A french minister has said that, currently, Russian asset freezes amount to $1tr

This post was edited by dro94 on Mar 1 2022 10:28am

https://twitter.com/VeraMBergen/status/1498814410911006723

God's been playing a cruel joke on us these last 6 years.

I think the US and other countries should send all Russian people living on green cards home. Make it clear it is for their safety and let Putin deal with those logistics and angry citizens. They can return when RU leaves Ukraine

how so? A non-swamp demon businessman/bad golfer managed to foster a truly booming economy and labor market in the largest GDP nation in one hemisphere, and a non-swamp demon former comedian managed to become so far a true wartime leader against the largest European aggressor since adolf and stalin in another hemisphere

sadly far left political movements (socialism/communism) have been wielded by no-good nations to try and defeat these good things

I'd say even through the uncertainty of war propaganda, its pretty clear that Kharkiv is getting shelled enough to destroy infrastructure and reduce chunks of the city to rubble.
Putin no doubt wanted to take Ukraine as his prize as intact as possible, just clearing out the western agents and government.
Its not hard to imagine that Kharkiv is being used as a brutal example right now. Willing to destroy a city to convince the rest of Ukraine to surrender.
How destructive will this war have to become before its resolved? The flood of weapons into Ukraine could make it far worse and prolong it. More likely, we're just going to see increasing death tolls and leveled buildings before the Ukrainian government just collapses and Russian troops finish their takeover unopposed.

This isn't going to end with a Ukrainian victory, and NATO isn't going to intervene directly. We're building a new Syrian War. What interests of ours are served with this bloody half measure? How many dead Ukrainians will it take to 'save democracy'?

Wow I agree with Goom ⚠️

Mexico has officially joined the list of countries taking a neutral position / maintaining relations with Russia, breaking with the west.
https://www.reuters.com/world/mexicos-president-says-will-not-take-any-economic-sanctions-against-russia-2022-03-01/

This Iron Curtain 2.0 is not dividing up the world in our favor

I would have agreed with this in the absence of major sanctions, but it's clear there's no way they can afford a protracted war without their central bank reserves and banking system in tatters

If they don't wrap this up conclusively within a couple of months we could see economic collapse in Russia and a forced withdrawal of troops. If we do introduce oil and gas ceilings, or temporary freezes on purchases, it would precipitate the collapse even faster

The West know this and will now aim to drag out this war as long as possible to get rid of Putin's regime, which is probably worse for Ukraine in the short - medium term. The end result of this is The West wins, Russia and Ukraine lose

War can do wonders for an economy. I think the longer things go on the more capable Russia will become. Especially since they're about as low as they could be now. Nowhere to go but up. The USSR survived for decades despite isolation, and fell more because of poor management and spending than anything the West did. North Korea is far more formidable now than it was 20 years ago, which was more formidable than 20 years previous to that. You have to go all the way back to the start of the Korean problem and the immediate aftermath to see a decline in North Korea's stability and capability. Sanctions and isolation have never won a major conflict. Russia is definitely going to see hard times going forward, but they have no options left anyway. The West won't just end sanctions even if Russia pulled back to Russia today and abandoned Crimea Donetsk and Luhansk, they can't they've put too much effort into turning Russia into a pariah. So Russia will push forward. They will adapt.