Russian invasion of Ukraine

[LongTimeLurker]

Thread that's worth a read for the more sober version of what's happening in the here and now explaining why losing Popasna has led to a slow unravelling of a significant portion of Ukraine's remaining hold on the Donbas:

 

[LongTimeLurker]

5 hours ago, Newbornbairn said:

The BBC want to push a different narrative 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-61570444

Something to bear in mind is that the area most of the fighting is in right now in the Donbas was very much Yanukovych country pre-2014 and has a very large portion of the population that isn't just Russophone but has always identified as being ethnically Russian rather than Ukrainian even in Soviet times. It's not a safe assumption that the population in the Donbas would actually vote for Kiev rather than Moscow control if it was put to a free and fair referendum because Ukrainian nationalist parties perform dismally in this part of Ukraine in elections. What's shocking for Putin and people with his sort of mindet is that does not appear to also hold true nowadays for Kharkiv and Odesa, which is why the maximal goals of his invasion failed miserably.

[beefybake]

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Something to bear in mind is that the area most of the fighting is in right now in the Donbas was very much Yanukovych country pre-2014 and has a very large portion of the population that isn't just Russophone but has always identified as being ethnically Russian rather than Ukrainian even in Soviet times. It's not a safe assumption that the population in the Donbas would actually vote for Kiev rather than Moscow control if it was put to a free and fair referendum because Ukrainian nationalist parties perform dismally in this part of Ukraine in elections. What's shocking for Putin and people with his sort of mindet is that does not appear to also hold true nowadays for Kharkiv and Odesa, which is why the maximal goals of his invasion failed miserably.

As I recall, from round about just before the invasion, or shortly after, there was an interview with a mayor, I think, of one of the Donbas cities.

He estimated that about 30% of the population in that area were pro-Russian. 

Not sure that reducing Mariupol to rubble, and slaughtering civilians is likely to have increased that percentage.

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Something to bear in mind is that the area most of the fighting is in right now in the Donbas was very much Yanukovych country pre-2014 and has a very large portion of the population that isn't just Russophone but has always identified as being ethnically Russian rather than Ukrainian even in Soviet times. It's not a safe assumption that the population in the Donbas would actually vote for Kiev rather than Moscow control if it was put to a free and fair referendum because Ukrainian nationalist parties perform dismally in this part of Ukraine in elections. What's shocking for Putin and people with his sort of mindet is that does not appear to also hold true nowadays for Kharkiv and Odesa, which is why the maximal goals of his invasion failed miserably.

There have been population shifts because of the 8 year civil war and a lot of ethnic Russians were purged by the security services and right wing paramilitaries in those two cities. 

[dorlomin]

Polling tended to show the regions wanted autonomy, not to be absorbed by Russia. 

https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=news&id=258

There seemed to be strong opposition to the violence. 

Caveats apply and the past 8 years will have changed many things. 

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by dorlomin

[jagfox]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

[dirty dingus]

They  have put a comedian on to ease the situation.

[bennett]

 

Give it a few months and they'll be dusting off the T34s.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by bennett

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, dirty dingus said:

They  have put a comedian on to ease the situation.

[jagfox]

 

 

[vikingTON]

On 24/05/2022 at 13:56, Wee Bully said:

Please don’t try and explain economics to him. 

Yeah what would these guys know about it either:

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/05/07/russias-economy-is-back-on-its-feet

The reality is that the West was not aiming to cause high interest rates back in February - it was looking to make the costs of intervention so high that Putin's regime could not withstand it. This policy, so far, at least, has utterly failed. 

When even a declining basketcase economy like Russia is able to build up resources and then effectively detach itself from the global market other than for a pick and mix of essential goods, it doesn't bode well for the West's inevitable attempts to put big bad China back in its box. 

[Billy Jean King]

A 63 year old retired Russian Air Force General has allegedly been killed when the jet he was flying was shot down in Ukraine. Kanamet Botashev left the Russian Air Force after being found guilty of taking an SU-27 fighter jet without permission and crashing it while performing a “corkscrew manoeuvre”.
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-61559430
 
 

I'm surprised the Kyiv air show still went ahead when we can't even get the one in Ayr off the ground !

[beefybake]

4 hours ago, virginton said:

Yeah what would these guys know about it either:

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/05/07/russias-economy-is-back-on-its-feet

The reality is that the West was not aiming to cause high interest rates back in February - it was looking to make the costs of intervention so high that Putin's regime could not withstand it. This policy, so far, at least, has utterly failed. 

When even a declining basketcase economy like Russia is able to build up resources and then effectively detach itself from the global market other than for a pick and mix of essential goods, it doesn't bode well for the West's inevitable attempts to put big bad China back in its box. 

Most half way developed countries could 'get by' on a pick and mix of essential goods.

For a while.., till the general populace looks around at their experience of their current circumstances and reflect on all the consumer

goods etc, that have disappeared.  And they look for who's to blame.  Economic success is what has stopped much in the way of revolt,

or resistance towards the rulers of China.

[vikingTON]

4 minutes ago, beefybake said:

Most half way developed countries could 'get by' on a pick and mix of essential goods.

For a while.., till the general populace looks around at their experience of their current circumstances and reflect on all the consumer

goods etc, that have disappeared.  And they look for who's to blame.  Economic success is what has stopped much in the way of revolt,

or resistance towards the rulers of China.

