Zeleniykot is a name I haven't heard in a while! From Russian it means "green cat", he used to write really good articles about spave on Habr, good job continuing the work!
Still baffles me how did Russian Empire/Soviets come from this to being a petty regional player who can barely take on a much weaker neighbor and being fully dependent on China.
I think we in the West underestimate just how severe the '90s were in Russia. You can observe the fall of the USSR by looking at a graph of average life expectancy in Russia, the scale of state failure was really enormous.
COVID dropped US life expectancy by about 2 years.
The Fall dropped Russian life expectancy by six years for males and three years for females.
The saddest part is that while the 90s were severe, Russia could have changed for the better.. and the worst part is neighboring countries are suffering along with it.
There was a failure of institutional reform - in fact the only institution that seemed to have reformed was corruption, which changed from one elite to another.
A lot of the current state propaganda tries really hard to spin the narrative "democratic reform never again, look at the 90s"!
Like if democracy is something easy, and plug and play... Or like there's some magical impediment that doesn't allow Russians to go from serfdom to free citizens, as if it's too much for them.
For how many centuries did France iterate to implement democracy? The US had a brutal civil war. Japan had to pick itself up after WW2 and change part of the culture. Germany had to be rebuilt.
Now we're witnessing another upcoming 90s in Russia - who knows if it will be worse since Russia folded into a regional power.
Such a missed opportunity right next to a growing European Union, and China.
You should look into "shock therapy" and how western powers advised the Russian government at the time. Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years.
I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times. They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.
We'll see how the European Union will "grow" in the next years...
> I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times.
And all that ignoring the puppeteering they’re trying to do in post Soviet republics.
`I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along"` - in Latvia, national banks got smashed, sugar factory closed, steel factory closed, bus factory closed, state forced to take billions in debt from IMF just to stay afloat and avoid default, forced to follow way too often stupid, profit hindering and barely relevant EU regulations (e.g. lawn cutting length), take into account USA sanctions, comply with multiplying foreign auditors while trying to compete in markets with participants hundred times bigger in size. my whole life I've been an observer of "recovery of economy" that never arrives. for a teacher - it takes 75 years of work to afford a modest house. currently - I have no income and can afford only food for couple more months (with 15 years of software development experience across dozens of programming languages, tools, projects, business domains, companies and organizational structures) while marked as schizophrenic dissident, actively stalked and isolated from society. it's slightly harder than figuring out what brand of car your daughter wants as a gift for her sweet sixteen
...and what has Russia to do with it?
The Baltics wanted to be independent, they became independent and started getting rid of their industries in order to focus on service economy and EU integration.
All the propaganda I've heard tells me that they are prosperous rich countries now.../s
It’s because the soviets were investing the full output of their nation in the military and space program to sprint forward on that front. While the U.S. was doing all that as just a side hustle.
The USSR spent its demographic and industrial transition on this. When you have a booming population and a low industrial base, you can squeeze the people a lot harder: they still see that their lives are improving and the lives of their children will improve even more. This means you can continuously consume their savings via inflation, stoking the national economy.
South Korea famously did this very well, turning from a war-torn former dominion of Japan into an industrial and cultural powerhouse.
The Soviets went all-in on building a military-industrial complex without growing their civilian economy, basically eating all the gains their growing population provided. Very charitably, you could say they went all-in, expecting to win the conflict with the West and get their economies "for free", but badly miscalculated their chances.
Just one thing: the western semiconductors went illegally to Soviet Union through German Democratic Republic. That’s why area about Dresden is called Silicon Saxony and from my viewpoint is doing fine right now. There was no Intel in Soviet Union. No Traitorous eight. Only talented guys trying to copy last generation western parts or working on workarounds while the west was innovating. The backwardness accumulated in Soviet Union over time in semiconductor design and manufacturing areas and the whole industry became obsolete. You couldn’t see it in the other side of the pond or Iron Curtain. Many novel Soviet things were happening outside of current russia. I think, Ukraine was big in ship and plane building, but that’s not my domain.
The Soviets tried to transition from an economy focused on war and heavy industry to a consumer oriented economy, and they failed massively. See the book 'Building a ruin'.
They never actually put a full effort into building a consumer oriented economy.
The authorities would say something about a new food program or a housing program but only as motivational goals. Main players always saw getting people less economically dependent on the state as a major threat.
Making people economically miserable was never a goal, but when building consumer economy would start showing promise the state would reestablish control (see for example Kosygin reforms).
Exactly; the Soviet Union famously tried to reform its political institutions before reforming its economy. The Chinese looked at that and decided never to reform their political system.
I'm not sure the Soviets ultimately ever really tried to make the transition, when confronted with the reality that the ruling dogma that they represented no longer worked, they couldn't handle the collapses in the periphery.
