How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Butschi]

3 hours ago, kraze said:

The problem is that people in those formerly USSR-occupied countries weren't having a predator mentality for generations. They didn't need to be occupied and de-somethingfied because their people already didn't feel like ever attacking any neighbor. In fact people in some of those wanted to have even smaller borders of their own - e.g. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Thing is - there will be no reason for russian people to change if that financial faucet is reopened again once one putin is replaced with another putin.

Even if the most agreeable politician is put in power (which is fantasy) - he will quickly get spoiled by russians themselves propagating corruption and demanding USSR is restored once again (which is reality). And we will quickly have another big war.

Russians must be isolated if they are to change. Because if that "money faucet" is open again - russians will learn nothing. It will be literally 1991 all over again.

I don't see how this is going to work. While it looks like you are right and many Russians do want to have a "strong man" at the top who somehow restores Russia to its former glory, how can you force them to change their mind? There is no historical evidence that punishing a people for their government ever worked (correct me if I missed something). There are a bunch of countries which had sanctions imposed on them for decades like Cuba, Iran, North Korea. Did they overthrow their government? No, on the contrary isolation help the respective regime to tighten its grip.

As a German I'd say let's look at what we can learn from history: As Steve pointed out, after WW1, Germany was isolated and severly punished. What good did it do? It only served to give the Germans a deep feeling of humiliation combined with growing resentment towards democracy. The latter because a) they actually stuck to the Versaille Treaty and paid the reparations and b) since democracy really has to be learned, the democratic parties grew quite detached from the people and often only served their own needs. Added to all that came worldwide economic crisis of 1929 which struck (as far as memory serves) Germany the hardest in all of europe. Enter Hitler, the "strong man" who gave the people a feeling of "being someone again", improved the economic situation (doesn't matter that hald of it was based on plans of the previous government and the other half was indebting the country like there's no tomorrow, what counts is perception). By contrast, after WW2, the (western) Allies helped Germany and after a relatively short time Western Germany was welcomed back to international community (again, doesn't matter that this in large parts wasn't kindness but needing the Germans agains the Soviet Union and the Marshall Plan helped the US at least as much as it helped Germany, again, what counts is perception).

So, now there is Russia. After the fall of communism what happend? In Russian perception democracy just meant a weak and always drunk Boris Jelzin who stood by and watched while corrupt oligarchs together with "Western" capitalist companies plundered Russia. This in combination with seeing how the once mighty Soviet Union was now, as Russia, only called a "regional power" by western politicians that could do nothing to prevent the former enemy (USA = NATO = EU (perception...)) from encroaching on their borders. Enter Putin. And I fail to see how this would change with further isolating Russia after a hypothetical regime change.

That said, I'm no Russia-Apologist, it doesn't justify attacking another country. Still it would be a grave mistake not to see that pattern and to draw the necessary conclusions from it.

[rocketman]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I've seen this sort of error before.  If someone popped in "Springfield, United States" they'd get a whole bunch of very, very, very different locations   I've caught this a couple of times on LiveLeak.

Steve

Heck, there are about IIRC 8 Stockholm in the US, so even a capital city can be somewhere else entirely.

[Baneman]

2 minutes ago, rocketman said:

Heck, there are about IIRC 8 Stockholm in the US, so even a capital city can be somewhere else entirely.

Isn't there at least one Moscow in the States ?
That could make for some tense double-checking of your targeting co-ordinates !

[Haiduk]

72nd mech.brigade hummered Russian column with artillery in Brovary area, east from Kyiv. Probably 2 days ago.

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Haiduk

[BletchleyGeek]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

UKR recon UAV Leleka-100 during surveilance mission spotted Russian Buk SAM, launching the missile. There was coordinates were transmitted to nearest 152 mm battery and Buk was destroyed.

Thanks for the video @Haiduk, the secondary explosions if the Buk look quite spectacular. It also looks like the 152mm barrage hit the building with the blue roof that the Buk was firing from behind

[DesertFox]

16 minutes ago, rocketman said:

Heck, there are about IIRC 8 Stockholm in the US, so even a capital city can be somewhere else entirely.

Try Neustadt in Germany 

[Butschi]

2 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Try Neustadt in Germany 

"Ok, now we need a name for our new city... Here's what we'll do: We'll call it Newcity. Smart, eh?" Sometimes I really wonder how people came up with those names...

[Haiduk]

New Russian air wreckage

Reportedly two Su-30SM shot down in Odesa area at the morning, both fell in the sea, pilots ejected. No visual confirmation at this time.

[Haiduk]

+5 lost/badly damaged Russian helicopters on Chornobaivka airfield near Kherson. New satellite photo for 16th of March in comparison with a photo for 15th of March

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Lonely Russian Ural with 25 on the plate (Far East military district) carried ammunition. But didn't reach destination.

