How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, womble said:

One relief in the accounts so far of this war is that the Russian troops on the ground have remained pretty humane in their treatment of the civilians they've encountered. Whether that's just inherent to the new professional army, or RoE for the conflict (wisely posted in these days of universal coverage that would have a good chance of rapidly disseminating accounts of any "atrocity"), it's a Good Thing (as far as anything good can come out of the cluster that this all is).

Also: where's the infantry?! So many AFVs appearing in videos with no little friends to watch their flanks or provide security against threats that a tank can only deal with in a messy way. In the situation Russia's in, you almost need a platoon of riot police in every infantry formation to clear away civilians.

I have been struck by both of these things too.  What a difference between the regular Russian forces and the thugs they hired to take over the Donbas.

Steve

[CHEqTRO]

THIS IS ACTUALLY FAKE! I will leave there in order that the conversation below has some sense, but yeah, I ate up a russian fake news 

.

It also seems that Berdyansk has fallen without to much resistance, and, in conjunction with 2000 marines that landed in the proximity, Mariupol is about to be encircled, if it hasn been alredy.

Also, unsurprisingly:

 

26 minutes ago, borg said:

So - asking for myself, in all sincerity - what does it mean to the average Russian living in Russia ? Can they work, buy food and goods ? What happens to cost of living ?

What Steve said really. Suppossedly there are russians that have already lost their jobs because of this.

Edited February 27, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[womble]

9 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I am going to optimistically hope that for the first time in modern Russian history they could have a new gov't that is not built on jingoistic, nationalist zealotry pushed by thuggish mass murdering monsters.  A govt that actually works to make the economy work for everyone.  And can actually be a trusted partner for trade.  If that could happen and last for a while, just think how different the world could be.  If Russia wants to lessen percieved NATO, long lasting peace is the cheap and easy way to do it.

Unfortunately, the jingoistic nationaist zealotry is just the "acceptable political face" plastered onto the kleptocratic gangster oligarchy that is the ruling class of post-Soviet Russia. Maybe those criminals can be persuaded that actually properly playing the game legitimately is their best option going forward, but largely I suspect they're not capable of changing their spots, mangy leopards that they are.

[dan/california]

40 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Like SWIFT, I didn't think it would happen. Here we are. This is endgame, 1944, stuff. How can Putin continue if hes even lost Turkey, NATO's weak link? There are two roads forward, total withdraw from Ukraine or a freight train towards Iran/North Korea status. 

There is really only one road for Russia now, and it involves an unmarked grave in a sunflower field in outermost nowhere. To be followed a great deal of it was all his fault we are so sorry, ect.

[Haiduk]

5 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

Kyiv mayor says the Russian troops have closed off all exits from the city, civilians can’t exit.

Some bad news, but expectable.

 

This is fake. There is no such statement of Vitaly Klychko

Edited February 27, 2022 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

Reposting something timely considering my General Mud post on the previous page:

Apparently spending the last 35 years studying the Eastern Front has given me a few decent thoughts on what this war might be like

You know, as an American I am sometimes a little sensitive when someone from another country says "what do you know, you're just an American".  Well, it so happens sometimes I do know more than the people that grew up and live there.  For example, I know that all Canadians play hockey, eat back bacon every day, and are exceptionally polite.  And the ones that live near me speak very funny English.  So that and Russia... two examples.

That reminds me.  Gotta break from this to buy some potatoes.  I'm making poutine tonight.

Steve

 

[Bulletpoint]

Who is this Bakthi Nishanov guy anyway?

[CHEqTRO]

1 minute ago, Haiduk said:

Kyiv mayor says the Russian troops have closed off all exits from the city, civilians can’t exit.

This is fake. There is no such statement of Vitaly Klychko

Really? Good to hear. I supposed that he meant that those route were under artillery direct range and hence why civilians couldnt exit; as a russian breakthrought would have been strange considering the overall situation. But if its a fake, the better

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

 

This is fake. There is no such statement of Vitaly Klychko

Yup.  In fact, it seems Russia controls less of the city perimeter tonight than it did this morning.  At least it's clearly having more difficulty holding the perimeter it had yesterday and has not managed to expand it.

