Now it's Ukraine geographically. Let's say she's now geographically Ukrainian and historically Russian, old English by language, basically French, ethnically Scandinavian, religiously Greek then Roman, then Greek again.

This post was edited by Norlander on Mar 28 2022 03:32pm

Usdrub down once again approximately 12% for the day. Rub trading at around 83.5 per usd per yahoo finance. At this point it’s only slightly lower than it was pre war of around 75-76.

My only explanation for this is the Europeans are actively buying rubles anticipating having to pay for gas as the March deadline approaches.

Actually, not. You can't go and buy USD cash, also you can't withdraw post March, 9th deposits in USD, GBP, EUR and Yen, only in roubles (at 83.5 or so). In Soviet Era it was like 0.60 roubles/dollar while the real ratio was up to fifteen years of jail with confiscation of property.

Don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying, what I’m talking about has nothing to do with individual people buying/selling currency for themselves. Russians aren’t buying roubles atm for the the rouble to so dramatically increase in last few days. What I think is happening is western actors, more specifically Europeans are buying roubles because they are taking the possibility of having to pay Russian companies in roubles for gas for real.

What we are seeing here is:

1. The west is no longer playing the same game with Russia and instead are looking to remove Russia from the House. Ultimately Russia also lives in the house (planet earth) so it won't work. Instead what we will probably now see is Russia looking East rather then West for its future, and, potentially, an entire cultural distrust of the West. I certainly think Chinese leaders think this way already. In this regard I don't know if this was intended or not by America when it chose to intervene in Ukraine (regime change). Overall, in the short term, the current situation can be considered a win on the part of America (to isolate Russia) without sending troops.

and

2. The knock impacts of this are that (a) The cost of living for people across the planet is going up, and (b) The Russian people are going to have a very hard time of it, for a very long time. In the short term (i.e. the next 5 years) I dont see the West normalizing relations with Russia. This looks to be an own goal on the part of european leaders and once again to repeat the original view from the 1st post in the topic - A perfect example of US-EU politicians complete failure at diplomacy.

If anyone can find any blurbs re: strategic long term goals for America, please link, as while this looks like a win in the short term it looks like a seismic own goal in the long term (20-50 years).

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 29 2022 09:15am

I got your point but it has nothing to do with a real rouble to dollar ratio as there's no foreign exchange for individuals anymore. For example rouble/dollar ratio by Aliexpress (sort of ebay) is 118 roubles per dollar and it doesn't change.

This post was edited by Norlander on Mar 29 2022 10:28am

Yeah, pretty much, specially for Europe because without resources from Russia and elsewhere we're royally f*cked. Russia never failed to deliver or breached its contracts with the west. Europe and the US put sanctions on them unilaterally, Now, they're going to breach contracts to ask for ruble instead of Dollar or Euro as payment but then they can't access offshore accounts anyways due to sanctions. They're basically delivering items for free unless their assets are unfrozen at some point.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Mar 29 2022 10:40am

Who said that Russia wouldn't supply Europe with gas, oil, wood and metals as we always did?

At some point, you look elsewhere if the conditions worsen. I'm really interested how the politicians are going to explain the situation to the people in Europe when unemployment will soar and all of the economy switches to Chinese production.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Mar 29 2022 10:43am

Some progress in today's negotiations in Istanbul.

Ukraine agrees to refrain from any military alliances or hosting foreign military bases without Russian approval.
Russia agrees to pull back forces from the Kyiv axis.
I'm guessing rigorous negotiations are still underway regarding what manner of arms Ukraine is allowed to possess.

The next flashpoint is probably the separatist areas, where Russia will probably focus its forces next as negotiations continue.