Also see the 'lost years' of the Japanese economy, or the Chinese as they try to make the transition now.
It is terribly hard, but the USSR had their heads well in the sand at that point.
The Soviets wanted to build a new system China decided to take over the old one after realising Marxism wasn't going to cut it.
then just read some history books from different perspectives and make you own conclusions. it's rather baffling to see how many tech people on hn are die hard believers of old clichés and western war propaganda.
What kind of conclusions?
just read some books instead of parroting highly skewed and biased wikipedia articles like in your other post. 'wise o wise'
Neighbor was Soviet too.
[deleted]
You're not surprised the same happened to every other large empire in history, but the USSR baffles you? What about the British Empire? Dutch? France? Austria-Hungary, ffs? The same will happen to the US one day.
Westerner's fascination with russia is what baffles me.
Only 'special' weapon russia has is a disregard to human life westerners can't even comprehend for some reason. They call it 'winter' or some other silly thing. All their 'achievements' can be traced to inhumane treatment of enslaved peoples. Whatever achievement you think russia had - you just just lift the top soil, no need to dig deep, to be absolutely disgusted by what it was built on.
Ukraine is not weaker, it is smaller. Big difference. It was a powerhouse of the USSR, producing majority of talent. Be it in Ukraine or deported to Siberia. Russia is, and always was, a parasite on other peoples.
Why would it? The 'much weaker neighbour' in question and other satellites did most of the work on these kinds of projects. Korolev was Ukrainian, they launched from Kazakhstan. The most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov, are Ukrainian. Odessa shipyard was the main ship manufacturer.
>> The most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov, are Ukrainian
Created in Novosibirsk, Russia (Russian SFSR). Later, the Bureau was relocated to Kyiv.
Oleg Antonov (aircraft designer) born in Troitsy, Moscow Governorate.
>The 'much weaker neighbour' in question and other satellites did most of the work
Aside from Ukraine and Belarus these "other satellites" had nothing resembling modern civilization at the beginning of the USSR times.
>Korolev was Ukrainian...
... who finished Bauman's University in Moscow. What does his ethnicity has to do with this? And why him and not Tsiolkovsky?
>they launched from Kazakhstan
And who designed and build Baikonur? Locals?
>most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov
"most famous" how? As far as Antonov goes it's mostly famous for An225 and An124.
An225 was a joint affort by at least 8 different entities. Only two of which where in Ukraine.
An124 had a similar story.
Should I even begin to state the obvious and say that not Antonov was not only manned by ukrainians?
Communism socialism. Does it every time.
[flagged]
Despite what some of the replies say, it isn't because of their fall, but because we beleived the stories of their rise.
In the 1960s, some American economists were starting to argue & beleive that "communism" was just a better economic model. Then it all came to a crashing halt.
Once you get past the basics of industrialising serfs, ie they started from a sadly much lower starting point than most Western economies of the time, and account for the compound growth the West had gone through in the 18th & 19th centuries, and then are finally able to look past their Potemkin villages of the 20th century, they were left with no way to proceed. No market signals, no major improvements in consumption. Yes, they had a large (miltary focused) industrial sector, and a large primary economy (as they do now), but their bureaucracy, nepotism & corruption were always going to catch up with them.
Without economic growth, as they got through the 'easy' phases of industrialisation, the periphery was always going to be a problem, then the core.
I'm not sure the "fully dependent on China" slight is needed though, as it could apply to a good chunk of the West at this point. Still, as Europe has learnt with reliance on Russia, these things can be at least factored in.
Let me remind you of three things:
1) This weaker neighbor is aided and funded by a block of countries with a total population of 1b, 6 times that of Russia.
2) The same block is doing all it can to crash the Russian economy.
3) Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
> This weaker neighbor is aided and funded by a block of countries with a total population of 1b, 6 times that of Russia.
'Aided and funded' literally a fractional percent of their economies over five years.
> The same block is doing all it can to crash the Russian economy
I severely doubt about "all it can" part.
> Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
Less than percent a year since 2023. This is a shockingly bad performance for a country to that considered themselves rival to China/Europe/US.
As to "+ 1b block" it's like that joke goes: "Russia v NATO war. Russian status: 1 mil casualties. NATO status: hasn't arrived yet."
Don’t feed the troll.
An easy way to dismiss an opinion you do not like.
Why exactly are you calling me a troll?
Because your first comment is inflammatory, and wrong.
Ukraine is far from being a "weaker neighbor" – it's proven to have more of a backbone than all of NATO.
And that "loosing land" part which seems so compelling: those are strategic withdrawals, forcing russians to haemorrhage men and equipment for Pyrrhic advances. Right now, those advances are being reversed: AFU is making significant gains around Zaporizhzhia, and massing troops near Kharkiv for possibly another major offensive.
