Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Gorsameth]

Source needs checking, but;

WARSAW, Poland -- Polish government officials on Monday said that Poland has not, and will not, send its fighter jets to Ukraine to support Ukraine’s defense against Russia.

A deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, said in an interview on Radio Zet that: “We will not open our airports and Polish planes will not fight over Ukraine … Polish planes will not fight over Ukraine.”

But separately the government spokesman, Piotr Mueller, indicated a final decision had not been made. He said that a decision on whether to send fighter jets presents risks and is a “very delicate matter.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was looking at a proposal under which Poland would supply Kyiv with Soviet-era fighters and in turn receive American F-16s to make up for their loss.

Poland has been less than enthusiastic about the idea, at least publicly, largely because Russia has warned that supporting Ukraine’s air force would be seen in Moscow as participating in the conflict and could create a risk of retaliation.

a the wonder of words. If Poland sells Ukraine its planes they would not be Polish planes fighting over Ukraine.

Polish planes (with Polish pilots) from Polish airfields will not be fighting over Ukraine is a very accurate statement and entirely expected to be true for as long as Putin doesn't attack NATO.

But it entirely does not cover former Polish planes sold to Ukraine, launched from Ukraine airbases fighting over Ukraine.

[Draco-Onis]

Getting tired of this apologism and excuse.

Just as I am getting tired of people reading into it whatever they want, it's not an excuse but fact that people tend to worry more about their own immediate issues before anything else.

[Gaidax]

Two, Russia is now at 100% commitment of their amassed invasion forces. Basically all reserves are in. If Ukraine does not suddenly surrender, the next step will be moving up more forces. We may yet see that draft.

Their next step will be bombing the shit out of select Ukrainian towns and cities, which is something they already have started and can expand any moment.

It's plainly obvious that their new tactic is simply to force Ukraine into accepting Russian terms with outright terror and they have a decent shot at succeeding there. Some of the things Russia puts on the negotiations table just as a way of "getting off the tree" down the road to make it easier for Ukraine to swallow. You don't ask for 100% of the price, you ask for 130% and then slowly "give up" to 100% as a show of "good will".

[Elegiac]

Getting tired of this apologism and excuse. What you're describing is, fundamentally, a desire to respond to violent fascist expansionism through appeasement, rather than punitive steps. And we know how completely ineffective appeasement is; we've had a horrendously explicit example in living memory.

The "harm" to "people in Europe" will basically be that gas and energy prices get a bit more expensive as their governments transition off Russian energy supplies. If that's the price to pay to prevent mass deaths of Eastern Europeans as Russia continues their expansionism, that's not a heavy price to pay. It's a monumentally callous level of indifference to whine that you'd rather keep your gas prices low and if the price is foreign genocide, you're okay with that.

If you mean the Russian people themselves being hurt by sanctions; so be it. If they don't like it, they can tear down their government. Either through election, or violent revolution. Dealer's choice, really. It isn't those issuing sanctions who are responsible for this "harm", it's the government (Putin) responsible for earning those sanctions who bears that burden.

The response to which will doubtless be "I'm not saying that I think we should lift the sanctions, I just have a low opinion of humans after my preferred candidate got his ass kicked in two successive primaries and also being inundated with news reports about people opposing mask mandates and vaccines."

To which my response will be quoting a biological female about how an increasing number of leftists suffer from resentment poisoning:

I wonder if because leftists can't seem to win on any major political stage we feel disempowered, and so this moral fanaticism is a psychological substitute. Like with Marie Antoinette, it's easier to blame people than systems.

Basically, "I'm upset because I can't get any of my political goals achieved therefore I'm going to try and make my negative feelings infectious by beating the doomer drum."

[Gorsameth]

Their next step will be bombing the shit out of select Ukrainian towns and cities, which is something they already have started and can expand any moment.

It's plainly obvious that their new tactic is simply to force Ukraine into accepting Russian terms with outright terror and they have a decent shot at succeeding there. Some of the things Russia puts on the negotiations table just as a way of "getting off the tree" down the road to make it easier for Ukraine to swallow. You don't ask for 100% of the price, you ask for 130% and then slowly "give up" to 100% as a show of "good will".

With Russian supplylines apparently being what they are, the ability of Russia to bomb cities may well be shorter then Ukraine's resolve.

[Draco-Onis]

Sorry, but we just can't believe the people that spent 2 years saying "But Biden will cancel Medicare ...".
Now saying "sanctions wont work".

