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Thread: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

  1. #41
    Senior Member welch's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    I find that Al Jazeera Live has the best minute-by-minute coverage of the Russian invasion. Just saw a Ukrainian woman in Poland lambaste Boris Johnson: "Why do you come here to Poland and tell us you can do nothing? If you cannot declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine, then give us something else? Declare us a no-missile zone. What do you have? Roman Abromovich still owns Chelsea. He might have flown to Moscow, but what about his mansions? What about his children that are still in London?" Al Jazeera interviewed her after showing her tongue lashing of Johnson, with a looping ten-seconds or more of Kyiv night and the lights flashing of bombs and artillery.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Yes, it seems counter-intuitive but Al-Jazeera does have good coverage. I meant to comment on that when you listed what you were watching.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    Also, I found this ≈30 minute video pretty good at summarizing many of the reasons for the invasion.

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    https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE

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    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Ukraine has survived another day and most of the night. I think it is now about 3am in Kyiv. The Guardian linked to this summary from The Institute for the Study of War. I don't know exactly who they are, although they mention US retired generals Jack Keane and David Petraeus. Summary is not much different from what we read in the NY Times and the Washington Post.

    https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...ssment-march-1

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    I just saw this story about the Russian media's internal propaganda
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60571737
    Coincidentally, someone on FB replied to a recent post by Andrew (drawing and words of might expect from his talent and his current situation) with a screed of a similar nature.

    Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
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    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
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    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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  9. #46
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by welch View Post
    Ukraine has survived another day and most of the night. I think it is now about 3am in Kyiv. The Guardian linked to this summary from The Institute for the Study of War. I don't know exactly who they are, although they mention US retired generals Jack Keane and David Petraeus. Summary is not much different from what we read in the NY Times and the Washington Post.

    https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...ssment-march-1
    There are a bunch of think tanks the DOD contracts with for various purposes. Rand is the most well known. This is something like that. Having General Keane lends it credibility, gets it contracts, etc…. Not trying to be completely cynical, that’s just how the system works.

    I haven’t been watching this particular organization, but it’s a good report basically written as the “enemy” section of the Situation paragraph of an operations order, or the intel update a CG would get on the floor of the COIC. Like most intel assessments, it could be right or wrong. It’s a good summary with operational graphics. Most of the sources cited are Facebook and Twitter posts. Doesn’t mean it’s bad or wrong because of that.
    Last edited by dneal; March 2nd, 2022 at 05:45 AM.
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Even though Putin has more resources things keep going the wrong direction for him. I’m worried he might be feeling backed into a corner and will over commit to save face. Seems like a recipe for greater disaster.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Russian people see that the entire world (almost) opposes them.

    “To Russia, it means we are going back into the caves,” he said. “I think it’s like the end, for Russia.”



    Putin’s war on Ukraine is drawing battle lines within Russia



    By Robyn Dixon
    Yesterday at 4:21 p.m. EST

    A woman walks in front of Russian armored vehicles parked at a railway station in the southern Russian Rostov region on Feb. 25. (AFP/Getty Images)



    MOSCOW — When Russians showed shame and grief over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his most loyal propagandist was withering: “If you are now ashamed that you are Russian, don’t worry, you’re not Russian,” the editor in chief of state-owned broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, sniped on Twitter.

    The invasion that united NATO and Europe on sanctions as never before has also divided Russians. On one side: an outward-looking urban middle class who vacation in Europe and while away spend time scrolling through Western apps on their iPhones and send their children to universities abroad. On the other: Putin loyalists, many less-educated Russians or older people raised on Soviet propaganda.

    In Kamenka village in Russia’s southern Rostov region, close to the Ukraine border, Alexei Safonov, 47, was horrified at the news that Russia began its attack last week. Then he got to work as chief engineer at an ice-skating rink and was sickened to find his colleagues celebrating.

    “The feeling was it’s high time we showed what we could do to those ‘Nazis,’ so it’s high time we started this operation,” he said, referring to Putin’s claim that he would “denazify” Ukraine and its leadership. “That made me feel really dejected and depressed. People around me are enthusiastic about it. When I look at them, I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

    That night, he wrote an anguished social media post, lamenting the “horror and shame” of a war that “will be catastrophic.” It initially received 19 comments, most attacking him. A friend, a local policeman, warned him to delete it, but he refused.

    At work the next day, the general director of the complex stormed in, shouting and swearing at Safonov.

