Putin's Russia & Ukraine updates
- Thread starter mandrill
- Start date
Where the fuck do you get your information from?!
It appears totally stable. Go read RT again and then you can quote me the lying bullshit that you are relying on, so I can laugh and mock it.
What part of Ukraine is inhabitable. Are Russia seeding it with radiation, or very persistent chemical weapons, bio weapons. If so, we really should do something about that.
Also tell the Germans and the Japanese about how they no longer exist because they went through much more total devistation often in 1 day over and over than Ukraine has the entire war.
You are blinded by your view point.
Also Ontario contains 40% of the Canadian population and is central. If BC was turned into a nuclear waste land, Canada wouldn't be destroyed, nor would it if Quebec and the Atlantic region became butt hurt.Not that anything near this is happening in Ukraine again.
Quite frankly your comment screams more of some fucked up wishful thinking than anything based on reality... whereas this might be shocking to many people, for you, it's a Monday.
When I have fantasies, they usually involve a 7.5 way with Kate Micucci, Lauren Lapkus, Lisa of Blackpink, the actress who plays Woo Young Woo as her, the chick at the local fast food place and Saya the Japanese weathergirl. [being a fat fuck, I count for 1.5]
But whatever gets him to bust a nut, it's weird, but it's his right.
No worry. Zelensky will come out alive even in the worst case
scenario. He will almost surely outlive Putin.
Russia's ruble has tumbled. What does it mean for the wartime economy? (msn.com)
Russia's ruble has fallen a long way in recent months, and the country’s central bank has stepped in to try to halt the slide.
Until now, the government stood aside as the declining ruble helped its budget. But a weaker currency also poses the threat of higher prices for everyday people in Russia — and the government has finally moved to halt the drop.
Here are key things to know:
WHY IS THE RUBLE FALLING?
Russia is selling less abroad — mainly reflected in falling revenue from oil and natural gas — and it's importing more. People or companies importing goods to Russia means selling rubles for foreign currency like dollars or euros. That lowers the ruble's exchange rate.
Russia's trade surplus — meaning it sells more goods than it buys — has shrunk. Previously, Russia saw a large trade surplus — which typically supports a country’s currency — because of high oil prices and plummeting imports after invading Ukraine.
But oil prices have dipped this year, and it's more cumbersome for Russia to sell its oil due to Western sanctions, including price caps on crude and oil products like diesel.
Meanwhile, imports have started to recover after nearly a year and a half of war as Russians find ways around sanctions. Some trade has been rerouted to Asian countries that are not participating in sanctions. And importers have found ways to ship goods through nearby countries such as Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
At the same time, Russia has ramped up defense spending, pumping money into companies that make weapons, for instance. Companies must import parts and raw materials, while some government money winds up in the pockets of workers who buy imported goods.
That government spending, along with the willingness of India and China to buy Russia oil, is helping the economy perform better than many had expected. The International Monetary Fund said last month that it expects Russia's economy to grow 1.5% this year.
WHY DID THE CENTRAL BANK RAISE INTEREST RATES?
To fight inflation, first of all.
A weaker ruble worsens inflation by making imports more expensive in Russian currency. And the ruble's weakness is increasingly being passed through to prices people pay. Inflation hit 7.6% over the past three months.
Higher interest rates will make it more expensive to get credit, and that should limit domestic demand for goods — including imports. So the central bank is trying to cool off the domestic economy to lower inflation.
It raised its key interest rate from 8.5% to 12% at an emergency meeting Tuesday after the ruble's fall was criticized by a Kremlin economic adviser.
DOES THIS MEAN SANCTIONS ARE WORKING?
Sanctions are having an impact even if they are not collapsing the economy. Exports — and thus the ruble — have fallen because Western allies have boycotted Russian oil and imposed a price cap on oil exports to non-Western nations. The sanctions prevent insurers or shippers who are mainly based in the West from handling Russian oil above $60 a barrel.
