>>0871

>I know how oligarchies differ

No, you don't. Let's go back to the 2000s for a second. When a young pro-European liberal named Putin assumed the presidency. In those dark years, a group of oligarchs, who are either no longer alive or have fled abroad with nothing, after the president took office, walked into Putin's office in the Kremlin without knocking and said that he was a nobody here and if they wanted to, they would throw him out of that office, so he should be more cooperative. Putin said it himself, it's not my fantasy. Of course, with such people it is impossible to build a strong country, which Putin wanted to build, and he, as a former FSB chief, a man accustomed to discipline, did not like such tactlessness. And we know how it ended. Putin is the winner of oligarchs in the first and only oligarchic war in Russia, and maybe in the world history. Some accidentally died, some ran away, but what happened to the remaining oligarchs? First of all, according to Putin, there was an unspoken agreement with them - they do not get involved in politics, actively cooperate with the authorities and do not take their business abroad, or the Russian Federation will reconsider the results of privatization of their Soviet property. Secondly, I don't know what analogy to give you, the closest one is probably the MEFO bills of Hitler's Germany, of course it is not the same, but the purpose is the same: not to give the enemy an idea of the real state of the economy and spending on projects. This role is performed by the FSB-controlled oligarchs. The Americans know about it, because they are not stupid, but they do not know on what scale it is happening - and this is where this system reaches its essence. No one remembers this, but I do: Barack Obama said in 2014 that US sanctions for actions in Ukraine tore Russia's economy to shreds, but today 10 years later we know that this man is either a liar like most US politicians, or the CIA gave him prematurely false information.

>Hey those guys all volunteered and they get paid almost as much as me!

Oh lol. They spend 100 times less than you do. Stop converting rubles into other currencies and thinking you're an economist, instead you should multiply the result by the PPP GDP coefficient (I forgot what the value is, look it up yourself if you're interested). 2100 bucks in Britain is a miserable existence of a beggar, in Russia you can live like a king for a few months on it. And 2100 bucks is the minimum basic salary of a soldier carrying boxes of ammunition in a war zone. The average is up to 7000 if you translate it into dollars without multiplying it by coefficients. Plus you are immediately given from 2 to 5 million rubles, depending on the region. With 5 million you can build a 200-square-meter house, with 2 million you can buy a two-room apartment in the provinces. Also, Russia does not participate or almost does not participate in the Western economy, which is why you should not pull it there in your calculations.

> T-55s

It was seen only before the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023. It was covered with modern armor and made into a defensive point of the last frontier. It did not take part in the fighting, because we know how their counteroffensive ended. Here the Russian army reinsured without considering the opinion of redditors and 4chaners, so I praise them.

Also don't forget how your forums laughed at the ship frigate weapons put on the unified MTLB platform, which was also used as a defensive point buried in tank trenches in some low priority areas, it also actively participated in the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. It was a terrible blow to all the haters, which everyone hurriedly forgot about in a second.

I hope there's enough text here to keep you from getting bored.