Understanding Russia & Putin

[Hansyman77]

 

[Fleetinglife]

It seems the war is slowly but steadily drawing to a halt as per the Russian demands being reconsidered up for negotiation by non-other than the Ukrainian government and NATO officials themselves, as per some forwarded day by day contradicting official statements coming from their side and also the Pentagon releasing statements on their actual official assessments of the extent and possible casualties of the war (not just the Ukrainian government's Defense Ministry and the Russian MoD)

Note these are only the preliminary reports, as I see it not yet confirmed or verified reports coming:

 

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

How come there's no effective anti-air defense against them?

 there is something called The C-RAM (Counter-Rocket Artillery Mortar), it could be effective against drones

 

 

[BlueOak]

@Fleetinglife

Hopefully Great news! I won't get too excited but that is promising. Thank you for sharing.

Just as the US comes off Russian Energy and more of Europe is pressured to. Call me cynical but that seems like a factor. Maybe the men with money in Russia were finally moved to ask Putin for some kind of compromise.
 

Edited March 8, 2022 by BlueOak

[zurew]

1 minute ago, BlueOak said:

Just as the US comes off Russian Oil and more of Europe is pressured to

I don't think most Europian countries will come off of Russian oil or natural gas, because most of those countries would be in trouble, and secondly they would have to get those resources from somewhere else for instance from the USA. If they make that move, it will be more expensive for them and they are not incentivised to do so, economically speaking. I don't think they will make that sacrifice, just to put more pressure on Putin.

[StarStruck]

3 hours ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

Those Bayraktars are incredibly effective, honestly, I'm amazed. Drones in general, in fact. How come there's no effective anti-air defense against them? All I see on these footages, are completely powerless Russian convoys, getting blasted and completely fucking anihilated? and soldiers there remind me of ants, just completely helpless.

And even if the drone gets destroyed, no human gets killed - only the machine. Imagine you suddenly had an army of 10 000 of these things. Holy shit?

Because of Turkish electronic warfare and stealth capability. Russian air defense can’t detect them. Turkey making air to air drones too which it will introduce very shorty so it can take control of the skies.

[EyolfTheWolf]

Putin does not love himself 

[BlueOak]

2 hours ago, zurew said:

I don't think most Europian countries will come off of Russian oil or natural gas, because most of those countries would be in trouble, and secondly they would have to get those resources from somewhere else for instance from the USA. If they make that move, it will be more expensive for them and they are not incentivised to do so, economically speaking. I don't think they will make that sacrifice, just to put more pressure on Putin.

I did not do it justice to generalise all these countries together. There is a move and there is political will to slowly come off Russian gas now. It will get people elected to make moves in that direction, balanced by not damaging economies too much. For example: Germany, Bulgaria, and Italy of course have a hard time while France and Poland have some reliance, Spain, Portugal and the UK have much less.

I would drop a link of exact percentages but they contradict, that's the overall impression I get from the numbers. 

It is really anyone's guess who benefits, Iran, Saudi Arabi, Nuclear Power, Renewables, American or Canadian, Oil and Gas Lobbies, probably all of them. Russia is going to lose, how much depends on the negotiations to come. They will sell the difference to China and Asia for less profit overall, that's almost a guaranteed dip in their GDP, and handing more of their economic power to China as a result. So China and Asia benefit.

Unless renewables get a big push, big losers will be the environmentalists. Honestly though and I am always talking about the environment, I think we never take it seriously enough. I don't mind in the short term for world stability and to remove the chokehold Russia has on Europe. If this moment isn't used as a way to get off Russian gas slowly we never will. With them taking Crimea and parts of Ukraine they control even more gas. Of course it also removes our ability to ever in the future threaten them with not buying it, but as one poster said much earlier in the thread, countries have to become more self sufficient. That goes for the EU as a whole as well, I hope the EU continues to draw closer together and generate their own energy supplies.

[vizual]

Even McDonalds is taking the high road and closing shop in Russia lol. And the only countries that support Russia are North Korea and Syria. Putin can sleep well at night knowing he has some quality backing behind him ? 

[zurew]

25 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

countries have to become more self sufficient. That goes for the EU as a whole as well, I hope the EU continues to draw closer together and generate their own energy supplies.

