Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Forogil]

Heres a fun one...Apparently Zelesky is tempting other nations with using his country as a weapons manufactory, and its working.

Ukraine hosts a defense industry forum seeking to ramp up weapons production for the war

Africa Interested in Making Ukrainian Weapons: Kyiv

France, Germany pave the way to making weapons in Ukraine

And the best one, drones from Turkey being built in country, starting with maintenance a couple months back.

This is all a pretty great move by Ukraine, building up nice big juicy targets for Putin, that he dare not touch.

It also makes the production less reliant on foreign support, likely reduces the cost for Ukraine, and it also strengthens Ukraine's defense in the long run (especially if the war turns into a frozen conflict - hope not).

The experience from other large conflicts (especially WWII) show that weapon factories can be quite resilient.

[Gabriel]

Resolution of the Free Russia Forum
October 2, 2023

The war of Putin’s Russian Federation against Ukraine is becoming protracted, causing more and more damage to Ukraine and taking more and more lives of its patriots. This war will continue for some time, since the Russian dictator does not want to give in, clinging to the captured Ukrainian territories with his teeth and continuing to hold them at the cost of thousands of human lives. Realizing that defeat in the war could lead to the fall of his regime, he desperately tries to find a way out of the impasse into which he has driven himself. Finding himself in international isolation, he frantically searches for allies, throwing himself into the arms of other dictatorships in search of support. Before our eyes, in this war, two opposing blocs are being formed (the Free World and the alliance of dictatorships), which are entering into direct confrontation with each other.

Putin's totalitarian allies will help him stay afloat and continue the war for some time. This means that the greater must be the efforts of the Free World and all its allies for Ukraine’s victory over Putinism. We are also part of this common front of struggle, and a lot depends on us too. Under these conditions, we must categorically reject any opportunities for collaboration with the regime or its individual institutions.

The Free Russia Forum continues to consistently defend the three main principles laid down in its program documents: 1) the war unleashed by Putin is criminal; 2) the Putin regime is illegitimate; 3) unconditional recognition of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including all captured and occupied territories. However, not all of our allies in the Russian opposition correctly understand these principles, which requires further clarification. In order to clarify and develop these principles, we consider it necessary to record the following.

We are categorically against any form of cooperation with the criminal Putin regime, including participation in simulated electoral procedures that strengthen the regime, and participation in the activities of structures affiliated with the regime. The participation of the opposition and its individual representatives in the Kremlin booth called “elections” is unacceptable. It is impossible to morally justify membership in all kinds of presidential and near-presidential councils and other similar structures.

The Free Russia Forum continues its work in the direction of sanctions, maintaining our “Putin List”, which is replenished with new figures. At the same time, our priority task in this work against the backdrop of war is to identify precisely the war criminals of the Putin regime, as well as all those who in one form or another work for the war, including propagandists at various levels: from regular guests of television shows on federal channels to editors and authors of Z telegram channels.
At the same time, we believe that the current sanctions policy of the countries of the Free World can be adjusted for the better in order to bring us all closer to the desired goal - the victory of Ukraine and the subsequent liberation of Russia. We are convinced that Putin’s Russia’s war against Ukraine is fueled not only by purely military resources, but also by other (intellectual, financial) resources. Our task is to “bleed” the Putin regime by depriving it of these resources. This means that we must welcome the exodus of the carriers of these resources from Russia and contribute to such an exodus. The more qualified, educated, highly paid personnel leave Russia, the less Putin’s state will receive resources to continue the war.

However, the policy of depleting the resources of the Putin regime should not be carried out indiscriminately, without regard to the political views of those leaving. The conditions for unhindered entry into the countries of the Free World for Russians should be a public renunciation of Putinism, a declaration of criminal war and unconditional recognition of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

War dictates its own rules, including the rules of political struggle. What was considered unacceptable in peacetime is becoming acceptable and even necessary now. We call on all our supporters to give priority assistance to the growing volunteer forces of Russian citizens fighting against Putinism and Russian volunteers at the front. We support the armed struggle of the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the occupiers - both in the form of open military confrontation on the battlefield, and in the form of sabotage work in the occupied Ukrainian territories and the territories of the Russian Federation. Moreover, we recognize all forms of violent resistance to Putinism on the part of Russians themselves who decide to take this path, provided that it is not directed against the civilian population.

