Doc Holliday said:
I mean cmon guys. This happened. Nobody got in trouble.
Have you ever known a time we weren't in all these wars? Will your children? Intel lied. They lied on purpose. This wasn't an honest mistake. And you believe them about Ukraine?
Public media usually has it at 3-1. Generals Hertling and Hodges, each recent retirees with sources in both Ukraine and US militaries, put it at double that rate, in no small part because of the difference in how each country handles casualties. Russian battlefield medicine is medieval. Solidiers with serious but survivable wounds usually do not make it. Ukraine has a functioning medevac system, with the most seriously wounded actually making it back to Nato nation hospitals.Sam Lowry said:No reliable source has Ukraine with a 7 to 1 favorable rate. The most favorable estimate I've seen from Western officials is 5 to 1, and that only applies to Bakhmut. Overall it's likely between 2-3 to 1.whiterock said:Proxy wars are preferable to direct conflict, are they not? They are exactly how great powers engage one another militarily when they cannot come to a peaceful agreement, because they are by wide margin preferable to direct conflict.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:you are making some assumptions that Russia might not be able to meet. Have you checked the value trends on the ruble recently?Redbrickbear said:
Ukraine will NOT win this war without foreign troops getting involved.
And as the months (years?) go by this will become obvious to everyone.
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/others/russias-ailing-ruble-takes-another-hit-what-happens-now/ar-AA1a8S7U
at five year lows:
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/currency
Everything you say would be correct if Ukraine was on its own, having to feed, clothe, arm its own troops. Were that the case, the war would already be over. But that is not the case.
Nato has correctly identified that it does have an interest in the outcome of the war. A number of necessaries flow from that. The Ukrainian state must survive. The war must finish with Russia totally exhausted, decades away from full rearmament. If Ukraine is to remain economically viable, it must own sovereignty over Crimea (fate of Russian naval base at Sebastapol negotiable) in order to A) ensure flow of goods to/from it's major industrial ports in the Sea of Azov, and B) ensure revenues from oil/gas reserves across much of the northern Black Sea up thru the Sea of Azov and into the Donbas. Ergo, Nato has opened up cash and materiel flows that Russia cannot match over time.
A truce right now just gives Russia a breather, a chance to raise more troops and send more ammo to the front line. Ukraine must keep the battle going on, forcing Russia to strain ever harder to resupply, to the point its sclerotic supply lines crack. As long as Nato continues to supply Ukraine, Ukraine can outlast Russia, despite Russia having, on paper at least, far greater resources to wage war than Ukraine.
This is a proxy war. The Nato economy dwarfs the Russian economy by a ratio that far exceeds the advantage Russia has over Ukraine. All Ukraine has to supply is sweat equity, while the vastly superior economies of Nato outspend the heavily sanctioned Russian economy. And Ukraine has the population to do that, particularly given that they are inflicting casualties on Russia at a 7-1 rate.
As long as Russia wants to feed its sons into the maw, we should keep it grinding away. They've grabbed the tarbaby of all tarbabies.
Just the flippant way people in our government and on this site casually acknowledge that we are now in a bloody proxy war with a nuclear armed state.....without any vote by the American people...its just stunning.
A nation that has not attacked us by the way.
But this maw as you say is chewing up Ukrainian sons as much as it is chewing up Russian ones. Yet Ukraine can not keep that kind of causality rate up forever.
And even if funding these proxy wars was not at its base level highly immoral...its also unlikely to get us what we want. Heck what do we even want? Regime change in Moscow? The end of the 1,000 year old Russian State itself? No one can seem to agree with what is a final outcome should be.
Just like Afghanistan and Iraq were are tripping and stumbling into another long bloody conflict that is massively expensive and with no clear cut exit strategy or clear point of "victory".
"A nation which has not attacked us, by the way" is an old fallacy which presumes war is defined by military conflict. Remember the Cold War? Nations jockey and bluster and negotiate and ally and even poke & prod with third parties all the time. It's how the game is played......to avoid all out conflict.
Ukraine can keep up a 7-1 favorable casualty rate longer than Russia can. Ukrainians are united as one for a war to the death. Same cannot be said for Putin, who is trying to hide the true cost of the war from the Russian people to avoid unrest in the streets.
What we want has been quite clearly stated: Russian withdrawal from sovereign Ukrainian territory. You just don't take it seriously. Regime change has been mentioned as one way to achieve that outcome, and we were wise to do so. It puts pressure on Putin, who has resisted it and pressed on, tying his fate to the outcome of the war. That's fine. He needs to go. We don't want to ever have a Russian head of state who ever again thinks Nato will stand idly by when Russian armies cross European borders.
The analogs you mentioned are not applicable. Holding onto them so tightly badly affects your perception of what is happening. We have not, and will not commit troops to Ukraine. We've been quite consistent on that. Nato has been consistent on that. More to the point, it will not be necessary. Russia is not going to win the war. Ukraine can outlast them (thanks to Nato support).
I haven't noticed a narrative that "beating Russia is easy" from MSM at all. The cheerleading has been obvious,though, and when it reaches the level of virtue posturing can be quite humorous. That in no way changes realities on the ground in Ukraine.Doc Holliday said:The way the media has completely thrown out "beating Russia is easy" is a sign that what you're hearing about the difficulty of dealing with Russia isn't true.whiterock said:Proxy wars are preferable to direct conflict, are they not? They are exactly how great powers engage one another militarily when they cannot come to a peaceful agreement, because they are by wide margin preferable to direct conflict.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:you are making some assumptions that Russia might not be able to meet. Have you checked the value trends on the ruble recently?Redbrickbear said:
Ukraine will NOT win this war without foreign troops getting involved.
And as the months (years?) go by this will become obvious to everyone.
