European leaders holding emergency talks in Brussels have agreed on a massive increase to defence spending, amid a drive to shore up support for Ukraine after Donald Trump halted US military aid and intelligence sharing.
But the show of unity was marred by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, failing to endorse an EU statement on Ukraine pushing back against Trump’s Russia-friendly negotiating stance.
The 26 other EU leaders, including Orbán’s ally Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, “firmly supported” the statement. “There can be no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine,” said the draft statement, a response to Trump’s attempt to sideline Europe and Kyiv.
And just like that America lost that much foreign power.
Good work EU.
You could always invest in the European defense industry, rather than US stocks https://i.imgur.com/cUpqyJo.png . In any case I’m not looking forward to the US becoming Russia 2.0.
UvdL is same as Orban, just much smarter and more evil. In general, requirement for unilateral decisions makes it the obvious suspicion that when Hungary vetoes something, in a different decision-making process it would be half of the member states, not just Hungary.
Anyway, this is not even about decisions, just “shows of unity”.
I think European defense companies are going to make a lot of money, though. Rearmament is a word that even aesthetically invokes images from German 30s, or Soviet 30s, with those production lines making tanks and field artillery pieces faster than they make cars today. Of course, IRL the game mechanics have changed and they are going to produce different things mostly.
UvdL is not the same as Orban. She is at the very least pro EU when Orban is very much against everything. Orban might end up making the EU multi-tiered system where some countries will federalise more than others.
She is at the very least pro EU when Orban is very much against everything.
How the hell would you know pro what she is. She’s not that transparent.
Suppose she, Orban and a few other types have a strategy of making decisions. Decisions are mostly formed by power, so when the balance of power is in favor of some decision, those who’d veto it just better not. Somehow every notable time everything is vetoed is by Hungary. Is it Hungary being so strong to not be pressured when needed, are all other EU members so moral (no such thing in politics and power)?
Compare it to how smaller countries torn between spheres of influence have different parties and factions, some pro-Russian, some pro-EU, some pro-American. Their social “stability” and general connectivity of their elites mean that people belonging to these different factions all have similar interests. Like mafia. But it’s a normal thing in diplomacy to never put all your eggs in one basket, and to present difference faces.
So the same way in a medieval town (not talking cities with guilds and all that) there couldn’t be two smiths. Competition really wasn’t a thing on such small scale, not enough work to feed two people of the same job.
Hungary fulfills the role of the “interface” of the EU with Russia and Turkey and such. For its population and the general population it’s a mistake, some Troyan horse, some disagreement, but it’s really not, otherwise the problem would have already been solved the old-fashioned way. It’s a diplomacy tool.
Also the EU and Russia are not really hostile. The war is about Ukraine and Russia deciding whether they’ll have equal weight in Russia’s energy dealings with the EU, or whether Ukraine will be treated as some intermediate colony in that. The EU kinda supports Ukraine because that’ll give it better deals too, both by having a check on Russia and weakening it. If it were really about defending Ukraine, Russia’s military could be negated overnight. But that would be more expensive (for the EU, not for Ukraine) and also they need Russia to keep its regime, which is very convenient, being immoral and spineless.
I mean, it’s obvious and has been this way for all of history, if history books are boring, read Sabatini. It’s not any more complex than workplace intrigue, but somehow people think diplomacy should be simpler than that.
Shore up aid how? With UK’s nonexistent SPGs (they sent basically their entire SPG fleet into Ukraine) and Poland’s SPG fleet that has already been gutted in half from SPG deliveries to Ukraine? Or Germany’s 1 trillion euro aid package proposal to Ukraine which nearly won the horrendous AFD party the election?
I presume by… making things? with the 800 billion euros?
Outrageous. Pish-tosh! Argylbargle!
No way dude! But with what industry though?
In all seriousness, Russia was producing 20-30 T-90Ms per month (or 240-360 per year) in 2024 going off of monthly deliveries. The entirety of Europe cannot even match this. The only country I am aware of that can produce this many tanks per month is South Korea and China. This has likely increased since then but due to increased OPSEC, there have been no videos of batches of T-90Ms (or even T-72B3s) being delivered. But missile production has doubled since 2024 so I would not be surprised that tank production has also doubled to 40-60 per month (480-720 per year).
I have been keeping track of T-90M deliveries for a while now:
It was always around 20-30 per month last year. This means Russia produces more tanks than the amount the entire German military has in a single year. And as I stated, this likely has doubled but it is impossible to verify as OPSEC means we have not seen any deliveries on video for half a year now. Europe can’t even produce their own ballistic missiles which have been a game changer in Ukraine as shown by the effectiveness of ATACMS and Iskander-M.
Russia is producing more shells than the entirety of Europe combined who struggles to supply Ukraine with even a million shells (while Russia was producing 3 million per year in 2024).
You must not have been paying attention much, because all the quantity Russia can produce is only managing to hold them in a stale mate.
Except most of the Russian military is not in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine is mostly fought with irregulars who are not given the best of equipment. Why waste good equipment on poorly trained irregulars?
Russia had 170 BTGs fully composed of professional soldiers at the start of 2021 but only sent in 64-69 of them in 2022. Russian BTGs were also sent into Ukraine at half strength. This is similar to what happened during the war in Donbas with BTGs keeping half of their strength at home, again similar to War in Donbas.
The majority of forces in Ukraine are from irregular volunteer formations recruited from regions across Russia. There is a reason why losses for professionals are so low. Aside from these formations, there is also 51st GCAA and 3rd GCAA made up of former Donetsk and Luhansk units. There is also 3rd AC which is a irregular volunteer formation that was formed during the Ukrainian offensive in Kharkov where Russian professionals withdrew under the cover of 3rd AC who was thrown into the meat grinder to stem the tide.
Motorized Rifles: 6,457
VDV: 3,257
Naval Infantry: 1,305
Tank Crew: 1,806
Artillery: 851
Special Forces: 736
Engineering: 291
Navy: 291
VVS: 265
Other: 957
Total: 16,216
Source: MediaZona
For comparison:
US losses from 2003-2005 mainly against insurgents: 5175
Source: Defense Casualty Analysis System
MediaZona also proves that the majority of losses now are volunteers from irregular volunteer formations. These are irregular volunteer formations by the way:
These irregular volunteer formations rely on their local regional government to supply them with weapons and equipment not the federal government. This is well shown by the Tuvan volunteers who come from the poorest region in Russia which shows in their equipment:
They also rely heavily on donations:
Thankfully Chechnya has recently taken on the burden of training and equipping them (why you see them being shipped from Chechnya) as shown here:
Chechnya training and sending more batches of volunteers from across Russia to the SMO zone:
Well they better figure it out real quick, now that they finally woke up. Better late than never.
