Posted on 03/10/2022 6:19:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Russian terror campaign against Ukrainian civilians continues unabated even as its military operations resemble something dreamed up by the Three Stooges. On Wednesday, the Russian Air Force bombed a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol. They claimed that a very pregnant wounded woman, who happens to be a Ukrainian beauty blogger was a “crisis actor” (Alex Jones needs to demand royalties for this) before deleting their tweet. The Russians are claiming, without a shred of evidence, that the hospital was used for military purposes, that they had notified the UN (apparently in secret) that the hospital was being improperly used, and that they were “baited” into the attack. I have doubts that the attack was deliberate. The Russians seem to have stopped using precision-guided munitions for their air attacks and rely on gravity or “dumb” bombs. The presence of Stinger MANPADS forces the survival-oriented pilot to fly higher than 10,000 feet. At that altitude and going at high speed, it is doubtful that there is a Russian pilot who could hit anything smaller than the city. (Russian pilots fly about 8 hours per month, that is barely enough to keep flight qualified.) The Russian intent appears to be something out of the Blitz of London. That is, they plan to bomb the city at random to try to terrorize the civilian population. This attack goes along with the Russians mining evacuation routes from Mariupol knowing civilians would be using them.
As these war crimes are unfolding before us, Dmitri Peskov, Kremlin spokesman and Putin Minime, sniveled about how mean the West was being to Russia. He declared that the West was waging “economic warfare” against Russia while all Russia was doing was killing women and children for the sole purpose of showing they could. He is also quoted in Interfax playing the victim:
“We have said repeatedly that Moscow was, is and will be a reliable guarantor of energy security not only for the European continent, but also at the global level. And even now, as you see, energy resources are being supplied,” Peskov told reporters, responding to a question from Interfax as to whether Russia is ready to continue supplying energy resources to countries that have supported the sanctions.
“And Russia values this reputation of a reliable supplier of energy resources. The European leaders unanimously admit that Russia is fulfilling its obligations under all current contracts continually and in full. But you see the bacchanalia, hostile bacchanalia carried out by the countries of the collective West, which, of course, makes the situation very difficult and makes us seriously ponder it,” he said.
I’d like to make two observations on his statement. I think Peskov got drunk and buggered his thesaurus (NTTAWWT) to come up with “hostile bacchanalia.” The reason that Russia is a “reliable guarantor of energy security” is because they get paid and energy exports are not subject to sanctions so it is crucial to Russia that they deliver agreed quantities of oil and gas and do so on time.
Is there an economic war underway against Russia? Not yet. Most Russian banks have not been sanctioned. Energy, food, pharmaceuticals, and medical supplies can be imported/exported without any problem. But Russia is getting an idea of what economic warfare looks like.
U.S. and European financial penalties and restrictions are throttling banks and other businesses in Russia and in Belarus, its ally, limiting the Russian government’s ability to use its enormous foreign currency reserves, and impeding millions of Russians from using their credit cards, accessing their bank deposits or traveling abroad. Foreign assets of wealthy individuals and businesses allied with the Kremlin have been frozen. The European Union on Wednesday expanded the list of directly sanctioned people and organizations to nearly 1,000.
Rating agencies have sharply downgraded the Russian government’s credit, signaling that it may be unable to pay creditors. Fitch Ratings warned on Tuesday that in its view, “default is imminent.”
Hundreds of Western businesses — manufacturers, oil companies, retailers and fast-food chains like McDonald’s — have suspended operations in Russia; Mr. Peskov said Wednesday that he hoped the number of Russians left unemployed by the exodus “would not be in the millions.” Russian lawmakers are considering nationalizing the assets of foreign companies that leave in response to the war.
How the ruble exchange rate has changed since 2000 after #Putin came to power. pic.twitter.com/Vd0Hw4kWwN
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 3, 2022
Morgan Stanley predicts that Russia could face a Venezuela-style default, possibly as soon as April 15.
“We see a default as the most likely scenario…It is unlikely to be like a normal one, with Venezuela instead perhaps the most relevant comparison.”
https://t.co/tZV7ft1gwg pic.twitter.com/pobrybMuzE— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) March 7, 2022
There are some Americans who see sanctions as “driving Russia into China’s arms.” The downside of such an event escapes me. China doesn’t need what Russia has to export and can’t get it economically as Russia’s lines of communications and transport run to Western Europe. If Putin has sand in his thong about Ukraine’s NATO membership being a threat, why would he allow Russia, with a GDP about equal to Texas, to enter into a close relationship with the #2 economy in the world?
