With tensions running high in and around Ukraine, the negotiating sides keep pointing back in time to the peace agreement that ended the last major bout of the conflict between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east.
Personally, I think Russia has bit off more than it can chew here and is looking for a face saving way out. The region will shift to NATO (and that may be unavoidable at this point) because Putin miscalculated about Biden’s and NATO’s resolve. I think the chances of a major invasion have dropped in the past 2 weeks b/c the political calculus for Putin has gotten tougher.
That and the economic impacts of being booted from SWIFT, Nord stream 2 in peril, etc…
The humorous part is that Putin said he would stop the gas flow if Nato retaliated for an invasion of Ukraine and then Nato said “not if we stop the gas first”.
Yes. In addition, every commentary I’ve seen/heard on this is that the Ukrainians will fight. Even if the Russians were to overrun the country, the last thing Putin wants/needs is another Chechnya.
Does anyone know the financial cost this sabre rattling is costing the Russian people?
And would any changes/modifications in the agreement piss off the Russian favoring folks in the eastern regions?
Give peace a chance.
Same judges who helped the Trump campaign with the rulings throwing out ballots in PA. And yes, all three are Karens who wear their hair like it’s still the late 80’s/early 90’s.
LOL…PA Supreme Court is…
6 Dems and 1 GQPer
When you consider that New York, Texas, and California EACH have a higher GDP than Russia, you have to wonder how Russia is even afloat and yet trying to be a bully…
Repost:
Good 18 min podcast on Ukraine/Russia. From the WSJ.
“For Whom the Borscht Bowls”
Kicking Russia out of SWIFT might be a mistake. Better maybe to keep them where they can be tracked?
What’s ironic is that an American President (Trump) tried his level best to destroy NATO, and a Russian President is strengthening and reinvigorating NATO like almost never before. Doesn’t anyone here know how to play this game?
Vladimir Putin + Donald J. Trump = The Axis of Evil 2.0
From WaPost:
More than 100,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to defuse the prospect of conflict . Should peace not prevail, western-gazing Ukrainians would pay the highest price. But in a worst-case scenario, the cost of a major Russian invasion of Ukraine — one of the world’s largest grain exporters — could ripple across the globe, driving up already surging food prices and increasing the risk of social unrest well beyond Eastern Europe.
As tensions mount, one focus of economic concern is the global impact of extreme Western sanctions on Russia — a major exporter of agricultural goods, metals and fuel, particularly to Western Europe and China. Should the crisis escalate to the point of triggering staggering sanctions, the blow could spike prices and worsen global supply chain woes by tightening markets for commodities including natural gas and metals such as nickel, copper and platinum used in the manufacturing of everything from cars to spacecrafts.
Agreed, as I could see Russia going nuclear in cyberspace if it were to happen. That’s why I keep a cash stash in case something crashes our internet access to banks, etc.
Plus Biden is no Trump (thank god).
Also wheat prices could move a lot.
OT, but it isn’t even clever sophistry in PA…
Deliberately conflating a ruling that dealt with voting by ballot in a case about a statute allowing military to vote ANYWHERE, even tho the state Constitution requires people voting by ballot vote in person and in the county they reside in for 60 days prior to the election, with a situation in which mail-in voting is covered by the “or other such method” language in the state constitution and still requires people to return them in the county in which they reside. It’s sloppy and blatant obfuscation and conflation.
While I am sure Russia has such plans, I am equally sure Western nations with a deeper bench of cyber experts have similar plans in regards to Russia…
In such a cyber-war there will be no winners, but Putin’s Russia will be a major loser.