Ukraine

The Rubble now at 103/$ !

#sanctions not working ;))

Indeedy!

I’m not sure Putin can back down now, I think its gone too far

I agree. The west faffed and missed several opportunities to impose meaningful sanctions; Crimea, Donbas, shooting down of flight MH17, etc.

Russia paused at each stage, nothing happened so they resumed.

After the three-day SMO was shown to be highly unlikely and under more extensive sanctions, Russia should have declared Ukraine free of Nazis and turned back.

The war has now caused so many, too public problems that it can’t be abandoned by Russia for no benefit.

There’s an article here from March that I won’t try to paraphrase. Five perspectives on Russia’s nuclear diplomacy are outlined by Stephen J. Cimbala and Lawrence J. Korb https://thebulletin.org/2024/03/putins-nuclear-warnings-heightened-risk-or-revolving-door/

Storm Shadows flying over Russia?

Certainly looks plausible. Must be terrifying if you know these things are headed your way.

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1859950903295656158/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1859950903295656158&currentTweetUser=bayraktar_1love

(No carnage shown, just the flight of 2 missiles over a farmers field.)

Feel like this is only going to go one way now really. Nothing like some grim Friday evening news.

blokeuptheroadFull Member
Indeedy!

The Ruble has been in steady decline for a while now, mostly due to global sanctions,  I guess,  but it’s really tanked recently in the last day or so…

I wonder what the driver for that is, Ukraine not having to fight with both hands tied behind their backs maybe/ or some other geo-political influence?

Storm Shadows flying over Russia?

I thought Storm shadows were quite surgical instruments though, assuming they don’t malfunction, they carry quite a small payload and don’t cause a huge amount of colatteral damage.. assuming they are aimed at military/infrastructure?

The ten year chart is very interesting.. you can see the ruble tank ‘big style’ at the start of the war, it became technically worthless, and then boost massivley due to what I guess was some kind of quantative easing/false inflation by the russian government, and now it’ just totally FUBAR.

Storm Shadows flying over Russia?

Broken link, this works https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1859950903295656158

stcolinFree Member
Feel like this is only going to go one way now really. Nothing like some grim Friday evening news.

A year from now there’ll likely be something totally different to worry about.

Likely China invading/ blockading Taiwan due to Trump letting Putin off the hook in Ukraine! Lol

Joking aside, there’ll be a high price to pay further down the road if Putin is allowed to win the war with Ukraine. It’s a weakness, given his growing age, hell want to press home sooner rather than later. Perhaps Oban will invite a Russian force under Hungary to keep put down a protest. So many possibilities.

I sleep far better knowing Ukraine is now using ATACMS/ Storm Shadows. The tragedy is, they should have been using them *years* ago. As much damage needs to be done before Trump comes to power as possible. Trump will be sewing the sets of a far bigger war in the years to come…

bikesandboots
Full Member
Storm Shadows flying over Russia?

Broken link, this works https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1859950903295656158

Thanks. Now I know how to make the link work at least, even if I can’t embed the bloody things. Lol

Cheers again.

Thanks. Now I know how to make the link work at least, even if I can’t embed the bloody things. Lol

Cheers again.

People shouldn’t be using twitter anyway given who owns it.. all the cool kids are on Mastadon these days.

Thing about that Storm Shadow over a field and a flock of sheep, is how relatable it is. Looks just like places I go for a ride. It’s just different to the middle east where it’s just dusty soil, rock, and sand.

Thing about that Storm Shadow over a field and a flock of sheep, is how relatable it is. Looks just like places I go for a ride. It’s just different to the middle east where it’s just dusty soil, rock, and sand.

Yes, it’s quite sobering…I felt the same thing too but didn’t quite manifest the thought into words until I read what you wrote…  It must be a strange feeling seeing something like that for real… a bit like (but conversley)  when an Ambulance flies past at ‘not messing about’ speed.. you know it’s going ‘somewhere’ and you know there’s a big problem where it’s going… It really does make you think.

And the speed they were going at… it’s one thing to film it from the side, but if you were the target, you’d never see or hear it coming… sobering stuff indeed.

The Russian central bank has been buying the Rubble to support it, perhaps they can’t afford it any more ?