I have posted some stuff about oil before, because it is important to know that oil is one of the best energy sources in the world right now. To go for renewables, it will take a lot of time, and also it will take a tremendous amount of money as well. But you got a point there, that countries have to become more self sufficient, i don't know how big we are speaking here. I don't think there will be a time where individual countries will be able to be 100% self sufficient . For most countries, its not in their best interest right now to do it so, for a number of reasons. One big reason is the economy. Economically speaking there are a lot of stuff for different kind of countries that they are importing on purpose. Just look at the USA, why do you think the USA imported oil from Russia before the war has started? I think its fair to say ,because on an ecomomic level it was incentivised to do so. But its just one example from the many. I think trading and importing and exporting between different continents and countries will never stop. But, if you are talking about more self sufficiency and not about 100%, then i can agree with you, that it might be good and wise to work towards it.

25 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

Unless renewables get a big push, big losers will be the environmentalists

It will only happen if economically can be beneficial for countries and companies, until then, we will mostly use cheap non renewable energy sources. No country wants to get behind in the short term(geopolitically and economically speaking) ,to look forward for the enviroment and make changes for that. For example if you make the oil price in your country higher (to prevent more envirmental damage, and to prevent the world to run out totally from oil), then it will change the trading dynamic ,because before more country would import from you because it worthed it, now they will buy from someone else for a cheaper price. Big eviromental changes will only be possible, if global action will take place simultaneously and not delayed, but such actions are not very likely in my opinion.

25 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

It will get people elected to make moves in that direction, balanced by not damaging economies too much

We will see, but i don't think that most countries can afford that move right now. But even without this move, Russia will be more and more damaged in the longterm. It destroyed its whole reputation. Unfortunately, mostly will innocent russian people will suffer the most, especially in the longterm imo.

Edited March 8, 2022 by zurew

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

33 minutes ago, zurew said:

I have posted some stuff about oil before, because it is important to know that oil is one of the best energy sources in the world right now. To go for renewables, it will take a lot of time, and also it will take a tremendous amount of money as well. But you got a point there, that countries have to become more self sufficient, i don't know how big we are speaking here. I don't think there will be a time where individual countries will be able to be 100% self sufficient . For most countries, its not in their best interest right now to do it so, for a number of reasons. One big reason is the economy. Economically speaking there are a lot of stuff for different kind of countries that they are importing on purpose. Just look at the USA, why do you think the USA imported oil from Russia before the war has started? I think its fair to say ,because on an ecomomic level it was incentivised to do so. But its just one example from the many. I think trading and importing and exporting between different continents and countries will never stop. But, if you are talking about more self sufficiency and not about 100%, then i can agree with you, that it might be good and wise to work towards it.

It will only happen if economically can be beneficial for countries and companies, until then, we will mostly use cheap non renewable energy sources. No country wants to get behind in the short term(geopolitically and economically speaking) ,to look forward for the enviroment and make changes for that. For example if you make the oil price in your country higher (to prevent more envirmental damage, and to prevent the world to run out totally from oil), then it will change the trading dynamic ,because before more country would import from you because it worthed it, now they will buy from someone else for a cheaper price. Big eviromental changes will only be possible, if global action will take place simultaneously and not delayed, but such actions are not very likely in my opinion.

We will see, but i don't think that most countries can afford that move right now. But even without this move, Russia will be more and more damaged in the longterm. It destroyed its whole reputation. Unfortunately, mostly will innocent russian people will suffer the most, especially in the longterm imo.

   I guess until humanity develops a hive mind globally, then chances of us resolving environmental issues will probably be slow, because it depends on so many factors, like the value systems indoctrinated from culture and upbringing, to cognitive and moral development, personality traits loosely, the states of being and consciousness on a mass scale loosely, to overall general and specific life experiences and other lines of development that make up a society like technology, economics, education, history, science, all leading up to some kind of unification, consciously and technologically.

[BlueOak]

@zurew

You are correct I can feel I am lying to myself and inventing the fantasy I want to see rather than what is there. In part this is because of the deception given to the 'opposition' in a war, to make the case something is going to happen when it isn't. Interesting thing is I was feeling this a moment ago too on my own.

Thank you for taking the time to break this down and persist with the truth. I am hopeful still that maybe people will seize on this to make a renewables case more loudly, that might be one positive.

I do believe the UK has made good moves towards renewables, and will soon be selling more excess clean energy. I do believe when they say the remaining 11% of reliance on Russian gas will be slowly removed over the next year, no doubt stalling and toning that down as the time draws closer. *I think they planned a year but I don't remember the exact date.

