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Comment by wffurr | Hacker News Reader

Not much there, just a chart implying that Ukraine’s military spending is about 20% of Russia’s, after adjusting for some “military purchasing power parity” formula, rather than 10% as numbers might suggest.

It doesn’t go as deep as trying to estimate or break out Russia’s spending on nuclear weapons vs conventional forces, which would narrow the gap even further.

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Perhaps also that Ukraine would be leveraging everything that's available to them, but Russia has to hold back somewhat to keep military capabilities in place elsewhere.

Not to mention Russian spending on hypersonics and naval assets which are unlikely to be useful in Ukraine.

The Russian navy was heavily involved early in the war by launching cruise missiles and then conducting an amphibious assault. Less useful for an ongoing occupation, though.

Stand-off weapons like cruise middles may not matter in door to door fighting.

The radars and missile sites they destroy may not matter if nato provides free replacements.

NATO isn't going to provide any sophisticated replacement weapons like large guided missiles or radars. Too likely to be captured and fall into Russian hands.

Not much of a loss on 20 year old gear. Or newer gear which is widely deployed or exported.

This, and also Russian troops are now in enemy territory where a couple RPGs that costs a fraction of a fraction of a tank can score a win against it.

The Russian tank losses seem to be considerable and are hampering their progress (you can't gain territory without tank support).

Several T-80's with their turrets blown off were shown, probably defeated with Javelin missiles provided to the Ukrainians by the West.

Reportedly it’s a bit warmer than they anticipated. Tanks have an easier time on frozen ground, or they get stuck.

Turrets blown off is usually because the ammo inside the tank explodes after a hit pierces armor.

Or hit from above like with the top attack profile of the Javelin.

Is the maintenance of the nuclear stockpile likely to be a significant part of the Russian military's budget? Some quick googling indicates the US military's nuclear forces amount to about 7 percent of the overall defense budget.[1]

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57240

Well, we both have about the same size nuclear arsenals, while the US’ military budget is 10x more than Russia’s. In other words, we spend almost as much just maintaining our arsenal as they do their entire military budget. Again, same size arsenals - so yes, I’d say it’s probably a pretty huge proportion of their spending.

Or how much of the budget is actually being pocketed by politicians & generals. (although both countries are very high on the corruption index, so might be a tie there)

On the contrary I wouldn't be surprised if the Russian defense industry is more effective (ratio result/spending) than the US one

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