How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Hister]

1 minute ago, DesertFox said:

 

 

Ha, they must have been playing Spintires/Mudrunner games where one can often get out of such muddy predicament and thought it will be all swell in the end.

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

I am not saying western sanctions won't hurt Russia, but we can't expect there won't be blowback in the west.

Is anybody saying that?  I've certainly not seen anybody advancing that sort of thinking.  Quite the contrary.

The issue is the West can survive the blowback from this war, Russia can not.  In a war, economic or otherwise, that matters.

There's few Western companies that are going to see their bottom lines seriously harmed.  Most are unlikely to show even a short term loss on earnings since Russian linked ventures are small part of their revenue.  Battlefront is in that camp for sure (our sales to Russia are more than zero but we'll not notice their absence).  Obviously there are exceptions out there of companies that have put too many of their eggs in the Russian basket, but overall that is the case.

On the other hand, Russian corporations that have extended their operations outside of Russia are more likely to feel pain from it because on top of getting their foreign operations cut off they are going to see their domestic activities decrease along with the larger economy's downward trend.  I'm also guessing that there's a bigger share of Russian companies with dependencies on Western ties for their very survival than the other way around.

Then there's the long term damage Russia has done to its economic future.  It took a long time after the Soviet Union's collapse for Western companies to feel there was a safe enough environment to operate in Russia directly.  That is one of the few solidly good things that Putin managed to achieve.  And now he's flushed it down the toilette.

Steve

[Vet 0369]

4 hours ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Presumably they would also seize any domestic server infrastructure as well. Not sure how much Apple keeps in Russia or how much its worth, but it could be there is some proprietary data on there that they would get and copy. 

 

Russia nationalizing western property would be nice for them in the short term, but the kiss of death economically in the long run. Consider that Venezuela nationalized its oil infrastructure without compensating western companies. Those profits were directed out of oil in to social services. And then, surprise surprise, the price of oil tanked. Now there infrastructure is in bad need of repair and modernization and the capital simply doesn't exist to do it. And notice that despite a global oil crisis right now, nobody is talking about increasing Venezuela's production. Nationalizing international assets feels good economically in the short term, but it comes at the cost of destroying relationships with outside businesses  for a generation or longer. After all, who would spend $1bil or more to build a factory just for Putin to take it during the next war? Nationalizing industry and services will further push Russia into a resource driven economy, and will again mean Oil is the most important single commodity they posses. Except for political, environmental, and technological reasons, Russia will never pump as much oil in the future as it is right now. Oil is a dying industry. 

If they nationalize, businesses will make short term 'one off' deals. "Well buy 1mil bbl of oil or x mil cm3 of natural gas." But nobody will lease aircraft or create a long term exchange for Lada cars, unless there is literally no other alternative. 

Most here are probably not old enough to remember it, but I think it was Khrushchev who said “the Capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them.” He wasn’t wrong. The corporations will climb over each other to be the first in line to get their profits.  Corporations don’t really care about politics until the politics interfere with their bottom lines. If Russia nationalizes all of the air carrier fleets, the lessors will just claim their insurance and buy stock in Boeing and Airbus.

[kraze]

27 minutes ago, akd said:

-BBC

Wait till you learn that an actual wording was something like 'CIA stealing slavic russian genes'.

But BBC decided to avoid mentioning that since Russia is already channeling Mr. Adolf too hard for press comfort.

[LongLeftFlank]

40 minutes ago, kraze said:

Kherson thus far is the only regional center they gained any control of...

Also going by western stats they basically lost 12%-15% of the whole invasion force in two weeks, vast majority of losses are the best units they had. Traded for a city that holds no political value.

Interesting points, thanks.

At this point though, it seems to me 'political value' to Putin is measured solely in terms of the Russian political class that keeps him in power (and breathing). Foreign opinion (China excepted) holds no weight.

....So at some point soon Bonaparte must abandon his hollow Grand Armee to the tender mercies of the Tractor Cossacks and focus on shaping a vaguely plausible narrative that ends the shooting (for now) and keeps him alive. So 'pacifying' Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol, in order to hold the 'land bridge to Crimea' once the cease fire is called and show *something* for all the terrible losses has got to become top priority for him.  I expect to see all his most reliable VDV, Marines, Interior Ministry, FSB osoby and other thugs showing up down there.

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, db_zero said:

Even if Putin gets the boot the general consensus is who ever replaces him will be of the same system.

