READ OP! War in Ukraine: a distressed blender making too many margaritas at once

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mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

GABA ghoul posted:

https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/1493534030943375362?t=5Vn0Vd_cGPTP_VFSLfJu4Q&s=19

Once Putin signs it, Russian troops in Donbas could operate openly and act as tripwire forces there indefinitely

Yeah I'd definitely wait for the dust to settle on this before celebrating anything. That was kind of the whole reason these "exercises" were much more intense.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2022 12:02

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 04:46

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

BoldFace posted:

Time to put on my tinfoil hat.

https://twitter.com/JacquiHeinrich/status/1493688179270070281

Holy poo poo, Ukraine was just a diversion to distract from their invasion of America!

# ¿ Feb 15, 2022 22:06

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Tuna-Fish posted:

Russia has a huge air force and Ukraine has little capacity to do more than harass it after about a day of SEAD work.

The largest question about this whole thing is "just how good is the VVS at CAS"? If they are even halfway competent, this will go very bad very quickly for the Ukrainians. On one hand, they really haven't done particularly well in Syria. On the other, it didn't really look like they were trying that hard.

The one kind of military aid that would absolutely flip the strategic calculus is substantial quantity of effective AA. The sad part is that that's the one thing that the west doesn't really have to give. Most western armies have been built under the assumption that they will always hold air superiority (which was not a bad assumption for most of the cold war), and so investment into land-based AA outside of navies has been kind of an afterthought.

Why not just buy Russian stuff lol. Doesn't Turkey have some of their AA?

E: we could pay them i Liras

mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Feb 17, 2022

# ¿ Feb 17, 2022 20:52

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

HonorableTB posted:

Hawaii is not covered under a NATO Article V invocation if it is attacked.

Hawaii wasn't a state when NATO was established so maybe they forgot to update the documents

Flayer posted:

If Ukraine was in NATO would the US really declare war on Russia if they invaded? I think that is unlikely. It's all just games for the big players.

Russia wouldn't invade if Ukraine were in NATO

Reveilled posted:

That really sounds utterly ridiculous, imo. Nobody outside of Russia is going to believe the false flag attack anyway, so it's purely a fig-leaf and an internal domestic justification, and either you give a poo poo about people finding out it was staged, in which case this is way too complicated and involves too many people, or you don't give a poo poo about people internally finding out it was staged, in which case this is way more elaborate than it needs to be.

gently caress, gruesome as it might sound, it'd be far simpler and have more chance of looking legit if they just actually lethally gassed somewhere for real.

Are they actually going with this? I'm pretty sure somebody warned about them trying to do this exact thing.

It of course makes absolutely no sense, there's no reason for Ukraine to wait for the biggest escalation in years and then pull something like this. Of course it still kind of works in their usual propaganda way, because now a reasonable person has to evaulate this clam and some would just buy as a good reason not to do anything.

mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Feb 18, 2022

# ¿ Feb 18, 2022 12:56

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Oh wow things aren't looking good for my trip (or the people on the ground there). Triple digits of new posts isn't a good sign here.

This seems pretty serious for Russia to just make up, but on the other hand, there's absolutely no reason for Ukraine to actually start poo poo right now when they have the whole country surrounded. I just don't see what they could possibly gain from this escalation.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2022 23:28

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Alchenar posted:

Yeah don't be another story of a goon who travelled into a warzone and then was never heard from again. I suspect even the people still firmly on the side that its all a bluff probably wouldn't stake their life on it.

Didn't he turn up later, alive ~~and well~~?

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

I think you said earlier it�s just to take pictures of old churches so if you go through with this your story�s going to be like the dude who said he was going to walk across the American desert in the middle of summer with no training to raise awareness for depression and you�ll be made fun of for years to come

I did but that was a joke, I was actually going to visit some elderly relatives and help with some paperwork and other bullshit they're struggling with. I'm not as much concerned with Putin nuking me but things can still get very bad. Pretty high chance of flights being canceled and getting stuck there since I wouldn't be able to just drive out of there.