    “He said, ‘Either you remove that post or we don’t need people like you around here.’ He told me to sign a resignation letter, but I just packed up and left,” Safonov recounted.

    Later, three police armed with machine guns came to his home, arrested him and charged him with showing disrespect for society and the Russian Federation. He faces court on Friday and fears that authorities may concoct a more serious charge.

    The war’s seismic impact is just beginning to dawn on many Russians, deepening these fissures in society. State television hosts tell viewers that the sanctions prove the West hates Russians.

    Europe’s airspace slammed shut, and Russia’s now-toxic brand was shunned in sports, chess, ice hockey, football, motor racing, and by art galleries, Harley Davidson, Disney, the film “The Batman,” the Eurovision song contest, luxury car companies, the Maersk shipping line, the International Olympic Committee, major oil companies, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and many more.

    The cascading effect was swift. Google blocked YouTube channels connected with state-run media RT and Sputnik. Even Europe’s far-right leaders and strongmen in Central and Eastern European balked. The ruble crashed and the Central Bank stopped trading for two days as Putin barred Russians from depositing foreign exchange into accounts or sending it abroad.

    When Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stood up to speak at the Geneva Disarmament Conference on Tuesday, almost every delegate stood up and left the hall. When senior official Vyacheslav Volodin flew home from an official trip on the weekend, his plane was turned away from airspace in Sweden and Norway.

    To be fair, outside of liberal circles, the public criticism is still a relative trickle in a country where dissent is not tolerated. It has, however, included a few powerful oligarchs, although they have little to no sway over Putin.


    Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire industrialist, called for peace “as soon as possible” on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian-born mogul Mikhail Fridman wrote a letter to staff at LetterOne, first reported by the Financial Times, saying that war could never be the answer.

    State television host Ivan Urgant posted a black square on his Instagram feed on invasion day, along with the words “Fear and Pain. No to war.” His show the next day was canceled, and it’s not clear it will ever air again.

    Even the daughter of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov posted a black banner on social media with the words “No to war,” though she swiftly deleted it.

    Anissa Naouai, chief executive of Maffick, a company with RT links and one of Putin’s staunchest defenders for years, announced Tuesday she was “cutting all ties with RT,” posting a black banner on Twitter with the words “Russia without Putin.”


    Apolitical people felt the need to make their opposition clear. Peter Svidler, a Russian chess grandmaster, usually tweets about chess, Wordle and dogs. But last week he wrote that it was impossible to stay silent. “No to war,” he posted.

    “Let’s at least get some things stated live on air. I do not agree with the war my country is waging in Ukraine. I do not believe Ukraine, or Ukrainian people, are my enemies, or anybody’s enemies,” he said speaking Tuesday on a Chess 24 stream.


    Almost 6,500 protesters in dozens of cities have been arrested since the invasion, according to rights group OVD-Info. Psychiatrists, doctors, architects, journalists, actors, historians, computer programmers, directors, Orthodox priests and others signed open letters protesting the war.

    If Putin did not change course, Russia would “take its place as an aggressor and rogue state, a state that will bear responsibility for its crimes for generations,” said Ivan Zhdanov, director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, headed by jailed dissident Alexei Navalny. Zhdanov spoke in a video urging a national campaign against disinformation.


    But as Russia’s economy came under intense pressure from sanctions, Russian officials doubled down and hardened their rhetoric.

    In a Russian Foreign Ministry tweet Monday, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova questioned if “the process of denazification in Germany after the end of World War II” was really complete, commenting on Germany’s decision to send arms to Ukraine.

    Lawmaker Andrei Klimov called for treason charges against those who “cooperated with foreign anti-Russian centers bringing obvious detriment to our national security.”

    The older generation of Russians who lap up state television fear the West and admire Putin for the stability he brought after the chaotic post-Soviet 1990s. But the predictability is gone.

    The ice-rink engineer Safonov said ordinary low-income Russians would be most hurt, but wealthy elites “will be fine as usual,” adding, “Maybe they will be a little shaken but not much, I’m sure.

    “To Russia, it means we are going back into the caves,” he said. “I think it’s like the end, for Russia.”

    Natasha Abbakumova contributed to this report.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ukraine-putin/

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    From inside the bunker:

    "KYIV, Ukraine — In launching a war on our country, President Vladimir Putin claimed Russia would “de-Nazify” and free Ukraine. But Ukraine — a nation that lost as many as eight million lives in World War II, a country that has a Jewish president — does not need to be freed from the liberated path it has chosen.

