Europe War in Ukraine - Thread 4 - thread rules updated

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This is the thread for discussing the War in Ukraine. Should you want to discuss the geopolitics, the history, or an interesting tangent, head over here:


If a post isn't directly concerning the events of the war or starts to derail the thread, report the post to us and we'll move it over there.

Seeing as multiple people seem to have forgotten, abuse is against the rules of BF. Continuous, page long attacks directed at a single poster in this thread will result in threadbans for a week from this point; doing so again once you have returned will make the bans permanent and will be escalated to infractions.

This thread still has misinformation rules, and occasionally you will be asked to demonstrate a claim you have made by moderation. If you cannot, you will be offered the opportunity to amend the post to reflect that it's opinion, to remove the post, or you will be threadbanned and infracted for sharing misinformation.

Addendum: from this point, use of any variant of the word 'orc' to describe combatants, politicians or russians in general will be deleted and the poster will receive a warning. If the behaviour continues, it will be escalated. Consider this fair warning.

Finally: If I see the word Nazi or Hitler being flung around, there had better have a good faith basis as to how it's applicable to the Russian invasion - as in, video/photographic evidence of POW camps designed to remove another ethnic group - or to the current Ukrainian army. If this does not occur, you will be threadbanned for posting off topic

This is a sensitive area, and I understand that this makes for fairly incensed conversation sometimes. This does not mean the rules do not apply, whether to a poster positing a Pro-Ukraine stance or a poster positing an alternative view.

Behave, people.
 
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There's a subliminal threat to Kazakhstan in this press release - we will not let China become the dominant power in Central Asia without a fight.

China overtook Russia last year as Kazakhstan's largest trade partner. Probably because there's more money to be made exporting crude oil to China than to Russia (which struggles to sell it). Same with most of their commodities, I'd imagine.

Hard to see how Russia wins this type of country back after/if it's economy collapses.
 
China overtook Russia last year as Kazakhstan's largest trade partner. Probably because there's more money to be made exporting crude oil to China than to Russia (which struggles to sell it). Same with most of their commodities, I'd imagine.

Hard to see how Russia wins this type of country back after/if it's economy collapses.

Yep.


Of note China has constructed gas pipelines from Central Asian states to China under its belt / road program completely avoiding Russian territory. This was deliberate.

At the same time China has agreed on new pipelines from Russia but only on the basis that Russia is fully responsible for funding construction. And once it is done China dictates the terms of trade purchasing gas from Russia only when it is given a significant discount because China knows Russia can't offload it elsewhere.
 

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Food inflation of 70% alone in Russia over the last 12 months.


Butter theft is an issue.

Russia's remaining trade partners are not happy either:

  • Potatoes: Prices have surged by 350% since last December, primarily due to unfavorable weather conditions and reduced planted areas.
  • Vegetables: Items like cucumbers have almost tripled in price over the year, with an average wholesale price now 2.8 times higher than last year.
Cancellations of Fruit Export Contracts
Due to the growing currency exchange risks and the sharp devaluation of the ruble, Russia has seen cancellations of fruit export contracts from Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. Exporters from these countries are more cautious now and are demanding price re-negotiations to reflect the increased exchange rate risks.
 
Absolute desperation by Putin. This morning's missile attack costing over half a billion dollars.

Time to remove all restrictions on missiles for Ukraine. 12 nation defense pact should be looking into sending troops to secure Ukraine against Nazi Ruzzians.
 

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I wonder how the current gold price helps Russia going forward. I would have thought Russia dumping gold onto the world market would reduce its overall value?


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Could help a little. Russia is pilfering gold reserves to buy military equipment instead of using Rubles right now. Is that a smart long term move? Absolutely not. But it is a way to keep the war going without further destroying the economy. If the war were to continue for another year or two with a weak Ruble Putin could feasibly waste most of Russia's gold reserves. Can't see the everyday Russian person being ok with that as it would literally be throwing away Russia's future to sustain the invasion. If this scenario were another insurrection would have to be likely.
 
Can't see the everyday Russian person being ok with that as it would literally be throwing away Russia's future to sustain the invasion. If this scenario were another insurrection would have to be likely.

I'm sure the average Russian person hates life in their country but their apathy to their political leaders knows no bounds. Once the Russian people revert to living in caves, then they might actually do something about their predicament.
 
The Russian economy held up longer than expected, but it appears to be in serious trouble now.

The Ruble is now trading at 109 to the US dollar.

It went past 100 to the US dollar about a year ago but went back to around 80 to tbe US dollar after Putin demanded for it to improve. I'm no economist but from my understanding they did this by buying their own currancy and raising interest rates.

I think the interest rate was 7.5% when the Ruble was over 100 last year. The interest rate is now 21%.

There doesn't appear to be any other levers Putin can pull to stabilize the Ruble.

Everything is going to plan - Vladimir V. Putin
 

Russia using missiles to take out Ukrainian energy infrastructure, while in Russia itself the lack of maintenance (and funds for) is taking out energy infrastructure leaving hundreds of thousands without water and heating.
 

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Europe War in Ukraine - Thread 4 - thread rules updated

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