Steve

[Sarjen]

20 minutes ago, borg said:

So - asking for myself, in all sincerity - what does it mean to the average Russian living in Russia ? Can they work, buy food and goods ? What happens to cost of living ?

Well. The true major hit the economy will take is from the frozen assets of the Central Bank. I found the following explanation very helpful to understand the whole sanctioning:

"Russia currently holds about $640 billion in reserves. About 32% held in euros, 22% in gold, 16% in dollars, and 13% in Yuan. Most of that gold is held domestically and beyond the reach of sanctions. But about $300 billion in reserves are held abroad. Freezing those will prevent the Bank of Russia from using them for things like currency interventions or transfers to the Russian Treasury to spend. We're already seeing the ruble fall to its lowest levels ever as holders of rubles rush to exchange them for other currencies they think are safer stores of wealth. This is typical in crises - people trust dollars more than rubles to hold value.

Currencies are bought and sold on international foreign exchange markets. Like any traded good, their price (or exchange rate) is a function of supply and demand. Demand for the ruble is plummeting: people are selling them in exchange for dollars/euros. This means that the market is being flooded with rubles that nobody really wants, so supply is increasing. Falling demand and rising supply means the "price" of the ruble is dropping, or weakening.

A crashing ruble is bad for consumers: they get fewer imported goods for their rubles AND fewer domestic goods (reduced purchasing power). Put another way, it takes more rubles to buy the same stuff as before. That's called inflation, and it can get quite severe. high inflation is generally bad for economic growth, and hyperinflation is historically associated with severe recession/depression. That's bad for ordinary folks and, say, governments who are waging costly wars with their neighbors.

This is why central banks often intervene in currency markets to stabilize their currency: spend your reserves (dollars, euros, gold, etc) and buy up rubles to reduce the supply and prop up the exchange rate. But what happens when you burn through your reserves? You can't support your exchange rate by buying up excess rubles, and the currency crashes. That's what we saw in Russia in 1998, and that's what precipitated a major economic meltdown.

What happens if you have reserves but you can't access most of them for currency interventions? Or you're not allowed to exchange your dollars and euros for rubles? That's what sanctioning the Bank of Russia could do, and it would have the same effect: unchecked freefall. Rubles could (in theory) become close to worthless, with ordinary citizens conducting exchange in dollars. That would have to be on the black market, since it's technically illegal to pay for things with dollars/euros directly. Dollars will be scarce & precious on the street.

But many Russians will probably continue to get paid in rubles, which won't be worth much for basic necessities. Remember those pictures from Weimar Germany of folks with carts full of worthless cash? It wouldn't look like that today, but the effect could be the same."

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Apparently spending the last 35 years studying the Eastern Front has given me a few decent thoughts on what this war might be like

You'd think the Russians would know the word "rasputitsa" quite well too.

Yet here we are, with a war started so late that the Russian tanks are sinking into the mud.

Just another bizarre thing that doesn't make sense in this crazy war.

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Gotta break from this to buy some potatoes.  I'm making poutine tonight.

Oh man Steve, you are not a young man anymore and we kinda want to keep this gaming thing going for at least awhile yet. 

[womble]

8 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

 

This is fake. There is no such statement of Vitaly Klychko

It's being presented by Associated Press...

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-europe-e9cd115540b398be26dfcaf472ec1621

...They're usually pretty reliable, aren't they?

[BeondTheGrave]

16 minutes ago, borg said:

So - asking for myself, in all sincerity - what does it mean to the average Russian living in Russia ? Can they work, buy food and goods ? What happens to cost of living ?

The further the Ruble falls, the worse international trade becomes. Any good or service purchased abroad will become that much more expensive. Currently I think were looking at a 2.5x fall from pre-war. Now with the sanctions that may not seem like a big deal, after all most of those exchanges are already lights out for the time being. 

