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Vladimir Putin’s decision to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert followed “unacceptable” statements made by the UK foreign secretary Liz Truss, the Kremlin has said.

UK government officials described the alert as “a distraction technique” from Moscow’s “slower than expected” military progress in Ukraine.

Speaking on Sunday, Truss expressed support for UK volunteers looking to bolster the Ukrainian forces.

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, said on Monday: “There were statements by various representatives at different levels about possible conflict situations and even confrontations and clashes between Nato and the Russian Federation. We consider such statements absolutely unacceptable. I will not name the authors of these statements, although it was the British foreign secretary.”

In response, one government official said: “It looks like a distraction technique from slower than expected progress of the invasion. Nothing Liz has said warrants that sort of escalation, and we obviously take it very seriously and want to keep the situation calm.

“Liz has always talked about Nato in the context of it being a defensive alliance. Her point is that we stand by Article 5, and that we need to support Ukraine short of putting boots on the ground.”

Quote (Skinned @ Feb 28 2022 12:36pm)

Apparently we've all overestimated the Russian military, including Vlad Putin.

Quote (dro94 @ Feb 28 2022 07:55am)

Classic Truss blundering, well done. It's illegal for a British citizen to fight against a country that Britain is at peace with





They thought that low government approval ratings and high distrust of institutions in the South and East of Ukraine would make an invasion a lot easier than it was. The problem with that is people get angry when they're attacked

Still, their intelligence suggests the South and East would be far more susceptible to Russian occupation. I think they might give up on controlling all of Ukraine and just annex east of the Dnipro

Quote (Goomshill @ Feb 27 2022 09:45pm)

If we wanted to hold Ukraine within the western sphere of influence, we shouldn't have had Joe Biden and the rest of NATO all say we're not going to oppose an invasion.
This "middle ground" has sent us to the most dangerous moment in the world in 60 years. We basically just raised a new iron curtain and divided the world while pointing nukes at each other and praying neither side gets too jumpy. Trying to point fingers and play the blame game doesn't accomplish anything. When the entire western world cuts off all interactions with Russia, but entirety of Asia and the mideast and India and most of African and South America don't follow suit, we're not playing geopolitics to our advantage, its the outcomes that matter, and this is one of the worst outcomes and on a dangerous path towards the worst possible.

We're just a single mistake away from nuclear annihilation right now. Decades of thawing relations and deescalation have been thrown out the window and we're back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now we're talking about sending US/EU irregulars to kill Russians in an active war zone and risk a direct military confrontation, something the Cold War didn't escalate to. Like another stupid form of "middle ground". The advantage of projecting strength is that you can avoid conflicts occurring in the first place if you speak quietly and carry a big stick. Only a madman would put down his guard and say the other person is free to trespass and then pick a fight after he crosses that line.

I mean fuck, at least when we made the miscalculations that led to Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and Libya and Yemen, we had no real stakes. We weren't risking obliteration.

Quote (thesnipa @ Feb 28 2022 09:09am)

Putin gonna enter peace talks, talk Ukraine into giving up land, come out looking like a peaceful guy when tanks leave and all of the kill list and such didnt come to fruition, leave the capital and govt largely intact, and use this all as a signal he's not past conventional warfare on 1st world countries. sanctions will lesson, economy will rebound somewhat, and he'll still just keep dumping fuel to China and the EU, while threatening more NATO expansion will give similar results. Dude toppled for fun into a nation that he could safely retreat from knowing the west wont actually do shit just to put a pause on NATO growing.

thats my guess for today based on nothing but playing RISK a lot and im prob wrong.

Quote (IceMage @ Feb 28 2022 09:31am)

That's very optimistic.

My prediction: negotiations go nowhere, Russia succeeds on the battlefield, Zelenskyy is killed, an interim government is established, Putin moves nuclear weapons into Belarus, and Russia takes a beating in Ukraine from insurgents. The situation hobbles along until Trump wins back power, gets into office, and forces the Europeans to strike a deal favorable to Putin.

Quote (IceMage @ Feb 28 2022 06:31am)

That's very optimistic.

My prediction: negotiations go nowhere, Russia succeeds on the battlefield, Zelenskyy is killed, an interim government is established, Putin moves nuclear weapons into Belarus, and Russia takes a beating in Ukraine from insurgents. The situation hobbles along until Trump wins back power, gets into office, and forces the Europeans to strike a deal favorable to Putin.