I really don't think that the UK for example would cope with the level of sanctions imposed on Russia. It is a huge net importer of essential supplies and doesn't have even remotely the leverage that Russia's two main cards (energy and grain) bring to the table. I'm sure our, erm, financial services would be sorely missed. 

We seem to be shifting and narrowing the goalposts somewhat here from causing an immediate tanking of Russia's currency and an economic meltdown, to 'but... high interest rates and consumers must be pissed!' Neither of those are going to stop any major power from trying to get what it wants. Those economic considerations couldn't even stop Brexit FFS when it was put before the entire population. 

[dorlomin]

Bit of basic economics. Heavy on details so I will let those wanting to skip past do so with ease. 

 

How does an economy add value and move up the value chain? How does an economy create economic activity and then use or distribute that economic activity. 

Core to our world but rarely discussed, we think of economies as a set of statistics and some heuristics ab out "fairness" or "competitiveness". 

Primary produce is digging something out the ground or farming it. 

Secondary is turning that into something useful like a plastic chair or an iphone. 

Tertiary is the financing, marketing and other activities. 

The labour value or amount of value that workers are worth inputting into production tends to go up exponentially as you go up the production value chain. So its easy to get someone who can hack away with a pick axe or a drill. Its harder to train someone to build an iphone component and skilled marketing requires skilled people with a lot of insight who cost a lot of money. This is grossly simplified but kind of works as a basic model. The get very high value labour inputs to some primary production like Dutch who have very high end farming. So its not rock solid, but its indicative. The UK has some primary production in things like agriculture and oil and gas, some secondary such as jet engines, computer chip design and so on and lots of tertiary like organising the financing of a significant part of the global economy. 

Russia has a very large primary production sector that is heavily reliant on intellectual property from Western companies. It has some secondary but no real global footprint and bugger all tertiary globally. They ended the Cold War with a high skilled work force but not really able to compete globally. The Japanese built better radios, the Germans better cars etc. Their leaders did not really try to develop the human capital and instead kept getting rich with primary produce. 

Here in Britain our economy is unfair, its unbalanced but its globally competitive at the top drawer. We build jet engines for the worlds airliners, we design computer chips for smart phones, we finance and market products. We are on a par with the Germans, US, Japan and over very top tier countries in terms of capacity to generate very high value activity. I am not endorsing our current economic set up vs what it should be, just comparing to those on the long term decline. 

Our wealth ultimately rests on the creativity and intelligence of the people from our schools, our universities and our willingness to embrace immigration. 

Not Russia. 

We imposed sanctions Russia because direct military confrontation would crush their army and risk them going nuclear. The cost the Ukrainian people are bearing, the costs that will be imposed on the worlds poor from food inflation is largely down to our decision not to end this quickly and risk the worst possible outcome. Say the word, unleash the full US air force and see how quick this all ends, but at what risk?

The sanctions on Russia are aimed at cutting of their access to the global markets for higher end products. So step by step their economy will start to unravel as they cannot replace German microchips for cars, or Japanese specialist glues for something like fridges they produce locally. The primary produce sector of their economy is seeing more money come in from higher prices. But they have seen a 44% drop in imports. They are being driven back to Soviet era scarcity in terms of luxury goods. 

Their economy is headed to oblivion. Globally we will experience inflation in basics like wheat and energy. We are in a war where we are trying to avoid creating panic in mad c***s with nuclear bombs who have control over about 30% of the worlds wheat exports. This is a very ugly situation and we all need to understand this. 

The counter options are just let Putin take what he wants where he wants when he wants.

Or deal with the complexities of a sociopathic leadership trying to bombard a country into agreeing it does not exist and starve people in the world until we are so sick of the sight of their plight Putin gets to chose which countries do and do not exist. 

The easy option is unleash the USAF and see how it all falls. Every other option will contain emotionally heart wrenching choices. 

We are fighting sociopathic gangsters with a nuclear arsenal and a significant portion of the worlds food exports. 

Some seem gleeful at this. f**k those c***s till their corpses rot. 

[jagfox]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[Todd_is_God]

Are Ukraine paying for all these weapons that NATO countries are supplying them?

I only ask because, for the rest of the world, the best outcome is peace ASAP, but there is surely little reason for Ukraine to seek a peace deal with Russia so long as they have free, unlimited access to modern weapons.

I assumed that the initial wave of sanctions and weapon shipments were designed to try and snuff the war out quickly. But, with that having failed, what's the long term game for NATO countries here? Continue shovelling indefinitely expensive resources into a war we aren't involved in?

Edited May 27, 2022 by Todd_is_God

[dirty dingus]

8 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Are Ukraine paying for all these weapons that NATO countries are supplying them?

I only ask because, for the rest of the world, the best outcome is peace ASAP, but there is surely little reason for Ukraine to seek a peace deal with Russia so long as they have free, unlimited access to modern weapons.

I assumed that the initial wave of sanctions and weapon shipments were designed to try and snuff the war out quickly. But, with that having failed, what's the long term game for NATO countries here? Continue shovelling indefinitely expensive resources into a war we aren't involved in?

To weaken Russian military powers so they are left with a bucket, spade and nuclear weapons. Leaving the Middle East, Africa and the various Stans to be liberated from Russian influence.