https://www.theguardian.com/world/vi...aine-war-video
Who does that?

Well, there is the idea that so far everyone seems to back down as soon as Putin starts threatening with nuclear weapons. Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine. He does the same thing every time. The west throws a fit and celebrates their Twitter solidarity. Putin just rolls on.

Does Europe have an actual "line in the sand" that will trigger a military response regardless of the nuclear threat? Are they going to do anything when Russia starts into Moldova? If the Russians start mass executions in Ukraine will Europe intervene? Supposedly, Russia attacking a NATO member is the final straw. Do you really believe that? Is Germany willing to lose Berlin for Estonia or Latvia?

I dont know how it will turn out but Europe has had a long time to prepare for this and always seems to find some other distraction.

Yes, the line in the sand is NATO, no question. If it wasn't he would have "liberated" the Baltic states first, they are much weaker, smaller and conquerable with a much smaller force.

I tend to agree with Chuff on that one. Not even long-term, but mid-term Putin will suffer more than he thought he will. He "broke" something in the operating model of the soviet state and the internal pressures will only increase.

The Russians were tolerating him as he brought a certain stabilization and income increase after the Yeltzin years. Since about 3-4 years, real income in Russia has been actually declining and this is why we were seeing small protests and push for change. Now, the pain will very brutally increase and pressure will only increase further at a time when Putin has fewer options in front of him. He will either become even more despotic internally or he will be replaced at the latest in the next election in 2 years from now.

Keeping 140 million people content with misery once they glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel with increasing income will not be easy.

It is almost laughable now when you think about some of those "problems" Europeans used to allot huuuge energy, media space, money.

Well, we have to keep our Karens and Chads occupied all the time.

maslow's hierarchy

I have a friend who was complaining about the "hipsterization" of the west and my response was "if this is a problem in a society it means it's a happy society"

Indeed, the sanctions were announced last week but the real pain comes on March 22 or a few day earlier.

Right now, every multinational company is making a list of projects with Russian customers/suppliers, checking with legal if it's possible to continue or not, and quantifying the losses. Business is like a huge ship, it takes a while to stop it, but it stops. Then, the impoverishment of average Russian people is coming, slowly but surely.

Some informed sources claim the Russian supply line problems are due to them assuming a quick campaign in Ukraine so there was no need to organise a war standard supply chain, now they are playing catch-up.

Meanwhile, the Moscow stock exchange is closed again today for the fifth day, this is unprecedented. Estimates of Russian stock values when the exchange is eventually opened range from falls of 50% to 90%.

The ruble continues exploring new lows, averaging less than one US cent in value.

Many western stock exchanges are abandoning Russian stocks, for example, Morgan Stanley Capital International and FTSE Russell are cutting Russian equities from widely-tracked indexes, while the London Stock Exchange suspends dozens of Russian depositary receipts from trading, isolating the stocks from a large segment of the investment-fund industry.

Not adverse?
According to the UN over one million refugees, almost all to the west.

Adverse means harmful...averse to means having distaste for.

I quoted the whole thing so that the context is there.
These considerations are valid and they kept hundreds millions behind the iron curtain until the collapse of SU. SU kept people impoverished, unhappy and, worst of all, could always cause a deadly war across the whole Europe. Once the SU collapsed, hundreds of millions could live more happy lifes and, more importantly, stopped being part of the Warsaw pact. Russia could no longer make Poland invade Czechia or Hungary. It could no longer let loose secret police in these countries, jail people indiscriminately or disappear them.
Now, if it swallows Ukraine, it will be one giant step closer to getting back into the position to do that again when its interests are not observed. And it has huge interests in Europe - it has great wares to sell to finance itself and, make no mistake, it also wants the Europe to source the technology for its development.

It could well be, or actually it is so already, that the biggest European countries, probably are calculating that Russia will never encroach on their interests (or, * forbid, their territory). Perhaps they are right, so for the Central Europe the question is if Putin stays on the Ribbentrop-Molotov line or not.

*insert your deity here

Did he mean the post-war destroyed world where there would be no more economies and infrastructure to be used … to which Russia would adapt? Mind boggling.


Putin: Russia will adapt to further sanctions
More now from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who's been warning countries against imposing further sanctions on his country.

He says those that refuse to co-operate will harm themselves - as well as harming Russia.

But despite that harm, he says his country is developing "new competencies" and projects to "solve the tasks facing us".

"We will benefit from this [the sanctions]," he claims.

Russia adopted its own electronic payment system, and can source technologies (or at least components) from China. They are already anyway. Now China can invest in Russia at fire-sale prices.
Russia could not wage an all-out war because China would become the last man standing.

Apparently there is a large focus on improving logistics and traffic management in areas with poor infrastructure.

Was reading yesterday that Russian civilian air travel is kaput. About half the planes are leased from European and Japanese companies. Aeroflot maintenance base is in Germany. Parts are covered in the sanctions and even the locally developed Shukoi 100 flies with French engines.

There are some news about Russia nationalizing the airplanes, but without replacement parts changed at the prescribed intervals....they're just an expensive museum collection called "things we could do before the war" https://tass.com/politics/1411915

The Russian electronic payment system, the MIR payment system, is not used in China or by major western countries.

So you're saying that MIR will break up and burn trying to enter the worlds financial atmosphere?

LOL!

China has a much bigger and better electronic payment system so has little interest and no western country will try to break the sanctions by using MIR.

Wow. What a sinister character.
He should tell that to a babushka that lives in a village in Siberia and has the equivalent of 40 chf pension.

As bright as a shooting star

I wonder this too, a nuclear escalation will affect us all but personally I am ok with that risk to stop this madness, because a world that appeases a despot like Putin is not worth preserving.