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Peter Todd
pete@petertodd.org
npub1ej49...ndrm
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Peter Todd 6 months ago
From a friend who briefly left Ukraine to attend a wedding: “Since being back in Kyiv after a week of beautiful sleep all I want to do is send 100000s Shaheds at Moscow” 4.5 hours of air raids already tonight... image
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Peter Todd 6 months ago
tl;dr: Russia has been forcing companies to supply military contracts at unprofitable prices, essentially forcing the companies to borrow funds on behalf of the state. Additionally, banks are being forced to give military contractors loans. This lets the Russian government shift the debts to the companies, making the budget appear more balanced than it actually is. “Under Russian law regulating state defense orders, prices for dual-use products are determined by the military. For example, the Defense Ministry-set price for a single diode is 2,600 rubles ($33) per unit, compared to the 3,600 rubles ($46) the company would need to charge to cover manufacturing costs.” Officially about 50% of all Russian tax dollars are going towards war. With stuff like this happening, the real amount is clearly even higher.
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Peter Todd 6 months ago
Aftermath of yet another Russian missile strike on a highschool in Ukraine, close to Odesa. I few months ago I talked to a father in Ukraine who had made the difficult decision to send his teenager to live in the EU. His teen's schooling was being too disrupted by the air raids. The father stayed behind – hopefully his military service means his child has a home to come back to. Where they lived, people mostly ignore air raids because the chance of you actually being hit is pretty low. Especially during the day. Most of the drones get shot down, and there's not too many missiles. But the problem is Russia _intentionally_ targets schools. You are a lot more likely to get hit if you are at a school. So the school system has to respond by rigorously evacuating everyone to bunkers, every single time. If they didn't, a lot more children would be dead. But other than the few places that have been able to build new schools in hardened bunkers, that inevitably disrupts lessons.