Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Sheilbh]

@Sheilbh: The question is: "Should we support Ukraine despite high energy prices?"

For sure - my point isn't that it's an issue now, but will be in winter and we need to prepare for it across Europe both in terms trying to get as much gas as possible now but also politically because I expect Putin will keep the taps off.

Putin's play, in my view, will be food price inflation - and funding/helping radical right parties who will capitalise on any form of migration as a response - and turning off the gas now so Europe can't rebuild stocks for the winter.

I don't think it's about prices or gas now but the impact we'll see in the coming months.

[Legbiter]

Putin's play, in my view, will be food price inflation - and funding/helping radical right parties who will capitalise on any form of migration as a response - and turning off the gas now so Europe can't rebuild stocks for the winter

On food prices the world might get lucky. Depends on whether new fertilizer production can be switched on next year instead of Russia/Belarus and Ukraine.

[Admiral Yi]

Youtube doesn't put Ukraine clips on my feed any more.

[The Larch]

Zelenskiy fires Ukraine's spy chief and top state prosecutor
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired the head of Ukraine's powerful domestic security agency, the SBU, and the state prosecutor general, citing dozens of cases of collaboration with Russia by officials in their agencies.

Sunday's abrupt sackings of SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelenskiy, and the prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, who played a key role in the prosecution of Russian war crimes, were announced in executive orders on the president's website.

Zelenskiy said he fired the top officials because it had come to light that many members of their agencies had collaborated with Russia.

As of today, 651 criminal proceedings have been registered regarding treason and collaboration activities of employees of prosecutor's offices, pretrial investigation bodies, and other law enforcement agencies.

In particular, more than 60 employees of the prosecutor's office and the Security Service of Ukraine remained in the occupied territory and are working against our state.

Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state and the connections detected between the employees of the security forces of Ukraine and the special services of Russia pose very serious questions to the relevant leadership. Each of these questions will receive a proper answer."

Seems quite harsh to me, but war is war I guess. Firing these people for what their (former) employees in occupied territories do is something they can't control.

[Josquius]

Last week I was speaking to a Ukrainian colleague. He has always been based elsewhere but due to the war his mother has moved in with him (which sucks, they don't get on) and his sister has ran away to France.
This chat got me thinking about something new with this whole mess away from the military side- his sister has been able to keep her job (something IT adjacent I believe), doing it remotely from France... trouble is her employer continues to pay the Ukrainian rate. Which means she is grossly underpaid and really struggling to get by.
Another colleague is interviewing for a position in the coming weeks and they're explicitly targeting someone based in the east of Europe for the lower rates. They're getting similar issues with Ukrainians currently based in western Europe applying. They're only going to be able to pay them Polish money at best.

Its...yeah. Nice that these Ukrainians can worry about such things. They're in a much better situation than many others. But still, kind of a messed up situation, sort of creating this whole new underclass of low paid white collar workers (not to mention all the shit less educated Ukrainians are facing trying to scrape together jobs here and there...).
Interestingly merges the war situation with another unfolding development in the world with the move towards location independent remote working and the question of what that means for locations that traditionally have higher salaries/ salaries overall.

[The Larch]

Last week I was speaking to a Ukrainian colleague. He has always been based elsewhere but due to the war his mother has moved in with him (which sucks, they don't get on) and his sister has ran away to France.
This chat got me thinking about something new with this whole mess away from the military side- his sister has been able to keep her job (something IT adjacent I believe), doing it remotely from France... trouble is her employer continues to pay the Ukrainian rate. Which means she is grossly underpaid and really struggling to get by.
Another colleague is interviewing for a position in the coming weeks and they're explicitly targeting someone based in the east of Europe for the lower rates. They're getting similar issues with Ukrainians currently based in western Europe applying. They're only going to be able to pay them Polish money at best.

Its...yeah. Nice that these Ukrainians can worry about such things. They're in a much better situation than many others. But still, kind of a messed up situation, sort of creating this whole new underclass of low paid white collar workers (not to mention all the shit less educated Ukrainians are facing trying to scrape together jobs here and there...).
Interestingly merges the war situation with another unfolding development in the world with the move towards location independent remote working and the question of what that means for locations that traditionally have higher salaries/ salaries overall.

Re. Ukranian refugees in Western Europe, yesterday I read an article about some of the ones that made their way to Spain finding the salaries in the jobs they've been able to get (mostly in tourism and hospitality) to be so pitiful and the work conditions so terrible as to make them consider going back to Ukraine.

[Jacob]

Optimistic assessment, predicting a general Russian collapse by end of August: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/logistics-collapse-945984f5d48e

[mongers]

Optimistic assessment, predicting a general Russian collapse by end of August: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/logistics-collapse-945984f5d48e

Yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised if several Russian generals 'collapsed' from next month onwards.

[Razgovory]

Optimistic assessment, predicting a general Russian collapse by end of August: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/logistics-collapse-945984f5d48e

There's always hope.

[Valmy]

Optimistic assessment, predicting a general Russian collapse by end of August: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/logistics-collapse-945984f5d48e

I have been assured by the geniuses in the Hungarian government that sanctions only prolong the war. This article suggests they are shortening the war, so obviously this is Soros-backed propaganda.

[Valmy]

Optimistic assessment, predicting a general Russian collapse by end of August: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/logistics-collapse-945984f5d48e

There's always hope.

I suppose it is better hoping for a Russian collapse than Russian victory but:

Incidentally, expect more threats of nuclear weapons. Every time Russia sees more reversals, the bombing of civilian areas increases. So does the talk of a nuclear use. These are the threats of a government that can see the writing on the wall.

Not sure this is entirely a great outcome.

I still don't understand why Russia was insane enough to start this war. They were getting so much just by threatening war.

[Jacob]

I suppose it is better hoping for a Russian collapse than Russian victory but:

Incidentally, expect more threats of nuclear weapons. Every time Russia sees more reversals, the bombing of civilian areas increases. So does the talk of a nuclear use. These are the threats of a government that can see the writing on the wall.

Not sure this is entirely a great outcome.

I don't see why the 205th time Russia smarmily suggests they might nuke everybody and everything (but especially the UK for some reason) is going to be any worse than the preceding 204 times.

[Tamas]

I was thinking, this seemingly indiscriminate but fairly sporadic rocketing of civilians... Is this the the V1/V2 rocket attacks on London stage of this war already?

[The Brain]

Steinerov is on standby.

[viper37]

I suppose it is better hoping for a Russian collapse than Russian victory but:

Incidentally, expect more threats of nuclear weapons. Every time Russia sees more reversals, the bombing of civilian areas increases. So does the talk of a nuclear use. These are the threats of a government that can see the writing on the wall.

Not sure this is entirely a great outcome.

I don't see why the 205th time Russia smarmily suggests they might nuke everybody and everything (but especially the UK for some reason) is going to be any worse than the preceding 204 times.

I don't think Valmy is concerned about the theoritical nuking of London, but more of the very real bombardmnent of Ukraine's civilians.