Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

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The FSB was tasked with cooking up a fake assassination plot against Vladimir Soloviev, one of Russia's most prominent TV presenters. They were apparently ordered to make the assassins appear as neo-nazi meth-head Ukrainians.

The instructions apparently included "plant three SIMs", which was understood as Sims 3.

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1518706131220283396

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Finally the Biden administration is coming to realize that their long-term goal should be to weaken Russia to the point of impotence, to knock them out as a Great Power once and for all, and deprive China of a key ally as the Second Cold War gets going:

Austin's assertion that US wants to 'weaken' Russia underlines Biden strategy shift

That was obvious as soon as it became clear the Russians weren't going to reach their Plan A. It also gives some assurance to Putin that the west isn't actually interested in regime change in the Kremlin: Putin can rule Russia as a totalitarian police state all he wants, as long as his military is too weak to bother anyone else. Kind of like Saddam post-1991.

There were cynics in Ukraine who thought the US was intentionally stringing them along by drip-feeding them military aid, in order to grind down the Russians into a quagmire. With the increase in speed and quality of the military aid, as well as the realization that this war will be a long slog, that cynicism has dissipated somewhat, but it won't go away.

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https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1518916591299309569?t=I0SOJQmY-onYzMEHL7UWz...

The second best army in the world hasn't been able to defeat the gay neo-Nazi Satanists in Maruipol.

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Understand that in Russian Nationalist discourse, ‘Nazi’ means ‘not Russian, Western influenced’

So gay Nazis, Jewish Nazis, etc. makes perfect sense to them. A Nazi is a westerner whose out to get Russia in their minds,

How Putin views western leaders:

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Russia spent years trying to move their dependence on computer chips in-country, but they never got it fully done and were still importing chips from Europe and even the US. Most of what they need can be bought from China but it would require redesigns which obviously take time. Another issue is that like any large country, there is a certain share of their stock that needs to be reserved for other defense. Similar to how other countries in Europe wouldn't give up certain weapon systems without backfill from their allies. It's needed for strategic defense and would leave them vulnerable if they expended it all in the war. So there is a limit to how many PGMs Russia will use in Ukraine even if they technically have many more in their stockpiles.

Russia is going to have supply issues for the time being but eventually they will secure new supply chains and their weapons production will be mostly insulated from foreign sanctions. Who knows how long that will take. I'm sure it is of the highest priority now, though.

China recognized the supply chain vulnerability and made it a national priority to create replacements for imported technologies years ago. It's devoted hundreds of billions of $$ to that effect, but it's been unable to make substantial headway in that direction.

And if China, with 10X of Russia's population and economy, and a far greater manufacturing base, couldn't accomplish that after spending such time and money, and without being at war with the western powers, there's zero chance that Russia could do so ever, let alone in a timeframe that could affect the outcome of this war.

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Russia was starting to do this years ago as well. I remember reading about it in 2015.

Not saying they can get it done anytime soon, but they will certainly be trying. I expect them to lean very heavily towards China in doing so. But all of this is more of a future thing. Russia can't just create high-tech industry and redesign, re-implement and re-manufacture guidance systems for PGMs overnight. And with the significant brain drain that they experienced after the invasion, and even well before it, they might never have the domestic capacity for this. But it doesn't mean they can't work with other more sympathetic nations to build supply chains that are less susceptible to foreign interference.

But that will only increase Russia's dependence on foreign powers. Yes, Moscow-Beijing relations are strong now, but that's driven by the personal bromance between the two leaders. That will not survive the departure of either of them.

Also worth mentioning is diversion of components from supply chains restricted by sanctions. We can choke their supply pretty effectively but with Russia ramping up smuggling efforts they are still going to get some of what they need anyway in the meantime.

At the same time, the western powers are learning to step up enforcement of these sanctions. In the past few years, the US has learned to restrict the flow of high-tech components to China, and to convince its allies to play ball. And after February 24, the west used the same ready-made framework to enact sanctions against Russia.

Another factor: much of the supply chain has transformed from pure goods to also include services. Sure, they can smuggle in sophisticated machinery. But the machinery requires ongoing software support, without which the machine will be vulnerable to who-knows-what.

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Can't park there, mate.

https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1520026903784087553?s=20&t=vanD-kFwbpV...

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I don't want to be "that guy", but the Russians have been able to repel the Ukrainian counteroffensive toward Kherson from the northwest direction. Also, we still haven't heard the names of the two Russian generals who were supposedly killed in a Ukrainian strike on their command post. Every other time the Ukrainians claimed to have killed Russian generals, they always immediately announced their names, but not in this case. The fact that the Russians are able to plunder farm produce from the Kherson region indicates they are confident in their control.

