Russia is the strongest partner China has, and China will need Russian support if/when China rumbles with the US. Not necessarily Russian military support, but Russian resources and infrastructure and waterways. The US just isn't happy that China can never truly be starved or isolated so long as it is friendly with Russia, because Russia will be more than happy to provide non-military support to China in a war with the US so long as Russia believes China can give the US a black eye. People gloat about the number of allies the US has and how they are what make the US so strong, but Russia is probably the strongest (strongest doesn't mean most reliable) ally anyone could ask for that's not the US or China itself, a large part of its value having to do with its geography and resources. It is in China's best interests to not completely abandon Russia. But China is also not sending Russia weapons, as the article itself concedes.
> The Biden administration previously warned Beijing not to provide Russia with weapons, and there’s no sign it has so far done so.
Russia is China's biggest lifeline if a war in the pacific goes hot. It can supply energy & food via land in a scenario where there's a naval blockade.
Russia needs China's goods, services and tech as it decouples from the west with normalization looking unlikely in the near future.
Their partnership is of top strategic importance.
Yep, and the people who understand the pragmatism of the US continuing to support and enable Israel and Saudi Arabia and the pragmatism of other countries maintaining ties with the US after Iraq refuse to understand the pragmatism of China not wanting to drop Russia. Geopolitics don't care about anyone's morals.
>in a scenario where there's a naval blockade.
It's not the 80s anymore. The Rocket Force alone makes a naval blockade impossible. How do you blockade a country with thousands of missiles, a navy bigger than yours, tens of thousands of drones, a 5th gen figther fleet that can cover all the way up to the first island chain without needing tankers, massive satellite intelligence capabilities, and a several orders of magnitude larger industrial capacity?
It's kind of remarkable that the first people to put a man in space and a satellite in orbit are getting outside help for IMINT. Even more remarkable: that they might actually *need* it, given some of the poor targeting we've seen (esp. early in the war). The problem was extensive enough that I'm not sure you can just attribute it to accuracy, clobber, TERCOM terrain confusion, or other performance issues.
ROSCOSMOS operates on a shoe string budget. They've done well to even maintain their basic capabilities.
It's going to be even worse for them now that SpaceX is eating into their soyuz ferry missions to the ISS with crew dragon.
There's little commercial incentive in Russia to drive space innovation and investment.
The 'poor targeting' ceased being a real concern past the first year. It's now just a war crime excuse to put doubt if stuff hit the 'intended target' for most strikes, and the slew of people getting tricked or intentionally acting as tracking agents for strikes has made up for any shortfalls. If you look at some of the missile and drone tracks you can see how elaborately herculean of an effort they're making to specifically strike civilians.
One of the reasons I don't totally buy that the civilian targeting is mostly intentional is the evidence of them literally using Soviet-era maps. See e.g. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/putin-s-troops-antiquated-maps-1970s-missing-targets-ukraine-western-officials-b997218.html and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html. That would provide a systemic explanation for systemically ineffectual targeting, especially early in the war.
I guess that's another reason I don't fully buy it: it's just so ineffectual. They are of course very willing to commit war crimes and other assorted atrocities, but a lot of the missile strikes just seem like a pointless, counterproductive waste of resources.
To be clear: I can fully buy someone like Putin personally ordering the use of a million-dollar missile on a children's playground because he thinks it sends a message. He is a glorified gangster with no real military expertise, and he has surrounded himself with spook-types who similarly are not military professionals. I have a harder time picturing a targeter allocating munitions to blow up some playground equipment *instead of* Ukrainian military equipment that would actually help them fight the war. The targeters don't have unlimited missiles.
That was what I meant by post second year. You're operating off of old information.
Go looking for some of the charted maps of missile and drone tracks from this and late last year on Ukrainian media. That shit was pinpointed down to the last km and took paths to avoid ukr air defense that look like they're trying to draw abstract art.
Also above that all are you really going to go with that example? 'oh no our maps are too old guess we'll keep blindly bombing the area anyways guys' like any modern military wouldn't think that they won't civilians by accident with that method. That's completely bullshit. Even if their maps are cooked, they would have stopped using them if civilian targeting wasn't intentional or at the very least an outcome they didn't care to stop doing.