Edited March 8, 2022 by BlueOak

[Fleetinglife]

Illuminating article by Pepe Escobar, a Brazilian geopolitical analyst, prognosis on the possible economic and financial repercussions of this war perhaps in the long term mostly for Europe and Europeans, what were some of Russa's possible economic and financial goals in the backdrop that it hoped to achieve with it and in possible global re-alignments of the global markets and global economy going forward:

https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/7672

Russia's judo kick to the western financial gut

Washington's sanctions on Moscow will destroy Europe, not Russia.

Washington's 'replacement strategy' for sanctioned Russian oil and gas imports appears to be too cozy up to its oil-producing arch-enemies Iran and Venezuela.

''The battlefield is drawn. 

The official Russian blacklist of hostile sanctioning nations includes the US, the EU, Canada, and, in Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore (the only one from Southeast Asia). Notice how that ‘international community’ keeps shrinking.

The Global South should be aware that no nations from West Asia, Latin America, and Africa have joined Washington’s sanctions bandwagon. 

Moscow has not even announced its own package of counter-sanctions. Yet an official decree “On Temporary Order of Obligations to Certain Foreign Creditors,” which allows Russian companies to settle their debts in rubles, provides a hint of what’s to come. 

Russian counter-measures all revolve around this new presidential decree, signed last Saturday, which economist Yevgeny Yushchuk defines as a “nuclear retaliatory landmine.” . 

It works like this: to pay for loans obtained from a sanctioning country exceeding 10 million rubles a month, a Russian company does not have to make a transfer. They ask for a Russian bank to open a correspondent account in rubles under the creditor’s name. Then the company transfers rubles to this account at the current exchange rate, and it’s all perfectly legal.

Payments in foreign currency only go through the Central Bank on a case-by-case basis. They must receive special permission from the Government Commission for the Control of Foreign Investment. 

What this mean in practice is that the bulk of the $478 billion or so in Russian foreign debt may “disappear” from the balance sheets of western banks. The equivalent in rubles will be deposited somewhere, in Russian banks, but western banks, as things stand, can’t access it.

It is debatable whether this straightforward strategy was the product of those non-sovereignist brains gathered at the Russian Central Bank. More likely, there has been input from influential economist Sergei Glazyev, also a top former advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin on regional integration: here is a revised edition, in English, of his groundbreaking essay Sanctions and Sovereignty, which I have previously summarized. 

Meanwhile, Sberbank confirmed it will issue Russia’s Mir debit/credit cards co-badged with China’s UnionPay. Alfa-Bank – the largest private bank in Russia – will also issue UnionPay credit and debit cards. Although only introduced five years ago, 40 percent of Russians already have a Mir card for domestic use. Now they will also be able to use it internationally, via UnionPay’s enormous network. And without Visa and Mastercard, commissions on all transactions will remain in the Russia-China sphere. De-dollarization in effect. 

Mr. Maduro, gimme some oil 

The Iran sanctions negotiations in Vienna may be reaching the last stage – as acknowledged even by Chinese diplomat Wang Qun. But it was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who introduced a new, crucial variable into Vienna’s final discussions.   

Lavrov made his eleventh-hour demand quite explicit: “We have asked for a written guarantee…that the current [Russian sanctions] process triggered by the United States does not in any way damage our right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with the Islamic Republic.”

As per the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement of 2015, Russia receives enriched uranium from Iran and exchanges it for yellowcake, and in parallel, is reconverting Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant into a research center. Without Iranian enriched uranium exports there’s simply no JCPOA deal. It boggles the mind that US Secretary of State Blinken does not seem to understand that.  

Everyone in Vienna, sidelines included, knows that for all actors to sign on the JCPOA revival, no nation must be individually targeted in terms of trading with Iran. Tehran also knows it.

So what’s happening now is an elaborate game of Persian mirrors, coordinated between Russian and Iranian diplomacy. Moscow’s Ambassador to Tehran, Levan Jagaryan, attributed the fierce reaction to Lavrov in some Iranian quarters to a “misunderstanding.” This will all be played out in the shade. 

An extra element is that according to a Persian Gulf intel source with privileged Iranian access, Tehran may be selling as many as three million barrels of oil a day already, “so if they do sign a deal it will not affect supply at all, only they will be paid more.” 

The US administration of President Joe Biden is now absolutely desperate: today it banned all imports of oil and gas from Russia, which happens to be the second-largest exporter of oil to the US, behind Canada and ahead of Mexico. The US’ big Russian-energy ‘replacement strategy’ is to beg for oil from Iran and Venezuela.  