But can China provide Putin with an economic lifeline? I’d say no, for four reasons.
First, China, despite being an economic powerhouse, isn’t in a position to supply some things Russia needs, like spare parts for Western-made airplanes and high-end semiconductor chips.
Second, while China itself isn’t joining in the sanctions, it is deeply integrated into the world economy. This means that Chinese banks and other businesses, like Western corporations, may engage in self-sanctioning — that is, they’ll be reluctant to deal with Russia for fear of a backlash from consumers and regulators in more important markets.
Third, China and Russia are very far apart geographically. Yes, they share a border. But most of Russia’s economy is west of the Urals, while most of China’s is near its east coast. Beijing is 3,500 miles from Moscow, and the only practical way to move stuff across that vast expanse is via a handful of train lines that are already overstressed.
Finally, a point I don’t think gets enough emphasis is the extreme difference in economic power between Russia and China.
Some politicians are warning about a possible “arc of autocracy” reminiscent of the World War II Axis — and given the atrocities underway, that’s not an outlandish comparison. But the partners in any such arc would be wildly unequal.
Putin may dream of restoring Soviet-era greatness, but China’s economy, which was roughly the same size as Russia’s 30 years ago, is now 10 times as large. For comparison, Germany’s gross domestic product was only two and a half times Italy’s when the original Axis was formed.
So if you try to imagine the creation of some neofascist alliance — and again, that no longer sounds like extreme language — it would be one in which Russia would be very much the junior partner, indeed very nearly a Chinese client state. Presumably that’s not what Putin, with his imperial dreams, has in mind.
The irony of this is that Russia proceeded with the invasion of Ukraine knowing that it would be the target of economic sanctions. In fact, its financial institutions took extraordinary steps to try to limit sanctions impact.
Vladimir V. Putin’s posture toward the West through the recent Ukraine crisis seems unusually defiant, even for him. But there may be more behind his confidence than military power or empty bravado.
Over the past several years, Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, has restructured his country’s economy for the specific purpose of withstanding Western financial pressure.
Russia has drastically reduced its use of dollars, and therefore Washington’s leverage. It has stockpiled enormous currency reserves, and trimmed its budgets, to keep its economy and government services going even under isolation. It has reoriented trade and sought to replace Western imports.
Russian economic officials “are pretty proud, and have good reasons to be, for the work they have done to make the Russian economy more immune to sanctions,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
This transformation, among the most dramatic examples of what is known as “sanctions-proofing” worldwide, comes less than eight years after Western sanctions over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 mired Russia in economic and political upheaval.
Russia has not yet experienced anything like an economic war. Nothing like the full range of potential sanctions and economic actions have been brought to bear and already Putin’s Russia is reeling like an aging punch-drunk fighter despite having used the last decade to prepare for the eventuality. When all this is over, one hopes Putin has learned a valuable lesson but one doubts that he’s capable of doing so.
“pure propaganda”
The finger pointing and name calling is kinda a clue.
;-)
That last is a good point. The fall elections should be a slam dunk. “Should”.
The 2014 Oliver Stone interviews with Putin in Moscow are very informative as well.
The self proclaimed “Russia experts” around here could learn a lot from them.
I’m really glad we have a strong South Korea as a balance to China. My late husband fought there, and from time to time we would meet Koreans in the US and they would sincerely thank him for his service. Even Vietnam as a country is acting as a counter to China, although all those lives we lost were certainly not worth it.
Sorry. The ROC doesn’t contain China. The US protects the ROC. The big question is in the event of a US Japan collision with the PRC would the ROC opt for neutrality and hope the missiles fly over and China and Japan get wrecked.
We had an idiotic troll trying to make some idiotic point by pushing idiotic semantics, and now we have you backing up the idiotic troll. American soldiers died in Granada. Tell their families they didn’t die in a war
And then find some other idiotic troll to back up. One that makes his point before generating his idiocy.
