Russia/Ukraine conflict

[elasalle]

From the front lines, protesting invasion

https://twitter.com/x/status/1500055145928962051

 

[scottf200]

“This is what American and NATO support for Ukraine looks like. Every day, 14 widebody jets are landing here to deliver Javelins, Stinger antiaircraft missiles and other weapons for the Ukrainians. A half-dozen of these daily arrivals are American planes.”

Short (2:32) informative video on Javelin's effectiveness.

 

[Feathermerchan]

Has anyone here heard of reserving an Airbnb without intentions of showing up as a contribution to local Ukrainians?
Seems like a way to quickly get cash to them.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Short (2:32) informative video on Javelin's effectiveness.

It looks to me like technology advancement has made large/expensive WWII style war machines obsolete. Billions of dollars of tanks/fighters can be reliably taken out by a few hundred million dollars of munitions.

We just wasted about $1.25T on the F-35 program when $100B in drones would have been more effective.

This is all pretty delightful. Humans can't really war with each other for territory anymore. You either waste a ton of money and don't get anywhere, or you gotta use nukes or other psycho-extreme measures. How wonderful!

Accelerating the transition to renewables based sustainability, along with economic sanctions, is the clear path.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Has anyone here heard of reserving an Airbnb without intentions of showing up as a contribution to local Ukrainians?
Seems like a way to quickly get cash to them.

Yes, but that's a fraud magnet. Would not do.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Each morning I wake up thinking ok Russia will surely have made some progress today and each morning, they haven’t taken major objectives.

If Ukraine can hold out for another week or two, as bad as it’s going to sound, Putin will just bomb the hell out of the country and in two weeks declare “the Ukraine threat has been disabled” and move his troops out of Ukraine. The country will be left in rubbles unfortunately.

But I really don’t see how the Russian economy and Putins own military logistics/supply survives longer than 2 weeks from this point. Both are already breaking down faster than I thought they would and with each passing day, it becomes more apparent how weak the Russian army is.

To add on to my own post -

I think it's very clear now that occupation of Ukraine by Russia is impossible, and I think even Putin knows that. If the US, with it's huge military budget was willing to give up on Afghanistan, there is no way Russia is going to be even remotely capable of occupying a country the size of Texas with 44 million civilians who are clearly going to fight them non-stop under occupation.

Hence why I'm starting to think Putin's plan has resorted to bomb Ukraine and essentially level it, claim that Russian has "neutralized" the Ukranian threat to the Russian people, and move his forces out of Ukraine.

 

[dm28997]

I've been reading about alcoholism in Russia. It's worth googling as the history is quite interesting from Ivan the Terrible to Gorbachev and to the present day. A few tidbits:
30% of deaths are due to alcoholism
In a country of only 144 million 20 million are alcoholics
Men(macho) seem to have 3 times the rate of alcoholism than woman
These is a 2013 article from The Atlantic titled how "How Alcohol Conquered Russia"
I'm still reading about this and find it fascinating.
Being familiar with alcoholism there is an interesting caveat in that some sober individuals can be Dry Drunks who become very angry and emotionally crippled.
I'm not sure how much of the military are alcoholics but it seems to me, from their actions that those in power might just be enabling each other.
These are just my observations from secondary information as the lack of transparency and censorship in Russia make an analysis difficult.

New Year Drinking in Russia | Newslanc.com

n the Soviet Union, the New Year was the only non-political holiday. Everybody considered it the most important holiday of the year. This tradition is still alive. The official Holiday is from January 1 to January 9. During these days nobody works: stock markets are shut and no newspapers are...

newslanc.com

 

[madodel]

Pentagon 2008 study claims Putin has Asperger's syndrome

USA Today article from 7 years ago that delves into a CIA assessment of Vladimir Putin as suspected "a form of autism." And "His primary form of compensation is extreme control," which "is reflected in his decision style and how he governs," the report said.

 

[Xdama]

I've been reading about alcoholism in Russia. It's worth googling as the history is quite interesting from Ivan the Terrible to Gorbachev and to the present day. A few tidbits:
30% of deaths are due to alcoholism
In a country of only 144 million 20 million are alcoholics
Men(macho) seem to have 3 times the rate of alcoholism than woman
These is a 2013 article from The Atlantic titled how "How Alcohol Conquered Russia"
I'm still reading about this and find it fascinating.
Being familiar with alcoholism there is an interesting caveat in that some sober individuals can be Dry Drunks who become very angry and emotionally crippled.
I'm not sure how much of the military are alcoholics but it seems to me, from their actions that those in power might just be enabling each other.
These are just my observations from secondary information as the lack of transparency and censorship in Russia make an analysis difficult.