The cap and boycott have forced Russia to sell at a discount and take expensive steps such as obtaining a fleet of ghost tankers that are beyond the reach of sanctions.
However, higher oil prices have recently sent the cost of Moscow’s supplies above the price cap, the International Energy Agency said in an August report.
Oil revenue fell 23% in the first half of this year but Russia still earned $425 million a day from oil sales, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.
The rebound in imports shows that Russia is finding ways around sanctions and boycotts. It's expensive and cumbersome, but if someone needs an iPhone or a Western-made car, they can get it.
IS RUSSIA HAVING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS?
No, says Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro Advisory Partners. "The lower ruble is partly a reflection of the effect of sanctions, but it doesn’t indicate an underlying economic crisis."
The falling ruble actually has helped the government with its budget. It means more rubles for every dollar of earnings from oil and other products Russia sells. That bolsters spending on the military and on social programs aimed at blunting the impact of sanctions on the Russian people.
“They’ve tried to compensate for the drop in the dollar value of oil receipts with the weaker ruble, so that therefore the deficit in terms of spending could be contained and more manageable," Weafer said.
Amid sanctions and restrictions on moving money out of the country, the ruble exchange rate is largely in the hands of the central bank, Weafer said. It can tell major exporters when to exchange their dollar earnings into Russian currency.
“The weakness was planned, but it’s overdone and they want to pull it back," Weafer said.
Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the ruble decline is “not very welcome” to the Kremlin.
While not a full-blown crisis, “this is the closest we came to a real economic problem since the start of the war,” Kluge said.
The chaos at the start of sanctions was far worse, but since then, the ruble decline “is the first time that something seems to be not so much under control,” he said.
Any boost to the budget from a lower ruble, he said, is offset by higher spending on government wages and pensions, which are indexed to the inflation caused by the lower ruble.
“Whatever gives the impression of a weak or unstable economy is not welcomed by the Russian government,” he said. "In Russia, the exchange rate is always seen as the most important indicator of the health of the economy.”
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RUSSIANS?
Inflation caused by ruble devaluation hits low-income people hard because they spend more on necessities like food.
While higher interest rates will dampen economic growth, relieving some pressure on prices, the government is unlikely to back off on military spending.
“So it's a clear prioritization of the government of this war over the welfare of households,” Kluge said.
Foreign travel — enjoyed mostly by a minority in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg — gets much more expensive with a weaker ruble.
“The instability of the national currency always has a not so good impact," said Dina Solovyova, 51, a veterinarian. "Most likely, this will affect ordinary people, because the rise in prices for everything will surely follow. We’ll wait and see.”
Nikolay Rubtsov, a 20-year-old student, indicated he wasn't much disturbed by the ruble's fall.
"This is all temporary. I think everything will be back to normal soon. I don’t think it can last long,” Rubtsov said in Moscow.
Russia's ruble has fallen a long way in recent months, and the country’s central bank has stepped in to try to halt the slide.
Until now, the government stood aside as the declining ruble helped its budget. But a weaker currency also poses the threat of higher prices for everyday people in Russia — and the government has finally moved to halt the drop.
Here are key things to know:
WHY IS THE RUBLE FALLING?
Russia is selling less abroad — mainly reflected in falling revenue from oil and natural gas — and it's importing more. People or companies importing goods to Russia means selling rubles for foreign currency like dollars or euros. That lowers the ruble's exchange rate.
Russia's trade surplus — meaning it sells more goods than it buys — has shrunk. Previously, Russia saw a large trade surplus — which typically supports a country’s currency — because of high oil prices and plummeting imports after invading Ukraine.
But oil prices have dipped this year, and it's more cumbersome for Russia to sell its oil due to Western sanctions, including price caps on crude and oil products like diesel.
Meanwhile, imports have started to recover after nearly a year and a half of war as Russians find ways around sanctions. Some trade has been rerouted to Asian countries that are not participating in sanctions. And importers have found ways to ship goods through nearby countries such as Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
At the same time, Russia has ramped up defense spending, pumping money into companies that make weapons, for instance. Companies must import parts and raw materials, while some government money winds up in the pockets of workers who buy imported goods.
