Hardly anyone is 'winner' here.
China has been a big winner, it can now get cheap energy and it gets to set Russia whatever conditions it pleases. Russia is now utterly dependent on China for many imports.
Russia itself has been the biggest loser. Massive budget deficits, massive inflation. 1M of its smartest people have moved abroad. 1M Russian casualties in the war. Demographics and economy are disastrous.
That and Russia is now a pariah state. No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.
Russians and foreigners travelling to Russia regularly blog live.
Everyone there is doing fine.
The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
> Everyone there is doing fine.
As long as they don't say anything critical against the regime. Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243). Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder.
> The world order is changing to a level you won't believe - Russia, Venezuela were reported by WSJ or similar to even be running journalist schools in Africa to break the media control there by western media brands.
Yes, Russia, the known beacon of journalistic freedom. How many journalists have been murdered by the regime?
The fact that those Wikipedia sections / articles exist is very telling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attacks_on_journalists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta#Deaths_and_attac...
> media control there by western media brands.
Anyone blindly lumping together all "western" media is not to be taken seriously. Especially when comparing with fucking Russia of all places. You can find plenty of disagreements in various "western" media (consider The Guardian vs Financial Times vs Le Figaro vs Le Monde vs NY Times vs Washington Post). Nobody dares contradict the official line in Russia, even calling the war a war, or they get tortured and murdered.
> Or have the misfortune of flying in/around Russia while morons are at the trigger of surface to air missiles (cf. MH17 and Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243)
Chances for a civilian to die from war causes and gun violence combined in Russia are currently significantly lower than chances for American to die from gun violence.
> Or have the misfortune of getting conscripted to die in the meat grinder.
Russia is currently recruiting contractors among conscripts and criminals. It’s not impossible to be sent to war illegally, but significant majority went there willingly (I have no idea why idiots arrested for drug possession choose to go to meat grinder, but they do it).
Overall, in most places there it’s safe enough to think about something else than how not to be killed. People are really doing fine (when internet works - it’s been shitty recently for air defense reasons).
> Everyone there is doing fine
Lmao, food prices skyrocketed, quality plummeted, interest rates are at record highs, budget deficit. Totally doing fine, comrade.
>Everyone there is doing fine.
And if you say somebody doing badly, you will get 10 years in gulag.
I mostly agree, except the pariah state part.
Russia is hedging that the "pariah state" label will wear off pretty quickly. The current US government has as recently as March floated the idea of normalising business ties, and constantly flip-flops it's position.
However, the biggest loser has definitely been Europe (including Britain). High energy prices have cascaded the cost of living crisis, which in turn has led to a rightward shift in politics. As a continent, we are unprepared for any sort of defence, having used the US as a backstop for years and now the US constantly toys with the idea of dropping NATO support. Alone, we don't have enough manpower, ammunition, and we haven't been keeping up with the evolution of modern warfare (drones and related technology) taking place in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
If you think Europe is the biggest loser, you need to dig a bit deeper on the state of Russia... I might be wrong, but there's no recovery from this blunder for many, many years - if it manages to stay a Federation, that's yet to be seen, but my guess is China will take a chunk out of Russia eventually.
Remember Russia in 3 years had:
- 1 Military coup;
- Lost 50% of the Black Sea Fleet and it's now unusable;
- 1.000.000+ casualties (dead and severely wounded)
- Mass exodus of qualified young people;
- Lost Military allies from CSTO and rendered the alliance into a joke;
- Completely lost presence in the Middle East (I don't see how they will recover from it);
- Losing influence in neighboring countries;
The list goes on, like demographic collapse, etc
So, I find it hard to see Europe as the loser here; at worst, Europe is doing "ok".
Europe's entire future is on the line right now. Forget many years..
Higher energy prices, and increased defence spending (from a low starting point) to meet the new US governments requirements are exacerbating the cost of living crisis continent wide. Europe already wasn't innovating, and is now losing the small amount of industry it does have, to energy prices, to China's entry into EV production, and EU regulation. The demands to spend more on our own defence by the US administration comes from a US administration which has flirted with the idea of not even defending NATO.
The cost of living crisis, coupled with "AI" (LLM) is hollowing out an already pretty hollow service economy across Europe, and is creating disillusionment which is causing Europeans to shift to either extreme side of the political spectrum. In my country, the UK, Reform, a politically inept and untested party is currently leading in the polls for the next election. This party, as well as many like it in Europe, is even leading in the polls despite well known Russian political influence in them.
On top of this, the demographic crisis, while not made worse by tons of dead men sent off to war and exodus, is still affecting Europe and the only reason it isn't notable to many people is due to immigration filling the gaps. Immigration, which is lowering wages and in many peoples eyes, changing their cultural landscape for the worse, increasing their likelihood in voting for fringe political parties.
