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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Russian FM Lavrov: NATO de-facto entered proxy
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Apr 26, 2022 06:16
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Thank you for putting this into better words than I can. No worries, this period of Russian history maybe stranger than we ever know. What is the clancychat line on Russian internal politics destabilizing themselves? Power struggles, revolutions, military coups and maybe others don’t seem ridiculous at the moment. Someone earlier in the thread said that cynicism and nihilism were the point of the Russian media sphere. Eventually that will lead to cynical and nihilistic people in positions of power.
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Apr 26, 2022 06:19
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jaete posted:
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Apr 26, 2022 06:36
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Postin' about Finland
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I'm guessing that the dead oligarchs knew where the money supposedly spent on preparing the invasion actually went.
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Apr 26, 2022 07:08
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https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1518846724546215937?s=20&t=aMW62CNtIpVXgpiP9GmH-w FSB is being busy again.
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Apr 26, 2022 08:12
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PT6A posted:I don't think we necessarily need to look super deep for the source of the suicide contagion amongst oligarchs. A bunch of people who live lives of unimaginable privilege are seeing it crumble before their eyes, with the very real risk that they'll suffer fates worse than a quick death from any number of directions. It doesn't seem implausible to me that a bunch of them are actually killing themselves. It is absolutely weird that they are suddenly dying and almost no one who is actually a billionaire is at significant risk of losing everything. There are way too many avenues to sequester assets away. It's also weird because last time I checked several of the recently deceased had been involved with rosneft, which sure seems note worthy
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Apr 26, 2022 08:18
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Russia started bombing the train infrastructure yesterday. Five train stations in one hour, in the west and center of the country. They want to slow down the arms shipments. At Krasne station, not far from Lviv, the facility that supplies power to the lines was hit. The head of the Ukrainian rail company spoke of one of the heaviest enemy attacks to date. It's a bit surprising that they're only doing this now (except for that monstrous attack on the train station full of civilians couple of weeks ago). Maybe initially the Russians were so optimistic they thought they were gonna capture everything so fast that they would be able to use the train infrastructure?
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Apr 26, 2022 08:38
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Herstory Begins Now posted:It is absolutely weird that they are suddenly dying and almost no one who is actually a billionaire is at significant risk of losing everything. There are way too many avenues to sequester assets away. Yeah, there's no way these people are losing in such a way that this makes sense. "Welp, lost half of my gazillion dollars, better stab my wife and daughters aged 4 and 10 before killing myself" doesn't cut it. There's something else at play here.
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Apr 26, 2022 08:44
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Just going to point out that one doesn’t need to actually “lose everything” to become suicidal, it’s not like there’s some magic level of absolute wealth below which suicide happens. If you’ve spent a lifetime building up a fortune of $10 billion dollars and then suddenly lost $9 billion then yes, you’d still be a billionaire and still be fabulously rich compared to most but you’ve also just lost 90% of your wealth and the fruit of a whole lifetime’s efforts that you’re unlikely to recover while you live. That’d be a staggering psychological blow to anyone, especially someone who has tied their sense of self-worth to their net worth. Throw on the international blow to Russian cultural reputation, the likelihood of being shunned in European high class social circles, the general trajectory of the Russian state and economy, and whatever paranoid power struggles are going on in the Kremlin that might pull in even those desperately trying not to get involved, and it’s not really that surprising to me that some billionaires of certain psychological dispositions might decide that the only winning move left is not to play, since even just staying alive at this point means enormous stresses and pressures all for the prospect of little gain but great potential losses. Spending a huge amount of effort just to tread water in the swimming pool of a sinking ship may not seem particularly appealing to some. Tomn fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 08:46
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mrfart posted:Russia started bombing the train infrastructure yesterday. Five train stations in one hour, in the west and center of the country. Probably because they are realizing these arm shipments to Ukraine are actually starting to having a detrimental effect on their efforts in Ukraine, and the have no other options but to perform logistical strikes on Ukraine to hopefully hinder that. They are using PGMs for these strikes? I cannot imagine it taking more than a few days to repair rail lines, and I wonder how long Russia can keep up these long range attacks before they have to start actually trying to get air superiority over Ukraine. Dick Ripple fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 08:46
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Most everything suggests they wanted to blitz into Kiev and force an unconditional surrender within a few days. Only they completely bungled this up so its turning into a quagmire.
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Apr 26, 2022 08:46
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The people who were found dead were not oligarchs, they were top managers in state-controlled companies.
