Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/MisterA1980/status/1576341541127213057?t=fYtbGP98hkCfKGzHyYk...

[Frodo]

https://twitter.com/MisterA1980/status/1576341541127213057?t=fYtbGP98hkCfKGzHyYk...

Where was the 58th brigade? 

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1576797659943559169?s=20&t=sc_6s74...

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/MisterA1980/status/1576341541127213057?t=fYtbGP98hkCfKGzHyYk...

Where was the 58th brigade? 

I am assuming they might be referring to the 58th Combined Arms Army???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/58th_Combined_Arms_Army

[Storr]

Seems like the 25km advance may have been bogus. Still, 15km in two days is impressive:

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1576686842887688192?s=20&t=ORW-sZDgMaHRv0...

Nice:

https://twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1576831093168570368?s=20&t=ui3cQG1yVx...

[jaichind]

Russia Manufacturing PMI which estimates the pace of manufacturing expansion or contraction (50 is break even) hits 52.0 which is a six-year high.   Part of this is the base effect of a sharp contraction in the Spring where it hit 44.1 in March.  On the other hand, this current recovery is much sharper than the 2020 recovery when in April 2020 it hit 31.3 and only saw numbers around 51 in early 2021.  I think the slow Russian recovery from the 2020 slump can also explain this round of rapid recovery from the sanctions introduced slump of Spring 2022 since that meant there must be a good amount of capacity slack which was never brought back online in the post-2020 recovery.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

In slightly terrifying news, Czech citizens have crowdfunded the modernisation and delivery of a T-72 tank to Ukraine. The Defence Ministry, which didn't fully fund the project, announced that it was a gift for Putin's 70th birthday (in 4 days' time).

https://twitter.com/DarPutinovi/status/1576853604291395585

I don't know whether they're keeping the "face", but they've named it Tomáš. Tesla was right about the man-made horrors beyond our comprehension.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1576835895910535169

[Torie]

If you thought Russian troops were having a tough go of it due to their own shortcomings or the elan and skill of Ukrainian troops you would be in error. It is because they were fighting NATO troops, as the west tries to destroy Russia. And while you may refuse to believe that, apparently it has traction in Russia, where some folks are fearful for their future.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/03/world/russia-ukraine-war-news#on-russian-tv-the-kremlin-emphasizes-a-fight-against-all-of-the-west-not-just-ukraine

[Hope For A New Era]

I keep forgetting which side of the river Kherson city is on. UA is a lot closer to the city than I thought!

[DINGO Joe]

Russia Manufacturing PMI which estimates the pace of manufacturing expansion or contraction (50 is break even) hits 52.0 which is a six-year high.   Part of this is the base effect of a sharp contraction in the Spring where it hit 44.1 in March.  On the other hand, this current recovery is much sharper than the 2020 recovery when in April 2020 it hit 31.3 and only saw numbers around 51 in early 2021.  I think the slow Russian recovery from the 2020 slump can also explain this round of rapid recovery from the sanctions introduced slump of Spring 2022 since that meant there must be a good amount of capacity slack which was never brought back online in the post-2020 recovery.

The Russian [inks]ed Index hit a record high of 112 today.  Which is interesting since it only goes up to 100.

[2952-0-0]

Russia Manufacturing PMI which estimates the pace of manufacturing expansion or contraction (50 is break even) hits 52.0 which is a six-year high.   Part of this is the base effect of a sharp contraction in the Spring where it hit 44.1 in March.  On the other hand, this current recovery is much sharper than the 2020 recovery when in April 2020 it hit 31.3 and only saw numbers around 51 in early 2021.  I think the slow Russian recovery from the 2020 slump can also explain this round of rapid recovery from the sanctions introduced slump of Spring 2022 since that meant there must be a good amount of capacity slack which was never brought back online in the post-2020 recovery.

Cool story, bro. Will you put money into Russian ETFs to capitalize on the surging Russian economy?

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1576955420820013057

One would presume that the Russians moved south of the bridge before blowing it, but one never knows.

Dudchany does bring a whole new strategic area in range of Himars once fully established.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/mbk_center/status/1576946519415980032

Of course, they change hourly right now as the Rascists are having trouble figuring out a front line.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

[
file:///Users/newguest/Downloads/RAND_RR3063%20(1).pdf

Thanks for this link, very useful

[jaichind]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inflation-europe-now-looks-even-040000677.html

"Inflation in Europe Now Looks Even Less Transitory Than in US"

Points out inflation in EU is mostly due to supply factors which are made a lot worse due to the war.

They use a methodology similar to my economic scorecard approach that looks at a history of what EU CPI for 2023 was expected to be relative to what 2023 USA CPI is expected to be.  If this winter is a cold winter these numbers will look far worse for EU.

[jaichind]

Russia Manufacturing PMI which estimates the pace of manufacturing expansion or contraction (50 is break even) hits 52.0 which is a six-year high.   Part of this is the base effect of a sharp contraction in the Spring where it hit 44.1 in March.  On the other hand, this current recovery is much sharper than the 2020 recovery when in April 2020 it hit 31.3 and only saw numbers around 51 in early 2021.  I think the slow Russian recovery from the 2020 slump can also explain this round of rapid recovery from the sanctions introduced slump of Spring 2022 since that meant there must be a good amount of capacity slack which was never brought back online in the post-2020 recovery.