1. Ukraine is merely a manforce provider. NATO does everything else.
2. Loosing land is pure math. About 500 sq.km per month, often more. Ukrainian advances remain to be an illusion.
[flagged]
[flagged]
> Yes, extensively aided and funded, no matter how you try to avoid this fact
I literally gave you the number, this is the fact: West has provided less than percent of their economies over 5 years.
> Russia has more sanctions applied that any country ever did.
That's what attacking your neighbour does, yes. And it's far, far from 'all it can' part.
> Still it is Russia gaining land and NATO ally, which runs on NATO money and NATO weapons, retreating.
Russia took less than percent of Ukrainian soil every year after initial shock gains. This is hilariously bad performance for the great power that fights against donated scraps. It's not even high end tech (F-35s, last gen Euro-fighters).
> NATO has arrived indeed. NATO ally (or protectorate) has huge and obvious manpower loss.
Does NATO know it has arrived?
You seem to believe the West is doing very little to help Ukraine. You say they only contribute a tiny fraction of their economy, but you ignore that that fraction is coming on top of their own budgets which are already quite constrained as well as increased spending on their own militaries due to the situation + pressure by the US, and that many countries, especially Germany, lost an enormous amount of money by becoming severely less competitive after rejecting Russian oil and gas , which had made energy prices much lower before the war.
What do you think Europe can do more? Do you support tax hikes to allow more money to be sent? Do you want a direct military involvement and are you prepared to be drafted, or have your children be, to the front lines, even if that means direct attacks by drones/missiles on many of your cities in retaliation ?
Most people answer no to those questions, otherwise they would be demanding that and in a democracy people do get what they want if the majority agrees, yet we don’t see anyone in Europe going to the streets or even signing major petitions or anything like that!
GP said Western block (+1bn people) are fighting with Ukrainians against Russians which is factually incorrect. Everything in your comment about my assumptions is just a figment of your imagination.
> Do you support tax hikes to allow more money to be sent? Do you want a direct military involvement and are you prepared to be drafted, or have your children be, to the front lines, even if that means direct attacks by drones/missiles on many of your cities in retaliation ? Most people answer no to those questions, otherwise they would be demanding that and in a democracy people do get what they want if the majority agrees, yet we don’t see anyone in Europe going to the streets or even signing major petitions or anything like that!
I see, another one. I must've rattled the hive with my comment, haha.
The Western block is indeed fighting with Russia using Ukraine as a proxy/protectorate.
Whats more, the Western block also openly states that.
[flagged]
[flagged]
[flagged]
[flagged]
Gaining land slower than the Germans were towards the end of ww1. Significantly slower.
So, the entire NATO is proud to loose land to Russia slowly?
> Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
Last I saw (this weekend), the union of Ukraine+friends, was losing land at about 50-75 metres a day.
As well as bopping off 35,000 enemy combatants a month off the 2026 Christmas party list.
And russia can't (or haven't) matched those losses with recruitment.
a single soldier, perhaps two, sent 20km into opposing territory (the advance, the territory gained) doesn't mean actually controlling the ground. Just ask Vlad.
If Russia looses 35000 a month, why does Ukraine:
a) Loose land and cities constantly
b) Mobilize people brutally on streets
c) Keep its bordera closed for men
No, in such situation it should be reversed.
That's the type of stuff that happens when you're at war. Would you rather Ukraine fight this war with the intent to lose? Russia is fighting to win, why can't Ukraine?
So Russia has catastrophic losses yet there's no mobilization.
Ukraine is said to loose very few men, yet they have to beat people on streets to mobilize them.
Meanwhile, Russian borders are open.
I wish they were aided and funded properly - this war would have been over in 3 days had they been so, and not in Putin's favor.
They were aided and funded as much as the NATO block could and still can do that.
The 1990s happened.
And a lot happened in the last quarter century, so you should update yor world model (preferably without resorting to MSM propaganda).
As to why why Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are sticking together, it is because they they don't want to hang separately.
As to why the West has lost its proxy war against a petty regional player, that is something for the history books.
"Has lost?"
Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
The word "lost" is a little bit confusing in this context. It successfully landed and operated several days, but it's location was only approximated.
We've seen landers in recent years that crashed unintentionally in precise known locations. Does this mean that they were not lost?
Yes, the word "lost" is ambiguous, but I didn't even notice the ambiguity until you pointed it out. I think the presence of the word "found" in the same sentence lead me to assume the "unknown location" sense rather than the "destroyed" sense.
Lost can be not knowing where something is or to no longer have it.
"Lost at sea" and "lost with all hands" exemplifying a ship sinking, precision to place is neither denied nor supplied.