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Apr 26, 2022 09:19
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mrfart posted:Russia started bombing the train infrastructure yesterday. Five train stations in one hour, in the west and center of the country. One interpretation is that they have given up on a military conquest of the west of the country. Russia relies very heavily on rail transport for it's military logistics, and if they wanted to push into the central and western parts of the country they would need rail infrastructure relatively intact. If they start hitting infrastructure like bridges that take a very long time to repair I think this is likely the case. If they are only hitting stations and stuff that can put back into action fairly easily then I think they're just trying to slow down the flow of supplies with the hope the damage can be repaired by the Russians when they make it to that part of the country. Of course the lack of attacks on critical transportation infrastructure could also simply be down to 
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Apr 26, 2022 09:22
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They were knifed to death? You generally try to avoid prolonging suffering if you are going to kill members of your family in a murder-suicide.
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Apr 26, 2022 09:26
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mrfart posted:Russia started bombing the train infrastructure yesterday. Five train stations in one hour, in the west and center of the country. Ludicrously incompetent that it took them 2 months to think of this.
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Apr 26, 2022 09:29
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Herstory Begins Now posted:It is absolutely weird that they are suddenly dying and almost no one who is actually a billionaire is at significant risk of losing everything. There are way too many avenues to sequester assets away. Holy poo poo. I just realized where I saw this plot before! Friday is a 1982 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. quote:On the way back to her company's headquarters, she meets and befriends a married couple, the Tormeys, and their extra-legal co-husband, Georges. Friday is their house-guest in British Canada (a country in the Balkanized North America) when a worldwide emergency known as Red Thursday occurs. Various groups claim credit for the assassinations and sabotage, but Friday later learns that it is the result of a struggle between rival factions within the ultra-powerful Shipstone corporation. Red Thursday basically just happens to complicates the heroines adventures, but it's a world wide assassination spree targeting powerful people. Later on it's revealed to be a power struggle in the ultra-powerful Shipstone corporation -which is the world's most powerful and biggest energy (battery builder) supplier. That's what happening to Russian Oligarchs. It's a power struggle inside Rosneft. Dammit, we're living in a Cyberpunk SF novel. Comstar fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 09:34
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https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1518851658700234753?t=0G9aAFjrEqN9rwso3Rj7DA&s=19 The manufacturer said that 50 of those could be made ready for delivery fast.
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Apr 26, 2022 09:35
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Charlz Guybon posted:Ludicrously incompetent that it took them 2 months to think of this. To be fair it took the Allies like 5 years to work out the same thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Plan
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Apr 26, 2022 09:36
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Despera posted:They were knifed to death? You generally try to avoid prolonging suffering if you are going to kill members of your family in a murder-suicide.
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Apr 26, 2022 09:44
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Stubb Dogg posted:Russia has quite strict gun control laws and even hunting weapons are not that easy to acquire legally, even for elites. Handguns are generally not allowed to be stored at home. The knife case was in Spain, wasn't it?
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Apr 26, 2022 09:46
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Freudian slippers posted:Yeah, there's no way these people are losing in such a way that this makes sense. A lot of "Billionaires" debt finance their lifestyles against their on paper holdings. They also debt finance some or even all their holdings which is why a loss of say 20% can utterly ruin an on paper billionaire in double quick time because their margins get called and they nothing liquid to cover it so they have to sell at even more of a loss in an ever decreasing circle down the drain. There's a very good chance some of these former billionaires became negative worth due to sanctions and inability to pay the debt back or they saw it coming. Real gently caress-you money have their holdings spread out so they can survive a hit (and maybe even get more wealthy with a clever play) and has actual liquid assests
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Apr 26, 2022 09:54
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:A lot of "Billionaires" debt finance their lifestyles against their on paper holdings. They also debt finance some or even all their holdings which is why a loss of say 20% can utterly ruin an on paper billionaire in double quick time because their margins get called and they nothing liquid to cover it so they have to sell at even more of a loss in an ever decreasing circle down the drain. Yeah imagine what happens to Elon Musk if the US government suddenly declared that it is no longer going to allow the import of lithium and also you cannot buy or sell Tesla stock. All his spending money is loans from banks with Tesla stock as collateral.
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Apr 26, 2022 09:59
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jeffreyw posted:Most everything suggests they wanted to blitz into Kiev and force an unconditional surrender within a few days. Only they completely bungled this up so its turning into a quagmire. Yes, for all intents and purposes the original plan seems to have been swooping on Kyiv, decapitating the government, taking over a national broadcaster and announcing the win within 24 hours. Afghanistan playbook basically.
