Russia is spending surprisingly little on its war on Ukraine

 via Business Insider.com

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has come at a steep geopolitical price and tens of thousands of people have died, but a new analysis by the Economist suggests the country is actually spending a small amount on the war effort.

The direct fiscal cost of the war — spending on soldiers and machines — is estimated to be about 3% of Russia's GDP, or roughly $67 billion a year, according to the report. That figure comes from a comparison of Moscow's pre-invasion spending forecasts for defense and security with what it actually spent.  

By historical standards, the current war pales in comparison. The Soviet Union during World War II, for example, spent about 61% of GDP, and the US at the same time put about 50% of its GDP toward the conflict.

However, 3% is substantially higher than the 0.4% of GDP the Soviet Union spent on its war on Afghanistan.

Here 

So what do we have?

*  Russia is fighting the war on the cheap.  

*  EU/US/NATO has basically emptied it war stocks in order to prop up Ukraine in this fight.

*  To say that the Russians are engaged in peer conflict against Ukraine/EU/US/NATO and still maintaining is not a good sign of the future.  

I missed it although it was in everyone's faces from the start.

The sanctions weren't designed to punish Russia for the invasion. The sanctions WERE designed to put Russia in such a precarious state that they couldn't afford to keep fighting because their economy was in shambles.

The sanctions game is dead.  You run the same play enough times then the other side will work around it.  In this case even our potential friends chose to do a workaround out of concern that what we did to Russia could be done to them.

Our economic war plan failed.

Despite the reports from the battlefield I believe that we've reached the point of permanent stalemate.

My solution?

Freeze the war.  Bring the EU/China/US and Ukraine into a room with Russia and work out a peace plan (left out the UN because that institution is dead and useless).

We've reached a point where the guys on the ground are being ordered to  fight for the sake of fighting.