Ukraine

[skuthorp]

Nazis were preferred to anyone with the mere scent of communism. The very idea of communal ownership by those doing the work was heresy to the capitalist world, no matter that like most human ideals they were corrupted by the same humans.

[Joe (SoCal)]

ruhhh ro


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02...ent-in-ukraine

[George Jung]

I've little doubt putin will invade - but the 'calculus' to his approach is interesting. Playing his own game.

[CWSmith]

According to the nightly news, Russia will be conducting tests of their nuclear missile technology in a few days. Think they are sending a message to the US?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The Economist seems pretty certain that Putin will invade.

We have pretty much had peace in Europe for more than seventy years apart from the localised horrors in the Balkans.

The Ukraine is huge. It doesn’t seem that it’s citizens want to be Russians.

[Paul Pless]

The Economist seems pretty certain that Putin will invade.

We have pretty much had peace in Europe for more than seventy years apart from the localised horrors in the Balkans.

The Ukraine is huge. It doesn’t seem that it’s citizens want to be Russians.

how badly does the rest of europe not want ukrainians to become russians?

[Joe (SoCal)]

Sadly NATO and the US wont pull the fiscal nuclear trigger and shut off the Russian banks. Why you ask ?????? OIL & Gas

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

how badly does the rest of europe not want ukrainians to become russians?

We cannot tell at this point. Wars are extremely dangerous. They go out of control very fast. Ukraine is not in NATO, is not in a position to join, but ask the Baltics what they think.

[George.]

RT News, which had been dismissive of the crisis until a few days ago, now reports that shells have landed on Russian territory near the border, and that the first "refugees" from eastern Ukraine have arrived in Russia.

We can guess where this is heading. The genocide doping games in Beijing end tomorrow.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

This is a free article in “Foreign Affairs”:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...if-russia-wins

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

More:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/18...tion-invasion/

[JayInOz]

F### Putin. Thousands of innocent Ukrainians will die to sooth that pig eyed runts ego. And if this goes really bad and spreads, millions will die in the northern hemisphere and China will roll their machine into the Pacific. JayInOz

[George.]

Definitely eff Putin.

But I can't help but mention that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq on false pretexts in 2003, most of the world was saying:

F### Bush. Thousands of innocent Iraqis will die to sooth that pig eyed runts ego.

As it turned out, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis died. The difference was that there was no group of countries ready to stand up against the aggressor in 2003.

[Hallam]

Definitely eff Putin.

( F### Bush. Thousands of innocent Iraqis will die to sooth that pig eyed runts ego. )

But I can't help but mention that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq on false pretexts in 2003, most of the world was saying:



As it turned out, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis died. The difference was that there was no group of countries ready to stand up against the aggressor in 2003.

This is a fact and Putin knows it, that with the Invasion of Iraq, the USA and the coalition of the willing gave Russia moral equivalence for what is unfolding in Ukraine.

It was the unjustifiable act of aggression that put an end to the post cold war detente. E'ffed it right up for the beginning of the New American Century! We have yet to see how it will all play out as the chickens come home to roost.

[George.]

This is a free article in “Foreign Affairs”:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...if-russia-wins

That one is a bit apocalyptic.

If Russia achieves its political aims in Ukraine by military means, Europe will not be what it was before the war. Not only will U.S. primacy in Europe have been qualified; any sense that the European Union or NATO can ensure peace on the continent will be the artifact of a lost age. Instead, security in Europe will have to be reduced to defending the core members of the EU and NATO.

The members of the EU and NATO (there is no such thing as "core members" - all have equal status) plus Sweden and Finland comprise the totality of what was called "Europe excluding Russia" for centuries until 1991. All that plus Turkey and the Baltics. And I expect NATO and the EU to be strengthened, not weakened, by a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and tolerance for Russian influence in elections to become akin to treason (which it is).

[George.]

It was the unjustifiable act of aggression that put an end to the post cold war detente.

