sauce? worldometer disagrees with you

Russia about Ukraine in 2022: Ukraine is really just part of Russia.

Ukraine about Russia in 2026: Russia is really just Ukraine’s drone testing range.

Isn’t that already happening, to varying degrees?

Lots of data is being collected, analysed, and published by various parties about how this or that policy is affecting things, but said research is also easily subverted by talking heads to cherry-pick their favoured points, or just generally drowned under inconsequential noise.

It’s kind of why “I did my research” is a meme about stuff like antivaxxers sticking horse medicine up their butts instead of representing some sort of enlightened political decisions makers.