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Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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This is definitely a secondary piece of his logic of invading and annexing. The Russian economy is fairly reliant on oil and gas. Adding Ukraine would both grow the economy by about 10% and diversify it into particularly agriculture, which would be big given that Ukraine is considered the bread basket of Europe.
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Russia kept the parts of the program where the design bureaus were located in Russia, like NPO Energomash who built the rocket engines (and a derivative of the main engine for the Buran program is to this day used in the US-American Atlas space launch vehicle)
Yep I take your points. What I was trying to get at is, assuming that Zelensky is captured or killed, is there someone else obvious who can step in as leader or figurehead, and if not, does that make resistance less stiff?
Hooray.
This very much could be true too. I don’t pretend to know what Putin is thinking. He’s a nutter after all. I would also add though that a lot of what he says is for local consumption (for Russian citizens) than what should be taken literally by the rest of the world. And, I do personally struggle with the view that he has invaded solely because he doesn’t think Ukraine is legitimate / ego trip to make Russia superior again. But could also very plausibly be true - if not in its entirety, a key piece to the puzzle in any case. To my mind though, the tipping point was that Ukraine was moving away from Russia and towards NATO and the west. I genuinely believe this doesn’t happen if Ukraine was aligned to Russia, or even if they were indifferent to both the West and Russia. But it’s all conjecture, I got no idea if I’m right.
Yeah, that’s why the narrow opportunity tomorrow talks in Belarus can offer both parties needs to be pursued in full for defusion and a way out of this run… how? I don’t know, luckily I’m not the one to draw lines on a map.
I see, makes sense. Cheers.
That I cannot answer with any accuracy. Sorry!
Not 100% sure, but the space shuttle and aviation in general would probably have been under central leadership, not individual republics. And financed by the union as a whole too. So they ended up splitting by geography after 1991.
I think, for the same reasons, air force planes were also split among the republics after the collapse of the ussr.
I don’t know what happened diplomatically before this but the reality is now it’s very very very difficult to find a peaceful solution. Ego is at stake now. No way Russia or the west back down if they can’t convince their own citizens they “won”. Which means finding that middle ground where both can reasonably sell victory to their people becomes slimmer and slimmer every day this thing escalates. I’m far too dumb to have any idea what that middle ground might be. Thank feck I’m not at that table!
I know, let me ask it in a different way.
If any country wants to buy oil, you need to buy dollars. Because you can only buy oil in dollars. Hence the petro dollar, which is one of the reasons why the dollar is always a strong currency because it's propped up by petrol.
Now let's say Russia, China, Nigeria (who have recently declined to increase production) and Saudi (who have also recently declined to increase production) decide to open a new market in Yuan for example, or Rubles or whatever and decline to sell in USD, what would that do to the economy and the USD in particular.
I just find it extremely coincidental that Putin has decided to go ahead despite being banned from swift and being sanctioned to oblivion and all of these opec+ nations refusing to pump more oil and refusing to condemn Russia.
EDIT: To add a bit more coincidence to the mix, both Nigeria and Saudi have recently signed military agreements with Russia (within the last year).
I think even though Russia might kill him, he's smart enough to know it's better to run and re-establish a base of operations in Lviv where he is that much closer to the EU supply lines.
Morale would take a hit from losing Kyiv but it's better than losing the head of government and giving Putin an excuse to install his people and close the border. It's all about timing it well and ensuring that balance of not seeming to be a coward but also smart enough to bail when it's time.
And frankly, Kyiv is in an awful place for defending, it's virtually on the border with Belarus.
I get it - but what I’m saying is that’ll never realistically happen because the people they need to sell that oil too can’t and won’t just immediately be able to switch the way they finance themselves to Yuan.
So it would obviously cause economic turmoil for everyone. But, why would they ever want to do that? Just shooting themselves.
Hes not much of a diplomat. Maybe hes gotten bored of trying and is reverting to his usual MO and daring someone to stop him.
I think theres a fair bit of theatricality in his recent appearances basically as a way of selling the threats he's making. They're crazy threats in their own right but only a total fecking lunatic completely detached from reality would actually go through with them. I've decided im not buying it anyway. Even a psychopath wouldn't gain anything from being the first to press the button.
Right, I see. It's quite interesting, how everything must have been divided and split up after the dissolution. So many Submarines, planes, space shuttles, ships satellites etc, who got what depending on where it was made like you say.
