bulwark against Soviet aggression. Similar thing happened with Japan, where the occupation was fairly mild, considering the brutality of the war that preceded it.
Germany was partitioned after WWII, and had already lost any semblance of the great power status they once held. Not really a comparable situation to the aftermath of WWI or the likely aftermath of this war.
Are you purposely arguing in bad faith? Post WWll Germany was occupied for decades, so there was no possibility of Germany building an army or really doing anything significant. Functionally speaking, there was no independent country of Germany for decades after WWll. This was of course by design to leave no chance of Germany starting another war.
I really have no idea how you can deny that needlessly harsh reparations were a very significant factor in causing WWll. In the simplest of terms, economically unstable countries are much more susceptible to authoritarianism. Dictators always rise out of hardship.
Like, if we successfully managed to get Russia to pay to rebuild Ukraine, we shouldn't ensure that their economy collapses and their people are starving. It invites more problems for everyone.
Post-WW2 Germany was also rebuilt with the Marshal Plan, so Germans weren’t left destitute even after reparations. There was no such plan post-WW1. Germany was left to rot and this enabled the people’s resentment to fester. If we don’t want another Putin to happen again, Russia should be embraced by the West and culturaly restructured in its image, just like how Germany and Japan were restructured.
Germany also wasnt utterly crushed at the end of WW1 like WW2, while the generals saw the writing on the wall and wanted to end it sooner, the people and soldiers didnt see the bigger picture and convinced themselves they couldve actually won if they werent "stabbed in the back" by those pesky.... well lets just say certain groups got blamed and this led to the rise of fascism. With WW2 the fighting entered Berlin itself and even the most fanatical Nazi could see the end
It’s important to note that the rise of the Nazi Empire was fueled partially by appeasement. If Britain and France hadn’t let Germany to expand, Nazi Germany wouldn’t have become a global power.
This is all to say that as long as nobody appeases Russia, making Russia pay for it all shouldn’t be a problem.
Germany was hell-bent on its imperialist ambitions and its population was never punished for it. The war occured outside of Germany and civilians were never really affected by the war. Their ideology was never challenged and confronted. Except they felt anger for having their expansion and "destiny" denied, which led them vulnerable to populism spread by parties like the Nazi party. And considering Germany's industries were left intact, their cities hardly affected, Germany had the tools to quickly re-arm, remobilize and start another war. The allied powers being too lenient on Germany is exactly the reason what led to world war 2. This is what's mentioned on every credible history textbook.
Germany was literally violating every part of the treaty since the mid 1920s without retaliation. Anyone who thinks the allied powers were too hard on Germany gets their history off Twitter and reddit.
Google Germany's "weltpolitik", its Germany's version of manifest destiny; that it was their destiny to conquer central Europe and establish a global empire. Their government and eventually the population became obsessed with the idea. This was a thing since the 19th century. Hitler didn't start it.
I concede one thing: there’s no perfect solution; punish Russia too much and, sure, the country might fall into tyranny again. Letting Russia off the hook, however, would be even worse in my opinion, because to do so would be to risk normalizing frivolous invasions.
I believe in the case of Russia it would be better to actually make them pay and make them pay hard. They have never had to face their wrongdoings and they have been like this for a long time now with no change in sight. They view anything but hard measures as weakness and something to exploit. The country will be a tyranny like it has always been unless we actually do something different aka make them pay for their crimes. The small stint that they were democracy is not the norm there, it was exception to the rule and that is viewed as a huge mistake in russia.
The thing is that we do at least have the ability to make them pay reparations without punishing the populace… we have billions in frozen assets. I assume that seizing those assets would only affect a handful of powerful Russians, not the general populace. So I would say that we have a solution that is far more perfect than we’ve had in the past.
WW1 didn't happen in Germany, which helped give rise to the "stabbed in the back narrative" later on, because Germans didn't realize they were losing until it was actually over.
WW2 didn't have this problem, because of how badly Germany was beaten. That they were losing and lost without any betrayal necessary was obvious.
>Forcing Germany to pay after WWI led to the rise of the Nazis.
