Ukraine

[flatandy]

Feb 20, 2022 12:58:09 GMT wetkingcanute said:

He is indeed.

and I now have a half Russian half English beautiful Grand Daughter!

Do you have lots of shares in Gazprom?

[flatandy]

Feb 20, 2022 12:46:44 GMT perrykneeham said:

I had the impression that membership of the Russian oligarchy and opposition to Putin are mutually exclusive conditions

I think there are some in the oligarch diaspora who aren’t huge fans. Those ones made their money in the first wave of rotten corruption in the early to mid-90s, and cashed out or moved to other investments. The younger wave of Oligarchs are either Putin fans, or when they’ve stopped being Putin fans have become less alive.

[perrykneeham]

By "less active" do you mean "dead"?

[perrykneeham]

Feb 20, 2022 21:02:42 GMT flatandy said:

Feb 20, 2022 12:58:09 GMT wetkingcanute said:

He is indeed.

and I now have a half Russian half English beautiful Grand Daughter!

Do you have lots of shares in Gazprom?

I think that's they met.

[perrykneeham]

It's instructive that almost nobody apart from the BBC are making a big deal about Ukraine. Odd.

[bertruss2]

Ukraine is a big deal on CNN and other American channels, French channels, Russia tv and, I would guess, everywhere. Definitely on business channels because of the effect on stock markets. Russia tv gives a different slant, as you would expect. I don't think there was anything untrue in the news report I saw. Just that they looked at it from the point of view of the shelling of the breakaway 'republics', Luhansk and Donetsk, by Ukraine government forces and the refugees fleeing the attacks and being welcomed over the border in Russia.

[Psalms]

Still no truth about an impending "invasion". No one but the Russians know their intentions

[bertruss2]

Feb 21, 2022 0:07:19 GMT Psalms said:

Still no truth about an impending "invasion". No one but the Russians know their intentions

If it's impending, we'll find out soon. When my portfolio turns round and heads upwards again, I'll take it as a clue that the crisis is over.

[flatandy]

It’ll be interesting to see if Vladimir waited until after the Winter Olympics so as to not steal the thunder of his mate Xi.

I still think the most likely scenario is nothing more dramatic than a lot more Russian troops ending up in Luhansk and Donetsk, but this is the high risk week, and the fact that the Russians now have nearly 200k troops which is a much more plausible number for invasion than the 100-130k talked about a couple of weeks back. I’m less sanguine than I was. The fact that Bertie is telling us that invasion won’t happen definitely makes me nervous.

[bertruss2]

The fact that Bertie is telling us that invasion won’t happen definitely makes me nervous.

I'm not going to move anything from my cash account into my share portfolio until the trend line moves up. There's always Covid in the background but I'm confident, not in saying it's all over, but that there will be a bounce in the markets due to loosening of restrictions on economic activity, if other negative factors are absent.

[ootlg]

I see the significant western leaders are meeting with Putin.

[mids]

I see Putin is leading some of the desperate lesser leaders a merry dance.

[perrykneeham]

Feb 20, 2022 23:18:34 GMT bertruss2 said:

Ukraine is a big deal on CNN and other American channels, French channels, Russia tv and, I would guess, everywhere. Definitely on business channels because of the effect on stock markets. Russia tv gives a different slant, as you would expect. I don't think there was anything untrue in the news report I saw. Just that they looked at it from the point of view of the shelling of the breakaway 'republics', Luhansk and Donetsk, by Ukraine government forces and the refugees fleeing the attacks and being welcomed over the border in Russia.

Nope. I checked. UK and US only realy. Le Monde, El Pais, Die Welt nothing.

[perrykneeham]

". Just that they looked at it from the point of view of the shelling of the breakaway 'republics', Luhansk and Donetsk, by Ukraine government"

Eh? Got a link for that Ber(t)ia?

[voice]

Feb 21, 2022 7:42:27 GMT mids said:

I see Putin is leading some of the desperate lesser leaders a merry dance.

I'm sure Boris was trying his hardest, but he's clearly out matched.

[mids]

Biden nailed.

"he increasingly likely Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wake-up call for the West, a shattering of the illusion that the spectre of war can be banished from modern-day Europe. Tens of thousands may die on the altar of the vainglorious imperial ambitions of a vicious regime in Moscow headed by a brutal tyrant. Kyiv, one of the biggest cities in Europe, could be conquered by invading Russian troops in what might be the biggest urban battle the European continent has witnessed since the Second World War.

