Ukraine and Russia Developments. Version 2.

[Dromikaites]

Being the neighbor of Russia carries a high cost since the 16th century.

That being said it would be suicidal for the Ukrainains to assume the Russians have stopped arming the terrorists. Therefore a truck spilling its goodies shouldn't surprise them.

The West would keep sanctioning Russia, therefore the more resources Russia spends on international terrorism the better for the final round of this match.

[Geronimo2006]

The OSCE has denied Russian media claims it is monitoring the 'polls' in Eastern Ukraine. Russian media have crossed the line from propaganda to outright lies.

OSCE denies Russian media claims it is monitoring the so-called 'elections' in Eastern Ukraine.

Russian state news has attempted to add legitimacy to the so-called elections that insurgents are holding in eastern Ukraine, but the Russian news agency has been exposed.
Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti ran a story last night with a headline that read "OSCE Observers Inspect Polling Stations in Donetsk Ahead of Local Elections" The article went into further detail saying, " a team of OSCE observers visited a polling station in Donetsk School No 1. They checked polling booths and voter registration desks."




The Organisation for Cooperation in Europe later tweeted: "No OSCE observation of so-called “elections” in east #Ukraine Sunday on 2 November and no OSCE monitors at polling stations"

[Stavroforos]

I'm not sure how they thought OSCE observation would bring added legitimacy to illegitimate elections in the first place...

[Adar]

I'm not sure how they thought OSCE observation would bring added legitimacy to illegitimate elections in the first place...

Some people are willing to believe anything as long as it help them sustain their worldview.

Russias media strategy is centered around keeping the waters as muddy as possible and just like we saw in Crimea it doesn't really matter about credible lies. Many European nations are unwilling to commit to any major efforts in Ukraine and event he most obvious lies serve as an useful excuse. Leaving any room for debate also mean that any people supporting a pro-Ukrainian intervention will have to contend with the general anti-western fift columnist justifying anything that goes against their own country.

[Heathen Hammer]

I'd wager the Ukrainians care most as its literally destroying their country.

Not really, conflict was meant to happen sooner or later, given how a lot of Ukrainian territories are not, in fact, Ukrainian.

And the precedent of the act as well is worrisome. How I see it right the more nations bordering Russia try to protect themselves and align with the west the more excuses they'll give Russia to threaten and otherwise pressure them.

What about Russians who lived on those lands for centuries and now are forced to live in a foreign country? Or their concerns and opinions are irrelevant?

If your border Russia you're either a buffer state or you're an enemy, basically.

Or that some Western states keep making serious efforts to destabilize areas in between EU and Russia. Nothing new, really.

Seriously, who cares if the Russians keep arming the terrorists?!

Russia is going down the drain. The more money the Russians spend on supporting the terrorists, the better.

Just keep telling yourself that.

The OSCE has denied Russian media claims it is monitoring the 'polls' in Eastern Ukraine. Russian media have crossed the line from propaganda to outright lies.

OSCE denies Russian media claims it is monitoring the so-called 'elections' in Eastern Ukraine.

So Geronimo, do you have proof for your previous claim re truck with "ammo" in it?

[Dromikaites]

I have recently spoken with people in their late '80s, who were teenagers at the time Cold War 1 had started.

Most of them told me they were very disappointed back then when they saw the Americans didn't drop the atomic bomb on Moscow. Most of them also felt abandoned, that the West was only paying lip service to the anti-communist struggle and thought they won't see the day communism is defeated and Soviet Union is broken into pieces.

Why is this relevant?

Because we're now at the beginning of Cold War 2, and to some people it looks like the Russians are winning. The good news is the Russian economy is much weaker than the Soviet one, the Western economy is stronger than it was at the end of WW2 and the Russian economy is visibly deteriorating.

That means we'll see the collapse and the breaking apart of the Russian Federation without having to wait for 45 years.

[Holger Danske]

Not really, conflict was meant to happen sooner or later, given how a lot of Ukrainian territories are not, in fact, Ukrainian.

Is this claim of yours based on the number of people with Russian passports, some bogus historical "we once owned that dirt", or a lovely combination of the two?

So.. What about the Baltics then?

