5342

Saw the rumors; seems like quite the step to take even for an authoritarian regime.

5343

Yeah, and it probably gets some traction because there has been success with it in the past - though under much different circumstances - and many people just think you can declare a no fly zone as if NATO were Michael Scott.

5344

Heh, great way of putting it.

5345

One thing I’ve been thinking about is if the problems we are seeing with the RF forces is the rot of years of endemic corruption. Soldiers going into the field with rations that expired 7 years ago is amazing.

5346

This is a tweet thread from a Russian professor of finance in Madrid and Chicago, on the probable far-reaching impact of the sanctions. It’s a tweet roll up, but in Russian. A translation follows below.

Many people ask me to comment on sanctions. In short, my scientific conclusion, as a professor of finance, a doctor at the University of Chicago, is PIZDETS. And it’s fucked up that Russian residents, even educated, mostly do not understand what awaits them. I explain on…

… fingers. Very soon Russians will face a shortage of basic products. I’m not talking about all sorts of iPhones, the import of which has already been banned, but about food, clothes, cars, household appliances, etc. Russia is very strongly integrated into world trade. And already the largest operators refuse…

…Send containers to Russia. But even if a miracle happens and Russia finds someone who is ready to send containers to Russia for three meters, the question is, how to pay for it? Export revenues will be reduced several times, as all buyers will try to abandon Russian…

…Goods. We see that even unauthorized oil companies cannot find buyers for their oil. Gazprom, the main gas exporter, is already under sanctions, that is, it is not clear at all how it will receive foreign exchange earnings. The Russian Central Bank has accumulated a huge cup, 650 billion…

… dollars. Only more than half of these reserves have already been arrested, and what to do with gold is also not very clear. Few banks in the world will want to buy it from the Russian Central Bank so as not to fall under sanctions or huge fines. Many people think that Russia over the past years…

… built a bunch of factories, only all these plants - automotive, aviation, household appliances, etc. use actively imported components. That is, in the coming months we will be stopped by entire industries with all the ensuing consequences - shortage of goods, mass…

… unemployment, respectively, a drop in tax collection and, as a result, problems with the payment of salaries to public sector employees. Planes even inside Russia will also soon stop flying. After all, they are almost all imported, and the West has already banned the supply of spare parts. That’s why we’ll soon see a mass…

…Decommissioning of aircraft. The Internet, as we knew it, will also be covered. We have already blocked a bunch of information sites, the other day they are going to block Wikipedia. Twitter and Facebook are already slowing down. They’re going to turn off YouTube. Regarding agriculture. Do you know that…

…In Russia, the share of imported seeds is almost 40%? And the share of imported seeds in potatoes is 90%? That is, of course, farmers will come up with something over time, but at least in the short term we should expect a shortage of basic agricultural products and a sharp rise in prices. And that’s not all either…

… Everyone who can get out of the country will start to get out. They’re already actively lying. The government understands this, so today they have introduced a lot of measures to keep ITishnikov. Only they won’t work. Therefore, it is very likely that exit visas will be introduced for certain categories or completely…

…Will close the country. The only plus in this story is that those who were nostalgic for the USSR will be able to feel all its charms on their skin. And it will not be a relatively herbivorous USSR like Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Gorbachev, but the USSR, headed by a crazy dictator.

5347

:sadface:

5348

Good, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets Putin’s attention. Go after the cronies

5349

That is pretty remarkable. Questionable of course how many will get down there to be involved or how useful they’ll be, but it’s yet another indication that Russia really needs to have the war over quickly. If this drags out and sizable contingents of EU and US citizens travel to Ukraine to fight a war, getting the “West” to forget about the war and its atrocities is just going to be that much harder,

5350

Probably, corruption usually starts at the top and works its way down. Once someone comes in at the top and truly wants to change things, then they’re threatened by the people further down the chain.

You see that in so many places around the world, and it’s always the honest person who pays for it in the end. It’s a disease.

5351

Integrating a bunch of foreigners, who don’t speak the local language… doesn’t strike me as the greatest military option. Getting themselves killed, as described above, might be their biggest impact.

5352

Swedish is the third-most spoken language in Ukraine, after Mexican. I saw a tweet that said so.

5353

Keep in mind that a fair few of these people will be combat veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. There’s certainly a lot of buzz about this in the Vet community. I wouldn’t rule out that some of these contingents would be able to pack quite a punch if used properly, especially against poorly motivated Russian conscripts.

The same thing is happening in Denmark, btw:

Shades of the Spanish Civil War here.

5354

Homage to Kyiv Oblast

5355

Guess it depends on how many are ethnic Ukrainians living abroad vs. actual foreigners.

5356

Certainly true, also some analysts are saying that the Ukrainians have so many battle hardened veterans in their ranks that they can get people up to speed relatively quickly.

I hope that’s true.

5357

Worth noting that it is not just soldiers travelling to Ukraine. It’s also medics and people who are looking to help in whatever way that they can in non-combat roles. The Norwegian “Ukraine International Brigade” tolds news today that they’ll be sending off 15 people within a few days - most of them medical personnel.

There are certainly some people going down there without a clue of what they’re getting into, and also people going down with really wrong perspectives on things (right-wing extremists, etc), but the mobilization of Europe is… rather extraordinary to witness.

5358

If that holds true they will have already lost over a third of what they lost in the entire Afghanistan campaign. I also read some reports of coffins starting to arrive back home. No idea yet on the validity of that, but what were the mobile crematoriums for?

5359

That’s nearly 1,500 Benghazi’s!

5360

One thing I’ve been wondering: does Putin actually give a crap about the cronies?

The oligarchs may have been gadding about on yachts from Malta to Miami for the last couple decades, living la vida loca as international playboys. But it’s not like Vlad has been able to partake in that lifestyle to its fullest extent. After all, Putin frolicking in the west would look bad back home and ruin his “wrestles bears before breakfast” image, being an autocrat really does require a lot of hands-on time at the office, and it’s both expensive and highly risky for a head of state with a long list of enemies to constantly be traveling.

So when the oligarchs come to him and complain, “This is unbearable. They confiscated my yacht! Now I’ll miss the Capri regatta!” I suspect Putin will just say, “Welcome to my world. Suck it up and learn to love your Black Sea dacha.”

5361

It’s also getting close to what the US lost in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over many years of fighting.