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And Zelensky has stated countless times that he and Ukraine, will not accept anything less than complete withdrawal of all Russian forces from sovereign Ukrainian soil.Putin will claim he will accept nothing less than 100% of Ukraine and the destruction of NATO.
Very informative.To derail the thread temporarily - it's amazingly difficult to determine with any accuracy just what proportion of "budget" went to the military at any time during the existence of the USSR. My background is in economic history and I find the ins and outs of the arguments about the details of Soviet military spending a fascinating subject.
US intelligence assessments of military spending in the USSR during the mid 1980s ranged from low end figures in the range of 12-15% of GDP, mid range estimates of 17-24% and upper range estimates in the 30-38% range. In 1985, spending in then current US dollars was estimated at anywhere as low as $175 billion all the way up to about $330 billion.
From the mid 1970s and into the tail end of the 1980s, the CIA and DIA were basically at loggerheads with academics and economists about how to properly estimate the size of the Soviet economy and what the actual level of spending was that they were lavishing on the military. The intelligence agencies generally gave quite low GNP estimates but figured that military spending was 50% of the state budget, or a little more. The academics were a bit more varied, their GNP estimates had a much greater range (as little as 1/2 of that of the intelligent agencies to 3x as much) and their estimates of military spending were generally much more conservative. However, there was also some very outspoken academics who thought the CIA/DIA methodoligies were underestimating Soviet GNP and military spending.
If anyone feels like chasing some odd rabbits down weird holes:
EDIT: For anyone that reads Russian (or has a good machine translator they like), here's some Russian estimates about defense spending:
I agree. Soviet economical and other statistics remain the field for discussions and various interpretations.To derail the thread temporarily - it's amazingly difficult to determine with any accuracy just what proportion of "budget" went to the military at any time during the existence of the USSR. My background is in economic history and I find the ins and outs of the arguments about the details of Soviet military spending a fascinating subject.
US intelligence assessments of military spending in the USSR during the mid 1980s ranged from low end figures in the range of 12-15% of GDP, mid range estimates of 17-24% and upper range estimates in the 30-38% range. In 1985, spending in then current US dollars was estimated at anywhere as low as $175 billion all the way up to about $330 billion.
From the mid 1970s and into the tail end of the 1980s, the CIA and DIA were basically at loggerheads with academics and economists about how to properly estimate the size of the Soviet economy and what the actual level of spending was that they were lavishing on the military. The intelligence agencies generally gave quite low GNP estimates but figured that military spending was 50% of the state budget, or a little more. The academics were a bit more varied, their GNP estimates had a much greater range (as little as 1/2 of that of the intelligent agencies to 3x as much) and their estimates of military spending were generally much more conservative. However, there was also some very outspoken academics who thought the CIA/DIA methodoligies were underestimating Soviet GNP and military spending.
If anyone feels like chasing some odd rabbits down weird holes:
EDIT: For anyone that reads Russian (or has a good machine translator they like), here's some Russian estimates about defense spending:
Isn't that the city Czar Nickolas and his family was exiled to, and then murdered there.?By the way, for what it's worth, EKB stands for Ekaterinburg (Yekaterinburg/Екатеринбург), which is a city in Russia.