That government spending, along with the willingness of India and China to buy Russia oil, is helping the economy perform better than many had expected. The International Monetary Fund said last month that it expects Russia's economy to grow 1.5% this year.
WHY DID THE CENTRAL BANK RAISE INTEREST RATES?
To fight inflation, first of all.
A weaker ruble worsens inflation by making imports more expensive in Russian currency. And the ruble's weakness is increasingly being passed through to prices people pay. Inflation hit 7.6% over the past three months.
Higher interest rates will make it more expensive to get credit, and that should limit domestic demand for goods — including imports. So the central bank is trying to cool off the domestic economy to lower inflation.
It raised its key interest rate from 8.5% to 12% at an emergency meeting Tuesday after the ruble's fall was criticized by a Kremlin economic adviser.
DOES THIS MEAN SANCTIONS ARE WORKING?
Sanctions are having an impact even if they are not collapsing the economy. Exports — and thus the ruble — have fallen because Western allies have boycotted Russian oil and imposed a price cap on oil exports to non-Western nations. The sanctions prevent insurers or shippers who are mainly based in the West from handling Russian oil above $60 a barrel.
The cap and boycott have forced Russia to sell at a discount and take expensive steps such as obtaining a fleet of ghost tankers that are beyond the reach of sanctions.
However, higher oil prices have recently sent the cost of Moscow’s supplies above the price cap, the International Energy Agency said in an August report.
Oil revenue fell 23% in the first half of this year but Russia still earned $425 million a day from oil sales, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.
The rebound in imports shows that Russia is finding ways around sanctions and boycotts. It's expensive and cumbersome, but if someone needs an iPhone or a Western-made car, they can get it.
IS RUSSIA HAVING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS?
No, says Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro Advisory Partners. "The lower ruble is partly a reflection of the effect of sanctions, but it doesn’t indicate an underlying economic crisis."
The falling ruble actually has helped the government with its budget. It means more rubles for every dollar of earnings from oil and other products Russia sells. That bolsters spending on the military and on social programs aimed at blunting the impact of sanctions on the Russian people.
“They’ve tried to compensate for the drop in the dollar value of oil receipts with the weaker ruble, so that therefore the deficit in terms of spending could be contained and more manageable," Weafer said.
Amid sanctions and restrictions on moving money out of the country, the ruble exchange rate is largely in the hands of the central bank, Weafer said. It can tell major exporters when to exchange their dollar earnings into Russian currency.
“The weakness was planned, but it’s overdone and they want to pull it back," Weafer said.
Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the ruble decline is “not very welcome” to the Kremlin.
While not a full-blown crisis, “this is the closest we came to a real economic problem since the start of the war,” Kluge said.
The chaos at the start of sanctions was far worse, but since then, the ruble decline “is the first time that something seems to be not so much under control,” he said.
Any boost to the budget from a lower ruble, he said, is offset by higher spending on government wages and pensions, which are indexed to the inflation caused by the lower ruble.
“Whatever gives the impression of a weak or unstable economy is not welcomed by the Russian government,” he said. "In Russia, the exchange rate is always seen as the most important indicator of the health of the economy.”
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RUSSIANS?
Inflation caused by ruble devaluation hits low-income people hard because they spend more on necessities like food.
While higher interest rates will dampen economic growth, relieving some pressure on prices, the government is unlikely to back off on military spending.
“So it's a clear prioritization of the government of this war over the welfare of households,” Kluge said.
Foreign travel — enjoyed mostly by a minority in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg — gets much more expensive with a weaker ruble.
“The instability of the national currency always has a not so good impact," said Dina Solovyova, 51, a veterinarian. "Most likely, this will affect ordinary people, because the rise in prices for everything will surely follow. We’ll wait and see.”
Nikolay Rubtsov, a 20-year-old student, indicated he wasn't much disturbed by the ruble's fall.
