Four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy is showing clear signs of structural exhaustion. The contours of a genuine economic endgame are coming into view for Russia. This is the finding of a new Kiel Report published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.
I specifically said ballistic missile attacks, which have gone up drastically
It’s not quite “more every week”; the numbers seem to be roughly stable since April. Of course it’s still a lot.
One question that occurs to me is whether they can actually sustain this. Missiles aren’t that cheap or fast to produce so it’s possible that they’re throwing out more than they can sustain in an attempt to wear down Ukraine at the last moment.
I’m not an expert on the weapon systems involved so maybe I’m way off base.
From a previous comment, I understand that they are being forced to use the significantly more expensive ballistic missiles, which use up fuel they can’t afford to use, specifically because their drone success ratio is so far down lately.
All other military options they have are removed: artillery, infantry and armor get killed by drones. Russian drones get shot down before reaching target. They are hoping they can force a better settlement with the current terror bombings before they run out of fuel entirely
Let’s hope that’s the case, but they have surely been benefitting off the fact that Ukraine’s anti-missile defences are down