[Deepstrike101]

That means we'll see the collapse and the breaking apart of the Russian Federation without having to wait for 45 years.

Dromikaites, please just give us a date so we can all laugh at you when that date passes and you are visibly wrong. You've been "prophesizing" the collapse of Russia for a year. I'm getting a little bored of your predictions consistently not coming true. It's almost like counting down until the red light turns green.

3...2...1...NOW! Dammit...3...2...1...NOW! Dammit...3...2...1...NOW! Dammit... 3...2...1...NOW! Dammit...

Except that you somehow don't realize that you are looking at a stop sign instead of a traffic light.

Russia's economy is shrinking by about 1.5%. Nothing good, but it's far, far, far, from collapse worthy. Ukraine is somehow afloat with 9% shrinkage. If you think 1.5% will cause a collapse, then Ukraine must certainly collapse within the next 48 hours!

You also have no sense whatsoever of the political situation within Russia. Discontent we see on TV or in the media comes from a loud but tiny minority. Often minority groups or members of civil rights groups. Not saying that there is anything wrong with those groups, but they certainly do not represent even a sliver of mainstream Russian society. Most Russians actually approve of the current leadership. Please go to Russia and get a sense of what you are talking about. Otherwise, you just seem more and more ignorant to those of us who have actually lived in Russia and still have relatives there... we know what people there think of the government, while you clearly do not. Stop living in a fantasy fuelled by your ignorance of the real situation in a foreign country you know little about.

As for your 80 year old friends, good for their murderous selves. Apparently, you and they share the common viewpoint that it's perfectly morally acceptable to kill millions of innocents just because you don't agree with their leader's politics. You and your friends like nuking civilians? I bet you also think locking people in concentration camps for being from Japan. For all of the criticism of Russia and the Soviet Union, you and your friends are equally bloodthirsty.

[Sire Brenshar]

Not really, conflict was meant to happen sooner or later, given how a lot of Ukrainian territories are not, in fact, Ukrainian.

So youre arguing that the Ukrainians - don't - care about this conflict? Are you replying to the wrong post?

What about Russians who lived on those lands for centuries and now are forced to live in a foreign country? Or their concerns and opinions are irrelevant?

So if the parent nation decides it wants to enter NATO or the EU how exactly is that infringing upon the rights of Russian minorities? Do Russians get some kind of special status other minorities don't? Are Russians cyborgs who couldn't possibly want anything other than rejoining mother Russia, not for anything like the wealth and security of European nations?

But seriously its the Russians own fault - when the Soviet Union was ethnically cleansing areas of Eastern Europe they should have moved all the minorities within their own territories into neat little national boxes - like they did with over 10 million Germans and Poles.

Or that some Western states keep making serious efforts to destabilize areas in between EU and Russia. Nothing new, really.

Uhh sure.

Mother Russia right or wrong huh.

The West would keep sanctioning Russia, therefore the more resources Russia spends on international terrorism the better for the final round of this match.

I dont believe there'll be a 'final round', if only because nobody really wants to bother confronting it.

Now obviously Russia won't actually collapse and disappear as a state due to its bad economy. But it will force it to stop its aggressive behaviour to try and recover.



Image from the economist.

[Geronimo2006]

Latvia Bans Russian Actor Over Donbas Shooting Scandal: Porechenkov fired on Ukraine troops



Meanwhile a similar motley crew of Western extremist pro-Russian parties as invited to monitor the vote in Crimea 'monitored' the Donbass poll in the guise of ASCE (Agency for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in an obvious attempt at subterfuge to bolster the perceived legitimacy of the ballot.

But the Russian project was, as earlier in the Crimea referendum in March, endorsed by a handful of fringe-party MEPs.

The list, as cited by rebel authorities, includes: Austria’s Ewald Stadler; France’s Jean-Luc Schaffhauser; and Italy's Fabrizio Bertot, who all hail from the far-right. Greece’s Sotirios Zarianopoulos, a far-left euro-deputy, also took part.

National politicians from mostly extreme parties in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, and Slovakia equally lent support.

The British daily, The Guardian, notes that Stadler, who entered the rebel zone from Russia, claimed to be there on behalf of the ASCE (Agency for Security and Co-operation in Europe), which sounds like the OSCE, but which does not exist on paper.

