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Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

bbc.com

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Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#71

Post by Tade0 »

jwr wrote: post #43
txzl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any examples of nations that succeeded in this regard? (currently corruption-free states)

Poland, while not entirely corruption-free, has managed very well after the transition from Russian-dominated communism. For reasons I still do not understand, organized crime was rooted out in the 90s, and gambling restricted to almost nothingness (gambling is always tied to organized crime). Not perfect, but doing pretty well, and the effects can be seen.

Part of the reason was putting into law the option to become a crown witness, famously used by Jarosław "Masa" Sokołowski.

In my view what really did them in was Poland's EU accession later on. It gave young men alternatives to joining organised crime as foot soldiers.

Of course many criminals emigrated as well, but on foreign turf they weren't nearly as successful.

Right now it's demographics, with the average age of a felon going from ~20 to ~34 between 2000 and now. These people focus on e-commerce scams.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#72

Post by distances »

konart wrote: post #65
distances wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's spreading overtly obvious Russian propaganda, he's clearly very aware of it and just prefers to take the side of evil.

Well, he is russian. It's pretty obvious to any other russian simply from the way he composes his replies.

Yes, but he has access to free information, so can easily check what is the current and historical Russian contribution to the world. At that point, siding with Russia is of course an active stance of supporting the crimes of Russia. Patriotism is not a valid excuse if your motherland is always the aggressor.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#73

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

Drupon wrote: post #69
SubiculumCode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There comes a time. How many apartments have been bombed by Russia?

[flagged]

Could you expand on that please - what exactly do you mean and how did you arrive at that conclusion?

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#74

Post by konart »

I think attacks on WB have other reasons rather than milimtary equipment. You can find drone parts on any marketplace: Ozon, WB, Aliexpress Russia and Avito of course.

And Avito in this case would be your first target if only Avito was not a craigslist "alternative".

The real reason for attacking WB is that it has deeper connection to Putins pals and has larger logistic centers with lots of goods. WB won't be able to compensate this for the sellers and this will hurt a lot.

It won't metter much for military oprations (if you are a soldier you ca just order from Avito or Ali) but this can disrupt internal logistics and hurt the economy greatly.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#75

Post by simonh »

gherkinnn wrote: post #24

This is all good news, but one must remember that airpower alone does not win wars. > Overall then, the promise of strategic airpower, that it could win wars entirely or primarily from the skies, turns out so far to have been largely a mirage > Instead, efforts to use strategic bombing to coerce surrender have repeatedly shown that being bombed hardens civilian resolve to continue resisting. By contrast, bombing can…

The general point on air power is a real thing, but I don't think we can directly conclude that bombing will always harden civilian resolve. It very much depends on the population's pain tolerance.

In Vietnam when the NVA attacked a chain of US military bases simultaneously they lost every single battle, by a huge margin. It wasn't even close, the USA suffered about a quarter as many casualties, yet it broke the back of US commitment to the war. That's because the NVA could take 110k casualties and maintain their commitment, but for the USA about 25k casualties was intolerable.

On the battlefield Russia is losing masses of troops, but as Vlad Vexler points out, because these are mostly essentially paid mercenaries this is seen by the Russian population as a transactional risk they are taking.

Direct pain for the general civilian population is another matter. Most Russians seem oblivious to the fact they are actually in a war with a neighbouring country. They seem utterly bewildered by the fact Ukraine is even attacking Russia at all, it doesn't seem to make any sense to them. This is why the government has done everything they can to avoid resorting to a wave of conscription, they want the whole thing to seem very distant and abstract.

I think the pain tolerance of the Russian population over this is minimal, bringing it home to them is really important. The only thing is they have no accessible ways to translate that into political action, but if they are ever going to wake up, prods like this play an important role IMHO.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#76

Post by konart »

distances wrote: post #72
konart wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he is russian. It's pretty obvious to any other russian simply from the way he composes his replies.

Yes, but he has access to free information, so can easily check what is the current and historical Russian contribution to the world. At that point, siding with Russia is of course an active stance of supporting the crimes of Russia. Patriotism is not a valid excuse if your motherland is always the aggressor.

>is always the aggressor

Well, lets's be honets: not always. But, yes, he's a your typical example of a paid bot or a genuine low IQ nationalist. Quite a few of them here.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#77

Post by flohofwoe »

louthy wrote: post #18
option wrote: post #2

Good job, Ukraine! Russia must be destroyed in its current fascist form.

I don’t think it’s fascist? More of a kleptocratic dictatorship. I agree with the general sentiment though!

For not being fascist, the propaganda and general 'optics' and messages coming out of Russia sure look a lot like Germany in the 1930s, and Ukraine is basically the same playbook as Sudetenland - both started with a claim that a suppressed German/Russian minority must be protected from atrocities by the Czechoslovakian/Ukrainian 'aggressors' by integrating those lands into the 'Reich'. Thankfully Putin is by far not as successful bringing a much smaller country to its knees than Hitler was.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#78

Post by distances »

spwa4 wrote: post #63
distances wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All countries distancing themselves from Russia and aligning with the EU have managed to reduce corruption. It's a winning formula, so will very likely happen with Ukraine too after the corrupting Russian influence is eradicated.

As someone whose worked as a consultant for the EU for years, eventually realizing who the sales people of my company were (... related to), I wonder what you mean. I really wonder what you mean. Government spending is how the Brussels economy works (there's technically 11 and in practice about 7 different governments, all of whom have similar needs), and you get government spending assigned to you by "knowing" gover…

> I wonder what you mean

I thought I was clear? I mean the western corruption isn't in any shape or form comparable to Russian corruption, and how it pervaded all the Eastern Bloc. It does take long time to root it out, as it affects and degrades the whole society. You really, really can't compare it to what we have in the west, and everybody is better off when they get to escape it.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#79

Post by simonh »

konart wrote: post #74

I think attacks on WB have other reasons rather than milimtary equipment. You can find drone parts on any marketplace: Ozon, WB, Aliexpress Russia and Avito of course. And Avito in this case would be your first target if only Avito was not a craigslist "alternative". The real reason for attacking WB is that it has deeper connection to Putins pals and has larger logistic centers with lots of goods. WB won't be able to…

I think it's a way of inflicting a lot of pain on the Russian population in a very public way, without actually killing lots of Russian civilians. Obviously it's in no way bloodless, but inflicting casualties is not really the aim.

Even after 4 years of war, when the conflict directly affects them, Russian civilians seem genuinely bewildered. They have difficulty comprehending why this is happening to them. They've hardly felt they've been in a war at all, for them it's mainly been an economic downturn.

Re: Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries

#80

Post by distances »

konart wrote: post #76
distances wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but he has access to free information, so can easily check what is the current and historical Russian contribution to the world. At that point, siding with Russia is of course an active stance of supporting the crimes of Russia. Patriotism is not a valid excuse if your motherland is always the aggressor.

>is always the aggressor Well, lets's be honets: not always. But, yes, he's a your typical example of a paid bot or a genuine low IQ nationalist. Quite a few of them here.

Well, true, Russia has a long history so I was overly broad. Aggressor in almost all conflicts is more accurate.

In WW2 it was the second major aggressor of course. WW1 Germany declared war before Russia invaded, so debatable. Wasn't an aggressor in the Napoleonic wars as far as my history knowledge serves me.

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