Agreed,
I just find it extremely coincidental that Putin has decided to go ahead despite being banned from swift and being sanctioned to oblivion and all of these opec+ nations refusing to pump more oil and refusing to condemn Russia.
EDIT: To add a bit more coincidence to the mix, both Nigeria and Saudi have recently signed military agreements with Russia (within the last year) and trade with China has more than doubled since 2016.
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Looks like he/she has now edited the original post so it doesn't come accross as batsh!t as before, but still...
Basically do whatever the feck you like as long as you're on the right team.
After the SU split up, Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. But they agreed to give their nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for some security guarantees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
Maybe Poroshenko. He's been giving CNN interviews and is a former president so knows the job. How that affects resistance, I don't know.
Personally more worried that sending so many arms in to help fight Putin might just turn every civilian into a target as far as the Russian forces are concerned. I don't really see what it will achieve other than death as this isn't a war Ukraine can win on their own, regardless of the spin people want to put on it. They don't have the manpower to push Putin back into Russia
Thermobaric bombs aren't really something it would make sense to deploy at this point, unless there was a very specific and vital target and it was the only way to get to it.
Looks like Russia are in breach of that memorandum right now, and the UK also signed that. Ukraine had the third most nuclear missiles in the world, but no power or means to use them, apparently.
What would you propose? I'm not saying you're right or wrong by the way. Just wanna know what you would do if you were the Western decision-makers.
There's some NSFW content in the below but I find it a fascinating piece of historical propaganda.
I think clips with dead bodies are not allowed. I posted this myself too before I immediately realized it and deleted the post.
Ok, I deleted it but you might need go requote me.
I barely even noticed, it's just the language used is fascinating in a marketing context.
Looks like he/she has now edited the original post so it doesn't come accross as batsh!t as before, but still...
Basically do whatever the feck you like as long as you're on the right team.
Someone really should report it. Awful post.
I don't agree. Or rather: @WI_Red may have meant his post literally, but most times a post is called off-topic or an unwelcome distraction in this thread, it's really because of the opinion expressed. Cause after all, there are really loads of side conversations happening that do not at all discuss what is happening in the war right now.
I mean, we have dozens of posts now about Zelensky's activities in entertainment, which have no bearing on current events; but no-one asked for those to stop. Yet we can't have posts that try to contextualize how the 'western' audience (regular people and the media, not politicians) obsesses over the situation?
To be clear: I don't agree with everything that's being said, but I find myself obsessing over this war as well, and I find those context discussions quite interesting, also when I think the argument provided is rubbish. And certainly much more interesting than the feelgood stuff about Zelensky (as much as I enjoy those) or the fifteenth post in four pages pointing out that there is a Russia army convoy underway to Kyiv.
(Great post by @dumbo btw. I mean the one ending with the matchday thread comment.)
On a related note, I think the treatment of @Mciahel Goodman (and a few others with related points) in this thread has been rather distasteful. I guess he has to be able to accept more grief cause he is a mod (and maybe because of his positions); cause if this would have been another poster in another thread, I would hope there would have been some warnings for the constant ad hominem he's getting.
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The most obvious reason for Russia invading seems to be oil and gas as usual and the whole Nato expansion is just an excuse because it Putin can't just outright say that Ukraine's recent discovery of huge reserves of gas will practically remove Europe's dependency on Russian oil and gas and will make Russia irrelevant as a world superpower.
Good suggestion, I've edited the clip out of my quoting you. But indeed, this war is seeing some insane propaganda. I wonder how much of it reaches the frontline troops.
Agreed
Here's something else. An article in Russian that assumed Russia was successful in its capture of Kyiv was accidentally posted and someone used an archived version to translate it.
I haven't bothered with reading all of if but the last quarter confirms the suspicions of many that this invasion is very much about showing the West they're not (the only) boss anymore.
I haven't bothered with reading all of if but the last quarter confirms the suspicions of many that this invasion is very much about showing the West they're not (the only) boss anymore.
The fighting and "negotiations" on the Belarusian border aside, tomorrow's story should be what happens to Russian markets
Zelenskiy is just incredible.
Not sure how I feel about this. The West are trying to humiliate Putin and trap him into a corner with no way out.
Could end up getting rid of him or Putin actually going bonkers. Playing Russian roulette here.