It's a net loss to the fleet, the shareholders and the insurer. And of course wives and children.
[deleted]
Yes. Generally, if you know where it is, it is not lost. If you don't then it is.
But, it also depends if you want to know where it is. If you don't know where something is and don't want to, its not lost its discarded.
Another usage of the word "lost" is to indicate when the spacecraft has become dysfunctional. Although, that one is the verb form, not the adjective.
Someday, someone, or some robot, will find it and ship it back, for museum display.
Assuming we have reached a point in time where it makes sense to do that, it may be that it makes more sense to put it in a museum on the moon.
Just past the gift shop in the amusement park.
We're whalers on the moon... we carry a harpoon...
But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing a whaling tune.
I hope for the same, but it's based on the assumption that space exploration will be human-driven. Unfortunately it's possible that it will be robot-driven instead and museums will stay on earth.
I seriously doubt we will stay on earth like that. Humans have always been explorers and pioneers. You can only look at something through a screen for so long before you get the itch that you cant scratch through a screen. Humans will inevitably leave this planet.
Robots on other planets is a rough process. Most planets, lacking atmosphere, have dust that gets EVERYWHERE, and its really bad for mechanical, electrical operations. The moon has a static charge that causes the regolith powder to seep into the smallest cracks. Humanoid robots will not last long, and all other forms are just a single failure from uselessness. Until they can either self-repair, or repair others (meaning n+1 minimum robots sent), it will not be useful for long exploration. And, honestly, id be pretty worried to find robots that could self-repair or repair others. Thats just a small step away from self-replication, and that leads down other scary paths.
Would we bring the landing stage of Apollo-11 to Earth by the same logic?
Please no — I hope that all these landers and probes are left in place. Ideally with an exclusion zone around them to keep the landscape pristine. (We don't want a bunch of tourists messing up the first footprints on the moon, for example.)
How come there's not more sattelites around the moon taking high resolution, high zoom photos to for example find this object? We can see beachball-sized objects on consumer-available photos (e.g. google maps/earth), and that's from over 100 km up through an atmosphere. I guess the answer is "nobody paid for it" but still.
While the ore other factors that make Lunar observation satellites harder to do and more expensive (harder to communicate with due to distance, different thermal environment, no protection from radiation by the Van Allen belts, etc.) one big issue is that low Lunar orbit is by default unstable:
Basically the gravitational field of the Moon is "lumpy", resulting in deceleration of low orbiting bodies as they are pulled around in orbit, until they crash into the surface.
There might still be dead probes from the 1960s/1970s orbiting Mars, but there are no inactive spacecraft orbiting around the Moon. There are now some specific orbits known that you can place a spacecraft in to reduce the effects but I don't think even that works to 100% percent efficiency & thing will still go down quite quickly of you loose control and can't do course corrections.
Most high resolution "satellite" imagery on Google Maps etc is actually stitched from photographs taken from cameras attached to small aeroplanes which fly at a low altitude even compared to commercial flights let alone 100km.
There are a few high resolution satellites but there frame is very small and not suited for complete coverage. If they are geostationary they cant look anywhere, or they have to look at an angle giving oblique photos. If they are moving then they are only over the part of the earth once per several days (weeks/months?)
So while these images of the landers are from a satellite orbiting the moon, the satellite is orbiting with an eccentric polar orbit, and the images it takes may be perfect for it's mission but might not be good enough to identify small 1960's landers.
> There are a few high resolution satellites but there frame is very small and not suited for complete coverage. If they are geostationary they cant look anywhere, or they have to look at an angle giving oblique photos. If they are moving then they are only over the part of the earth once per several days (weeks/months?)
Pleiades Neo advertises 30cm resolution with possibility for twice a day visits for a location. They are operating on sun-synchronous orbits with afaik global coverage. They also advertise that they can capture up to 2 million km² daily. So Earth imaging satellites are pretty good these days.
That being said, it is true that Google Maps etc heavily rely on aerial imagery instead of satellites.
missions to examine space craft that have been in space/moon for decades could be quite profitable, as these will provide engineering feedback as to what parts are still operable and how things failed and what might be done to effect repairs, as this is how aviation reached the level of reliability that it enjoys today, but with space bieng even less forgiving.
We are getting lots of data about operations in LEO, and some from Mars, but the moon is tough, too much dust,no atmosphere, not enough gravity, and very wide temperiture/radiation swings that last for weeks,and actualy more difficult to build for than mars or leo.
Zeleniykot is a name I haven't heard in a while! From Russian it means "green cat", he used to write really good articles about spave on Habr, good job continuing the work!
Still baffles me how did Russian Empire/Soviets come from this to being a petty regional player who can barely take on a much weaker neighbor and being fully dependent on China.
