Ah yeah, I more or less understand the outlines of markets, and from what I know the vast majority of Canada's production goes straight to the states rather than being refined for local areas etc. Was more having a critique of the "world" system. Then again, we've seen governments and companies finally begin efforts to bring chip production back to the West so maybe, just maybe they actually are going down that path. Considering the relatively fixed costs of tooling and machinery and the massive levels of automation surely it should be possible to manufacture stuff in Europe without it costing 3x as much. Similarly with food, if things were "normal" and fresh food wasn't available as good as free in supermarkets then prices would be much higher (as they likely should be) and circumstances like these wouldn't lead to a doubling or tripling but still a noticeable increase at the local level.
Foreign anti-tank weapons arriving, these ones for Ukrainians fighting for Kharkov
Why invade now when Ukraine wasn't in a position to join NATO ?
Ukraine would eventually have joined NATO. The Zelensky regime have been demanding NATO give a timeline. It would not have happened in the near-future for obvious reasons.
USA has been flooding weapons into the region. $350m in lethal aid in one year alone, in what a State Department official called the "fastest transfer ever". In November Ukraine requested Patriot missiles. They also announced an intention to acquire 40 SAM batteries by 2025. Zelensky signed an executive order to spend $7.5bn on air defense over the next decade. From Russia's perspective this creates a now-or-never situation. If hundreds of millions of dollars of advanced Western weaponry flood into Ukraine every year, in a very short time a Russian invasion becomes untenable.
When a Russian invasion becomes untenable, the prospect of NATO membership improves greatly. Russia declared this to be a red-line. They have said this decades ago and continually re-iterated it.
It's very early days though. So far the sanctions are in a honeymoon period of sorts. The well off in Russian cities might whine because they can't get a new iphone or chanel bag, the vast majority of Russians beyond won't have noticed on the ground yet. So putin's support base is still strong. After the honeymoon is over and sanctions do bite it could go either way. It could increase his support among the common people, a people steeped in the propaganda and paranoia against the 'West' and he will and is spinning it that way. One thing about Russians is they're a bloody resilient people. They've had to be for centuries.
Definitely more Stalin. He's created a power pyramid with himself at the apex and everyone else is subordinate. There is an entire apparatus of repression and propaganda that exists solely for the purposes of cowing the populace and feeding them disinformation. You could see the visual evidence of this in the way he humiliated his top advisors in that grotesque pantomime before the invasion was launched. They were visibly terrified.
Those are NLAWs
made in Belfast ;)
Both sides? One side has a Fascist as the head of state FFS.....
He's right though.
EXCELLENT - about time - but we should spare recriminations until after the crisis - this is a POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Russia's Toxicity increases hour by hour
Now, could Coca Cola, McDonald's, Nestlé also get the fcuk out please.
Not being smart but how are these weapons arriving in cities where the Ukrainian forces are next to surrounded?
Hope so. Keep in mind McD's has around 840 outlets over there, not a simple move, but hopefully they pull out
HERE HERE!
Russia's Toxicity increases day by day - hour by hour. This conflict is Black and white
Companies are VOLUNTARILY CUTTING THEMSELVES OFF FROM RUSSIA - Astoundingly positive development
Nope, just gonna effect ordinary russians.
Russia declared this to be a red-line. They have said this decades ago and continually re-iterated it.
What gives them the right to dictate this?
Imagine if a lack of access to the McFlurry was the straw the broke the camel's back for the people of Russia.
Again the Russians have lied with promises of safe passage.
Always the case. It will certainly effect the average Russian. We could hope, it will prompt said Russians to ask; Why is this happening, if all we are doing is fighting NAZIs?
I sympathize with the position of the ordinary Russian joe - but in all honesty they could be considered Economic Collateral Damage.
The Citizens of the Ukraine are entitled to the Lions Share in all considerations
As did Ukraine until pretty recently. A line of them. Ukraine was Russia Lite with the same oligarch asset stripping, the same fascists being supported by government, openly and tacitly, the same levels of corruption and overwatch on her citizens. The Maidan revolution sought change and got it to a large degree, but there were still elements of the old world still in play before the Russians crossed their border. Ukraine deserves and needs our full support as it tries to continue moving forward away from that crap and away from the old worldinto the new, but it had some travelling to do. This war should speed that up rapidly. One of the few good things to come out of it. I hope anyway.
Probably going to the units counter-attacking the Russians at Kharkov
Keep in mind Russians don't really control swathes of land, rather they hold key routes/roads
day 13 of the Big Russia attack on Houses in Ukraine, how many more days can Ukraine last? I reckon one more year
The headless chicken approach to logistics and command & control can't be helping. Into that mix throw conscripts who were demotivated (probably before they even left Russia), being tactically outclassed by a more battle-hardened and highly-motivated opponent who is receiving modern western weapons and regular inputs of satellite and radar intelligence and probably signals intercepts...and it all adds up.
It will certainly effect the average Russian. We could hope, it will prompt said Russians to ask; Why is this happening, if all we are doing is fighting NAZIs?
Hopefully, but it could also 'prove' to them that they are in the right and they are fighting nazis and a west in the form of capitalist western corporations who clearly hate them. That'll be the spin that's for sure and many will buy it too. There is very fertile Russian ground for those seeds of doubt.
Will we get to live to see the day that Nestle are finally on the right side of history? 😂
With how often the machines are broken Russia would have burned a long time ago :P
Young men can't be refugees? Who do you think they want as canon fodder for the front lines in Syria? As much as I'd like to think I'd have the courage to fight, most likely I'd clear out and try to survive.
Coming from him it seems hollow though. Think he's one of the Brexit Intellectuals afair if not an oxymoron, a mastermind of the project to detatch UK from "Europe" + an anti EU zealot.
I doubt any of the EU countries on Ukraine border that are at sharp end of dealing with this will give much of a f--k now whether UK takes any refugees, so its all about their own internal politics, or a kind of "virtue signalling" they are doing here (I think a correct use of that nasty term).
They can send weapons to supply to Ukraine though while war continues, that was good and welcome + useful, and assume they will continue that.
Good for you. And no foreign country should be obligated to facilitate that life choice.
Absolutely.
The media needs to publicly shame them which is beginning to happen as I heard it mentioned on LBC earlier.
If they don’t control swathes of land and don’t control the skies, their supply lines are sitting ducks for the Ukrainians. I reckon the Russians know this and hence are being cautious by not moving forward for fear of getting slaughtered.
16,000 international soldiers added to Frey, call a little a bullshit and say it’s 10,000 that’s a whole new division.
This thing as it stands is not going putins way
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