Ukraine Conflict - "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

[pmp10]

Reportedly Italy and Germany will fulfill Putin's demand and pay for gas in rubles.
The whole economic war on Russia is not showing great results so far. 

[Darkpriest]

4 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Reportedly Italy and Germany will fulfill Putin's demand and pay for gas in rubles.
The whole economic war on Russia is not showing great results so far. 

If this will last until Autumn, and weather will continue to decimate food production on top of Ukraine war plus energy prices will start skyrocketing due to China waking up amd OPEC not giving a damn about those leftist/environmentals, you can bet that EU will backtrack everything, unless we aim for our own Arab Spring in EU. 

Seems already France, Italy and Germany are in some talks on how to close this diplomatically. 

[pmp10]

46 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Seems already France, Italy and Germany are in some talks on how to close this diplomatically. 

How?
I don't think they have any stick to force Ukraine into conceding lost ground.
I guess they could make some EU reconstruction package conditional, but that would meet political backlash. 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, pmp10 said:

Reportedly Italy and Germany will fulfill Putin's demand and pay for gas in rubles.
The whole economic war on Russia is not showing great results so far. 

Sanctions take time, 12-24 months in the case of Russia

Lets see the Russian first quarter economic data  before we say " no results " but whats more important than the sanctions is the economic sustainability of the EU. If they need to pay for gas in Rubles they must

The broader sanctions will stay in place and this is long-term game 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

If this will last until Autumn, and weather will continue to decimate food production on top of Ukraine war plus energy prices will start skyrocketing due to China waking up amd OPEC not giving a damn about those leftist/environmentals, you can bet that EU will backtrack everything, unless we aim for our own Arab Spring in EU. 

Seems already France, Italy and Germany are in some talks on how to close this diplomatically. 

" arab spring in the EU " 

When I see one person in the EU setting themselves on fire and dying in the most agonizing way because of their Democratic , first world lifestyle I will believe you

Internet and SM  outrage and protests are not anything like the reasons for what  started the Arab Spring 

Edited May 18, 2022 by BruceVC

[Darkpriest]

2 hours ago, pmp10 said:

How?
I don't think they have any stick to force Ukraine into conceding lost ground.
I guess they could make some EU reconstruction package conditional, but that would meet political backlash. 

Lets wait until September. We can discuss then.

[kanisatha]

4 hours ago, pmp10 said:

How?
I don't think they have any stick to force Ukraine into conceding lost ground.
I guess they could make some EU reconstruction package conditional, but that would meet political backlash. 

And they shouldn't have any such stick. Will France or Italy or Germany give up any of their territory to an invader?

[Lexx]

There's talk about russia giving mariupol to the kadyrov people.

[Zoraptor]

Chechens, what are they going to do with Mariupol? It's not like the Uighurs moving into Jisr al Shugour in Syria; they literally have nowhere else to go. To be blunt that reeks of pretty blatant propaganda.

Speaking of Mariupol since it's dropped out of the headlines, the surrenders there are ongoing for a third day. As of yesterday Russia was saying ~1000 and as of today DPR was saying 1700. 1700 would be towards the upper limit of what I expected, and may actually mean the 2000 claimed to be there is accurate- or it may be an inflated propaganda POW number to match an inflated Ukrainian number. The 1000 seems likely to be accurate though, given the count of buses and the 'evacuees' being uninjured so not taking up so much space. Also, no general prisoner swap deal was made* and the surrender was unconditional. Which is not overly surprising, as the Ukrainians may not even have 1000 POWs to swap, especially since they've done less publicised swaps multiple times before.

*qualifier; for the uninjured. It's entirely possible the first batch of 264 are covered by a swap deal and were all injured, and that the Ukrainian MoD just let media interpret it wrong. That would also put pressure on Russia to adhere to an agreement they hadn't actually agreed to.

[Lexx]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Chechens, what are they going to do with Mariupol?

Playing spicy police and terrorizing the remaining population in the area.

[xzar_monty]

@kanisathamay be interested in a 17-point thread by Timothy Snyder on the question of giving Putin an "out". Snyder's point is that Putin always has it, as he is a dictator.

As far as "changing the subject" (quoting Snyder) is concerned, we have a very recent example of this. The president of Finland had a telephone conversation with Putin. Putin argued that Russia has to "liberate" the east of Ukraine from the nazis. President Niinistö countered by saying that what about Kyiv, then, why was Kyiv attacked, it has nothing to do with the east of Ukraine. The journalists gathered around Niinistö were very keen to hear how Putin responded to this. "He said nothing. Nothing at all", Niinistö told them. "And then he changed the subject."

 

 

[xzar_monty]

Boy I didn't know it was going to be that big on the forum!

[pmp10]

6 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

@kanisathamay be interested in a 17-point thread by Timothy Snyder on the question of giving Putin an "out". Snyder's point is that Putin always has it, as he is a dictator.

