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Old 03-17-2024, 08:36 AM   #13429
Itse
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More examples of how there's very little boom in Russia's trade.

Russia now controls only 4% of the global weapons trade. Iran now makes up 60% of Russias international arms exports (and you can bet that in a situation like that Teheran is taking advantage of it's negotiating position), and the mighty Kyrgytzstan is now a top 3 customer for Russia. Even India, worlds largest arms importer and traditionally Russia's biggest customer, has basically just stopped buying Russian weapons altogether.

Whatever you think the reasons are (and there are more reasons than the war in Ukraine, as this is an ongoing trend that started before the war), it's obvious that when serious military people in neutral countries are looking at Russia and the Russo-Ukrainian war and considering how to vote with their hard-earned taxpayer money, they have no faith in Russia.

Whether it's the seemingly poor performance of the Russian weapons systems, lack of trust in Russia as a reliable trading partner, worry about the impact of sanctions, lack of trust in Russia's ability to win the war in anytime soon (which would allow them to produce more weapons for export), or even a general lack of trust in Russia's stability as a country, the end result is that no one wants to make long term, big money commitments with Russia right now.

It's worth noting that this lack of exports is much more of a problem for Russia than it would be for the United States (for example). In the Russian model, the weapons industry makes it's profits almost exclusively out of exports, while selling to the Russian government was quite often done at a loss. Essentially, the Indian military was subsidizing the Russian military and their industry. Those subsidies are now gone, and Russia has to pay for everything out of pocket.

Additionally: No, the West is not short on weapons or the ability to produce weapons. Exports to Ukraine have been only a small percentage of all weapons delivered during this war. It's just that the other are paying customers, while Ukraine is getting handouts. Although in some cases, the West has delivered new systems to countries which have then sent their old system to Ukraine, and there are other good reasons why stuff that was sent elsewhere wouldn't have made sense for Ukraine. Yet the point remains, it's not about production capability.
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