Russian Wartime Economy
"It's recently become visible, via satellite photos, that the Russian railroads are at a standstill in many parts of the country and thousands of locomotives and rail cars are going out of service because of a shortage of ball bearings. The ball bearing shortage is a problem that's been building for over a decade and has now arrived. Satellite photos show major Russian cities receiving little or no merchandise by rail. The annual four months of cold and often freezing weather has begun. While oil and natural gas pipelines are still working, performing maintenance on those pipelines requires access to a functioning railroad system. Currently, if there are any pipeline problems, they have to be repaired using truck transportation. This takes longer if the problem is in an area with no roads or river/canal nearby. Some of these areas will take trucks a week to reach. Unlike the extensive road networks in Europe and North America, Russia depends mostly on railroads.
Russia never built a large network of highways. It was too expensive. Instead long-distance commercial and military land transportation was handled by the government owned and operated railroad. There are 128,000 kilometers of track on which 800,000 uniformed railroad workers used to operate over 19,000 locomotives and over 800,000 railway cars. In addition there are 65,000 kilometers of private railways built, maintained and used by various industries…"
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Regenerating Russians
"Russian efforts to provide enough soldiers to continue the war in Ukraine have proved to be something of a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. This describes the war in Ukraine as well. The war is stalled because there are few Russians willing to fight, or even wear a uniform, carry a gun and pretend to fight in Ukraine. Evading military service has become a widespread activity in Russia. The government calls it treason and threatens prison for the resisters. The Threat of imprisonment is considered preferable to service in Ukraine.
Russians call Putin's Special Operation in Ukraine a form of mass murder against Russian men. Currently, Russian military operations in Ukraine are at a standstill. There are some random Russian soldiers who will fire their weapons into the air. Russian officers are ordered to keep their men from getting too close to Ukrainian forces because of the growing incidents of Russian soldiers surrendering…"
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Armand
goes beyond the straight line.