The solidarity of all participants in the anti-Putin front, the efforts of the Free World to support Ukraine and the courage of its defenders will be the key to the realization of our goals, expressed in the slogan “Victory for Ukraine, freedom for Russia.”

October 1, 2023, Tallinn

https://www.forumfreerussia.org/main...obodnoj-rossii

[MCMLXXXII]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/curr...ar-2023-10-03/

Oct 3 (Reuters) - The Russian rouble weakened past the symbolic threshold of 100 to the dollar before recovering slightly in early trade on Tuesday, weighed down by foreign currency outflows and the country's shrinking current account surplus.

The rouble's last tumble into triple digits in August led the Bank of Russia to make an emergency 350-basis-point rate hike to 12% and authorities discussed reintroducing controls to buttress the currency.

But it's all foggy wallet guys. I can still get my burger for the same amount of turnips.

[Flarelaine]

Shall we link a thousand or so posts of yours from about a year ago?

I ask that you do not (and that goes for everyone). It was a rather bitter feud and reigniting it will not advance the discussion.

The thread would benefit if y'all stopped trying to score "I was right" points over each other and discussed what is happening without the personal digs.

[Corvus]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/curr...ar-2023-10-03/



But it's all foggy wallet guys. I can still get my burger for the same amount of turnips.

And to think that massive interest rate rises and sinking billions into propping it up only manage to stave off hitting 100 for 7 weeks.

Meanwhile Gazprom production has collapsed by 25% to levels not seen since 1978, and its profit from the fist half of the year has also collapsed, from 26 billion last year to just 3.1 this year.

[Sooba]

I ask that you do not (and that goes for everyone). It was a rather bitter feud and reigniting it will not advance the discussion.

The thread would benefit if y'all stopped trying to score "I was right" points over each other and discussed what is happening without the personal digs.

With respect, from someone who has been a long time lurker - this assumes everyone is engaging in good faith and is doing their best to arrive at the truth. I think it's fairly clear that that's not the case. Clearly establishing to others when someone has been consistently confabulating & misconstruing arguments, or at the very least relying on / parroting others (propagandists) who have been doing those things is key to keeping a conversation clear of said propagandistic nonsense. This isn't "I was right" points. This is "You still refuse to acknowledge reality and are propagating bullshit". Crucial when someone is continuing to disagree but is attempting to disseminate subtler nonsense.

[Popastique]

https://www.forumfreerussia.org/main...obodnoj-rossii

That's one funny resolution, almost as funny as Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya pretending to be the rightful president of Belarus - in short: no one gives a damn about either of them. Though once in a while they do make statements that can make people laugh - i'll give them that.

[Aedruid]

Thats exactly what he said though…

Not so much by the asspulled definitions, but the guy you’re replying to literally said that nationalism/populism isn’t exclusively left or right wing.

Ah, well maybe I misunderstood what I read... my bad

- - - Updated - - -

Sounds like you're not from the US where things are very different. But "fragment" is a good word to use to describe Republicans and their current dilemma.

Nah, I just use common sense. They should have shut the government down in my opinion. The federal government doesn't need that much money and does little to nothing to help the average American. We give the government trillions per year in taxes and we still have lead pipes funneling lead riddled water to kids. If they're going to waste our money on endless wars, fund orgs that are solely driven to take money from people (IRS and taxes), and spy on individuals when they watch YouTube while sitting on the toilet - then we don't need them.

[Shadowferal]

Nah, I just use common sense. They should have shut the government down in my opinion. The federal government doesn't need that much money and does little to nothing to help the average American. We give the government trillions per year in taxes and we still have lead pipes funneling lead riddled water to kids. If they're going to waste our money on endless wars, fund orgs that are solely driven to take money from people (IRS and taxes), and spy on individuals when they watch YouTube while sitting on the toilet - then we don't need them.

