[Politics] Russia invades Ukraine (24/02/2022)

[raymondo]

My memory's not that good . OK...
1. As per Eric's post above, Putin forced private banks to make preferential loans to defence companies, so, war expenditure is double the State's expenditure. Defence companies won't be able to pay back the loans, so the oligarch's are likely to suffer.
2. Jake thinks that after all the childish announcements by Trump, Musk whoever...about stopping the war very soon (As you say, at about midday today Washington time...), now he expects the adults will take over (Kellog etc) and the 'children' will just have to listen. Kellog etc KNOWS what sort of opponent Russia has been for decades.
He also hopes that MAGA can soon forget that Biden/ the Democrats were in charge of things for a while: too many MAGA guys automatically reacted against any support Biden gave to Ukraine (a political reaction) - he hopes they will now pivot and see what actually needs to be done.
3. The pro-Ukraine crowd need to start their own weekly podcasts to counteract the pro-Russian shit spouted regularly by other podcasters. e.g. General Ben Hodges (just one Jake mentioned). Ukraine needs to start winning back the information war, as MANY people get their 'news' and form their views from these podcasts.

And
4. European countries and Canada should just quickly agree to Trump's requests/demands to increase defence spending to 4% of GDP . Firstly, just make incremental increases each year (no-one will expect a sudden jump to 5%), and secondly...it's not a bad idea that Europe prepares it's defences better.
5. Oh, and Europe should close it's own loopholes on usage/transport of Russian oil and gas products.

 

[raymondo]

 

[driddles]

So only a few hours of this war left, thanks to Trump, which is great news. I'll miss this thread though.

lol - pushed out 6 months already, day 1 tariffs against Canada pushed out to Feb already, almost as if he just makes this stuff up

 

[raymondo]

A snippet from Davos:
"During a special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the EU's "gas imports from Russia went down by roughly 75%" and that it imports from Russia "only 3% of our oil and no coal at all anymore

 

[Triggaaar]

A snippet from Davos:
"During a special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the EU's "gas imports from Russia went down by roughly 75%" and that it imports from Russia "only 3% of our oil and no coal at all anymore

But does it import via back channels (shadow fleet etc)?

 

[Eric the meek]

Irkutsk, at the southern end of Lake Baikal, is nearly 5000 km from Ukraine and it's burning.

I do remember an attack on a railway tunnel in this region of Russia, on a freight line used to transport coal from Siberia to China. I'm thinking that this new attack was also unlikely to have been a drone attack, and may have been due to the same unit.

 

[raymondo]

But does it import via back channels (shadow fleet etc)?

Quite likely... we'll find out someday.

 

[raymondo]

Irkutsk, at the southern end of Lake Baikal, is nearly 5000 km from Ukraine and it's burning.

I do remember an attack on a railway tunnel in this region of Russia, on a freight line used to transport coal from Siberia to China. I'm thinking that this new attack was also unlikely to have been a drone attack, and may have been due to the same unit.

Do we know what was hit? Nice conflagration, maybe a train carrying fuel, shells or somesuch. Well done you cigarette-dropping partisans.

 

[raymondo]

On the subject of coal freight @Eric the meek China has increased it's coal imports from many countries...but reduced imports from Russia.
So much for the strategic relationship without limits.
Or, as someone replied, it's just that the Russian rail system can't deliver.

 

[Eric the meek]

Do we know what was hit? Nice conflagration, maybe a train carrying fuel, shells or somesuch. Well done you cigarette-dropping partisans.

No, it doesn't seem to say. Maybe this is deliberate, for operational/security reasons. For me, the distance is the key. Nowhere in Russia is safe.
Ukraine has a long reach.

 

[Sirnormangall]

This is interesting.

We must all be alert to disinformation, but what do we do about disinformation when it comes across as true?
Note where Russian money might be going.

Interesting story - and interesting that an increasing number of “off message” comms seem to be getting into the public domain