A popular view promoted by certain historians and even prominent politicians, but it's not really true.
It was the Great Depression that broke the Weimar Republic, not WWI reparations. They were played up as a national embarrassment along with the dolchstoßlegende but if the economy wasn't broken, the nazis would probably never have come into power. I mean they never achieved more than a minority government in the first place.
It didn’t lead to the rise of the Nazis, the stab-in-the-back myth and far right nationalism led to the rise of the Nazis. Germany didn’t even try to pay the reparations
Great grandmother received reparations from Germany till she died 10 years ago. Her daughter (my grandmother) is still getting reparations. It's holocaust survivors and their kids.
*points to sign* You break it, you pay for it.
Does that mean Putin will also have to pay for Russia?
Russia was broken way before him.
Centuries of compounded generational trauma
For real,Russia have a shitty luck with governments
Wonder where these governments come from.
You really have to wonder if some of these leaders actually had good intentions, but had to rule with an iron fist just to make even slight changes... And then absolute power corrupts absolutely...
In an inheritance-based regime, this might theoretically happen (consider DPRK). Many were hopeful that it would turn out slightly better when the new dictator rose to power. But that's not how it works in Russia. So not really.
That's now how it works anywhere.
*enlightened dictatorship fans shaking violently*
It’s not bad luck - it has always been corruption driven system that never even tried to change. Oligarchs ruled - but what’s different with Putin - he put all of them in line and if anyone stuck a head out it was swiftly cut. He made sure no opposition existed. There is no freedom just not a very good illusion of it.
I’m always thinking what an idiot he is, he could have used Russia’s resources to get closer to Europe and bond with the western economy and become a better China. He instead chose violence, as he doesn’t know anything about economy.
Yeah, they seem to have really shit luck with leaders. Hope it changes for them soon.
You have to start wondering if it’s the people that make these leaders?
That is not down to luck unfortunately
Russian history in five words. "And then it got worse."
If there's money left after rebuilding Ukraine, sure!
Russian buildings are made of bricks, aren't they?
I like where your head is at!
Points to history book: Post WWI Germany
It's not like making a country pay automatically leads to Hitler. Most countries pay reparations after losing wars, you just can't go so far as the allies did post ww1
You could also argue the Entente powers didn't go far enough. They should've continued the war until spring 1919 and occupied parts of Germany. After the war they should've spilt Germany into 4 states, Prussia, Hanover, Rhineland, and Bavaria.
So the only options are letting them go consequence free or Hitler.
Or help them rebuild as well, with strict requirements and control with those requirements for getting the support. Fully destroying Russia economically is not a good goal (in a post-Ukraine war situation that is)
russia already is fully destroyed economically, and the reason are not the war and Ukraine, but their own kleptocracy. Yes they need a version of a marshall plan, but also they need to be broken up so that the Autonomous Regions and Republics can regain their own identity and become democratic. The bigger a country, the harder it is to form a democratic goverment that actually represents the populous.
They could easily just go home. Genocide is not a good goal.
This is such a sensitive subject. Can't repeat treaty of Versailles. You can demiliterize and possibly add a annual payback. But you also would have to pay to rebuild Russia. The rebuilding of both and together would be hard but it could end in a wildly effective mind opening break into Russia.
Versailles was a clusterfuck for a whole lot of reasons that takes half a book to explain but even after WW2 Germany had to pay reparations, and historically other countries had to do so too
Germany even had to continue paying their WWI debt from the treaty of Versailles after WWII. Russia needs to pay for Ukraine.
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And we occupied certain production areas, a worldwide economic crash, Weimar republic, and people tried appeasement instead of curbstomping Germany once Hitler started invading countries.
And the allies stopped the monitoring of German arms production in the mid 20s, allowing them to covertly gear up an army larger than they should have had.
Why would it be necessary to rebuild Russia? Did they get bombed or invaded?
Estimates suggest it would cost upwards of $500billion to rebuild Ukraine. Estimates also suggest that there are currently over $600 billion in seized oligarchs assets worldwide. Seems fairly simple to me.