Orthanc6 posted:

Biden just announced that US intelligence is confident that Putin has ordered the invasion. That can of course prove to be untrue, either them being wrong again or Putin deciding that he's spooked us enough and it's time to back off. But I would strongly recommend you do not travel to Ukraine for the next month, the chances of full-scale war are extremely high. Whatever cost that has to you personally I am very sorry, I've been fortunate to be present before 2 very close family members passed and if I wasn't able to be there I would have been devastated. But we've seen Russia shoot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine, the danger is immense right now.

I also think it could still go either way and earlier this week I was on the fence but this is definitely nope.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2022 00:08

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Well, gently caress.

Baronjutter posted:

My wife also wanted to go to Kiev this month and her family almost guilted her into it.

Even I thought there was a very small chance of actual invasion but still wasn't stupid enough to go. Hopefully they won't turn Kyiv into Grozny but this is horrible regardless for everyone involved.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 07:50

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

BTW looks like uncle Joe's intel was right after all lol

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

i was really holding out hope that things would at least remain limited. christ, what a pointless waste of lives

if the iron dome was struggling to neutralize the number of rockets the palestinians could manage to smuggle through tunnels into the rubble of gaza, it wouldn't have done poo poo against a concerted artillery and missile attack by one of the largest militaries in the world

By struggling IIRC they were intercepting like 90% of the rockets. Even if it got overwhelemed eventually I think it would be better to have them than not and just immediatley lose every military installation. The end result would've been the same though probably.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 08:12

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Kirios posted:

If the Dow Future is any indication we are gonna be in for a bloodbath tomorrow.

My grandfater is getting bombed and my stonks are going down? What's next?

Raenir Salazar posted:

It's too early to know how effective the Ukrainian military is; for all we know they had pulled back their forces to staging points away from the border in order to assess the direction of Russia's advance and then counter attack.

Yeah there's gently caress all the could do without proper AA so either they pulled back or dispersed somewhere or everything collapsed again like in 2014. Which, honestly, whatever. As much as I want to see someone gently caress Russia up, it'd be better not to have hundreds of thousands dead ukrainians.

LegendaryFrog posted:

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1496751862866919426

I'm not in the "any other country is going to deliberately start shooting at russian troops and start WW3" camp, but the chance of countries accidently being drawn into the war is non-0 precisely because of how easy it is for incidents like this to happen in large scale conflicts.

Should've shot it down :colbert:

Turkey did and Russia just whined about it for a bit.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 08:48

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Cirvot posted:

It's not hard to find reactions from European leftists have looked over appalled at the how naive the American lefts reaction to this conflict has been. Where the far rights allegiances lie is the same across the two continents in question, but I guess we didn't expect the American left to be this naive.

Well about that

GaussianCopula posted:

That's a German issue too.

"Die Linke" issued a statement on Monday where they cited the Kosovo war as an example of NATO aggression that justifies Russian actions towards Ukraine and the former SPD chancellor is a highly paid Russian gas lobbyist.

Darth Walrus posted:

This assumes that they plan to take and hold the entire country, rather than pulling a 2008 Georgia and crippling/paralysing the military so that they can annex their preferred target regions unopposed. There's nothing in this war that's forcing Putin to deal with an expensive, bloody, and unending insurgency if he doesn't want to.

Yes that would be extremely stupid but then he could've just parked some tanks in Donbass for the same result so clearly he's looking for more. Maybe the the whole sout-east.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 10:06

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Nenonen posted:

In light of polls something like one third of Finns are for membership. But when framed with question "if the president and prime minister of Finland supported Nato membership, would you support it" then 43% agreed. Support for Nato membership is on the rise in Finland, but about a third are still unsure.

However I am doubtful that it will go into a referendum like so many politicians have sworn before. Once the popular opinion becomes clearly in favour the parliament will probably decide on whether to apply based on national security needs. Holding a referendum would just open the decision making up to Russian trolls and bullying attempts. If not this year then after next spring's elections.