@timba fascinating article, thanks for sharing.

Meanwhile, in the real world …

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/nov/23/russia-ukraine-war-live-latest-news-updates

Russia’s defence ministry said that its forces had captured the settlement of Novodmytrivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, their latest gain in what defence minister Andrei Belousov described as an accelerated advance.

Ukraine has lost over 40% of the territory in Russia’s Kursk region that it rapidly seized in a surprise incursion in August as Russian forces have mounted waves of counter-assaults, a senior Ukrainian military source told Reuters

Ukraine has lost over 40% of the territory in Russia’s Kursk region that it rapidly seized in a surprise incursion in August

And it’s kept 60%, diverted thousands of troops and assets, wasted resources and injured or killed many Russians.

Meanwhile, in the real world …

Russia has trumpeted the capture of a village that used to house 200 people, that they’ve been assaulting for a week or more and murdered two more PoWs https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/11/20/7485504/

In that week Russia has probably lost 10.5k troops KIA. That’s the tragedy of the real world

Yes meanwhile Ukraine is fighting Russia IN Russia. Much better than on its own soil.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czd5myvyrjzo

Jean-Noël Barrot said that Ukraine could fire French long-range missiles into Russia “in the logics of self defence”, but would not confirm if French weapons had already been used.

And Russia is suffering the heaviest casualties of the war so far, similar to the bloodbath around Bahkmut in 2023.

Putins in a hurry and his troops are paying the price.

Ukraines best hope of victory remains inflicting so many casualties that the Russian home front collapses and falling back to minimise thier own losses is a requisite for keeping the grim mathematics on their side.

Ukraines best hope of victory remains inflicting so many casualties that the Russian home front collapses and falling back to minimise thier own losses is a requisite for keeping the grim mathematics on their side.

By the time Ukraine got their “victory” there will only be a few young men around.

Then when the Ukrainians look back, they will realise that they have been taken for a ride

Then when the Ukrainians look back, they will realise that they have been taken for a ride

By whom?

So they should have just rolled over and let Putin’s goons butcher their men (Remember Bucha) rape their women and ship thier children off to Siberia?

Whilst there are many questions and discussions to have, I think we can be fairly confident asserting that it was Ukraine’s decision to resist and at the end of this there will still be an independent Ukrainian state, which there wouldn’t have been if they hadn’t.

Edit

I took Daz meaning that it would create an escalation in which a nuclear exchange was possible.

Of course that’s what I meant. It’s amusing that the very people on this thread who think Putin is a ruthless murderer and gangster (I have no argument with that) also think he’s sensible and rational enough to not escalate a nuclear exchange. Yes, NATO may well sink his navy and destroy his air force if he uses a tactical nuke, but why does anyone think he would stop there and say ‘ok lads, lets call it a draw’. Of course he wouldn’t, he’d respond with more nukes against Western bases and probably Ukrainian cities. Anyone who thinks Putin using a nuke in Ukraine wouldn’t escalate into a wider nuclear war is living in fantasyland.

Which is why he hasn’t done it!

I’m with Daz, I don’t think Putin – or for that matter Kim Jong – is rational or compassionate enough not to push the button on the basis of the rest of the world continuing on without him.  Very much “If I can’t have it, why should they…”.

I don’t think Putin sits in a room alone with a big red button.

I’ve never thought Putin was mad or unhinged. Whilst he is undeniably ruthless and ambitious, I do think he is intelligent, cunning and (from an extreme Russian nationalist viewpoint) rational.

He sees himself as Peter the Great incarnate, the ultimate Russian patriot and patriarch. He feels humiliated by what he sees as the loss of Russia’s rightful place in the world since the fall of the Soviet empire. In a very distorted way, I’m sure he ‘loves’ his country.

Starting an exchange which he knows will result in the destruction of it, is not in his game plan IMV. Regular sabre rattling to advance his imperial aims very much is.

Unfortunately for the rest of the world Putin has made a huge mess politically and was not stopped years ago. He is definitely emboldened by the lack of resistance by the EU block, The UK especially has been shown to be week by its lack of attention or willfully being ignorant of his covert influence within the UK political system and we are playing catch up rapidly London wasn’t called the Russian washing machine for nothing.

