Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Mihalik]

I'd put it as 94% "nothing will happen".
5% "Zelenski actually declares martial law (as his faction denied he planned to) that he will justify by coup concerns" then proceeds to wipe out opposition and their media outlets
0.9% "Actual Ukrainian coup happens"
0.1% "Russia actually attacks"

Yeah, just repeating and saving this for posterity.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, but given recent events, 1941 Imperial Japanese Navy are a bigger threat to the US military than today's Russia. You've sunk pretty low if even the Germans make fun of you. I really don't get why we're increasing NATO budget, the way Russia fights we can just dust off what we still have leftover from WW2 and we'll be fine. A reasonable answer would have been 'Wait, that's what the Russians are capable off? What were we worried about?

Because having OVERWHELMING superiority diminishes the actual damage Russia could do with another one of these empire building adventures. Also it would be funny to watch them bankrupt themselves AGAIN trying to match NATO militarily.

[Saradain]

And here is a hundred or so of Ukrainian soldiers that surrendered near Kiev:
https://twitter.com/maytham956/statu...48196738228224

I guess that was one of Ukrainian "counter-offensives".

Not buying it, no. Tweeter has a generic bot-like name of name + some numbers, and very first reply is following same protocol with very heavy assumptions that Russia would treat ANYONE humanely, while trying to make it sound like Ukraine wouldn't feed their own when fighting for their existence. Location of "Syria" also makes me laugh.

So you have a video clip from bot/troll-like account from Syria, who has a facebook account with pictures of a dictator oppressing the said Syria. And the replies are from similar bot/troll accounts of name-number combinations. With no real context but just guys being perfectly silent who happen to have Ukrainian flag in their uniforms. And a burnt-down tank that I cannot even verify who it actually belongs to. While the video just randomly jumps onto the tank and away from it when it's supposed to be pure live clip.

Good try though, I personally could make a similar clip if I bothered.

[Bakis]

We should dig up the posts where payedKremlinTroll tried to argue that the green little men were not Russian soldiers back in the Crimea thread.

[Dontrike]

That has about as much validity as Western deputies calling for No Flight Zone.

And as much validity as winning in a few days.

[Gabriel]

Why do you guys think he cares if he is proven wrong? Lying about everything all the time to everyone is the russian government's MO. Getting caught in a lie doesn't matter. All talk is just a cover for actual actions that are not connected with what they say in any way.

[Shalcker]

And as much validity as winning in a few days.

I didn't ever make such claim; though i probably would if i wasn't banned at the time.

Confirmation bias is very strong thing.

Still, even if "shock and awe" fails eventually fundamentals will win.

[Reeve]

Another zero-budget music video by an unquestionably patriotic Russian, and one of the best Russian songwriters of last 25 years (and lyricists, if you can handle breadth of his vocabulary). In most serious way, without any hidden agenda I'm asking fellow Russian speakers - how do you interpret the text of this song?

For non-speakers, the gist is "an epoch has ended... [we didn't realize then] how good our bad life was". The female singer is a real superstar, you can just listen to her without even understanding a word, I highly recommend. I hope she gets a proper career after the war ends.

I don't speak Russian, but I've loved Leningrad for a long time. "In Peter We Drink" and "WWW" are amazing songs, but they have a huge catalog of great stuff.

[Bakis]

Why do you guys think he cares if he is proven wrong? Lying about everything all the time to everyone is the russian government's MO. Getting caught in a lie doesn't matter. All talk is just a cover for actual actions that are not connected with what they say in any way.

Since rules seem to allow disinformation it is worth to at least call his bs out for readers who happen to stuble into the thread. It is just us with experience that knows Shalcker is part of a Kremlin financed troll/bot ring.

[Slant]

Since rules seem to allow disinformation it is worth to at least call his bs out for readers who happen to stuble into the thread. It is just us with experience that knows Shalcker is part of a Kremlin financed troll/bot ring.

You're godamn right.

[Shalcker]

Reuters: EU steps back from impractical Russia oil embargo

--------------------------------
Column-EU steps back from impractical Russia oil embargo: Kemp

March 25, 2022 10:00 PM

By John Kemp

6 Min Read
LONDON (Reuters) - EU leaders have stepped back from imposing an immediate embargo on Russian crude and petroleum product imports as the impracticality of the policy has become clear.

Imposing an immediate embargo on Russia’s fossil fuels “from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and the whole of Europe into a recession,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told German lawmakers this week.

Russia’s exports of crude and petroleum products to Europe are the second largest bilateral flow of oil between any two trading partners in the world, behind the United States and Canada, according to data from BP.

Russia supplied 29% of Europe’s crude imports and 51% of the continent’s petroleum product imports in 2019, the last year before the pandemic (“Statistical review of world energy”, BP, 2020).

No other trading partner came close to Russia’s share, which would make it extremely hard to replace in the short term (tmsnrt.rs/3upVkI8).