That polling was before the second invasion I assume? How would it look now? Tbh I'd be shocked if they didn't go through with this after Putin's aggression. Like why would you remain "neutral" when poo poo like this happens to Russia's neighbors.

EvilHawk posted:

Just referring back to my personal situation, my dev team in Ukraine have been asked to find a safe place (preferably outside the country) - though I'm not sure if that was a company directive or by the government. At least one of the team has made it to Germany and we're hoping that the others will get somewhere safe.

Zelensky has announced that they've officially cut ties with Russia, which seems like one of those moves that just sort of happens when they start bombing you.

Used to work with some guys from EPAM, but they were based in Lviv I think. A friend had a team in Kyiv and most got out west preemptively like a week ago.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 11:05

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Nenonen posted:

Wellllll it's not that straightforward. Finland was also neutral in 1956, 1968, 1979, 2008, 2014... can you say that Finland is under more threat now than previously?

Also bear in mind that Finland has no territorial disputes with Russia, no breakaway provinces like Ossetia, and there is no significant Russian minority either. Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, there just isn't anything to fight over.

Russia has also previously warned that joining Nato would worsen relations between the two countries, and while Nato would protect Finland from being invaded it wouldn't do much against all other sorts of malicious behaviour, such as cyber attacks or bringing refugees to the border. Nato membership would also oblige Finland to join in the defense of other members in case there is war, which I find just as unlikely - but if that did happen then strict military neutrality would be better.

But on the other hand, Russia once again displays itself as an unpredictable brute of a neighbour, and these kinds of preparations have to be made during fair weather, as the WW2 showed that finding help once the war has started is difficult and can make unfortunate bed fellows. I'm in favour of membership personally, but I still don't think it's a no-brainer.

Obviously Finland is probably under no direct threat now, although that's not necessarily what Putin thinks.

Maintaining neutrality was definitely the right move to keep good relations since the fall of USSR but shouldn't the relations worsen when one of the countries starts invading its other neighbors? From purely self-interest view of course it might be better to just continue freeloading off nato strength of course

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 11:40

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

GABA ghoul posted:

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1496797101677850630?t=r07Mg6XqQeC6zXy1rgMpNA&s=19

And so the weaseling in Europe begins

Would this really be effective in any way? I'm all for making the hardest possible response but I'm not really clear if this would do anything and not just backfire

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 12:15

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Alchenar posted:

We're 12 hours into day one, it would literally take that long to drive in a straight line to some of the major urban areas. Very little is known about anything yet.

They could airdop forces into undefended areas though since Ukraine has gently caress all control over the airspace

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 13:05

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Nenonen posted:

That's still too early to say. We don't have a reliable understanding of casualties so far, nor do we know what Putin was expecting. I have to wonder what you are basing this on?

And what makes you think that Russia will have to occupy Ukraine or do it for years? Like said, it's now been going for half a day. It's ways too early to speculate on what will happen in the coming days, let alone years. All of this is loose talk.

How else are they going to secure whatever the gently caress it is that they want? Zelensky could come out right now and say he loves Putin now and he never liked NATO anyway, but that does them no good. They could install a puppet who could get voted out or overthrown eventually.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 15:05

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Solaris 2.0 posted:

I'm shocked he was able to get that close to active special ops troops without getting yelled or even shot at.

No you see it's a very polite invasion.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 15:20

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

CSM posted:

Of course an invasion of Sweden or Finland would pull in the rest of the EU and by extension the whole of NATO in a hot war. Which is why it's extremely unlikely to happen.

BoldFace posted:

If NATO has to choose between letting Finland burn and starting WW3, they will choose the former 100% the time. Let there be no doubt about that. Finland's advantage is that it is not nearly as important politically, economically, or strategically to Russia as Ukraine is.

If i were Finland, this would be my rationale for joining ASAP. Sure the chances of Russia trying something are extremely small but if they managed tu pull a fast one, it would be up to NATO (or EU lol) to escalate the conflict instead of it being an automatic outcome. This eliminates any possible risk calculation from the Russian side.