    Not since the end of World War II has Europe seen violence and naked territorial ambition at such a scale.

    I am writing this appeal from a bunker in the capital, with President Volodymyr Zelensky by my side. For a week, Russian bombs have fallen overhead. Despite the constant barrage of Russian fire, we stand firm and united in our resolve to defeat the invaders. We will fight to the last breath to protect our country."
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/o...smid=url-share

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    A question now: how can the west get military supplies into Ukraine? Until the invasion, it was possible to fly them in. A photo inside this article showed Soldiers loading Javelin anti-tank missiles to be flown to Ukraine. Now that's impossible. The Ukrainian borders with Poland and Romania are open...at least until the Russians an put troops there. And that might be tough for Russians given that they have had trouble carrying enough gas to the forces moving toward Kyiv.

    The U.S. has been rushing to arm Ukraine, but for years it stalled on providing weapons


    Ukrainian service members at Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv, Ukraine, unpack Javelin antitank missiles from the United States on Feb. 10. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
    By Karen DeYoung
    February 27, 2022 at 7:49 p.m. EST


    The current rush by the West to send weapons to Ukraine is in stark contrast to years of hesitancy that often had as much to do with domestic U.S. and allied politics, and concerns about their own relations with Moscow, than with an assessment of the Russian threat to Ukraine.

    Russia’s launch last week of a full-scale invasion, with land, air and sea attacks on Ukrainian cities and military installations, has been met with what U.S. officials have described as a surprisingly robust defense. Officials in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, claim they have destroyed hundreds of Russian vehicles, including an entire column of T-72 tanks in the northeast Ukrainian town of Glukhov, near the Russian border.

    Ukraine has pleaded for more help, including additional Javelin antitank weapons, and Stinger antiaircraft missiles. The Kremlin has gone “beyond all bounds and crossed all the red lines,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov beseeched Congress last week on YouTube. “It is not going to stop if we will not stop it.”

    Historic sanctions on Russia had roots in Zelensky’s emotional appeal

    President Biden has authorized nearly $1 billion in military assistance over the past year for Ukraine, including $350 million in weapons such as antitank and antiaircraft missiles last week, and $200 million in drawdowns from U.S. arms stocks approved in December. The new package includes more Javelins, although Stingers are likely to wait until a further tranche, defense officials said.

    Germany, in a major break from its post-World War II aversion to involvement in overseas military entanglements, said Saturday that it would send 1,000 antitank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles to Ukraine and released other countries from export restrictions on German-manufactured weapons. That release allowed the Netherlands to pledge German-made antitank and air defense rockets.

    France and the United Kingdom are sending military assistance, as are smaller NATO members, including Belgium, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Neutral Sweden said Sunday that it would suspend its long-held doctrine of not sending weapons to countries engaged in conflict to ship defensive equipment and other supplies to Ukraine, and Finland said it is considering doing the same.

    How the United States and other allies will keep up the shipments has already bumped up against the harsh reality that deliveries through Ukraine’s now-contested airspace are virtually impossible without getting directly drawn into the conflict, said a senior U.S. defense official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.



    U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House lawmakers late Thursday evening that the administration was looking for ways to deliver arms and is considering training Ukrainian forces in another country, said Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and two other congressional officials.

    Reznikov, in his video, tried to provide an answer. “You may deliver it to Poland,” he told potential donors. “From there, we will transport them across the land.”

    Meanwhile, as Ukrainians prepare to face down tanks in the streets of Kyiv with molotov cocktails assembled in their basements, and rifles being distributed to every able-bodied civilian, there has been no shortage of revisionist history and finger-pointing in Washington.

    While the Biden administration has moved quickly since Russian troops began massing on the border in December, its response was sluggish to earlier Russian deployments in April. Before the Russians finally moved into Ukraine in force on Thursday, Republican lawmakers and pundits accused Biden of appeasement in trying to secure a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Russia would never have dared to invade, several charged, if Biden hadn’t shown weakness by withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Former president Donald Trump, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “genius,” has said it never would have happened under his watch.

    U.S. interest and involvement in Ukraine has long been a subset of its relations with Russia. That reality became even more apparent in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and established control over breakaway regions of southeastern Ukraine in the chaos that followed the resignation and flight to Moscow of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.


    Ukrainian forces fought a series of battles against Russian-backed separatist rebels in an effort to regain seized territory. But while the West had sanctioned Russia and refused to recognize the Crimean annexation, then-President Petro Poroshenko’s request for U.S. military assistance, ranging from F-16 jets and Javelins to helmets and blankets, gave then-President Barack Obama pause.