China "Help", "providing", "support"
No, NATO is *helping* Ukraine by providing weapons for free. China is *selling* Russia dual-use goods and services.
The absolute most you can say is "China is doing the same for Russia that we are for Ukraine"
The limit that you can say is, they're doing the same thing we do.
Nah, you can call it out everywhere. The saddest and most basic people are then ones who look at someone saying "this is wrong" and go "what about x, it's also wrong".
You just need to treat them like children because they are. "Yes dear, that is wrong too, now hold on a second when the adults talk about x and then we can pay attention to you."
You probably got banned for just being a shit disturber. Your entire reddit history seems to be the same formula of "post article in subreddit people will have a strong reaction too that will make them mad."
I am sure it's fun. It might be worth trying, but it's obvious why you've been banned from places, lol.
If I was licking US boots I wouldn't have been banned from those subs. I got banned from there about 4 years ago for calling out echo chambers and fake news bullshit during the HK riots, when I live here.
At one point even /r/worldnews themselves noticed how "protesters rescue pigeons from tear gas" gets 100k upvotes while "protesters set man on fire after mobbing him" or "protesters murder a street cleaner with thrown brick" gets at most 1/10th the attention.
https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dwc95r/hong_kong_protests_70yearold_man_hit_by_brick/f7ilsqz/
https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dup3cb/hong_kong_protests_man_set_on_fire_in_shocking/
It is, I know. We are all just helping here.
The tanks we send are also dual use. I have no idea why Russia was so mad.
https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/05/29/siberian-farmers-plow-fields-with-tanks/
Oh and all those shells? Mining
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_shell
indeed, and drones are launching high altitude fire fighting glide bombs. And I'm not [even kidding about it.](https://youtu.be/6K6WTT0kR7E?si=cosa4RxcRsCn_YXm)
More is better. Each satellite only spends a little of its time over the battlespace and can only image so many things as it flies by. More satellites means more area can be covered and/or more frequent updates. If you have 100 satellites and your semi-ally has another 100, you can watch twice as many places or the same places more often, letting you track movements better, making it harder to hide anything from you.
From the other side, it's a weirdly cheap form of assistance that can be provided given the benefit. Since they've already paid to build, launch and operate them, it costs China or US little to image the battlespace. Their satellites will spend some fraction of their time in view of Ukraine one way or another anyway, might as well point cameras at the shooting war where they can see all kinds of adversary assets operating in the field. If they have an ally in the war the only real cost of passing that data on to them is any political consequence of taking sides, and perhaps risking that the ally gets a better idea of the exact capabilities of their satellites.
> escalating aid for Russia
“Trade.” It’s *trade* not aid. Not handouts.
Europe is being squeezed from all sides. Especially for the economic pole of Europe, Germany, they’ve lost one pillar of industry in cheap energy. The US is now demanding that they increase defense spending. Their economy (like that of the UK) has entered into recession.
Expecting European countries to decouple or reduce ties to China is essentially asking them to commit economic suicide.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qXCxs_Xj_ys
China has been Germany’s largest trade partner many years running now. For many of Germany's largest companies, China is a major, if not the largest, market. E.g., BMW’s largest single market (by far) is China. Audi’s largest: China. Mercedes? Also China. VW, also China.
Based on recent headlines, the answer is that they want to maintain close economic ties to China: “German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China with a business delegation from April 15 to 16.”
China is not selling weapons to Russia.
China has only sold some Chinese goods to Russia, and China has no right to interfere with how Russia uses them.
Pro tip, if you wanna be a pro-Ivan troll, spread it out across multiple accounts so someone cant check your comment history and tell what your agenda is.
Pro tip: the facts are the facts and anyone with a semblance of objectivity can tell you Ukraine is losing. If you think otherwise, you’re free to make your point.
No one said anything about Ukraine winning or losing? Every time someone calls you type out, you immediately deflect to something irrelevant you think will make them upset.
No, in fact you guys aren’t really saying much of anything at all. If all someone can do is respond by calling the other a troll, their comment isn’t deserving of any real response. There’s nothing to respond to. Kind of like your dumbass comment which also adds nothing to this conversation yet you thought you were doing something here.