But of course membership is voluntary so whatever. They don't even make phones any more :v:

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 15:47

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

FishBulbia posted:

These guys aren't just VDV, it's the 31st Assault Guard, literally the "little green men" from Crimea. This is probably the best Russian light infantry, and they're facing Ukrainian national guard trying to attack them without any air cover.

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1496904904551587843?s=20&t=p1BokKtY-eNeCXBZ_Oqgag

Apparently a friend of my mother's is near Hostomel and they've been hearing gunfightimg all day

ronya posted:

https://twitter.com/petemuntean/status/1496914103205613572

https://twitter.com/thatjohn/status/1496906915133411329

Brexit... Good??

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 19:37

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Baronjutter posted:

Spoke with family in St. Petersburg, they moved there recently from Kiev for job reasons and hoping to take advantage of better Russian pensions. They hate Putin and generally don't really get into politics like my family in Ukraine who are raving right wing anti-vaxxer conspiracy folk. They watched Putin's war declaration and found it quite compelling. "Everything is he said was unfortunately true about Ukraine".

They have a genuine belief that the democratically elected jewish comedian and Azov Battalion are one and the same. They kept bringing up how Ukraine is horrible and "burns russian speaking people to death". They don't support the war or like Putin but believe every single accusation he made and thinks Ukraine mostly brought this on itself for threatening russia with its existence.

Yeah

Ukraine must be really bad even at ethnic cleansing because there are millions of Russian speaking people in the open in Kiev even after like 30 years

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 23:55

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

My mom's friend from the Hostomel area apparently stayed put until this morning like an idiot and is now she and her daughter are stuck in traffic on the way west. Glad they're ok but wtf. Apparently rockets hit Vorzel and Bucha and destroyed some houses.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 14:19

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

SirTagz posted:

A silly question for you. Are diplomatic agreements signed under duress actually worth anything? Cannot Ukraine just surrender, say "yeah, no NATO ever, pinkyswear", rebuild their military with western aid, wait for Russia to live with sanctions for a couple of years and then just join anyways?

I think history is full of such examples.

If the population wants it and Russia is not prepared to go 100% in with occupation how in gods name does Putin hope to stop Ukraine from drifting West anyway?

It's all a matter of force as we've seen. If after ruskies leave, NATO just overnight declared Ukraine a member and moved some units all over Ukraine, Russia would be mad but not able to do anything. But that's not really possible, so they'd just re-invade before anything actually happes.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 14:47

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

BoldFace posted:

https://twitter.com/WW2girl1944/status/1497200338008526848

Czech Republic supposedly as well, that'll show em!

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 14:54

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

GABA ghoul posted:

I mean, I'm not trying to be a dick, but that's just basic history. Look up the Prague spring, the east German uprising or the Hungarian revolution. Once you have Russian military bases and huge amount of troops in a country and the Russian government is willing to smash in heads, revolution become almost impossible. And if there is one thing Putin is absolutely not afraid of it's violence against his own people(lest alone against foreigners).

Well the good news about that is that eventually the Russians got kicked out. It just took a while.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 15:03

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Shooting Blanks posted:

This has been my take on it as well. And not even just "some factions" - I think senior leadership also believed this was going to be straightforward, nobody came to Ukraine's aid, they clearly weren't posturing for a defense (at least not overtly), the thought process was probably "Light casualties, a 1 week vacation in Ukraine to get rid of some undesirables and we'll be home by May."

Of course, nobody here knows what information the Russian intelligence apparatus was feeding said leadership, or if they took it seriously. But by every observer's account I've seen, Russia made some very avoidable mistakes already.

I wouldn't discount the possibility that they knew that this (or worse) is how it could go and just didn't give a poo poo. From their point of view, is this really a problem? It's still only a few days and if a few thousand conscrips die here or there, what does it matter.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 15:31

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

I don't know if I missed it while I was sleeping, but Russia is getting owned pretty badly here

https://twitter.com/FSMPIO/status/1497073860352438272

StarBegotten posted:

I wonder how many NATO states will now increase their military spending to the supposedly required 2% of GDP?

