Timo Soini, the former foreign minister of Finland, gave a sobering assessment of the situation before the war in Ukraine. He said that in the West, economy always wins over ideology, whereas in Russia, ideology always wins over economy -- the Russian imperialist thinking remains paramount. So whereas the West was thinking about tying Russian hands with money, the Russians were thinking about making the West dependent on Russia for energy. According to Soini, Russia was more right, and as much as I loathe his policies otherwise, I think this is a sound point to make.

Edited June 4, 20232 yr by xzar_monty

This rumour has emerged this morning:

 

UA General Staff confirmed for now only the desertion of 40 RU soldiers.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/4/7405217/

 

First official numbers have been made public for Bakhmut by UA side.

In last 6 months of battle, Russia had almost 23k casualties (presumably KIA + WIA) while UA had 7.5 times lower.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/4/7405235/

12 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

In last 6 months of battle, Russia had almost 23k casualties (presumably KIA + WIA) while UA had 7.5 times lower.

Nitpicking and somewhat off topic, but dang I must say that one of my pet peeves is the expression "X times less / lower". It just doesn't work, mathematically. Something can be twice as big or happen twice as often or be three times more, but with less and lower than, it doesn't work. So Ukraine's losses amounted to 13.33% of the Russians', methinks, the article is saying.

(Yeah, apologies, obviously.)

On 6/4/2023 at 11:16 AM, xzar_monty said:

Timo Soini, the former foreign minister of Finland, gave a sobering assessment of the situation before the war in Ukraine. He said that in the West, economy always wins over ideology, whereas in Russia, ideology always wins over economy -- the Russian imperialist thinking remains paramount. So whereas the West was thinking about tying Russian hands with money, the Russians were thinking about making the West dependent on Russia for energy. According to Soini, Russia was more right, and as much as I loathe his policies otherwise, I think this is a sound point to make.

It makes sense but its another example of the Vatnik standard fake news which basically is  now about how the West\EU has always wanted Russia to fail and Russian nationalists peddle propaganda like " this war is about our survival "

The West\EU until the invasion wanted Russia to be a responsible and sustainable  member of the international community. And buying energy from them is one way to demonstrate that belief. 

The relationship with the West is now  irrevocably broken while Putin is president but that didnt use to be the case

 

22 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

It makes sense but its another example of the Vatnik standard fake news

No, it isn't. It's an example of how Russia swindled the West very effectively for years, and the West was wilfully blind for an embarrassingly long time, giving Putin all sorts of ideas about what he could do with impunity.

Russia's main export is not energy, by the way, it's corruption, and this one is still very much ongoing: Russian troll factories and such have been extremely effective, and the West has been extraordinarily foolish about this stuff.

Russian MoD claiming the offensive has finally begun as well

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65806152

As an aside, it's sort of funny to watch people observe combat footage, when it's their team is remarkable how much nuance needs to apply

 

37 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

No, it isn't. It's an example of how Russia swindled the West very effectively for years, and the West was wilfully blind for an embarrassingly long time, giving Putin all sorts of ideas about what he could do with impunity.

Russia's main export is not energy, by the way, it's corruption, and this one is still very much ongoing: Russian troll factories and such have been extremely effective, and the West has been extraordinarily foolish about this stuff.

I dont think we debating the same point, having a reliable trade partner for energy is not about corruption, its about an energy source. And that partner will benefit from the revenue sales

The EU didnt buy energy from Russia because it wanted corruption within Russia to flourish or for that corruption to be exported but that did occur and it embolden Putin and it made the EU dependant on Russia for energy until it found new energy sources

But the historical trade that use to exist between the EU and Russia  should be considered a good thing if Putin hadnt become the warmongering autocrat he now is because it benefitted both regions 

I dont see how the EU was swindled by buying energy from Russia, in what way was it swindled?

And then there is a standard Vatnik narrative that says " the West has always wanted to control Russia and wants Russia to fail " and thats not true in many ways that include buying large amounts of energy from Russia  because supporting   an economy is the opposite of wanting a country to fail

28 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I dont think we debating the same point

Agreed. What's happening is that you're bringing up stuff that's only tangentially relevant to what I wrote, if at all.

