As such the very act of pulling back is seen as major concession allowing them to more justifably seek the only concessions that they may have been looking for the whole time.
It doesn't look like a major concession, it looks like a major defeat
Who does this recognition tarnish the most, the terrorists or... the terrorists?
You are lucky,Russian only goes for civilian targets
@ArthurDayne
Ukraine will shed a troublesome region, embrace the Western economic sphere and eventually join the EU. Russia will stagnate ever more.
Getting rid of Crimea would be, I'm guessing, not too much of a sticking point for Ukraine, if it came down to it, but getting rid of Donbass might be a sorer point. Before the invasion, Russian separatists only held about a quarter of that entire region. At the least, it would have to be considered that there are/were a whole lot of people there who want no part of Russia, and maybe even less than before the invasion.
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Russia focus efforts into the east of Ukraine in order to depopulate that part of the country and make it easier to 'claim'. Drive people from their homes, bus Russians in, hold a referendum and, hey presto, more Russia.
And in English:-
From the Guardian:
Germany and France have again rejected demands by Russia that European countries pay for its gas in roubles, saying it was an unacceptable breach of contracts and amounted to “blackmail”, Reuters reports.
Speaking during a news conference, Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said he had not yet seen a new decree signed by President Valdimir Putin mandating gas payments in roubles, adding that Germany was prepared for all scenarios, including a stoppage of Russian gas flows to Europe.
The French finance minister, Bruno le Maire, said France and Germany rejected Russia’s demand."
In the play stupid games win stupid prizes category
New contenders for the next round of Darwin Awards.
Maybe they can set up a trade for something that Russia needs from them. Maybe a few million pairs of Adidas trainers or Gucci handbags.
Rouble seems to have almost fully recovered against Euro and Dollar, anyone know why that is?
Anyone for some whistleblowing?
Russia demanding Roubles for gas export payments and exporting firms being mandated to convert 80% of their foreign currency earnings into roubles is driving it up.
Wait until Wheat, Palladium, Oil, Potash,Titanium and god knows what else is pegged to Gold.
This is true sadly. He is genuinely popular
Not sure if this was posted already, but the German headquarters of the Russian company were raided yesterday.
EU antitrust investigators have raided the German offices of Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom on suspicion that it had illegally pushed up prices in Europe, according to several news reports.
The European Commission said its teams carried out unannounced inspections on March 29 "at the premises of several companies in Germany active in the supply, transmission, and storage of natural gas."
What exactly do you think is changing? NATO has said over and over and over again it will not get involved militarily
It was a question
I stand to be corrected but ... It's a kind of fudge - basically gazprom bank still isn't black listed in Europe, so gas is paid for in euros (to gas-prom bank ),and then gas prom converts that to roubles ,
The oil market will probably stabilize in a few months time , as most oil is shipped around the world so supply can be rerouted .. gas though it's going to be 3 or 4 years before Europe has decent options ...
Looks like Russia aren't actually demanding the payment in Roubles, but they're doing the trick spoken about over the past couple of days where they'll demand payment into specific account in Gazprombank, buy Roubles with it on the buyer's "behalf", and transfer those Roubles to another account to complete the transaction in the Russian currency without the buyer doing so.
What did he do (or perhaps fail to do) I wonder?
This is changing,Putin have just announced another 1350000 recruits to be drafted
More canon fodder,and that means that Russia is definately struggling with reinforcing their troops
The first batch are poor and badly trained so how can he imagine they'll be any better? By the time they are trained this will be over.
In other words, faking it to maintain the facade of a viable currency, while using the foreign currency they (Gazprombank) actually get to actually trade as to use for what foreign trade rather than expose their currency to the market
In effect.
They are essentially going back to the 90's grift that made the Oligarchs in the first place.
Do they still have an interest rate of 20%? If so, then it hasn't really recovered.
There would be no hope of Navalny replacing Putin, he is completely outside of the power structures that would choose Putins successor. Navalny is also on an anti corruption crusade which also puts him on a collision course with the oligarchs who derive their fortunes from corruption.
Putins successor will be chosen by the siloviki who are the Russian military and intelligence elite. There are thousands of them all who come from FSB backgrounds and have risen up into senior positions of political power. If a coup does happen to remove Putin from power it would be led by the silovki and they would install his replacement. The best the west could hope for is Dmitri Medvedev who is seen as liberal and introduced reforms in Russia when he was president for four years till Putin took the presidency back again in 2012. He is not from the siloviki himself but he has their ear and he would also be amenable to the oligarchs.
As far as I understand it, since Russia has mandatory military service, this is just the standard draft of conscripts that happens every year at this time of year.
Yes, they are keeping it at 20% for now.
My guess he will send them to the western and eastern flanks in Russia while taking the more experienced veterans from the same positions and send them to Ukraine and joinup with Wagner group in Ukraine for one last attack on Kyiev
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