If the West is smart they will refuse to lift sanctions until there's a fairly significant change in the Russian power structure.  I doubt any significant Western investment will happen until that takes place even if sanctions are lifted.

Russia's primary dilemma for the years since the Soviet Union ceased to exist is that the West doesn't need Russia to have a happy and healthy economy for its needs.  Russia can not say the same thing.  For a little while it seemed Putin realized this and was willing to curb his behavior just enough that the West engaged and Russia benefited.  That's all gone now. 

Steve

[kraze]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Wow.  So THAT's their best idea to put forward?  Wow.

But what does this all mean?  Obviously it is pretext argument, but they've already started the war so you'd think this would have been the sort of nonsense we'd have seen weeks ago not now.  Yet they wouldn't be putting this out there if they didn't have some specific plan for what to do next.  Short of trying to use this as a justification for using bio/chem weapons on Ukraine, I can't come up with anything. 

If some sort of use of bio/chem is their plan... who do they think will buy into this obviously made up excuse?  Even if their false cover story were true (and it is not), there is nothing in International Law that allows the proactive use of bio/chem weapons against anybody.

Steve

We are talking russians here.

They will just drop chem/bio weapons onto some children's hospital and claim evil Ukrainian neonazis blew up the biolab to cover it all up but something went bad.

Because they don't really care about the reality - in their fantasy world they only need to look good to themselves.

I mean - this whole war is based on delusions, incl occupying whole country in 3 days tops, so why not another one.

Edited March 11, 2022 by kraze

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Is anybody saying that?  I've certainly not seen anybody advancing that sort of thinking.  Quite the contrary.

The issue is the West can survive the blowback from this war, Russia can not.  In a war, economic or otherwise, that matters.

There's few Western companies that are going to see their bottom lines seriously harmed.  Most are unlikely to show even a short term loss on earnings since Russian linked ventures are small part of their revenue.  Battlefront is in that camp for sure (our sales to Russia are more than zero but we'll not notice their absence).  Obviously there are exceptions out there of companies that have put too many of their eggs in the Russian basket, but overall that is the case.

On the other hand, Russian corporations that have extended their operations outside of Russia are more likely to feel pain from it because on top of getting their foreign operations cut off they are going to see their domestic activities decrease along with the larger economy's downward trend.  I'm also guessing that there's a bigger share of Russian companies with dependencies on Western ties for their very survival than the other way around.

Then there's the long term damage Russia has done to its economic future.  It took a long time after the Soviet Union's collapse for Western companies to feel there was a safe enough environment to operate in Russia directly.  That is one of the few solidly good things that Putin managed to achieve.  And now he's flushed it down the toilette.

Steve

There are two kinds of Western companies in Russia, resource extraction, and consumer goods/services. The oil/gas/ metal companies will be fine because cutting Russia out of the world market automatically increases the value of their other assets/production. For Starbucks, and McDonalds the Russian market is just not big enough to matter in the first place. I am sure some investment bank somewhere is overcommitted to the Russian Market and is very sorry, but in the big picture that just doesn't matter.

[keas66]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

There are two kinds of Western companies in Russia, resource extraction, and consumer goods/services. The oil/gas/ metal companies will be fine because cutting Russia out of the world market automatically increases the value of their other assets/production. For Starbucks, and McDonalds the Russian market is just not big enough to matter in the first place. I am sure some investment bank somewhere is overcommitted to the Russian Market and is very sorry, but in the big picture that just doesn't matter.

Well the "Smart" Investment Banks are pulling out real fast - Gold Sachs made such an announcement recently :

https://news.yahoo.com/goldman-sachs-pull-russia-152222342.html

[Sgt Joch]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Is anybody saying that?  I've certainly not seen anybody advancing that sort of thinking.  Quite the contrary.

That is right no one was saying that and that was not the point of the debate I was having with Kraze.

[Battlefront.com]

Another interesting aspect of this war that I don't think anybody took into consideration before hand is the danger Russia faces from all that abandoned equipment.  If this were a war against NATO all that combat power would be lost to Russia, sure, but it would not be ADDED to the opponent.  That's because NATO would just round it all up for scrape or sale later on.  Not so in this war.

Ukraine's military is trained to operate many of the same vehicles and systems that the Russians are so helpfully leaving intact.  In some cases a degree of familiarization with Russian upgrade systems will be necessary, but by and large similar.  Even more helpful is that Ukrainians can understand Russia without effort.  So markings on equipment, captured vehicle manuals, system check sheets, etc. are all instantly usable.  No having to send the stuff off to be translated!