Podcasters are terrible sources and clearly making their fans dumber. Either horsepaste levels of dumb, or close to it.

Okay link me to those podcasters so I can tell them that cancelling medicare is the third rail of politics and no politician would be that stupid. Also the line "sanctions don't work" refers to as their effects on enacting regime change in countries. They are a tool but they are not a silver bullet that give you whatever you want.

- - - Updated - - -

If I see someone mugging an old lady on the street and crack the mugger over the head with a baseball bat, I'll probably crack the bat and my hands will sting. Both sides will be hurt. The scope is way off.

This article is mostly about the aforementioned talks, but has two additional bits of info.

One, Ukraine doesn't sound thrilled with the "generous" offer.

Two, Russia is now at 100% commitment of their amassed invasion forces. Basically all reserves are in. If Ukraine does not suddenly surrender, the next step will be moving up more forces. We may yet see that draft.

Geopolitics isn't as simple as a mugging.

[jonnysensible]

no mention of denazificaction in russian demands

[Ripster42]

Two, Russia is now at 100% commitment of their amassed invasion forces. Basically all reserves are in. If Ukraine does not suddenly surrender, the next step will be moving up more forces. We may yet see that draft.

AFAIK, the RF has never stopped using conscripts.

[Breccia]

Then there is the question on Russian bond payment. Both government and corporate bonds. One-third of the payment installment in March are dollar/euro only.

Corporate I understand, but the Russian govt paying out in dollars sounds beyond bizarre. I mean, yeah the dollar and euro are perfectly good moneys, I use them myself, but...government bonds from Russia?

I'm curious to see what a government default in Russia would do, because my first guess is "nothing". Fortunately there's this article from six hours ago which I'm guessing you've read but I certainly hadn't.

If Russia defaults on its debt, it will play out differently than sovereign defaults of the past — and investors are watching for signs that it could ripple out into a broader market dislocation, as Russia's 1998 ruble debt default did.

“The default risk is real,” George Catrambone, DWS Group's head of Americas trading, tells Axios.

And the market for Russian bonds is in uncharted territory, effectively frozen. There are few buyers, and some clearinghouses won’t execute trades, he says.

A decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend said that Russia can pay foreign creditors — but only with rubles, which are rapidly depreciating, Bloomberg reports.

Whether Russia defaults on its external bonds will depend both on the country’s willingness to pay principal and interest amounts as they come due (unlikely, considering the West froze a bunch of its money) — and its ability to transfer the payments (an open question, given the sanctions), says Lee Buchheit, a veteran sovereign debt-restructuring lawyer, now at the University of Edinburgh.

A debt default is usually bad for the defaulting nation. They get a huge blemish on their credit score, and are essentially cut off from the global capital markets for a time while they work out a deal with their creditors.

Russia’s already cut off from the markets — by virtue of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies. And the state of open hostility (Putin described the sanctions as a declaration of war) will make a debt restructuring deal near impossible to achieve.

When a government defaults, it negotiates with its bondholders to consensually restructure the debt. The deal that ensues often involves those holders forgiving some of the debt in exchange for promises of balanced budgets and fiscal austerity, among other things.

This can take years, and can be super fraught, but it’s a process the market is familiar with.

Were Russia to default on its external bonds, some holders might elect to sue and attempt to attach — or get a lien on — Russian assets abroad even if the sanctions were then in place, Buchheit says. They would be betting that if and when the assets became unfrozen from the sanctions, their judicial attachments would bite.

Some, like Jay Newman, alum of Elliott Management — and of Argentina’s restructuring — say the bonds are worth zero.

I suspect Russia won't default, because they just will refuse to acknowledge there's a problem. Citizens trying to cash in bonds will be refused and silenced. It does appear, as the article states, that most Russian bonds are in the hands of Russian people, meaning the system is mostly self-contained.

And this is hardly the first time we've heard about it.

It’s not clear how widespread the impact of a default today would be. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020 showed how interconnected the world economy and financial system are.

However, foreigners held just $20 billion of Russia’s dollar debt and ruble denominated sovereign bonds worth $41 billion at the end of lats year, the Financial Times reported, citing Russia’s central bank.

“Our financial system and financial institutions have relatively little exposure to Russia,” said Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, at a House hearing Wednesday. “Even the largest exposures that any of them have are not very big.”

Asked what a Russian default would mean for the global financial system, Bass said, “Nothing. It just means people are going to lose some money.”

