Ukrainian servicemen occupying a stronghold near Zvioroferma asked the Russian unit command via radio to cease fire and provide a corridor for exit.
Around 10 p.m., AFU servicemen with white flags began moving towards Russian positions.
At that moment, a Ukrainian nationalist barrier unit arrived at the stronghold in armored vehicles and opened crossfire in the back on the servicemen of the 54th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
As a result of this shooting, 32 Ukrainian servicemen were fatally wounded and killed.
This incident, as well as many others like it, clearly demonstrates that amid growing military failures and demoralization of Ukrainian troops, the Kiev nationalist regime is trying to stop the retreat and surrender of its units by punitive actions of barrier squads.
You didn't post the link where you read this. I found it on southfront.
Nationalist Units Shot Ukrainian Servicemen Who Tried To Surrender In Novomikhailovka - Russian MoD
Southfront is a Russian astro-turf news organization
SouthFront - Wikipedia
What made me suspicious is the reference to Ukrainian troops as "nationalist". The Russians have been casting Ukraine as a part of Russia that has tried to break away and they are just bringing them back into the fold like they did with Chechnya. So Ukrainian troops become "nationalists" because they are really Russians who are fighting Moscow in the Russian narrative.
This is almost certainly fake news or highly warped news.
Yes, life is getting tougher. The report of low Botox inventories was especially alarming. Another week and Putin will call it all off...
BTW, the Moscow McDonald's featured in in that story
just reopened and the new owner plans to open all stores in Russia by summer's end. A CNN reporter on the scene also mentioned store shelves are full now and inflation had come back down. Heck, maybe Biden should invade someone!
For dictators and would be dictators it's all about the appearance of things. One of the car plants the Russians took over after western interests pulled out reopened a week or so back to a lot of fanfare and then closed a day later because there were only enough parts on hand to complete a few cars.
They are doing things like reopening McDonalds under Russian ownership to put on appearances everything is normal. It's all smoke and mirrors.
Yes, countries at war typically import (and borrow) more while exporting less. But Russia can't borrow, thus requires exports to fund truly essential imports. And it's not like Russia is exporting critical resources needed to fight. They're exporting excess oil and gas they'd otherwise have to shut in. It's found money.
A true oil/gas embargo would be a huge blow to Russia's war effort, but the current shell game hurts us more than them.
Their treasury is growing, not draining, due to a soaring trade surplus.
Oil is paying for the war instead of Botox and Louis Vuitton handbags. It's a sacrifice Putin is willing to make.
The article from Vox EU that
@petit_bateau posted yesterday did a great job of explaining how the sanctions are working and how the trade surplus from oil sales is a distraction.
The Russians are bringing in foreign currency for fossil fuel sales, but they are spending little of it because they can't import anything. Even more than the US, the Russian economy has become an import economy. A lot of things aren't happening because needed ingredients can't be imported.
They are printing rubles to keep the economy going and pay for the war. That is disconnected from foreign currencies now, which is OK short term, but that sort of thing comes back to haunt them later.
Their economy is also shrinking. I've seen estimates of 10-15% this year and probably higher next year.
Kamil Galeev had an article some weeks back about who is going to be affected. He divided Russia into 4 groups:
1) The world traveler middle class, white Russians - They are about 20% of the white population and they have been fleeing the country
2) The poorer, former peasant white Russians - About 60% of the white Russians. These people have clawed their way into the middle class after a century of pain. They have just barely been able to afford a cheap car and a big screen TV and they do not want to lose all they have gained.
3) The poorest white Russians - About 20% of the white Russian population. These are equivalent to the white working class people on the dole in the UK, the rednecks in the US, and other poorest whites in other European countries. They don't have much and are always on the margins. A shrinking economy will hurt them a lot.
4) Then there are a non-white Russians who are kept as a separate class by the white Russians. They are almost universally poor and live outside the major cities. This population has been tapped heavily for the military and are taking the brunt of the casualties in this war. Predatory lending practices has large swaths of this population so strung out financially that it's not uncommon for factory workers to commit suicide at work so their family will get paid off by the company and get out of debt. There are slang terms in Russian for this.