Another observer invited called for a list of Hungarian Jews posing a national security risk to be drawn up. It doesn't sit well with Putin's protestations about fascism.

[SorelusImperion]

I have recently spoken with people in their late '80s, who were teenagers at the time Cold War 1 had started.

And some other people are also disappointed that Stalin didn't raze Bucharest as punishment for Romanian participation in the Holocaust and the crimes commited against the various people living in the Soviet Union.

I suppose we shouldn't use such murderous revenge fantasy as model to approach international problems.

[Dromikaites]

And some other people are also disappointed that Stalin didn't raze Bucharest as punishment for Romanian participation in the Holocaust and the crimes commited against the various people living in the Soviet Union.

I suppose we shouldn't use such murderous revenge fantasy as model to approach international problems.

Correct me if I am wrong but the Romanian army went deep into the Soviet Union because the soviet Union had invaded and annexed the Eastern part of Romania on june 26th 1940. One year before the start of Operation Barbarossa. The Finns attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 for the same reason.

One reaps what one sows.

Russia, always true to her long tradition of making friends out of her neighbors (Finland and Poland in 1939, Romania and the Baltic States in 1940, Afghanistan in 1979) has sown an excellent crop in Ukraine. And then it started sowing in the NATO air space, as far as Portugal.

When the time to reap comes, the poor Russians would have no idea why things happen to them.

[Dromikaites]

Holy Database!

[SorelusImperion]

How predictable. Instead of agreeing that destroying cities and killing houndreds of thousands of people as acts of revenge is wrong you engage in meek attempts to defend crimes and justify them with prior crimes.

[ShockBlast]

How predictable. Instead of agreeing that destroying cities and killing houndreds of thousands of people as acts of revenge is wrong you engage in meek attempts to defend crimes and justify them with prior crimes.

No Soviet invasion of Romania = no Romanian - Nazi pact

He`s not justifying anything, merely explaining.

[SorelusImperion]

No Soviet invasion of Romania = no Romanian - Nazi pact

He`s not justifying anything, merely explaining.

He is searching for excuses, "you reap what you sow" is not an explanation its an attempt to justify the crimes commited by Romanian forces. If he wishes he can point it out himself if he agrees or disagrees with the point that is at the core of the matter. Obviously of course nuking Moscow is permittable razing Bucharest however isn't. Or is it ?

[Dromikaites]

Killing the Jews was wrong. Destroying the Soviet cities in the process of conquering them and killing Soviet citizens while doing that was part of the war. The Hague Convention states only cities which do not resist must be spared bombardment. That is as true today as it was then. If the Soviet citizens wanted their cities intact they should have surrendered them without a fight.

The Soviets reaped what they sow. Without the Soviet invasion of June 26th 1940 there would have been no Romanian invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Nuking Moscow would have been the natural option to quickly end the war against the Soviets, had the Americans decided to go at war in 1945. What makes you imagine what happened to the Japanese would have not happened to the Soviet Union, for precisely the same reasons it happened to the Japanese?

As for razing Bucharest, frankly nobody would have been surprised if it would have happened, if the Romanians would have defended it against the Red Army.

Romanians however have a different approach to war. We believe that dead civilians do not help the long term goals of our nation. In 1916 the Romanian army tried to defend Bucharest in the field and when the defense was breached, it withdrew far from Bucharest in order to spare its population and the city from destruction. Quite likely that would have happened in 1944 as well.

The thing is in 1944 the Red Army arrived in Bucharest 3 days after Romania had become an ally of the Soviet Union. That kind of made it more difficult to justify razing it because it would have sent the wrong message to the Bulgarians and the Hungarians, who the Soviet Union planned to "liberate" next.

Such wrong message would have enticed them to kill as many Russians as possible before seeing their own cities razed.

[Stavroforos]

delete

[Heathen Hammer]

Is this claim of yours based on the number of people with Russian passports, some bogus historical "we once owned that dirt", or a lovely combination of the two?

The fact that these territories were never part of Ukraine (in its historical UNR borders) until your bolshevick buddies added them to Ukrainian SSR?

So.. What about the Baltics then?

What about it?

