Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

So...we're all just anticipating the 9th now? Not that I expect significant news but I don't think a day has gone by without seeing that date mentioned somewhere.
 
More good news from the fighting in the Kharkiv area.



If they can keep moving north-east a bit more, then as I was citing from another report, they will be able to attack both a very large Russian logistics base and the supply route that runs south of that to Izium. The Russians can't afford for that to happen IMO, so I think they'll be forced to send some troops back up north from Izium. But the problem for the Russians with that is those troops in Izium have already taken a hell of a beating in their failed attempt to push south.
 
Rumours on twitter that Xiaomi and Lenovo will stop exports to Russia.
 


Can anyone shed any light or provide context for this? I'm sceptical that's the whole story.


Here's a police statement in German:
https://www.berlin.de/polizei/polizeimeldungen/2022/pressemitteilung.1203603.php

They cite a treaty from 1992 that compels them to protect soviet war memorials that commemorate the soldiers that fought to bring down Hitler.

They say they aim for two things: to prevent any kind of conflicts during the commemoration of these soldiers and they want to prevent any kind of support, acceptance or glorification for Russia's offensive war against Ukraine, especially demonstrations.
So they are banning both Russiand and Ukrainian flags from these memorial sites (not the entire city, the tweet is at best misleading in that regard) and forbid wearing uniforms, playing military marches or chants that could be used to express acceptance or glorification of Russia's war against Ukraine. There are exemptions for WW II veterans, diplomats and state delegations.
 
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Here's a police statement in German:
https://www.berlin.de/polizei/polizeimeldungen/2022/pressemitteilung.1203603.php

They cite a treaty from 1992 that compels them to protect soviet war memorials that commemorate the soldiers that fought to bring down Hitler.

They say they aim for two things: to prevent any kind of conflicts during the commemoration of these soldiers and they want to prevent any kind of support, acceptance or glorification for Russia's offensive war against Ukraine, especially demonstrations.
So they are banning both Russiand and Ukrainian flags from these memorial sites (not the entire city, the tweet is at best misleading in that regard) and forbid wearing uniforms, playing military marches or chants that could be used to express acceptance or glorification of Russia's war against Ukraine. There are exemptions for WW II veterans, diplomats and state delegations.
The PDF linked at the end of that contains some maps of the areas. You see that it's just some blocks around the memorial sites and that's it: https://www.berlin.de/polizei/_assets/dienststellen/anlagen-dir-e/220504-direvst111-av-ehrenmale.pdf
 


It's very valid to point out that all this lamenting about red lines is quite pointless and wasting valuable time, considering our allies have already crossed them. But this guy is not a good source for balanced information. He's only focusing on the "bad" side of the debate and presenting it as if it were the mainstream consensus. He seems to have dedicated his Twitter account to take out of context shots at Germany and in one of them he uses a derogatory terms for Germans, too.
 


Good luck 1) finding such numbers and 2) training them long and well enough prior to a first deployment. The US had a peak of 535,000 personnel in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and the required time between enlistment and deployment of recruits was about 6 months. It was just not enough and it won't be ever enough against a fully motivated enemy.
 
They already lost their best troops. Anybody mobilised now would be not properly trained and not properly equipped. They are gathering all the rustbuckets from the old soviet reserve. They will be sending their young men into the grinder, effectively demilitarizing themselves for a generarion.
 


After reading this thread, I am actually surprised that the research unit of the Bundestag ("for many the gold standard of non-partisan analysis") has not done any detailed analysis about how many Ukrainian lives were destroyed using the money that Germany gives to Russia. It would be interesting, wouldn't it?
 
They already lost their best troops. Anybody mobilised now would be not properly trained and not properly equipped. They are gathering all the rustbuckets from the old soviet reserve. They will be sending their young men into the grinder, effectively demilitarizing themselves for a generarion.

Interesting to note that they keep throwing their best at this, now discussions around full mobilisation to throw into the meat-grinder all because they can rely on the safety of having nukes and wiping out humanity. Seems like the safety of nuclear weapons exacerbate conflicts.
 
It's very valid to point out that all this lamenting about red lines is quite pointless and wasting valuable time, considering our allies have already crossed them. But this guy is not a good source for balanced information. He's only focusing on the "bad" side of the debate and presenting it as if it were the mainstream consensus. He seems to have dedicated his Twitter account to take out of context shots at Germany and in one of them he uses a derogatory terms for Germans, too.