If nothing else this shoots Russian ambitions in Europe in the foot if this actually makes states take their NATO obligation seriously (which a lot haven't for a while).

I've been pretty disappointed by the reponse so far but I wouldn't transfer any of this to an in vasion of a NATO country. Unfortunately nobody really gives a poo poo about Ukraine and there are no legal obligations to help.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 15:45

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Pakled posted:

Really? Wasn't there someone in this very thread posting about their relatives in Kyiv who supported the invasion?

Yes there was. I'm sure there are others too. It's trivially easy to watch Russian state TV nonstop and convince yourself that there's a nazi around every corner.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 15:51

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Somaen posted:

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497222339733467136

loving oval office

JEsus I want to punch him in his stupid face so loving much

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 16:04

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

I haven't ready every post obviously, but has there been any discussion about how spot on all the intel turned out to be?

It's understandable that Zelensky wanted to play it down to avoid panic or perception that he's about to initiate a war but hopefully everyone took it seriously.

EvilHawk posted:

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497225449755263009?s=20&t=fSYuhaK9ezR-7xbnPCUNKQ

These terms are obviously not palatable to Ukraine, but it suggests what their initial concessions would be if Ukraine surrendered early.

My best counter offer is recognition of Crimea and joining NATO, rear end in a top hat.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 16:14

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Just received this, thanks wizzair!

Also I realized the apartment I'm renting is owned by some Russian guy who I've never seen. I considered stopping paying for it but he'd probably rent it out for more after I get kicked out so I'm not sure about it. And maybe if all Russian assets are seized eventually...

Play posted:

thank you, that's good information.

sounds kinda like the NATO Member Action Plan (tm) takes too loving long, imho

Viktor Yanukovych was a Russian stooge installed by Russia (and currently living in Russia) in order to stop Ukraine from joining NATO, so seems to me like NATO got outsmarted on that one pretty clearly. essentially every attempt to join NATO has been effectively stymied by Putin for years and years now

I don't know if it's "outsmarted" when they are just ready to invade and kill Ukrainians to prevent it from happening.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 22:39

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

The whole thing is loving bizarre. Like maybe Putin's nephew came up with the whole plan? Their official line is that there's no war or invasion, it's just a little police action. Ok so for that you'd need to push through with the best you have as quickly as possible. Instead they apparenty failed to neutralize Ukraine's limited AA, sent some paratroopers to their deaths, and green conscripts across the Belarus border? I realize it's still only day 3 and fighting in Kiev is terrible for Ukraine

I'm no military expert, but I remember watching Generation Kill. The US sent 1st Recon Marines as the advance to scout and capture some strategic areas. They are lightly armed but like the opposite of fresh recruits. Then the conventional Army would roll in and secrure and clean up the rest. This seems like the opposite of that, when the objective of the whole thing shoudl've been to even more decisively capture the government and be greeted as liberators.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2022 11:56

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Mokotow posted:

Based on my visit to the border yesterday, and not giving away much due to op sec, I can say I have a pretty good idea how �supplies� are coming into Ukraine and can confirm that they in fact do.

Better late than never I suppose!

Alchenar posted:

I do worry that we are about to enter an extended period of everyone saying loudly that they support exclusion from SWIFT but for mysterious reasons it never happens.

The mysterious reason is that Hungary loving sucks

# ¿ Feb 26, 2022 13:12

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Mokotow posted:

Emotions come, I don't know why
Cover up love's alibi

Hey Mokotow, I tried to PM you but you don't have it/it's disabled. Cinci zoo sniper suggested I check with you about helping refugees at the border. I might be able to get to the Slovakian one, but I've no idea what needs to be done there and if I would actually be helpful there. It's not exactly close to me so I can't just pop down to see what's up.

Do people arriving need supplies? Shelter? Help talking with the locals? I could drive down there with a car full of stuff but it'd take the whole day basically so it'd like to have some idea about what's happening before I commit. You can email me at mobby.6kl@gmail.com instead and we can then exchange whatsapp or whatever.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 11:00

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Phlegmish posted:

You think it will end with Russia attempting to set up an integrated puppet state across Eastern Ukraine? It's possible, they would struggle to hold the West (particularly Lviv) long-term.

