Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

That's just intimidation.  Bullying neighbours is a Russian specialty, so it's just verbal abuse to look tough in front of his crowd. 

Moldavia could be more serious though.  But I'll worry once Russia enacts a general mobilization order.

I know. I was mocking Putin.

It felt good.

[jimmy olsen]

It's in some ways worse that Putin is a strategic moron. He does completely crazy things, gets his teeth kicked in but then doubles down to the last vatnik conscript. He might resort to desperate measures because he is inept.

The US did a completely crazy thing in going to Vietnam after inciting the French to leave.  Then, they doubled down to the last conscript trying to hold on to South Vietnam.

At some point, no matter the mistake, you have your hand stuck in the grinder and you can't just pull out.

If Putin pulls out now, he loses face, no one will ever take him and Russia seriously and the regime will be destabilized.

He's better to go all in for some moderate gains and declare victory.

Also, lots of commentors are saying he wants southern Ukraine to go after Moldavia.  I don't know how he expects to do it while still fighting an active war against Ukraine's assault, but, we never know.

At that point, if he really does that, then I'll concede the point he is totally irrational, moving phantom divisions.

The US, unlike the French, were never in danger of being completely annihilated or driven into the sea. The Russians are in danger of being driven out of the Donbass. If they wait to start mobilizing until May 9th, then new troops will only be trained and equipped (presuming the Russian can actually train new troops well if they want, and assuming they can actually equip them) will be in August or September. The Ukrainians will be getting stronger and stronger over those intervening months and the fighting is not going to slow down.

[Zanza]

https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2022-04-19/russias-central-bank-says-that-the-economy-will-plummet-in-the-second-trimester-and-putin-is-ignoring-the-warning.html

Russia's central bank says that the economy will plummet in the second quarter and Putin is ignoring the warning

The institution's president is concerned about high inflation rates and the impact of international sanctions

The Russian economy has made it through the first blow caused by the sanctions imposed by the war in Ukraine, according to the president of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina. But she warned representatives at the Duma this Monday that the country's reserves are near their end, and the real crisis will hit between the second and third quarter this year. Hours after Nabiullina sounded the alert, Vladimir Putin himself rejected her warning. "Russia has resisted unprecedented pressure. The situation is stabilizing," the head of state said in a press conference about the country's economic situation.

Nabullina emphasized that the economy is far from returning to normal. "The period when the economy has been able to live on the reserves is over. In the second quarter or at the beginning of the third, we will enter a phase of structural transformation," said the economist, whose tenure leading the financial organism was set to end this year and was renewed for five years at Putin's decision.

In her opinion, sanctions "affected financial markets at first, but now they will start to affect sectors of the real economy more and more." The head of the Russian Central Bank noted that the problem is not the financial system, but the lack of materials that factories and companies will receive in the near future. "The main problems are not with the sanctions on financial institutions, but with restrictions on imports and, in the future, exports of Russian products," she added.

Additionally, Russians will have to accept their loss of purchasing power. For the time being, the Central Bank will not attempt to compensate for inflation. "We will not attempt to reduce it in any way, because that would stop companies from adapting. Restoring the supply of imported components is more difficult and expensive, and it will inevitably affect the price of the final product," she explained. Many companies find themselves scrambling to solve the problem. Some airlines have announced that they will leave part of their fleet grounded and use the parts to repair other airplanes.

The telecommunications sector calculates that its stock of replacement parts will last until the summer before system failures will begin. The year-on-year inflation rate reached 20% in March, the first month of the war, and many companies have suspended exports to Russia until the ruble's value stabilizes. Before the war, Russian authorities estimated that 80% of critical sectors had replaced imported goods for nationally produced products.

Nabiullina also played down the country's holdings in foreign currencies. Half of the fund of $620 billion (€592 billion) was frozen by the west, and the rest has been used to protect the ruble. According to the bank, it is not enough. "It consists of gold and yuan, which does not allow us to manage our currency in the external market," she emphasized. Hypothetical buyers of the precious metal would face sanctions, and because of Beijing's controls, the Chinese currency has less liquidity in the international market than that of the US or Europe.

Nabiullina's pessimism contrasts with the victorious declarations that Putin gave shortly afterwards. "We can say with confidence that the policies against Russia have failed, and the economic blitzkrieg has not succeeded," he said. The leader declared that the West "tried to quickly break the economy and provoke panic in the stock exchanges, collapse the financial system and provoke a major shortage of products in supermarkets." According to his version, the central bank's initiative helped the country avoid that fate. "The ruble's exchange rate has returned to its levels from early February," he said, before insisting that foreign currencies "are returning to the country's banking system and individual deposits are growing."