Cool story, bro. Will you put money into Russian ETFs to capitalize on the surging Russian economy?

Not to say I would do so but in reality all Russian ETFs listed in the collective West exchanges have all been halted due to sanctions.

[Virginiá]

Everyone, please check your images before or at least after you post to make sure they don't stretch the page out. I've had to manually reduce embedded images twice in the past few days. It just takes a few seconds to verify what you are posting won't mess things up. Preview the post, or view it after posting and edit if necessary.

[Storr]

Elon Musk proposes, edited with the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany's response (which is probably what your average Ukrainian would say to this proposal):

https://twitter.com/MelnykAndrij/status/1576977000178208768?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJc...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576973049277992974?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

[nicholas.slaydon]

Elon Musk proposes:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576973049277992974?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

Known idiot makes idiotic comments, news at 11:00.

[windjammer]

Elon Musk proposes:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576973049277992974?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

Well he represents only himself

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1576955420820013057

One would presume that the Russians moved south of the bridge before blowing it, but one never knows.

Dudchany does bring a whole new strategic area in range of Himars once fully established.

More of an annoyance than anything else. The AFU can easily bypass it a few miles to the north.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

...some territorial accommodation via say real referenda in exchange for Russia accepting that Ukraine become a NATO member might have some merit.

I don't say this to disagree with your proposal. The opposite in many ways. But: this kind of thinking demonstrates the absurdity of the Kremlin's apparent play here. The secessionist status of Donetsk and Luhansk was a viable way to prevent Ukraine's accession to Western supra-national institutions only if it remained not-entirely-successful, or somehow forced a deal on Kiev. It was already extremely risky, in that the Crimean, LNR, and DNR secessions already removed voters living there from any political input in Kiev, and meanwhile the ongoing situation contributed to a substantial surge in Ukrainian popular support for NATO accession. A world where Russia managed to cleanly break off its rump republics, sans a permanent gun to Ukraine's forehead regarding its "neutral" status, left open the risk that the new rump state would flee right into NATO's arms. The need to force a deal on Ukraine was, I presume, the source of the "feint" at Kiev early in the war. Of course, the state of the war now has rendered discussion of Russia's stated aims essentially moot; how could either side now tolerate some milquetoast federalization and multilateral exchanges of neutrality for security? In Georgia and Moldova, by contrast, there has been little evolution of the situation for 1-3 decades, and, all else being equal, neither is likely to join NATO sans major paradigm shifts.

[cue unstructured rant]

With this in mind, my theory is that, if we take the Russian government at face value (this is not a given, of course) we would have to assume some additional precipitating actions leading Putin, et al to think that now was the time to strike. If it had truly been about chemical weapons or genocide, surely the Kremlin had had eight years to rectify the situation! I have heard some cite a February 2022 statement made by Zelenskiy on the acquisition or building of nuclear weapons, but if that speech had any role in Putin's calculus, this only serves to emphasize the way in which Russian leadership (and, one is forced to concede, Ukrainian leadership) had already trapped itself in an escalatory circle--no such comment would have been made in a non-wartime Ukraine. At other points, it has been noted that the Biden administration had placed additional pressure on Zelenskiy to prosecute public figures with ties to Russia. But was the prospect of losing a few key voices in an already anti-Russia Ukraine so apocalyptic? I am not sure. (Ironically, at the time I had been mentally working on a fictional writing project that involved similar elements, so maybe it is in fact likely)

A third theory--of my own authoring--relates the war to events in the South Caucasus, where the Artsakh and Armenian militaries--armed with ancient Soviet hardware--were absolutely pummeled by an Azerbaijan fueled by natural gas revenues, ethnonationalist unionism, and shiny new drones from Israel and Turkey. In the aftermath of the 2020 war, there was talk among Western-leaning academics about what Ukraine could learn in the realm of military reforms from Azerbaijan, and as we all know Ukraine was set to buy the Turkish Bayraktar drone (hero of the Azeri war effort) before Putin's 2022 invasion even began. I don't propose this as a standalone motivator, but it may have helped to introduce the idea that, against all odds, a Ukraine with the right minds and money might win, and that it was best to pull the trigger now than wait for that day to come.

We can't ignore additional influences--the signing of Nord-Stream 2 making Russia feel secure i its place in European energy infrastructure; the pullout from Afghanistan revealing that Western-backed institutions would crumble at a moment's notice without external military support; etc.--so who knows?

[unstructured rant has petered out]

[windjammer]

Elon Musk proposes:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576973049277992974?s=20&t=CwDCCBxJcJq5j...

Well he represents only himself

To go a bit further, he's part of all these people who still believe Russia is a great army while it isn't. Ukraine doesn't have to sign it, they will be able to repeal the russians by themselves.

[Splash]

https://twitter.com/TallbarFIN/status/1576860407917989888