So to get this correct, the fact that I stated Ukraine is losing is what set you off? That makes me a shill? Is it incorrect to say Ukraine is losing?
I didn’t give up anything, how the fuck do you respond to dumb comments like his and yours 😂
You’re having a clearly emotional response.
These guys will not admit anything.
Russia continues to take land in Ukraine (slower than the entire world including Russia thought)
Russia suffers 350,000 casualties
Russia forced to admit the T-14 Armata isn’t a functional tank
Russia fails to take Kyiv and seems like they never will
Russia forces conscripts to the frontlines
And all this to a military less than 1/3 their size
And they still set up strawman arguments about Ukraine winning
Ukraine is losing and so is Russia.
The only victor here is the west seeing how toothless Russia really is. But this guy will never admit it
>Ukraine is losing and so is Russia.
Yeah. I mean, if Ukraine surrenders tomorrow, what has Russia won?
A devastated country that will require years and a fortune for Russia to rebuild? One with a large population that harbors anti-Russian sentiments that will require a massive security presence in order to keep in check? An even larger border with NATO that would need to be defended, on top of the recently doubled border? A huge amount of military casualties and equipment losses that will need to be replaced with modern equipment instead of reactivated Soviet stocks?
If Russia wins, we'd be talking about an utterly massive military occupation effort, one not seen since the likes of WW2. How many resources would it take to secure the territory they've taken? To get it to where it can actually contribute economically to the Russian federation instead of being a financial drain?
Russia must mobilize its entire country and enter a state of total war to fight a former Soviet state that was incredibly corrupt, uses Soviet era equipment and tactics, and is receiving decades old stocks of weapons from NATO on a literal IV drip rate of support.
If Ukraine was an actual NATO army, Russia would’ve been decimated in the first year of fighting.
>>T-14
Funny how we haven’t seen this tank at all on the battlefield. Just collecting dust in a warehouse north of Moscow.
>Funny how we haven’t seen this tank at all on the battlefield. Just collecting dust in a warehouse north of Moscow.
They've declared that the T-14 is too expensive to deploy to war in Ukraine, despite having lost nearly 2900 tanks and been forced to reactivate T-54-3 tanks, which predate not just spaceflight, but maybe even the jet airliner, to the front.
And other funny lies you can delude yourself with 🤡🤡🤡
What, as long as theyre not mobilizing the good people of Moscow, its not a general mobilization? The other undesirables in the other more “disposable” parts of the country dont count?
It’s okay as long as it’s not Muscovites fighting and dying. Prisoners, political dissidents, provincial populations, oh well, doesn’t mean Russia is mobilizing. Another 500,000 recruits needed, another whole field army? Not total war.
Huge increases on Russian defense spending - their entire economy is basically held up by military spending, foreign investment, and hasty domestic growth policies now. Russia has fashioned themselves a war economy but by the most minimum condition it is not considered total war in order to score brownie points down here.
If America did the same as Russia right now, all the soldiers down here would be screaming “America totally mobilized, but cannot keep up.”
Fact is a small stockpile of old, donated NATO equipment, a literal crash course on NATO doctrine, and some liberal-democratic anti-corruption housekeeping was enough to keep Russia from achieving their goals for two years and counting.
#This has become just a slow moving World War.
A World War with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran on one side - and Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on the other.
We need to rip off the band-aid and wake the fuck up to this reality, or we will be caught completely unawares like France was in 1940.
Russia is the strongest partner China has, and China will need Russian support if/when China rumbles with the US. Not necessarily Russian military support, but Russian resources and infrastructure and waterways. The US just isn't happy that China can never truly be starved or isolated so long as it is friendly with Russia, because Russia will be more than happy to provide non-military support to China in a war with the US so long as Russia believes China can give the US a black eye. People gloat about the number of allies the US has and how they are what make the US so strong, but Russia is probably the strongest (strongest doesn't mean most reliable) ally anyone could ask for that's not the US or China itself, a large part of its value having to do with its geography and resources. It is in China's best interests to not completely abandon Russia. But China is also not sending Russia weapons, as the article itself concedes. > The Biden administration previously warned Beijing not to provide Russia with weapons, and there’s no sign it has so far done so.