I think the first sign of it was Russian troops appearing in Belgrade unannounced during the Kosovo war. Russia drew a line in the sand and the West had to accept the fait accompli.

[George.]

More:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/18...tion-invasion/

This one points to a massive influx of refugees into the EU:

Four people familiar with U.S. intelligence said that Russia has drafted lists of Ukrainian political figures and other prominent individuals to be targeted for either arrest or assassination in the event of a Russian assault on Ukraine.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I may not be alone in thinking of the Peloponnesian War, in which the Good Guys, the Athenian democratic state, who had formed the backbone of resistance to the Persians, started to exploit their allies (OK, so they built the Parthenon) and then started a war with Sparta, a pretty nasty totalitarian state, built on slavery, which they ultimately lost catastrophically because of the baleful effects of populist leaders.

[George.]

With Iraq as Syracuse?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I couldn’t possibly comment!

But in general I think it rhymes rather than repeats. People behave in the same sorts of ways.

[LeeG]

Definitely eff Putin.

But I can't help but mention that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq on false pretexts in 2003, most of the world was saying:



As it turned out, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis died. The difference was that there was no group of countries ready to stand up against the aggressor in 2003.

The unipolar super power went rogue.

[LeeG]

This is a fact and Putin knows it, that with the Invasion of Iraq, the USA and the coalition of the willing gave Russia moral equivalence for what is unfolding in Ukraine.

It was the unjustifiable act of aggression that put an end to the post cold war detente. E'ffed it right up for the beginning of the New American Century! We have yet to see how it will all play out as the chickens come home to roost.

It is bizarre to hear Americans speak about Ukrain’s inviolable sovereignty when we blasted through a half dozen nations in our GWOT.

[CWSmith]

The cooperation agreement between Russia and China remind me more and more of German and Italy with the lead up to WWII.

[TomF]

Me too. Coordination to push contested territory at either end of Asia.

Again, imo the timing of protests and occupations/attempts in Western countries are not coincidence. Nobody freely chooses to occupy Ottawa's downtown in midwinter; someone wanted it to happen now. Someone who doesn't give a damn about what allegedly motivated the occupiers.

[George Jung]

So.... invasion tomorrow or Monday?

Have to wonder if the 'intelligence' outlining a hit list has been shared with the intended victims.

[ERGR]

I accept that it's fair to question the virtues of some parts of US foreign policy, present and past. The logic that it would in any way excuse a Russian attack on Ukraine is however beyond me. It doesn't affect the legal or moral aspects of US or NATO help to Ukraine either. This conflict is about Ukraine and Russia.
/Erik

[Osborne Russell]

I accept that it's fair to question the virtues of some parts of US foreign policy, present and past. The logic that it would in any way excuse a Russian attack on Ukraine is however beyond me. It doesn't affect the legal or moral aspects of US or NATO help to Ukraine either. This conflict is about Ukraine and Russia.
/Erik

Yes, that part of it, at least, is quite simple. Simply illogical. What if America imported slaves? Oh wait, she did. Therefore Putin is entitled to attack Ukraine?

[SMARTINSEN]

Here is a portion of Vice President Harris' speech at the Munich security conference earlier today:

We have worked intensively with many of you in this room to ensure we are prepared to move forward with consequences.

We have prepared, together, economic measures that will be swift, severe, and united. We will impose far-reaching financial sanctions and export controls. We will target Russia’s financial institutions and key industries. And we will target those who are complicit and those who aid and abet this unprovoked invasion.

Make no mistake: The imposition of these sweeping and coordinated measures will inflict great damage on those who must be held accountable. And we will not stop with economic measures. We will further reinforce our NATO Allies on the eastern flank.

Do you think that using the word "swift" was intentional? If they do in fact go to war against Ukraine, what are the implications for the rest of the world of cutting Russia off from the international banking system?

[Joe (SoCal)]

Why doesn’t NATO pull the SWIFT option ???

The 'Nuclear Option': What Is SWIFT And What Happens If Russia Is Cut Off From It?