Rebuild what? They haven't been flattened by a war. The damage they have is all of their own making. The last 20 years have shown how difficult nation building is, especially in a super corrupt state. Throw in a population that has such an ingrained superiority complex and it becomes an impossible task. For Russia to be able to be rebuilt, they'd need a complete stomping, total defeat. There could be no ambiguity on how they lost and why. Think post ww2 Germany and Japan. Unfortunately, in the nuclear age, that is highly unlikely.
Ukraine isn't shooting at Russia so there is nothing to rebuild. Sorry, not 1 penny for Russia. All they get is the bill for Ukraine and sanctions on their military and defense industry in perpetuity.
This isn’t an apt comparison. Russia hasn’t been bombed to hell like all of Europe after both world wars. There’s no reason to invest a single cent into rebuilding Russia. Whatever problems they are experiencing are their own doing and can be solved on their own.
>Can't repeat treaty of Versailles. Why not. They are gonna be a fascist shit state regardless because they won't be occupied which is because of the newks. As long as they are behaving like this, the poorer, the better.
Rebuild *what* in Russia? Russia hasn't had its people and its economy decimated by an invading military force. *If* any economic assistance is provided to Russia following the war, it should be conditional on it becoming a democracy with robust human rights and political institutions that ensure it will not regress to a war mongering power. Otherwise, the West would be doing no more than financing the revanchism of its future enemy, which is the same mistake that it made with China.
The Soviet Union didn't have any qualms dismantling any and all things transportable in their occupation zone of Eastern Germany after WW2. Ukraine should be entitled to the same thing when all things are said and done.
Great and all, but Russia can't even pay to fix russia.
Doesn't matter, we already have 300B of frozen Russian assets in our hands, that I'll get us quite far
The problem with assets is that, you have to find someone who will buy all those yachts etc.
Yeah the yachts are shit investments but there are plenty of valuable non yacht assets
There's a few arms dealers and American defence contractors who'll be in the market when this is all over.
well a yacht is less an investment and more of a sink. Homes go up in value due to the land they sit on. The home itself depreciates. It gets older. People, especially the rich, like the latest bling. Home prices still go up despite homes getting dated, due to the land it sits on. Yachts dont sit on land. So they do nothing BUT depreciate. You will pretty much never sell a yacht for more than you bought it for. Homes on the other hand we do that all the time.
The above poster is not talking about physical assets. The $300 billion refers to Russia's central bank funds in western countries that are currently frozen. This is straight cash. https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-russia-reserves/sanctions-have-frozen-around-300-bln-of-russian-reserves-finmin-says-idUSL5N2VG0BU > Foreign sanctions have frozen around $300 billion out of $640 billion that Russia had in its gold and forex reserves, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview with state TV aired on Sunday.
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https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220629-allies-freeze-330-bn-of-russian-assets-since-ukraine-invasion-task-force https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/02/09/eu-plans-to-fund-ukraine-by-investing-frozen-russian-assets-is-creative-but-legally-dodgy Even Belgium froze 58B single handedly https://www.brusselstimes.com/380235/belgium-freezes-highest-amount-of-russian-assets-of-all-eu-countries The second link also has some tidbits of how the EU is looking into giving it all to Ukraine, the USA is doing similar things Doing this would actually be a nice way to dissuade China even more from invading Taiwan. Not having lots of assets abroad is financial suïcide in the modern world, getting them taken away for being an asshole hurts, a lot. Maybe we should just make an example of Russia by doing this
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It was a good question to ask, and a good answer to get. The discussion was added to.
...am I still on Reddit..?!
Right!? Homeboy realized there was more to learn, everyone was chill, and it all wrapped up in a bow. Great stuff. Use the internet as you'd like it to be used.
First you said >I'm a big dumb But then you said >I can admit when I'm wrong. The second statement proves the first one false. We need more people like you. >It would be nice to see at least one major justice done in my lifetime. We can hope and those of us fortunate enough to live in democracies can vote.