I disagree. I think this guy is a very good source of balanced information. His twitter tagline: "POLITICO Chief Europe Correspondent. Austro-Arizonan". For more information, see:

https://www.politico.eu/staff/matthew-karnitschnig/
 
This, plus every day they have held out there since this began has occupied a large portion of Russias southern forces, likely some of their most experienced soldiers that have been on the front since 2014. Its impossible to know just how much this has hindered the Russian advance in the south east and the Donbas, but these few men holding out there might just be the reason Russia doesn't hold all of Donbas already. Their deeds will no doubt go down in history, hopefully there will be survivors and they won't end up like the 'cyborgs' at Donesk airport.

Also, Russia has a special hatred for the Azov regiment still fighting there because they were the guys that liberated Mariupol from Russian forces in 2014 (not because of the Nazi bollocks). I'm sure there are a few Russian commanders that want to finish them.

Weren't they literally founded as a neo Nazi group waving Nazi flags?

Also pretty brutal war crimes against Azov? Genuine questions.
 
After reading this thread, I am actually surprised that the research unit of the Bundestag ("for many the gold standard of non-partisan analysis") has not done any detailed analysis about how many Ukrainian lives were destroyed using the money that Germany gives to Russia. It would be interesting, wouldn't it?
Actually, I was reading today that, due to the sanctions, Russia cannot access payments in euros that it receives. The article was in Dutch (link), but it's based on this study:

https://www.bruegel.org/2022/04/a-sanctions-counter-measure-gas-payments-to-russia-in-rubles/

In short, the Target 2 system ("the euro area’s settlement system") is required to convert euros to rubles, but Russia can't use it cause it's covered by the sanctions. So that 'clever' approach in which euro payments are made to the European branch of the Gazprom Bank and then converted to rubles doesn't actually work. That's why Putin is demanding to be paid directly in rubles, and why it's important that countries continue to refuse doing so.

To be fair though: the Dutch article adds that it's not clear whether this blockade through Target 2 was intentional or a happy by-product. And it also says that those euros are not completely useless to Russia, as apparently they can use euros as collateral when dealing with countries that haven't sanctioned Russia (like China). That's complicated and costly though; a lot of money is lost on the way.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting.
 
Actually, I was reading today that, due to the sanctions, Russia cannot access payments in euros that it receives. The article was in Dutch (link), but it's based on this study:

https://www.bruegel.org/2022/04/a-sanctions-counter-measure-gas-payments-to-russia-in-rubles/

In short, the Target 2 system ("the euro area’s settlement system") is required to convert euros to rubles, but Russia can't use it cause it's covered by the sanctions. So that 'clever' approach in which euro payments are made to the European branch of the Gazprom Bank and then converted to rubles doesn't actually work. That's why Putin is demanding to be paid directly in rubles, and why it's important that countries continue to refuse doing so.

To be fair though: the Dutch article adds that it's not clear whether this blockade through Target 2 was intentional or a happy by-product. And it also says that those euros are not completely useless to Russia, as apparently they can use euros as collateral when dealing with countries that haven't sanctioned Russia (like China). That's complicated and costly though; a lot of money is lost on the way.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

Interesting. My understanding is that this article discusses the situation "if" Gazprombank is sanctioned some time in the future. I think that Gazprombank is not sanctioned so far (I am not 100% sure). So the payments go to Russia without any problems at this point (70+ days). Am I wrong?

(And I don't think that Russia will keep providing gas if they can't access the money. )

Edit: Here is an article from WSJ. It discusses a few aspects of these transactions, but it did not really clarify things for me. My understanding remains that Russia receives all the gas money without any real problems.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gazpro...der-that-dodged-western-sanctions-11646996338
 
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This is a very reasonable prediction:


He has to understand very little about Germany if he believes people will feel about those two events in the same way.


But then he doesn't really care about Germany anyway. Germany is just a proxy for him to get at "liberals" which itself is hilarious given the recent past.
 
This is a very reasonable prediction:



What a colossal bullshit. Of course being indecisive in how to support Ukraine is comparable to killing millions of jews. The guy has to be a grade A asshole for posting stuff like this.

This makes me angry, it's belittling the holocaust. Start using your brain for once, jesus