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Apr 26, 2022 10:05
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:A lot of "Billionaires" debt finance their lifestyles against their on paper holdings. They also debt finance some or even all their holdings which is why a loss of say 20% can utterly ruin an on paper billionaire in double quick time because their margins get called and they nothing liquid to cover it so they have to sell at even more of a loss in an ever decreasing circle down the drain. First of all, again, the deceased were not billionaires, they were managers and executives Second, Russian oligarchs at this time dont do the western scheme of debt financing against their assets. The Russian way is holding onto assets and cash as long as the state (or rather, the Putin's inner circle and security block) permits - and it all may be gone in a second. Basically they are walking money bags that are washing and financing the lifestyle of political leadership, freeing the latter from the burden of having assets in their own name.
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Apr 26, 2022 10:14
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Ukrainian Armed Forces restored control over 5 settlements of the Mykolaiv region - operational command "South" Please figure out a way to consistently source your news posts with links to supporting material. I see that you did for just the previous post, in the break with your posting tradition, so let's leave this at warning.
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Apr 26, 2022 10:15
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Despera posted:They were knifed to death? You generally try to avoid prolonging suffering if you are going to kill members of your family in a murder-suicide. Avaev did shoot his family.  And yeah I want to repeat, fatherboxx posted:The people who were found dead were not oligarchs, they were top managers in state-controlled companies. Stubb Dogg posted:Russia has quite strict gun control laws and even hunting weapons are not that easy to acquire legally, even for elites. Handguns are generally not allowed to be stored at home. This is a wholly affordable crime if you're a programmer, what is there to say about being a Gazprom manager.
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Apr 26, 2022 10:19
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov threatens with real probability of beginning of the Third World War It's getting a lot of media play and there's no doubt it's intended to grab headlines ahead of the summit today in hopes of scaring off new weapon commitments but in terms of actual substance I agree with Aidan here. https://twitter.com/AidanNdAbetting/status/1518721915707396098?s=20&t=cVe5Agr-7MVp1FIwqwFnUw The actual Lavrov interview is also rather vague, failing to spell out what would actually trigger world war. It's not like we're seeing any ultimatums ála Austria-Hungary to Serbia or Britain to Germany in the last two. Hell, Lavrov doesn't even reiterate Russia's existing red lines; likely because they're well-known and being adhered to. The closest thing to getting specific in terms of escalation potential he gets in the interview is by ominously intoning the fact that Russia will consider weapon shipments legitimate target: "“Storage facilities in western Ukraine have been targeted more than once (by Russian forces). How can it be otherwise?” Lavrov said. “NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”" https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220426-live-russia-s-lavrov-warns-of-world-war-iii-risk-as-us-hosts-talks-on-arming-ukraine Thing is, this practice isn't new. They've been saying this since early March (and largely failing) and even Stoltenberg himself is on record as saying that hitting supply lines/convoys on Ukrainian soil is legitimate.
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Apr 26, 2022 10:26
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According to Oryx, they've captured 214 tanks so far. That's enough to equip five battalions IIRC.quote:Captured Russian hardware is being deployed by the Ukrainian forces in bigger and bigger volumes - here we see a T-72AV and a very modern T-80BVM tanks, both previously captured from the Russian army. 
Charlz Guybon fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 10:30
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PerilPastry posted:The closest thing to getting specific in terms of escalation potential he gets in the interview is by ominously intoning the fact that Russia will consider weapon shipments legitimate target: But Russia is at war with NATO countries, because they supply Ukraine with weapons. And this time 'war means war'.  gently caress Larvov and his mental gymnastics
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Apr 26, 2022 10:35
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https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/1518874954606985216 https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1518874011773587457 https://twitter.com/EuropeanPravda/status/1518872420920221696 Moldovan/Transnistrians? getting spooked by the explosions. Biased sources, so keep an eye out for better ones soon. https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1518873459220271104 Oil fire in Bryansk still burning. https://twitter.com/maria_shagina/status/1518880998636802051 Bitruble is pressing forward. Not sure if this timeline will be able to help with anything short term. https://twitter.com/RolandOliphant/status/1518878214785060869 How many true "oligarchs" are there? The term has been overused recently, especially by western media. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1518734982361014273 Russia is really good at this morale thing, huh. https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1518722996864798727 Putin is floating the idea of going even more fascist. ummel fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 10:41
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ummel posted:How many true "oligarchs" are there? The term has been overused recently, especially by western media. Depends on the definition. In Russian parlance, oligarchs traditionally are defined as entrepreneurs who can and frequently do influence federal politics. Under that definition, it’s easy to make an argument that there are no oligarchs in Russia, if we’re being strict with our language use. The original oligarchic class of Yeltsin era was destroyed by Putin long ago, as they were a threat. Currently, everyone who is rich in Russia is rich only because that benefits Putin, as was noted above with the lot of them being Putin’s piggy banks.