Not at these stakes he doesn't.
An 'out' of admitting defeat leads to him losing power and possibly the whole political system becoming unstable. 

[BruceVC]

26 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

@kanisathamay be interested in a 17-point thread by Timothy Snyder on the question of giving Putin an "out". Snyder's point is that Putin always has it, as he is a dictator.

As far as "changing the subject" (quoting Snyder) is concerned, we have a very recent example of this. The president of Finland had a telephone conversation with Putin. Putin argued that Russia has to "liberate" the east of Ukraine from the nazis. President Niinistö countered by saying that what about Kyiv, then, why was Kyiv attacked, it has nothing to do with the east of Ukraine. The journalists gathered around Niinistö were very keen to hear how Putin responded to this. "He said nothing. Nothing at all", Niinistö told them. "And then he changed the subject."

 

 

That has got to be one of the  first times I can say I agree with almost everything  when it comes to a list of twitter comments

Very informative 

 

[BruceVC]

13 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Not at these stakes he doesn't.
An 'out' of admitting defeat leads to him losing power and possibly the whole political system becoming unstable. 

And you dont think a protracted war of attrition  in Ukraine and a collapsed Russian economy will also lead to political instability ?

In other words Putin can find a way to withdraw without losing face because the media narrative is state controlled  and its not like the Russian people are going to overthrow his autocratic government either way? 

[pmp10]

16 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

And you dont think a protracted war of attrition  in Ukraine and a collapsed Russian economy will also lead to political instability ?

I'm not convinced that Russian economy is collapsing as advertised. 
For example ruble was supposed to have crashed hard by now. 
Instead new gas payment scheme will keep it strong for a long time to come. 

It doesn't help that all the predictions run very far into the future.
The war may be over and sanctions lifted long before anyone has a chance to check their effectiveness. 

[xzar_monty]

51 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Not at these stakes he doesn't.
An 'out' of admitting defeat leads to him losing power and possibly the whole political system becoming unstable. 

But you misread Snyder. Putin has an out even if he doesn't admit defeat. Of course he will never admit defeat. He will claim victory even if he loses. The press will be behind him, as it is now. Anyone who stands against that will be in trouble.

And yes, there is the possibility of the political system becoming unstable. But that possibility is there already, right now.

[pmp10]

31 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

But you misread Snyder. Putin has an out even if he doesn't admit defeat. Of course he will never admit defeat. He will claim victory even if he loses. The press will be behind him, as it is now. Anyone who stands against that will be in trouble.

Let's just say I don't think that 'out' is workable for him.

There are limits to what can be spun to the Russian society.
Complete withdrawal, admitting war guilt, financial reparations would all be clear signs of a major defeat that would end Putin's rule. 
That's about what Ukraine would settle for right now. 

[xzar_monty]

27 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Let's just say I don't think that 'out' is workable for him.

There are limits to what can be spun to the Russian society.
Complete withdrawal, admitting war guilt, financial reparations would all be clear signs of a major defeat that would end Putin's rule.

Again, no one has suggested war guilt is ever going to be admitted, so I don't know why you're going on about that. Withdrawal can be described as "victory". Financial reparations can be explained in any number of ways.

As for the limits to what can be spun: there are limits but they are pretty out there. Spinning that the atrocities in Bucha either didn't happen or were staged or were committed by the Ukrainian nazis was easy, there has been no great opposition to that.

Thus, spinning that the mission has been accomplished and Russia has won sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It is going to be accepted, I don't think there's any question about this. Even if the facts are that Russia retreats in defeat after extraordinarily big losses to its military. Of course we don't know if Russia is going to lose and retreat, but should that happen, it's easy to spin it as a resounding victory.

Alternate realities are a reality. Look at North Korea: that's the direction Russia is heading. It's not there yet, but that's the way it's going. No opposition, no political parties deserving the title, no proper press, etc.

Edited May 19, 2022 by xzar_monty

[BruceVC]

47 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

I'm not convinced that Russian economy is collapsing as advertised. 
For example ruble was supposed to have crashed hard by now. 
Instead new gas payment scheme will keep it strong for a long time to come. 

It doesn't help that all the predictions run very far into the future.
The war may be over and sanctions lifted long before anyone has a chance to check their effectiveness. 

The currency of a country is not the economy or reality of the strength of the economy. Its a factor in the economy and several factors influence the strength of currency but primarily   selling and buying and the amount of that currency in circulation. 