You claim common sense, when you've posted ignorance and nonsense.

[Easo]

No, I don't agree with that, at all.

To make my point to you and others about predictions as simple as possible - multitude of ever-changing claims about Russian missiles and the reality that they still haven't run out of them nor are going to. As far as I am concerned it should be obvious to everyone and if it isn't - then I cannot help you nor I will spend more time and energy trying to explain it.

Some realistic views have to be taken, NOT claims such as fighting with shovels, from British Intelligence no less.

[Pann]

Some realistic views have to be taken, NOT claims such as fighting with shovels, from British Intelligence no less.

Uhm, didn't British Intelligence state Russian troops could be using shovels for hand to hand combat? Seeing as the shovel in question, the MPL-50, has been standard issue to Russian troops for many years for, amongst other things, use in close combat it and at the time evidence suggested that there had been an increase in close combat therefore this doesn't seem to be the outlandish claim you try to make it out to be.

I guess Russian troops use tool issued for close combat in close combat doesn't sound quite as exciting.

[Elder Millennial]

To make my point to you and others about predictions as simple as possible - multitude of ever-changing claims about Russian missiles and the reality that they still haven't run out of them nor are going to. As far as I am concerned it should be obvious to everyone and if it isn't - then I cannot help you nor I will spend more time and energy trying to explain it.

Some realistic views have to be taken, NOT claims such as fighting with shovels, from British Intelligence no less.

Few people claimed Russia will "run out" of missiles completely. But they have in fact mostly ran out of missiles.

They completely used up their stockpile of more modern missiles and repurposed much of their anti-ship and anti-air missiles into ballistic missiles (with the implied decline in quality).

According the recent reports, Russia currently uses whatever they are building on the spot. Which amounts to about 60 missiles of various types. Most are short to medium range, and they only have about half a dozen or so Iskanders and such a month.

And in recent months the Ukrainian air defenses have been averaging around an 80% interception rate.

So around 10 to 15 Russian missiles hit their target per month. Of course that's still atrocious, but is nothing compared to the 30+ hits a day they Russians were capable of a year ago.

But yes, the Russians are still building missiles, despite sanctions. Nevertheless, the Russians are no longer capable of large scale missile campaigns. What we are seeing now are mostly terror attacks and a somewhat more effective drone campaign.

A bigger issue is the Iranian drones which have been have not been part of the calculus and which are surprisingly effective, mostly because the Ukrainians can't and won't use advanced air defenses that are in short supply and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions per shot to destroy drones that cost a fraction of that.

New auto cannon based radar guided conventional anti-air defenses are starting to be introduced to improve interception rates.

[YUPPIE]

If it wasn't obvious already, Putin's master plan to win this war is to grind it out until Republicans take the White House.

Russia’s strategy to win the war in Ukraine is to outlast the West.

But how does Vladimir Putin plan to do that?

American officials said they are convinced that Mr. Putin intends to try to end U.S. and European support for Ukraine by using his spy agencies to push propaganda supporting pro-Russian political parties and by stoking conspiracy theories with new technologies.

The Russia disinformation aims to increase support for candidates opposing Ukraine aid with the ultimate goal of stopping international military assistance to Kyiv.

[Shadowferal]

If it wasn't obvious already, Putin's master plan to win this war is to grind it out until Republicans take the White House..

Pfft...already mentioned earlier.

[MCMLXXXII]

Pfft...already mentioned earlier.

It was but the Yupster was probably on a forum vacation.

[Corvus]

Ruble hit 101. To the moon, baby, just like russia's lunar lander. Which crashed and burned.

[Dontrike]

Pfft...already mentioned earlier.

"Mentioned earlier" in this case was over a year ago.

[Elder Millennial]

Ruble hit 101. To the moon, baby, just like russia's lunar lander. Which crashed and burned.

Swinging back to the issue of inflation and economics and Russia, and why it might not matter as much as we think it does.