BUT there are strings. First the ForEx collapse will also hit exchange with other world currencies. If the Ruble has lost 2.5x its value on the open market you bet China is going to raise the cost of any goods it sells to Russia to compensate. Even if you assume the Ruble will recover in value in the long term, now is when foreign traders are going to make a killing buying the dip. Also if you own a business that trades in any foreign good, European or Asian, youre going to see a huge increase in overhead and costs relative to where you were just days ago. That means layoffs, downsizing, decreased production, and increased costs. 

Monetary policy is complicated and I dont pretend to understand it. Its more complicated than "more money bad less money good" or the reverse. But what I can say is that the #1 monetary markets, like all markets, hate is rapid unpredictable changes. In many ways you can compare macroeconomics to a nuclear reactor, you need to keep everything in balance and not take too many unexpected risks. Everything has to be kept in proportion and changes have to be implemented slowly and surely. The Russian central bank is going to come out with a huge policy reversal tomorrow to stop the meltdown it sees coming. Thats going to be a major shift that the MoEx is going to hate. Maybe by injecting central bank funds to subsidize losses in the short term they can stave off an economic Chernobyl, but thats a short term salve that will only last as long as Putin's treasury holds out. And its going to come at the cost of inflicting on the economy a Fukushima type disaster. After all, the more cash the central bank injects to save businesses and Oligarchs, the worse inflation becomes. Conversely, monetary tightening might save the value of the Ruble on markets, but it will be like pumping out the water of an overheating reactor. And if you were around in 2008 you know how this works. Somebody somewhere ****s up on the stock market and loses their shirt. All the sudden millions are unemployed, pensions disappear, the entire country changes. The Russian economy is very different and after 2014 has become more insulated and resistant to these kinds of shocks, but any economic crisis is going to be bad for Putin as it brings the pain home. 

Last, the Oligarchs. Maybe the average Russian doesn't have large foreign investments, but the Oligarchs DO. And now two things have happened. First most have been cut off from their non-Russian investments. Second, even if they engineer a way to circumvent sanctions, the collapse of the Ruble value is going to make converting domestic wealth into more stable foreign assets very expensive. Buying a new London flat to offshore your pile of Rubles just got 2.5x more expensive even before you figure in all the intermediary steps and go between you now need to hire to circumvent other harder sanctions. 

And of course as soon as the Russian economy adapts to this shock, if the war isn't over, the West will smash it again. 

[Vet 0369]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

.

Correct, you will not get me to agree with an argument that is so obviously fatally flawed and not shared by any military expert out there.  You're pissing in a hurricane, as it were.

Steve

LOL, , i don’t think he’s a New Englander, so he might not get that reference! I’ll explain the meaning here for all those who have never heard it. Pissing into a hurricane means that the only thing that will result is that YOU’LL GET WET!

[dan/california]

30 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Even without Putin there is a good chance the 2nd CW will live on. After all, dont forget that we get to do all this again next year when China invades Taiwan! 

The odds of Taiwan invasion have actually dropped drastically. Xi is smarter than Putin, in better health, and hasn't been lord high/dictator/emperor/demigod nearly as long. He will learn from this. The first lesson is that trying to attack a defensive position with adequate modern munitions is more or less suicidal. And in Taiwan he has to do it across a very unfriendly stretch of ocean. Xi is also pondering that the Russian Army is made of tissue paper, and the tissue paper is on fire in a Ukrainian swamp five thousand miles to the west. Xi is pondering that the population density of the Russian far east is about .5 people per square kilometer. Xi is pondering that Russia has no friends. Xi is pondering if there are far better, and easier places to invade. The kind of place where he could nearly double the size of China. Xi is doing very careful math.

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Oh man Steve, you are not a young man anymore and we kinda want to keep this gaming thing going for at least awhile yet. 

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  If I survive yet another poutine night, then I assume I'll be stronger.  That is my hope, at lest.

Steve

[dan/california]

10 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

You'd think the Russians would know the word "rasputitsa" quite well too.