It genuinely would not surprise me if he has been funding both fundamentals and the ultra far right in this country.

Austria and Germany are political banana skins waiting to happen and he will almost certainly have a hand in that. Then Iran and north Korea added to the mix who have thought that China would be second fiddle in influence over north Korea right now the Chinese didn’t that’s for sure. (The west needs to have a very frank conversation with itself over how the Internet and social media has been hijacked by state sponsors spreading misinformation.)

He is a menace and needs to be removed by his own people not only for Russians but the rest of the globe I’m not sure they have the apatite for it as those surrounding Putin don’t look too moderate.

This is what happens when despots are left unchecked.

A shit sandwich for Ukraine and it’s people.

Starting an exchange which he knows will result in the destruction of it, is not in his game plan IMV. Regular sabre rattling to advance his imperial aims very much is.

Don’t disagree. My whole point above was about what would happen if he did use a nuke in Ukraine. Some on here seem to think it wouldn’t escalate and presumably we don’t need to put as much effort into preventing it. I think we need to do everything possible to prevent it, and if that means not crossing some red lines which might hinder Ukraine’s defence then so be it. It’s an extremely delicate balancing act that some posters here would like to abandon by going all in and attacking Russia directly.

Some on here seem to think it wouldn’t escalate

I think whilst not inevitable, there is a very real risk it would. I strongly suspect Putin knows this too, which is why he is very unlikely to do it imo.

some posters here would like to abandon by going all in and attacking Russia directly.

Who said they want that? I don’t recall anyone saying that.

The likely escalation we will see, well, it’s not truly an escalation as it’s been going on for years it’s just we didn’t really see it for what it was, is an even more concerted effort to instigate cyber attacks on the UK and our allies.

Given the far, far harsher price being paid by Ukraine, if the UK were to back down in any way, we are doing Ukraine no favours nor ourselves.

Backing Ukraine is the right thing to do but it’s not all altruistic, Russia has been at war with us for many years, it’s just not a conventionally conducted one.

Every single time Putin has been allowed to have what he wanted, it didn’t stop him, it emboldened him. I find it astonishing that when we look at the news and the problems we now face that anyone can still think that appeasement (call it what you will, it amounts to the same thing) has worked with Putin. It hasn’t and it never will.

Can anyone make a reasonable case for placating Putin based on his “foreign policy”? Can someone with a better memory even remind me how many countries have been invaded by Putin and had lands seized to “protect Russian speakers” and the like?

Those that have let Putin nibble away at countries and not backed a far harsher response have got us to where we are now. They’ve done us and “peace” absolutely no favours at all.

and if that means not crossing some red lines which might hinder Poland/Czech/Austria/France defence then so be it.

At what point do you think it’s acceptable to stand up to Putin? Or would you rather just roll over and ask for a belly rub before wandering off to queue for bread and potatoes?

chewkw

Then when the Ukrainians look back, they will realise that they have been taken for a ride

Saddens me to read that, chew. Ukraine have begged for help to fight for their own country. No-ones taken them for a ride. The betrayal is not what you allude to, it’s expecting them to fight one of the largest militaries in the world with one arm tied behind their back. That’s the betrayal. 

Have we already forgotten seeing women with their children coming together in parks to prepare Molotov cocktails? It was goddamned humbling to watch and it deeply saddens me to hear some people are so willing to sell them out for some illusionary threat avoidance.

They’ve done us and “peace” absolutely no favours at all.

Theres no good options available, but appeasement will lead us to Russian tanks rolling into a, possibly NATO Baltic, SMO to protect Russian speakers at some point. Or spilling over into NATO from a Moldova SMO.

I’d love to think theres a way to achieve a long standing, respectful peace, but Russias leadership would need a radical shift of ambitions first. (Plenty of other governments with proper ***** foreign policies, but this thread is about Ukraine and Russias invasion, so no what about needed)

Heard on news that “drones” have been seen over a couple of US bases in UK. And Putin saying allies of Ukraine are just as much targets now. Media hyperbole or actual threat?

Ruble is 0.015 to $1 AUD at the mo.

I don’t think he’ll nuke anyone. But I am hugely surprised he’s not been taken out yet by a drone or some other long-range effort.