Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

In particular I think it would be really worthwhile to blow up pipelines sending gas to China.

I mean, I don't know how hard it would be for a group of Russian speaking Ukrainians to make it to Siberia along the pipeline in a car with some explosives. Or even to affect the pipeline whereever it runs outside of Russia. But that'd be pretty annoying for Putin if they did that... especially if they did it consistently. And guarding pipelines could get pretty resource intensive.

[Syt]

So let's say Putin occupies Ukraine (or gobbles up large chunks and installs a puppet rump state). What then? Moldova? Caucasus?

The Baltics would be an obvious target, esp. Estonia with its large Russian population. But NATO seems actually willing this time to defend all their countries, or at least it's less doubtful.

Or would he go full Bond villain? "Agree to my demands, or I push the big red button!" How would you even react to a threat like that?

[Syt]

Also, I agree with this sentiment.

[Syt]

Morning briefing from Guardian:

Welcome to rolling updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I'm Samantha Lock and here are the main developments of the past few hours.

As dawn breaks in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, air raid sirens are sounding across the capital.

Earlier, residents reported waking to the sound of explosions as reports circulated that Russia had launched a series of missile strikes on the city of just under 3 million.

Many civilians sought safety in bomb shelters and metro stations as reports of Russian tanks were moving closer to the city from all sides.

Here's what we know so far:

* Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has confirmed multiple reports of Russian missile strikes in a national address early on Friday morning.

* Multiple explosions have been heard in Kyiv on Friday morning as the Russian offensive entered its second day. Two buildings were on fire in the south-east of the capital after a Russian plane was shot down and a border post in the south-east was hit by a missile, causing casualties.

* US secretary of state Antony Blinken said "all evidence suggests that Russia intends to encircle and threaten" the Ukrainian capital.

* Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 137 people have died and 316 had been wounded so far. In a video address late on Thursday, he lamented that Ukraine had been "left alone to defend our state", but said he would stay on in the capital despite being Russia's "target number one".

* The UK said Ukrainian forces had provided "fierce resistance across all axes of Russia's advance" and that is was unlikely Russia had achieved all its objectives for the first day of the invasion.

* Ukraine has decreed a full military mobilisation and all men aged 18-60 have been forbidden from leaving Ukraine.

* Thousands attempted to flee Kyiv, leading to large traffic queues. Meanwhile, pictures have emerged of Kyiv residents crowding into underground metro stations where they are taking shelter from further Russian attacks.

* Hundreds of people have been arrested in Russian cities after protests against the invasion. Police have held at least 1,702 people, according to the OVD-Info monitor, with most of the arrests made in Moscow and St Petersburg.

* Global leaders have decried Russia's actions, with many announcing fresh sanctions. US president Joe Biden ordered broad new sanctions, and the UK's prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced its "largest ever" curbs. However, there was concern that the EU was holding back from excluding Russia from the Swift international banking payments system.

* Officials in western capitals have expressed bewilderment about Vladimir Putin's mindset and choice in going to war. One described him as "despotic" while Emmanuel Macron said that the Russian leader had been "duplicitous" in talks before the invasion.[/li][/list]

[Admiral Yi]

Wiki says 250,000 in the Ukrainian military.

[Syt]

You know how in Aliens the have the often-memed line



And then Burke says, "Hold on, hold on just a second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it."

That's kinda what discussions of sanctions feel like.

[Syt]

Wiki says 250,000 in the Ukrainian military.

I saw a force comparison that said 200k active, 900k reserves (if literally everybody is called up).

[Syt]

I also like this reminder for Austrians that Ukraine is not *that* far away.



Also, this is the weirdest spelling for Kyiv I've seen. It kinda makes sense in Germany, I guess, but when your default is to read things English it gives me a major WTF moment In German we usually go with Kiew (Kiev).

It was bizarre to have German reporters calling in from Lviv and referring to it as Lemberg, too. 

[Jacob]

Ukrainian woman confronts Russian soldier, asking him why he's here and urging him "to put sunflower seeds in your pocket so when you die in our land, flowers will grow": https://twitter.com/i/status/1496866811110834176

Pretty ballsy.

Protest against the war in Moscow, in spite of threat of arrest:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1496906522080731139
https://twitter.com/i/status/1496900368344797184

Apparently Russia recently passed a law against sharing news of the invasion "not based on official accounts" with some pretty major fines for convicted offenders.

[HVC]

Ukrainian woman confronts Russian soldier, asking him why he's here and urging him "to put sunflower seeds in your pocket so when you die in our land, flowers will grow": https://twitter.com/i/status/1496866811110834176

Pretty ballsy.

Jesus. Slavic women, man. They can be scary

[Syt]

Apparently Russia recently passed a law against sharing news of the invasion "not based on official accounts" with some pretty major fines for convicted offenders.

Going against Ukraine seems fairly unpopular with regular Russians as far as can be discerned in the situations. There's some reports of captured Russians saying they're very unenthused about fighting outside the Luhansk/Donezk separatist areas, but of course the veracity is unclear, or if it's a widespread sentiment among forces - or just wishful thinking.

[Syt]

Katapult have also compiled a list of what they deem reliable Twitter sources, grouped by science, international media, factchecking, and Ukrainian media.



