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On February 28 2022 12:36 Sadist wrote:
Im extremely concerned about the sotu on Tuesday. The US government will all be in one place. If ever there was a time for Putin to pull some shit that would be it.
Im probably just being extremely paranoid. Has it crossed anyone elses mind?
0 chance. It would be a direct act of war and we all know where that ends.
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Could they just keep the markets closed for multiple days/weeks and pretend that everything is fine?
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On February 28 2022 16:44 dbRic1203 wrote:Russian Central Bank just increased their interest rate from 8,5% to 20% and the russian Rubel tanked about 1/4th of its value The money printing starts I gues. I take that is a sign, that the sanctions against russia are working. With that I m hoping for more Protests among the russian people against the War of Putin. Source (in German): https://www.tagesschau.de/newsticker/liveblog-ukraine-krieg-montag-101.html
Sanctions don't work against Russia they said. Russia is resilient they said. It almost becomes a meme at this point with this reverse psychology from Russian officials. :D
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On February 28 2022 20:04 Gorsameth wrote:
Could they just keep the markets closed for multiple days/weeks and pretend that everything is fine?
Satirical tinfoil theory alert:
They are likely fully controlled since march 2020 and will keep making ATHs 5k years from now on when evolved dolphins walk the earth. No need to close anything.
What is not as easy to simulate as stocks and cryptos are commodities. Can’t print those.
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On February 28 2022 20:04 Gorsameth wrote:
Could they just keep the markets closed for multiple days/weeks and pretend that everything is fine?
In theory: yes. In practice: if everything is fine then why are none of the Russian financial institutions allowed to trade? Every day without trade is a day without commissions for everybody in the Russian financial industry. Not being allowed to trade at all for an extended period of time is probably worse for the oligarchs than taking a big loss at some point and then trading what they can (still not much under the sanctions).
E: You could also try artificially fixing the exchange rate the Argentina way... but black market currency trading was rampant during that time.
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On February 28 2022 20:04 Gorsameth wrote:
Could they just keep the markets closed for multiple days/weeks and pretend that everything is fine?
Keeping the market closed is the opposite of pretending everything is fine.
And their main problem is that all of their fire control measures are just convincing everyone even more that the fire is totally out of control. So the question is what kind of actions they could take to stop the bleeding.
And even Russias own population is not exactly known to trust their leadership, amplifying the exodus of money.
So what can they do? I'm pretty sure they planned just to do the good old "we are gonna pay for your losses (by printing money or using our foreign cash reserves)" like Turkey tried in the last couple of years whenever they had their currency and trust slide further and further.
Just that the slope is way steeper here. And that like half of their reserves suddenly got frozen. And that nobody in Russia trusts their own government or banks.
Chinese banks being extremely careful not to get hit and self imposing restrictions on Russian trade is certainly not helping. So this is also what I would expect as their main avenue of actually stopping the drop at some point: Convince China to actually guarantee their currency exchange/trade. That way there would be a way to establish a new baseline, however low it may be.
Oh, and as a side effect, they stop gambling on whether the ashes of the couch in the living room are worth 50c or 2$.
PS: looking at those measures, I'm kinda sure some oligarchs are actually happy of their assets being frozen in the west. If they should get ever become unfrozen, they will be the big winners of all this. And right now they can just shrug when the Russian central banks issues orders like a forced sale of 80% of foreign assets etc.
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On February 28 2022 20:04 Gorsameth wrote:
Could they just keep the markets closed for multiple days/weeks and pretend that everything is fine?
Off the top of my head, I can think of two immediate problems: companies/financial institutions that need to sell off assets to meet obligations no longer can, and this creates a financial contagion, and banks become unsure of the value of companies and begin restricting credit.
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My gues would be, that they don t want even longer queues in front of atms.
People in russia (to my knowledge) are allready trying to get cash. When the stock market plumets, there are going to be even more people trying to get money.
Putin tries to buy some time, so the banks can prepare for a bank run (by printing money probably)
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Kharkiv civilian districts were once again shelled by grads and artillery, no justification for such actions...
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So assuming the vague hope that Putin will be removed from power internally doesnt come true: How could we get him to retreat in a way that doesnt make it look like a defeat (because I'm not convinced he would simply accept that)?
Ofc this depends on his true motives, about which there seems a to be some amount of uncertainty. Given that he most likely sees NATO as a genuine enemy, and that he wants to "unite the russian people" (my wording), then I guess he wont do without some kind of success in these areas. Do you think any of the following options would be acceptable for either side:
-Ukraine gets to join EU, but NATO formally guarantees it wont accept Ukraine. No EU soldiers from other EU nations are allowed to be stationed in Ukraine. In return, Russia keeps Belarus nuke-free. Maybe russia even retreats soldiers from there and NATO reduces presence in the Baltic states in return?