Steve

[billbindc]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If the West is smart they will refuse to lift sanctions until there's a fairly significant change in the Russian power structure.  I doubt any significant Western investment will happen until that takes place even if sanctions are lifted.

Russia's primary dilemma for the years since the Soviet Union ceased to exist is that the West doesn't need Russia to have a happy and healthy economy for its needs.  Russia can not say the same thing.  For a little while it seemed Putin realized this and was willing to curb his behavior just enough that the West engaged and Russia benefited.  That's all gone now. 

Steve

Sanctions aren't going anywhere for a long time because they are not now just about getting Putin to withdraw from Ukraine...they are also intended to make it difficult for Russia to play this game again. There's been a revolution in geopolitical thinking and immense political capital spent to service it. Nobody is going to want to run for office in 10 years against "Why did you let the Russians come back...*again*".

[BeondTheGrave]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If the West is smart they will refuse to lift sanctions until there's a fairly significant change in the Russian power structure.  I doubt any significant Western investment will happen until that takes place even if sanctions are lifted

I've been thinking a bit about what the conditions would be for the sanctions to be lifted. Its an interesting conundrum really, because they've clearly bitten hard. And by the time this situation is resolved, the damage will have been done to the west. In the first case, if Russia never leave Ukraine, if it achieves its objectives and installs a puppet, if the Iron Curtain goes back up I could see the sanctions never coming off. But if Russia makes peace and withdraws, I'm not so sure. Even in a Putin/post-Putin world, I think many in Washington would say 'keep going till Russia becomes a democracy.' But weve seen with Iran that doesn't really work. You cant sanction a country into democracy. Even if the US administration was up for sanctions-till-democracy, I dont think Europe and especially Germany would go along with it. Without an immediate threat I think the neo-NATO backslapping weve seen recently will fade away. Without a war going, Sanctions will last a year, max, IMO. By then countries and businesses will have wormed the substance out of them. 

IMO there is a very real chance here that the US is going to have to accept a Putin-dominated or post-Putin dictator dominated Russia for the foreseeable future. That is, much of systemic causes for the Anglo-Russian rivalry arn't going to go away. 

[Bulletpoint]

The Russians have taken heavy casualties so far, but I don't know if they will necessarily keep taking losses at the same rate.

Most of the initial losses were from driving whole columns straight into ambushes - if they stop that, it could become much more like a war of attrition for both sides from now on.

If plentiful infantry AT weapons and drones keep tanks from playing any real part as breakthrough tools, could this turn into more of a WW1 style war?

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Bulletpoint

[Lethaface]

36 minutes ago, Hister said:

Ah, my apologies then for double post!

no worries

[LongLeftFlank]

20 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Sanctions aren't going anywhere for a long time because they are not now just about getting Putin to withdraw from Ukraine...they are also intended to make it difficult for Russia to play this game again. There's been a revolution in geopolitical thinking and immense political capital spent to service it. Nobody is going to want to run for office in 10 years against "Why did you let the Russians come back...*again*".

But just as scumbags like Marc Rich and later Adnan Khashoggi were happy to profiteer for years from reflagging embargoed Iranian oil, there are whole global firms (Glencore, Trafigura, etc. -- the spawn of Rich -- and countless oligarch family offices worldwide who effectively own their countries and are immune to their laws) who are only too happy to circumvent the hell out of sanctions, buying Russia's many valuable resources cheap (from Putin's cronies) and selling them at market, arbitraging the difference. The profits are just too huge to ignore, and are easily laundered.

Spookworld knows all this stuff and is in on the game. In 2 years nobody will care enough to waste political capital turning the screws: Ukraine doesn't have the political jam. Hell, I predict breaking the embargoes will be a huge chunk of their own economy....

And of course there's the Chinese.

Edited March 11, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Sgt Joch]

well its not just that sanctions will not be lifted, if you look at what happened with funds seized from Iran and Afghanistan, the U.S. will probably seize a large part of the frozen assets of the Russian central bank and turn them over to Ukraine to rebuild so a big chunk of that money will never go back to Russia.

[Lethaface]

36 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Wow.  So THAT's their best idea to put forward?  Wow.

But what does this all mean?  Obviously it is pretext argument, but they've already started the war so you'd think this would have been the sort of nonsense we'd have seen weeks ago not now.  Yet they wouldn't be putting this out there if they didn't have some specific plan for what to do next.  Short of trying to use this as a justification for using bio/chem weapons on Ukraine, I can't come up with anything. 

