this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2022
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That's not significant at all because the Russians chose not to contest this territory. If Ukraine defeated Russian military to take this land then that would indeed be very significant. The only thing this shows is that Russians aren't throwing their troops into a meat grinder for media gains the way Ukraine did in Kherson.
Hopefully they will 'decide not to contest' more territory soon.
Seems highly unlikely.
I think it also shows that $100 billion in funding from NATO-aligned forces really is making a technological difference. For comparison, Russia's annual military budget is $48 billion.
This is a pretty good summary of how NATO has been faring against Russia militarily so far in this conflict from the Royal United Services Institute in UK https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare
It's from June...
But sure I'll check it out
It's not like military industrial capacity balance has changed significantly since June. If anything mass shutdowns of steel mills across Europe makes it worse for NATO now.
Well for what it's worth, a more recent publication from that source you posted is this:
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/can-russia-continue-fight-long-war
It concludes with
So basically Russia needs a pause to be able to withstand this. But given that NATO funding doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon, how much will that really help? The source you posted pointed out Lockheed Martin could easily go from it's current production of 2,100 missiles a year to 4,000 in a couple years
If you look at the packages NATO has been sending each new package is smaller than the last. This is true both for weapons and financial aid. Meanwhile, Europe is now crashing economically and will not have enough energy to last the winter. European steel mills are shutting down already. Without energy from Russia it's not possible for Europe to ramp up weapons production. Europe is also starting to see civil unrest in many countries, this will only grow as people realize the enormity of the economic disaster they've been driven into.
Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin ramping up production two years in the future will make no impact on this war. Finally, there is a problem with logistics for NATO. Russia can deliver supplies easily via rail while supplies from US have to come from across the ocean. Overall, this does not paint a promising picture for NATO.