I think we in the West underestimate just how severe the '90s were in Russia. You can observe the fall of the USSR by looking at a graph of average life expectancy in Russia, the scale of state failure was really enormous.
COVID dropped US life expectancy by about 2 years.
The Fall dropped Russian life expectancy by six years for males and three years for females.
The saddest part is that while the 90s were severe, Russia could have changed for the better.. and the worst part is neighboring countries are suffering along with it.
There was a failure of institutional reform - in fact the only institution that seemed to have reformed was corruption, which changed from one elite to another.
A lot of the current state propaganda tries really hard to spin the narrative "democratic reform never again, look at the 90s"!
Like if democracy is something easy, and plug and play... Or like there's some magical impediment that doesn't allow Russians to go from serfdom to free citizens, as if it's too much for them.
For how many centuries did France iterate to implement democracy? The US had a brutal civil war. Japan had to pick itself up after WW2 and change part of the culture. Germany had to be rebuilt.
Now we're witnessing another upcoming 90s in Russia - who knows if it will be worse since Russia folded into a regional power.
Such a missed opportunity right next to a growing European Union, and China.
You should look into "shock therapy" and how western powers advised the Russian government at the time. Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years. I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times. They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.
We'll see how the European Union will "grow" in the next years...
> I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Abkhazia_(1992%E2%80%93...
And many more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_involving_Russ...
And all that ignoring the puppeteering they’re trying to do in post Soviet republics.
`I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along"` - in Latvia, national banks got smashed, sugar factory closed, steel factory closed, bus factory closed, state forced to take billions in debt from IMF just to stay afloat and avoid default, forced to follow way too often stupid, profit hindering and barely relevant EU regulations (e.g. lawn cutting length), take into account USA sanctions, comply with multiplying foreign auditors while trying to compete in markets with participants hundred times bigger in size. my whole life I've been an observer of "recovery of economy" that never arrives. for a teacher - it takes 75 years of work to afford a modest house. currently - I have no income and can afford only food for couple more months (with 15 years of software development experience across dozens of programming languages, tools, projects, business domains, companies and organizational structures) while marked as schizophrenic dissident, actively stalked and isolated from society. it's slightly harder than figuring out what brand of car your daughter wants as a gift for her sweet sixteen
...and what has Russia to do with it? The Baltics wanted to be independent, they became independent and started getting rid of their industries in order to focus on service economy and EU integration.
All the propaganda I've heard tells me that they are prosperous rich countries now.../s
It’s because the soviets were investing the full output of their nation in the military and space program to sprint forward on that front. While the U.S. was doing all that as just a side hustle.
The USSR spent its demographic and industrial transition on this. When you have a booming population and a low industrial base, you can squeeze the people a lot harder: they still see that their lives are improving and the lives of their children will improve even more. This means you can continuously consume their savings via inflation, stoking the national economy.
South Korea famously did this very well, turning from a war-torn former dominion of Japan into an industrial and cultural powerhouse.
The Soviets went all-in on building a military-industrial complex without growing their civilian economy, basically eating all the gains their growing population provided. Very charitably, you could say they went all-in, expecting to win the conflict with the West and get their economies "for free", but badly miscalculated their chances.
Just one thing: the western semiconductors went illegally to Soviet Union through German Democratic Republic. That’s why area about Dresden is called Silicon Saxony and from my viewpoint is doing fine right now. There was no Intel in Soviet Union. No Traitorous eight. Only talented guys trying to copy last generation western parts or working on workarounds while the west was innovating. The backwardness accumulated in Soviet Union over time in semiconductor design and manufacturing areas and the whole industry became obsolete. You couldn’t see it in the other side of the pond or Iron Curtain. Many novel Soviet things were happening outside of current russia. I think, Ukraine was big in ship and plane building, but that’s not my domain.
The Soviets tried to transition from an economy focused on war and heavy industry to a consumer oriented economy, and they failed massively. See the book 'Building a ruin'.
They never actually put a full effort into building a consumer oriented economy.
The authorities would say something about a new food program or a housing program but only as motivational goals. Main players always saw getting people less economically dependent on the state as a major threat.
Making people economically miserable was never a goal, but when building consumer economy would start showing promise the state would reestablish control (see for example Kosygin reforms).
Exactly; the Soviet Union famously tried to reform its political institutions before reforming its economy. The Chinese looked at that and decided never to reform their political system.
I'm not sure the Soviets ultimately ever really tried to make the transition, when confronted with the reality that the ruling dogma that they represented no longer worked, they couldn't handle the collapses in the periphery.
Also see the 'lost years' of the Japanese economy, or the Chinese as they try to make the transition now.
It is terribly hard, but the USSR had their heads well in the sand at that point.
