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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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Russians cannot pick up bodies, there are too many drones attacking retrieval teams, so our corpses rot in the fields. This may affect exchange rates.

Not only have they been criticized by NATO and European leaders for this, but Chinese firms have been sanctioned. Reporting from last fall indicates that Russia actually established a facility to build military drones in China

Kaja Kallas

Typical Baltic yapping. These people are too used to American backing and have failed to become cognizant of their weak position. There are hundreds of different attempts by both sides, so all kinds of things happen, but I know that it's actually hard for Russia to procure even components in China right now, regiments have to use drones very prudently, while Ukrainians spam them by the thousand, and seem to have no issues in procurement. But China itself doesn't need to rely on these garage techniques and could make better loitering munitions by the million; with actual support, Ukraine would fall in a few weeks, and Estonia probably too. I almost wish to see it happen because racist arrogance of peoples incapable of defending themselves inherently begs for punishment. Morally though, I have to support the status quo to the detriment of my people.

The Americans have done some saber-rattling

Americans are delusional as well if they don't understand how much the credibility of their defense commitments has suffered from Trump and Vance's posturing with regards to Denmark. This has nothing to do with withdrawing some US troops or asking for higher defense spend by other NATO members, though this part doesn't help either (and there are many more parts).

Europe is not entirely deindustrialized, they can make their own drones, in addition to Chinese-Ukrainian ones.

Typical Baltic yapping.

Is Germany considered a Baltic state now?

regiments have to use drones very prudently, while Ukrainians spam them by the thousand, and seem to have no issues in procurement.

This is a fairly common perception in wartime that needs have no bearing on actual procurement numbers.

Americans are delusional as well if they don't understand how much the credibility of their defense commitments has suffered from Trump and Vance's posturing with regards to Denmark.

Perhaps, but that has no bearing on whether or not there are still American troops in Europe - and there are, tens of thousands of them. One of the linked articles said there were about 100,000 Americans in Europe - that's larger than the entire German army.

Europe is not entirely deindustrialized, they can make their own drones, in addition to Chinese-Ukrainian ones.

I believe this is technically true, yes.

Is Germany considered a Baltic state now?

I mean the first link. But Annalena Baerbock is even worse than Baltic.

that needs have no bearing on actual procurement numbers.

So do you have numbers? I consulted with a person who does procurement for Russian troops, the impression there is that Ukraine out-drones us by at least 2x in terms of drones that are actually combat-capable and not just advance the counter for the responsible bureaucrat, sitting in some warehouse.

So do you have numbers?

Not any recent. But the older numbers I have seen or recall tended to indicate either parity or a Russian advantage - maybe with exceptions were Ukraine had a localized advantage at a certain front for a time. There was much moaning about China providing Russia with many more drones than Ukraine. If Ukraine has surpassed Russia in drone deployment I would sort of have expected to hear about it, although I don't know any Russian procurement officials.

Now, with all that being said - didn't Russia ration arms in periods leading up to offensives in the past? I would not be surprised if they were stockpiling drones for an offensive. But who knows.

If China is actually weaning Russia off of drones then I think they are making a hubristic mistake. Or, possibly more likely, they actually are stung by European whining about their assistance with China and are attempting to do an about face. Which would be interesting if true - perhaps they are rattled by 20000000% tariffs after all.

If China is actually weaning Russia off of drones then I think they are making a hubristic mistake.

It's not strategic. Factories that sell to Europe want to keep selling. The most powerful move the EU could do would be to build a domestic Russiatech Drone industries and rrun it on the same components as RU.