Russia-Ukraine War

[chew-ie]

Would be an awesome statement if parts of the russian army lay down weapons _because_ they are attacking their close neighbours.
*keepsdaydreaming*

[Warenwolf]

I'm not sure China would suffer as much from sanctions. A lot of the exports include components you're looking at right now. Your phone is manufactured in China with components made in China. For quite a while that country has been the workbench of Western tech-companies. Even if Apple et al could start producing their products on NATO soil it would mean that people had to pay the real prices for them. I doubt people would be able to afford them then; meaning the investors and/or stockholders would be very happy.

That is exactly why they are heavily exposed to sanctions. Trade means that you are selling A in order to get money to pay for B. China's economy is heavily export oriented with 17 % of GDP coming from export income - moment you stop buying their products, money stops flowing in. Workforce in their factories gets laid off. And they will not be happy.
When was the last time you saw Made in Russia sign - never? That is why Russia can weather sanctions FAR BETTER than a country like China.

Of course, this hurts both ways. Conflict always does, unless you enemy is a poor goat hearder in third world country. But this is going way OT.

[Warenwolf]

50 000 refugees, fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, have crossed into Poland in the last two days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60527138

The UN estimates that 100,000 people have escaped Ukraine in the past 48 hours.

[mr.WHO]

50 000 refugees, fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, have crossed into Poland in the last two days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60527138

The UN estimates that 100,000 people have escaped Ukraine in the past 48 hours.

100'000 already.
Poland is coordinating with Lithuania, Romania, Slovakya and Hungary to provide help to refugees.
It helps that there are already a lot of Ukrainians from previous invasion, who settle and work here, they are helping eachother now.

So far it seem to work well.

[Warenwolf]

50 000 refugees, fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, have crossed into Poland in the last two days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60527138

The UN estimates that 100,000 people have escaped Ukraine in the past 48 hours.

100'000 already.
Poland is coordinating with Lithuania, Romania, Slovakya and Hungary to provide help to refugees.
It helps that there are already a lot of Ukrainians from previous invasion, who settle and work here, they are helping eachother now.

So far it seem to work well.

Effing deja vu moment here.

Anyways, I expect the numbers to be in millions in couple of weeks, especially if reports of unrestrained warfare start to spread (thankfully only few incidents have been reported until know).

[euclid]

I see the vicious fighting going on in Kyiv and elsewhere. How motivated can those Russian soldiers be, killing their neighbors, many of whom are also Russians in essence? Seems to me that many of them (Russian soldiers) must be pretty demoralized over the whole situation.

My son is working for an international trading software company. The team he leads is international, located all over the globe. Three team member are from Kyiv. Two of them have taken shelter in an underground station after a failed attempt to flee the city. One of them got drafted; his cousin lives in Russia, a soldier and part of the army attacking Kyiv. I guess there are many similar situations.

Cheers Euclid

[mr.WHO]

Seems like Poland convinced Hungary, Italy and Cyprus to support real EU sanctions for SWIFT system.

Polish Prime Minister is now in Berlin to talk with Germany who is last EU country who is blocking it.

[Alan Phipps]

@ chew-ie & Observe: Regarding the will to fight, I suspect that the Russian ground troops doing face-to-face fighting at this stage may be the more elite and reliable forces who will perhaps be more motivated by their regimental ethos to succeed in any task etc. The supporting arms and services, especially artillery, air force and naval units may have the dubious benefit of just doing their normal job or supplying combat projection at a distance where just pulling a lanyard or pressing a button is involved - and so can almost be desensitised to the likely outcomes.

[chew-ie]

@Alan

While sadly this is true - there are the pauses during attack, the situations Euclid describes (russian / ukrainian relatives) and the fact we had a long time in peace. It's not like the world back in 1900 were latent "hate" for foreign countries was normal. Humans are more connected nowadays. That has to make a difference.

---

Glory to the polish people / Poland - they really show kind hearts during this misery.

[mr.WHO]

@ chew-ie & Observe: Regarding the will to fight, I suspect that the Russian ground troops doing face-to-face fighting at this stage may be the more elite and reliable forces who will perhaps be more motivated by their regimental ethos to succeed in any task etc. The supporting arms and services, especially artillery, air force and naval units may have the dubious benefit of just doing their normal job or supplying combat projection at a distance where just pulling a lanyard or pressing a button is involved - and so can almost be desensitised to the likely outcomes.