What Is SWIFT And Why Is It Important?
SWIFT is a secure communications platform used by banks, brokerages, and other financial institutions to send and receive information, such as instructions for transferring money overseas or settling securities trades.
However, it does not actually move or hold money and securities.
Say a German company is buying Russian natural gas, so it needs to pay for it. It can transfer money from its German bank account to the Russian firm's Russian bank by entering the recipient's account number and the SWIFT code.
The German firm then sends a message from its German account, via SWIFT, to the Russian bank saying a money transfer is incoming. Then, when the funds electronically arrive, they will be available for the Russian company to withdraw.
SWIFT's use of standardized codes for instructions enables banks to process payments quickly.
Some 11,000 financial institutions located in more than 200 countries and territories use SWIFT. The platform is on pace to process more than 10 billion messages this year, facilitating trillions of dollars in cross-border payments.
Before SWIFT, when banks wanted to communicate financial information from one place to another, they used a "telex" system, based on old telegraph circuits. But that was slow and cumbersome, and not secure.
So SWIFT was set up in 1973.
Today, SWIFT is a behemoth in the financial-communications industry thanks to its ease of use, speed, and security. It can help banks complete cross-border payments in under five minutes and offers end-to-end tracking.
"It is the most trusted kind of cross-border payment-messaging system out there and so its hugely important," said Brian O'Toole, a former senior adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department.
Who Owns SWIFT?
Based in Belgium, the cooperative is owned by member banks and governed by a 25-member board of directors that currently includes one Russian national. The organization is overseen by the G10 central banks -- Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States, Switzerland, and Sweden -- as well as the European Central Bank.

Can The United States Force SWIFT To Disconnect Russia?
SWIFT adheres to Belgian and European law, not U.S. law, so it "doesn't actually have to listen to the United States," O'Toole said.
However, the United States has the power to twist SWIFT's arm by threatening sanctions against the platform itself as it had done when it was seeking to disconnect Iran, O'Toole said.

What Would Happen If Russia Were Cut Off From SWIFT?
Russia is a much larger economy than Iran and deeply integrated into the global financial community, so the impact of a SWIFT cutoff would be much greater than in the case with Iran.
Russia would face significant economic disruption for a period of time, especially with respect to cross-border payments, as it adjusts to new platforms, says Elina Ribakova, an economist at the Washington-based Institute for International Finance.
The disruption could cause the Russian economy to contract and send the ruble tumbling in the short term, she says. However, since Russia's leading exports -- oil and natural gas -- are critical to Europe's livelihood, both sides would seek to find a quick solution, Ribakova told RFE/RL.
The impact would also be muted because Russia has been building its own financial-messaging system, she adds.
Back in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, there were calls to cut Russia off from SWIFT. So the Kremlin backed development of a domestic financial-communications platform to protect itself.
Known as the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), the Russian platform had more than 400 member banks -- including two dozen from former Soviet states -- and handled one-fifth of all domestic financial communications, as of the end of 2020.

So Russia Is Protected Then?
Not entirely: the Russian system has its drawbacks.
Whereas SWIFT operates 24 hours a day, SPFS can send payment messages only during weekday working hours, Maria Shagina, a fellow at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Zurich, wrote earlier this year. SPFS also has shorter limits on the size of messages, she said.
Russia "technically" can make the transition should it get cut off from SWIFT, "which was not the case in 2014," Ribakova said. Nonetheless, "it will still be a massive shock to the system" for a period of time, she said.
Russia could try to expand SPFS internationally as a possible solution for cross-border transactions, O'Toole says.
China, whose economy is far larger than Russia's, is also developing an alternative to SWIFT. In 2015, Beijing launched the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) to help internationalize use of the Chinese currency, the yuan.
Some Chinese officials have called for using CIPS instead of SWIFT to protect the country's banks from threats of a cutoff.
Bank Sanctions: More Devastating?
While some officials and analysts have called SWIFT the "nuclear" option, O'Toole says that was an exaggeration. Russia would still be allowed to conduct international transactions through other communications platforms, albeit less effective ones.
"If you cut SWIFT off from the Russian banking system without doing anything else, all you're doing essentially is forcing it to use [SWIFT competitors]," he said. "You're not prohibiting transactions. You're just making it more annoying to transact and more difficult for people to get those transactions."
He says the White House should focus on placing sanctions on Russian banks. "What financial institutions will the administration go after if Russia crosses the border? I think that's the relevant policy question," he said.
The United States could target state-owned financial institutions tied to Russia's elite, like VEB and Russian Direct Investment Fund. Sanctioning those two banks could be "more impactful" than cutting Russia's entire banking system off from SWIFT, he said.
VEB acts as a development bank and payment agent for the Russian government. The Russian Direct Investment Fund, meanwhile, is the country's sovereign-wealth fund, and has been closely involved in Kremlin foreign prestige projects: such as promoting the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