    At the time, there was a high sensitivity in the White House to avoiding a conflict that could lead to direct confrontation with Russia. Some senior Obama aides initially advocated taking a breather before deciding to arm the Ukrainian military, which only weeks before had been fighting pro-democracy protesters in the streets and was believed to be highly corrupt.

    Obama became more convinced that providing high-end armaments to a far-off conflict was folly when, barely a month after Poroshenko’s June 7 inauguration, a Malaysian airliner was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over separatist territory in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard. Western intelligence believed the weapon had been provided to the separatists by Russia.


    If the same thing had happened with U.S.-provided weapons to Ukraine government forces, Obama said at the time, according to aides, the United States would have gotten the blame.

    After a year of internal debate, Obama declined to provide lethal aid, overruling most of his national security team. Still, the United States committed more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine between 2014 and 2016, including body armor, night-vision goggles, vehicles and training.

    But Obama’s refusal to provide lethal weaponry had by that point become a Republican talking point, leading then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to charge in 2015 that the “Ukrainians are being slaughtered and we’re sending blankets and meals.”

    Four years later, Trump would echo that charge, claiming that while his administration had sent “antitank busters” to Ukraine, Obama had provided only “pillows and sheets.”


    But Trump had his own problems with Ukraine, very little of which had to do with protecting it from Russia. Trump first approved the sale of $47 million worth of 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launchers to Ukraine in December 2017. Delivered in April the following year, they were not deployed to the front lines of the still-simmering separatist war. Under the terms of the sale, they were kept boxed in a military storage facility far from the front lines, where they were to serve symbolically as a “strategic deterrent” to Russia.

    In the summer of 2019, Trump froze an additional $400 million in congressionally approved security assistance to Ukraine, an action that later became a centerpiece in his first impeachment. Based in large part on a July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that year, in which Zelensky expressed interest in buying more Javelins, Trump deflected the request and instead asked Zelensky for the “favor” of digging up dirt against then Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and the Ukrainian business dealings of Biden’s son, Hunter.

    Trump released the frozen aid when his action, along with a transcript of the call with Zelensky, became public.

    Recent days have brought increasing unity on all sides of the political spectrum to help Ukraine. But that has not prevented a partisan rehash of the past eight years.

    “I don’t think we left Ukraine defenseless,” said Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistance secretary of defense for Russia and Ukraine from 2012 to 2015. “Could we have done more? Yes. Could everybody have done more? Yes.”

    “But nobody foresaw what we see today.”

    Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...kMpR9raFj38NOI

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by welch View Post
    A question now: how can the west get military supplies into Ukraine? Until the invasion, it was possible to fly them in. A photo inside this article showed Soldiers loading Javelin anti-tank missiles to be flown to Ukraine. Now that's impossible. The Ukrainian borders with Poland and Romania are open...at least until the Russians an put troops there. And that might be tough for Russians given that they have had trouble carrying enough gas to the forces moving toward Kyiv.
    The answer is in the article - Poland. There's not a lot of weight or cube issues with munitions. A stinger missile, for example, weighs about 40 pounds and the transit case is about 1.5x1.5x5 feet dimensionally. Munitions get containerized and can be loaded on truck or rail. They can do trailer transfer at the border, etc... Dead simple for a logistician.

    Fuel is a different issue, and a lot harder. A U.S. example: The planning rule of thumb for M1 consumption is 400 gallons every 8 hours, whether moving (offense) or sitting at tac idle (defense). That's per tank. 44 tanks to an armor battalion is over 17k gallons every 8 hours. M1's consume a lot of fuel compared to other engines (M1's have turbine engines); but it illustrates how the volume increases exponentially.

    Diesel weighs roughly 7 lbs per gallon. 10k and 5k tanker trucks can't really traverse terrain (think muddy Ukrainian fields and spring thaw). Add creeks, irrigation ditches, etc... and it gets harder and harder. It's hard for U.S. HEMTT's too, which are 2.5k capacity. Everybody sticks to road networks primarily. With fuel, there's also a relay aspect. Every echelon runs it's leg, and transfers fuel to the next delivery vehicle. One 10k or commercial tanker moves forward and fills two 5k tankers, which move forward and fills two 2.5k (more rugged terrain capable) tankers, which moves forward and refills combat vehicles. Transit times increase as you advance, and your routes require more security as you stretch them.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Dneal thank you for that interesting analysis.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Maybe only Poland. On Al Jazeera, I saw a map of the invasion that included topography. It appears that the Ukrainian - Romanian border runs along Carpathian mountain range.