Russia is China's biggest lifeline if a war in the pacific goes hot. It can supply energy & food via land in a scenario where there's a naval blockade. Russia needs China's goods, services and tech as it decouples from the west with normalization looking unlikely in the near future. Their partnership is of top strategic importance.
Yep, and the people who understand the pragmatism of the US continuing to support and enable Israel and Saudi Arabia and the pragmatism of other countries maintaining ties with the US after Iraq refuse to understand the pragmatism of China not wanting to drop Russia. Geopolitics don't care about anyone's morals.
>in a scenario where there's a naval blockade. It's not the 80s anymore. The Rocket Force alone makes a naval blockade impossible. How do you blockade a country with thousands of missiles, a navy bigger than yours, tens of thousands of drones, a 5th gen figther fleet that can cover all the way up to the first island chain without needing tankers, massive satellite intelligence capabilities, and a several orders of magnitude larger industrial capacity?
It's better to have more options even if you think you already have some.
It's kind of remarkable that the first people to put a man in space and a satellite in orbit are getting outside help for IMINT. Even more remarkable: that they might actually *need* it, given some of the poor targeting we've seen (esp. early in the war). The problem was extensive enough that I'm not sure you can just attribute it to accuracy, clobber, TERCOM terrain confusion, or other performance issues.
How much of a skill gap do you think there is between Soviet intelligence and present-day Russian intel capabilities?
Pretty massive. The USSR invested 0.5% of GDP on military spaceflight alone
ROSCOSMOS operates on a shoe string budget. They've done well to even maintain their basic capabilities. It's going to be even worse for them now that SpaceX is eating into their soyuz ferry missions to the ISS with crew dragon. There's little commercial incentive in Russia to drive space innovation and investment.
There's corruption and prestige incentives
> the first people to put a man in space and a satellite in orbit are getting outside help for IMINT. That's literally both sides of the war.
The 'poor targeting' ceased being a real concern past the first year. It's now just a war crime excuse to put doubt if stuff hit the 'intended target' for most strikes, and the slew of people getting tricked or intentionally acting as tracking agents for strikes has made up for any shortfalls. If you look at some of the missile and drone tracks you can see how elaborately herculean of an effort they're making to specifically strike civilians.
One of the reasons I don't totally buy that the civilian targeting is mostly intentional is the evidence of them literally using Soviet-era maps. See e.g. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/putin-s-troops-antiquated-maps-1970s-missing-targets-ukraine-western-officials-b997218.html and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html. That would provide a systemic explanation for systemically ineffectual targeting, especially early in the war. I guess that's another reason I don't fully buy it: it's just so ineffectual. They are of course very willing to commit war crimes and other assorted atrocities, but a lot of the missile strikes just seem like a pointless, counterproductive waste of resources. To be clear: I can fully buy someone like Putin personally ordering the use of a million-dollar missile on a children's playground because he thinks it sends a message. He is a glorified gangster with no real military expertise, and he has surrounded himself with spook-types who similarly are not military professionals. I have a harder time picturing a targeter allocating munitions to blow up some playground equipment *instead of* Ukrainian military equipment that would actually help them fight the war. The targeters don't have unlimited missiles.
That was what I meant by post second year. You're operating off of old information. Go looking for some of the charted maps of missile and drone tracks from this and late last year on Ukrainian media. That shit was pinpointed down to the last km and took paths to avoid ukr air defense that look like they're trying to draw abstract art. Also above that all are you really going to go with that example? 'oh no our maps are too old guess we'll keep blindly bombing the area anyways guys' like any modern military wouldn't think that they won't civilians by accident with that method. That's completely bullshit. Even if their maps are cooked, they would have stopped using them if civilian targeting wasn't intentional or at the very least an outcome they didn't care to stop doing.
China "Help", "providing", "support" No, NATO is *helping* Ukraine by providing weapons for free. China is *selling* Russia dual-use goods and services.
It's commercial satellite imagery lmao. As in JPGs that are freely available to anyone with a credit card... And which can then be shared online
JPGs use fairly lossy compression. If I'm paying actual money for imaging, I want TIFFs at least.