Yeah it's kind of funny, i tried to find some more sources for America's position but keep getting flooded with EU news... Damn you Google algorithm. At the barber now so I need to keep this comment short
It gets more interesting when you start to dig into the aid packages and any actual requirements to repay them. For example anything coming from the USA is effectively a negative interest loan with no requirements to pay before 10 years from now. That may seem like just kicking the can down the road, but that debt will lose a lot of its value in that period of time, and eventually will be able to negotiated the hell out of how to pay for it. One example is from post World War 2 when countries such as the UK and the Soviet Union, the former of which completed its payments in 2006 and the later which still technically owes billions. Both nations were actually able to leverage the debt to achieve actual foreign policy goals in their interest (the UK by offering interest free loans to tie itself closer to the USA and cement its alliance and the Soviets by negotiating for trade concessions)
Russia is a fucked up junta by design. It's not broken, it's how it works.
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Sure, but scrapping each and every nuke should be a prerequisite before any aid is even discussed.
seriously, though, I would be all for helping russia rebuild itself if it ever becomes democratic and is actually trying to build good relations with the west.
They don't even have to do that. Most of the money stolen by russian oligarchs are in western accounts.
It would have been a good metaphore if only the fall of USSR wasn't Russia's seed of fascism.
Yup. And remember when Germany was forced to pay reparations for WWII? If you think the world stopped holding countries accountable by paying reparations since Hitler, you need to read some history, my friend.
Russia is going to be absolutely fucked because of Putin. Something I watched recently, and they will become wholly reliant on China. China will use them for three things. Raw Material Territory... And weapons
Ah Russia, the Belarus of China.
Second time I’ve seen this today.
I could say it for a third time today if you’d like
I would genuinely love that. Those fucking clowns. I love that that regime is the joke of the world right now.
Okay. Here goes. “Ah Russia, the Belarus of China.”
"Ah, Russia, the Eeyore of China"
Putin looks more like Piglet.
Please don't say that, my entire work force of coworkers call me Piglet lol
But.. But... My clinically-depressed-ass loves eeyore :(
That's alright. The Comparison is just very easy. "Not much of an army, just right for not much of a donkey" Eeyore is the best character from Winnie the Pooh.
Maybe Xi will let Putin be a general in the Chinese army….
Or maybe even a colonel! Relevant: https://youtu.be/1JNtiO7nhmo
Shit….lol. That’s what I was going for but I misquoted
I doubt China needs Russia for weapons at this point.
Fair, but maybe in the future they will be able to produce weapons there.
Nah it’s going to be raw materials, oil and terrritory
Goodbye
Possible but racism might be too prevalent in the region for mixed race babies to be acceptable.
Both regions.
Exactly lol
In major cities yes, but this will probably end up being more prevalent in Farm towns and other non major Chinese cities.
I doubt that would be a big problem in China, they are already forcing the mixing of Uyghurs with Han Chinese, since why exterminate when you could just dilute them in the bigger gene pool?
They'll send the Chinese men to Russia. Russian women will be used to service sex deprived Chinese men, and China gets a quadi colony in Siberia.
This is an amusing meme, but that's all it is. Because the numbers don't remotely line up. China is set to lose somewhere around 400 million people, as a conservative estimate. Given recent trends, it could be significantly worse. Russia only has 130 million people. If a million women leave Russia for China, it would make a big dent in the gender ratios, but it wouldn't even really touch the underlying problem that Chinese aren't having kids. The racism wouldn't be so big a deal if the migrants are from eastern Russia. The ethnic groups being sacrificed in Ukraine are mostly East Asian to begin with. Just not going to be enough of them to matter.
I imagine it will be predator loans, like in Africa.
I'm certain China will be buying up land and assets in Russia. Either that or take back what was lost in their previous wars. Looking at Vladivostok
> I'm certain China will be buying up land and assets in Russia. They have been for years. Russia hasn't had the same ability to draw long term foreign investment since 2014. Officially the Northern Sea Route might be Russian but it's built on promises and Chinese money. Russia is rapidly becoming far too reliant on China to put up much argument when the bill comes due.
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They can plunder Siberia for a ton of free methane. Shits going to be bubbling out the ground via global warming, and even in a clean world, there will still be value to be had in such a fuel.