Quote (Skinned @ Feb 28 2022 07:03am)

Nobody expected the Ukrainians to pwn the Chechnyans like they did. And it was easy peasy for them.

And mud season is going to be upon them. Seems they're just moving their border. Thank god he doesn't have an american president helping him right now.

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Here is a list of the main sanctions imposed so far by the US, UK and the EU.

Politicians, officials and oligarchs
President Vladimir Putin’s foreign-held assets in the EU, US and UK are frozen, but he is still allowed to travel to those jurisdictions. The reason for the asset freeze, according to the EU legal text published on Friday, is his recognition of the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, ordering the Russian armed forces into those areas and for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, is also subject to an EU, UK and US asset freeze for being “responsible for and actively supporting actions undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, as well as stability and security in Ukraine”. He is still allowed to travel.

Sergei Shoigu, Russian defence minister, and Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Russian security service (FSB), are both on the EU and US travel ban and asset freeze list.

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian armed forces, is now on the UK and US travel ban and asset freeze list. He was already blacklisted by the EU in 2014.

Russian parliament: The EU imposed sanctions on 351 members of the Russian Duma, placing them on a travel ban and asset freeze list, while the UK took that measure only against members of the Duma and Federation Council who voted to recognise the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. The US had previously imposed sanctions on the head of the Duma.

Russian security council: Members of the council are on the EU and US travel ban and asset freeze lists.

Belarus officials: The EU and the US placed military, government and border officials from Belarus on their asset freeze and travel ban list for helping to plan and actively supporting the Russian military offensive against Ukraine.

Kirill Shamalov, Russia’s youngest billionaire and previously married to Putin’s daughter Katarina, is banned from travelling to the UK and his assets there are being frozen.

Petr Fradkov, head of Promsvyazbank and son of the former head of Russian foreign intelligence, is on the UK assets freeze and travel ban list.

Denis Bortnikov, deputy president of Russia’s second-biggest lender VTB and son of the FSB chief, is blacklisted in the UK, the EU and the US.

Yury Slyusar, director of United Aircraft Corp, and Elena Georgieva, chair of the board of Novikombank, a state-owned defence conglomerate, are banned from the UK.

Gennady Timchenko, Russia’s sixth richest oligarch who controls private investment firm Volga Group which has interests in energy, transportation and construction, is on the UK travel ban and asset freeze list.

Boris Rotenberg, a Russian oligarch who co-owns the largest construction company for gas pipelines in Russia, SMP Group, is under UK sanctions and so is his nephew Igor Rotenberg, a majority shareholder in Gazprom Drilling.

Violetta and Lyubov Prigozhina, the mother and the wife of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who the EU says is responsible for sending Wagner Group mercenaries to Ukraine, are banned from the EU and will have their assets frozen.

Sergei Ivanov, a Russian senior official and politician who previously served in the KGB, and his son, Sergei, chief executive of Russian state-owned diamond mining company Alrosa and a board member of Gazprombank are both in the US sanctions list. So are Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russian’s security council, his son, Andrey, former chief executive of Gazprom Neft, oligarch Igor Sechin and his son Ivan, deputy department head at Rosneft.

Senior executives at state-owned banks: Alexander Vedyakhin (Sberbank), Andrey Puchkov and Yuriy Soloviev (VTB), as well as Soloviev’s wife Galina Olegovna Ulyutina, have also been added to the US sanctions list.

Banks and financial services
Russia’s central bank: The EU already prohibits the “direct or indirect trade in investment services for . . . securities and money-market instruments issued after April 12, 2022.” In addition, the US, UK, Canada and the EU seek to “impose restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions”.

Swift: A “select” number of Russian banks will be removed from the Swift international payments system to “ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally”, the US, UK, Canada and EU said in their joint statement Saturday. The banks are yet to be identified.

Sberbank: The US has cut off Russia’s biggest bank and 25 subsidiaries from the US financial system. The sanctions restrict Sberbank’s access to US dollar transactions. The financial institution accounts for close to a third of Russia’s banking system and is very connected to the global financial system.

VTB Bank: The US and the UK have frozen assets at Russia’s second-largest bank, which is heavily exposed to western financial systems. This means the bank and its subsidiaries will not be able to do any business in the UK or US or with their nationals.

Alfa-Bank and Bank Otkritie face an EU ban on issuing bonds, shares or loans in the EU for refinancing, while the US has imposed debt and equity restrictions on Alfa and full blocking sanctions on Otkritie.