While Putin will probably pretend everything is fine, he's probably also going to do three things.

One, refuse to pay in the dollars he and his oligarch friends have stashed away. Putin has the dollars, he just wants to keep them for himself. Those bank buyups a week ago are proof enough of that. We've seen that Russia has $600 billion or so in dollars and euros, it's just not in the hands of the Russian people. And there's no reason to believe that will change.

Two, refuse to pay out bonds to non-Russians and blame the sanctions, trying to somehow keep his country off the hook for refusing to pay a valid debt.

Three, wait a little longer for the market on Russian bonds to bottom out, offer an insultingly small amount to people who will feel no choice exists but to take it. Then, under the assumption things eventually get better, he would win. Kind of a big assumption, and it presupposes his friends don't murder him.

[JohnBrown1917]

If you mean the Russian people themselves being hurt by sanctions; so be it. If they don't like it, they can tear down their government. Either through election, or violent revolution. Dealer's choice, really. It isn't those issuing sanctions who are responsible for this "harm", it's the government (Putin) responsible for earning those sanctions who bears that burden.

...Yeah about those elections in Russia.
Or how about how sanctions have never led to a revolution and them being increasingly hard the more advanced a nation is? Revolution pretty much only happens if the conditions are really, 1917 levels, terrible.

[Breccia]

Geopolitics isn't as simple as a mugging.

Neither is "both sides will be hurt". At least my analogy is a closer parallel to Europe vs Russia.

[Gaidax]

With Russian supplylines apparently being what they are, the ability of Russia to bomb cities may well be shorter then Ukraine's resolve.

That's nice copium given the last few days they bomb the shit out of a few towns. They don't need "supply lines" to use actual bombers and missiles if need be - those have plenty range and heck they have enough of them supply lines elsewhere to expand this even outside bombers. The meme convoy is not their only approach.

These are all options on the Russian table if they decide to turn up the heat.

[Elegiac]

...Yeah about those elections in Russia.
Or how about how sanctions have never led to a revolution

I get that I might be a bit older than the median poster on MMO-C but... no.

First off, apartheid.

Secondly, it's not just the sanctions. It's the sanctions on top of the fact that Ukraine is turning into another Afghanistan, and I don't mean America's foray there. Russia in the 2020s is looking increasingly similar to Russia in the late 1980s, and that is not good news for the regime in Moscow.

[AntiFascistVoter]

Neither is "both sides will be hurt". At least my analogy is a closer parallel to Europe vs Russia.

There they go again, both sidsings every argument. I mean the internal FSB leak said their economy should last to June. If we convert that estimate from roubles-to-reality we could really be looking at April.
Biden and team left themselves room to ratchet UP current sanctions by going after more sectors.


Speaking of muggings ... St. Javelina strikes again!

[Kathranis]

I suppose the chatter about Sunday being a hard line for Russia to achieve objectives must have been true, given that their demands for withdrawal are in fact pretty fucking mild compared to what they were trying to take by force.

Ceding more territory to Russia stings, no two ways about it. And it's highly likely Russia will come back for another bite in 10, 15 years, with a stronger military and revised strategy. Crimea was obviously gonna have to be ceded, but I guess how much separatist territory gets given up will be down to negotiation?

Ukraine was never getting into NATO so that's already kind of a non-issue, and member nation or not, you can bet that the West is going to redouble their efforts to bolster and train Ukraine's military; the Kremlin's terms apparently don't make any mention of demilitarization. The EU, on the other hand, being an economic bloc, perhaps they have some wiggle room. The appointment of a PM is some serious bullshit. Like, between that and rewriting the constitution, Russia is trampling over the concept of Ukrainian sovereignty.

I guess I would hope that Ukraine can negotiate those two demands down to like, an appointed Russian advisor and a nonaggression pact that bans joining a defensive bloc, but I don't know how realistic that is.


Anyway, Ukraine doesn't really have the luxury to just dismiss these demands, unfortunately. Ukraine has far more to loose and Russia is only going to get more aggressive and less discriminate. I can't deny that I'd love to see Ukraine bleed Russia dry. They have the means to hold out longer, but, well, the cost is heavy on both sides, and civilian casualties will only increase.

[Ripster42]

My source was the PM.

And was outdated, and using very carefully worded language.

[Belize]

That's nice copium given the last few days they bomb the shit out of a few towns. They don't need "supply lines" to use actual bombers and missiles if need be - those have plenty range and heck they have enough of them supply lines elsewhere to expand this even outside bombers. The meme convoy is not their only approach.