    Separately, here is a word from George Monbiot, left-wing climate activist, slicing up the "party-line" of the "anti-imperialists" who keep repeating Kremlin propaganda points.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...vladimir-putin

    And from RTE Ireland, quoting a military expert in Russia.

    A Russian-based military expert has said "bad military planning" has resulted in the nation's tanks being "stuck in mud" in north Ukraine and the country's economy facing "meltdown" due to the to-date faltering invasion of Ukraine.

    Russia's defence ministry today said that 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine and another 1,597 had been wounded since the beginning of Moscow's military operation there, according to Russia's RIA news agency.

    It was the first time that Moscow had put a figure on its casualties since it started the invasion on Ukraine last Thursday.

    Moscow-based defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Russian president Vladimir Putin is in a "very dangerous dog house" over the situation, saying he has made a series of miscalculations over the war.
    https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/0...MQXZ_hL9IlolZI
    Last edited by welch; March 2nd, 2022 at 02:21 PM.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    MK airbase is next to Constanta, which is a Romanian port on the Black Sea. All of that is on the east side of the mountains and there’s a route north to Ukraine. Poland is easier, but Romania is not difficult.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Some information is coming out that China asked Russia to delay the invasion until after the Olympic Games. Happen the day after the closing ceremonies. I’m sure more will develop.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    Also, I found this ≈30 minute video pretty good at summarizing many of the reasons for the invasion.

    Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
    I forgot the link
    https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE

    Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
    This is very informative, and I recommend everyone take the time to watch. I’m pretty well versed and most of the “military” aspect wasn’t new (Ukraine being an avenue of approach, Crimean land bridge, etc…) but I didn’t know about the aqua duct to Crimea or the oil reserves off the western coast. The economic competition argument is sound.

    The music and whatnot is a bit cheesy, but it’s solid and thorough analysis.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    SWIFT said today that seven Russian banks will be disconnected on March 12:

    Diplomatic decisions taken by the European Union, in consultation with the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, bring SWIFT into efforts to end this crisis by requiring us to disconnect select Russian banks from our financial messaging services. As previously stated, we will fully comply with applicable sanctions laws.

    To this end, in compliance with the legal instruction in EU Council Regulation (EU) 2022/345 of 1 March 2022, we will disconnect seven designated Russian entities (and their designated Russia based subsidiaries) from the SWIFT network. This Regulation requires us to disconnect the identified entities on 12 March 2022, and we will do so accordingly. The SWIFT community will be kept regularly updated across multiple channels, including in the customer section on swift.com.
    (full statement, which includes boilerplate first and last paragraphs, here:https://www.swift.com/news-events/ne...wift-community)

    Why not immediately? Banks pay each other thousands of times a day. On an average day, SWIFT carries 41 million messages; even though not all are payment messages, it is still a lot. If a bank fails to make a payment, it is in violation of all sorts of banking agreements, and the payee bank is missing a payment that it assumed it had when it paid somebody else. Think of banking as a world-wide just-in-time supply-chain of money. It takes time to stop.

    Further complication: global payments are one side of a "delivery versus payment" (DVP) pair. For each payment there will be something moving to the payor.

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    dneal (March 2nd, 2022)

  27. #58
    Senior Member Lloyd's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Andrew posted this on FB at 3pm EST today. He has managed to make these types of post daily.🤎


    Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Looking at the 2 Mar update at the Institute for War resource welch shared.

    They say Kiev is the main effort. I'm not so sure. Forces in the Donbas are just as numerous (6 divisions vs 5 units of unknown size approaching Kiev), they appear to have secured the land bridge to Crimea, and they're destroying the city of Maruipol (which they don't need post-conflict).

    I'd say the land bridge to Crimea is the main effort, and what they'll bargain for. Kiev is a capital city. Encircling it gives political leverage, and options. Take the city and install a new government, try to bargain for one (or some other concession related to the EU or NATO), or leave it alone as an exchange for getting to keep the land bridge.

    --edit--

    Link to publications page. It should automatically include daily updates at the end of each day, as opposed to linking to the specific day's update.
    Last edited by dneal; March 2nd, 2022 at 06:14 PM.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    On a slight tangent, I found this article about the weaponization of finance and the pros/cons of bitcoin interesting. I hadn't thought heavily about these topics before.
    M: I came here for a good argument.
    A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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