So, the White House sent a delegation to talk to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, led by Juan Gonzalez, the White House’s top Latin America adviser. The US offer is to “alleviate” sanctions on Caracas in exchange for oil.   

The United States government has spent years – if not decades – burning all bridges with Venezuela and Iran. The USG destroyed Iraq and Libya, and isolated Venezuela and Iran, in its attempt to take over global oil markets – just to end up miserably trying to buy out both and escape from being crushed by the economic forces it has unleashed. That proves, once again, that imperial ‘policy makers’ are utterly clueless.

Caracas will request the elimination of all sanctions on Venezuela and the return of all its confiscated gold. And it seems like none of  this was cleared with ‘President’ Juan Guaido, who since 2019, was the only Venezuelan leader “recognized” by Washington.

Social cohesion torn apart 

Oil and gas markets, meanwhile, are in total panic. No western trader wants to buy Russian gas; and that has nothing to do with Russia’s state-owned energy behemoth Gazprom, which continues to duly supply customers that signed contracts with fixed tariffs, from $100 to $300 (others are paying over $3,000 in the spot market).   

European banks are less and less willing to grant loans for energy trade with Russia because of the sanctions hysteria. A strong hint that the Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 may be literally six feet under is that importer Wintershall-Dea wrote off its share of the financing, de facto assuming that the pipeline will not be launched. 

Everyone with a brain in Germany knows that two extra Liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals – still to be constructed – will not be enough for Berlin’s needs. There is simply not enough LNG to supply them. Europe will have to fight with Asia over who can pay more. Asia wins. 

Europe imports roughly 400 billion cubic meters of gas a year, with Russia responsible for 200 billion of this. There’s no way Europe can find $200 billion anywhere else to replace Russia – be it in Algeria, Qatar or Turkmenistan. Not to mention its lack of necessary LNG terminals.

So obviously the top beneficiary of all the mess will be the US – which will be able to impose not only their terminals and control systems, but also profit from loans to the EU, sales of equipment, and full access to the whole EU energy infrastructure. All LNG installations, pipelines and warehouses will be connected to a sole network with a single control room: an American business dream.   

Europe will be left with reduced gas production for its – dwindling – industry; job losses; decreasing quality of life standards; increased pressure over the social security system; and, last but not least, the necessity to apply for extra American loans. Some nations will go back to coal for heating. The Green Parade will be livid.    

What about Russia? As a hypothesis, even if all its energy exports were curtailed – and they won’t be, their top clients are in Asia – Russia would not have to use its foreign reserves. 

The Russophobic all-out attack on Russian exports also targets palladium metals – vital for electronics, from laptops to aircraft systems. Prices are skyrocketing. Russia controls 50% of the global market. Then there are noble gases – neon, helium, argon, xenon – essential for production of microchips. Titanium has risen by a quarter, and both Boeing – by a third – and Airbus – by two thirds – rely on titanium from Russia. 

Oil, food, fertilizers, strategic metals, neon gas for semiconductors: all burning at the stake, at the feet of Witch Russia. 

Some Westerners who still treasure Bismarckian realpolitik have started wondering whether shielding energy (in the case of Europe) and selected commodity flows from sanctions may have everything to do with protecting an immense racket: the commodity derivatives system. 

After all, if that implodes, because of a shortage of commodities, the whole western financial system blows up. Now that’s a real system failure. 

The key issue for the Global South to digest is that the “west” is not committing suicide. What we have here, essentially, is the United States willfully destroying German industry and the European economy – bizarrely, with their connivance.

To destroy the European economy means not allowing extra market space for China, and blocking the inevitable extra trade which will be a direct consequence of closer exchanges between the EU and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s biggest trade deal. 

The end result will be the US eating European savings for lunch while China expands its middle class to over 500 million people. Russia will do just fine, as Glazyev outlines: sovereign – and self-sufficient. 

American economist Michael Hudson has concisely sketched the lineaments of imperial self-implosion. Yet way more dramatic, as a strategic disaster, is how the deaf, dumb and blind parade toward deep recession and near-hyperinflation will rip what’s left of the west’s social cohesion apart. Mission Accomplished.''