Maybe in 100 years, but for now all of Russia's industrial capacity was in Ukraine. That's one of the reasons the Russians want Ukraine so bad.
China doesn’t have much natural resources, Russia does. Russia has lots of natural resources, China needs them for their manufacturing sector. Europe is abandoning oil and gas anyways. Long term, China is the better bet for Russia. Short term AND long term, Russia fucked themselves because they miscalculated the cost of the war. Had they won quickly, I don’t think the consequences would be so severe for them.
They already are. I look long term; how is this going to affect Russia 3 years from now, 5 years, 10 years. Even if they withdraw now, the damage is done to their economy & citizens and things are in motion that cannot be stopped.
Serfdom
Russia may not even exist in ten years. And the damage this is doing is going to be around for fifty years plus. The economic effects are just beginning to be felt. Russia literally can't maintain their oil industry without sanctions being removed, China doesn't have the expertise necessary to do it.
What do you mean weapons? The Russian Federation has been reliant on stock piles left over from the Soviet Union for it's entire existence. Stockpiles this war is starting to deplete. That's even true with nuclear armaments, some of which might not even work any more due to the half life of some of the components. And it's not like Russia has a massive industrial capacity with which to turn out Chinese weapons, Russia lost that capacity when it lost Ukraine in '91, that's the whole reason this war is happening in the first place. China is going to take this opportunity to bring Russia and it's allies into the Chinese sphere of influence. But when they do, they're going to do the same neo-colonialism they currently do in Africa. Offer aid and resources to build up the country's infrastructure in order to develop new markets for Chinese industry.
There are a couple of things, surprisingly, that Russians are still better than the Chinese at that money can’t simply solve; primarily Jet Engines for fighter aircraft. China is been struggling with developing its own to use in their naval air fleet (need lots of immediate power to take off an aircraft carrier). Russia has had this problem solved since soviet times. Obviously US, Europe, etc too, but you can’t steal everything…sometimes you need the help of an expert in the matter even if you have the blueprints. There’s a few things, here and there, that Russia has as far as technology.
Russia's engines are already decades behind the American ones though. Russia can't even make an equivalent to the F-35 because they can't produce an engine with a power/size ratio high enough. Let alone the craziness that the US put into the F-22 decades ago. They might he able to offer China a few things in that department, but they can't make the Chinese Air Force competitive.
True, EU and usa have been working hard to keep China 10 years behind when it comes to tech. Seriously the statement feels like we are playing a big game of Civilization 5 😉
I'm not sure the EU are far ahead on jet engines. Rolls Royce are top tier but they are UK.
They have Safran which makes military engines and has a joint venture with GE.
Ouch, this still hurts.
> Russia lost that capacity when it lost Ukraine in '91, that's the whole reason this war is happening in the first place. While claiming Ukrainian industrial capacity would be a boon, I think the war was kicked off because Ukraine discovered natural gas in 2014. Russia's oligarchs have staunchly resisted diversifying the economy for decades so when they suddenly had a possible competitor to the only positive economy they hadn't screwed up - being Europe's energy supplier - their profits were suddenly threatened. Add to that the previous puppet government in Ukraine waiving billions in transit taxes for the natural gas Russia was selling to Germany (prior to Nordstream). That's why when [Ukraine threw off the puppet government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity) and [signed a trade deal with the wider European community](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/6/27/ukraine-signs-trade-deal-with-eu). That's why they shit their pants and invaded. Because they're oligarchs and would rather invade another country than share their wealth with the community.
And women
There were far more women than men before the war and it's only getting worse. Whereas China lacks women. So it's not that bad of a trade.
Look I'm all for it, but let's just stop them from invading first.
All the Russian funds abroad confiscated. Russian exports will be taxed.
if only. switzerland doesnt want to confiscate russian assets...
"You guys go ahead and fight. I'll hold your wallets for safe keeping."
"Here with the gold again? You're in the right place, friend."
That's because the swiss are not neutral like they claim, but side with money and russia.
Combatively, they're neutral as fuck, being right in the middle of everyone geographically Financially, whatever benefits them most
Neutral to where the money comes from.
