Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

Recent article from BBC was linked here a few pages back with a regular putin fan boy hyping up the movement of putin's terrorists to gain a multiple of the area of Ukraine that they grabbed last year. The figure the article identified for land taken by putin's terrorists so far this year amounted to less than half a percent of the land area of Ukraine. I can understand the strategy that Ukraine seem to be taking in letting putin burn out his forces taking such a small area of their country to a point where they will be too weak militarily to hold anything. The Kursk offensive by Ukraine also seems to have coincided with an increase in the numbers of daily casualties reported in putin's forces and to me it seems like they have played this move well to increase the rate of attrition on putin's terrorists so they have less resources to attack Ukraine.

The amount of Russian miss-information Putin's propaganda department has squeezed out of the supposed Istanbul deal being dropped due to the influence of Nuland. She's also given as being one of the prime movers who encouraged Ukrainians in the Mardan protests. Loads of stuff on the net, all sponsored by Putin, and its just surprising how many fall for it.

I think that the burning question is not how fast it will increase (but that's important too!) it is what rate it will finally stop at……In Belgrade when hyperinflation hit, it took just 1.4 days for prices to double. Here's hoping that Russia will beat that record.

Well yes basically.

As anyone who doesn’t swallow the Kremlin scutter propaganda about 2014 and knows the facts couldn’t be that thick, so yes they could be “sponsored by Putin”

Just think about what you wrote there when you said “sponsored by Putin”

You’ve been duped…

The consequences of those events in 2014 has ultimately destroyed and disfigured Ukraine. The Americans thought they could egg on that overthrow in Russia's backyard and there'd be no consequences.

It was a dreadful series of strategic errors in hindsight.

It's spilt milk now.

You seem to be implying somehow America caused putin to invade parts of Ukraine in 2014. How does Ukraine being a democracy that removes a pro putin puppet from government make America the guilty one for putin attacking Ukraine and murdering thousands of Ukrainians?

It very much sounds like you are victim blaming here and spewing a very pro kremlin version of recent history.

If 2014 had played out differently and led to a dictator propped up by Russian troops like Belarus.

You would probably be trotting out some line about 'losing' Ukraine and strategic errors too.

Consequences either way from an attempt by Russia to reduce Ukraine back to some sort of vassal state.

Taking the Russian position is not objective though, it is at best (if you don't hold sneaking regard for Putin & Russia) just contrarian IMO.

I mean it looks obvious that what happened after 2014 was Russia's dark arts and influence techniques (propaganda, espionage, and corrupution - you have to admit their experience and skill level at this is much greater than the US or Europeans) failed in Ukraine, and so Putin turned to more direct violence to get what he wanted.

And seemingly you are okay with that or see it as natural progression, and blame the victims instead which is disturbing.

Remember MH17?

Same thing will happen again

• at least a dozen conspiracy theories and narratives will pop up
• Kremlin will deny, and hence confirm involvement
• Orwell road residents will blame NATO
• And then blame Ukrainians

Aside: Russian plane crashlanded yesterday due to poor maintenance

That has also been my hope for some time; that the failing Russian economy would eventually stall their invasion. For people who may not be as familiar as you with Yugoslavija in the 90s, it's important to know that things did not fall apart immediately once hyper inflation took hold. Hyper inflation lasted for 2 years from 92 to 94. But the war in Bosnia didn't end until Dec 95. So hyper inflation is not the end, but a milestone on the road to defeat.

For anyone wondering what hyper inflation is like, it's surreal. All your liquid wealth gets wiped out. Any savings in local currency wiped out. Many will see this possibility coming, so will convert their roubles into Euros or dollars. Some will go for hard currency on the black market and pay a big premium. And live with the increased risk of their apartment being robbed by armed gangs. Those who don't want that risk, might keep it in a Euro/Dollar account in a bank. But Putin will come after that money and nationalise it, just as Milosevic did.

Because of the inflation, you need to buy stuff as soon as you are paid. Literally as soon as you're paid and leave work to buy bread/milk. But the bread makers don't see the point in producing any more bread than they have to, since the money they have to accept will be worthless in a couple of days time. So they produce the minimum and queues form. Some people who still have access to hard currency don't like queuing and they'll either bribe a place in the queue or pay a queue entrepreneur. That's someone like a student who gets paid to wait in line. They could earn more money than their state-paid parent for waiting in a bread/milk queue that day.

The black market thrives. In the border areas, smuggling will be rife. In 92-94 Yugoslavija, it was normal for people to cross into Bulgaria with a few empty 2l Coca Cola bottles that they would fill with petrol, pay the customs guys a small cut.

For a relatively normal country, it's devastating the longer it goes on. 1960s, 70s Yugoslavija would have been almost Germanic in its adherence to rules and a strong social belief. Once hyper inflation starts, it's everyone for themselves. The criminal class does very well from the black marketeering and belief in the old rules-based society collapses.

@Sand how you've gone from cheer leading the Americans in Afghanistan to cheerleading the Russians in their invasion of Ukraine 😂

Some people just want to watch the world burn!

Back to the battlefield. I seen a clip of Russian SU-25 dropping bombs on chasiv Yar and they're flying low right up to the city. It's sad Ukraine hasn't been given the means yet to prevent this.

Sanctions + war + the loss of 1000s of laborers + the general disintegration of infrastructure + the fact the rich Russians are fleeing to Turkey with barrels of dollars + attacks on oil refineries can't be a good thing. It's the cluster-fukedness of the thing that adds up.

You can argue the nuances but the democratically elected leader of Ukraine was removed in 2014. That is a statement of fact. It doesn't matter if he leaned toward Russia or Europe.

This was a strategic mistake for the west and it split Ukraine, obviously in hindsight given the situation today with Crimea and the other eastern provinces which have large populations who are Russian speakers who see themselves as Russian.

I don't know how anybody in their right mind can look back to 2014 and say "yeah, that worked out well".