Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

VorZakone said:
After we witnessed him bullying his spy chief...I'm pessimistic.
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Bullying his spy chief, on TV, broadcast around the world.. You can be a complete lickspittle, but get humiliated so aggressively and publicly, maybe cogs start turning?

As we've seen in cutthroat politics through many many years, the moment someone becomes a serious liability, there'll be someone there with the knife.
 
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
 
altodevil said:
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
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Are their economies strong enough to support these systems long-term/at the same level without the US/EU/GB?
 
Sarni said:
Problem is if we assume he’s gone completely insane then all the sanctions may be enough of a reason for him to use nukes, or maybe a country sending them weapons is enough, or maybe it’s another country’s leader speaking ill of him is that. We just don’t know what his limit is. Maybe he will launch nukes for no reason at all.
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Yeah, I have no idea. The pentagon/NATO obviously have some idea regarding what his frame of reference is but everyone else is just speculating.

altodevil said:
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
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He met Xi 37 times in the past year or so. They're moving east now no matter what happens (with the exception of Putin being taken out via coup).
 
altodevil said:
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
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There are alternatives but it's not like turning on a tap and they likely do not have the membership that SWIFT has.
 
altodevil said:
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
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China uses SWIFT. Businesses use the company I work for to send thousands of USD to Chinese suppliers via wire transfers which rely on SWIFT every day.

We send loads to India as well. Every bank has a SWIFT code. Russia is being cut off from this.
 
noodlehair said:
Is there any actual evidence that Putin has gone crazy other than some propaganda Twitter posts?

I can believe he hoped for more division in Ukraine itself but the idea the western allies wouldn't rally strongly against him is completely dumb considering its behind the reason for launching an invasion in the first place.

The idea he's just suddenly gone mad and that he'd launch a literally huge international military operation without any planning or strategising is even dumber.

Things that happen on the ground in a war are hard to predict and plan for. Things like sanctions and reactions from other states are not hard to predict or plan for. You'd assume worst case and strategise from that, the same as with any other crisis or emergency planning.
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I think it is all imagery. He wants to appear just insane enough that folk will believe that he will start dropping nukes if he doesn’t get his way.
 
altodevil said:
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
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It's very complex but in a basic sense even if they do trade between themselves it is still a massive reduction - losing global trading powers and just dealing with India and China in a limited capacity. Russia also doesn't want to be "reliant" on China, they want to be perceived as equal footing. Their foreign currency is frozen and locked away, the rouble will have next to no value come Monday too. Russia's economy is fecked. Their credit rating is kaput; they can't lend in any reasonable capacity.

India and China are also wary of Russian actions, at the UN Security Council vote the other night instead of voting "No" in step with Russia they abstained, which was genuinely quite surprising.

China is also worried of secondary sanctions and it's state banks are limiting financing for buying Russian materials.
 
VorZakone said:
UK MoD update. It's quite incredible that the UK is providing such regular updates even though it itself isn't fighting.

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They ridiculously keep posting the update as an image though, which is completely useless if you have slow Internet access or are in a country that is blocking Twitter images.
 
Bepi said:
Even if we may consider Putin as a 70yo autocrat surrounded by 60+ oligarchs and scared 60+ cronies who is living into his 1970s bubble, therefore underestimating the collective response of the world in so many aspects, we cannot underestimate what a failed action and a no-win game can do to his mind. That’s way defusion is vital once the eventual failure, if such, kicks into his bubble… with hopefully a way out for him up to the point he can’t be a threat anymore. The form and the way to make him believe he gets something out of this mess and defuse are in the hands of his peers at global level… aka the US and China imho.
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I just dare to add that until China makes clear their position or true colors in this wargame, we are nowhere near a solution… and if they are just using Putin as a dummy for their prospective war against the West (say: Taiwan), we may be really in for a rude awakening and ww3 one day, one week or one month from now. I want to believe all these measures we are imposing on Russia right now have been vetted or at least not vetoed by Xi. /EndOf … going to bed, now… and sorry for the doom & gloom but I am more scared now than yesterday. Peace.
 
groovyalbert said:
Are their economies strong enough to support these systems long-term/at the same level without the US/EU/GB?
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There's not a lot to support. It's just a messaging system at the end of the day and not a particularly good one.