I think there were multiple footage yesterday about Russian Chechen Rosgward units that is dedicated/elite urban warfare unit trained from Chechen war.
The footage was of the unit mobilizing in Grozny and deployed in Southern Belarus.

It's an open question of how much actual experince those units have (most of them are probably new recruits, not Checen war veterans) but at least in appearances they are a mean business (like Russia giving a hint they will raze Kyiv like Grozny).
No matter how good their are, they won't do without heavy artillery and air support, so in the end it might end as ugly as razing Grozny.

[Tamina]

Seems like Poland convinced Hungary, Italy and Cyprus to support real EU sanctions for SWIFT system.

Polish Prime Minister is now in Berlin to talk with Germany who is last EU country who is blocking it.

Honest question: This is the first time I ever heard from "SWIFT" and I bet this goes for a big majority of people, yet I see social media "masses" being pro exclusion - I usually have my doubts when there are suddenly so many experts in specific fields nobody cared before. Is it actually a good idea to exclude Russia from it? And what goals are we trying to achieve with that on the long run?

[mr.WHO]

Honest question: This is the first time I ever heard from "SWIFT" and I bet this goes for a big majority of people, yet I see social media "masses" being pro exclusion - I usually have my doubts when there are suddenly so many experts in specific fields nobody cared before. Is it actually a good idea to exclude Russia from it? And what goals are we trying to achieve with that on the long run?

I'm not well into this as well, but to my unterstanding this will cut-out Russia from world wide banking-transaction system and make them impossible to wire money (they would literaly have to carry a load of gold/cash suitcase for every deal).
Not the deadly blow, but it's the heaviest economic sanction on paper and only Naval blockade is more serious.

Glory to the polish people / Poland - they really show kind hearts during this misery.

I think that the PTSD from September 1939 kicked in every single Pole, especially when we saw Zelensky on streets of Kiev telling that Ukraine is alone (literally, check YT "Poland's Final message to the British 1939").

Seems like there is country-wide understanding how serious the situation is to the point all politicians left-right-center are focused on helping Ukraine.
Politicians, media, non-gov organizations even soccer and volleyball teams.
Everyone is impressed how well taking the refugee is doing so far and I haven't heard single complaint when the ammunition convoy was sent.


It's surreal, almost like we're in the war, but this time we are playing the UK role (and this time learned the history lesson to be more pro-active).

[jlehtone]

Honest question: This is the first time I ever heard from "SWIFT" and I bet this goes for a big majority of people, ...

I had seen the name. Some years ago banks in Finland updated all their account numbers to SWIFT format.
Now websearch tells that SWIFT has been around since 1973; a communication channel for banks.
(All use same format for accounts, every bank has globally unique ID, etc.)
Without that a bank has to deliver transactions to other banks by some other means.

[Warenwolf]

Seems like Poland convinced Hungary, Italy and Cyprus to support real EU sanctions for SWIFT system.

Polish Prime Minister is now in Berlin to talk with Germany who is last EU country who is blocking it.

Honest question: This is the first time I ever heard from "SWIFT" and I bet this goes for a big majority of people, yet I see social media "masses" being pro exclusion - I usually have my doubts when there are suddenly so many experts in specific fields nobody cared before. Is it actually a good idea to exclude Russia from it? And what goals are we trying to achieve with that on the long run?

Well, SWIFT has been around long time. Of course, you may very well be right that majority of people don't understand it just as most people don't understand how different functions on their phone works.
I don't see how is that relevant to the discussion though...

Being isolated from SWIFT system will in short term hinder sanction avoidance (which has happened so many times before) because neither Russian company buying service or goods could settle their debt and on the other hand a foreign company could not buy or sell their services to Russia... electronically at least. Likewise money transfer would be made much more difficult (but not impossible).
This is heavy artillery of economic warfare, equivalent to an physical embargo being enforced. Russia would be greatly hindered buying or selling products outside the Russia. This will effectively hurt their war chest and rattle oligarchs around Putin far more than missile strikes on Kremlin would.

As to the political evaluation of such actions long term - I would point out that only minority of nations have been against this and mostly because they support or are dependent on Putin one way or another.