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/others/russias-ailing-ruble-takes-another-hit-what-happens-now/ar-AA1a8S7U
at five year lows:
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/currency
Everything you say would be correct if Ukraine was on its own, having to feed, clothe, arm its own troops. Were that the case, the war would already be over. But that is not the case.
Nato has correctly identified that it does have an interest in the outcome of the war. A number of necessaries flow from that. The Ukrainian state must survive. The war must finish with Russia totally exhausted, decades away from full rearmament. If Ukraine is to remain economically viable, it must own sovereignty over Crimea (fate of Russian naval base at Sebastapol negotiable) in order to A) ensure flow of goods to/from it's major industrial ports in the Sea of Azov, and B) ensure revenues from oil/gas reserves across much of the northern Black Sea up thru the Sea of Azov and into the Donbas. Ergo, Nato has opened up cash and materiel flows that Russia cannot match over time.
A truce right now just gives Russia a breather, a chance to raise more troops and send more ammo to the front line. Ukraine must keep the battle going on, forcing Russia to strain ever harder to resupply, to the point its sclerotic supply lines crack. As long as Nato continues to supply Ukraine, Ukraine can outlast Russia, despite Russia having, on paper at least, far greater resources to wage war than Ukraine.
This is a proxy war. The Nato economy dwarfs the Russian economy by a ratio that far exceeds the advantage Russia has over Ukraine. All Ukraine has to supply is sweat equity, while the vastly superior economies of Nato outspend the heavily sanctioned Russian economy. And Ukraine has the population to do that, particularly given that they are inflicting casualties on Russia at a 7-1 rate.
As long as Russia wants to feed its sons into the maw, we should keep it grinding away. They've grabbed the tarbaby of all tarbabies.
Just the flippant way people in our government and on this site casually acknowledge that we are now in a bloody proxy war with a nuclear armed state.....without any vote by the American people...its just stunning.
A nation that has not attacked us by the way.
But this maw as you say is chewing up Ukrainian sons as much as it is chewing up Russian ones. Yet Ukraine can not keep that kind of causality rate up forever.
And even if funding these proxy wars was not at its base level highly immoral...its also unlikely to get us what we want. Heck what do we even want? Regime change in Moscow? The end of the 1,000 year old Russian State itself? No one can seem to agree with what is a final outcome should be.
Just like Afghanistan and Iraq were are tripping and stumbling into another long bloody conflict that is massively expensive and with no clear cut exit strategy or clear point of "victory".
"A nation which has not attacked us, by the way" is an old fallacy which presumes war is defined by military conflict. Remember the Cold War? Nations jockey and bluster and negotiate and ally and even poke & prod with third parties all the time. It's how the game is played......to avoid all out conflict.
Ukraine can keep up a 7-1 favorable casualty rate longer than Russia can. Ukrainians are united as one for a war to the death. Same cannot be said for Putin, who is trying to hide the true cost of the war from the Russian people to avoid unrest in the streets.
What we want has been quite clearly stated: Russian withdrawal from sovereign Ukrainian territory. You just don't take it seriously. Regime change has been mentioned as one way to achieve that outcome, and we were wise to do so. It puts pressure on Putin, who has resisted it and pressed on, tying his fate to the outcome of the war. That's fine. He needs to go. We don't want to ever have a Russian head of state who ever again thinks Nato will stand idly by when Russian armies cross European borders.
The analogs you mentioned are not applicable. Holding onto them so tightly badly affects your perception of what is happening. We have not, and will not commit troops to Ukraine. We've been quite consistent on that. Nato has been consistent on that. More to the point, it will not be necessary. Russia is not going to win the war. Ukraine can outlast them (thanks to Nato support).
Have you thought about how much your viewpoint aligns with the uniparty veiwpoint?
I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
L-O-LSam Lowry said:
This says everything you need to know about Ukraine's prospects. Even Zelensky wouldn't plan anything this bonkers unless he knew they were losing.
No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
It's hard to say what we'd do in the face of an actual threat to actual American interests. I'm not sure our leaders have even contemplated such a thing.trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
Once the value of oligarchs' holdings is cut by 70/80/90% in the secondary markets, things will get incredibly dicey for the regime and the possible replacements.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
No doubt.
But it does raise the question of how long they can endure this kind of Financial squeeze.
The USA (and its allies) have had sanctions on Iran since 1979 and we have had sanctions on Cuba since 1961. Both regimes (Islamist and Communist) are still in power.
We had sanctions on Iraq for more than a decade yet it took an actual U.S. army invasion to bring down the Baathist government in Bagdad.
How do we know that Puntin's regime can not survive like the others?
trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
The US ended up with no economic activity with Iran, but none of the other "allied" parties enforced the sanctions at a similar level. Germany was the worst. The rest of the world has mostly gone along without many sanctions on Iran. It impacts some specific industries, but they've become masters in working around them. Cuba was a similar situation, but proximity to the US meant they did suffer more as they had reliance on regional trade. The Iraq economy was decimated, and sanctions had to be pulled back due to a brewing humanitarian crisis.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
No doubt.
But it does raise the question of how long they can endure this kind of Financial squeeze.
The USA (and its allies) have had sanctions on Iran since 1979 and we have had sanctions on Cuba since 1961. Both regimes (Islamist and Communist) are still in power.
We had sanctions on Iraq for more than a decade yet it took an actual U.S. army invasion to bring down the Baathist government in Bagdad.
How do we know that Puntin's regime can not survive like the others?
The problem isn't believing people. It is being able to be easily manipulated. In this case you were manipulated to think that because something is a pattern it is applicable to any situation that you want it to be. This is generally as sign of low intelligence.Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:
I mean cmon guys. This happened. Nobody got in trouble.
Have you ever known a time we weren't in all these wars? Will your children? Intel lied. They lied on purpose. This wasn't an honest mistake. And you believe them about Ukraine?
