Take all the Russian PoWs and make them cycle bikes hooked up to generators. I'm not saying it would come close to making up the shortfall but have them doing something useful.
Russian authorities are shutting down the comments sections of even their own national newspapers (which are already heavily censored and in which only Russian citizens are allowed comment). Signs that things are not going well and they are becoming increasingly paranoid.
Disaster on all fronts for them. Literally nothing about this war is going well for them. Well, unless destroying Ukrainian cities was a goal. I don't even think a single branch of their military has performed particularly well.
Likewise. They were even in my local area but I managed to resist.
I wonder is Putin realising that he had it as good as he was going to have it? He's fallen into the gambler's trap, here. He gambled on Ukraine (he thought it was a sure bet, maybe) and that didn't go well. So, in order to cover for that initial failure, he's having to threaten the West in order to try and cow them into stopping support for Ukraine. And also because it's not going well in Ukraine, he's having to mandate a near total outside media blackout in Russia. Does he not understand that an information shutdown of that kind of severity is going to have quite a few Russians asking questions? More than he can send to prison, even?
He's bargained on one front and has ended up with three - the war in Ukraine, the economic war with the West and a struggle to maintain the narrative at home.
He looks to be Homer Simpsoning his way to his political downfall,
"I’m pretty sure I can struggle my way out. First I’ll just reach in and pull my legs out … now I’ll pull my arms out with my face."
(gurgling sound)
You should have a read of a Yale paper on the effectiveness of sanctions on apartheid South Africa.
To summarise the paper the sanctions imposed by governments were not as effective as people think.... The sanctions imposed by ordinary men and women refusing to buy South African products (which started in Ireland) was far more effective and lead to the regime change.
Oh this again....
Shorting banned - really? Why....?
They had a Mandela in Gorbachev, and they hate him there. And like South Africa, he brought them everything they could ever need to prosper and they completely ballsed it up.
Dis Vladimir get his invitation from the Ceann Comhairle yet, I wonder???
I think the VDV song is the best,russian airborne troops,when Ukraine is mocking them lol
Here is the original with subtitles
Here is the Ukraine version
45,000 employees out of a job.
Around 25 km is shelling range I believe.
Cold calling Russians from Lithuania to bypass the kremlin propaganda,90% hangs up.
Scary how many is affected by it
Short selling can trigger a downwards spiral for the economy, in theory. It can trigger an avalanche of selling and thereby reduce stock prices. Some western countries also banned the practice for a short period during the 2008 crash. I don't know enough about the subject to be honest.
I'd say that a lot of the Kadyoskies are having 2nd thoughts too....the surviving one's anyway.
Was a rhetorical question
So not only are they the crappest paras in Europe they also have the crappest song. The Falschirmjagers know how to pen a banger
As do the Legion Paratroops, which they cheekily nicked from a very problematic German organisation after WW2 :
I'm going to be laughing my head off when all the BMW's, Mercedes, Range Rovers and other vehicles cannot be serviced properly anymore due to lack of parts.
Even more so the Ferrari's, Maserati's & Lambo's.
Eat that Ruskies!
No comparison,russian paras and army in general have shown their might in Ukraine.
The Russian bear became a teddy bear in two weeks
It took years to do so and a tide of local near insurrection.
I don't think he does and like the "putin is a madman!!" stuff, it's far too simplistic and lazy. Nobody comes from being a very junior member of the KGusedtoB to running the largest country on the planet and doing so for over twenty years by being either a fool or a madman. IMHO that's even a dangerous opinion to hold. Czar Vlad is no fool, or madman, and we shouldn't treat him like one, or act towards him like one.