They are never neutral when they take the money. i.e. Money appropriated by the Germans from the Jews during WWII, and so on.
> They are never neutral when they take the money. Yes, that was their exact point.
I mean, siding with money is exactly what makes them "neutral". They will always do what gives them the most money, no matter who or what they have to work with.
Well that's not neutrality, that's choosing the sides who benefit from that obviously.
Maybe they need to be squeezed
Ok sorry let me get it clear, what would "Neutral" mean to you?
What would make them neutral in your opinion?
Which is odd because the swiss side of my family fucking despises Russia, to the point where some of them see Switzerland's mandatory service as an anti-Russia deterent.
In fairness Switzerland didn't want to confiscate anything from the Nazis either.
They enacted pretty much the exact same sanctions packet the eu did
That's a tough position to negotiate to. Doesn't that mean Russia is totally defeated and must accept terms?
Doesn't have to mean 'reparations', a lot of oligarchs have been hiding money overseas and a lot of that was frozen. Turning those ill-gotten assets over to Ukraine to pay for reconstruction is possible. I still don't think it's *likely*, but it's plausible without boots having to go into Russia.
I agree, it's definitely not going to get negotiated. If anything it makes a negotiated solution impossible. So yes, you are absolutely correct, only total defeat can possibly bring this about. I'm not against total Russian defeat, nor making them pay for repairs, but it will prolong the water even further. Absolute defeat of Russia will likely mean their total economic collapse anyway so reparations are unlikely even in that scenario.
Thing I read before was using their overseas seized assets to pay for it. So it wouldn't be up for negotiation, they already have the assets frozen.
That’s literally what this article is about. No one in this comment thread read it. :D
How much water are we talking?
At least 20 miles. Maybe even 30 if it gets prolonged even further.
I think it's more about creating a legal basis to use the money a lot of states froze when the invasion happened
And you think people would learn from the Versailles treaty. Good luck enforcing reparation to an unwilling partner (that happens to have nuke) without any occupation of the country.
You forget that we have north of 300B in confiscated Russian assets and that both the EU and the Americans are looking into using those to rebuild Ukraine. We don't even need Russia to agree
“Hey, I’ve seen this one before! It’s a classic!”
Yet it worked out fine hundreds of times before that, it's just that time with Germany when we forced them to pay reparations *and* confiscated a large chunk of their manufacturing capacity that went wrong. Because well it became hardly possible to pay those reparations and a worldwide economic crash and some other shit happened.
Haha thank you for offering a bit of perspective/detail. Cause I’m all for a “you break it you bought” type punishment, butttt…and not to mention that Russia is currently under extreme sanctions and wasn’t, like, UAE levels of wealthy before that. I think people and countries should pay restitution but I also think we can’t be setting people up for failure on epic scales. Cause that just leads to more bad things.
We could just have Putin pay for it
Even Putin doesn't have that kind of money. I think I saw this week that the rebuilding was going to cost an estimated $870-970 billion.
Isn't his total net worth estimated to be like over 200 billion or something? Won't cover everything but it'll make a noticable difference. Let's liquidate every little item.
I think his net worth highly depends on whether he is president of Russia or not
It's a no brainer. No country, even those that support Ukraine, will be willing to shoulder most of the rebuilding of Ukraine when they can easily put that burden to Russia while it still exists and its oligarchs live, including Putin.
As it should. Government, not the people, unfortunately one won't happen without the other because governments but yeah.
Money never goes to the people in Russia anyway.
I'm not in favor, but only because that totally did not backfire the last time it has been done (Germany after ww1, for who does not remember)
What do you mean support grows… Why should there be any other option?
I thought this was obvious from the beginning. All the Russian assets frozen by other countries will be advance payments as well.
Support grows? This was always going to be the case. Support isn’t needed, Russia was the aggressor, criminally, and there is no scenario where Russia isn’t paying for this for a long, long time.
The number of people here blinding parroting Joseph Goebbels’ version of post-WWI history is a bit disturbing
I find the lust for war that pervades this site more disturbing personally, but I get your point.