Targeting leading retail banks Sberbank and VTB would be trickier, he said. While placing sanctions on them would result in "major economic dislocation" because of the massive market share they hold, ordinary Russian citizens would be caught in the crosshairs.

Can Russia's Economy Withstand The Turmoil?
Since 2014, Russia has been building up its defenses against the threat of greater U.S. sanctions. Aside from developing a SWIFT alternative as well as a payment-processing alternative to Visa and Mastercard, the Russian government has kept a tight lid on spending, even posting budget surpluses, a rarity in Western democracies.
The government has also built up its foreign-currency and gold reserves, which exceed $620 billion, putting it neck-and-neck with India for fourth-highest in the world.
That amount includes the roughly $200 billion in the "rainy day" National Wealth Fund.
Barring any sanctions, Russia's reserves could grow another $20 billion next year, Ribakova says. The Russian government "always has this sort of Sword of Damocles hanging over them of more sanctions. And I think that sort of permeates all aspects of their macroeconomic policy," she said.
"It's part of this 'Fortress Russia' strategy, and they're sticking to it because it has worked well for them," she said.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-swift.../31601868.html

[CWSmith]

Russia is a much larger economy than Iran and deeply integrated into the global financial community, so the impact of a SWIFT cutoff would be much greater than in the case with Iran.

Yes, but the Russian economy is less than half the German economy and then there is the rest of Europe. The EU may need to take a little pain to stop Russian aggression.

[George.]

So.... invasion tomorrow or Monday?

Monday. The genocide games will be over and Zelenski, incredibly, will be out of the country - in Munich of all places.

Have to wonder if the 'intelligence' outlining a hit list has been shared with the intended victims.

Yes. I bet a lot of them are packing for Poland as we speak.

[Joe (SoCal)]

Yes, but the Russian economy is less than half the German economy and then there is the rest of Europe. The EU may need to take a little pain to stop Russian aggression.

They wont because …………. OIL & GAS.

The interesting diplomatic play would be for NATO to openly respond that they will not include the Ukraine into NATO. That would remove all the power from Putin, and any invasion would be exactly that an invasion without the pretense of any reason.

[CWSmith]

The interesting diplomatic play would be for NATO to openly respond that they will not include the Ukraine into NATO. That would remove all the power from Putin, and any invasion would be exactly that an invasion without the pretense of any reason.

That was just one of the lies. He would still invade.

[Osborne Russell]

See, Putin is not like Hitler. Didn't occur to Hitler to evacuate Germans "for their protection" before invading the Sudetenland "for their protection" Or maybe he figured, uff it, why hassle it, all I need is something for cowards in the west to hang their hat on and so prevent the west from responding with force. Doesn't take much to do that -- let's go.

Vlad has erected tent camps and given every evacuee $140. Liberals rejoice. "See, I told you comparing him to Hitler was over the top!"

[Joe (SoCal)]

Our reporters are on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine border as shelling intensifies in eastern Ukraine and thousands of civilians board buses to evacuate. Follow live.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02...ee56a145db32d2