 

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

+5 lost/badly damaged Russian helicopters on Chornobaivka airfield near Kherson. New satellite photo for 16th of March in comparison with a photo for 15th of March

 

I would bet money that any aircraft left on the tarmac in that second picture are damaged to the point of being a loss.  It looks like the 3 serviceable ones pulled out but the line of choppers outside those red squares are also knocked out.  That much metal flying around...

Edited March 16, 2022 by The_Capt

[Erwin]

FYI:  Zelenskyy address to congress:

https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/npr-news/2022-03-16/zelenskyy-will-give-a-virtual-address-to-congress

 

[Maquisard manqué]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

[snip]

I'm out of votes but +1.

And on ths issue, it's a good job the US Marshal plan prevailed and not the (partly) French left's desire to completely de-industrialise Germany after WW2 - or there would be no Panzerfaust 3's going to Ukraine now. No EU President (from Germany) standing up and voting for the EU to buy and send weapons to Ukraine either.

[Erwin]

5 hours ago, kraze said:

Thing is - there will be no reason for russian people to change if that financial faucet is reopened again once one putin is replaced with another putin.

Even if the most agreeable politician is put in power (which is fantasy) - he will quickly get spoiled by russians themselves propagating corruption and demanding USSR is restored once again (which is reality). And we will quickly have another big war.

Russians must be isolated if they are to change. Because if that "money faucet" is open again - russians will learn nothing. It will be literally 1991 all over again.

Assuming Russia does implode due to this war... and let's face it we're only getting one side of the story so far... what will be needed, and what failed to be done in the 1990's, is something like a "Marshal Plan" to revive Russia and show the population a different, better way. 

It means a de-oligarching in the same was we de-Nazified Germany.  However, it worked for Germany and Japan and 25 years or so after the end of WW2 they were well on the way to becoming wealthy economic powerhouses.  The west cannot leave a disgruntled and vengeful "rump state" that will be gobbled up by China which desperately needs Russia's enormous raw material wealth.

 

[Kinophile]

The irony of China doing to Russia what Tsarist Russia did to China is not lost on me ...

Still, all this talk of regime change is just total fantasy. Even now we've no real idea of how the current "special military operation" will pan out.

Before you all get all giddly and "BUT RUAF IS LOLZ!",  I mean we definitely see trends, Russia has definitely been punched in the face (most notably by itself, repeatedly) and UKR seem to be regaining the operational initiative, buuuuuuuuuut it ain't over until the babushka sings. Or Putler's defenestered by the FSB.

Ukraine is NOT out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Kinophile

[Erwin]

More global ramifications as China moves to displace the USD as a reserve currency (from WSJ):

"Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would dent the U.S. dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market and mark another shift by the world’s top crude exporter toward Asia. Saudi officials have said they were shocked by the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

It would be a profound shift for Saudi Arabia to price even some of its roughly 6.2 million barrels of day of crude exports in anything other than dollars.

China introduced yuan-priced oil contracts in 2018 as part of its efforts to make its currency tradable across the world.  Saudi Arabia has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit later this year.

 Meanwhile the Saudi relationship with the U.S. has deteriorated under President Biden… Prince Mohammed, who U.S. intelligence authorities say ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, refused to sit in on a call between Mr. Biden and the Saudi ruler, King Salman, last month…

...China is the world’s biggest crude importer and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom,” said a Saudi official familiar with the talks. “China has been offering everything you could possibly imagine to the kingdom,” the official said.

A senior U.S. official called the idea of the Saudis selling oil to China in yuan “highly volatile and aggressive”…

Some economists said moving away from dollar-denominated oil sales would diversify the kingdom’s revenue base and could eventually lead it to repeg the riyal to a basket of currencies, similar to Kuwait’s dinar.

“If it is (done) now at a time of strong oil prices, it would not be seen negatively. It would be more seen as deepening ties with China,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

…the move could tempt other producers to price their Chinese exports in yuan as well. China’s other big sources of oil are Russia, Angola and Iraq.

The Saudi move could chip away at the supremacy of the U.S. dollar in the international financial system, which Washington has relied on for decades to print Treasury bills it uses to finance its budget deficit.

“The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency,” said economist Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security who co-wrote a book about de-dollarization. “If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

 

[Bulletpoint]

52 minutes ago, Butschi said:

"Ok, now we need a name for our new city... Here's what we'll do: We'll call it Newcity. Smart, eh?" Sometimes I really wonder how people came up with those names...

In Denmark, there's even a "New Newtown" which is located close to "Old Newtown"

[Kinophile]

**** me, Zelensky's video he's showing to Congress. Seeing it all aggregated in one video.

All those kids.

 

MOTHER****ERS!

 

[Degsy]

"In Moscow's Shadows".  Interesting podcast by Mark Galeotti, talking in part about the lreasons behind lack of preparation for the war. Apparently standard practice would be to set up a 'Combat Management Group' (ГЬУ.) months ahead of the proposed operation to coordinate plans and resources. In this case it's possible that the ГЬУ was only established after  the Putin speech where he was seen browbeating various ministers. The whole podcast is 45mins but go to to 14.30 to hear about the Russian National Defence Management Centre and Combat Management Groups.