New Year Drinking in Russia | Newslanc.com

n the Soviet Union, the New Year was the only non-political holiday. Everybody considered it the most important holiday of the year. This tradition is still alive. The official Holiday is from January 1 to January 9. During these days nobody works: stock markets are shut and no newspapers are...

newslanc.com

Alcohol and tobacco taxation is kept low as a way of control, an indifferent population doesn’t vote. Those vote’s not used go to the party with the most vote’s……in this case Putins party. This is how he’s stayed in control for so many years.

 

[Skipdd]

To add on to my own post -

I think it's very clear now that occupation of Ukraine by Russia is impossible, and I think even Putin knows that. If the US, with it's huge military budget was willing to give up on Afghanistan, there is no way Russia is going to be even remotely capable of occupying a country the size of Texas with 44 million civilians who are clearly going to fight them non-stop under occupation.

Hence why I'm starting to think Putin's plan has resorted to bomb Ukraine and essentially level it, claim that Russian has "neutralized" the Ukranian threat to the Russian people, and move his forces out of Ukraine.

Do you have any thoughts on how to stop this without inciting a greater response? Is there a point where the cost for Putin is greater than the reward?

 

[nativewolf]

Do you have any thoughts on how to stop this without inciting a greater response? Is there a point where the cost for Putin is greater than the reward?

In 2 weeks the economy collapses. What they do then is a good question and who knows. They had 500 billion in foreign reserves with much of that in gold and much of that in Switzerland which is no unobtainable. If they had been wise they could have brought that back to Russia prior to invasion. They could have given oligarchs time to really move to bitcoin. Going to be interesting now. I could see Russia moving entirely to bitcoin or some other virtual currency.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Alcohol and tobacco taxation is kept low as a way of control, an indifferent population doesn’t vote. Those vote’s not used go to the party with the most vote’s……in this case Putins party. This is how he’s stayed in control for so many years.

And there's more:

Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?

0/4

The constitution establishes a strong presidency with the power to dismiss and appoint, pending parliamentary confirmation, the prime minister. The president is elected to a six-year term, and can be reelected to one additional term. Constitutional amendments adopted in 2020 allow Putin, but not future presidents, to run for an additional two terms as president, potentially extending his rule to 2036. Like past elections, President Putin’s 2018 reelection campaign benefited from advantages including preferential media treatment, numerous abuses of incumbency, and procedural irregularities during the vote count. His most influential rival, Aleksey Navalny, was disqualified before the campaign began due to a politically motivated criminal conviction, creating what the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) called “a lack of genuine competition.” The funding sources for Putin’s campaign were also notably opaque. [My underline.]

Source:

Russia: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report | Freedom House

See the Freedom in the World 2021 score and learn about democracy and freedom in Russia.

freedomhouse.org

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies?

0 4

Russia’s electoral system is designed to maintain the dominance of United Russia. The authorities make frequent changes to electoral laws and the timing of elections in order to secure advantages for their preferred candidates. Opposition candidates have little chance of success in appealing these decisions, or securing a level playing field. In May 2020, Putin signed a law permitting the use of electronic voting across Russia, raising concerns about the security, anonymization, and secrecy of ballots in future elections. In July, Putin also signed a law for all future elections to have a three-day voting period. Critics claimed that the expanded timeframe increases officials’ ability to manipulate election outcomes.
Russia adopted extensive changes to its constitution in 2020 through a “nationwide vote” that was set up to avoid full referendum procedures. Voting was originally set for April 22, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Central Electoral Commission subsequently adopted a number of provisions that extended the voting period to one week—from June 25 to July 1. Critics charged there was no way to observe or monitor the fairness or integrity of polling. Statisticians claimed it was potentially the most falsified vote in Russian history. [My underline.]

Source:

Russia: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report | Freedom House

See the Freedom in the World 2021 score and learn about democracy and freedom in Russia.

freedomhouse.org

 

[_Redshift_]

In 2 weeks the economy collapses. What they do then is a good question and who knows. They had 500 billion in foreign reserves with much of that in gold and much of that in Switzerland which is no unobtainable. If they had been wise they could have brought that back to Russia prior to invasion. They could have given oligarchs time to really move to bitcoin. Going to be interesting now. I could see Russia moving entirely to bitcoin or some other virtual currency.