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Edit: my point is that a majority, possibly a large majority, of these are the results of wartime Sabotage by very brave ukrainians rather than mere industrial accidents

Zelensky did say that he wanted Ukraine to become a giant Israel. Maybe that included having a ruthlessly efficient intelligence service.

Though, I suspect that a lot of these incidents are occurring because the factory managers are protecting themselves by destroying evidence that implicates them in corruption, now that the true state of their products has been revealed.

It's amazing how lowly the institution really is (in how it is treated). You'd think they would be treating them better, given how wealthy Russia's elite is. This kind of puts the role the Russians give the Chechens and others in perspective.

It's shocking, because it isn't that hard to actually put it into practice where the military becomes an elite class who are given privileges denied to the plebs.

A long thread about how, while official Russian propaganda glorifies the army, it's socially seen as a dumping ground for the outcasts of Russian society. Result: a vastly disproportionate number of Russian KIA's are from ethnic minority areas or from the poorest of the ethnically Russian areas.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1521147854949036032

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Kamil Galeev, one of the most prominent Twitter pundits about Russia, spoke (in English) to a US-based Chinese language podcast. It's worth a listen, since he gave updates about his previous tweets.

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It's been claimed that Putin had spent the past two years of self-isolation by listening to and reading from a variety of crackpots, while the normal affairs of state were allowed to languish. And, it was widely recognized that Russia's demographic and economic fundamentals would have made waging a major war much harder with every passing year. Also, Ukraine's army would have continued to further improve with every passing year, with its economy becoming wealthier as it further integrated into the EU. Perhaps, Putin saw this as the last chance for him to do what he always wanted, at the lowest cost.

But then again, without the you-know-what, you-know-who would still be in the White House, and who knows what would have happened next.

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Well today is the day of the big parade and Putin has nothing to show for it lol

There's speculation that he could order captured POWs to march through Red Square, like in the good old days. If that happens, it would be the war equivalent of this:

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RUB now has risen to 59.  RUB is now the strongest currency of 2022.  Part of this is because Russian imports from the EU have collapsed while its energy/food exports in USD/EUR terms have risen due to the rise in world energy/food prices but it is also about the Russian Central Bank acting in a way to prop up RUB.  I am not sure what is the point of pushing up RUB at this point.  My sense is Putin wants to deter the Russian upper class from shifting their asset abroad with the risk that the RUB will RISE after they convert their wealth from RUB to USD.  The problem with this strategy is that it is very short-sighted.  At some stage, RUB cannot go higher anymore and have to grow down, and then that is the point when the Russian upper class will try to shift their wealth making the fall of the RUB more difficult to control.  Putin is better off taking his thumb off the scale and allowing market forces to push RUB back down to 80-90 or something like that which will be much more sustainable for the Russian Central Bank to them defend.

The RUB rate is completely artificial, and bears no reality to prices on the street. It's as meaningful as the Soviets declaring the Ruble to be stronger than the US Dollar. Putin could announce one RUB to be worth $100 USD tomorrow, and it will be just as meaningful.

While it's true that the fall in imports of western consumer goods and high oil prices lead to real strength in the RUB, its official rate doesn't reflect reality, since non-state actors aren't free to buy and sell at that rate.

Consumer prices within Russia have not fallen back to pre-war levels. They remain at levels that imply an exchange rate that's still at record lows.

Foreign currency simply isn't available at the official rate, and Russians are going to the black market, just like in the old days.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-17/in-ussr-flashback-russians-are-hunting-for-black-market-dollars

While that’s allowed Putin to brag that the sanctions “Blitzkrieg” of the West has failed, ordinary Russians can’t take advantage of the currency’s strength. Oil flows and capital controls have warped the official rate, and the ruble is around 20% weaker at exchange points and on the black market -- reminding many Russians of its Soviet predecessor.

“It’s like trying to show the Soviet Union is beating America by waving a copy of the Izvestia newspaper in someone’s face in 1982 and saying: ‘Look, the dollar is worth only 64 kopecks!”’ said Sergey Khestanov, a Moscow-based professor of finance and banking and advisor to the chief of executive of the Otkritie brokerage. “I’d agree -- if anyone could actually buy a dollar for 64 kopecks.”

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You could very well be right of course but then you have stuff like this and that UK PM Twitter account has 5.9 M followers.  Seems this one is not a low-profile media post.  Again this picture does not explicitly link the Ukraine cause with the LGBT cause but showing up at the same time certainly does not help the Ukraine cause with the vast socially conservative developing world.

