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On November 18 2025 09:26 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 07:17 Excludos wrote:I don't think it's a very closed secret that everyone who is "not buying Russian oil" is really just buying it through middle men/countries. Even countries in Europe are doing this. However, as morally bankrupt as this is, it's actually still quite a lot better than them buying it directly. As the oil has to go through other countries, Russia is forced to lower the prices due to the cuts these other countries take. So it's still less profits for them Same with smuggling, obviously. Smugglers are doing more work, and especially more perilous work, to go through blockades. This costs money, which is taken from Russia's cut Buying through middle-men is not always an option though. You run the risk of getting hit by secondary sanctions and there's enough oil being produced worldwide that you can always find alternatives. They might not be as cheap as Russian oil at this point but they come with no additional dangers or hoops. That's why there are now supposedly ~390million barrels of Russian oil stuck on tankers around the world who can't find a place to offload this cargo. So they're running a lot of tankers (each costing ~100k USD/day to operate) that are unable to provide a profit. Edit: And I'm not sure why we're even entertaining Russian pundits with all the discussion about the elections. Anyone living in a free, democratic country knows you can't really hold elections during war time (technically you can but it would be a logistical nightmare and changing your entire government mid-war is not very smart) so no one in the West is actually holding it against Zelensky. It's only the Russians and their sympathizers that are pushing this narrative. If Zelensky doesn't hold elections after the war is over then it becomes a problem, but during war time there's no issue with there being no elections.
Just about how much profit they can get out from it.
Cheaper the russian oil than market price, more profits they can make.
Lots of these firms are going to get sanctioned but not like the nation as a whole is getting sanctioned.
That's how most chips got sneaked into China.
Proxy on top of proxy
I reckon the only difficult piece is how to get the oil out, the "repackaging" is easy, not like they are marked with anything to stand out as russian oil.
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On November 18 2025 14:17 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 09:26 Manit0u wrote:On November 18 2025 07:17 Excludos wrote:I don't think it's a very closed secret that everyone who is "not buying Russian oil" is really just buying it through middle men/countries. Even countries in Europe are doing this. However, as morally bankrupt as this is, it's actually still quite a lot better than them buying it directly. As the oil has to go through other countries, Russia is forced to lower the prices due to the cuts these other countries take. So it's still less profits for them Same with smuggling, obviously. Smugglers are doing more work, and especially more perilous work, to go through blockades. This costs money, which is taken from Russia's cut Buying through middle-men is not always an option though. You run the risk of getting hit by secondary sanctions and there's enough oil being produced worldwide that you can always find alternatives. They might not be as cheap as Russian oil at this point but they come with no additional dangers or hoops. That's why there are now supposedly ~390million barrels of Russian oil stuck on tankers around the world who can't find a place to offload this cargo. So they're running a lot of tankers (each costing ~100k USD/day to operate) that are unable to provide a profit. Edit: And I'm not sure why we're even entertaining Russian pundits with all the discussion about the elections. Anyone living in a free, democratic country knows you can't really hold elections during war time (technically you can but it would be a logistical nightmare and changing your entire government mid-war is not very smart) so no one in the West is actually holding it against Zelensky. It's only the Russians and their sympathizers that are pushing this narrative. If Zelensky doesn't hold elections after the war is over then it becomes a problem, but during war time there's no issue with there being no elections. Just about how much profit they can get out from it. Cheaper the russian oil than market price, more profits they can make. Lots of these firms are going to get sanctioned but not like the nation as a whole is getting sanctioned. That's how most chips got sneaked into China. Proxy on top of proxy I reckon the only difficult piece is how to get the oil out, the "repackaging" is easy, not like they are marked with anything to stand out as russian oil.
Firms being sanctioned is as good as country being sanctioned. When you have a firm that trades oil it's quite often run by the government and even if not it might be a big part of your economy. If such firm gets hit by sanctions and is basically cut off from global trade it means your country by proxy is also cut off from the global trade through those firms.
You can get sanctioned for buying Russian oil or by doing business with Russian companies and individuals. Almost no one wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole.
Even India is basically halting all oil purchases from Russia this last quarter. Their biggest oil companies are switching to buying from the Saudis and 5 of the biggest Indian companies are responsible for 65% of Russian oil purchases by the country.
