Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

I find it interesting that these very strongly held moral principles that musk has just keep aligning with the interests of the invader. 

Oligarchs gonna olig.

[Thumpalumpacus]

In other news:

MOSCOW, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Russia will cut oil production by 500,000 barrels per day, or around 5% of output , in March, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday, after the West imposed price caps on Russian oil and oil products.

[...]

As Russia navigates the maze of restrictions which the West has imposed in an attempt to choke off its revenue from oil, the production cut indicates that the price cap on Russian oil products has had some impact.

[...]

Russia's oil output last year defied numerous predictions of a decline, rising by 2% to 535 million tonnes (10.7 million barrels per day) thanks to a jump in sales to Asia, especially, to India and China.

However, following a raft of new sanctions from the West, Russia is facing more challenges in selling oil, a key source of revenue for the state budget, which posted a $25 billion deficit in January.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/...023-02-10/

[The Grand Nudger]

Kostin, in an interview with state television channel Rossiya 24, said the bank had managed to grow its retail and corporate loan portfolios, but that sanctions accounted for all the lender's losses.

"The main thing on which we incurred losses is that from Feb. 24 to March 10, before decisions were made about restrictions on issuing funds in foreign currency to the population, $26 billion was withdrawn from our accounts," Kostin said.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance...0in%202022.

[Leonardo17]

Time for some depressing numbers.  Since 2014, a conservative estimate of deaths for both sides in the russo-ukranian war, is 200k.  Many, many many many more wounded, displaced, captured, kidnapped, missing - and straight up fled.  If we split that right down the middle, assuming that russian forces are the most fearsome and competent invaders the world has ever seen..literally all evidence to the contrary, this is a fucking disaster for all parties involved.  I wonder if it even needs to be said that at the current intensity of fighting, 1k kia a day (and lets again assume that russian supersoldiers are inflicting the same on ukranian defenders) this literally cannot continue.  In short order, there will be just a handful of people left to so much as throw a rock at the other guy on either side.  It reminds me of that old (possibly apocryphal) albert e line.  No clue what weapons ww3 will be fought with, but ww4, sticks and stones.    Didn't even take a nuke to realize this situation..and it's unlikely that the use of tactical nukes, so often threatened, would actually make the situation worse for the combatants on either side.  Not because they aren't horrific, but because russia is really digging a basement under "horrific" already.  Presumably, so that they have some place to hide all those bodies.

Personally, I'm beyond the point of thinking that even a return to pre 2014 borders is credible.  Putin, or his successor, will simply try again.  I have some sympathy for the russian person who, looking at this, thinks there really is something to the idea of it being an existential conflict - because even though it didn't start out that way or even in the same universe, the russian admin has since done everything it possibly could to convince the world that there probably shouldn't be any russia, in future.  I have no belief whatsoever in the ability of the russian people to change this situation, and I don't blame them for this predicament in the least.  I'm disgusted, I'm disappointed, but I do understand.

I don’t think this is still going to work for the Russians. Wagner is no longer able to recruit prisoners to join the ranks of the army. All prisoners seem to prefer the living standards of soviet-era prisons to becoming cannon fodder in the ranks of Wagner. Half of the population has fled. Young Russians are even starting to live in Turkey (they are able to come here without a visa) rather than remaining in their own country (whose economy is still growing and were they are normally able to have a better living).
 
   We don’t have a crystal ball in front of us. But people speculate that a defeat in Ukraine (as it happened in Afghanistan in the Soviet Era) can mean many armed and angry soldiers returning to their homeland and willing to overthrow a regime which is clearly corrupt and is not working for the good of the people. So things can happen. And the lifeline of such regimes is usually oil. These are regimes who can only survive if they are able to get some free cash from some place. So I would talk to China + India on these issues. And I don’t know a lot about these things, But the day we are out of fossil energies is also the day in which all those petro-dictatorships (including places like Saudi-Arabia) will be gone and we as the rest of the world will be able to live our lives more easily.

[Leonardo17]

+ Putin's Chechen Ally Ramazan Kadyrov is even talking of attacking Poland after Ukraine.