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Apr 26, 2022 10:51
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Looks like Germany is getting with the programme. https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1518853506857598976
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Apr 26, 2022 10:54
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So there's a thought in my head regarding Germany and their response to this war, which is probably either dumb or unoriginal but I will try to make sense of it. For most of Europe, WW2 left a stigma of collaboration, accommodation and/or appeasement with Nazi Germany and a desire not to repeat the same mistake. But Germany never collaborated, never appeased, their stigma and shame is of being the aggressors that the rest of Europe had to deal with, so for them now to be bending backwards to appease and accommodate a fascist expansion now doesn't trigger the same reactions in the German psyche as it does with their neighbours. Of course kompromat and generalised corruption are also perfectly usable explanations!
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Apr 26, 2022 11:33
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Something else about the German psyche particularly with respect to nukes - unlike most other top powers they don't have nukes themselves. Which probably puts a slightly different perspective on it for them even though in reality it doesn't make much difference.
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Apr 26, 2022 11:42
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Roller Coast Guard posted:For most of Europe, WW2 left a stigma of collaboration, accommodation and/or appeasement with Nazi Germany and a desire not to repeat the same mistake. But Germany never collaborated, never appeased What on earth. Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist. Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat. Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter. Als sie die Juden holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude. Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte. GTO posted:Something else about the German psyche particularly with respect to nukes - unlike most other top powers they don't have nukes themselves. Which probably puts a slightly different perspective on it for them even though in reality it doesn't make much difference. In a cold war gone hot, Germany was a designated buffer area to be blanketed with nuclear weapons with the German army in the middle.
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Apr 26, 2022 11:58
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Way back in February Modern War Institute had a good podcast about Germany and its relationship with Russia, the assessment boiled down to 'it is complicated', but definitely opened my eyes on what was/is going on in the heads of the German government. If you have any interest in the subject I would highly suggest you listen. https://mwi.usma.edu/mwi-podcast-germany-nato-and-the-ukraine-crisis/
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Apr 26, 2022 11:59
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Germany has delivered a lot of aid to Ukraine and not just since February, but since 2014 (same with France really). I have no clue why anybody thought talking about lethal vs non-lethal aid and then later "normal" vs heavy weapons so much was a good idea because it really muddies the waters on Germany's stance towards the war and its neither helping anyone nor actually defusing tensions with Russia. I'm firmly in the camp of thinking Scholz is an absolute loving moron afraid to take a stance, really any stance, instead of being blackmailed by the FSB or some 4D chess master trying to play both sides, but either way he has to bow to pressure sooner or later (both public and from within his coalition). Lets hope its sooner and that press conference is not an elaborate "We've committed to delivering 14 museums Tiger II over the next 416 years, see, we can absolutely support our allies with heavy weapons"
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Apr 26, 2022 12:07
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Antigravitas posted:In a cold war gone hot, Germany was a designated buffer area to be blanketed with nuclear weapons with the German army in the middle. That too. Basically any amount of loving around with a hot WW3 would mean Germany would do the initial finding out. Using tactical nukes on German soil was also the least likely to actually trigger MAD since they had no nukes to answer with on their own. That thinking is still stuck in a lot of older Germans.
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Apr 26, 2022 12:13
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Wuxi posted:Germany has delivered a lot of aid to Ukraine and not just since February, but since 2014 (same with France really). I have no clue why anybody thought talking about lethal vs non-lethal aid and then later "normal" vs heavy weapons so much was a good idea because it really muddies the waters on Germany's stance towards the war and its neither helping anyone nor actually defusing tensions with Russia. It looks like they are going to allow the export of Gepard SPAAG tank from Rheinmetall, which is a "tank" and a "heavy weapon" but probably the least provocative system they could have picked to weasle out of the pressure to deliver MBTs. Later this week they will have to decide on the requested Leopard 1 export, let's see what they do there.
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Apr 26, 2022 12:15
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Germany being the target of nuclear hell was a function of it being the actual border between NATO and the Warsaw Pact and therefore the natural first battlefields in a hot Cold War. But that was over in 1991, being scared about daddy Vova's nukes over sending some tanks to Ukraine in 2022 is ridiculous.
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Apr 26, 2022 12:18
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