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On November 18 2025 14:42 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 14:17 ETisME wrote:On November 18 2025 09:26 Manit0u wrote:On November 18 2025 07:17 Excludos wrote:I don't think it's a very closed secret that everyone who is "not buying Russian oil" is really just buying it through middle men/countries. Even countries in Europe are doing this. However, as morally bankrupt as this is, it's actually still quite a lot better than them buying it directly. As the oil has to go through other countries, Russia is forced to lower the prices due to the cuts these other countries take. So it's still less profits for them Same with smuggling, obviously. Smugglers are doing more work, and especially more perilous work, to go through blockades. This costs money, which is taken from Russia's cut Buying through middle-men is not always an option though. You run the risk of getting hit by secondary sanctions and there's enough oil being produced worldwide that you can always find alternatives. They might not be as cheap as Russian oil at this point but they come with no additional dangers or hoops. That's why there are now supposedly ~390million barrels of Russian oil stuck on tankers around the world who can't find a place to offload this cargo. So they're running a lot of tankers (each costing ~100k USD/day to operate) that are unable to provide a profit. Edit: And I'm not sure why we're even entertaining Russian pundits with all the discussion about the elections. Anyone living in a free, democratic country knows you can't really hold elections during war time (technically you can but it would be a logistical nightmare and changing your entire government mid-war is not very smart) so no one in the West is actually holding it against Zelensky. It's only the Russians and their sympathizers that are pushing this narrative. If Zelensky doesn't hold elections after the war is over then it becomes a problem, but during war time there's no issue with there being no elections. Just about how much profit they can get out from it. Cheaper the russian oil than market price, more profits they can make. Lots of these firms are going to get sanctioned but not like the nation as a whole is getting sanctioned. That's how most chips got sneaked into China. Proxy on top of proxy I reckon the only difficult piece is how to get the oil out, the "repackaging" is easy, not like they are marked with anything to stand out as russian oil. Firms being sanctioned is as good as country being sanctioned. When you have a firm that trades oil it's quite often run by the government and even if not it might be a big part of your economy. If such firm gets hit by sanctions and is basically cut off from global trade it means your country by proxy is also cut off from the global trade through those firms. You can get sanctioned for buying Russian oil or by doing business with Russian companies and individuals. Almost no one wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole. Even India is basically halting all oil purchases from Russia this last quarter. Their biggest oil companies are switching to buying from the Saudis and 5 of the biggest Indian companies are responsible for 65% of Russian oil purchases by the country.
We will see because again singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia etc are all still happily sneaking nvidia chips into china
There had been a lot of reports with video evidences already
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On November 18 2025 15:01 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 14:42 Manit0u wrote:On November 18 2025 14:17 ETisME wrote:On November 18 2025 09:26 Manit0u wrote:On November 18 2025 07:17 Excludos wrote:I don't think it's a very closed secret that everyone who is "not buying Russian oil" is really just buying it through middle men/countries. Even countries in Europe are doing this. However, as morally bankrupt as this is, it's actually still quite a lot better than them buying it directly. As the oil has to go through other countries, Russia is forced to lower the prices due to the cuts these other countries take. So it's still less profits for them Same with smuggling, obviously. Smugglers are doing more work, and especially more perilous work, to go through blockades. This costs money, which is taken from Russia's cut Buying through middle-men is not always an option though. You run the risk of getting hit by secondary sanctions and there's enough oil being produced worldwide that you can always find alternatives. They might not be as cheap as Russian oil at this point but they come with no additional dangers or hoops. That's why there are now supposedly ~390million barrels of Russian oil stuck on tankers around the world who can't find a place to offload this cargo. So they're running a lot of tankers (each costing ~100k USD/day to operate) that are unable to provide a profit. Edit: And I'm not sure why we're even entertaining Russian pundits with all the discussion about the elections. Anyone living in a free, democratic country knows you can't really hold elections during war time (technically you can but it would be a logistical nightmare and changing your entire government mid-war is not very smart) so no one in the West is actually holding it against Zelensky. It's only the Russians and their sympathizers that are pushing this narrative. If Zelensky doesn't hold elections after the war is over then it becomes a problem, but during war time there's no issue with there being no elections. Just about how much profit they can get out from it. Cheaper the russian oil than market price, more profits they can make. Lots of these firms are going to get sanctioned but not like the nation as a whole is getting sanctioned. That's how most chips got sneaked into China. Proxy on top of proxy I reckon the only difficult piece is how to get the oil out, the "repackaging" is easy, not like they are marked with anything to stand out as russian oil. Firms being sanctioned is as good as country being sanctioned. When you have a firm that trades oil it's quite often run by the government and even if not it might be a big part of your economy. If such firm gets hit by sanctions and is basically cut off from global trade it means your country by proxy is also cut off from the global trade through those firms. You can get sanctioned for buying Russian oil or by doing business with Russian companies and individuals. Almost no one wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole. Even India is basically halting all oil purchases from Russia this last quarter. Their biggest oil companies are switching to buying from the Saudis and 5 of the biggest Indian companies are responsible for 65% of Russian oil purchases by the country. We will see because again singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia etc are all still happily sneaking nvidia chips into china There had been a lot of reports with video evidences already
But different situation.