When the sanctions began, a few days after the war started, the Russian government and the organism led by Nabiullina imposed a limit on capital movement and increased interest rates from 9.5% to 20%. Among other restrictions, it forced companies to exchange 80% of their holdings in dollars and euros for rubles, prohibited banks and exchange houses from selling those currencies to civilians and banned foreigners from divesting from stocks in the Moscow Exchange.

The central bank now faces the delicate task of ending those measures and returning to a market economy. The exchange rate of the Russian currency, which has previously reached 160 rubles per euro, closed this Monday at 83, after the organism allowed banks to sell the few dollars and euros that they had received since April 9.

Sanctions starting to bite Russian economy.   

[Josquius]

We sent 4.

Apparently that's 10% of our arsenal.

What a joke.

That's what you get when you elect leftwing parties who don't care about anything but their image

LOL wut 
Holy projection batman.

[Jacob]

The Harper government cut defense spending significantly in after Russia invaded Crimea. I suppose Viper considers Harper a left-wing politician?

[Eddie Teach]

Organism 

[garbon]

Organism 

Yeah not a good translation.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_X5PRNnrqc

2 former Russian oil execs, their wives, and daughters found dead 24 hours apart, one set in Spain, another in Moscow.

[Iormlund]

Thread on the likely impact from the fire in the chemical plant in Dmitrievsky.

TLDR: not good for Russia

Slightly longer TLDR: This plant, was a PROCESS CRITICAL Tier 2/3 supplier  to dozens/hundreds of suppliers for everything needed in war. Russia's manufacturing ability to support its war effort took a massive hit.

Interesting this isn't being more widely reported if its as bad as this twitter guy says.

Seems awfully coincidental for a fire there now. I wonder what it was :Russian dissidents? Ukranian saboteurs behind the lines?

Depending on the nature of the processes involved I imagine cyberwarfare could also be a viable vector of attack.

My ex works in petrochemical control systems, and a big, growing part of the business is securing facilities against hacking.

[viper37]

We sent 4.

Apparently that's 10% of our arsenal.

What a joke.

That's what you get when you elect leftwing parties who don't care about anything but their image

LOL wut 
Holy projection batman.

The cons renovated our frigates, tried to build a port in the North, proceeded with the replacement of our aging fighters and finally fixed the acquisition of the helicopters cancelled by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 1993.

And he was called a warmongerer by the left.

That in itself would have been enough to endear him to me. 

[viper37]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_X5PRNnrqc

2 former Russian oil execs, their wives, and daughters found dead 24 hours apart, one set in Spain, another in Moscow.

Dguller beat you to it like 3 pages ago dude. 

 I still don't know if it's because Putin feared they could bankroll a coup against him.

[viper37]

The Harper government cut defense spending significantly in after Russia invaded Crimea. I suppose Viper considers Harper a left-wing politician?

Who scrapped the helicopter replacement program because it was a "Cadillac" we couldn't afford?
Who scrapped the fighter replacement program because we couldn't afford it?

[Jacob]

Another theory I've heard on the dead execs (and their families) as well as the fires... it's kleptocrats taking steps to cover up their stealing so they don't end up in the crosshairs for the problems of the armed forces. Hard to be blamed for a potemkin factory when the whole thing burned down due to enemy action.

[Josquius]

We sent 4.

Apparently that's 10% of our arsenal.

What a joke.

That's what you get when you elect leftwing parties who don't care about anything but their image

LOL wut 
Holy projection batman.

The cons renovated our frigates, tried to build a port in the North, proceeded with the replacement of our aging fighters and finally fixed the acquisition of the helicopters cancelled by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 1993.

And he was called a warmongerer by the left.

That in itself would have been enough to endear him to me. 

Our conservatives led large military cut backs including withdrawing the last navy ship from the soft Atlantic and completely ignoring intelligence of a likely argentine invasion. So....

But it wasn't the military part I find daft. It's that the left are the ones only concerned with their image.

[Threviel]

Happened by a playground today with the kids. Suddenly I notice two young girls, 10-15 or so, with Ukrainian flags painted on their cheeks and their dad.

I can't really drop the feeling of being happy that they're here, safe, and the thought of the horrible fate that would await them if the orcs got them.