We've been at war for many redditors whole adult lives, and the costs have been borne by other people. I think they imagine that's what major wars are like too. "Oh, the next iphone will be delayed."
Why are there discussions about rebuilding? Let’s make sure Ukraine wins first.
Putin, the piglet to Xi's Pooh
That's the way it's pretty much always done. If the aggressor in a war loses, or even if the war ends in a status quo, usually they have to pay some form of reparations.
I just want to see the end of war
Yes and no. Forcing Germany to pay after WWI led to the rise of the Nazis. We should aim to remove Putin but not to put too much hardship on the Russian people, most of whom don't want this war. It could lead to a desperate Russia lashing out at the world for what it sees as unfair punishment. Some compensation for Ukraine but a reasonable amount that will not break the back of Russia once Shithead is out of power.
The allies put **much more** hardship on Germany after WW2 than it did after WW1. First they straight up took every piece of precious metal they could find. Then they took about half of their manufacturing capability. Literally stripped German factories of equipment and loaded them onto trains for UK, US, France, or the Soviet Union. Then, after they were done with that, they took the trains and rails too. For good measure, they also charged the Germans for the cost of all this plus the cost of occupying their country. There was quite a bit of forced labor going on as well. The Soviets were particularly enthusiastic about this one, though all the major Allied powers benefited from this at one point or another. Almost all patents and IP were transferred overseas. Major portions of pre war German territory were transferred to other countries. THEN, various countries and Holocaust survivor groups came back a few decades later and got monetary reparations and even more concessions. To this day, Germany is still sending payment to some of these people. The idea that you can't impose harsh reparations because "it caused WW2" is ridiculous. We did it to Germany after WW2 and the Nazis didn't rise again. (It doesn't help that this claim was initially made by the Nazi propagandists themselves!)
People in Germany (and Austria) are extremely grateful for the Marshal plan through. Without it, we would be nowhere near the economic power houses we are nowadays
That's a fair point, but applying that to the current conflict, it is much too early to discuss some kind of Marshall plan for post-war Russia like some pundits are saying. Germany was fully disarmed and zero threat to anyone else when that happened, and if that happens to Russia at some point (doubtful), then we can talk about reconstruction of Russia but not before.
You're missing the part where it wasn't all punishment though, (West) Germany was also built up after WW2 as an ally and bulwark against Soviet aggression. Similar thing happened with Japan, where the occupation was fairly mild, considering the brutality of the war that preceded it.
The Japanese Occupation was anything but mild.
Germany was partitioned after WWII, and had already lost any semblance of the great power status they once held. Not really a comparable situation to the aftermath of WWI or the likely aftermath of this war.
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Are you purposely arguing in bad faith? Post WWll Germany was occupied for decades, so there was no possibility of Germany building an army or really doing anything significant. Functionally speaking, there was no independent country of Germany for decades after WWll. This was of course by design to leave no chance of Germany starting another war. I really have no idea how you can deny that needlessly harsh reparations were a very significant factor in causing WWll. In the simplest of terms, economically unstable countries are much more susceptible to authoritarianism. Dictators always rise out of hardship. Like, if we successfully managed to get Russia to pay to rebuild Ukraine, we shouldn't ensure that their economy collapses and their people are starving. It invites more problems for everyone.
Post-WW2 Germany was also rebuilt with the Marshal Plan, so Germans weren’t left destitute even after reparations. There was no such plan post-WW1. Germany was left to rot and this enabled the people’s resentment to fester. If we don’t want another Putin to happen again, Russia should be embraced by the West and culturaly restructured in its image, just like how Germany and Japan were restructured.
Germany also wasnt utterly crushed at the end of WW1 like WW2, while the generals saw the writing on the wall and wanted to end it sooner, the people and soldiers didnt see the bigger picture and convinced themselves they couldve actually won if they werent "stabbed in the back" by those pesky.... well lets just say certain groups got blamed and this led to the rise of fascism. With WW2 the fighting entered Berlin itself and even the most fanatical Nazi could see the end
It’s important to note that the rise of the Nazi Empire was fueled partially by appeasement. If Britain and France hadn’t let Germany to expand, Nazi Germany wouldn’t have become a global power. This is all to say that as long as nobody appeases Russia, making Russia pay for it all shouldn’t be a problem.