Yet here we are, with a war started so late that the Russian tanks are sinking into the mud.

Just another bizarre thing that doesn't make sense in this crazy war.

Russian incompetence has simply been epic at every level.

[Vet 0369]

10 hours ago, arkhangelsk2021 said:

In terms of "sob-storyness", Belgium actually has Ukraine beat. For one thing, in relative terms the gap between Ukraine and Russia is a lot smaller than Belgium and Germany. For another thing, Belgium really was trying to remain neutral, as opposed to Ukraine's constant aspirations to ally with NATO. For a third thing, Belgium never crossed Germany in the way Ukraine did, or if it happened I'm not aware of it.

I know it's hard to remember in 2022, but from 1991 to 2013, Moscow respected Ukraine's sovereignty despite Ukraine actually being rather stabby, and the West in essence condones Ukraine's behavior. In contrast, Washington works hard to guide Korea (for example, Korea cannot build missiles exceeding a certain range) and Japan in directions that won't be too provocative against China. 
The first time I really noticed Ukraine was around 2004 when they had their Orange Revolution, thus putting themselves, for the moment, in an anti-Russian camp. Russia reacted with no more than to say that Ukraine will have to pay regular price (not extra, REGULAR price) for gas now that it's not a friend. Ukraine reacted by embezzling gas entrusted to their pipelines. In their Russophobia, the West blamed Russia for "coercing" Ukraine (oh god, making them pay regular price is now coercion...) and was extremely forgiving to Ukraine despite it being THEM that's being objectively deprived of gas they need for their own homes.

In 2010, Yakunovich won an election, fair and square, at least in the opinion of the monitors. The Ukrainians reacted by tossing him out, because he made ONE pro-Russian decision. Putin has said that Ukraine lacks traditions of statehood, and frankly that instance demonstrates this. The people of a more mature state than Ukraine would realize that Yakunovich made a realist decision, and even if they disagree well they can vote him out next year. But no, they kicked him out, and of course, they've only gotten more anti-Russian since. It's one thing to argue that that's still no excuse to attack Ukraine, but in essence to Russia it's like Canada as a whole suddenly becoming extremely anti-US. Plus if you are using only the law as your shield, well then you have to stick to it, and the Ukrainians could not even do that. If the West was fair-minded, sure they can condemn the Maidan shootings, sure, but they should have acknowledged the illegality of that throw out. But no, Russophobia rules the day.

Like I said, Belgium is really much more of a sob story than Ukraine is, but we don't lose our shirts when we discuss Germany invading Belgium. It is possible to understand Germany's need to attack Belgium while still on balance condemning it. No one would advocate torture just to "show the Germans". So what's the difference here? Is it really Russophobia at work?

For all those who don’t know history, Arkhangelsk was the location that a joint British/US expeditionary force landed to help the White Russians defeat the reds. They failed of course, which is why the World order is as it is today.

Name choice seems to have symbolism in this forum.

[Commanderski]

The European Command just went to DEFCON 2.

https://www.defconlevel.com/european-command-news.php?fbclid=IwAR1LHf4PgVCRSYmty7lfnBphQFdqqbSDTv21rdQVQ3HtV7YgAnRGd9GZ2hw

[Battlefront.com]

Sarjen, that was a great explanation.  Thanks for posting that.

I will remind folks out there that Putin made a social compact with the people.  It basically goes like this:

I will save you from the hyper inflation of the 1990s.  I will increase your standard of living.  I will give you political stability. I will allow you a general sense of freedom.  I will put an end to armed conflict within our borders.  I will keep day-to-day corruption to acceptable levels.  I will make Russia strong again in the eyes of the world.  In exchange for this, I will rule and you will not challenge me.

Some of these things have been under strain in the past few years (stagnating economic inflation, increase in obvious corruption, major decrease in personal freedoms, etc.), but this war blew them all out of the water.

If this were an actual legally binding contract, then Putin has violated the terms of the agreement.  Therefore, the people should feel free to challenge him now.