I read an article yesterday, I'm not a fan of reposting huge walls of text, but I think it's worth it for the context of the conversation, so I'll try to quote some of the most important parts (tho most of it is important). I'm going to end up quoting most of it, but if you want to read the original it's here.

https://russiapost.info/regions/majority

My parents have been living in the “private sector” of a big city (what Russians call a district within a city with freestanding houses on small lots – RP) for the last 20 years. It is an injection of rural life into the fabric of big cities. There are no asphalted roads, no sewage system (though almost everyone has bathrooms), telephones and natural gas appeared about 15 years ago. Gas means that in winter you do not have to, as before, carry coal in buckets from the shed two (or even three) times a day and light the stove. Gas is still a luxury; it is not available everywhere. About 10 years ago, foreign cars started appearing next to the fences. Nothing has changed in the last five years.

At 11, a funeral was scheduled on a neighboring street in this “private sector.” At 11, the nephew of the neighborhood elder was brought there.

The “elder” is a respected person, like a class leader, only for the neighborhood. His nephew, a deceased “participant of the special military operation,” must be seen off with dignity – people should go and honor his memory. He was mobilized in the spring, he fought for six months, returned home on leave and went back again. On the very first day back in Ukraine, he came under fire. He would come home again only in a zinc coffin, with even the glass painted over. That’s why I had to pick up my child at 10 – my mother knows that I would not approve of his participating in this memorial event.

On my parents’ street there is another “war hero” – a former Wagner soldier and before that a hardened criminal – living at his parents’.

As long as I can remember, he was always in prison, either for petty theft or hooliganism. He would get out for a couple of months, drink, rob and end up back in prison. If during those months something disappeared from someone’s garden or house, he was the first suspect. Now he has a medal and a brand-new car. He took his parents to the sea [for vacation]. They supposedly cried with pride for their son.

And right across the road is a lady who worked as a tram conductor – maybe because of this she is known to swear loudly. Over the past year and a half, she says that her son-in-law has been talking more and more about volunteering for the war. After all, the loans will not pay themselves back. And that is the truth – another neighbor drank himself to death because of loans; his heart could not stand the drinking, and before the spring the whole street also came out to bury him.

I lived on this street for 10 years. My parents still live there. This is where they have their banya, their garage, their vegetable garden – not like “in those apartments of yours, where you are on top of each other.” As for the Wagner veterans in the neighborhood – well, where are they now not in the neighborhood?

“Every time I hear ‘experts’ telling me from their warm studios in the Netherlands or Israel how people are suffering under the yoke of the Putin regime, and how these people have lost everything due to the war and sanctions, I think about this street.”

Recently, the well-known psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya tried to list all the losses of the Russian people in order to prove that “not all Russians are benefitting from this war.” The list included: the national currency and property values in “FX equivalent” collapsing; the world being “closed” for tourists; the prospects for children to study abroad being cancelled; civil rights and freedoms being curtailed; education and culture degrading; families being separated “due to emigration;” etc. After reading this list, I once again thanked fate that I was not born in Moscow and still had not lost touch with reality.

Because if we take two thirds of the Russian population as the “Russian people,” then the “Russian people” have not lost any of this. Because they had none of it to begin with. The last time they, the people, held dollars in their hands was 1997 – to amuse themselves, nothing more. They never went to theaters and did not notice how the best directors left Russia and left them, the people, with nothing.

Their children go to the same school that they once went to – perhaps they even had the same teacher, who is already 70 years old. It never occurred to them, the people, that children can be taught without shouting and that they can walk on school lawns. Finally, if their families were “separated,” it was only because of prison, mobilization or contract service (in the army). They, the people, did not leave for Georgia or Kazakhstan – none of their relatives ever got outside their city.

And so what that prices in stores have gone up - the people never believed in stores. The people have potatoes and jars of pickles in basements for the whole winter. We will survive somehow.

So, overall, the people have not lost anything. They have nothing special to lose.

But what did they get? They got a lot. First of all, money. So much money.

“Sure, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers did not come back, but hundreds of thousands did! And they came back with so many millions of rubles that they could not have imagined before.”