Edited March 8, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[zurew]

@Danioover9000

22 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

 I guess until humanity develops a hive mind globally, then chances of us resolving environmental issues will probably be slow, because it depends on so many factors, like the value systems indoctrinated from culture and upbringing, to cognitive and moral development, personality traits loosely, the states of being and consciousness on a mass scale loosely, to overall general and specific life experiences and other lines of development that make up a society like technology, economics, education, history, science, all leading up to some kind of unification, consciously and technologically.

Yeah, well said.  We can add, that sometimes our damage what we do, is delayed in time or not even located in our place, so we will continue what we are doing, because it doesn't have direct impact on us, or we don't recognise that it has impact on us, or we don't want to change because we value other things better, or it doesn't matter to us, because it will damage other places, and not our country. Sometimes, when causality is delayed, the delayation makes it much more harder to make sense of certain kind of problems, because even if it had direct immeadite recognisable cause in a complex system, even then it would be hard to solve it, but with the delayation it makes it so much more complicated. 

Edited March 8, 2022 by zurew

[Danioover9000]

@Fleetinglife

19 minutes ago, Fleetinglife said:

Illuminating article by Pepe Escobar, a Brazilian geopolitical analyst, on the possible economic and financial repercussions of this war perhaps in the long term mostly for Europe and Europeans, what were some of Russa's possible economic and financial goals in the backdrop that it hoped to achieve with it and in possible global re-alignments of the global markets and global economy going forward:

https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/7672

Russia's judo kick to the western financial gut

Washington's sanctions on Moscow will destroy Europe, not Russia.

Washington's 'replacement strategy' for sanctioned Russian oil and gas imports appears to be too cozy up to its oil-producing arch-enemies Iran and Venezuela.

''The battlefield is drawn. 

The official Russian blacklist of hostile sanctioning nations includes the US, the EU, Canada, and, in Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore (the only one from Southeast Asia). Notice how that ‘international community’ keeps shrinking.

The Global South should be aware that no nations from West Asia, Latin America, and Africa have joined Washington’s sanctions bandwagon. 

Moscow has not even announced its own package of counter-sanctions. Yet an official decree “On Temporary Order of Obligations to Certain Foreign Creditors,” which allows Russian companies to settle their debts in rubles, provides a hint of what’s to come. 

Russian counter-measures all revolve around this new presidential decree, signed last Saturday, which economist Yevgeny Yushchuk defines as a “nuclear retaliatory landmine.” . 

It works like this: to pay for loans obtained from a sanctioning country exceeding 10 million rubles a month, a Russian company does not have to make a transfer. They ask for a Russian bank to open a correspondent account in rubles under the creditor’s name. Then the company transfers rubles to this account at the current exchange rate, and it’s all perfectly legal.

Payments in foreign currency only go through the Central Bank on a case-by-case basis. They must receive special permission from the Government Commission for the Control of Foreign Investment. 

What this mean in practice is that the bulk of the $478 billion or so in Russian foreign debt may “disappear” from the balance sheets of western banks. The equivalent in rubles will be deposited somewhere, in Russian banks, but western banks, as things stand, can’t access it.

It is debatable whether this straightforward strategy was the product of those non-sovereignist brains gathered at the Russian Central Bank. More likely, there has been input from influential economist Sergei Glazyev, also a top former advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin on regional integration: here is a revised edition, in English, of his groundbreaking essay Sanctions and Sovereignty, which I have previously summarized. 

Meanwhile, Sberbank confirmed it will issue Russia’s Mir debit/credit cards co-badged with China’s UnionPay. Alfa-Bank – the largest private bank in Russia – will also issue UnionPay credit and debit cards. Although only introduced five years ago, 40 percent of Russians already have a Mir card for domestic use. Now they will also be able to use it internationally, via UnionPay’s enormous network. And without Visa and Mastercard, commissions on all transactions will remain in the Russia-China sphere. De-dollarization in effect. 

Mr. Maduro, gimme some oil 

The Iran sanctions negotiations in Vienna may be reaching the last stage – as acknowledged even by Chinese diplomat Wang Qun. But it was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who introduced a new, crucial variable into Vienna’s final discussions.   

Lavrov made his eleventh-hour demand quite explicit: “We have asked for a written guarantee…that the current [Russian sanctions] process triggered by the United States does not in any way damage our right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with the Islamic Republic.”

As per the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement of 2015, Russia receives enriched uranium from Iran and exchanges it for yellowcake, and in parallel, is reconverting Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant into a research center. Without Iranian enriched uranium exports there’s simply no JCPOA deal. It boggles the mind that US Secretary of State Blinken does not seem to understand that.  

