pmp10

Feb-23 borders but everyone understands it's an unsustainable position. Sanctions already saw reinterpreting and exceptions, they will be hollowed-out if serious economic hurt happens in Europe. But they will not go to Vilnius to start with but Kaliningrad. Carving out that very reasonable extra-territorial highway that Lithuania refused to grant despite EU insistence. Perfectly justified too in their minds, goods transfer problems will only get worse in the coming years and will eventually amount to a 'provocation'. If they pick the timing well there will also be economic crisis, internal disorder, troubles in the Pacific, contested elections and persecuted Russian minority to save.

There is a good write-up about this including projections. Russia may not be willing to completely cut gas deliveries for financial reasons, but I would expect sudden reductions in attempt to sow panic in the market and drive-up prices.

As usual with propaganda numbers it's taken out of context. Ukraine occasionally mentions 700k (most likely all military personel) which for some reason get's routinely rounded up to 1 milion. Assuming simple 4:1 support personel to combat soldiers ratio that makes roughly 150k troops. So presumably some 30% more than Russians, but chances are they are struggling much more with equipment.

It's a bit of everything without much in the way of details. It covers arms deliveries, transition to NATO artillery, coalition building, UK assistance, Ukrainian revolutions and negotiating with Russians. Certainly no details on any offensive plans.

Tomorrow Nord Stream 1 is getting shut down for scheduled maintenance Germany must be concerned as just recently it pressured Canada to ignore sanctions and return the Gasprom turbine Successfully too it seems.

Russian economy to do better than expected. If this is remotely accurate a next war is nigh inevitable.

A short report was published by RUSI on what Ukraine would need to stay in the fight. TLDR: More advanced weaponry, munitions and even training. And maybe the most important bit:

Interesting bit of info from NATO summit - Ukraine was supposedly provided with 600 tanks. Deliveries we know of don't even come up to 300 so I wonder if everyone missed a massive donation. Or maybe they are just confusing IFVs and tanks again.

It's pointless to look for financial profit in imperial logic. All the captured territory, industry, resources and population don't mean much compared to the importance of Russian self-perception.

Ukrainians reject peace at the cost of territory 80% won't even concede Crimea even at this point.

A roundabout way of saying it is inevitable. US likely knows best what it would take and so far weapon deliveries are around 10-30% of Ukrainian expectations. I bet the decision of 'no' has already been made.

Europe wasn't able to resist paying in rubles but somehow will effectively enforce price-caps. Even if this could be agreed upon in the EU (and the price of getting Hungary on-board would be considerable) Russia will just cut-off gas earlier then expected.

Russia is now officially in foreign debt default Might be another point of long-term economic damage but shouldn't change much as far as war goes.

Precisely. With Ukrainian export largely blocked, a self-sanctioning ban on Russian's part could cause hunger in Africa and spark more migration crisis in the EU. Maybe even more Arab springs which would disrupt fossil fuel production there.

Except the natural gas is still flowing and grain is still being exported. Russia still has options to increase the costs.

That's a brave prediction. Sanctions lifting will likely be the only leverage Ukraine gets come negotiations time.

Analyst predictions ranged from minimum of 3 years to well over a decade. It would greatly depend on economic situation and effectiveness of technological sanctions.

Scholz, Macron and Draghi visit Kiev to support Ukrainian EU candidacy Coincidently the Russian gas flow to Germany is almost halved.

If memory serves the average European owns a car and will definitely be hit by rising fuel prices. And consider rising food prices in poorer eastern European countries. Your median Estonian household was already spending 20% of income getting fed and now is now seeing 20% price hikes in foodstuffs. It's little consolation that if we match them up with unaffected Irish the average looks fine.

Might be inevitable the way things are going. And maybe it's not right for us to use Ukraine just to buy time. You seem convinced that Putin wields absolute power and can get Russians to do anything. I think having sacrificed economy for greatness there will be serious upheaval if he fails to deliver. They would but as we recently learned they have just ran out of shells for their artillery. And that is despite sourcing plenty from stocks of eastern European countries. 3 months of fighting seems about what they could support by themselves. Debatable but you could arm them seriously enough to stalemate Russia. Of course this also means supporting Ukraine financially over a long war of attrition. The problem with that approach being in that support in EU is not there. I don't think US will want to do this with eastern Europe alone, especially after all the talk of rebuilding alliances.

Except that without western support Ukraine cannot carry-on fighting. With Ukraine and Russia being effectively out of options this makes the collective west the most responsible party for the future outcome of this war. I don't see why it can't be both. You just need to think of Ukrainians as expendable and their position as hopeless. There are suspicions that Ukraine will be kept on a lifeline just to inflict as much damage as possible before they are forced to surrender.

Candidate status at this time would be a strong message to keep on fighting. The question if this is a fight to the last Ukrainian just to punish Russia is still open.

European Commission will recommend Ukraine for EU candidate status I wonder if western Europe will want to risk it.

They well know that nothing in this range will be happening. It's like the HIMARS situation - they said 40 would be enough to slow-down the Russians and so will receive 4.

Practically all remaining customers admitted it in various press releases. You can find all of them with key weasel words of 'following EC recommendation and paying in Euros'. They know full well that they are crediting a new ruble account not foreseen in their contracts.