So youre arguing that the Ukrainians - don't - care about this conflict? Are you replying to the wrong post?

No, but Ukrainians should have realized that they can either have "Ukraine for Ukrainians" in its historical borders, or federalized Ukraine with Novorussians having distinct status (like we did with Quebec). Ukrainians picked the former and their country reducing in size is the direct result.

So if the parent nation decides it wants to enter NATO or the EU how exactly is that infringing upon the rights of Russian minorities? Do Russians get some kind of special status other minorities don't? Are Russians cyborgs who couldn't possibly want anything other than rejoining mother Russia, not for anything like the wealth and security of European nations?

I guess it has to do with the fact that they don't want to be a part of foreign country? How would you like for your state to end up as part of Canada? We could always use an extra colony.

But seriously its the Russians own fault - when the Soviet Union was ethnically cleansing areas of Eastern Europe they should have moved all the minorities within their own territories into neat little national boxes - like they did with over 10 million Germans and Poles.

How is it Russians fault? The only ruler of Soviet Union who was, in fact, Russian was the one who allowed Warsaw Pact countries to leave and ended the Cold War. You can't really blame Russians for what Chuvash and Georgian did without consent of the population.

Uhh sure.

Mother Russia right or wrong huh.

Are you surprised to the fact that countries prioritize their national interests?

Latvia Bans Russian Actor Over Donbas Shooting Scandal: Porechenkov fired on Ukraine troops

So Geronimo, you keep forgetting to provide us proof for your earlier claim regarding supply trucks with ammo. Any progress on that?

[Adar]

Edit:

Seems like Russia is taking a hammering on the currency market as the oil prices continue to fall.

Being a major oil exporter seem to be very hard to combine with other industries which I guess is caused by price inflation created by the lucrative oil industry. A huge country like Russia could potentially counter act this better than smaller nations but the current political climate makes that very hard to achieve.

So I think Russia will be very dependent on oil prices for a long time ahead.

Full article
The Russian Central Bank's recent interest rate hike significantly exceeded analysts' expectations, but the bold decision may not be enough to tackle the sliding ruble and climbing inflation as plunging global oil prices and Western sanctions hurt the economy. The bank said Friday that it had not changed its ruble exchange rate intervention policy, confounding speculation that it might use that day's meeting to announce changes that would have enabled a stronger defense of the ruble.
The 1.5 percentage point increase, which takes the one-week minimum auction repo rate to 9.5 percent, compares with analysts' forecasts of a half-point rise in a Reuters poll earlier in the week.
The Central Bank's decision brings the cumulative increase this year to four percentage points, despite the economy's weakness.
"This represents a pretty bold move by [the Central Bank] to regain the initiative, having been faced with a collapse of their currency," said Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics. "The question is will it work?"
"I expect the market will keep testing the Central Bank. A consequence of this will be continued ruble weakness," Shearing said.
In a separate statement, the bank told Reuters that it had not changed its exchange rate intervention policy, which involves keeping the currency within a nine-ruble-wide band against a dollar-euro basket. The bank plans to scrap the band at the end of this year when it floats the ruble.
There had been speculation that the bank might use Friday's meeting to scrap the band ahead of schedule, or bring in a more discretionary policy that would enable bigger interventions.
"My concern is that the pressure on the ruble that we saw before this was hardly the result of interest rates being too low," said VTB Capital economist Vladimir Kolychev. "I very much want to believe that this [rate rise] will help the ruble. If not, then the Central Bank will have to change its exchange rate policy."
The Central Bank has been under pressure to raise rates to defend the ruble, which has shed around 20 percent against the dollar since mid-year due to falling prices of oil, a major export earner, and the sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine.
The move appeared to do little to buttress the Russian currency, even though higher rates should make it more attractive to hold deposits and other instruments in rubles. The ruble continued to weaken over the long holiday weekend, falling to 43.67 at 6:25 p.m. on Tuesday.

So Geronimo, you keep forgetting to provide us proof for your earlier claim regarding supply trucks with ammo. Any progress on that?

That reminds me. What military bases have been captured that contain sufficient ammunition to support a 6 month insurgency? Because so far the closest you came to a relevant source was one forward base for artillery and one border guard outpost which surrendered after running out of ammunition.