The Soviets wanted to build a new system China decided to take over the old one after realising Marxism wasn't going to cut it.
then just read some history books from different perspectives and make you own conclusions. it's rather baffling to see how many tech people on hn are die hard believers of old clichés and western war propaganda.
What kind of conclusions?
just read some books instead of parroting highly skewed and biased wikipedia articles like in your other post. 'wise o wise'
Neighbor was Soviet too.
You're not surprised the same happened to every other large empire in history, but the USSR baffles you? What about the British Empire? Dutch? France? Austria-Hungary, ffs? The same will happen to the US one day.
Westerner's fascination with russia is what baffles me.
Only 'special' weapon russia has is a disregard to human life westerners can't even comprehend for some reason. They call it 'winter' or some other silly thing. All their 'achievements' can be traced to inhumane treatment of enslaved peoples. Whatever achievement you think russia had - you just just lift the top soil, no need to dig deep, to be absolutely disgusted by what it was built on.
Ukraine is not weaker, it is smaller. Big difference. It was a powerhouse of the USSR, producing majority of talent. Be it in Ukraine or deported to Siberia. Russia is, and always was, a parasite on other peoples.
Why would it? The 'much weaker neighbour' in question and other satellites did most of the work on these kinds of projects. Korolev was Ukrainian, they launched from Kazakhstan. The most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov, are Ukrainian. Odessa shipyard was the main ship manufacturer.
>> The most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov, are Ukrainian
Created in Novosibirsk, Russia (Russian SFSR). Later, the Bureau was relocated to Kyiv.
Oleg Antonov (aircraft designer) born in Troitsy, Moscow Governorate.
>The 'much weaker neighbour' in question and other satellites did most of the work
Aside from Ukraine and Belarus these "other satellites" had nothing resembling modern civilization at the beginning of the USSR times.
>Korolev was Ukrainian...
... who finished Bauman's University in Moscow. What does his ethnicity has to do with this? And why him and not Tsiolkovsky?
>they launched from Kazakhstan
And who designed and build Baikonur? Locals?
>most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov
"most famous" how? As far as Antonov goes it's mostly famous for An225 and An124.
An225 was a joint affort by at least 8 different entities. Only two of which where in Ukraine.
An124 had a similar story.
Should I even begin to state the obvious and say that not Antonov was not only manned by ukrainians?
Communism socialism. Does it every time.
[flagged]
Despite what some of the replies say, it isn't because of their fall, but because we beleived the stories of their rise.
In the 1960s, some American economists were starting to argue & beleive that "communism" was just a better economic model. Then it all came to a crashing halt.
Once you get past the basics of industrialising serfs, ie they started from a sadly much lower starting point than most Western economies of the time, and account for the compound growth the West had gone through in the 18th & 19th centuries, and then are finally able to look past their Potemkin villages of the 20th century, they were left with no way to proceed. No market signals, no major improvements in consumption. Yes, they had a large (miltary focused) industrial sector, and a large primary economy (as they do now), but their bureaucracy, nepotism & corruption were always going to catch up with them.
Without economic growth, as they got through the 'easy' phases of industrialisation, the periphery was always going to be a problem, then the core.
I'm not sure the "fully dependent on China" slight is needed though, as it could apply to a good chunk of the West at this point. Still, as Europe has learnt with reliance on Russia, these things can be at least factored in.
Let me remind you of three things: 1) This weaker neighbor is aided and funded by a block of countries with a total population of 1b, 6 times that of Russia. 2) The same block is doing all it can to crash the Russian economy. 3) Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
> This weaker neighbor is aided and funded by a block of countries with a total population of 1b, 6 times that of Russia.
'Aided and funded' literally a fractional percent of their economies over five years.
> The same block is doing all it can to crash the Russian economy
I severely doubt about "all it can" part.
> Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
Less than percent a year since 2023. This is a shockingly bad performance for a country to that considered themselves rival to China/Europe/US.
As to "+ 1b block" it's like that joke goes: "Russia v NATO war. Russian status: 1 mil casualties. NATO status: hasn't arrived yet."
Don’t feed the troll.
An easy way to dismiss an opinion you do not like. Why exactly are you calling me a troll?
Because your first comment is inflammatory, and wrong.
Ukraine is far from being a "weaker neighbor" – it's proven to have more of a backbone than all of NATO.
And that "loosing land" part which seems so compelling: those are strategic withdrawals, forcing russians to haemorrhage men and equipment for Pyrrhic advances. Right now, those advances are being reversed: AFU is making significant gains around Zaporizhzhia, and massing troops near Kharkiv for possibly another major offensive.
1. Ukraine is merely a manforce provider. NATO does everything else. 2. Loosing land is pure math. About 500 sq.km per month, often more. Ukrainian advances remain to be an illusion.