"This is all temporary. I think everything will be back to normal soon. I don’t think it can last long,” Rubtsov said in Moscow.
Poor Ruskies, cowards that they are.
Ukraine shared video it says shows Russian soldiers fleeing a recaptured village 'in panic'
ca.yahoo.com
Ukraine shared video it says shows Russian soldiers fleeing a recaptured village 'in panic'
Ukraine shared video it says shows Russian soldiers fleeing a recaptured village 'in panic'
Ukraine claims to have retaken Urozhaine as part of its counteroffensive efforts, and posted footage of Russian forces leaving in a hurry.
You won’t me up…. .” The End Is Nearing" - Seymour Hersh Slams The White House's "Wishful Approach" To Ukraine War
SUMMER OF THE HAWKS
Wishful thinking is still the rule among Biden's foreign policy team, as the slaughter in Ukraine continues
SUMMER OF THE HAWKS
Wishful thinking is still the rule among Biden's foreign policy team, as the slaughter in Ukraine continues
seymourhersh.substack.com
Authored by Seymour Hersh via Substack
It’s been weeks since we looked into the adventures of the Biden administration’s foreign policy cluster, led by Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland. How has the trio of war hawks spent the summer?
Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who in June announced a merger between his state-backed golf tour and the PGA. Four years earlier MBS was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state.
Via Associated Press
As unlikely as it sounds, there was such a peace summit and its stars did include MBS, Sullivan, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. What was missing was a representative of Russia, which was not invited to the summit. It included just a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. The conference lasted two days, and attracted what could only be described as little international attention.
Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response to the non-event came not from President Vladimir Putin but from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov. He called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky.
India and China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to Saudi Arabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . Jake Sullivan in the same room.”
Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.
“Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting? Forty nations showed up, all but six looking for free food after the Odessa shutdown”—a reference to Putin’s curtailing of Ukrainian wheat shipments in response to Zelensky’s renewed attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.
Via AFP
Enough about Sullivan. Let us now turn to Victoria Nuland, an architect of the 2014 overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, one of the American moves that led us to where we are, though it was Putin who initiated the horrid current war. The ultra-hawkish Nuland was promoted early this summer by Biden, over the heated objections of many in the State Department, to be the acting deputy secretary of state. She has not been formally nominated as the deputy for fear that her nomination would lead to a hellish fight in the Senate.
It was Nuland who was sent last week to see what could be salvaged after a coup led to the overthrow of a pro-Western government in Niger, one of a group of former French colonies in West Africa that have remained in the French sphere of influence. President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected, was tossed out of office by a junta led by the head of his presidential guard, General Abdourahmane Tchiani. The general suspended the constitution and jailed potential political opponents. Five other military officers were named to his cabinet. All of this generated enormous public support on the streets in Niamey, Niger’s capital—enough support to discourage outside Western intervention.
There were grim reports in the Western press that initially viewed the upheaval in East-West terms: some of the supporters of the coup were carrying Russian flags as they marched in the streets. The New York Times saw the coup as a blow to the main US ally in the region, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who controls vast oil and gas reserves. Tinubu threatened the new government in Niger with military action unless they returned power to Bazoum. He set a deadline that passed without any outside intervention. The revolution in Niger was not seen by those living in the region in east-west terms but as a long needed rejection of long-standing French economic and political control. It is a scenario that may be repeated again and again throughout the French-dominated Sahel nations in sub-Saharan Africa.
...
So the White House’s wishful approach to the war, when it comes to realistic talk to the American people, will continue apace. But the end is nearing, even if the assessments supplied by Biden to the public are out of a comic strip.
Read the full post at Seymour Hersh’s Substack and subscribe to it here.
I can find a guy who says the earth is flat, AIDS isn't a thing, that a man can become a biological woman complete with periods simply by identifying as one [and meet with the president] and so forth, hell there is even a guy on Terb who thinks Justin Beiber isn't history's greatest monster and the source of all evil but a decent person.
You know what that proves... nothing. But keep reaching for the stars.