As much as Russia might lose from this war, they'll probably rebuild their army to a higher degree than European forces are right now. We hear constantly about ammunition and weapons shortages across Europe, failure to meet requirements for what Ukraine needs to fight back, and a general unwillingness from the population to even fight. Russia has oil, gas, and mineral wealth, which will always be of importance to Europe whenever this war does end. Europe is so reliant, that whatever words are spoken, the EU has spent more on Russian energy than it has sent in aid to Ukraine.
> No one is going to invest there for a very long time after what Russia did.
Many large businesses have returned to Russia. "No one is going to invest" is a naive childish thinking. They outperformed growth expectations in 2024, unemployment rate dropped from 5.8% in 2020 to 2.3% in 2025. GDP is surging, insane tech and energy investments from China. Plus Russia has a very low public debt. All in all, their economy is pretty resilient despite what they say in the mainstream media.
> unemployment rate dropped from 5.8% in 2020 to 2.3% in 2025
Because a massive amount of men were conscripted?
> GDP is surging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Spending ~30% of the country's budget on military hardware that will get blown up might look good, GDP wise, but is utterly unproductive.
> Because a massive amount of men were conscripted?
That's an emotional oversimplification. Unemployment fell not because of conscription, but due to massive import substitution and rising labor demand in construction, logistics and manufacturing.
Despite sanctions, Russia's ruble-adjusted budget deficit remains manageable, and the trade balance is strong due to record energy exports. Military spending has driven industrial revitalization. Factories reopened, supply chains revamped and domestic R&D expanded.
Whether you agree with the morality or not, economically it’s not just money burned. It has multiplier effects: jobs, tech development and regional growth. Dismissing that is lazy.
I think before the invasion of Ukraine the chance of China regaining Vladivostok would have been almost zero.
Completely unthinkable.
Now Russia is so dependant on China that they could just ask nicely for it back and Russia would have to hand it over without China firing a shot.
China is getting very long-term leases on large swaths of territory in the Far East. There is officially no exterritoriality, yet with increasing number of Chinese people there while Russian population there is minuscule (and even that is mostly not ethnically Russians, instead it is the local ethnicities whose history with China is much longer than with Russia), remoteness of Moscow and Russian bureaucrats' total corruption - there is no need for the official declaration. So, while today China still can't ask for Vladivostok and other "historically Chinese territories" (according to the modern Chinese official maps), tomorrow they wouldn't even have to.
Too much propoganda results in reactions like this. Reality is that Russia is fine and dealing with relatively minor issues. Also this war as big as it looks in the west, is nothing compared to ww2 where 10s of millions died in massive battles. They survived. Thats what we russians have always done. Survive.
Yea, Russia has learned a lesson at a very high cost of human lives and materiel.
If there was any real will left in EU people, Ukraine would wipe Russia off the map (at least the putinesque remnants), it will happen anyway, but we'd rather just expend vastly more money and vastly more humans and time in the process.
Considering the current rate of inflation, switching the EU economies to war production would save so much money and lives, and bring down prices.
Russia has 1 million in casualties and has failed to capture Ukraine. You really think you can claim it was a "win" because now all their experienced soldiers are dead and their strategy has been reduced to "run towards the enemy and hopefully some of you won't be killed and thus we can capture another field"?
With more than 1.2M dead or out of service injured, Russia is spent. It's why North Korean troops had to be deployed.
All they can effectivley do, until they grow new soldiers, is defense.
Sure they can bomb from afar. But even of they take the Ukraine now, they have no force to hold it with.
> And the Russian military has gained real battle tested knowledge.
Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones. Oh, and at the cost of almost all trained troops and modern equipment. Not a very good deal.
> It's been a disaster for the west. The measure of success was Russia weakened and ideally Putin weakened or gone. And instead Russia have shrugged off the sanctions, and Putin is much stronger.
Russia started the war, they are the ones who need to win it. The fact that they are stalled is a win for Ukraine, who are the ones trying to survive. The Russian economy is in shambles (cf. the Broken window fallacy), as are their army, navy and air force. It will take them decades to rearm back to the same level. Putin isn't stronger, really. He entered a quagmire of a war he cannot back out of (will appear weak) nor can he actually win in any way. He's stuck.
> It's also brought Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and wider Brics together.
Are you sure you understand what BRICS is? Everyone using Russia's predicament to get cheap natural resources doesn't mean that e.g. Brazil or India are closer to Russia...
>Yes, on using human wave attacks, trenches, and cheap Iranian drones.