[flagged]
[flagged]
> Yes, extensively aided and funded, no matter how you try to avoid this fact
I literally gave you the number, this is the fact: West has provided less than percent of their economies over 5 years.
> Russia has more sanctions applied that any country ever did.
That's what attacking your neighbour does, yes. And it's far, far from 'all it can' part.
> Still it is Russia gaining land and NATO ally, which runs on NATO money and NATO weapons, retreating.
Russia took less than percent of Ukrainian soil every year after initial shock gains. This is hilariously bad performance for the great power that fights against donated scraps. It's not even high end tech (F-35s, last gen Euro-fighters).
> NATO has arrived indeed. NATO ally (or protectorate) has huge and obvious manpower loss.
Does NATO know it has arrived?
You seem to believe the West is doing very little to help Ukraine. You say they only contribute a tiny fraction of their economy, but you ignore that that fraction is coming on top of their own budgets which are already quite constrained as well as increased spending on their own militaries due to the situation + pressure by the US, and that many countries, especially Germany, lost an enormous amount of money by becoming severely less competitive after rejecting Russian oil and gas , which had made energy prices much lower before the war. What do you think Europe can do more? Do you support tax hikes to allow more money to be sent? Do you want a direct military involvement and are you prepared to be drafted, or have your children be, to the front lines, even if that means direct attacks by drones/missiles on many of your cities in retaliation ? Most people answer no to those questions, otherwise they would be demanding that and in a democracy people do get what they want if the majority agrees, yet we don’t see anyone in Europe going to the streets or even signing major petitions or anything like that!
GP said Western block (+1bn people) are fighting with Ukrainians against Russians which is factually incorrect. Everything in your comment about my assumptions is just a figment of your imagination.
> Do you support tax hikes to allow more money to be sent? Do you want a direct military involvement and are you prepared to be drafted, or have your children be, to the front lines, even if that means direct attacks by drones/missiles on many of your cities in retaliation ? Most people answer no to those questions, otherwise they would be demanding that and in a democracy people do get what they want if the majority agrees, yet we don’t see anyone in Europe going to the streets or even signing major petitions or anything like that!
I see, another one. I must've rattled the hive with my comment, haha.
The Western block is indeed fighting with Russia using Ukraine as a proxy/protectorate. Whats more, the Western block also openly states that.
[flagged]
[flagged]
[flagged]
[flagged]
Gaining land slower than the Germans were towards the end of ww1. Significantly slower.
So, the entire NATO is proud to loose land to Russia slowly?
> Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.
Last I saw (this weekend), the union of Ukraine+friends, was losing land at about 50-75 metres a day. As well as bopping off 35,000 enemy combatants a month off the 2026 Christmas party list. And russia can't (or haven't) matched those losses with recruitment.
a single soldier, perhaps two, sent 20km into opposing territory (the advance, the territory gained) doesn't mean actually controlling the ground. Just ask Vlad.
If Russia looses 35000 a month, why does Ukraine: a) Loose land and cities constantly b) Mobilize people brutally on streets c) Keep its bordera closed for men
No, in such situation it should be reversed.
That's the type of stuff that happens when you're at war. Would you rather Ukraine fight this war with the intent to lose? Russia is fighting to win, why can't Ukraine?
So Russia has catastrophic losses yet there's no mobilization. Ukraine is said to loose very few men, yet they have to beat people on streets to mobilize them. Meanwhile, Russian borders are open.
I wish they were aided and funded properly - this war would have been over in 3 days had they been so, and not in Putin's favor.
They were aided and funded as much as the NATO block could and still can do that.
The 1990s happened. And a lot happened in the last quarter century, so you should update yor world model (preferably without resorting to MSM propaganda).
As to why why Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are sticking together, it is because they they don't want to hang separately.
As to why the West has lost its proxy war against a petty regional player, that is something for the history books.
"Has lost?"
Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
The word "lost" is a little bit confusing in this context. It successfully landed and operated several days, but it's location was only approximated.
We've seen landers in recent years that crashed unintentionally in precise known locations. Does this mean that they were not lost?
Yes, the word "lost" is ambiguous, but I didn't even notice the ambiguity until you pointed it out. I think the presence of the word "found" in the same sentence lead me to assume the "unknown location" sense rather than the "destroyed" sense.
Lost can be not knowing where something is or to no longer have it.
"Lost at sea" and "lost with all hands" exemplifying a ship sinking, precision to place is neither denied nor supplied.
It's a net loss to the fleet, the shareholders and the insurer. And of course wives and children.
Yes. Generally, if you know where it is, it is not lost. If you don't then it is.
But, it also depends if you want to know where it is. If you don't know where something is and don't want to, its not lost its discarded.