Steve

[womble]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Reposting something timely considering my General Mud post on the previous page:

I get the impression that General Mud's contribution to the discombobulation of the Russians is perhaps somewhat incidental; the operational tempo required to achieve the supposed goals in the timescale we're postulating would have required a lot of road movement even if the ground were frozen rock hard. But his appearance has something to do with the geopolitical aikido that announcing US intel appreciations of RUS intentions was. Those announcements seem to have set the launch date back at least a few days, which might've been enough to allow the mud to thaw.

[Haiduk]

15 minutes ago, womble said:

It's being presented by Associated Press...

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-europe-e9cd115540b398be26dfcaf472ec1621

...They're usually pretty reliable, aren't they?

Enemy troops only on NW, all other ways are open. The bridges on the left bank of Dnieper are not destroyed. Railway is working - I can buy a ticket to L'viv, except this, special evacuation trains exist.

[Aragorn2002]

27 minutes ago, Sarjen said:

Well. The true major hit the economy will take is from the frozen assets of the Central Bank. I found the following explanation very helpful to understand the whole sanctioning:

"Russia currently holds about $640 billion in reserves. About 32% held in euros, 22% in gold, 16% in dollars, and 13% in Yuan. Most of that gold is held domestically and beyond the reach of sanctions. But about $300 billion in reserves are held abroad. Freezing those will prevent the Bank of Russia from using them for things like currency interventions or transfers to the Russian Treasury to spend. We're already seeing the ruble fall to its lowest levels ever as holders of rubles rush to exchange them for other currencies they think are safer stores of wealth. This is typical in crises - people trust dollars more than rubles to hold value.

Currencies are bought and sold on international foreign exchange markets. Like any traded good, their price (or exchange rate) is a function of supply and demand. Demand for the ruble is plummeting: people are selling them in exchange for dollars/euros. This means that the market is being flooded with rubles that nobody really wants, so supply is increasing. Falling demand and rising supply means the "price" of the ruble is dropping, or weakening.

A crashing ruble is bad for consumers: they get fewer imported goods for their rubles AND fewer domestic goods (reduced purchasing power). Put another way, it takes more rubles to buy the same stuff as before. That's called inflation, and it can get quite severe. high inflation is generally bad for economic growth, and hyperinflation is historically associated with severe recession/depression. That's bad for ordinary folks and, say, governments who are waging costly wars with their neighbors.

This is why central banks often intervene in currency markets to stabilize their currency: spend your reserves (dollars, euros, gold, etc) and buy up rubles to reduce the supply and prop up the exchange rate. But what happens when you burn through your reserves? You can't support your exchange rate by buying up excess rubles, and the currency crashes. That's what we saw in Russia in 1998, and that's what precipitated a major economic meltdown.

What happens if you have reserves but you can't access most of them for currency interventions? Or you're not allowed to exchange your dollars and euros for rubles? That's what sanctioning the Bank of Russia could do, and it would have the same effect: unchecked freefall. Rubles could (in theory) become close to worthless, with ordinary citizens conducting exchange in dollars. That would have to be on the black market, since it's technically illegal to pay for things with dollars/euros directly. Dollars will be scarce & precious on the street.

But many Russians will probably continue to get paid in rubles, which won't be worth much for basic necessities. Remember those pictures from Weimar Germany of folks with carts full of worthless cash? It wouldn't look like that today, but the effect could be the same."

Great post, Sarjen.

[BeondTheGrave]

Another long term economic consequence, as the Russian economy craters sanctions or not investors will have to back out. Who knows what Norway was holding, MoEx stocks, or stocks of Russian companies on other markets, Russian debt bonds, etc. But if we just assume one, bonds, a big sell off by one holder will promote others. Overnight the value of an entire financial instrument, kept afloat partially thanks to institutional stabilization like re a sovereign fund or a hedge fund, goes away. Rebuilding that even if sanctions fell quickly would take years. Maybe decades? That is to say were talking long term economic damage here.