The richer 20% have the skills to run the more complex parts of the economy and they aren't around to participate in it anymore. They gave up trying to block YouTube and some other western sites in Russia because they don't have the servers to implement the equivalent of the Great Firewall of China nor do they have the technicians to run it.
Things are doing OK right now, but technology breaks eventually. Without skilled people to keep it running or access to replacement parts, they will see a steady decline in their tech over time. The people who have fought to get something over the last 30 years will be very unhappy when their car or TV quit and can't be repaired.
Countries do survive under sanctions. Cuba has been under sanctions for 60 years. Cuba has worked around the sanctions and become something unique. Iran and North Korea have survived sanctions too. Though starvation is a constant problem in North Korea.
All those countries had larger countries that have helped them. China is one of the few countries that could help Russia and they are reluctant to help much. So far their help has been a lot less than Putin wants. Xi is ticked off at Putin for this war and they are trying to avoid ticking off the US by helping too much.
Russia is the largest country to face these sorts of sanctions. The USSR was sort of a sanctioned state, existing in a separate ecosystem, but they had a larger population with, ironically, Ukrainian innovators to help. After WW II their ecosystem was even bigger with the Warsaw Pact countries in their system.
During communism the USSR built itself from an agrarian society into an industrial one on their own. After the fall of the USSR, some of their industry ended up in other countries, and Russia de-industrialized to a large degree as they became an import economy relying on a lot of goods imported from other countries. Now with the sanctions on, a lot of the tech they relied on from other countries is no longer available and they have no ability to produce it themselves. Nor the ability to even start because they have a growing shortage of technical expertise.
During the Soviet era they recognized the importance of a well educated class of scientists and engineers and set up a good education system to make sure a large percentage of their high school graduates had the basics and they could train quite a few in their universities. They trailed behind the west in manufacturing quality and a fair number of technologies, but their engineers were good at work arounds and they had pretty solid scientists.
The Russian school system has fallen apart over the last 30 years. They no longer have the pool of skilled engineers and scientists the Soviets had. Going back to the 1980s Soviet Union may be a dream for a lot of top people in Putin's government, but in reality it is impossible to achieve. They are starting from a very different place than Lenin and Stalin did. Lenin and then Stalin took decades to ramp up into an industrial power. Putin doesn't have decades to change the economy and there is an existing population with much higher expectations than the peasants of 1920s Russia.
Another thing is something from a book written by an American who has studied dictatorships. I saw an interview with her where she pointed out that almost universally when the state is built around the power of one man (and they are all men), things fall apart when that guy dies. Strong men tend to eliminate their rivals, so when the strong man isn't there anymore, there is nobody to replace them and the system falls apart.
The USSR and the PRC stayed together through changing leadership because there was a central party that did have a lot of power behind the scenes. When a leader died, the party would step in and replace them with someone else.
But Russia doesn't have a communist party running things anymore. The country is a cult of personality centered on Putin.
There are a lot of rumors Putin is sick and they may be true, but even if they aren't, Putin is getting up there. He might be around another decade or so if he isn't seriously ill, but he's closer to the end of his life than the beginning. When he dies, Russia is going to have some turmoil finding someone to replace him. That happening while Russia is trying to recreate their own ecosystem separate from the rest of the world would be major chaos.
Rationing would cut Europe's trade deficit. It would also help reign in inflation in both Europe and the US. It would be unpopular, of course.
Politically rationing would be a disaster. The austerity measures Europe tried due to the 2008 financial crisis almost ripped apart the EU. It hit the poorer countries very hard.
For the US any economic measures that were unpopular would likely sweep in the Republicans this fall who would start advocating for the US to send in the 1st Armored division to help Russia. At minimum they would start moving to cut off Ukraine from US military supplies. Many Republicans have been pro-Putin for a while now.
EVs are a great long-term strategy, but can't move the Russia/Ukraine needle.
Yes, short term they are not going to make much impact on a macro scale. I was talking to one person who was complaining about high gas prices (micro scale).
Chevy now sells the "25k EV" we've heard about all these years.
Though a lot of people won't buy a Chevy. My partner likes cars the size of the Bolt, but won't touch a Chevy.
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