As for the swindle: Russia's main intention with the energy trade was to increase the EU's dependency on Russia, and it succeeded very well, insofar as the EU was very reluctant to first confront Russia's excesses and then to cut its ties. Russia played this part superbly, much better than the EU did: Russia exploited the EU as much as it could, and it was quite a lot. The EU, for its part, didn't manage to move Russia one inch towards transparency / free trade / democratic institutions / what have you, even though the EU made a lot of self-deceptive noise about how this was precisely what it tried to do.

An interesting parallel to the last point is all the manifold mutual-aid projects that Finland, for instance, tried to initiate with the Russians and in Russia. One of our former prime ministers was quite downhearted when he discussed this type of endeavour and its complete and utter failure: any kind of win-win thinking and real co-operation was inconceivable for the Russians because their sole idea was to at least cheat and also blatantly steal, if possible. This is why every single project had to be abandoned, no matter how promisingly it was initially put together: the Russians just wouldn't do their part, they couldn't fathom a form of co-operation where both parties weren't trying to out-cheat one another.

Edited June 5, 20232 yr by xzar_monty

27 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Agreed. What's happening is that you're bringing up stuff that's only tangentially relevant to what I wrote, if at all.

As for the swindle: Russia's main intention with the energy trade was to increase the EU's dependency on Russia, and it succeeded very well, insofar as the EU was very reluctant to first confront Russia's excesses and then to cut its ties. Russia played this part superbly, much better than the EU did: Russia exploited the EU as much as it could, and it was quite a lot. The EU, for its part, didn't manage to move Russia one inch towards transparency / free trade / democratic institutions / what have you, even though the EU made a lot of self-deceptive noise about how this was precisely what it tried to do.

An interesting parallel to the last point is all the manifold mutual-aid projects that Finland, for instance, tried to initiate with the Russians and in Russia. One of our former prime ministers was quite downhearted when he discussed this type of endeavour and its complete and utter failure: any kind of win-win thinking and real co-operation was inconceivable for the Russians because their sole idea was to at least cheat and also blatantly steal, if possible. This is why every single project had to be abandoned, no matter how promisingly it was initially put together: the Russians just wouldn't do their part, they couldn't fathom a form of co-operation where both parties weren't trying to out-cheat one another.

My point is that  not different from what you saying, I just dont agree with you but maybe I am not explaining it properly

Let me ask you a different question, what should the EU have  done differently  over the last 20 years to ensure it was not  swindled according to your view of the trade relationship with Russia?

And to add context 70% or so of the worlds oil comes from OPEC and most of the ME countries have very little  regards for the important human rights that matter in our countries and include what you mentioned that is common in Russia which is no "transparency / free trade / democratic institutions ". Yet we all buy oil from OPEC 

The point Im making is most countries dont get to choose where they buy energy from as there are established markets and you can only  go so far with telling other countries about their domestic policies if you trade with them and want  good international relationships

So what should the EU have done differently, should it not have bought energy from Russia and if so what markets should the EU have traded with over the last 20 years?

 

47 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Let me ask you a different question, what should the EU have  done differently  over the last 20 years to ensure it was not  swindled according to your view of the trade relationship with Russia?

This is a complex question, as you will probably agree: it has a fairly large timeframe and it spans a lot of countries.

But let us take a look at just one of the culprits, the main one, Germany. Germany was exceedingly foolish to bring down its own nuclear energy sector and make itself overly dependent on Russian energy. While the exchange of energy and funds was in and of itself beneficial to both countries, and would in ordinary circumstances count as reasonable exchange and proper co-ordination between countries, what Germany apparently didn't realize at all and what Russia mainly wanted to ensure was that Germany became overly dependent on Russia, which greatly restricted Germany's options in other spheres.

Build nuke power plants like any sane person would do

ninj'd

19 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

ninj'd

And with one of us being terse and the other verbose, as per usual. 😛

Any idea on how the typical breakdown of use for Russian gas/oil is for countries in the EU ?

23 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Any idea on how the typical breakdown of use for Russian gas/oil is for countries in the EU ?