-The two "peoples republics" become independant (I dont see how Putin would ever accept any less), but are "demilitarized" and anyone still living their is free to join the rest of Ukraine. Imo their fate could be the biggest issue, and yes, it's basically letting an aggressor "win", which I'm not comfortable with at all, since it could actually encourage him to try something like that again in a few years.
-Ukraine reopens the water supply to crimea, in return crimea, dunno, lets Ukraine participate in exploiting the nearby oil fields?
Now that I've written this, I'm not really happy with the overall picture. I dont think the ukrainians deserve any of this. But atm I cant come up with anything better...
PS: If this post is too speculative, feel free to take it down.
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On February 28 2022 20:14 SC-Shield wrote:
Sanctions don't work against Russia they said. Russia is resilient they said. It almost becomes a meme at this point with this reverse psychology from Russian officials. :D
Sanctions will make regular people take up arms against the state if the situation gets worse. Currently the interest rates on mortgages etc. went up like 25% and are killing people. A lot of the Russian and Belarussian people that work remotely (IT primarily) are most likely going to have trouble with their income (some of the remote employees from those countries already report that they're unable to receive their payments because of SWIFT).
Russia can't really keep this up for long or they're facing internal revolts.
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The problem with turning Ukraine into a neutral area that is guaranteed sovereignty is that it already was before Russia annexed Crimea.
By this point I assume Ukraine would want more assurances then a pinky swear that Russia won't do this again.
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On February 28 2022 21:16 Mafe wrote:
So assuming the vague hope that Putin will be removed from power internally doesnt come true: How could we get him to retreat in a way that doesnt make it look like a defeat (because I'm not convinced he would simply accept that)?
Ofc this depends on his true motives, about which there seems a to be some amount of uncertainty. Given that he most likely sees NATO as a genuine enemy, and that he wants to "unite the russian people" (my wording), then I guess he wont do without some kind of success in these areas. Do you think any of the following options would be acceptable for either side:
-Ukraine gets to join EU, but NATO formally guarantees it wont accept Ukraine. No EU soldiers from other EU nations are allowed to be stationed in Ukraine. In return, Russia keeps Belarus nuke-free. Maybe russia even retreats soldiers from there and NATO reduces presence in the Baltic states in return?
-The two "peoples republics" become independant (I dont see how Putin would ever accept any less), but are "demilitarized" and anyone still living their is free to join the rest of Ukraine. Imo their fate could be the biggest issue, and yes, it's basically letting an aggressor "win", which I'm not comfortable with at all, since it could actually encourage him to try something like that again in a few years.
-Ukraine reopens the water supply to crimea, in return crimea, dunno, lets Ukraine participate in exploiting the nearby oil fields?
Now that I've written this, I'm not really happy with the overall picture. I dont think the ukrainians deserve any of this. But atm I cant come up with anything better...
PS: If this post is too speculative, feel free to take it down.
I was having similar thoughts, but it's hard to know what's even on the table. I would guess some agreement on DNR/LNR independence and acceptace of Russian sovereignty over Crimea? Would the Ukrainian people accept such terms? I really have no idea. There might be some Ukrainian promises of joining "just" the EU or some sort of NATO-without-foreign-troops, but after the current debacle, these promises might be of questionable value once the dust has settled (plus, they obviously don't depend on just Ukraine).
Belisarius said it well that a middleground solution would be far more than Putin deserves and far less than he would accept, but still, gotta have hope that there's some acceptable solution out there for an immediate end to hostilities.
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It doesn't really matter if the missiles start from Minsk or Moscow. Nuke free Belarus would only be symbolic.
I won't dare to make any predictions any more, i was wrong most of the time. Couple of days ago i said it was unthinkable for Germany to send weapons and here we are. A scientist mentionend the possibility to build a new nuclear power plant in Germany and the reporter nodded in agreement. The German left- and rightwingers abandonend Putin. Erdogan and Orban stick with NATO. I did not see any of this coming so quickly.
The world is changing, i've felt like this 2 times before, when Germany was unified/communist Russia collapsed and when 9/11 happened.
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Imo anything that doesn't result in western assets in Ukraine as a deterrent just means this happens again in five years. I don't think you can give Putin anything if you don't get that.
Let's say we give up all the illegally annexed regions in return for some imaginary environment where Ukraine is not allowed to have EU troops in its borders but is totally in the EU, we promise. What happens?
Putin can literally do the exact same thing in five years, attack and declare that if western armies intervene he will nuke them. Your move, EU. We are right back where we started, except now we're considering giving him everything east of the Dneiper or something.
