https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1713599281716720111
46.635005 32.722753
Location on Google Maps:
Previous day’s thread: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4189585/posts
Calling someone a RuZZian on FR is considered an insult.
Calling someone a Comrade on FR is considered an insult.
Summarizing this war:
A tragedy for Ukraine.
A disaster for RuZZia.
A strategic win for the USA. The biggest winner of the war.
“More than three decades after Reagan left office, most Republicans still believe that America is a force for good.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1713599281716720111
46.635005 32.722753
Location on Google Maps:
“On October 13, 2023, Russia’s patrol ship Pavel Derzhavin was hit for the second time and moved several kilometers away”
“Besides it, the multipurpose tugboat Professor Nikolai Muru was damaged.
Source: Captain 3rd Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda”
Film Featuring Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, And Churchill Meeting In Hell Barred In Russia
Most Russian Warships (not the very largest) as well as their Kilo Class submarines, can move between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, by travelling the Don and Volga Rivers, which are joined by a canal (when the canal is not frozen).
“Russia has added two additional missile-launching vessels to its Black Sea Fleet, military authorities in southern Ukraine reported on Telegram.
Two new Russian naval frigates are already present and on active combat duty in the Black Sea, along with a submarine.
These vessels could launch a volley of up to 20 Kalibr cruise missiles, the report estimates.”
Ruble death watch update:
After August’s big rise in Russian interest rates (now 13%, up from 7.5%) the value of the Russian ruble stabilized for a while (about a month), but then started falling again, along roughly the same slope it had been on for a year.
The ruble again fell to less than a penny in value (100 to the dollar). That seems to be a psychological barrier that Putin does not want to cross, with his re-election approaching in March.
On October 11th, Putin signed a decree, instituting capital controls, that require big exporting companies to convert about 75% of their foreign currency earnings into rubles. This has brought the ruble exchange rate back below 100 to the dollar this week (running around 97).
The head of the Russian Central Bank had been against using such capital controls until very recently, arguing that the effect on the currency is temporary (until businesses reroute earnings through new pathways around the controls), but that they place restrictions on real economic activity - another short term effect at longer term cost.
The decline of the ruble over the last 12 months (about 60%) likely reflects the weakening of the real civilian economy. The measures taken to mask this decline by propping up the ruble (raising interest rates and instituting capital controls) both worsen the actual economic fundamentals, while only temporarily strengthening the currency.