These are all options on the Russian table if they decide to turn up the heat.

Yeah, yeah, and Kyiv was supposed to have fallen about two weeks ago now.

Every week it's the same "Well if Russia decides to crush Ukraine they will !!!11!!one!" followed by a timetable of when the capital will fall, and every week it's proven wrong. It's not copium, it's just looking at the absolute shitshow that is the Russian army and expressing doubts that they even have the capability to achieve their goals.

Like, wow, they managed to capture a small city, and are having to shoot unarmed protestors because they can't even enforce their own martial law. What a truly magnificent display of force and coordination.

[Gorsameth]

I suppose the chatter about Sunday being a hard line for Russia to achieve objectives must have been true, given that their demands for withdrawal are in fact pretty fucking mild compared to what they were trying to take by force.

Ceding more territory to Russia stings, no two ways about it. And it's highly likely Russia will come back for another bite in 10, 15 years, with a stronger military and revised strategy. Crimea was obviously gonna have to be ceded, but I guess how much separatist territory gets given up will be down to negotiation?

Ukraine was never getting into NATO so that's already kind of a non-issue, and member nation or not, you can bet that the West is going to redouble their efforts to bolster and train Ukraine's military; the Kremlin's terms apparently don't make any mention of demilitarization. The EU, on the other hand, being an economic block, perhaps they have some wiggle room. The appointment of a PM is some serious bullshit. Like, between that and rewriting the constitution, Russia is trampling over the concept of Ukrainian sovereignty.

I guess I would hope that Ukraine can negotiate those two demands down to like, an appointed Russian advisor and a nonaggression pact that bans joining a defensive bloc, but I don't know how realistic that is.


Anyway, Ukraine doesn't really have the luxury to just dismiss these demands, unfortunately. Ukraine has far more to loose and Russia is only going to get more aggressive and less discriminate. I can't deny that I'd love to see Ukraine bleed Russia dry. They have the means to hold out longer, but, well, the cost is heavy on both sides, and civilian casualties will only increase.

Ukraine had a non-aggression pact until 2014 when Russia broke it by annexing Crimea.

Why exactly would Ukraine accept a non-aggression pact from Russia that is literally not worth the paper it was printed on?

I suspect any deal that would prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and/or the EU mutual defence agreement is entirely out of the question.

[Rasulis]

Corporate I understand, but the Russian govt paying out in dollars sounds beyond bizarre. I mean, yeah the dollar and euro are perfectly good moneys, I use them myself, but...government bonds from Russia?

I'm curious to see what a government default in Russia would do, because my first guess is "nothing". Fortunately there's this article from six hours ago which I'm guessing you've read but I certainly hadn't.



I suspect Russia won't default, because they just will refuse to acknowledge there's a problem. Citizens trying to cash in bonds will be refused and silenced. It does appear, as the article states, that most Russian bonds are in the hands of Russian people, meaning the system is mostly self-contained.

And this is hardly the first time we've heard about it.



While Putin will probably pretend everything is fine, he's probably also going to do three things.

One, refuse to pay in the dollars he and his oligarch friends have stashed away. Putin has the dollars, he just wants to keep them for himself. Those bank buyups a week ago are proof enough of that. We've seen that Russia has $600 billion or so in dollars and euros, it's just not in the hands of the Russian people. And there's no reason to believe that will change.

Two, refuse to pay out bonds to non-Russians and blame the sanctions, trying to somehow keep his country off the hook for refusing to pay a valid debt.

Three, wait a little longer for the market on Russian bonds to bottom out, offer an insultingly small amount to people who will feel no choice exists but to take it. Then, under the assumption things eventually get better, he would win. Kind of a big assumption, and it presupposes his friends don't murder him.

Both the Russian government and various corporate entities (oil companies, railroad, etc.) have interest payments due in March. If they don't make those payments, the bonds/coupons go into default. Although I think there is a 30-day grace period if they simply choose not to pay. My understanding is that, if they try to pay the dollar/euro only bonds/coupons with ruble, that will instantly trigger default proceeding.

Then there is this interesting article.

A Quirk in Russian Bonds Could Hamper Default Swaps Payout

[Specialka]

EU has started to check Ukraine, Moldavia and Georgia apply. I really hope we won't take them in the EU. Economically, they are not up to the standards of EU. I am all for defending them if they get bullied though.