There has to be a physical deterrent at the Russia/Ukraine border which is more than just a pinky-promise. It can be a NATO umbrella or it can be EU soldiers, but I can't see any way to do neither.
It's always possible this has hurt him badly he's learned his lesson, but historically, crushing sanctions just make countries even more likely to insularise and lash out. I can't see Russia winding back it's agenda as long as Putin is in charge.
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On February 28 2022 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
Imo anything that doesn't result in western assets in Ukraine as a deterrent just means this happens again in five years. I don't think you can give Putin anything if you don't get that.
Let's say we give up all the illegally annexed regions in return for some imaginary environment where Ukraine is not allowed to have EU troops in its borders but is totally in the EU, we promise. What happens?
Putin can literally do the exact same thing in five years, attack and declare that if western armies intervene he will nuke them. Your move, EU. We are right back where we started, except now we're considering giving him everything east of the Dneiper or something.
There has to be a physical deterrent at the Russia/Ukraine border which is more than just a pinky-promise. It can be a NATO umbrella or it can be EU soldiers, but I can't see any way to do neither.
It's always possible this has hurt him badly he's learned his lesson, but historically, crushing sanctions just make countries even more likely to insularise and lash out. I can't see Russia winding back it's agenda as long as Putin is in charge.
I think that's the point of these sanctions and enough fomented anger at home. The West is probably pushing for some kind of internal strife/civil war to break out inside Russia. Sure, shit's been bad for awhile now, but it seems that there are more people willing to risk arrest than continue this. His oligarchs are coming out against it. If you believe the reports, soldiers are surrendering left and right. Even if there were an uprising in Russia, between Moscow and St. Petersburg, does he have enough power to put them all down forcefully? I highly doubt he'd just start executing everyone who's against him as it leaves him seriously isolated. His only out would be to nuke something. Which, as I typed that, might be the outcome he chooses. I wouldn't put it past one of his inner circle bombing his meeting table if things continue and there's massive civil unrest.
A lot of wishful thinking, but looking at the factors, he's only got 2 options: continue the war and hope to take all of Ukraine or leave and relinquish power in a few years time as opposition steadily grows against him.
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On February 28 2022 21:16 Mafe wrote:
So assuming the vague hope that Putin will be removed from power internally doesnt come true: How could we get him to retreat in a way that doesnt make it look like a defeat (because I'm not convinced he would simply accept that)?
Ofc this depends on his true motives, about which there seems a to be some amount of uncertainty. Given that he most likely sees NATO as a genuine enemy, and that he wants to "unite the russian people" (my wording), then I guess he wont do without some kind of success in these areas. Do you think any of the following options would be acceptable for either side:
-Ukraine gets to join EU, but NATO formally guarantees it wont accept Ukraine. No EU soldiers from other EU nations are allowed to be stationed in Ukraine. In return, Russia keeps Belarus nuke-free. Maybe russia even retreats soldiers from there and NATO reduces presence in the Baltic states in return?
-The two "peoples republics" become independant (I dont see how Putin would ever accept any less), but are "demilitarized" and anyone still living their is free to join the rest of Ukraine. Imo their fate could be the biggest issue, and yes, it's basically letting an aggressor "win", which I'm not comfortable with at all, since it could actually encourage him to try something like that again in a few years.
-Ukraine reopens the water supply to crimea, in return crimea, dunno, lets Ukraine participate in exploiting the nearby oil fields?
Now that I've written this, I'm not really happy with the overall picture. I dont think the ukrainians deserve any of this. But atm I cant come up with anything better...
PS: If this post is too speculative, feel free to take it down.
Ukraine is asking Russia to remove all troops from their country (including the "peoples republics" and Crimea.
I don t realy see them settling for less to be honest. And I understand that.
On the other hand I can t imagine a world, where Putin would agree to less than what he had before the invasion
Also Switzerland enforces the same sanctions as the EU, wich is BIG, because they where the last save harbour for russian money
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The discussion here for the idea that there will be options to determine involving whether Ukraine joins EU or NATO is odd. Ukraine is an independent country, and both the EU and NATO have their own criteria and rules and vetos of whether Ukraine can join those respective organisations. It cannot be a basis of negotitation at all. With the stated aim by Putin to "demilitarise Ukraine" and the prevention of Ukraine from joing NATO and joining EU (from 8 years ago, remember the first invasion?), it is unlikely Putin would accept that Ukraine can join EU or NATO if Ukraine desires to do so. Afterall, that is what both invasions are about. Putin would simply order an invasion again when Ukraine make moves towards either.
Most likely the "peace talks" are intended for domestic audience, and to distract that Russian forces need a pause to deploy supplies as their logistical train has not caught up with their advances and to deploy heavier equipment (such as artillery and to create forward air bases) in order to take cities as quickly as possible.
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EPT
