Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Lykaon]

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1687853436824346624?s=20
Ruble 🔻🔻🔻

Sell a dollar: 87 rubles

Buy back that same dollar: 107 rubles

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1687793861371072512

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1687853436824346624?s=20
Ruble 🔻🔻🔻

Sell a dollar: 87 rubles

Buy back that same dollar: 107 rubles

The rates of Russian state-owned banks are more moderate, what can confuse people, but they have a tricky postscript:

...without obligation of the bank to buy or sell the indicated currencies at this rate.

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1687776405776384000

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1687748393399910400?s=20

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1687854191971069952

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1687862796816728064

https://www.twitter.com/jonnytickle/status/1687876164986224640

[Stranger in a strange land]

Why is SA doing this again? I ask because they last thing it did was prop Putin up by cutting oil production. Is it because they are annoyed that Putin is cheating in the deal by exceeding his quota or something else?

How dependent is Russia on the Black Sea for trade? Up go the insurance rates anyway, way up.

Do they (or their regional allies) get a lot of grain from Ukraine perhaps?

[Torie]

Why is SA doing this again? I ask because they last thing it did was prop Putin up by cutting oil production. Is it because they are annoyed that Putin is cheating in the deal by exceeding his quota or something else?

How dependent is Russia on the Black Sea for trade? Up go the insurance rates anyway, way up.

Do they (or their regional allies) get a lot of grain from Ukraine perhaps?

If that were the case, a more direct path would be for SA to tell Russia to stop f'ing with Ukraine's grain, or it would flood the market with oil, and cut off Russia's cash flow.

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1687686952915480576

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1687703831574917120

I am surprised that they didn't start the English language course a while ago.

[Torie]

https://www.ft.com/content/8e831ab5-c99f-4b59-9b9b-125697f86cf4

This article linked above and embedded in a tweet posted above is one of the best I have read as to what is in play on the battlefield.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/tvtoront/status/1687917155818385409?s=20
I hate Putin so much 🤬😡

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/NLwartracker/status/1687350918629429250?s=20

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1687914282761994241?s=20

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/NLwartracker/status/1687350918629429250?s=20

He is probably impressed that it hasn't expired yet.

Russia provides its soldiers with MRE that expired back in the 90s.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1687703831574917120
I am surprised that they didn't start the English language course a while ago.

Why the hell are they even doing this in the Google Translate era? Is it really necessary to make Ukrainians native English speakers just to understand the instructions?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1687703831574917120

I am surprised that they didn't start the English language course a while ago.

Ukraine's tried to get more English proficiency in its pilots, but the problem is that their pilots die regularly.
That being said, Ukrainian leadership should probably be trying harder on this anyway, even if the deficiencies of their situation give them difficult options.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1688114079515238400?s=12
Interesting it looks like UA is flanking Urozhaine from two sides

[Torie]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/world/europe/putins-forever-war.html

This is a depressing article with some very compelling images (the NYT is really good at that these days, the grey lady no more), about Putin being in the war for the long haul, seamlessly insulating the elites in Moscow from it all*, while using the impoverished men from the hinterlands, by offering them contract wages at 5 times the rate of their otherwise paltry wages of $500 a month.

*There is an image of a chic area in Moscow where the ambiance and sartorial presentation of its denizens would fit right in with the hippest and richest zip codes of NYC, bracketed against another of a city in the hinterlands (the cannon fodder supply zone) that could be mistaken for a third world hell hole.

Another depressing statement is that the 200,000 dead from the war are about equally divided between the two sides, per estimates from American diplomats in Moscow. Ouch.

Putin was passive when the Wagnerites moved on Moscow because he feared his guys would refuse to fire on them if ordered to do so.

The article has images of scenes in Moscow where the ambiance and sartorial presentation would fit right in with the hippest and richest precincts of NYC, and other images that look like some urban hell hole in the third world.

