The ruble value has tanked while the cost of goods has gone way up. I've seen videos of protesters giving shit back to police. Obviously that's not widespread..... Yet... But how long before the police no longer support the government? I see 2 paths. Overthrow or assassination of Putin or nuclear escalation, either with weapons or one of those plants in Ukraine. Nuclear stuff would very potentially hurt Russia too, and Moscow isnt far away, but I read someone compare Putin to an abusive spouse who would rather kill his wife and then himself rather than let her go, and I'm kinda seeing it. Either path, the average Russian is hurting for a long time. Is there another path forward I'm not seeing? War is so senseless, this one particularly. I am on a break from looking at pictures. Saw one last night of an entire family including a young boy with suitcases who were fleeing and had been gunned down in the street. It hurts to think about. I can hardly imagine living through such atrocities.
Russia wants Crimea, Donbas and a cease-fire. I could see that being doable, especially with the caveat that sanctions remain in place until Putin retires. He could theoretically "retire", avoid elections and run shit from behind the scenes with a puppet in place. From Putin's perspective, that's a big fucking plus: no more elections, fall guy in the president's chair, sanctions gone, and he can still exercise power. The more atrocities and war crimes are committed, documented and discussed, the less likely peace will be.
Wouldn't capitulation be a bad strategy? We let him get away with it in Crimea, he's trying it again, so what's to stop him from doing it again, later? Appeasement is how Hitler got as far as he did. If he wants a cease fire, that probably means he's running out of steam; wouldn't this be the perfect time to keep Russia's nuts in a vice, and cause him to "fall" out of a window?
The longer this goes on, the less likely I think it’s going to go nuclear. Putin sees the Ukrainians as Russian under a different flag and the people need to be liberated. Russia will have to occupy Ukraine with about a million troops for years, just to deal with guerilla warfare and insurgency. I don’t entirely buy Fiona Hill’s take on it. The next thing you’ll see is the Ukrainians are going start blowing up bridges to slow the advance toward Odessa and the western part of the country.
If Putin assumes all responsibility, then he's the issue, and as part of the negotiation, he's required to step down....It kind of side steps the capitulation debate. Putin's removed, as part of an international agreement, he gets a high degree of protection from within and without. We know he'd be a heavy power player from behind the scenes, but that's as good a separation as we're going to get from this, and you never know how his role could be diminished/silenced over time if he's not in the chief executive chair. I'd also assume we'd get serious agreements about further expansion as part of it, with the "new" adminstration. I don't think Putin goes nuclear either, if for no other reason than that is the one step that would ensure he's eliminated. If he fires one nuke, nearly every country on Earth would need him dead to make sure he couldn't fire another one, and it would absolutely destroy his credibility with the Russian people.
Putin wants Ukraine under Russia's sphere of influence which means no EU or NATO membership as well as the removal of Zelensky. This war isn't ending soon unless Russia is suddenly able to force the total capitulation of the Ukrainian government and people.
At this point, there is absolutely no reason for them not to be part of both the EU and NATO. It’s clear Putin takes those boundaries seriously as he only really threatens non-nato countries. Also, we know how incompetent their armed forces are now and with the sanctions and their money being worthless, they aren’t rebuilding anytime soon. Why shouldn’t Ukraine join up and have more security guarantees? Russia will need to rebuild themselves from the inside and find a new leader who won’t rape the populace of a decent way of life.
They can’t join NATO with an active territorial dispute. Crimea has been exactly that since 2014. It’s another reason this war has been completely pointless. Just when I thought Biden was handling this reasonably well, his old foreign policy acumen rears its head again. The fact that they are going to court the Saudis and Venezuela for oil instead of relying on domestic production is absurd.
This is hilarious if true. The russians are using a secure communications network that relies on local 3G and 4G cell towers. Since they have destroyed so many of those in Ukraine their secure communications are not working on the front. This was how they found out about the general who was killed recently since they had to phone it in using a local SIM card in their cell and the communication was promptly intercepted. https://www.rawstory.com/russia-ukraine-war/
What I learned from selling my "wannabe-Che" cousin my old Xbox is that you don't do business with communists. They do not respect your money, and will fall back on their ideology to skip out on the bill. Venezuela hates us, if they even agreed to sell us their oil it would be at a huge markup, and they could pull out any second.
US just banned all russian energy imports. Oil, natural gas, coal, the works. Gas is gonna go way up, but fuck putin. This is what we should have done from the start, and glad we're doing it now. Hopefully once the US gets a taste of doing more of this domestically, they won't go back.
We will set records for gas prices by the end of the week, and it won't do much for that whole inflation issue we've been struggling with. Not saying this is a bad move, but I do think there aren't many tools left to put pressure on Russia after this, and the Biden administration probably just sealed it's fate. No way we get to 2024 with an economy that's still reeling from this and he wins a 2nd term. Also, we have to keep in mind that the Ukrainian population suffered the largely unrecognized genocide (Holodomor, I think it's spelled?). That is going to factor heavily into negotiations, because I think they have a valid claim to "Hey, fuck y'all, Russia did this to us 70 years ago and y'all didn't even acknowledge it."
I can tell you that I'm super excited to see the same people who used "globalism" as an epithet on par with "pedophilia" complain about a slight loss of the benefits of global trade.
Bad things are not supposed to happen TO white people! They are supposed to happen BECAUSE of white people! Gah, get your shit together, Biden!
McDonalds has temporarily closed all locations in Russia. As funny as it is, I bet this legitimately pisses people off. Step 1: Devalue currency Step 2: Close cheap fast food restaurants Step 3: riot?
Step aside folks Alex Jon...I mean Tucker Max is giving another one of his galaxy brained lessons about life! https://twitter.com/tuckermax/status/1501225602073858048?s=21
So can anyone tell me what happens now? Putin has made it so Rubles can’t be converted to other currency now. And fitch has downgraded them to a C and debt default is imminent. I know all of that is not good for them obviously. But what does it mean for them now?