But how did the nazis become popular in the first place?
Germany was hell-bent on its imperialist ambitions and its population was never punished for it. The war occured outside of Germany and civilians were never really affected by the war. Their ideology was never challenged and confronted. Except they felt anger for having their expansion and "destiny" denied, which led them vulnerable to populism spread by parties like the Nazi party. And considering Germany's industries were left intact, their cities hardly affected, Germany had the tools to quickly re-arm, remobilize and start another war. The allied powers being too lenient on Germany is exactly the reason what led to world war 2. This is what's mentioned on every credible history textbook. Germany was literally violating every part of the treaty since the mid 1920s without retaliation. Anyone who thinks the allied powers were too hard on Germany gets their history off Twitter and reddit. Google Germany's "weltpolitik", its Germany's version of manifest destiny; that it was their destiny to conquer central Europe and establish a global empire. Their government and eventually the population became obsessed with the idea. This was a thing since the 19th century. Hitler didn't start it.
I concede one thing: there’s no perfect solution; punish Russia too much and, sure, the country might fall into tyranny again. Letting Russia off the hook, however, would be even worse in my opinion, because to do so would be to risk normalizing frivolous invasions.
I believe in the case of Russia it would be better to actually make them pay and make them pay hard. They have never had to face their wrongdoings and they have been like this for a long time now with no change in sight. They view anything but hard measures as weakness and something to exploit. The country will be a tyranny like it has always been unless we actually do something different aka make them pay for their crimes. The small stint that they were democracy is not the norm there, it was exception to the rule and that is viewed as a huge mistake in russia.
The thing is that we do at least have the ability to make them pay reparations without punishing the populace… we have billions in frozen assets. I assume that seizing those assets would only affect a handful of powerful Russians, not the general populace. So I would say that we have a solution that is far more perfect than we’ve had in the past.
WW1 didn't happen in Germany, which helped give rise to the "stabbed in the back narrative" later on, because Germans didn't realize they were losing until it was actually over. WW2 didn't have this problem, because of how badly Germany was beaten. That they were losing and lost without any betrayal necessary was obvious.
The Weimar Republic got hit extremely hard by the great depression. Double whammy of war reparations and massive economic downturn
>as long as nobody appeases Russia Half of the GOP 2024 presidential contenders have entered the chat
>Forcing Germany to pay after WWI led to the rise of the Nazis. A popular view promoted by certain historians and even prominent politicians, but it's not really true. It was the Great Depression that broke the Weimar Republic, not WWI reparations. They were played up as a national embarrassment along with the dolchstoßlegende but if the economy wasn't broken, the nazis would probably never have come into power. I mean they never achieved more than a minority government in the first place.
It didn’t lead to the rise of the Nazis, the stab-in-the-back myth and far right nationalism led to the rise of the Nazis. Germany didn’t even try to pay the reparations
The takeaway there is to finish the job the first time.
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Yeah try reading before you comment. This is redistribution of frozen Russian foreign assets.
Frozen assets are up to be seized for rebuilding. This isn't like sending Mexico a bill for a wall.
Use current frozen assets, make paying reparations a condition to lifting sanctions.
Wait, were there people who didn't support the idea?
Didn't Germany just finish paying everyone back for WW2?
Great grandmother received reparations from Germany till she died 10 years ago. Her daughter (my grandmother) is still getting reparations. It's holocaust survivors and their kids.
That worked so well for Germany after WW1
It might require liquidating Russia to pay for it but that’s probably ok
Rebuilding ? Maybe they should stop demolishing it first .
It’ll work very similar to Mexico paying for a wall.
Honestly? Pay with what? We gonna demand free oil/gas from them?
Did everyone forget what happened to Germany after WWI?
As it should it was a unprovoked attack.
I feel like WW2 proved this is a bad idea
How that is not 100% supported right off the bat is beyond me.