[billy99k]

Do you really think after years of crushing defeats in battle and sanctions, that they have the money or soldiers to fight the EU? If they did, they would have taken over Ukraine by now.

Now if China gets involved? It's a different story.

[DocTomoe]

It's Schroedinger's Red Army: Too incompetent and weak to conquer a third-rate power, but prepared and willing o attack NATO-coordinated Western Europe any day now.

Such is propaganda: You need to keep the population in fear so they will follow your policies.

[Cthulhu_]

If China gets involved directly (e.g. not through supplies) then the conflict will escalate; no party wants to escalate this, and for years now this has been a tight-rope proxy war of sorts, where Europe and the US try to support Ukraine as much as possible without being directly involved. Likewise, Russia has been getting supplies and people from their allies.

[red-iron-pine]

the key difference is that China and Russia have direct borders and land beefs; they may well be rivals, but it's easy for China to feed them tech and learn from their mistakes while getting a serious cut (25% or more) on oil.

discount at the gas station while a potential rival hollows itself out and turns into the Canada of China -- a mostly empty resource hub that follows your lead

[immibis]

They don't need money or soldiers, but drones.

[victorbjorklund]

How would they get drones without money or soldiers?

[aduwah]

Oil still flowing

[Y-bar]

Yup.

China, Turkey, and India are main buyers of Russian oil at the moment: https://energyandcleanair.org/october-2025-monthly-analysis-...

[victorbjorklund]

So money? And oil is down a lot. They even have fuel shortages in Russia. They have to import fuel.

[kakacik]

Don't underestimate lack if willingness of EU folks to see their dead, or have hospitals or kindergardens bombed by russians on purpose, just like they routinely do in Ukraine. Maybe it can bring on more resistance but I wouldn't hold my breath, european population right now is weak.

Also russia has firm footing in EU politics already - for example every single far right group is parroting russian propaganda even when directly aimed against given country. It took decades to build to sow division in whole EU and they are using it now to their fullest.

[EDIT] Gotta love the downvotes, I am just describing what I see across whole EU including my own country. Would love some constructive feedback but this is clearly a touchy topic for many folks

[gambiting]

If you read what top generals in various countries in the EU are saying(especially on the East side), their main concern is that Russia is making thousands of brand new tanks, cannons, support vehicles......and they are all going into storage. Very few are actually getting sent to Ukraine. If these guys are saying that large scale conflict with Russia seems almost inevitable within few years.....what qualifications do I have to disagree with them? Obviously I don't want this to be true - far from it.

[pdabbadabba]

I’ve never heard anyone say this. Source?

[Cthulhu_]

I'm also curious, why would Russia continue to send thousands to their deaths while holding back supplies and stuff? Unless it's intentional to appear weaker than they are.

But I don't see how that would work, unless the US is intentionally witholding intel from their allies - the US, since the invention of spaceflight, has had spy sattelites trained at Russia and they would see large accumulations and transports of tanks and tank parts.

[gambiting]

Ok I spent the last hour looking for this interview and I honestly can't find it - the closest I can get to the source is this article saying that Russia is building a strategic reserve of tanks:

https://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7%2C114881%2C3206584...

But it's not the one I read which was literally a general saying "they are building tanks and not sending them to the front - why if not to fight with NATO eventually".

[pdabbadabba]

Thanks. This is useful (in English translation):

> Russian factories are working at full speed, producing new tanks and repairing those that have been dusty for years," writes "Le Figaro". The French daily refers to its sources and data from independent study groups. On the other hand, experts also point to the fact that this year the losses of the Russians have decreased - this year it was only 200 tanks. According to the newspaper, this may be due to the fact that the participation of these vehicles in the fighting at the front has been reduced. This, in turn, is the result of greater use of drones.

This actually strikes me as fairly plausible: it suggests that Russia has decided that tanks are not ideally suited for the current drone war in Ukraine. So they're continuing to ramp up production, but aren't (at this point) sending them to the front.

This doesn't necessarily mean that they have a long-term plan to invade NATO, however. I can think of many other scenarios where it would be in Russia's strategic interest to have a large modernized tank force in reserve.