In my wife’s hometown (not as big as ours, but much more industrial), one man came home with three million rubles, which he and his friends spent in 10 days. Three hundred thousand a day for the guys – limitless alcohol and prostitutes. That is life! Those who have families, meanwhile, come home and go to the sea, buy apartments, upgrade their cars.

Secondly, they get to feel like they are part of something great. Just as our grandfathers defeated fascism, we are defeating Nazism in Ukraine (or whatever is there now). At the same time, we are beating the gays, the Jews, the entire collective West, Freemasons, everyone. Those who are older rejoice at the revival of the pioneers, military training in schools, school uniforms and generally all the fixtures of their youth. It’s about time, or else today’s youth would completely let themselves go! And all these gains without any effort at all, usually without even getting up from the couch.

And what can be offered to the people who, thanks to the war, got rich and feel great, like kings? Clips about the palaces of corrupt officials? The people have known for a long time, since the 90s, that they were robbed, that is not news. Discussions about how the people (who remained) are to blame for the crimes of the regime? Interviews about democracy and human rights? The tragic stories of the imprisoned Berkovich or Melkonyants? Who even are those people – they did not say anything about them on the TV or internet (for example, on the Komsomol’skaya pravda website).

The cash handouts – which the people would not make in years and years from their normal jobs – coupled with the feeling of being part of something great, is an explosive mixture. If you do not take this into account, you might endlessly wonder why in the last elections it was mainly the villages (and not large cities) that voted for the governors appointed by the Kremlin and the “ruling party” – even though it was precisely the village that suffered the most from the mobilization.

It is this explosive mixture that pushes grandmas, who come to the polling stations in dresses they bought 20 years ago, to vote for the regime. They sincerely are for the regime, which they believe will soon build a great country – to spite our enemies, of course.

“And it is this mixture that gives rise to a total misunderstanding between the thin layer of those who really lost everything from the war and the overwhelming majority of the population, which did not lose anything and in fact gained everything.”

In our intellectual conversations, as we hope that the nightmare will end soon, we try not to remember this fact: the many hundreds of thousands of men and women who have already taken part in the current war and the process of “rebuilding the new territories” have millions of children.

These millions of children believe that their fathers and mothers are now doing heroic things. They sincerely believe it, as their parents cannot be monsters. These millions of children put on a tricolor tie on September 1 for the start of the school year, watch the same TV, listen to their fathers’ stories about “ukropy” (a derogatory term for Ukrainians) and travel through destroyed Mariupol on their way to vacation in Crimea (with or without their fathers).

TLDR.

60% of Russians were so absolutely fucked before Putin, and even before this war, that the war and the current conditions for the country are somehow actually an improvement for them.

Yeah. Prices will go up. So what? They never had any money to buy anything with anyway. They can't travel. So what? Nobody left their home towns in like 4 generations. Etc.

So ultimately...the sanctions could actually be working exactly as intended, and make absolutely no fucking difference whatsoever.

[Shkar]

Swinging back to the issue of inflation and economics and Russia, and why it might not matter as much as we think it does.

I read an article yesterday, I'm not a fan of reposting huge walls of text, but I think it's worth it for the context of the conversation, so I'll try to quote some of the most important parts (tho most of it is important). I'm going to end up quoting most of it, but if you want to read the original it's here.

https://russiapost.info/regions/majority

TLDR.

60% of Russians were so absolutely fucked before Putin, and even before this war, that the war and the current conditions for the country are somehow actually an improvement for them.

Yeah. Prices will go up. So what? They never had any money to buy anything with anyway. They can't travel. So what? Nobody left their home towns in like 4 generations. Etc.

So ultimately...the sanctions could actually be working exactly as intended, and make absolutely no fucking difference whatsoever.

The sanctions aren't aimed at the common populace, the ultra-rural villagers you talked about. They're there to make it harder for Russia to procure equipment/supplies and squeeze the Moscow elites who actually have power and some form of decision making.

[Corvus]

Flooding an already struggling economy with money while suffering a worker shortage and an exchange rate falling making imports critical to the economy to keep going is what leads to really bad inflation.