Syria wasn’t a war either, but it was fantastic, hearing the Russians, of which about 200 died, crying on the radio for help, which Putin never sent.
Syria was a US CIA generated operation as part of Arab Spring that turned into a Civil war. The US government and by extension the US taxpayer who produced the funding has literally the blood of hundreds of thousands of non combatants in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan on it’s hand’s. Bipartisanly Washington lied over and over again on these operations just as has been done with the Covid-19 fiasco. The difference being your government killed it’s own citizens this time
Non combatants in Syria were barrel bombed by Russia, not to mention the use of chemical weapons.
But the Russian spetznaz killed was sweet for all.
The US initiatived the conflict thinking it would be an easy take down of the Assad regime. Russia reacted to support it’s client state and a massive conflict ensued. The wizards of smart at Langley once again thought they could wave their magic wand and create a desired reality. It did go as planned. Remember, these are the same people who concocted the Jan 6 “
Insurrection”.
“People grabbing onto Putin imagining him as some sort of latter-day American Founding Father are going to find that Putin is an anchor around the neck drowning everyone.”
Aside from the savagery of what Putin is doing now, consider the possibilities of what he was involved in to get his start to the top.
https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-president-1999-chechnya-apartment-bombings/30097551.html [This describes a series of apartment bombings that led to Putin’s rise and a nasty Chechen war. Other interesting points are his early relationship with Belarus leadership, and death by radioactive poison of Litvinenko (a former FSB officer) and others who were investigating these bombings. Also Yeltsin who appointed Putin and his family interests.]
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/11/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/
This whole story is a real who-done-it with many disturbing ramifications to explore.
Thanks, sounds like a good read
Thank you.
I’ll check this out later.
Over time I’ve come come away thinking Putin was a very unsavory character.
There have been times when he did something decent and I lauded him on that
that one point, but folks shouldn’t read more than that into it.
I don’t remember everything bad I have read about him. I just know that my opinion was developed over time.
I do not think he is our friend by any stretch of the imagination.
I wonder if some of the spetznaz were getting tired of Putin’s rule (which apprears to not have served the Russian military well) and were allowed to die on purpose. It is reported that these elite troops are not in Ukraine, kept in reserve, or kept from going over to the “enemy”?
While some folks here claim I am a Putin supporter, I agree with your post.
The apartment bombings were a cynical Putin false flag—and he is definitely a bad dude.
That is exactly why threatening him will not work.
He will only respond to sincerely and respectfully offered win win scenarios.
Trying to intimidate or humiliate the guy is off the charts dangerous.
We need some adults in the room in DC—and they seem to have left the premises.
Imho that is one (of several) reasons he invaded Ukraine. He was convinced that the current administration could not be trusted to engage in rational negotiations.
By current administration do you mean Ukraine, the US, or EU? And I agree, the only way to negotiate with him is with an air of respect. But since he is an autocrat, and wants a win=win, how do we reconcile that with the fact that the vast majority of Ukranians absolutely do not want to sufer his autocracy. I do not see a happy ending. I do think we are wise not to poke the atomic bear. If he is truly dieing of cancer or something else, it would not be impossible for him to be quite willing to take the whole world with him. Does he love anyone, wife, child?
However, if he wants his reputation to survive in the eyes of some, he has to have a “good” excuse for whatever terrible things he does. So better to not have a no fly zone, since most of the bombing is with land based missiles anyway. Also flying MIGS from Germany to Ukraine, not a good idea. No excuses for using those nukes. Best to keep sending the Stingers, etc. and also perhaps mine the waters off Odessa and other suitable spots. Good sniper rifles are fine for killing officers, and pray someone in Russia can see Putin as their prey, successfully.
I’m wondering if Putin might be, in his own way, looking for a reset by firing all those generals. I really have no idea where his head is, or if I’m just hoping to see something that isn’t there, but in all honesty, if it weren’t for all Putin’s nonsense, Russia would probably be a lot further along with a higher living standard. That fact can’t have escaped him.
There is nothing moral on either side of this conflict.
Instead of being ahead, it is predicted that if this war goes on very long, Russia will end up 20 years behind. Below is a link about the firing of generals. Putin is also angry at the FSB folks who replaced the KGB. I looked at several, they all said about the same thing, but this one also had Comments interspersed between the click bait pictures.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
