Quote (dro94 @ Feb 26 2022 05:36pm)

If there's no difference, Ukrainians wouldn't be offering this sort of resistance

Also note they were pro Russian up to 8 years ago, being the second poorest country in Europe after Moldova. No wonder they don't see a future being a puppet state

Quote (Sioux @ Feb 26 2022 05:37pm)

"The people who feel the need to take up arms to defend their home country for an invasion should just surrender because I don't like their government"

Ok

Quote (Skinned @ 26 Feb 2022 21:48)

A few days into the invasion and russia has failed to achieve control of any cities or strategic objectives. This doesn't seem to be going well.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Feb 26 2022 10:47pm)

None of us really know the actual level of resistance tbh. You really would have to be on the ground to see how most people are responding. Select pictures/videos shown by both side's tell mainly a tale of propaganda that their respective sides are doing good, so I don't really put much faith in that.

Yes they would be better off economically with Europe, the price payed (with lives) though is of concern.



I pretty clearly said I just want the war to be over asap. I'm indifferent about their government as a primary concern right now and if tomorrow Putin decided to withdraw all troops in optical defeat I would praise God and be very happy. Try reading next time instead of putting words in my mouth.

Quote (ofthevoid @ Feb 26 2022 02:47pm)

None of us really know the actual level of resistance tbh. You really would have to be on the ground to see how most people are responding. Select pictures/videos shown by both side's tell mainly a tale of propaganda that their respective sides are doing good, so I don't really put much faith in that.

Quote (dro94 @ Feb 27 2022 12:34am)

Biggest sanctions yet:

EU Commission president: We will paralyse Russia's central bank assets
Among the range of measures that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced was the freezing of transactions of Russia's central bank - this will effectively stop Putin from using his war chest, she says.

Quote Message: Cutting banks off will stop them from conducting most of their financial transactions worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports. Second, we will stop Putin from using his war chest. We will paralyse the assets of Russia’s central bank. This will freeze its transactions. And it will make it impossible for the Central Bank to liquidate its assets. from Ursula von der Leyen President of the European Commission
Cutting banks off will stop them from conducting most of their financial transactions worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports. Second, we will stop Putin from using his war chest. We will paralyse the assets of Russia’s central bank. This will freeze its transactions. And it will make it impossible for the Central Bank to liquidate its assets.

Ursula von der Leyen
President of the European Commission
The EU will also work towards prohibiting Russian oligarchs from using their financial assets on European markets.

Quote Message: All of these measures will significantly harm Putin’s ability to finance his war. They will have an eroding impact on the economy. Putin embarked on a path aiming to destroy Ukraine, but what he is also doing, in fact, is destroying the future of his own country. from Ursula von der Leyen President of the European Commission
All of these measures will significantly harm Putin’s ability to finance his war. They will have an eroding impact on the economy. Putin embarked on a path aiming to destroy Ukraine, but what he is also doing, in fact, is destroying the future of his own country.

Ursula von der Leyen
President of the European Commission



Western intelligence, which has been highly accurate so far in this crisis, has said it's highly likely there's fierce resistance. It's not like you have to trust the Russian or Ukrainian military on this

Quote (Knoppie @ Feb 26 2022 11:48pm)

Putin's war chest is a stack of gold, usable beyond even a SWIFT ban, enough to last for 1.5 years. Imo we'll restock their chest if we don't ban our (I mean EU's) gas imports at 5x + production price. Above sanctions are to weak imo.

Quote

Russia has become a “global economic and financial pariah”, a senior US administration official told the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Julian Borger.

Speaking after western allies announced new financial measures against Russia, including the removal of some Russian banks from the Swift global payments network, the official said the measures were designed to target the Kremlin and individuals tied to the Russian government.

“We’ll go after their yachts, their luxury apartments their money and their ability to send their kids to fancy colleges in the west. We will also engage other governments, so as to detect and disrupt the movement of ill-gotten gains, and deny these individuals their ability to hide their assets in jurisdictions across the world,” the official said.

They said that all 10 of Russia’s largest financial institutions had now been subjected to sanctions – “holding nearly 80% of the Russian banking sector’s total assets”.

As a result, the official said: “Russia’s government borrowing costs have more than doubled to almost 17%. The S&P credit rating agency has downgraded Russia to junk status. Within 24 hours of our actions the demand for cash in Russia spiked 58 fold, according to reports, and the Russian government scrambled to deplete its own resources to try and shore up its banks and its currency. In short, Russia has become a global economic and financial pariah.”

Russia has been reported to have $630bn in financial reserves stored abroad, in gold and cash, but the new sanctions would render that fund useless, the official said.

“You heard about fortress Russia, the war chest of $630bn of foreign reserves,” they said.

“It’s impressive, but it’s only impressive if Russia can use those reserves. And that means Russia has to be able to sell those reserves and buy rubles to support its currency. And so what we’re committing to do here is to disarm the central bank. And the way we can do that, for example, is by banning US, EU UK, persons from selling rubles to the Central Bank of Russia. That means very simply, the Russian Central Bank can’t support the ruble, full stop, and that means our sanctions will have much greater force.”

Quote (dro94 @ Feb 27 2022 01:06am)

Only a small proportion is gold, a lot of it is ruble and foreign currencies like the renminibi. It's going to cripple them

Quote (Knoppie @ 26 Feb 2022 19:35)

Russia’s reserves ended 2021 at an all-time high of $630.5bn

/e fair enough i need to check how much is gold :)


https://cryptopotato.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/RussiaGold-min.jpg

Ur right It's 1/6. significant, not the 1.5 years I mentioned. It will be a shorter buffer. These sanctions might do for now... But I'd still go a bit further to ban gas imports. Because next winter, we'll restock the war chest if we don't.