Everyone in Vienna, sidelines included, knows that for all actors to sign on the JCPOA revival, no nation must be individually targeted in terms of trading with Iran. Tehran also knows it.

So what’s happening now is an elaborate game of Persian mirrors, coordinated between Russian and Iranian diplomacy. Moscow’s Ambassador to Tehran, Levan Jagaryan, attributed the fierce reaction to Lavrov in some Iranian quarters to a “misunderstanding.” This will all be played out in the shade. 

An extra element is that according to a Persian Gulf intel source with privileged Iranian access, Tehran may be selling as many as three million barrels of oil a day already, “so if they do sign a deal it will not affect supply at all, only they will be paid more.” 

The US administration of President Joe Biden is now absolutely desperate: today it banned all imports of oil and gas from Russia, which happens to be the second-largest exporter of oil to the US, behind Canada and ahead of Mexico. The US’ big Russian-energy ‘replacement strategy’ is to beg for oil from Iran and Venezuela.  

So, the White House sent a delegation to talk to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, led by Juan Gonzalez, the White House’s top Latin America adviser. The US offer is to “alleviate” sanctions on Caracas in exchange for oil.   

The United States government has spent years – if not decades – burning all bridges with Venezuela and Iran. The USG destroyed Iraq and Libya, and isolated Venezuela and Iran, in its attempt to take over global oil markets – just to end up miserably trying to buy out both and escape from being crushed by the economic forces it has unleashed. That proves, once again, that imperial ‘policy makers’ are utterly clueless.

Caracas will request the elimination of all sanctions on Venezuela and the return of all its confiscated gold. And it seems like none of  this was cleared with ‘President’ Juan Guaido, who since 2019, was the only Venezuelan leader “recognized” by Washington.

Social cohesion torn apart 

Oil and gas markets, meanwhile, are in total panic. No western trader wants to buy Russian gas; and that has nothing to do with Russia’s state-owned energy behemoth Gazprom, which continues to duly supply customers that signed contracts with fixed tariffs, from $100 to $300 (others are paying over $3,000 in the spot market).   

European banks are less and less willing to grant loans for energy trade with Russia because of the sanctions hysteria. A strong hint that the Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 may be literally six feet under is that importer Wintershall-Dea wrote off its share of the financing, de facto assuming that the pipeline will not be launched. 

Everyone with a brain in Germany knows that two extra Liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals – still to be constructed – will not be enough for Berlin’s needs. There is simply not enough LNG to supply them. Europe will have to fight with Asia over who can pay more. Asia wins. 

Europe imports roughly 400 billion cubic meters of gas a year, with Russia responsible for 200 billion of this. There’s no way Europe can find $200 billion anywhere else to replace Russia – be it in Algeria, Qatar or Turkmenistan. Not to mention its lack of necessary LNG terminals.

So obviously the top beneficiary of all the mess will be the US – which will be able to impose not only their terminals and control systems, but also profit from loans to the EU, sales of equipment, and full access to the whole EU energy infrastructure. All LNG installations, pipelines and warehouses will be connected to a sole network with a single control room: an American business dream.   

Europe will be left with reduced gas production for its – dwindling – industry; job losses; decreasing quality of life standards; increased pressure over the social security system; and, last but not least, the necessity to apply for extra American loans. Some nations will go back to coal for heating. The Green Parade will be livid.    

What about Russia? As a hypothesis, even if all its energy exports were curtailed – and they won’t be, their top clients are in Asia – Russia would not have to use its foreign reserves. 

The Russophobic all-out attack on Russian exports also targets palladium metals – vital for electronics, from laptops to aircraft systems. Prices are skyrocketing. Russia controls 50% of the global market. Then there are noble gases – neon, helium, argon, xenon – essential for production of microchips. Titanium has risen by a quarter, and both Boeing – by a third – and Airbus – by two thirds – rely on titanium from Russia. 

Oil, food, fertilizers, strategic metals, neon gas for semiconductors: all burning at the stake, at the feet of Witch Russia. 

Some Westerners who still treasure Bismarckian realpolitik have started wondering whether shielding energy (in the case of Europe) and selected commodity flows from sanctions may have everything to do with protecting an immense racket: the commodity derivatives system. 

After all, if that implodes, because of a shortage of commodities, the whole western financial system blows up. Now that’s a real system failure. 

