Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Spain inflation rises to 10%, that is now ! Imagine having rapidly rising inflation and having interest rates @ - 0.5 %

Why should Russians sleep soundly in their beds while Ukrainians are being killed on a industrial scale ...

What's the logic behind it ,

Ukrainians are worth less than Russians.

As for a hard on I said it once in several hundred Posts (possibly thousand + )

Sure didn't people predict no invasion

Source on Ukrainians being killed on an "industrial scale"? What is an industrial scale btw? 100s? 1000s? 10s of 1000s?

Sure arent the Russians being killed at a ratio of like 10:1 compared to Ukrainians if you believe the Ukrainian MoD. Do you not believe them?

If you seriously cheer for bombing of russian cities then you are delusional as to Ukrainian forces strength, or you are sick and just want more death.

Bombing russian cities will galvanise their support and the response would be bombing of Ukrainian cities at a scale not seen yet. Think Chechnya, Grozny type scale. You would have to be sick in the head to be "happy" about the prospect of that.

I suppose the logic is (which I don't agree with), the Russians are bombing Ukrainian Civilians in cities so why should they not have to put up with the same. I certainly don't think it is a good idea to bomb Russian cities, but we need to make sure the cost to Russia for this war is enormous and that all of them feel it. The best way to do that is economically. Obviously this will not result in regime change necessarily, but it might make them think twice about doing the same thing again.

An industrial scale is bombing numerous cities to rubble killing thousands of civillians and displacing millions from there homes.

Simple really

Target Russian civilians, and the Russians will target Ukrainian civilians but ten times as effectively. It is a stupid strategy that will achieve nothing but galvanize support for Putin and for the war.

So you think Ukraine should bomb their own citizens and own territory.. strategic masterclass from yourself Gatling as always

So "killing citizens on an industrial scale" also includes those who were displaced and not killed?

Forbes lists civilian deaths at 1,119+ and injuries at 1,790.

Not good, but hardly death on an industrial scale is it?

Russia announcing a gold buyback at a rate of 500 roubles per gram gold may stabilise the currency.

That and the announcement that gas must be paid for in roubles will also bolster demand for the currency. The Vatican were the first state to buy roubles for that reason.

The big question is if EU states will switch to roubles or disconnect from russian gas entirely by Friday. It would cripple several economies, german industry in particular (reliant on gas for manufacturing)

So Russia has significantly reduced Ukrainians milatary combat power by providing them with tanks and ensuring a vast supply of advanced weapons from the west to help against the invasion..... Hmmm

These are short-term "tricks" really. In the medium and long-term the rouble is under significant pressure.

The Vatican bought peanuts worth. The G7 countries have rejected paying in roubles, so there's a game of chicken going on. Russia gets about 400mm eur per day from gas sales to the EU, as much as it's going to hurt EU countries (especially Germany) and create an energy crisis, it's going to hurt Russia much more. Personally I suspect they'll come to some deal in the short-term.

Do you think EU should capitulate to Putin breaking the contracts and pay in roubles?

Oh, but the Russian civilians are responsible for the war. They are the ones who have enabled this situation with their support for Putin. I just hope western governments have woken up to the reality of the way Russia is. We need to have a long term plan to make sure they would find it difficult to do this again. Losing a lot of equipment and troops will certainly help in this direction, but it needs to be followed up with longer term strategy from western governments:

• Move away from buying Gas and Oil from Russia.
• Facilitate the demographic decline by encouraging highly educated young people to migrate to the EU.
• Discourage FDI (either officially or unofficially) to slow/disrupt Russian economic growth.
• Make it difficult for them to re-arm by restricting access to certain technologies, computer chips and other things.
• Create an EU defensive military that would work with NATO (but not in overseas missions).
• Help rebuild a democratic Ukraine which would also be a source of stable energy supplies.

We certainly can't change the fact that we have a malignant neighbour, but we can make it difficult for it to cause problems in the future.

Yeah, but what's he going to say? "We got no food. We got no ammo. OUR GENERALS' HEADS ARE FALLIN' OFF!"?

If Western countries were to pay for Russian oil and gas in Roubles, then somewhere they must first pay € or $ for these Roubles. The sellers of said Roubles are likely to be Russian financial or trading entities of some sort (no sane Western institution would hold significant stocks of Roubles).

So directly or indirectly Russian entities acquire € or $ for oil/gas. There might be a very short time lag when Western importers hold depreciating Roubles. I assume that oil and gas are prices in $; it would be insane for the Russians to denominate their exports in terms of their own rubbish currency.

So maybe there is no harm in giving in to Vlad on this one, as the whole thing is either window-dressing, macho-nonsense, or sheer financial illiteracy.

Okay but do you think the EU should capitulate to Putin's demand and pay in roubles?

"They can survive without euros, but we will really struggle without their resources."

Modern Russia can't really persist without export revenue. Half a billion dollars a day is significant revenue, not to be sniffed at, certainly not by a country locked in a very expensive war and an even more expensive economic crisis.

This explains the lunacy of it. It is not too difficult to understand.