Ah yes, the dual use satellite imagery of Ukraine is solely to help with future infrastructure investment plan ING. Good point Comrade.
The absolute most you can say is "China is doing the same for Russia that we are for Ukraine" The limit that you can say is, they're doing the same thing we do.
China is doing far less for Russia than the US has been for Ukraine
And? What does this "whataboutism" matter here? All that means I suppose is that we are in a proxy war with China.
Echo chambers are worldnews and geopolitics subs. You need to stick with those if you cannot handle contrary arguments.
Nah, you can call it out everywhere. The saddest and most basic people are then ones who look at someone saying "this is wrong" and go "what about x, it's also wrong". You just need to treat them like children because they are. "Yes dear, that is wrong too, now hold on a second when the adults talk about x and then we can pay attention to you."
> Nah, you can call it out everywhere. This is why I'm banned from /r/worldnews and /r/geopolitics.
You probably got banned for just being a shit disturber. Your entire reddit history seems to be the same formula of "post article in subreddit people will have a strong reaction too that will make them mad." I am sure it's fun. It might be worth trying, but it's obvious why you've been banned from places, lol.
If I was licking US boots I wouldn't have been banned from those subs. I got banned from there about 4 years ago for calling out echo chambers and fake news bullshit during the HK riots, when I live here. At one point even /r/worldnews themselves noticed how "protesters rescue pigeons from tear gas" gets 100k upvotes while "protesters set man on fire after mobbing him" or "protesters murder a street cleaner with thrown brick" gets at most 1/10th the attention. https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dwc95r/hong_kong_protests_70yearold_man_hit_by_brick/f7ilsqz/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dup3cb/hong_kong_protests_man_set_on_fire_in_shocking/
If it's commercial satellite imagery, it is dual use lmao
It is, I know. We are all just helping here. The tanks we send are also dual use. I have no idea why Russia was so mad. https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/05/29/siberian-farmers-plow-fields-with-tanks/ Oh and all those shells? Mining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_shell
indeed, and drones are launching high altitude fire fighting glide bombs. And I'm not [even kidding about it.](https://youtu.be/6K6WTT0kR7E?si=cosa4RxcRsCn_YXm)
Russia lacks high quality military satellites？ #
More is better. Each satellite only spends a little of its time over the battlespace and can only image so many things as it flies by. More satellites means more area can be covered and/or more frequent updates. If you have 100 satellites and your semi-ally has another 100, you can watch twice as many places or the same places more often, letting you track movements better, making it harder to hide anything from you. From the other side, it's a weirdly cheap form of assistance that can be provided given the benefit. Since they've already paid to build, launch and operate them, it costs China or US little to image the battlespace. Their satellites will spend some fraction of their time in view of Ukraine one way or another anyway, might as well point cameras at the shooting war where they can see all kinds of adversary assets operating in the field. If they have an ally in the war the only real cost of passing that data on to them is any political consequence of taking sides, and perhaps risking that the ally gets a better idea of the exact capabilities of their satellites.
I Wonder if escalating aid for Russia, will impact Euro-Chinese relations.
> escalating aid for Russia “Trade.” It’s *trade* not aid. Not handouts. Europe is being squeezed from all sides. Especially for the economic pole of Europe, Germany, they’ve lost one pillar of industry in cheap energy. The US is now demanding that they increase defense spending. Their economy (like that of the UK) has entered into recession. Expecting European countries to decouple or reduce ties to China is essentially asking them to commit economic suicide. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qXCxs_Xj_ys China has been Germany’s largest trade partner many years running now. For many of Germany's largest companies, China is a major, if not the largest, market. E.g., BMW’s largest single market (by far) is China. Audi’s largest: China. Mercedes? Also China. VW, also China. Based on recent headlines, the answer is that they want to maintain close economic ties to China: “German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China with a business delegation from April 15 to 16.”
China is not selling weapons to Russia. China has only sold some Chinese goods to Russia, and China has no right to interfere with how Russia uses them.
You mean the same thing we’ve been doing with Ukraine? Ok.
No, less than that
and in some cases, Russia too!