So even speculation about a possible ban drove oil prices sharply higher this week, as traders weighed the practical difficulties, before prices retreated as it became clear EU policymakers were backing away from the idea.

NEW OIL ORDER?

Some embargo advocates have suggested the EU could ban Russian petroleum imports, then encourage the redirection of international flows to minimise the net loss of supplies from causing a spike in prices.

In this scenario, sanctioned Russian crude would be left to buyers in China and India, freeing up crude from the Middle East to be delivered to refineries in Europe.

On the product side, Russian fuel oil and distillates could be sent to South America, Africa and Asia, while Europe takes more unsanctioned products from the United States, China, India and the Middle East.

But there are multiple serious obstacles to making this work, which is likely why it has been deferred for the time being.

For producers and consumers, supply routes would become much longer, increasing the number of freight tonne-miles, pushing up demand for tankers and raising transport costs significantly.

More importantly, crude oils are only semi-fungible. Most refineries are optimised to work with specific qualities of oil. Swapping Russian and Middle East crudes would reduce efficiency, raising costs and prices.

Redirecting flows would disrupt long-standing customer and contractual relationships. Middle East marketers have invested time and effort building long-term relationships with refiners in China, India and the rest of Asia.

Asia is perceived as the growing market of the future, while Europe is the declining market of the past, especially with its plan for an accelerated transmission to net zero emissions.

Breaking long-term contracts and giving up Asia’s lucrative growth markets to supply refiners in declining Europe, possibly only for a few months or years, would make little strategic sense.

Similarly, North America’s refiners have lucrative and semi-captive markets in Central and South America they will be reluctant to swap for Russia’s markets in Europe.

For refiners in Asia, there is little incentive to disrupt long-term relationships with secure Middle East suppliers to become dependent on Russian exporters if those exports might be subject to extraterritorial U.S. and EU sanctions later.

COMPLEX WEB

Crude and product flows around the world form a dense interconnected network or matrix. Forcibly reprogramming Russia’s exports via sanctions implies changes to all the other supplier and customer relationships.

For commercial reasons, most crude exporters and refiners send to the nearest available export market and buy from the nearest suitable source of imports.

Until now, Russia has overwhelmingly supplied Europe, the nearest major importer, though flows were slowly being reoriented to Asia, the fastest growing market, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

For the same reasons of distance, Europe has purchased most of its imported crude and products from Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union.

The political imperative to end these flows and co-dependence is now in conflict with the commercial and geographical reasons to maintain them. Political imperatives may prevail but they are unlikely to do so quickly.

In 2019, Russia’s exports to Europe accounted for more than 6% of all the world’s traded crude and more than 8% of all its internationally traded products, according to data from BP.

Reprogramming such an enormous share of world trade in the space of a few weeks or months would create a huge upheaval.

TIGHT AS A DRUM

Global oil markets were tight before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with inventories below the pre-pandemic five-year average and trending lower.

Even if the imposition of an embargo or other sanctions caused only a small reduction in Russia’s net exports, to deprive the country of revenue, it would still create a high risk of a price spike.

Previous embargoes imposed on Iraq in the 1990s and Iran and Venezuela in the 2010s were offset by extra supplies from other producers, reducing their overall impact on prices.

At present, neither Saudi Arabia nor U.S. shale firms appear keen to raise output to offset lost Russian supplies, and the White House has not so far reached agreements to lift sanctions on Iran and Venezuela.

With little spare capacity, EU policymakers have concluded the price risks from embargoing Russian petroleum exports are too high, and have backed away from the idea for now.

--------------------------------

[Shadowferal]

As Russia’s Military Stumbles, Its Adversaries Take Note

President Vladimir Putin could still reduce cities in Ukraine to rubble, officials say. But European countries say they are not as intimidated by Russian ground forces as they were in the past.

Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — Europe’s largest land war since 1945 — the image of a Russian military as one that other countries should fear, let alone emulate, has been shattered.

Ukraine has shot down military transport planes carrying Russian paratroopers, downed helicopters and blown holes in Russia’s convoys using American anti-tank missiles and armed drones supplied by Turkey, these officials said, citing confidential U.S. intelligence assessments.

The Russian soldiers have been plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages. Some troops have crossed the border with MREs (meals ready to eat) that expired in 2002, U.S. and other Western officials said, and others have surrendered and sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting.

And the Western governments that have spoken openly about Russia’s military failings are eager to spread the word to help damage Russian morale and bolster the Ukrainians.

But with each day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky holds out, the scenes of a frustrated Russia pounding, but not managing to finish off, a smaller opponent dominate screens around the world.

The result: Militaries in Europe that once feared Russia say they are not as intimidated by Russian ground forces as they were in the past.