Ukraine War: 'Go and fight', says foreign fighter who joined the war in Ukraine A short (3 minute) Youtube clip. Interesting that he says that volunteers should have not just military, but actual combat experience.

[BeondTheGrave]

14 minutes ago, Erwin said:

More global ramifications as China moves to displace the USD as a reserve currency (from WSJ):

"Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would dent the U.S. dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market and mark another shift by the world’s top crude exporter toward Asia. Saudi officials have said they were shocked by the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

It would be a profound shift for Saudi Arabia to price even some of its roughly 6.2 million barrels of day of crude exports in anything other than dollars.

China introduced yuan-priced oil contracts in 2018 as part of its efforts to make its currency tradable across the world.  Saudi Arabia has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit later this year.

 Meanwhile the Saudi relationship with the U.S. has deteriorated under President Biden… Prince Mohammed, who U.S. intelligence authorities say ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, refused to sit in on a call between Mr. Biden and the Saudi ruler, King Salman, last month…

...China is the world’s biggest crude importer and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom,” said a Saudi official familiar with the talks. “China has been offering everything you could possibly imagine to the kingdom,” the official said.

A senior U.S. official called the idea of the Saudis selling oil to China in yuan “highly volatile and aggressive”…

Some economists said moving away from dollar-denominated oil sales would diversify the kingdom’s revenue base and could eventually lead it to repeg the riyal to a basket of currencies, similar to Kuwait’s dinar.

“If it is (done) now at a time of strong oil prices, it would not be seen negatively. It would be more seen as deepening ties with China,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

…the move could tempt other producers to price their Chinese exports in yuan as well. China’s other big sources of oil are Russia, Angola and Iraq.

The Saudi move could chip away at the supremacy of the U.S. dollar in the international financial system, which Washington has relied on for decades to print Treasury bills it uses to finance its budget deficit.

“The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency,” said economist Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security who co-wrote a book about de-dollarization. “If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

 

Everyone always predicts the Dollar's demise as the reserve currency, but it just wont happen. The Yuan is only good for trade in China and its not a currency you want to hold on to long term. Its much closer to the Ruble in terms of strengths than the Dollar. Beijing also has a well earned reputation for playing funny with exchange rates and other currency tools, something which will stain the Yuan for a long time. But as long as the CCP seeks to totally control currency trade, investing in it is always a risk. If you hold big Yuan reserves you acquired at 1:6, then suddenly China decides it wants to boost exports and goes to 1:7, you could lose hundreds of millions. 

The dollar is free floating and will only change based on market forces and economic fundamentals. Its a much safer currency to hold long term. The only competitor is the Euro, but because of the structure of the European market it tends to be a much more expensive currency. 

Saudi can play political footsie with China all it wants, its on the same doomed cruise as Russia, its just sitting further back. In 100 years Saudi will be a desert filled with a bunch of useless black goo. At some point, probably in MBS's lifetime, it will have to pivot to China and developing markets no matter what. But in terms of currency fundamentals the Yuan wont be desirable for much of anything except trade with China unless Beijing chooses to liberalize the currency. That would probably demolish their export economy so I dont see it happening anytime soon. 

Edited March 16, 2022 by BeondTheGrave

[TheVulture]

 

 

[billbindc]

13 minutes ago, Degsy said:

"In Moscow's Shadows".  Interesting podcast by Mark Galeotti, talking in part about the lreasons behind lack of preparation for the war. Apparently standard practice would be to set up a 'Combat Management Group' (ГЬУ.) months ahead of the proposed operation to coordinate plans and resources. In this case it's possible that the ГЬУ was only established after  the Putin speech where he was seen browbeating various ministers. The whole podcast is 45mins but go to to 14.30 to hear about the Russian National Defence Management Centre and Combat Management Groups.

Ukraine War: 'Go and fight', says foreign fighter who joined the war in Ukraine A short (3 minute) Youtube clip. Interesting that he says that volunteers should have not just military, but actual combat experience.

The effect of US intelligence revelations starting last summer should not be underestimated. They didn't just prepare the information battlefield for this war, they also created intense paranoia within the power vertical in the Kremlin. Putin was so worried about US intelligence penetration that he demanded all preparations be kept within a tight circle. That stunted the entire planning process.

[BeondTheGrave]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

The effect of US intelligence revelations starting last summer should not be underestimated. They didn't just prepare the information battlefield for this war, they also created intense paranoia within the power vertical in the Kremlin. Putin was so worried about US intelligence penetration that he demanded all preparations be kept within a tight circle. That stunted the entire planning process.

This is a really good point. 

[kraze]

According to Radio Liberty Belarus - only from Gomel oblast Russians have transported 2500 dead soldiers back home.

https://www.svaboda.org/a/31755796.html

[DesertFox]