If some sort of use of bio/chem is their plan... who do they think will buy into this obviously made up excuse?  Even if their false cover story were true (and it is not), there is nothing in International Law that allows the proactive use of bio/chem weapons against anybody.

Steve

Would such a thing happen, which I as an optimist still doubt, I guess that will cross some lines. If not intervention, some mobilization will take form I guess. That direction is certainly not what I think is a good one. 

[db_zero]

Nobody is going to want to do business with Russia for a long time no matter what the outcome. Risk is too high...

On another note I just watch a report on CNN where a retired general mentioned there is the possibility of Turkey sending the S400 system to Ukraine. I know Turkey has S400-it caused quite a stir in Washington when they bought them from Russia.

Turkey has already signaled its disapproval of the Russian invasion, but I'm doubtful of S400s going to Ukraine, even though they are now asking for more sophisticated ADA.

[Commanderski]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another interesting aspect of this war that I don't think anybody took into consideration before hand is the danger Russia faces from all that abandoned equipment.  If this were a war against NATO all that combat power would be lost to Russia, sure, but it would not be ADDED to the opponent.  That's because NATO would just round it all up for scrape or sale later on.  Not so in this war.

Ukraine's military is trained to operate many of the same vehicles and systems that the Russians are so helpfully leaving intact.  In some cases a degree of familiarization with Russian upgrade systems will be necessary, but by and large similar.  Even more helpful is that Ukrainians can understand Russia without effort.  So markings on equipment, captured vehicle manuals, system check sheets, etc. are all instantly usable.  No having to send the stuff off to be translated!

Steve

 The Ukrainians will likely have more heavy equipment at the end of the war than when they started.

[Sarjen]

Apparently Belarus units will attack from north after a false flag attack of RUAF from Ukraine territory onto Belarus territory. Attack is planned to start in 8 minutes.

 

 

[Lethaface]

58 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

Not sure why I have to give everyone a course in economics, western companies have huge investments in Russia, both financial and in major natural resources sites. This article alone lists roughly U.S. $400 billion in liquid assets currently trapped in Russia which includes U.S. $120 billion that Russian companies owed to western banks and another U.S. $80 billion in corporate bonds owed to foreign investors

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/stranded-assets-how-many-billions-are-stuck-russia-2022-03-03/

It is hard to get a handle on total western investment in Russia since much of it is hidden but it could easily top U.S. $1 trillion.

This should not be a surprise to anyone, the world economy is intertwined, there are Russian assets in the west that can be seized and western assets in Russia which can be seized. That is the nature of economic warfare.

I am not saying western sanctions won't hurt Russia, but we can't expect there won't be blowback in the west.

Not sure who you are teaching economics

But imo this economic war 'special operation' isn't decided on the front of who can freeze more, theoretical, assets belonging to the 'other party'. For sure the world economic system is sustaining a shock as there is much uncertainty. All the risk avoiding organizations/institutions are now at a loss what to do. The commodity market has been interesting as well lol.

Anyway some real estate being confiscated won't hurt any state actor either way, it will only hurt individuals/companies. The world economy is indeed intertwined and Russia's twines have just been severed from a lot of major arteries. Nationalizing Apple stores et al will maybe bring some short term continuation of a pipe dream. The question is whether they can get some use out of the factories in Russia beyond the current stock. I doubt that the current state of affairs in Russia would be an 'enabling factor' on that front.

Coming back to the economy, the question is what economy will be left. Official prognosis is already predicting large declines based on the current outlook. That outlook won't improve for years, unless someone get's to drink of his own tea somewhere soon imo.

[sburke]

this may go down as the worst false flag ever if it gets predicted in advance.  Then again it would be consistent.

[danfrodo]

1 minute ago, Sarjen said:

Apparently Belarus units will attack from north after a false flag attack of RUAF from Ukraine territory onto Belarus territory. Attack is planned to start in 8 minutes.

 

 

What are the paths expected if Belarus does attack?  how does that terrain look?  I am hoping UKR can slow/stop any advances via ambushes & blown bridges & the like.  It would be great to see the Belarus army march in, get smacked hard, then mutiny and go back home.  What I worry about is that even a bad belaurus army has to be countered, and UKR already quite stretched.  On the plus side, it could lead to coup in belarus, and yet another country turning away from Putin.

[Bulletpoint]

Whom would they be trying to fool with that? Anyone with even half a brain cell would realise Ukraine has zero interest in attacking Belarus while fighting to defend against Russia. Even Belarusian soldiers must realise that.