This war is the most recorded in human history. Can you share some videos of these Russian human wave attacks? Can you describe the objective delineating criteria between a normal attack by an infantry battalion or regiment, and a "human wave" attack? Regarding trenches and "cheap" Iranian drones.....should the Russians NOT practice basic principles of force protection/use of fortifications? Should they NOT leverage novel cost-effective munitions to wage war and instead use massively-expensive gold-plated equipment? How is that working out for the US and allies, who can't produce more than ~600 Patriot missiles per year at a cost of ~$4M per missile.....meanwhile Russia is throwing 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine every few days....
BTW, I recommend these vids about "human waves":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdASPCBHIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdASPCBHIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F4akL1AS5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F4akL1AS5w
>cheap Iranian drones
You say "cheap" like it's a bad thing.
Maybe if Ruzzia where the logic is always reversed
Putin caused
1 NATO to get 2 new members, gg Putin
2 NATO to invest more in weapons, gg Putin
3 killed or wounded 1 million Russians while the population was already in decline and I would bet the birth rate is decreasing because of the war
4 economy is fucked, Gazprom reported first time ever no proffits, interests rates increased
5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands
6 Ruzzian weapon exports are fucked
7 Ruzzian army is a joke asx strength now, and the people are seen as low life orcs, killing, raping, torturing creatures
8 Kremlin is a joke, from 3 day operation to 3+ years, people flying from windows, politicians unable to admit a drone hit happened and claiming is debbry,
9 Putin pulled his secret weapons the donkeys after 3 years of keeping them hidden and failed to ado any significant progress
10 Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km
11 I can see this Zeds complaining about the West decadence while using iPHone, driving German cars and wearing expensive wtches (even Putin can't stand to put his ass on a Ruzzian car)
How is Ruzzia stronger?
The only way I could think a Zed would claim this is something like "Zed eats excrements daily for an year and after barely surviving this he claims he is stronger because someone in the West would die if he eat so much excrements, the Zed not realizing that the solution is to execute the tzar and stop eating excrements.
Any Russian (not Ruzzian) can be honest and admit that this is not going according to the plan, Putin tried to repeat the Crimean invasion, his KGB friends told him that Ukrainians will receive the Zeds with flowers , the informations were wrong and Putin seems to be incapable to stop the disaster and keep his throne so he is willing to sacrifice the people and the empire just to keep is throne.
>5 the idiots managed to hit again a civilian airplane, and i read recently Azerbajan and Armenia are cooperating to get rid of Ruzzians on their lands
That's one way to get nominated for Nobel peace prize.
> Ruzzia advances in Ukraine slower then a snail, check the numbers. and there are more than 1000 Ruz casualties for square km
Net Russian gains in June 2025 were 572 km^2.* In order for your statement to hold true, Russia would have suffered over half a million casualties in June alone. Where is your evidence to support such an assertion?
* https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1lpspnu/ru_pov_territory_change_statistics_for_june_2025/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1lpspn...
Russia has been a winner by basically no metric other than land and being a shit neighbor.
And even land cost them more in soldiers more than the pre-war population that lived there; it's literally a special grave digging operation. Soviet stockpiles of armor are basically depleted; now it's the buggy and moped meta. They've completely failed to support their supposed allies (i.e. Assad, Iran, Armenia). A good chunk of their strategic aviation fleet is gone. Car bombings of generals continue all over Russia and occupied territories, which brings the question, will it even stop if they "win"? They've finally been demoted from being an aircraft carrier operating nation. Their frozen assets are literally killing Russian soldiers. National wealth fund has ~20-30% of the prewar assets. Something similar in gold reserves. Interest rates are beyond effed, and recruits are largely joining for the money needed in the terrible economy caused by Putin himself. Who annexed 4 oblasts only to legally deploy the 18 year olds Putin promised not to deploy in Ukraine (as it's no longer Ukraine in Russian law). Non-military industrial output is on a steady decline. Price capping on bread. Fossil fuel output at minimums, and with low prices.
So what is Russia winning at?
I think your assessment is only partially correct.
The Europeans are getting their act together and increasing their cooperation and defense spending.
Sweden and Finland joined NATO, placed large defense orders and started integrating with the British.
France has started talking about expanding its nuclear arsenal to cover the defense needs of the entire continent.
While the Russian military has gained tremendous military experience, they have lost huge amounts of top tier kit.
They are now essentially dependent on China.
No one came to aid Iran during the Israeli air campaign, the Russians were too busy and the Chinese didn't care enough.
The main winner has clearly been China, but the US and the EU have not really lost anything. If anything everyone that is not a party to the war is coming of a bit stronger.
Sure thing comerade, they even have a submarine missile cruiser.