I am always shocked by the number of people who can be lied to for 20 years...then turn around and say "well we must believe them this time about Ukraine"
ron.reagan said:The problem isn't believing people. It is being able to be easily manipulated. In this case you were manipulated to think that because something is a pattern it is applicable to any situation that you want it to be. This is generally as sign of low intelligence.Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:
I mean cmon guys. This happened. Nobody got in trouble.
Have you ever known a time we weren't in all these wars? Will your children? Intel lied. They lied on purpose. This wasn't an honest mistake. And you believe them about Ukraine?
I am always shocked by the number of people who can be lied to for 20 years...then turn around and say "well we must believe them this time about Ukraine"
Give this man a medal.
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) April 26, 2023
pic.twitter.com/EkdFj1mYo7
Here is the legend. https://t.co/nXliEKgouK
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) April 26, 2023
Because most Americans don't have even the slightest clue how we got involved in WW1 , WW2, Korea , Vietnam , Iraq , and Afghanistan.Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:
I mean cmon guys. This happened. Nobody got in trouble.
Have you ever known a time we weren't in all these wars? Will your children? Intel lied. They lied on purpose. This wasn't an honest mistake. And you believe them about Ukraine?
I am always shocked by the number of people who can be lied to for 20 years...then turn around and say "well we must believe them this time about Ukraine"
One thing they would most certainly NOT contemplate is to hew strictly to a policy of only attacking Mexican troops stationed in America for fear of inviting more attacks from Mexico. In the Russia/Ukraine context, both nations are fully mobilized, so there is limited escalatory impact to attacks inside Russia.Sam Lowry said:It's hard to say what we'd do in the face of an actual threat to actual American interests. I'm not sure our leaders have even contemplated such a thing.trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
well said. The sanctions constrain options for sovereign power, to include the ability to make war. They also impact negatively the ability of elites to monetize their positions of power. That is a greater consideration in Russia, with a tradition of boyar/oligarch structures around the sovereign, than it is in some of the other worthy examples you noted. In Russian historical context, the boyars are a more likely threat for regime change than civil unrest.ATL Bear said:The US ended up with no economic activity with Iran, but none of the other "allied" parties enforced the sanctions at a similar level. Germany was the worst. The rest of the world has mostly gone along without many sanctions on Iran. It impacts some specific industries, but they've become masters in working around them. Cuba was a similar situation, but proximity to the US meant they did suffer more as they had reliance on regional trade. The Iraq economy was decimated, and sanctions had to be pulled back due to a brewing humanitarian crisis.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
No doubt.
But it does raise the question of how long they can endure this kind of Financial squeeze.
The USA (and its allies) have had sanctions on Iran since 1979 and we have had sanctions on Cuba since 1961. Both regimes (Islamist and Communist) are still in power.
We had sanctions on Iraq for more than a decade yet it took an actual U.S. army invasion to bring down the Baathist government in Bagdad.
How do we know that Puntin's regime can not survive like the others?
These are testaments to the survivability of dictators and tyrannical regimes because they don't care if their people suffer, will propagandize the suffering to the enemy or some other culprit, and have brute force to keep their positions. A couple other examples would be North Korea and Myanmar. Until the people or some other internal or external strong force can move them on, it is very difficult. So bottom line, Putin could survive.
Uh that is more of a historical analysis of English history (constant Barons revolts, War of the Roses. etc) than a good analysis of Russian history.whiterock said:well said. The sanctions constrain options for sovereign power, to include the ability to make war. They also impact negatively the ability of elites to monetize their positions of power. That is a greater consideration in Russia, with a tradition of boyar/oligarch structures around the sovereign, than it is in some of the other worthy examples you noted. In Russian historical context, the boyars are a more likely threat for regime change than civil unrest.ATL Bear said:The US ended up with no economic activity with Iran, but none of the other "allied" parties enforced the sanctions at a similar level. Germany was the worst. The rest of the world has mostly gone along without many sanctions on Iran. It impacts some specific industries, but they've become masters in working around them. Cuba was a similar situation, but proximity to the US meant they did suffer more as they had reliance on regional trade. The Iraq economy was decimated, and sanctions had to be pulled back due to a brewing humanitarian crisis.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
No doubt.
But it does raise the question of how long they can endure this kind of Financial squeeze.
The USA (and its allies) have had sanctions on Iran since 1979 and we have had sanctions on Cuba since 1961. Both regimes (Islamist and Communist) are still in power.
We had sanctions on Iraq for more than a decade yet it took an actual U.S. army invasion to bring down the Baathist government in Bagdad.
How do we know that Puntin's regime can not survive like the others?
These are testaments to the survivability of dictators and tyrannical regimes because they don't care if their people suffer, will propagandize the suffering to the enemy or some other culprit, and have brute force to keep their positions. A couple other examples would be North Korea and Myanmar. Until the people or some other internal or external strong force can move them on, it is very difficult. So bottom line, Putin could survive.
The sharper the constraints of sanctions become, the more they magnify the soft power of those imposing the sanctions. Relief from sanctions, which costs the imposer almost nothing, becomes the most powerful bargaining chip at the table.