And who in the developing world actually cares at all, let alone in a way that could affect policy? The number of Indians or Nigerians who think "I was supporting Ukraine's right to exist, but I saw pictures of rainbow flags, so now I don't anymore, and I will tell my government to actively support Putin" can be counted on one hand.

People can hold the two opinions "I don't like buttsex" and "Putin is scary" at the same time, you know.

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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/russian-troops-kill-up-to-80-polish-fighters-in-ukraine-moscow/articleshow/92455028.cms

"Russian troops kill 'up to 80' Polish fighters in Ukraine: Moscow"

Russia MoD claims to have killed up to 80 Polish mercenaries as part of a missile strike.  My impression is that the Polish form the biggest contingent of mercenaries on the Ukraine side.

Could you please not use the term "mercenaries" about international volunteers, there is an international definition of what a mercenary is and paid foreign volunteers in a regular army aren't included (if they were the Gurkhas in the British army would also be mercenaries, which would be ridiculous).

That is fair feedback.  I do not know how these units are being paid but in the meantime, a more neutral terminology would make sense although I never viewed the word mercenary as negative.  Was is a business and there are professional warriors are getting a honest days work for pay. 

Of course, you would have gladly served Wang Jingwei's regime back in the day, since its forces enjoyed somewhat better pay and supplies than those of the Chongqing government.

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Kamil Galeev has another thread about the relationship between Moscow and the rest of its country. He claims that the capital city is set up so that it sucks resources from all over the country, at a far greater extent than other dominant cities like London or Paris. This is an intentional policy of the ruler, in order to protect himself from the consequences of his misrule of the country. That's why life in Moscow, and Moscow alone, is almost indistinguishable from any other European capital, while the rest of Russia is a third-world state.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1552324765154611201

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This is actually something that has been in my mind for a while. Moscow/St. Petersburg has been the center of power in Russia since the time of the Tsars. There are no alternative centers of powers in Russia outside of those two cities. This is very different to other empires like the USA, China or the UK with multitudes of influential competing regional interests.

Kamil wrote that there are potential alternate centres of power in Russia, but successive regimes ensured that no regional elite that isn't dependent on Moscow's patronage could emerge. Hence, the only way that Russians could enjoy liberal representative government is to break up Moscow's empire. He mentioned that Russia, if that happened, would most likely break up in a way resembling Spain's empire in Latin America.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1507820717127000064

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That’s not a good thing. Sanctions only hurt civilians, not governments. Theres a reason why every country with an economy in “shambles” still has all the higher-ups in government living in palaces. The Russian people don’t deserve to be hurt, but that’s the only thing that comes out of sanctions.

The purpose of these sanctions was to cripple the Russian economy's ability to sustain the cost of a long war, not to provoke a regime change in the Kremlin. These are completely different from the US sanctions on (say) Cuba, which exist purely because a small group of sore losers are located in a swing state. This is the most important nugget in the article:

The study said Russian imports have largely collapsed since the war began, and that the country is facing stark challenges securing crucial inputs, parts, and technology.

"Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill with no capacity to replace lost businesses, products and talent," the team found.

"The hollowing out of Russia's domestic innovation and production base has led to soaring prices and consumer angst," the authors added.

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Maybe provoke regime change in the long run. That's still unlikely, though, because there's literally no free press in Russia and a majority of people just eat up what Kremlin propaganda channels tell to believe.

We'll have to see. Dictatorships have survived far worse than a failed war of conquest. The Kim and Castro regimes defied all odds and survive to this day. I was told by Cubans when I was there, that the 1980s were the most materially wealthiest period, but also the most politically and socially repressive. Fidel Castro survived the Soviet collapse by legalizing dollars and some private businesses. So, dictatorships are often adept at surviving, when their existence is at stake.

But...

A sizeable minority of Russians have come to expect a first-world standard of living with iCrap, overpriced coffee, and fancy vacations. For all that to be rudely taken away by a war that turned into a disaster would shock their perspective of Putin. Putin, in turn, will have to resort to the jackboot to hold onto power; but Kamil Galeev pointed out that Russia is so large, and so centralized, that a failure in the patronage system will lead to regional leaders simply ignoring the Kremlin and finding their own way.

So, it's quite possible after a hypothetical Russian defeat, that Putin remains in the Kremlin, but as little more than a Grand Duke of Moscovy.

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Its very hard to overstate how useful the "vengeful US" bogeyman was for Castro in deflecting mass popular discontent from his own regime though. Its no coincidence either that near economic collapse following the fall of the USSR caused some belated modernisation and liberalisation.

Of course. That's why the "western powers led by the US are out to get us" propaganda line will be useful for dictatorships seeking to distract their populations from their failing economies, and that we can't automatically expect a regime change even if Russia completely loses this war.