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1298031/dependence-on-russian-oil-in-the-eu-and-uk/

Edited June 5, 20232 yr by Chilloutman

26 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/

And this to me is the most relevant data for the EU because it represents the new reality which is how the  EU use to be dependent on Russia energy and therefore more concerned with foreign policy decisions but its now moving away from most  dependency on Russia for energy. And thats because of the invasion of Ukraine and how you  simply cant trust Russia  to be a reliable and consistent provider of energy 

36 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1298031/dependence-on-russian-oil-in-the-eu-and-uk/

Ah, ok, I only had some time to check briefly and found

https://energyandcleanair.org/weekly-snapshot-russian-fossil-fuels-22-to-28-may-2023/

Although, guess can infer a lot from the type of import - LNG vs petroleum, etc.

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Russian MoD claiming the offensive has finally begun as well

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65806152

As an aside, it's sort of funny to watch people observe combat footage, when it's their team is remarkable how much nuance needs to apply

 

They need to mask somehow that they lost again almost 2 kms of ground around Bakhmut, including strategic heights 🙂 

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/5/7405414/

I have seen the video as well, it would be silly to expect any counteroffensive without a single misstep or casualty in the ranks of UA. One thing which is suspicious about the video is, that it was released by Russia in the middle of the night as a fresh action against UA troops and it’s clearly not a nighttime video 😛 

 

edit: here is the follow up video from today by AFU. Combat was still ongoing, the previously Russian controlled area is currently grey zone.

 

Edit2: and current situation at the place of attack depicted in video in a map language

 

23 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

They need to mask somehow that they lost again almost 2 kms of ground around Bakhmut, including strategic heights 🙂 

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/5/7405414/

I have seen the video as well, it would be silly to expect any counteroffensive without a single misstep or casualty in the ranks of UA. One thing which is suspicious about the video is, that it was released by Russia in the middle of the night as a fresh action against UA troops and it’s clearly not a nighttime video 😛 

 

edit: here is the follow up video from today by AFU. Combat was still ongoing, the previously Russian controlled area is currently grey zone.

 

 

Not sure the time of release matters that much, takes a while to sort out propaganda like this, I imagine.  Was wondering what was striking them, had thought it was mines but apparently was a Ka-52 (sort of amazed they have these, all the combat footage is them being downed).

8 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Not sure the time of release matters that much, takes a while to sort out propaganda like this, I imagine.  Was wondering what was striking them, had thought it was mines but apparently was a Ka-52 (sort of amazed they have these, all the combat footage is them being downed).

Yes you are correct, it just adds a little bit more suspicion to the video together with the presented numbers of 300KIA and 16 vehicles lost. That would be by far the best Russian hit at a single place since the start of “SMO” 

 

not to mention, that there is ongoing siege of Bilhorod Oblast, which is a great reputation hit for Russian MoD, which needs to be covered as well. Gubernator of Bilhorod chickened out, when the insurgents approached him with the PoW exchange proposal, and Prigozhin has taken the opportunity to shame them even further.

Not to mention, that in the meanwhile Prigozhin has taken exclusive PoW. A colonel of Russian army, which ordered shelling rotating Wagners from Bakhmut. Tension between different RU factions is steadily raising, and the Bilhorod insurgents joined it, with their own psyops. The offer to exchange the RU PoW from Bilhorod, left behind by Gubernator, for this colonel. I am really curious how Prigozhin will react to this offer. I really hope he would accept it. Would be worth a lot of popcorn to watch all the following events…

 

 

Nova Kakhovka dam has been blown up. Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant cooling of reactor might be in jeopardy including tens of thousands of Ukrainians. 
 

 

🙄 "Russian sources blame the Ukrainian military". Translation from ruzzian, "We did it". 

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-06-06-ramaphosa-embarks-on-attempted-course-correction-of-sas-russia-stance/

SA is sending various representatives to the G7 to clarify our position that we are not pro-Russia

Our mixed messages and ostensible support for Russia has already impacted our international  investor portfolio with investors selling SA bonds, currency and equities

This impact to our economy is self-inflicted and hopefully we can change the view in the G7 that we are not  pro-Russia and that we are neutral 

27 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

This impact to our economy is self-inflicted and hopefully we can change the view in the G7 that we are not  pro-Russia and that we are neutral 

My sense is that many will argue that neutrality is not a reasonable option: it effectively means being pro-Russia. Inactivity and/or indifference helps Russia.