Here are some snippits of interest (culled down to the 200 word copyright quota - I always do a word count on Word and so should you),  the most arresting being the news that Europe is helping to finance Putin’s war by buying refined oil from India. I did not know that. Does Biden know that?

Sitting at a cafe overlooking the Patriarch’s Ponds in one of the toniest areas of central Moscow, Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy chairman of the State Duma and a direct descendant of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy, exuded confidence as a moneyed crowd ate large crab claws and other delicacies.

When I asked him how Russia proposed to pay for a prolonged war effort, he shot back: “We pay for it all from our sales of oil to Europe via India.”

This was bravado, but it had some truth to it. Russia has rapidly adjusted to the loss of European markets with oil sales to Asia — and India has sold some of it on to Europe in refined form.

“Our values are different,” Mr. Tolstoy said. “For Russians, freedom and economic factors are secondary to the integrity of our state and the safeguarding of the Russian world.”

The Kremlinology of the Cold War has been replaced by the equally arduous pursuit of trying to penetrate the utter opacity of the Kremlin to read the mind of a new czar, Mr. Putin, now in the autumn of his rule.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/world/europe/putins-forever-war.html

This is a depressing article with some very compelling images (the NYT is really good at that these days, the grey lady no more), about Putin being in the war for the long haul, seamlessly insulating the elites in Moscow from it all*, while using the impoverished men from the hinterlands, by offering them contract wages at 5 times the rate of their other paltry wages of $500 a month.

*There is an image of a chic area in Moscow where the ambiance and sartorial presentation of its denizens would fit right in with the hippest and richest zip codes of NYC, bracketed against another of a city in the hinterlands (the cannon fodder supply zone) that could be mistaken for a third world hell hole.

Another depressing statement is that the 200,000 dead from the war are about equally divided between the two sides, per estimates from American diplomats in Moscow. Ouch.

Putin was passive when the Wagnerites moved on Moscow because he feared his guys would fire on them if ordered to do so.

The article has images of scenes in Moscow where the ambiance and sartorial presentation would fit right in with the hippest and richest precincts of NYC, and other images that look like some urban hell hole in the third world.

Here are some snippits of interest (culled down to the 200 word copyright quota - I always do a word count on Word and so should you),  the most arresting being the news that Europe is helping to finance Putin’s war by buying refined oil from India. I did not know that. Does Biden know that?

Sitting at a cafe overlooking the Patriarch’s Ponds in one of the toniest areas of central Moscow, Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy chairman of the State Duma and a direct descendant of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy, exuded confidence as a moneyed crowd ate large crab claws and other delicacies.

When I asked him how Russia proposed to pay for a prolonged war effort, he shot back: “We pay for it all from our sales of oil to Europe via India.”

This was bravado, but it had some truth to it. Russia has rapidly adjusted to the loss of European markets with oil sales to Asia — and India has sold some of it on to Europe in refined form.

“Our values are different,” Mr. Tolstoy said. “For Russians, freedom and economic factors are secondary to the integrity of our state and the safeguarding of the Russian world.”

The Kremlinology of the Cold War has been replaced by the equally arduous pursuit of trying to penetrate the utter opacity of the Kremlin to read the mind of a new czar, Mr. Putin, now in the autumn of his rule.

This is the conundrum for Putin though he can’t simultaneously do a frozen forever conflict while insulating the elites from it. We are already seeing that issue by the fact he raised the mobilization age to 70 because he’s far more willing to put a Siberian grandpa at the front line than a young able bodied boy from Moscow who might have well connected parents. However, by doing that the quality of the troops will deteriorate to the point that they won’t be able to do any serious offensive campaigns and just playing defense will be difficult

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, the "raising the military age to 70 is GOOD FOR RUSSIA ACTUALLY" takes are pretty puzzling.

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1688185681795850241
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1688207452716601344

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1688184134638665728

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1688200910479278080
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1688191801474076672