BREAKING: Danish Defence Command confirms it's in possession of 26 photos of 🇷🇺 submarine rescue vessel SS-750 at the North Stream 1 blast site on 22 September. Photos taken by 🇩🇰 patrol vessel "Nymfen". Good job by @informeren 👍 https://t.co/5elE4OFfmk @thinkeuropa
— Jacob Kaarsbo (@JKaarsbo) April 27, 2023
except for the minor detail that no serf uprising succeeded in overthrowing a Czar.....but rather they prompted boyar intrigues, as boyar income was dependent on the serf system. (note: nobles in feudal systems never own their land. The soveriegn owns it all and farms it out initially for pledges of soldiers to build armies, and later as taxes, to include large estate taxes for scions to inherit titles and properties which in default or intestate would revert to the crown.)Redbrickbear said:Uh that is more of a historical analysis of English history (constant Barons revolts, War of the Roses. etc) than a good analysis of Russian history.whiterock said:well said. The sanctions constrain options for sovereign power, to include the ability to make war. They also impact negatively the ability of elites to monetize their positions of power. That is a greater consideration in Russia, with a tradition of boyar/oligarch structures around the sovereign, than it is in some of the other worthy examples you noted. In Russian historical context, the boyars are a more likely threat for regime change than civil unrest.ATL Bear said:The US ended up with no economic activity with Iran, but none of the other "allied" parties enforced the sanctions at a similar level. Germany was the worst. The rest of the world has mostly gone along without many sanctions on Iran. It impacts some specific industries, but they've become masters in working around them. Cuba was a similar situation, but proximity to the US meant they did suffer more as they had reliance on regional trade. The Iraq economy was decimated, and sanctions had to be pulled back due to a brewing humanitarian crisis.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
No doubt.
But it does raise the question of how long they can endure this kind of Financial squeeze.
The USA (and its allies) have had sanctions on Iran since 1979 and we have had sanctions on Cuba since 1961. Both regimes (Islamist and Communist) are still in power.
We had sanctions on Iraq for more than a decade yet it took an actual U.S. army invasion to bring down the Baathist government in Bagdad.
How do we know that Puntin's regime can not survive like the others?
These are testaments to the survivability of dictators and tyrannical regimes because they don't care if their people suffer, will propagandize the suffering to the enemy or some other culprit, and have brute force to keep their positions. A couple other examples would be North Korea and Myanmar. Until the people or some other internal or external strong force can move them on, it is very difficult. So bottom line, Putin could survive.
The sharper the constraints of sanctions become, the more they magnify the soft power of those imposing the sanctions. Relief from sanctions, which costs the imposer almost nothing, becomes the most powerful bargaining chip at the table.
The greatest regime change in Russia history was of course a populist revolution that was then co-opted by the Bolsheviks in 1917.
The other great threats to the power of the ruling regime in Moscow always came from the landless pseudo-slaves the serfs.
The Russian State averaged at least 1 mass serf uprising every 40 years from the 1500s to the late 1800s.
https://www.rbth.com/history/330114-5-insurrections-that-almost-toppled-russia
And the rest of Russian history shows that only outside invasions (Poles, Mongols, Tartars) were successful at overthrowing the Autocratic government.
To those ruling inside the Kremlin foreigners on their borders and the serfs were the great threat....not the Boyars who were part of their ruling system.
The Boyars actually didn't even own their own land outright (the Czar owned everything, and everyone really, and basically leased the rights to land to the Boyars he liked) they were in fact uniquely pacified and tame as a class compared to the landed aristocracy of Western Europe or Japan....who were often like wolves circling the thrones of English and French Kings...or outright took power from the Emperor in Japan (Shogun period)
It was a constant thing that Western Europeans visitors noticed about Russia from the 1500s until the end of the Empire...how pacified and controlled the Boyars were compared to other aristocratic classes.
p.s.
I will be interesting to see how the modern oligarchs and Nouveau riche of Russia are in the future. Will they be as tame and whipped as the Boyars of old? Or will they be much more troublesome and independent like the old aristocracy of Western European states and the rich corporate elite of America today? I guess we will find out.
So Russia had incentive to blow the pipeline covertly to avoid contractual penalties for non-delivery?trey3216 said:
Now we'll get to see if Hersch's "source" was correct or if actual evidence might be...BREAKING: Danish Defence Command confirms it's in possession of 26 photos of 🇷🇺 submarine rescue vessel SS-750 at the North Stream 1 blast site on 22 September. Photos taken by 🇩🇰 patrol vessel "Nymfen". Good job by @informeren 👍 https://t.co/5elE4OFfmk @thinkeuropa
— Jacob Kaarsbo (@JKaarsbo) April 27, 2023
I like your analysis Whiterock. I am also appreciative of red brick layers analysis. He has studied his history, but your analysis seems stronger white rock.whiterock said:except for the minor detail that no serf uprising succeeded in overthrowing a Czar.....but rather they prompted boyar intrigues, as boyar income was dependent on the serf system. (note: nobles in feudal systems never own their land. The soveriegn owns it all and farms it out initially for pledges of soldiers to build armies, and later as taxes, to include large estate taxes for scions to inherit titles and properties which in default or intestate would revert to the crown.)Redbrickbear said:Uh that is more of a historical analysis of English history (constant Barons revolts, War of the Roses. etc) than a good analysis of Russian history.whiterock said:well said. The sanctions constrain options for sovereign power, to include the ability to make war. They also impact negatively the ability of elites to monetize their positions of power. That is a greater consideration in Russia, with a tradition of boyar/oligarch structures around the sovereign, than it is in some of the other worthy examples you noted. In Russian historical context, the boyars are a more likely threat for regime change than civil unrest.ATL Bear said:The US ended up with no economic activity with Iran, but none of the other "allied" parties enforced the sanctions at a similar level. Germany was the worst. The rest of the world has mostly gone along without many sanctions on Iran. It impacts some specific industries, but they've become masters in working around them. Cuba was a similar situation, but proximity to the US meant they did suffer more as they had reliance on regional trade. The Iraq economy was decimated, and sanctions had to be pulled back due to a brewing humanitarian crisis.Redbrickbear said:trey3216 said:
Russia's 1st Q GDP numbers and other stuff. Horrific.Russia has published Q1 Financial results on it’s website, and the verdict is catastrophic in two dimensions.
— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) April 22, 2023
Firstly, these are the figures that #VladWarCriminal wants you to believe, the publications as filtered through the FSB. Secondly, some basic accounting scrutiny… pic.twitter.com/MChNyrSTU5
Here is some basic first quarter 2023 headlines published - quoted in Rubles:
Total State income is 5.677 Trn vrs 7.163 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -20.8%
Oil and Gas income is 1.635 Trn vrs 2.974 Trn in Q1 2022. A fall of -45%
Income Tax is 340 Bn vrs 435 Bn Q1 2022, a fall of -21.9%
Total Costs is 8.077 Trn vrs 6.029 Trn in Q1 2022, a rise of +34%
State Procurements (i.e Ukraine Invasion Costs) 2.469 Trn vrs Q1 2022, A rise of 55%
The basic accounting anomalies they haven't bothered to hide are:
They declared a -20.8% fall in total income, and a -45% catastrophic fall in oil and gas income, but claim VAT revenues (remembering oil and gas are the main sources of income), published as 2.693 Trn in 2022, and in 2023.. (insert FSB cut and paste) is 2.693 Trn. It doesn't take rocket science to conclude if the main source of income upon which VAT income is derived - drops by -45%, you will see a corresponding drop in VAT revenue. But they simply copied last years figure to the 2023 balance sheet to prop up the alleged income for Q1.
The net deficit for Q1 in 2023 is 2.4 Trn (or $29.3 Bn), compared to a 1.1 Trn profit in Q1 2022 (+$14 Bn US), that is a change / loss of ($42 Bn) in the first quarter of 2023!
The full year budget deficit as Vladimir published at the start of 2023 - was 2.9 Trn, of which 2.4 Trn has already been realised 83% 0f it's forecasted loss (deficit), in the first quarter of 2023. At this rate, russia will reach or exceed a deficit of over 10 Trn Rubles in 2023 or $1.3 Trillion in 2023.
The effect of the EU bans on oil and refined products from Russia combined with the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel have now kicked in and have devastating Russia's revenues. The published figures are highly likely to be Putin propaganda and highly under / over-stated figures designed to hide the real disaster that Putin's regime has caused through their illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
These figures could be much, much worse in reality and this points to Russia depleting it's wealth fund reserves critically low and the effect of that will be a cut back in procurement for the military, a reduction in payments to both military staff and a massive cut back on payments to state employees. In Russia, the State is the largest employer by a country mile, so cut backs will effect every household across the country. Infrastructure and development costs will be slashed and taxes are going to rocket in every conceivable instrument, including compulsory additional taxation on salaries to support the military and state.
This is what financial meltdown looks like.
No doubt.
But it does raise the question of how long they can endure this kind of Financial squeeze.
The USA (and its allies) have had sanctions on Iran since 1979 and we have had sanctions on Cuba since 1961. Both regimes (Islamist and Communist) are still in power.
We had sanctions on Iraq for more than a decade yet it took an actual U.S. army invasion to bring down the Baathist government in Bagdad.
How do we know that Puntin's regime can not survive like the others?
These are testaments to the survivability of dictators and tyrannical regimes because they don't care if their people suffer, will propagandize the suffering to the enemy or some other culprit, and have brute force to keep their positions. A couple other examples would be North Korea and Myanmar. Until the people or some other internal or external strong force can move them on, it is very difficult. So bottom line, Putin could survive.
The sharper the constraints of sanctions become, the more they magnify the soft power of those imposing the sanctions. Relief from sanctions, which costs the imposer almost nothing, becomes the most powerful bargaining chip at the table.
The greatest regime change in Russia history was of course a populist revolution that was then co-opted by the Bolsheviks in 1917.
The other great threats to the power of the ruling regime in Moscow always came from the landless pseudo-slaves the serfs.
The Russian State averaged at least 1 mass serf uprising every 40 years from the 1500s to the late 1800s.
https://www.rbth.com/history/330114-5-insurrections-that-almost-toppled-russia
And the rest of Russian history shows that only outside invasions (Poles, Mongols, Tartars) were successful at overthrowing the Autocratic government.
To those ruling inside the Kremlin foreigners on their borders and the serfs were the great threat....not the Boyars who were part of their ruling system.
The Boyars actually didn't even own their own land outright (the Czar owned everything, and everyone really, and basically leased the rights to land to the Boyars he liked) they were in fact uniquely pacified and tame as a class compared to the landed aristocracy of Western Europe or Japan....who were often like wolves circling the thrones of English and French Kings...or outright took power from the Emperor in Japan (Shogun period)
It was a constant thing that Western Europeans visitors noticed about Russia from the 1500s until the end of the Empire...how pacified and controlled the Boyars were compared to other aristocratic classes.
p.s.
I will be interesting to see how the modern oligarchs and Nouveau riche of Russia are in the future. Will they be as tame and whipped as the Boyars of old? Or will they be much more troublesome and independent like the old aristocracy of Western European states and the rich corporate elite of America today? I guess we will find out.
More to the point, the 1917 revolution was caused by.........the collapse of Russian armies due to poor performance on the battlefield.
That is the closest analogue to what's happening in Ukraine. Nato can so easily outlast Russia, and Ukraine has the manpower to sustain the effort. The only question is, will Russia remain on the offensive (suffering casualty rates which offset their manpower advantage) or will they go on the defensive (and risk encirclement and destruction by Ukrainian armies which are better armed, trained, led, and motivated).
Russia is not a strong, surging power being frustrated at a slow pace of victory, as critics of our policy would suggest. Russia is caught in a quagmire in which it is somewhat more likely to lose than win. This is entirely due to Nato support for Ukraine. Without that, the war would be over already. But as long as Nato continues to funnel resources to Ukraine (which it will do), Russia has already seen its high-water mark in Ukraine. It's all downhill from here. The only question is how quickly the decline goes, and at what point Russia sues for peace to lock in gains. I'm not sure at this point there is common ground for a truce. Russia has not yet come to grips with its situation and would not agree to a settlement acceptable to Ukraine. So the war will go on for at least another 6 months.