But even that has limits. Most Cubans, from my understanding, do recognize the US embargo as unfair, but largely blame their own leadership for the long lines and power blackouts they endure. They're especially enraged at (for instance) the all-inclusive beach resorts having all-you-can-eat buffets and reliable power, since the resorts are owned by the state or even the military. Hence, the country's scarce resources are funnelled into resorts that generate foreign exchange that enrich the party elite.

Hence, the cliché that Russians are willing to endure horrible leadership still holds true, until it doesn't. Which is itself a cliché.

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https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/

"UKRAINIAN FIGHTING TACTICS ENDANGER CIVILIANS"

Amnesty International which clearly is no friend of Russia gets around to complain about Ukrainian tactics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

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https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/

"UKRAINIAN FIGHTING TACTICS ENDANGER CIVILIANS"

Amnesty International which clearly is no friend of Russia gets around to complain about Ukrainian tactics

Russians can immediately end this by going back to Russia. Ukraine can't, because their country wouldn't exist anymore.

I wonder what Jaichind thought of the army of Nationalist China using scorched earth tactics - including intentionally flooding the North China Plain - in order to disrupt the invading Japanese army.

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Just to be clear I have no problem with these Ukrainian tactics and in fact support them since All is fair in love and war.  War is a matter of life and death and all tactics has to be on table to achieve victory. 

My main point is that this news is a signal that this is a sign that the progressive left NGO anti-Russian front might be breaking and some are beginning to distance themselves from Zelensky.

The war would end tomorrow if Russia simply withdraws its troops back to its own territory, and Putin declares his "special military operation" a success. Not a single more person, Russian or Ukrainian, military or civilian, would die, and the west would probably lose interest in sanctions by the end of the year. Everyone wins. Except Putin's personal ego.

To draw a line from "Amnesty International criticizes Ukrainian troops for being to close to civilian buildings" to "lol teh woke left are breaking up from supporting Ukraine" would require mental gymnastics that would make Ah Q [for non-Chinese: a figure in a Chinese short story written in the 1920s, who lives a miserable life, and who spins his failures as successes] proud.

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The more I read about the PRC, the less I like it. I hope that the West has a plan to gradually decouple its economies from that of the PRC. A bonus from that will be the mitigation of trade secret and patent theft. The entanglement was less than I thought actually which was a relief. The PRC can export its stuff to Russia and Hungary and Turkey and North Korea and Somalia.

Well if that were to take place it will be a heavy hit on collective West as well as PRC. But as the chart below shows it will not b fatal for PRC.



The PRC-Global South economic integration has been a significant trend over the last decade.  To be fair the chart excludes Japan but if there is one thing one can count on it is that Japan will do what is best for Japan.  Any cutting of trade with PRC is for sure the Japanese business community is not interested in.

Here's a simple question: what will happen to China's industrial and technology sectors without imports of high-tech components, which are only available in western-aligned countries? Its economy simply cannot go back to being the exporter of plastic toys and blue jeans.

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Now as in not April-May when the MSM thinking is that Russia will soon exhaust itself and cannot continue the war.  What has taken place in Russia has shifted to a war of attrition that limited its losses and takes ground slowly and seems to have demonstrated that it can continue the war indefinitely.  On the collective West side, an indefinite war would mean more efforts domestically to maintain economic and military aid to Ukraine which the MSM clearly would be concerned about maintaining the longer the war drags on.

As the Chinese say, this is calling a deer, a horse.

It's now Ukraine that's slowly on the offensive and waging a war of attrition. It's getting ever more advanced military aid from the western powers. Just this week, Ukraine has conducted multiple strikes on strategic targets on the Crimea (which is as officially integral to Russia as Moscow) with the help of US intelligence - this should be unthinkable period, let alone when Russia is supposedly on some slow and steady strategic offensive. The only retaliation the Russians could muster is to bomb a home for the deaf in Kharkiv, and to park trucks laden with ammo next to nuclear reactors. The Russians are now scrounging for recruits among veterans of their war in Afghanistan (!!!), and among violent prisoners - hardly a sign of confidence or resolve.

I read the WPT article that, IF, the USA does need to cut and run in the future from this war they laid the basis for making sure Bidne is not to blame.  BTW, it will not work IF it comes to that.

...or, maybe, the Washington Post likes to reveal inside scoops.

That's what autocrats and those who simp for them don't understand: criticism of political leaders during a war is not a sign of defeat or lack of resolve. The British press continued to criticize Churchill even during the Blitz, and the Nazis engaged in wishful thinking in believing this meant they were winning.