1) chips are low volume high value items. If you can sneak just 1 container of microchips into China you can make millions. Running a smuggling operation that can get 1 container into a country entirely unseen is almost trivial. It's incredibly hard to stop. Hard to find actual measurements, but let's be conservative and say 2000 RTC 5090s can be fit in a container. That means 1 container is worth 4m USD. You can probably name your price once you're in China because there are no competitors. So let's assume the same amount of profit.
2) oil is high volume low value. Russian oil is currently at 36 USD. Let's assume the smuggler can sell it at 56 USD (still slightly under market for non-Russian oil). So a smuggler can make 20 USD/barrel. That means that to make roughly the same (4m USD), they need to sell 200k barrels of oil. That is a mid sized tanker ship. It is far harder to hide a tanker ship than it is a container. Not impossible. The Russian shadow fleet exists. But far far harder. It also requires having and operating a tanker ship. A significant cost in and of itself that is lost if your smuggling operation is shut down.
In other words it is far harder and far more expensive to smuggle oil than it is to smuggle microchips (assuming enforcement). So the fact that people are able to smuggle microchips despite sanctions doesn't automatically mean people can also smuggle oil (at meaningful volumes).
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On November 18 2025 09:26 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 07:17 Excludos wrote:I don't think it's a very closed secret that everyone who is "not buying Russian oil" is really just buying it through middle men/countries. Even countries in Europe are doing this. However, as morally bankrupt as this is, it's actually still quite a lot better than them buying it directly. As the oil has to go through other countries, Russia is forced to lower the prices due to the cuts these other countries take. So it's still less profits for them Same with smuggling, obviously. Smugglers are doing more work, and especially more perilous work, to go through blockades. This costs money, which is taken from Russia's cut Buying through middle-men is not always an option though. You run the risk of getting hit by secondary sanctions and there's enough oil being produced worldwide that you can always find alternatives. They might not be as cheap as Russian oil at this point but they come with no additional dangers or hoops.
I don't think anyone is going to sanction Germany over buying second-hand Russian oil any time soon I'm afraid. It's not something they're trying to hide either, expressing they will try to stop doing so by 2028
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On November 18 2025 10:40 KwarK wrote:
Manit0u you’re still erroneously accepting the completely false premise of the Rusbots. You’re defending a choice by Zelenskyy not to hold elections. That might be completely defensible choice but it’s not what is happening. Zelenskyy hasn’t suspended elections. Zelenskyy is not constitutionally permitted to hold elections at this time. Elections are proceeding per the legally mandated schedule. The next election will happen when the constitutionally defined schedule permits it to happen, with or without Zelenskyy. He’s not holding them and he’s not not holding them, he’s not involved, there isn’t one scheduled.
That’s why the correct response is to demand why Putin isn’t holding a 2025 Presidential election. It puts the Rusbot in the position of explaining that there isn’t an election scheduled per the Russian constitution.
Didn't Russia technically hold an election in 2024? I'm saying technically, because any system that either bans political opponents from running, or straight up assassinates them, isn't really a democratic election (Not that Putin has any reason to do this in the first place, as he's provably tampering with the results anyways. He's literally doing it just to be vain).
The question isn't why Russia isn't holding elections, it's why they're not holding free and fair elections
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EPT