Another usage of the word "lost" is to indicate when the spacecraft has become dysfunctional. Although, that one is the verb form, not the adjective.
Someday, someone, or some robot, will find it and ship it back, for museum display.
Assuming we have reached a point in time where it makes sense to do that, it may be that it makes more sense to put it in a museum on the moon.
Just past the gift shop in the amusement park.
We're whalers on the moon... we carry a harpoon...
But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing a whaling tune.
I hope for the same, but it's based on the assumption that space exploration will be human-driven. Unfortunately it's possible that it will be robot-driven instead and museums will stay on earth.
I seriously doubt we will stay on earth like that. Humans have always been explorers and pioneers. You can only look at something through a screen for so long before you get the itch that you cant scratch through a screen. Humans will inevitably leave this planet.
Robots on other planets is a rough process. Most planets, lacking atmosphere, have dust that gets EVERYWHERE, and its really bad for mechanical, electrical operations. The moon has a static charge that causes the regolith powder to seep into the smallest cracks. Humanoid robots will not last long, and all other forms are just a single failure from uselessness. Until they can either self-repair, or repair others (meaning n+1 minimum robots sent), it will not be useful for long exploration. And, honestly, id be pretty worried to find robots that could self-repair or repair others. Thats just a small step away from self-replication, and that leads down other scary paths.
Would we bring the landing stage of Apollo-11 to Earth by the same logic?
Please no — I hope that all these landers and probes are left in place. Ideally with an exclusion zone around them to keep the landscape pristine. (We don't want a bunch of tourists messing up the first footprints on the moon, for example.)
How come there's not more sattelites around the moon taking high resolution, high zoom photos to for example find this object? We can see beachball-sized objects on consumer-available photos (e.g. google maps/earth), and that's from over 100 km up through an atmosphere. I guess the answer is "nobody paid for it" but still.
There's google maps for the moon (https://www.google.com/maps/space/moon) but I'm not sure what resolution that is.
While the ore other factors that make Lunar observation satellites harder to do and more expensive (harder to communicate with due to distance, different thermal environment, no protection from radiation by the Van Allen belts, etc.) one big issue is that low Lunar orbit is by default unstable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit#Perturbation_effec...
Basically the gravitational field of the Moon is "lumpy", resulting in deceleration of low orbiting bodies as they are pulled around in orbit, until they crash into the surface.
There might still be dead probes from the 1960s/1970s orbiting Mars, but there are no inactive spacecraft orbiting around the Moon. There are now some specific orbits known that you can place a spacecraft in to reduce the effects but I don't think even that works to 100% percent efficiency & thing will still go down quite quickly of you loose control and can't do course corrections.
Most high resolution "satellite" imagery on Google Maps etc is actually stitched from photographs taken from cameras attached to small aeroplanes which fly at a low altitude even compared to commercial flights let alone 100km.
There are a few high resolution satellites but there frame is very small and not suited for complete coverage. If they are geostationary they cant look anywhere, or they have to look at an angle giving oblique photos. If they are moving then they are only over the part of the earth once per several days (weeks/months?)
So while these images of the landers are from a satellite orbiting the moon, the satellite is orbiting with an eccentric polar orbit, and the images it takes may be perfect for it's mission but might not be good enough to identify small 1960's landers.
> There are a few high resolution satellites but there frame is very small and not suited for complete coverage. If they are geostationary they cant look anywhere, or they have to look at an angle giving oblique photos. If they are moving then they are only over the part of the earth once per several days (weeks/months?)
Pleiades Neo advertises 30cm resolution with possibility for twice a day visits for a location. They are operating on sun-synchronous orbits with afaik global coverage. They also advertise that they can capture up to 2 million km² daily. So Earth imaging satellites are pretty good these days.
That being said, it is true that Google Maps etc heavily rely on aerial imagery instead of satellites.
Airbus does have some sample images available on their website if you want to see what actual satellite imagery looks like: https://space-solutions.airbus.com/resources/satellite-image...
> that's from over 100 km up through an atmosphere
Could be from atmospheric fly-overs.
https://archive.is/pqiyD
Gift article link
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/science/luna-9-moon-lande...
'“One of them is wrong,” an expert said.'
At least one of them is wrong
missions to examine space craft that have been in space/moon for decades could be quite profitable, as these will provide engineering feedback as to what parts are still operable and how things failed and what might be done to effect repairs, as this is how aviation reached the level of reliability that it enjoys today, but with space bieng even less forgiving. We are getting lots of data about operations in LEO, and some from Mars, but the moon is tough, too much dust,no atmosphere, not enough gravity, and very wide temperiture/radiation swings that last for weeks,and actualy more difficult to build for than mars or leo.
@rainbolt