@anders_aslund
@Cen4infoRes
@OKhromeychuk
@polinaivanovva
@KofmanMichael
@EliotHiggins
@bellingcat
@ASLuhn
@leonidragozin
@HannaLiubakova
@nolanwpeterson
@ChristopherJM
@maxseddon
@polinaivanovva
@lapatina_
@ngumenyuk
@mchancecnn
@olya_rudenko
@KyivPost
@KyivIndependent
@ChristopherJM
@Ukrinform_deu
@nolanwpeterson

[Zanza]

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-86-about-those-sanctions

On the afternoon of February 24 2022 East Coast time, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after a morning of consultation with the G7 governments, President Biden strode to the White House rostrum to announce America's reaction.

America's response would take the form of economic sanctions.

The aim was no longer to deter. It was too late for that. The aim was to punish Putin and his regime and increase pressure for Putin to reverse his extraordinary aggression.

Biden, furthermore, had to make good on the threats that America and Europe had made ahead of time.

How far would America go? Would it seek to paralyze the Russian financial system and deal a crippling blow to Russia's ability to profit from the sale of energy and commodities?

As Javier Blas of Bloomberg outlined for us earlier in the week, that revenue amounts to $700 million per day.

In the 24 hours after Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing two breakaway Ukrainian territories, the European Union, the U.K., and the U.S. bought a combined 3.5 million barrels of Russian oil and refined products, worth more than $350 million at current prices. On top of that, the West probably bought another $250 million worth of Russian natural gas, plus tens of millions dollars of aluminum, coal, nickel, titanium, gold and other commodities. In total, the bill likely topped $700 million.

With surging prices for oil, gas and agricultural commodities Russia's revenues were only set to rise.

A lot of folks, myself included, were wondering whether Biden would now move to extend the sanctions already imposed on state-owned VTB, to including Sberbank, by far the largest Russian bank.

We were half-expecting an announcement that would cut Russia's banks off from SWIFT, a measure with which the United States had devastated Venezuela and Iran.

Biden was firm and amiable as ever in the press conference, even scolding himself for being a "wiseguy". But he was also vague. He did not mention Sberbank. Nor did he mention SWIFT until prompted by a journalist, only then to drop the bombshell that it was the Europeans who were refusing to agree to cut Russia out of the interbank communications network.

It was only after the brief press conference, when Treasury released the details of the sanctions, that the full range of the measures became clear.

Treasury is taking unprecedented action against Russia's two largest financial institutions, Public Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia (Sberbank)and VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank), drastically altering their fundamental ability to operate. On a daily basis, Russian financial institutions conduct about $46 billion worth of foreign exchange transactions globally, 80 percent of which are in U.S. dollars. The vast majority of those transactions will now be disrupted. By cutting off Russia's two largest banks — which combined make up more than half of the total banking system in Russia by asset value — from processing payments through the U.S. financial system. The Russian financial institutions subject to today's action can no longer benefit from the remarkable reach, efficiency, and security of the U.S. financial system.

VTB is to be fully blocked, which means that its assets are frozen.

Sberbank is to be denied correspondent bank relationships in the United States, which, as well-informed folks on social media pointed out, means that, in effect, it loses the ability to transact in the dollar system. It is, as Biden himself insisted, every bit as draconian as an exclusion from SWIFT.

By the late afternoon, the general consensus amongst those in the know appeared to be that SWIFT was, in fact, a red-herring.

But there was a nagging question. What about that moment in Biden's speech when he spoke about energy. Energy is the really critical issue in the sanctions saga, for both sides. It is what will hurt Russia most. It is also what is most critical for Europe. And, on energy, in the middle of his remarks, Biden had made this aside.

You know, in our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue. We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption.  We have been coordinating with major oil producing and consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies.

Yes, you read that correctly.

President Biden announced a sanctions package against Russia that is specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue! What kind of sanctions are those?

[...]

Furthermore, the political pressure for this carve-out comes from a specific source, as explained by this very helpful Bloomberg article from a month ago by Alberto Nardelli and Arne Delfs:

The German government has pushed for an exemption for the energy sector if there is a move to block Russian banks from clearing U.S. dollar transactions, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. People familiar with recent discussions said other major western European nations hold similar views. One official said that conversations since the documents were circulated suggest the exemption is likely to be part of a final package of penalties agreed with the U.S. that would be deployed in the event that Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Biden has clearly kept his promise. America has introduced sweeping sanctions against all the major banks of Russia that do everything but block the most important transactions that might actually impose severe costs both on Russia and America's major European allies.

Nor are the carve-outs limited to energy, they apply to Russia's agricultural commodity exports too. So long as the transactions run through non-US non-sanctioned banks, the US Treasury raises no objections.

Looks like the sanctions do not really hit Russia's main economic activity, selling energy and raw materials. Mainly of course at the insistence of unnamed European countries (known to be among others Germany and Italy), but even the US itself is exposed there. Overall, in addition to the tepid EU response this is pretty disappointing. If we are not willing to inflict pain on us, we will not be able to inflict pain on Russia.

[Jacob]

Embarrassing:(

[Syt]

Looks like the sanctions do not really hit Russia's main economic activity, selling energy and raw materials. Mainly of course at the insistence of unnamed European countries (known to be among others Germany and Italy), but even the US itself is exposed there. Overall, in addition to the tepid EU response this is pretty disappointing. If we are not willing to inflict pain on us, we will not be able to inflict pain on Russia.

Agreed. "Wash me, but don't make me wet," seems to be the watchword for many.

It drives home the need to disentangle economically. Yes, there were significant deliveries of gas etc. even during the Cold War, but the financials weren't nearly as enmeshed. And its also something to keep in mind with regards to China.