The key issue for the Global South to digest is that the “west” is not committing suicide. What we have here, essentially, is the United States willfully destroying German industry and the European economy – bizarrely, with their connivance.

To destroy the European economy means not allowing extra market space for China, and blocking the inevitable extra trade which will be a direct consequence of closer exchanges between the EU and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s biggest trade deal. 

The end result will be the US eating European savings for lunch while China expands its middle class to over 500 million people. Russia will do just fine, as Glazyev outlines: sovereign – and self-sufficient. 

American economist Michael Hudson has concisely sketched the lineaments of imperial self-implosion. Yet way more dramatic, as a strategic disaster, is how the deaf, dumb and blind parade toward deep recession and near-hyperinflation will rip what’s left of the west’s social cohesion apart. Mission Accomplished.''

   Nice share.

[vladorion]

1 hour ago, vizual said:

Even McDonalds is taking the high road and closing shop in Russia lol. And the only countries that support Russia are North Korea and Syria. Putin can sleep well at night knowing he has some quality backing behind him ? 

Most countries in continents other than Europe and North America are either neutral or supportive.

[K Ghoul]

1 hour ago, vladorion said:

Most countries in continents other than Europe and North America are either neutral or supportive.

I noticed too how facts tend to just get buried. Also, no one is talking about how the West is threatening sanctions to those (Kazakhstan for example) who chose to take neutral position. Yet will discuss with passion and foam at their mouths some nonsense like Putin is a psychopath (?)

Fascinating.

 

https://eadaily.com/ru/ampnews/2022/03/04/britanskiy-posol-v-rk-keti-lich-prokommentirovala-vvedenie-sankciy-protiv-kazahstana

”British Ambassador to Kazakhstan Kathy Leach commented on the imposition of sanctions against Kazakhstan

British Ambassador to Kazakhstan Kathy Leach commented on the imposition of sanctions against the republic. This was reported today, March 4, by IA "Sputnik Kazakhstan".

Earlier, British MP Margaret Hodge said that since Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan support Russia, it is necessary to impose sanctions against them. After this statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan invited the British Ambassador for clarification.“

Notice how the West changed the narrative and claims Kazakhstan supports Russia - nowhere in his statement did Kazakhstan president Tokayev imply that he supports either one or the other side and is clearly taking a neutral stance:

https://eurasia.expert/tokaev-raskryl-pozitsiyu-kazakhstana-po-situatsii-na-ukraine/
 

“In connection with the aggravation of the situation, the Head of State called on Moscow and Kiev to find common ground at the negotiating table. "Kazakhstan, for its part, is ready to provide all possible assistance, including intermediary services, if, of course, they are needed," Tokayev stressed.”

Edited March 9, 2022 by K Ghoul

[Fleetinglife]

19 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Fleetinglife

   Nice share.

Well, yes this seems to be the direst and most pessimistic prognosis cast out there, slightly favoring the Russian side in their ability to sustain these sanctions in the long term, focusing on how rising prices and shortage of LNG, strategic metals, fertilizers, oil coming from Russia in Europe might impact skyrocketing prices of commodities in Europe and on European financial markets - the possible risk of their implosions and currency inflation and sudden devaluement in some periods in the worst-case scenario if there comes sudden shocks and distrusts in the commodity derivative systems in Europe with Russa and other countries.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Fleetinglife]

Btw, Breaking News: Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Victoria Nuland confirms in an official US Congressional Testimony Hearing of the existence of 11 US-funded and sponsored Biolabs and Biological research facilities existing in Ukraine, some of them seemingly engaged in the production of biological pathogens such as Anthrax and types of Plague for the purposes of biological warfare - violating article I of the UN Charter on the prohibition of biological warfare usage in war, either for offensive or defensive purposes - that were ordered to be destroyed [the biological pathogens] by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health on 24.2.2022 due to the fear of their capture and seizure by Russian military and occupying forces in their location:

Russians obtained and published an article of the copy of the Ukrainian Ministries of Health decree (translated via Google), at the date of the Russian Invasion, for the destruction of some of the biological contents supposedly being developed and existing in some of these Biolabs and bioresearch facilities in Ukraine.

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[nuwu]

not not condemning war, but it seems putin mentioned at some point "nato joining ukraine will make nuclear war likely" considering the conflicts already happening between ukraine-russia and the alliance domino that would follow. maybe he did consider this in his calculations, as a justification for being the leading role in a war while preserving some internal sense of morality / sanity