That Russia has so quickly abandoned surgical strikes, instead killing civilians trying to flee, could damage Mr. Putin’s chances of winning a long-term war in Ukraine. The brutal tactics may eventually overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses, but they will almost certainly fuel a bloody insurgency that could bog down Russia for years, military analysts say. Most of all, Russia has exposed to its European neighbors and American rivals gaps in its military strategy that can be exploited in future battles.

“Today what I have seen is that even this huge army or military is not so huge,” said Lt. Gen. Martin Herem, Estonia’s chief of defense, during a news conference at an air base in northern Estonia with Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Herem’s colleague and the air force chief, Brig. Gen. Rauno Sirk, in an interview with a local newspaper, was even more blunt in his assessment of the Russian air force. “If you look at what’s on the other side, you’ll see that there isn’t really an opponent anymore,” he said.
----
Ouch!
----
“The Kremlin spent the last 20 years trying to modernize its military,” said Andrei V. Kozyrev, the foreign minister for Russia under Boris Yeltsin, in a post on Twitter. “Much of that budget was stolen and spent on mega-yachts in Cyprus. But as a military advisor you cannot report that to the President. So they reported lies to him instead. Potemkin military.”

During a trip through the Eastern European countries that fear they could next face Mr. Putin’s military, General Milley has consistently been asked the same questions. Why have the Russians performed so poorly in the early days of the war? Why did they so badly misjudge the Ukrainian resistance?

“It’s a little bit early to draw any definitive lessons learned,” he added. “But one of the lessons that’s clearly evident is that the will of the people, the will of the Ukrainian people, and the importance of national leadership and the fighting skills of the Ukrainian army has come through loud and clear.”

Russian battlefield defeats, and mounting casualties, also have an impact.

“Having the Ukrainians just wreck your airborne units, elite Russian units, has to be devastating for Russian morale,” said Frederick W. Kagan, an expert on the Russian military who leads the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “Russian soldiers have to be looking at this and saying, ‘What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?’”

[Bakis]

Funny how he/her always tries to reset his losing position by posting a wall of text to get the talk to be about some other aspect
Something I've seen him/her do multiple times in the past.

[Fuiking]

In all honesty, I think that in Europe there might be one or two countries who would fold asap when attacked by russia.

Only nation coming to mind would be the Netherlands.. as people dont feel like fighting for its nation.

- - - Updated - - -

Funny how he/her always tries to reset his losing position by posting a wall of text to get the talk to be about some other aspect
Something I've seen him/her do multiple times in the past.

I call shalcker an it.. feels like a bot at times

[Breccia]

I expect globalism to be dead and buried

Well, yeah. Your country is sanctioned by just about every country on earth and hundreds of businesses as well. If Russia wants out of globalism, congrats, you're most of the way there. Probably could have done it without murdering all those civilians, though.

Of course, the way the rest of the world rose and united against Russia, well, seems like we're fine with globalism. By the way, you're out of tampons and toothpaste.

[Shalcker]

Funny how he/her always tries to reset his losing position by posting a wall of text to get the talk to be about some other aspect
Something I've seen him/her do multiple times in the past.

I'm more interested in economic aspects of upcoming changes; exchanging "your source lies" - "no, your source lies" ad infinitum is very boring, and fog of war is very much in effect.

[Bakis]

I'm more interested in economic aspects of upcoming changes; exchanging "your source lies" - "no, your source lies" ad infinitum is very boring, and fog of war is very much in effect.

How convenient since you repeatidly diss every source regarding the war not on the goodwill list of Kremlin.
This while with the other hand post random Twitter videos to prove your own Kremlins point of views.
Funny isnt it?

- - - Updated - - -

Well, yeah. Your country is sanctioned by just about every country on earth and hundreds of businesses as well. If Russia wants out of globalism, congrats, you're most of the way there. Probably could have done it without murdering all those civilians, though.

Of course, the way the rest of the world rose and united against Russia, well, seems like we're fine with globalism. By the way, you're out of tampons and toothpaste.

More so since Russia have zero, nada, zip history of ever creating a functional institution able to work sucessfully with the rest of the world in modern times.

[Santti]

And the Gish Gallop from Shillcker continues...

[Shadowferal]

[Fugus]

And the Gish Gallop from Shillcker continues...

Yep, I think I have missed at least the last 20+ pages of this thread because it just hasn’t been worth the time of sorting through it.

And the fact that this can continue unmoderated is a scathing example of how the current moderation principles on the forum have failed and needs to be updated.

[PC2]

"Living in interesting times" and all. We'll see how new world will shake up.

Most of the world will just keep making gradual and incremental progress over time. A "shake-up" is just drama and hype.

I expect globalism to be dead and buried, splintering back to regional cultural and trade blocks.

Why do you think localism and seclusionism has only created poor societies?

And a lot of things considered important on this forum to elicit a smile about "good old days" in a year's time.

It seems like you are just trying to project your own pessimism onto us.