For all but Africa, the only critique is that it's a little dated in few ways. ex: Finland and Sweden are now NATO proper. And I think "friendly with both" overstates Iraq's relations with Nato & Nato aligned. But beyond Finland/Sweden, little of it is terribly material.Redbrickbear said:
Thoughts?
Sure, there's limited escalatory effect for Ukraine. Not so for the US.whiterock said:One thing they would most certainly NOT contemplate is to hew strictly to a policy of only attacking Mexican troops stationed in America for fear of inviting more attacks from Mexico. In the Russia/Ukraine context, both nations are fully mobilized, so there is limited escalatory impact to attacks inside Russia.Sam Lowry said:It's hard to say what we'd do in the face of an actual threat to actual American interests. I'm not sure our leaders have even contemplated such a thing.trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
Looking under the hood is messy. You get to see all sides of the conversations. There are always hawks, and there are always doves. Smart leaders listen to both. Every now & then, one end of the spectrum or the other is completely right (or wrong) on a particular question. Ukraine has made good decisions so far on what & how to attack inside Russia, very restrained decisions. They could do a lot more. And I suspect they will. Because they should. When someone invades your country, you hit them back, only restrained by the productivity of the resources expended. The suggested attack on Russian forces in Syria, for example, does not at all suggest desperation. It's highly expensive and tangential to the fight at hand, symbolic. Deniable asymmetrical attacks inside Russia, on the other hand, are excellent ways to undermine regime stability in addition to any direct impacts on the war effort they may have. Remember: Russia caused all of this. If chickens start coming home to roost.....well....tough. They started it. All they have to do to make it all go away is withdraw their troops from Ukraine.
The primary reason NOT to attack Russia in Moscow is the unpredictability of the effect on Russian morale. It is not entirely certain whether such might strengthen or weaken Putin's support with the Russian people, which is not an insignificant question. Far better to do what Ukraine has done from day one....attack supply lines inside Russia, particularly those to Crimea, like the Kerch Bridge. Those are completely fair game.
The economic data is telling. Russia is running out of reserves. And below the headlines, those numbers do not reflect the redirection of resources to key sectors - energy and defense industries. Most other sectors in the Russian economy are doing much, much worse than the numbers indicate. Russian Central Bank is no longer defending the ruble, and all the trade deals for barter or other currencies are only going to place more downward pressure on the ruble as they do nothing at all to fix the core problem - oversupply of rubles in currency markets.
The first generation of Neocons had the correct position during the binary Cold War against the Soviet Union. The dumber second and third generations, however, decided to fight “aggression” as an abstraction in a multi-polar world—even when real national interest is tenuous. https://t.co/EHrNIQoMvE
— David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense (@davereaboi) April 29, 2023
You mean you've never said "see you in court" in order to force an opponent with a weaker hand to come to the table?Sam Lowry said:Sure, there's limited escalatory effect for Ukraine. Not so for the US.whiterock said:One thing they would most certainly NOT contemplate is to hew strictly to a policy of only attacking Mexican troops stationed in America for fear of inviting more attacks from Mexico. In the Russia/Ukraine context, both nations are fully mobilized, so there is limited escalatory impact to attacks inside Russia.Sam Lowry said:It's hard to say what we'd do in the face of an actual threat to actual American interests. I'm not sure our leaders have even contemplated such a thing.trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
Looking under the hood is messy. You get to see all sides of the conversations. There are always hawks, and there are always doves. Smart leaders listen to both. Every now & then, one end of the spectrum or the other is completely right (or wrong) on a particular question. Ukraine has made good decisions so far on what & how to attack inside Russia, very restrained decisions. They could do a lot more. And I suspect they will. Because they should. When someone invades your country, you hit them back, only restrained by the productivity of the resources expended. The suggested attack on Russian forces in Syria, for example, does not at all suggest desperation. It's highly expensive and tangential to the fight at hand, symbolic. Deniable asymmetrical attacks inside Russia, on the other hand, are excellent ways to undermine regime stability in addition to any direct impacts on the war effort they may have. Remember: Russia caused all of this. If chickens start coming home to roost.....well....tough. They started it. All they have to do to make it all go away is withdraw their troops from Ukraine.
The primary reason NOT to attack Russia in Moscow is the unpredictability of the effect on Russian morale. It is not entirely certain whether such might strengthen or weaken Putin's support with the Russian people, which is not an insignificant question. Far better to do what Ukraine has done from day one....attack supply lines inside Russia, particularly those to Crimea, like the Kerch Bridge. Those are completely fair game.
The economic data is telling. Russia is running out of reserves. And below the headlines, those numbers do not reflect the redirection of resources to key sectors - energy and defense industries. Most other sectors in the Russian economy are doing much, much worse than the numbers indicate. Russian Central Bank is no longer defending the ruble, and all the trade deals for barter or other currencies are only going to place more downward pressure on the ruble as they do nothing at all to fix the core problem - oversupply of rubles in currency markets.
It doesn't matter how much incentive Putin has to negotiate unless we're willing to negotiate too. "You started it, you can end it" isn't the way to do that. It signals unwillingness to make a deal, and for obvious reasons. We don't really want one. A negotiated peace is inconsistent with our actual goal -- as you've put it, fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
We've been hearing exaggerated reports of the effectiveness of sanctions all along. No doubt we'll continue to hear them. But Putin spent a long time preparing and is in it for the long haul. Russia is selling oil and gas to other buyers, including some Western ones. They still have around $150 billion in the National Wealth Fund. They're still exporting industrial metals, which we won't sanction because we depend on them. We won't even impose secondary sanctions on countries that continue doing business with Russia. All in all, we're doing a great job of prolonging the war and not much else.