-and the russian analogs to faux news are declaring that a straight in the us will one day be named after stalin.  These people are ridiculous.  If any of them truly believe any of it, that explains their incompetence in actual combat all by itself.  I can't even, sometimes.  Is there still lead in the paint?  Do they spend their downtime huffing lada fumes and mainlining bleach?  What the actual fuck...?

That’s the parallel universe.
You should try to see this 2004 movie called downfall: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/
 
Here you see how Hitler and is surrounding were still believing in a possible victory even when the Red-Army had arrived at their doorsteps.
 
In fact many old SS had fled Germany after WWII to place like south-America and were still following their anti-Semitic agendas in these countries. That’s how insane such people are. This is why I am very conservative on the idea of letting European nationals who decided to join to ranks of ISIL return to their countries. Even if they do return I think these people (mostly women) should be arrested and jailed. Because fanatics cannot use their logical brain. They just are.

[Leonardo17]

One thing about Russian culture is that they value men a lot. 

Do they..though...really...?  Seems like a lot of dead russian men might argue to the contrary.  Hell, living russian women have been known to call that one a lie.  Who cares if their sons and brothers and husbands and fathers die.  They're a bunch of unemployed wifebeating drunks.  A bag of carrots and a sack of potatoes might actually be an upgrade, or so they've said.  Hell, the war in ukraine is basically an episode of oprah - check under your dead men, cause there's a free car!

In contrast, since we're talking about valuing men.  Know what the basic payout is for a dead us soldier to his listed survivors?  100k, 250k (or more - and there are itemized lists all the way down to the loss of individual digits - thumbs are money baby - and dicks..may as well be gold plated!) if he pays some piddly ass fee....plus whatever pay he's owed or has squirreled away - and in the case of his children, full or partial transference of whatever benefits he's earned in service and didn't live to cash out.  They get his social security too.  Here in the us, for better and for worse and regardless of how we feel about it, soldiers are lionized, we're heroes.  In russia?  They're suckers.  Marks.  Food for enemy artillery.

The King of Battle thanks them for their sacrifice, and drinks deeply of their spilt blood, from the hallowed out skulls of the fallen.

That’s a good point too. Those Western standards are not applied in most armies of the developing world. This is also a sign of how stupid authoritarian people are. They literally decimate their own military force. I won’t go into details because I am experiencing this first hand here. But as I said. Soldiers are our guardians. So looking after their family is one of the basic thing to do when those men die.
 
I was talking of a more social phenomenon. There is this urban legend in my region about the virtues of Russian Girls. I am simply considering the possibility of some of the aspects of this urban legend to be true and I am saying that it could be because Wars in Russian Culture are more or less endless since imperial times and that therefore, Russian women may have come to value their men more than other women in other cultures.

[Leonardo17]

Here’s an article on the issue I mentioned before. Sending all sorts of Tanks to Ukraine will be a logistical nightmare. It’s better if NATO countries can decide on sending only Leopard II + Only F-16 aircrafts to Ukraine. The US + UK + France could simply send their Tank to the European countries who deliver Leopard II tanks to Ukraine. That would create more cohesion in the Ukrainian Army and allow them to make more significant gains within a shorter period.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-tanks...25508.html

[Fake Messiah]

Russia Facing 'Difficult Choice' As Troop Numbers Dwindle

Russia is facing a "difficult choice" about whether to carry out a further mobilization of its forces as the country continues to lose troops in its invasion of Ukraine, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD)

"The Russian leadership faces the difficult choice of either continuing to deplete its forces, scale back objectives, or conduct a further form of mobilization," the update concluded.

That decision will ultimately be taken by Putin.

In October, the partial mobilization was ended after 300,000 new recruits were added to Russia's forces.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the recruitment drive was complete and told Putin in a televised conversation: "No further measures are planned."

However, Putin's decree ordering partial mobilization remains in force and that has fueled concerns that more Russians may be called up.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-difficul...uk-1780561


"deplete its forces" is one heck of a euphemism.

[Jackalope]

Grist for the mill.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's...well...it not going well for russia's second shot at invading their tiny broke neighbors. IDK why, but I really do enjoy watching people punch up and knocking the other guy rtf out.