Alternatives are and will be formed in the next decade. It's just a matter of integration as having worked on several SWIFT endeavours it tends to be slow going.

Russian firms will end up going through intermediaries and largely become hidden I expect. I don't have enough knowledge to know the specifics there but I'd be shocked if it doesn't become the case.
 
VorZakone said:
UK MoD update. It's quite incredible that the UK is providing such regular updates even though it itself isn't fighting.

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It's mainly for propaganda purposes.

Pure marketing, they know this is being seen by many across the world.

I doubt they are lying, but the info given is rarely negative to Ukraine's cause.

May it continue.
 
Rightnr said:
This idea Putin is some kind of evil genius and that even the rumours of his ill health and his paranoid isolation during Covid are completely unfounded reminds me a bit of the myth of Johnson's bumbling fool act.

Sometimes things are simpler than you think. He's definitely deluded to an extent and the clips he himself released go towards confirming that notion.

I also saw a statement from an ex-Russia US ambassador who himself said Putin has changed and is acting a bit looney.

Or maybe I'm wrong.
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This is my feeling, too. Whenever you encounter a situation in which somebody's actions can be explained either with him being an evil genius executing a master plan that hides his true motives until the very end or with him being more incompetent/insane/detached from reality to recognize his own insanity, going for the latter is almost a save bet. It applied to almost every situation, be it a political decision (right wing populists, ...), greedy business men (Perez and his Super League) or even a power hungry dictator.
 
Smithy89 said:
Strange thing to post, could go into any conflict and start what about this or even things that happen domestically.
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So I shouldn't highlight something that is somewhat contradictory in the framing of this conflict? If you think this is me criticising the Ukrainians then you would be wrong, but equally, it would be remiss of me not to note that the hypocrisy stinks
 
noodlehair said:
There's no way about this. The sanctions are a very obvious and predictable counter measure. We don't know for a fact if Putin has prepared for them or not, but the idea he hasn't is quite ludicrously stupid and based on no evidence other than the desire to believe he's just randomly gone nuts.

It's not really comparable to the scenarios you've mentioned with are ground based strategies and subject to unpredictable outcomes. The difference between inaccurately predicting your forces can defeat a legion of enemy tanks, and being so dumb as to just expect your enemy wouldn't possibly bother to use their tanks in the first place. The former is a strategic mistake, the latter requires you to be an utterly insane moron.



They have enough fuel they just can't get it to their tanks quickly enough. Again this is just an example of how things never go to plan in a war.

If you me and half this thread seems to know what the sanctions imply, how do you figure that everyone in Russia would be too stupid to figure it out.

I mean come on now
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Just because they have planned for sanctions, doesn't mean they can deal with them!

The sanctions are harsh, very harsh, and the resistance is also sturdy in Ukraine, couple the two together and you have a problem which they may have been relying on an ally (China?) to assist, and that isn't forth coming right now.
 
rotherham_red said:
So I shouldn't highlight something that is somewhat contradictory in the framing of this conflict? If you think this is me criticising the Ukrainians then you would be wrong, but equally, it would be remiss of me not to note that the hypocrisy stinks
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It's stupid to even argue about this, the Israel/Palestine situation is it's completely own issue and thread. I don't even disagree with you btw.
 
Mickeza said:
Not convinced that’s a great idea against a dug in military in an urban area with shed tons of anti-tank weapons.
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This was a tactic of the soviets themselves in stalingrad and the siege of leningrad during WW2. Basically fight for your life in the city. The nazis got so bogged down fighting in stalingrad that it allowed another soviet advance to surround them. Then you had all these snipers in the city picking off nazi targets.
 
altodevil said:
Someone explain to me why this SWIFT decision won't just result in Russia, China, India having an alternative. Don't China have one already? Do we really want Russia being pushed east, or will these sanctions ruin them?
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Bilateral trade and probably a few B2B business can always trade. Golds. Bonds. Rubels. Yuan. Barter. Etc.

But 99% of the population will get stuck. And that's practically it. You cant withdraw, exchange, cant even buy online, pays for netflix etc

That's why america are so weary about nations that wants to deviate from USD or any other region that does so. It's their economic atomic bomb.
 
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