The impending war in Ukraine has exposed not just the impotence and shameful appeasement mindset of Europe’s ruling elites in Brussels, Berlin and Paris. It has also sharply illustrated the tragic decline of American leadership on the world stage.

It is no coincidence that Vladimir Putin has mobilised more than 150,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders while Joe Biden is in the White House. Clearly, Mr Putin views Biden as a pushover, a weak-kneed president obsessed with his sinking domestic agenda while Rome burns across the Atlantic.

Much like his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, Joe Biden has no clear strategic vision for the United States in the global arena. His foreign policy has been overwhelmingly reactive, based very heavily upon the naive ideal of multilateral diplomacy, rather than the projection of American might and power. Obama’s advisers spoke of “leading from behind”. Biden’s team, many of whom served in the Obama administration, can barely even lead at all.

On the Ukraine front, the Russians were already massing troops as early as March last year, with no real response at the time from Washington. Instead of actively working to prevent a Russian invasion, the White House’s approach has been premised largely upon responding to one. There has been too little action on deterrence. The focus instead has been on measures to punish Russia economically for its actions, sanctions that may never come to pass with a divided Europe so heavily dependent upon Moscow for energy.

In contrast to Donald Trump, Biden’s foreign policy has been both predictable and distinctly lacking in bite. The Russians found to their cost that although Trump espoused isolationist and non-interventionist views, he was prepared to use military force against Russian interests in Syria, and strategic leverage against their ambitions in Europe: his presidency actively campaigned against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline running to Germany.

It was Biden’s election that ultimately ensured the massive pipeline project could be completed without the implementation of US sanctions. Biden’s refusal to take real action against Nord Stream 2 was a huge strategic win for the Kremlin, and a significant factor emboldening the Russians over Ukraine.

The disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan last August further convinced the Russians that the United States no longer had the stomach to fight against even far lesser adversaries, and was willing to allow the Taliban to return to power in a country that had been the launch pad for the 9/11 terrorist attacks that claimed 3,000 lives.

The lessons from American weakness in Afghanistan and in Europe have been closely observed in Beijing. It is no coincidence that the Chinese-Russian axis is now at its strongest point in decades.

Putin and Xi Jinping are today collaborating on practically every major foreign policy issue, from Taiwan to Ukraine and Iran. The Biden White House has no strategy for confronting the joint threat that the world’s two biggest authoritarian powers pose.

Biden’s biggest foreign policy legacy may be the uniting of America’s largest adversaries, whose aim and ambition is to undermine and replace the American-led Western international order.

Joe Biden has shown himself to be a president of limited ability, short-sighted vision, and extraordinarily bad judgment. Instead of heading to Europe this week to rally America’s allies to stand up to the Russian bear, he is entrenched in Washington, surrounded by sinking poll numbers and tied to a failed left-wing political project at home.

Just 13 months into his presidency, the Biden era is already looking like a monumental failure. Joe Biden is the antithesis of Ronald Reagan, a president who clearly understood the importance of American leadership, and had a clear-cut doctrine and strategy for defending US interests, strengthening its alliances and standing up to its enemies. Biden’s approach has been clueless and toothless, lacking in vision, and increasingly outflanked by hostile regimes.

These are dangerous times for the free world. A world without America at the helm is unthinkable. But that is the direction the Biden presidency is taking us in."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/20/toothless-president-biden-failing-west/

[perrykneeham]

"The impending war in Ukraine has exposed not just the impotence and shameful appeasement mindset of Europe’s ruling elites in Brussels, Berlin and Paris"

That's about the size of it.

[bertruss2]

Macron to the rescue. He appears to have brokered a meeting between Biden and Putin to address Russia's fears of the eastward expansion of NATO. To address the immediate threat of flooding the Donbass area with NATO weapons which the Ukraine government now has available to attack the separatists and the longer-term prospect of Ukraine joining NATO. France holds the presidency of the EU Council, so Macron is well-placed to act as an intermediary.

[perrykneeham]

Still waiting for the link to Ukraine shelling of Donbas BTW.

[perrykneeham]

Putin sent Macron packing with his tail between his legs last time.