[Falcrack]

It's an open question of how much actual experince those units have (most of them are probably new recruits, not Checen war veterans) but at least in appearances they are a mean business (like Russia giving a hint they will raze Kyiv like Grozny).
No matter how good their are, they won't do without heavy artillery and air support, so in the end it might end as ugly as razing Grozny.

Putin is in a pickle. If he orders an open assault on Kyiv, it will be a bloodbath. He will not be able to accomplish his goal without razing the city to the ground. And if he does so, I do not think that NATO could refrain any longer from declaring war.

If he does not order an all out assault on the city, then his forces will still come under attack from Ukrainians. They will receive more and more weapons from the west, and they will grow stronger and stronger. They will start to win battles out in the open.

If Putin succeeds at killing Zelensky, his martyrdom will inspire Ukraine and make it 100 times more deadly for Russia.

If Putin retreats and pulls out of Ukraine, he will have lost all credibility, and his days are not long on the earth, he will soon be dead in a ditch, shot by Russians who are sick of him.

So all he has left is to try, desperately, to crush Ukraine any way he can. But he will fail.

All of these problems for Putin are 100% self-inflicted, just as every other dictator who has fallen has had only himself to blame.

[Warenwolf]

Turkey has apparently now banned transfer of warships through Bosporus and Dardanelles straits
Russia disputes the claim though.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... 9c41a7350e

Putin is in a pickle. If he orders an open assault on Kyiv, it will be a bloodbath. He will not be able to accomplish his goal without razing the city to the ground. And if he does so, I do not think that NATO could refrain any longer from declaring war.

Doubt that very much. There will be condemnations and "expressing of concern" but war - nope.

[mr.WHO]

Putin is in a pickle. If he orders an open assault on Kyiv, it will be a bloodbath. He will not be able to accomplish his goal without razing the city to the ground. And if he does so, I do not think that NATO could refrain any longer from declaring war.

NATO and Poland is helping:
https://cdn.defence24.pl/2022/02/26/192 ... .eu0y.jpeg

Notice the AWACS on the right over the Lublin/Chelm - it fly close to the borded to have Kiev in radar range.
That's why Ukrainian Air Force is still alive and Ghost of Kiyv, if actually exist has a blast.

I saw another AWACS over Romania covering Odessa/Crimea theater.


It's not boots on the ground, but it's there reason why Ukraine kick ass so much, they know where to strike and what's coming all the time.

[Warenwolf]

It's not boots on the ground, but it's there reason why Ukraine kick ass so much, they know where to strike and what's coming all the time.

With all due respect - that is very speculative, I doubt that datalinks between Ukrainian Mig-29 and E-3 Sentry AWACS are established. In best case Ukrainians would have a hell of delay. They got their own radars which are rather good from what I read.

As to Ghost of Kiev - great for moral but every war has produced such stories.

[Warenwolf]

Seems like Poland convinced Hungary, Italy and Cyprus to support real EU sanctions for SWIFT system.

Polish Prime Minister is now in Berlin to talk with Germany who is last EU country who is blocking it.

Apparently it was Hungary and not Germany that was the last EU country to block SWIFT sanctions?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... d0384b13d5

[mr.WHO]

Seems like Poland convinced Hungary, Italy and Cyprus to support real EU sanctions for SWIFT system.

Polish Prime Minister is now in Berlin to talk with Germany who is last EU country who is blocking it.

Apparently it was Hungary and not Germany that was the last EU country to block SWIFT sanctions?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... d0384b13d5

Note "the latest" not the last. Currently the talks are in Berlin after Hungary already agree to support SWIFT sanction.

With all due respect - that is very speculative, I doubt that datalinks between Ukrainian Mig-29 and E-3 Sentry AWACS are established. In best case Ukrainians would have a hell of delay. They got their own radars which are rather good from what I read.

You're right, I doubt there is a direct real time data link, but still it give eye to Ukraine like "Russian squadron A, location, bearings estimated size"
or "Russian squadron B, RTB, now is the time to operate"

Same with satelite data - here is unit this and this, potential target here and there.

It's not full data link, but otherwise Ukraine would be blind by now.


As for Ghost of Kiyv it's either very good propaganda, or possibly several different pilots rather than actually a single Ace.