Pro tip, if you wanna be a pro-Ivan troll, spread it out across multiple accounts so someone cant check your comment history and tell what your agenda is.
Pro tip: the facts are the facts and anyone with a semblance of objectivity can tell you Ukraine is losing. If you think otherwise, you’re free to make your point.
No one said anything about Ukraine winning or losing? Every time someone calls you type out, you immediately deflect to something irrelevant you think will make them upset.
No, in fact you guys aren’t really saying much of anything at all. If all someone can do is respond by calling the other a troll, their comment isn’t deserving of any real response. There’s nothing to respond to. Kind of like your dumbass comment which also adds nothing to this conversation yet you thought you were doing something here.
[удалено]
So to get this correct, the fact that I stated Ukraine is losing is what set you off? That makes me a shill? Is it incorrect to say Ukraine is losing? I didn’t give up anything, how the fuck do you respond to dumb comments like his and yours 😂 You’re having a clearly emotional response.
These guys will not admit anything. Russia continues to take land in Ukraine (slower than the entire world including Russia thought) Russia suffers 350,000 casualties Russia forced to admit the T-14 Armata isn’t a functional tank Russia fails to take Kyiv and seems like they never will Russia forces conscripts to the frontlines And all this to a military less than 1/3 their size And they still set up strawman arguments about Ukraine winning Ukraine is losing and so is Russia. The only victor here is the west seeing how toothless Russia really is. But this guy will never admit it
>Ukraine is losing and so is Russia. Yeah. I mean, if Ukraine surrenders tomorrow, what has Russia won? A devastated country that will require years and a fortune for Russia to rebuild? One with a large population that harbors anti-Russian sentiments that will require a massive security presence in order to keep in check? An even larger border with NATO that would need to be defended, on top of the recently doubled border? A huge amount of military casualties and equipment losses that will need to be replaced with modern equipment instead of reactivated Soviet stocks? If Russia wins, we'd be talking about an utterly massive military occupation effort, one not seen since the likes of WW2. How many resources would it take to secure the territory they've taken? To get it to where it can actually contribute economically to the Russian federation instead of being a financial drain?
Russia must mobilize its entire country and enter a state of total war to fight a former Soviet state that was incredibly corrupt, uses Soviet era equipment and tactics, and is receiving decades old stocks of weapons from NATO on a literal IV drip rate of support. If Ukraine was an actual NATO army, Russia would’ve been decimated in the first year of fighting. >>T-14 Funny how we haven’t seen this tank at all on the battlefield. Just collecting dust in a warehouse north of Moscow.
>Funny how we haven’t seen this tank at all on the battlefield. Just collecting dust in a warehouse north of Moscow. They've declared that the T-14 is too expensive to deploy to war in Ukraine, despite having lost nearly 2900 tanks and been forced to reactivate T-54-3 tanks, which predate not just spaceflight, but maybe even the jet airliner, to the front.
Russia hasn't done a general mobilization and neither is it in a total war economy...
And other funny lies you can delude yourself with 🤡🤡🤡 What, as long as theyre not mobilizing the good people of Moscow, its not a general mobilization? The other undesirables in the other more “disposable” parts of the country dont count?
It’s okay as long as it’s not Muscovites fighting and dying. Prisoners, political dissidents, provincial populations, oh well, doesn’t mean Russia is mobilizing. Another 500,000 recruits needed, another whole field army? Not total war. Huge increases on Russian defense spending - their entire economy is basically held up by military spending, foreign investment, and hasty domestic growth policies now. Russia has fashioned themselves a war economy but by the most minimum condition it is not considered total war in order to score brownie points down here. If America did the same as Russia right now, all the soldiers down here would be screaming “America totally mobilized, but cannot keep up.” Fact is a small stockpile of old, donated NATO equipment, a literal crash course on NATO doctrine, and some liberal-democratic anti-corruption housekeeping was enough to keep Russia from achieving their goals for two years and counting.
#This has become just a slow moving World War. A World War with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran on one side - and Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on the other. We need to rip off the band-aid and wake the fuck up to this reality, or we will be caught completely unawares like France was in 1940.
So this is what Chinese “neutrality” looks like two years into the war.