Thread by @ZimermanErik

The #Biden administration, #EU and much of the elite in the West think that that they are using #Ukrainian blood to weaken #Russia.

Just some central bank stimulus, money out of thin air, providing support & weapons to #Ukraine whose soldiers will do the actual fighting.

Some may even see parallels, in how American industry supported the Soviet destruction of the Wehrmacht. The Russians provided the endless blood to win WWII. If not they at least cynically use the #Ukraine media craze, built on illogical conclusions derived from false premises

to leverage their uninformed citizens' good will (or shallow need to virtue signal) to meet their strategic geopolitical ends. If a whole lot of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers die in the process, perhaps all the better they say.

#Russia on the other hand, believes it can show its people, its sphere of influence & even the world, that inflated dollars alone don't kill warriors (nor do much of anything else either). Men still fight and win or lose wars.

What will be clear, is that in this the #West is wrong (if not in much of everything else lately). Regardless of how this current war ends in the near term, it is certainly most likely that the #Russian army will be far stronger than it was previous to it.

Whether it wins big, barely or even loses and withdraws, its weaknesses have been exposed, as have the ineffective & corrupt commanders and units. Its doctrines have been tested. The bulk of its entire standing army has had a training unmatched in recent modern times.

A full scale conflict with a large country, equipped with modern weaponry, from legacy Soviet weapons to state-of-the-art western weapons. It has battled against thousands of the latest anti-tank and anti-air (even anti-ship) missiles, assaulted countless fortified positions and

engaged in vast urban combat. The knowledge and experience that the entire Russian army is getting, from the basic infantryman to junior officers, its special forces units, pilots and senior officers and Generals cannot be duplicated nor purchased.

These people will not only continue to constitute the Russian army in the years to come and in more senior positions as they advance, but also form the core that will extend and expand the future army. It is these men that will train each other & the future classes & generations

of soldiers going forward. It's rust shed, malpractices and bad doctrines discarded, effective ones adopted, the Russian army reinvigorated and reenergized after this conflict will be far stronger than the one that entered it.

Countries are weakened foremost demographically. Massive casualties of Russian soldiers would weaken Russia. Although of course the casualties are serious and high, they are nowhere near a level that weakness Russia as a country nor army.

Far less importantly, there is economic damage. If a country's wealth is destroyed, if its productive capacity is significantly reduced, that can weaken it. Wealth can be destroyed by overwhelming debt and inflation (gov't printing money, taking the wealth of its citizens).

#Russia is not doing that in this conflict, at least nowhere near the level at which the west is doing so ironically. It is the west that wishes to fight this war as it wishes to do much of everything else lately, by printing money. A rapidly inflating West is paying to support

#Ukraine by more inflation. It is the wealth of the west that is being affected. The sanctions of course, much more than the conflict itself, are what is hurting #Russia economically. But they, unlike #inflation, are transitory. They are a sudden disruption but not a destruction

of wealth of the country. The west itself is being hurt by the absence of Russian commodities, adding to its already rising prices and diminishing standards of living. In time, all, most or at least many countries will return to trade with Russia. It's economy will simply adjust

to serve & be served by that available market. Since every one of those countries itself trades with much of the whole world, it really won't do much harm outside of IP & certain technologies which are concentrated in the top western nations. Ironically this will only incentivize

development within Russia (not to mention the greater cooperating with China). #Russia's economy is proving as resilient as its army. And Russians appreciate resiliency. It entered this conflict with far more foreign reserves than debt (something unheard of in the West),

and though much of this money has been "frozen" (stolen for now) by the West it shows Russia's economy is not one based on simply inflating away. It is a small economy, but this makes it punch above its weight, along with its control of many important resources.

In fact to the extent #Russia gains territory in this conflict, as it has been doing, it is expanding its population base (Russian speakers in the east), its resources, and its strategic (economically & militarily) territories, not to mention denying them to her foes.

The West is certainly not gaining more land by printing dollars & sending them to Ukraine. From world-famous farmland to steel works, giant gas fields and Black Sea ports, the economic benefits that #Russia stands to gain are hard to overestimate.

Of course it still requires many market reforms & legal reforms to unlock its economic potential, but much of the west is increasingly mired in socialist red tape as well. The drive to learn from the campaign and improve the armed forces will be great regardless of the outcome,

whether it follows victory or defeat. In defeat it may be all the stronger. A largely shelved army with countless inventory, much of it Soviet era, warehoused, famous for corruption & inefficiency has been thrown in the deep end and tested by fire. It will be a stronger, and not

weaker army, when it finishes its dance with Ukraine's soldiers. Yes with them, because all the central banks in the world, can't conjure up an amount of dollars, that will make them wear boots.