The EU and the UK have imposed asset freezes on Bank Rossyia and Promsvyazbank. The US has also imposed full blocking sanctions on Promsvyazbank.

The US has issued full blocking sanctions against Sovcombank and Novikombank, while placing new debt and equity restrictions on Russian Agricultural Bank, Credit Bank of Moscow and Gazprombank.

Is Bank, Genbank and Black Sea Bank for Development and Reconstruction have been placed under sanctions by the UK.

VEB.RF, a major financial development institution and an important source of revenue for the Russian government, has been put under sanctions by the EU. It was already on the US and UK lists.

Belarus banks: The US imposed sanctions on two state-owned banks, Belinvestbank and Bank Dabrabyt, in response to Minsk’s participation in the Russian invasion. Additionally, two Minsk-based companies — real estate group Belinvest-Engineering and financial leasing company CJSC Belbizneslizing — are being listed for having acted on behalf of Belinvestbank.

Companies
UK

Russian airline Aeroflot will be banned from UK airspace.

Rostec — Russia’s largest defence company

Uralvagonzavod — the world’s largest tank manufacturer.

Tactical Missile Corporation — a major supplier of air and seaborne missiles.

United Aircraft Corporation — a Russian holding company that supplies military aircraft and includes all major Russian aircraft manufacturers.

United Shipbuilding Corporation — the largest shipbuilding company in Russia, which has constructed key Russian warships.

EU

EU-based companies are banned from exporting technology to Russian weapons maker JSC Kalashnikov, among others, as well as pharmaceutical companies, military communications units and shipyards.

EU companies are banned from doing business with the following state-owned companies: arms maker Almaz-Antey, truckmaker Kamaz, Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port, defence company Rostec, Russian Railways, nuclear submarine maker Sevmash, hydrocarbons shipping company Sovcomflot and the country’s largest shipbuilder United Shipbuilding Corporation.

Internet Research Agency — a Kremlin-backed company that is behind Ukraine disinformation campaigns and financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, is also banned.

US

In addition to targeting Russia’s largest financial institutions, the US has heavily restricted companies critical to the country’s economy from raising money through the US market. These include:

The world’s largest natural gas company, Gazprom, one of Russia’s largest oil producers and refiners, Gazprom Neft, oil pipeline company Transneft and one of Russia’s largest power companies, RusHydro.

Russia’s largest maritime and freight shipping company, Sovcomflot, and one of the world’s largest railroad companies, Russian Railways.

The country’s largest communications operator, Rostelecom, and the world’s largest diamond mining company, Alrosa.

Other measures
UK

Restricting wealthy Russians’ access to UK banks, including a £50,000 limit on bank accounts.

Asset freezes against all Russian financial institutions.

Measures to prevent Russian companies from issuing transferable securities and money market instruments in the UK (in addition to prohibiting the Russian state from raising sovereign debt in the UK).

Powers to prevent designated banks from accessing sterling and clearing payments through the UK.

Prohibiting the export of high-end and critical technical equipment and components in sectors including electronics, telecommunications and aerospace.

The territorial sanctions that the UK has imposed on Crimea will be extended to Donetsk and Luhansk, meaning no UK individual or business can deal with the territories until Ukraine controls them again.

EU

A ban on Russian deposits above €100,000 in EU banks, on Russian accounts held by EU central securities depositories and on selling euro-denominated securities to Russian clients.

A ban on listing the shares of Russian state-owned entities on EU trading venues.

A ban on the sale, supply, transfer or export to Russia of technologies in oil refining and restrictions for related services.

An export ban on all aircraft, spare parts and equipment to Russian airlines, as well as to the Russian space industry. This includes a prohibition on insurance and reinsurance and maintenance services.

Further restrictions on the export of dual-use goods and technology, including semiconductors.

Diplomats, Russian officials and business people will no longer be able to benefit from visa facilitation provisions, which allow privileged access to the EU.

US

The US has restricted the export of high-end US technologies to Russia, targeting its defence, aerospace and maritime sectors in a bid to deprive its military from western technology.

It has also issued broad, sweeping restrictions on products including chips and computers. Its new measures affect exports to Russia from outside of America if they are made using US technology.

Exemptions from the restrictions exist for international organisations, pandemic-related deliveries, overflight and emergency landings, the energy sector and dealings in certain debt or equity and derivative contracts.