Russia use to be the 10/11 strongest economy in the world with close to $700 billion dollars in  foreign reserve,  an actively traded stock exchange and a future as an energy provider to the likes of the EU. This has changed due to Putins War and much of this has been eroded but this erosion takes times and its impossible for any sanctions to have a real impact in less  9-12 months. Sanctions dont work like that when it comes to the economic impact

But the biggest problem Russia is going to face is the disinvestment in its economy  and its long-term economic growth. And once the West ends its dependency on Russian energy this is only going worse

Other countries outside of Western countries can invest in Russia but you will find  very few global Western companies and their partners ever investing in Russia going forward until Putin and Russia can be trusted again

But to restore this trust its going to take years. But if you interested in the real impact of sanctions on the Russian economy dont worry about the strength of the  Ruble but follow the Russian economic quarter data. That's how countries measure economic growth and decline

Here is a link that highlights this and remember we are still not seeing the actual first quarter results but the Russian economy is expected to contract by 8-12%

https://www.reuters.com/business/russias-gdp-decline-could-hit-124-this-year-economy-ministry-document-shows-2022-04-27/

[Darkpriest]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

The currency of a country is not the economy or reality of the strength of the economy. Its a factor in the economy and several factors influence the strength of currency but primarily   selling and buying and the amount of that currency in circulation. 

Russia use to be the 10/11 strongest economy in the world with close to $700 billion dollars in  foreign reserve,  an actively traded stock exchange and a future as an energy provider to the likes of the EU. This has changed due to Putins War and much of this has been eroded but this erosion takes times and its impossible for any sanctions to have a real impact in less  9-12 months. Sanctions dont work like that when it comes to the economic impact

But the biggest problem Russia is going to face is the disinvestment in its economy  and its long-term economic growth. And once the West ends its dependency on Russian energy this is only going worse

Other countries outside of Western countries can invest in Russia but you will find  very few global Western companies and their partners ever investing in Russia going forward until Putin and Russia can be trusted again

But to restore this trust its going to take years. But if you interested in the real impact of sanctions on the Russian economy dont worry about the strength of the  Ruble but follow the Russian economic quarter data. That's how countries measure economic growth and decline

Here is a link that highlights this and remember we are still not seeing the actual first quarter results but the Russian economy is expected to contract by 8-12%

https://www.reuters.com/business/russias-gdp-decline-could-hit-124-this-year-economy-ministry-document-shows-2022-04-27/

Meanwhile, CISCO alone lost 40billion in market cap, just because it admited 200mil lost on Russia revenue. 

You will see a lot of backtracking on Russia as US and more importantly EU will go into long stagflation period, where food price and energy will be increasing to the point of social unrests, that will be magnified by large migrant waves from African and West Asian countries struck by hunger (Sri-Lanka is a prelude to what will happen on a larger scale in a couple of months)

EU has so much bad debt that it is paralyzing ECB from increasing the rates, because they well know it will crash soverign debt of a couple countries of EURoZone, like Italy. 

[Elerond]

3 hours ago, pmp10 said:

Not at these stakes he doesn't.
An 'out' of admitting defeat leads to him losing power and possibly the whole political system becoming unstable. 

That is not true, they will just say that it does not matter and Russia achieved what it wanted ("de-nazification" of Ukraine). 

[Elerond]

2 hours ago, pmp10 said:

I'm not convinced that Russian economy is collapsing as advertised. 
For example ruble was supposed to have crashed hard by now. 
Instead new gas payment scheme will keep it strong for a long time to come. 

It doesn't help that all the predictions run very far into the future.
The war may be over and sanctions lifted long before anyone has a chance to check their effectiveness. 

Ruble is not freely traded currently so it can't crash, when companies and countries are forced to buy it to do trade with Russia/Russian companies.

But Russian central bank can keep Ruble from crashing, but it has quite lot economic effects, which is why Russian central bank predicts that Russian GDP will decrease 10% this year, and predicts that decrease will continue for several years 

EDIT: Also inflation in Russia is high, so ruble is losing it value even though its apparent value is kept same. Rubles apparent value against other currencies don't help Russian, because, there are strict limits how much foreign currencies people/companies can buy and many can't do any foreign purchases because of sanctions that block credit cards and switft payments from Russia to other countries.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Elerond

[BruceVC]

35 minutes ago, Elerond said:

That is not true, they will just say that it does not matter and Russia achieved what it wanted ("de-nazification" of Ukraine). 

Yes lets all be honest, Putins War was initially about the complete defeat of the Ukrainian army and the occupation of Kiev. We  were even told that most of the  Ukrainians were going to " welcome the invading Russian forces because they love Russia and hate the Neo-Nazis that control the country and represent the Zelensky government " 

They failed to do that and now its about the Donbass and parts of the south. But its doesnt matter what they succeed or fail in militarily because Putin will spin it for the Russian people as victory if they can occupy just  the eastern parts 

But because of the Ukrainian military success its unlikely we going to see them prepared to negotiate and I dont blame them  considering the war crimes and carnage  done to Ukrainian cities?

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

38 minutes ago, Elerond said:

That is not true, they will just say that it does not matter and Russia achieved what it wanted ("de-nazification" of Ukraine). 

We must remember the long history of this. You can ask Hungary (1956), Prague (1968) or Afganistan (1979?) what it was like to receive "help" from the Soviet Union. Few things are as lethal as Russian "help". At the moment, if you ask Russia, there is no war in Ukraine. And so on.