For a start and unlike the Americans putin has won every war he's started. Which is a helluva trick to pull off for anyone. Chechnya after he utterly levelled the place, murdered tens of thousands of their people is now run by his lackey lapdog and is "Russia" by any other name. And got away with it. And the poor bastards are even willing to fight and die in this war for this Russian kafir who murdered their men, women and children in that war, while shouting Allahu Akbar!! fighting his enemies. It would be like if the British invaded Ireland during the Troubles, levelled Dublin and killed ten thousand Irish men, women and children, installed a London puppet and the IRA went with the British to fight and die in the Falklands. If it were a Hollywood script you wouldn't bloody believe it. Georgia after his "Enforcement of Peace" mission(oh yeah, he never likes to use the word "war"..) annexed the bits he wanted and cares little about the rest. And got away with it. In Syria, another murderous lackey of his Assad is still in power today and at the time it was considered his days were numbered and low numbers with it. And got away with it.
So it's hardly a wonder why putin thinks he has the measure of the West and of his own destiny and why his hubris is plain to see. Going into this if I were in his shoes, I'd be pretty feckin confident too. Now I'd bet the farm he didn't think the sanctions and reactions would be so strong and wide ranging. But he'll try to leverage that too and is doing so already. They won't affect him and his close circle anyway, if anything it'll help him reinforce his rhetoric of the West hates us, something many average Russian believes in their marrow anyway because they've breathed that in with the air and had good reason to enough times, and they've proven in the past to be a resilient people and are proud of that in a way most Western minds really don't get(or indeed can be anymore in many ways) especially beyond the "decadent" western cities, in his heartland of dedushka and babushka support.
IMHO All putin wants is a "win". He thought he'd get a much bigger one that's for bloody sure. A Crimea Part Deux. Ukrainian resistance more than any Western sanctions scuttled that plan of his to fúck. His "win" now will be NATO off the table for Ukraine(pretty much a done deal), the Donbas as "independent republics"(ditto), some optics around "de-nazifying" Ukraine and the destruction of Mariupol will be a part of that spin for him to his home crowd. The only sticking point the Crimea corridor. That's why he's still hammering Mariupol, but has dialed back and dug in elsewhere. Kyiv and Odessa are too known, too "iconic", a step too far, but poor Mariupol will feel the heel of his jackboot more easily. Sadly.
Or... NATO, IE mostly the Americans call his bluff and engage his forces more directly. That will stop him dead and he'll back off, or it's atomic armageddon. Though I suspect the former would be much more in play. Like I say, he's no fool or a madman. He knows the backchannels that exist between the men who would be tasked with actually pushing that button regardless of the side in play. When 911 hit America could have gone to defcon 1 in the initial confusion, but those backchannels were in place and that was off the table PDQ. Condoleezza Rice noted at the time that she was in contact with the Kremlin to tell them the US was on high alert wartime footing and it wasn't about Russia and putin replied we know and we know you know it's not us, and she reckoned that was when she knew the Cold War was over. Bless... It wasn't, but the backchannels of that Cold War were working. They'll work today and putin won't press the big button anyway. He knows the American administration has been keeping back, long on rhetoric, short on action he can't spin for his subjects.
My take anyway.
Thats one I've only seen mentioned in one or two places but the availability of parts for the automotive sector is going to cause a lot of problems as time goes on
To be more precise, I was talking about dwindling & lack of supply of parts in Russia over time. There will of course be a spare parts market for a while or even a Chinese copy market for spares.
Admittedly, it is causing a problem with Western production at the moment due to the Ukraine situation.
Sorry, yes, thats what I was referring to as well.
You’ve been watching that BBC doc Russia, Putin and The West haven’t you?
Unfortunately to generate all that energy they are going to have to consume energy. Which brings us along nicely to the topic of food shortages.
The time is now ripe for Cuba to do a "Special Military Operation" on Russia. The honest, truthful, trustworthy, genuine, singular aim being to assist in the maintenance of the Russian infrastructure by improvising the replacement of unavailable parts
Someone earlier mentioned being old enough to remember. Now I like to think I'm still young enough, but there was a time when the South African Rand was worth around $1.25.
Now it's worth $0.07.
Sanctions played its part. Mismanagement etc took care of the rest.
Russia won't recover from this. They just don't have the wherewithal.
Anyway, always remember my mantra:
French : English
Putin : Whore
Literal translation as per Google Translate.
That's President Whore.
Looks like we haven't seen the last of the 2 eur fuel
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