Except national interest is hardly tenuous. As long as we remain in Nato, we have substantial interest in keeping Ukraine independent from Russia.Redbrickbear said:The first generation of Neocons had the correct position during the binary Cold War against the Soviet Union. The dumber second and third generations, however, decided to fight “aggression” as an abstraction in a multi-polar world—even when real national interest is tenuous. https://t.co/EHrNIQoMvE
— David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense (@davereaboi) April 29, 2023
I expected this response, and yes, it is true that stubbornness can be a negotiating tactic. It might have been understandable early on. When over a year passes with no serious talks, let alone any progress, it looks a lot more like just plain stubbornness. If there were an impartial judge in this case, they wouldn't be happy with us.whiterock said:You mean you've never said "see you in court" in order to force an opponent with a weaker hand to come to the table?Sam Lowry said:Sure, there's limited escalatory effect for Ukraine. Not so for the US.whiterock said:One thing they would most certainly NOT contemplate is to hew strictly to a policy of only attacking Mexican troops stationed in America for fear of inviting more attacks from Mexico. In the Russia/Ukraine context, both nations are fully mobilized, so there is limited escalatory impact to attacks inside Russia.Sam Lowry said:It's hard to say what we'd do in the face of an actual threat to actual American interests. I'm not sure our leaders have even contemplated such a thing.trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
Looking under the hood is messy. You get to see all sides of the conversations. There are always hawks, and there are always doves. Smart leaders listen to both. Every now & then, one end of the spectrum or the other is completely right (or wrong) on a particular question. Ukraine has made good decisions so far on what & how to attack inside Russia, very restrained decisions. They could do a lot more. And I suspect they will. Because they should. When someone invades your country, you hit them back, only restrained by the productivity of the resources expended. The suggested attack on Russian forces in Syria, for example, does not at all suggest desperation. It's highly expensive and tangential to the fight at hand, symbolic. Deniable asymmetrical attacks inside Russia, on the other hand, are excellent ways to undermine regime stability in addition to any direct impacts on the war effort they may have. Remember: Russia caused all of this. If chickens start coming home to roost.....well....tough. They started it. All they have to do to make it all go away is withdraw their troops from Ukraine.
The primary reason NOT to attack Russia in Moscow is the unpredictability of the effect on Russian morale. It is not entirely certain whether such might strengthen or weaken Putin's support with the Russian people, which is not an insignificant question. Far better to do what Ukraine has done from day one....attack supply lines inside Russia, particularly those to Crimea, like the Kerch Bridge. Those are completely fair game.
The economic data is telling. Russia is running out of reserves. And below the headlines, those numbers do not reflect the redirection of resources to key sectors - energy and defense industries. Most other sectors in the Russian economy are doing much, much worse than the numbers indicate. Russian Central Bank is no longer defending the ruble, and all the trade deals for barter or other currencies are only going to place more downward pressure on the ruble as they do nothing at all to fix the core problem - oversupply of rubles in currency markets.
It doesn't matter how much incentive Putin has to negotiate unless we're willing to negotiate too. "You started it, you can end it" isn't the way to do that. It signals unwillingness to make a deal, and for obvious reasons. We don't really want one. A negotiated peace is inconsistent with our actual goal -- as you've put it, fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
We've been hearing exaggerated reports of the effectiveness of sanctions all along. No doubt we'll continue to hear them. But Putin spent a long time preparing and is in it for the long haul. Russia is selling oil and gas to other buyers, including some Western ones. They still have around $150 billion in the National Wealth Fund. They're still exporting industrial metals, which we won't sanction because we depend on them. We won't even impose secondary sanctions on countries that continue doing business with Russia. All in all, we're doing a great job of prolonging the war and not much else.
A prolonged war costs Russia a lot of money. Nato has 10x the GDP and even more wealth. So the bargaining position of "....to the last Ukrainian...." is a very wise position to take. Eventually, Russia will have to realize that it has neither the wealth nor the income to maintain its own position of trying to outlast Nato. Only then will peace talks get serious.
Sam Lowry said:I expected this response, and yes, it is true that stubbornness can be a negotiating tactic. It might have been understandable early on. When over a year passes with no serious talks, let alone any progress, it looks a lot more like just plain stubbornness. If there were an impartial judge in this case, they wouldn't be happy with us.whiterock said:You mean you've never said "see you in court" in order to force an opponent with a weaker hand to come to the table?Sam Lowry said:Sure, there's limited escalatory effect for Ukraine. Not so for the US.whiterock said:One thing they would most certainly NOT contemplate is to hew strictly to a policy of only attacking Mexican troops stationed in America for fear of inviting more attacks from Mexico. In the Russia/Ukraine context, both nations are fully mobilized, so there is limited escalatory impact to attacks inside Russia.Sam Lowry said:It's hard to say what we'd do in the face of an actual threat to actual American interests. I'm not sure our leaders have even contemplated such a thing.trey3216 said:No. But, if Mexico launched strikes against Houston, St Louis, Washington and Chicago, do you think we'd sit around and twiddle our thumbs rather than strike Mexico City? Do you think we'd be worried about what Brazil might think about it? Hell no.Sam Lowry said:You're Ukrainian?trey3216 said:I, for one, have zero s h i t s to give if Ukraine struck Moscow. You attack me, I attack you back. That's how it works.Redbrickbear said:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-plans-for-world-war-iii/
[The leak of classified documents on the gaming and chat platform Discord continues to be a treasure trove of information about America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
Earlier revelations from the Discord leak suggested Ukraine is a cornered animal. The latest shows it might lash out like one. The Washington Post reported Monday that documents in the leak claimed that the United States had to force Ukraine to back down from a direct attack on Moscow. Time and time again, the United States has had to rein in or express serious concern internally about Ukraine's plans to fight Russia, not just in Ukraine or even within Russia's borders, but in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
A classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) claimed that Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) for Ukraine's defense ministry, instructed one of his officers on February 13 "to get ready for mass strikes on 24 February." Ukraine was to strike "with everything the HUR had." The NSA report also said Ukrainian officials joked about using TNT to strike Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city east of the Crimean Peninsula. The Post asserted such an operation would be "largely symbolic," but "would nevertheless demonstrate Ukraine's ability to hit deep inside enemy territory."