Yes, anything West would definitely be even tougher to capture with an even less receptive population. Kyiv might've been a bonus tier thing or a diversion, knowing it would be a very high priority to defend. Having a land connection to Crimea was always their goal since 2014.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 11:18

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

cinci zoo sniper posted:

There�s a �referendum� in Belarus today, on allowing Russian nukes to be deployed in Belarus.

Can't wait to enter the next Cool Zone.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 11:25

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

I think it's mainly the quick attacks on Kyiv that made everything look very dire very quickly, as it could mean immediate collapse. Which eventualy led to some optimism later. Plus some appearance of expectation that this would be a quick "police operation" or whatever and that everyone would be happy to be liberated from the Nazis. Obviously in reality they can chip away at the east for a while.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 12:00

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Drone_Fragger posted:

No And don't ask - that's the kind of information that helps russia.

I doubt there's anyting any of us know that Russia doesn't already.

Like drones. I haven't seen anything, but I thought after their use in Armenia this would've been a huge factor here as well.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 12:12

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

And what are they going to do about it anyway? :colbert:

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 16:03

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

KitConstantine posted:

Yesterday I posted an absolutely bug gently caress op ed from the Russian state media site - on the topic of "The Ukranian Question". Looks like there have been a few developments around the article since then

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498026277881540610?t=DVNGj00mMLncLknMeARFVw&s=19
https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498029060085075969?t=44ECP6yKoVm8Zl-CjUUhZw&s=19

Here's a link to the archived version if you haven't read it.

I didn't catch this yesterday, did you see it live on a Russian site? Just to be sure it was a real deal.

Calibanibal posted:

Maybe Europeans will just have to deal with the cold. Try blankets?

Spring is coming. I haven't had to use the heating for weeks if not a months now. Turn it off.

Shibawanko posted:

yeah this doesn't seem like a good idea. the whole reason everybody sides with ukraine, including many russians, is that russia is the aggressor and ukraine the underdog. supporting them is good up to a point but i don't think the west should go all in like this, not because it's not ethical so much as that it will ultimately make putin's rationale for the war gain traction on russian soldiers and citizens and make the war harder to bring to an end. the goal should be to stop the russian invasion and make it untenable and unpopular, not intensify the fighting

how would you make the invasion unpopular if Russia keeps advancing?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 21:42

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

FishBulbia posted:

map just updated

Jesus, I'm used to seeing maps like this in WW2 documentaries but now it's loving terrifying

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 23:36

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 04:46

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

https://twitter.com/earlyamhistory/status/1498024833329807373?t=A9vy4MfdptKog-u_bHysMA&s=19

The Paddington thing is super-confirmed btw. He's got a great voice in both Russian and Ukrainian here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vlb4z9ge5E

Vietnom nom nom posted:

Yes. Stocking ATM's with rubles won't be a problem, converting those rubles to something else will be. Russia has some foreign reserves (they've been running budget surpluses due to higher oil & gas prices), and they've been increasing their holdings of gold since the Crimean crisis in an attempt to reduce their reliance on foreign reserves. But the foreign reserves they do have are partially frozen by sanctions, and gold is logistically hard to convert quickly.

They can probably buy some time with what they have, so the bite may not be immediate, but look to see if foreign currency controls come into play (they start banning citizens from holding/exchanging for foreign currencies). The clock is ticking at this point.

That said, they do have an underlying defense for the currency, which is as usual oil & gas. The basic math of the situation hasn't changed. Russia has a bunch of oil & gas backstopping their currency, and Europe still needs it, and the markets know it. The dramatic nature of the current sanctions actually belies their ultimately temporary nature, this isn't an acceptable equilibrium for either side. It's simply a matter of how long all this lasts.

Unfortunately I'm sure they calculated that they're ok with all the sanctions so far, it's really only oil & gas that might get them to blink.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 23:44

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > READ OP! War in Ukraine: a distressed blender making too many margaritas at once

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