Even crypto currency can be a problem. China banned Bitcoin, for example. US, EU could say crypto is banned for a year, for example. Tough to do, but look at all the tough sanctions they passed.

Russia could invest in its own crypto. Which again would have limited usage, with possibly China, and a few smaller countries accepting it, and rest of the world largely shunning it.

 

[Singuy]

To add on to my own post -

I think it's very clear now that occupation of Ukraine by Russia is impossible, and I think even Putin knows that. If the US, with it's huge military budget was willing to give up on Afghanistan, there is no way Russia is going to be even remotely capable of occupying a country the size of Texas with 44 million civilians who are clearly going to fight them non-stop under occupation.

Hence why I'm starting to think Putin's plan has resorted to bomb Ukraine and essentially level it, claim that Russian has "neutralized" the Ukranian threat to the Russian people, and move his forces out of Ukraine.

Level Ukraine and declare threat neutralized from Nato who wasn't touched. Sounds about right....

 

[Singuy]

In 2 weeks the economy collapses. What they do then is a good question and who knows. They had 500 billion in foreign reserves with much of that in gold and much of that in Switzerland which is no unobtainable. If they had been wise they could have brought that back to Russia prior to invasion. They could have given oligarchs time to really move to bitcoin. Going to be interesting now. I could see Russia moving entirely to bitcoin or some other virtual currency.

Their economy collapsed already . They already ran on the banks, and they ran on the stores. Stores are now empty with no restocks which means mass unemployment coming up. China will only accept their foreign currencies as they are not stupid enough to touch their ruble toilet paper. Even though energy hasn't been sanctioned, the banks that hold reserves for refineries have so EU refineries cannot buy Russian oil as there's no way to transact the payment. It's currently pretty much over unless a dramatic 180 from current situation gets negotiated in the up coming days.

Putin right now is hoping that the sanction is severe enough for the west to reverse back before collapsing our economy too.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Bloody hell. If I'm looking at that right, that's a S300 anti-aircraft battery.

Sure as hell could put that to good use.

No, that's an SA-22 "Greyhound" (Pantsir-S1).

Cheers!

 

[stopcrazypp]

It looks to me like technology advancement has made large/expensive WWII style war machines obsolete. Billions of dollars of tanks/fighters can be reliably taken out by a few hundred million dollars of munitions.

This is a bit misleading. While the tanks may be easily taken out, there are no verified reports that fighters in this conflict have been taken out by Stingers or similar inexpensive weapons. Most likely those were taken out by other AA or Ukraine's own fighters. The fighters can easily avoid Stingers by flying higher.

We just wasted about $1.25T on the F-35 program when $100B in drones would have been more effective.

This is misleading also. While drones are useful in certain contexts, they don't stand a chance against even 4 gen fighters (or even perhaps older ones) when going head to head. Drone development has not reached a point yet where they can replace fighters, and if you made drones with the same capabilities as fighters, they would likely cost just as much, if not more.

 

[CLK350]

Even crypto currency can be a problem. China banned Bitcoin, for example. US, EU could say crypto is banned for a year, for example. Tough to do, but look at all the tough sanctions they passed.

Russia could invest in its own crypto. Which again would have limited usage, with possibly China, and a few smaller countries accepting it, and rest of the world largely shunning it.

I am guessing China will pick up Russian assets (gold, oil&gas, minerals) at fire sales prices - helping them out of their predicament. Essentially doing to Russian what they've been doing in Africa with great success. China has been beefing up their physical gold reserves for more than a decade as the US was artificially holding the price of gold down with paper gold futures, sort of a parallel play now with Wall St et al holding down TSLA with artificial measures.

If I'm right, then China's game will be to let Russia go down as much as possible without Putin triggering the nuclear option.

China also has developed its own precious metals market, and alternatives to SWIFT (because they may be as corrupt as the Russian, but way smarter, case in point letting Tesla build its factory there with 100% Tesla ownership, a first at the time for any foreign company.

If that's the game plan, what would investors do then? invest in NIO, solar .. (not an expert in Chinese stocks, happy to hear suggestions)

 

[ZeApelido]

This is not The Onion

Russia calls on EU, NATO to stop arms supplies to Ukraine

Russia's foreign ministry called on European Union and NATO countries on Saturday to "stop pumping weapons" to Ukraine, the Russian RIA news agency said.

www.reuters.com