Budanov has a reputation for being a loose cannon. Previously, he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was terminally ill and employed body doubles for public appearances. He is apparently convinced that Ukraine will overwhelm and repel the Russian invasion, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, sometime this summer. Which is why it appears the U.S. intelligence apparatus has taken up monitoring Budanov's moves and communications. And Budanov appears to know it. The Post added that, when it has interviewed Budanov on occasion since the outbreak of the war, reporters have heard white noise or music in the background of the major general's office.
This time, however, it appears the United States prevented the loose cannon from going off. On February 22, the CIA internally circulated a classified report that the HUR "had agreed, at Washington's request, to postpone strikes" on Moscow. Nevertheless, the CIA also said "there is no indication" that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had "agreed to postpone its own plans to attack Moscow around the same date."
Ukraine appears to now be reaching further into Russian territory and is less ambiguous about its involvement in these attacks. Earlier on in the conflict, Ukraine often denied playing a role in attacks on Russian installations and infrastructure within its borders, such as the car-bombing incident in August 2022 that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian nationalist and staunch supporter of Russia's invasion. Despite repeated Ukrainian denials, the U.S. intelligence community believes Ukraine was behind the attack.
In an interview with the Post in January, however, Budanov simultaneously denied Ukraine's involvement in many of these attacks and claimed that they would continue. Such attacks "shattered their illusions of safety," Budanov reportedly claimed. "There are people who plant explosives. There are drones. Until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia."
Other revelations from the Discord-leaked documents: Ukraine wants to expand the scope of the conflict beyond that of continental Europe and take the Russians to task in the Middle East and North Africa. The NSA report claimed that Budanov's HUR planned to attack the Wagner Groupa Russian military contractor with a reputation for brutality whose members have assisted in the Ukraine offensivein the African country of Mali. The Wagner Group's services are retained by the government of Mali for security and training their own military forces.
The NSA document said, "It is unknown what stage the operations [in Mali] were currently in and whether the HUR has received approval to execute its plans," according to the Post.
At the same time, the HUR was developing plans to strike Russian forces in Syria by partnering with the Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly put the kibosh on the special operations offensive in the Middle East, but at least one of the documents reviewed by the Post claimed that efforts to attack Russian assets in Syria that avoid Ukrainian culpability may still be on the table for the Ukrainian government.
Are these not plans for a world war? Would the United States not be responsible if the Ukrainian government, which both militarily and financially would be defunct without nearly $100 billion in U.S. aid, decided to go forward with such plans?]
Looking under the hood is messy. You get to see all sides of the conversations. There are always hawks, and there are always doves. Smart leaders listen to both. Every now & then, one end of the spectrum or the other is completely right (or wrong) on a particular question. Ukraine has made good decisions so far on what & how to attack inside Russia, very restrained decisions. They could do a lot more. And I suspect they will. Because they should. When someone invades your country, you hit them back, only restrained by the productivity of the resources expended. The suggested attack on Russian forces in Syria, for example, does not at all suggest desperation. It's highly expensive and tangential to the fight at hand, symbolic. Deniable asymmetrical attacks inside Russia, on the other hand, are excellent ways to undermine regime stability in addition to any direct impacts on the war effort they may have. Remember: Russia caused all of this. If chickens start coming home to roost.....well....tough. They started it. All they have to do to make it all go away is withdraw their troops from Ukraine.
The primary reason NOT to attack Russia in Moscow is the unpredictability of the effect on Russian morale. It is not entirely certain whether such might strengthen or weaken Putin's support with the Russian people, which is not an insignificant question. Far better to do what Ukraine has done from day one....attack supply lines inside Russia, particularly those to Crimea, like the Kerch Bridge. Those are completely fair game.
The economic data is telling. Russia is running out of reserves. And below the headlines, those numbers do not reflect the redirection of resources to key sectors - energy and defense industries. Most other sectors in the Russian economy are doing much, much worse than the numbers indicate. Russian Central Bank is no longer defending the ruble, and all the trade deals for barter or other currencies are only going to place more downward pressure on the ruble as they do nothing at all to fix the core problem - oversupply of rubles in currency markets.
It doesn't matter how much incentive Putin has to negotiate unless we're willing to negotiate too. "You started it, you can end it" isn't the way to do that. It signals unwillingness to make a deal, and for obvious reasons. We don't really want one. A negotiated peace is inconsistent with our actual goal -- as you've put it, fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
We've been hearing exaggerated reports of the effectiveness of sanctions all along. No doubt we'll continue to hear them. But Putin spent a long time preparing and is in it for the long haul. Russia is selling oil and gas to other buyers, including some Western ones. They still have around $150 billion in the National Wealth Fund. They're still exporting industrial metals, which we won't sanction because we depend on them. We won't even impose secondary sanctions on countries that continue doing business with Russia. All in all, we're doing a great job of prolonging the war and not much else.
A prolonged war costs Russia a lot of money. Nato has 10x the GDP and even more wealth. So the bargaining position of "....to the last Ukrainian...." is a very wise position to take. Eventually, Russia will have to realize that it has neither the wealth nor the income to maintain its own position of trying to outlast Nato. Only then will peace talks get serious.
Besides, you don't have to take my word for it. You said it yourself a few weeks ago: "The minimum objective is to push Russia back to its pre-war borders. Cannot allow any reward for the invasion."
