Before:  After:  I am not prone to draw conclusions, but he has been filmed on a very USSR like office, holding the conference on-line. And we are talking about a guy that just cant live without the emperor's glam. Is putting hiding in a (very nice yet sober) bunker? |
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In theory, Putin's army is supposed to have a large number of technologically updated warplanes and Ukraine, while having a reasonable army, could not really stop them in the air. Air superiority / supremacy should be easy to achieve for Putin, but it does not seem to be happening. Also, the movement of a large number of troops north of Kyiv would put to shame even the most incompetent of the Second Word war generals. These troops seem like a sitting duck (should I say a sitting snail?) just waiting for a rain of "Javelins". What do you think of the abilities that, until now, Putin's generals have shown? I am not discussing the general principle: Pin Ukrainians army in Kiev with several columns and by threating the government, while taking the Black sea coast and Donbas (primary real objective). Plus use disinformation about wanting to depose the government (which may be true as well) to ensure that the resources that should be defending Odessa are used in the north. I am discussing what looks like a poor execution for an invasion that was years in the planning. |
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Take the quizz - without looking into the graph below, which country on this list has more GDP than Russia as of today: - Italy - India - Canada - South Korea The answer is ...  All of them. Russia is living on the inheritance of weaponry, diplomacy and technical advances of the old USSR. Putin´s war may mark a step-stone in the path of Putin´s Russia loosing another chunk of their stance in the world. This could deal a blow to the country´s morale and perhaps drive a change. |
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Ahora que Putin está dedicándose a ejercer su despotismo a pleno pulmón, conviene recordar que aunque ha heredado de la URSS un arsenal nuclear y bastantes cacharritos para matar a otros, al final la pasta da para lo que da: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268173/countries-with-the-largest-gross-domestic-product-gdp/Curiosamente España, estando como está y todo, tiene un GDP muy próximo al de Rusia y paises como Canadá o Korea del Norte, para nuestra sorpresa, la superan. Es Putin capaz de mantener un dominio territorial sobre las regiones con esta mierdecita de PIB? |
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Upon Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the limited ability to stop the imports of gas and oil from Russia to avoid financing the military aggression. Ursula Von der Leyen today mentioned in the European Parliament that this shows how the strategy to transition to solar and wind is strategic in more than one way and is not only about climate change.
Solar and wind power and by nature quite distributed and avoid the existence of critical and dangerous energy infrastructure (e.g. nuclear centrals)
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At this moment, the West (EU mostly) is facing the fact that their energy is, in a large part, coming from Russia. Perhaps that is the main reason why the ruble is, within reason, holding better than it would be expected against the economic sanctions, with a mere loss of 20% - although short selling is not allowed and that is helping. chart liveIf anything, Putin's war of aggression will change how Europe looks at Russia in the future - from being a dubious partner to an outright danger to all democracies. Energy decoupling should be part of any future EU strategy. |
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It is being said in some outlets that some of the banks in Russia are at rick of defaulting. Namely, the giant Sbersbank or some of its subsidiaries may fall. Putin may be too busy with his invasion to dedicate funds to save these banks. How could this affect the average Russian citizen that did not have a say on this whole mess? Are many Russians at risk of loosing their savings? Will the banks close "until further notice" anytime soon? The European Central Bank, meanwhile, said Sberbank’s subsidiaries in Austria, Croatia and Slovenia were likely to fail. |
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This is 5 hours ago: Russia will force companies to sell 80% of their foreign currency earnings - in other words buy rubles - Finance Ministry announces This means that Putin is forcing Russian companies to buy rubles to avoid a free fall. This is normally done by central banks when their currency is under attack - the problem being is that when you need all your treasury to keep the invasion running, you cannot protect your currency. I wonder if the Russian oligarchs are having second thoughts on supporting this guy any longer? https://twitter.com/JakeCordell/status/1498191397245042690EDITED to add: I just got this from my broker Summary of key points:
MOEX will remain closed on 28 Feb 2022.
All MOEX products will be available only for closing (position reducing) transactions.
Non-residents of Russia are blocked from selling securities on MOEX per Central Bank of Russia regulation.
IBKR will stop supporting GTC/GTD orders for MOEX products and will cancel existing GTC/GTD’s.
Reminder that RU products outside of Russia may be also impacted by short notice regulations/changes. |
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There are a number of resources of PUBINT (public intelligence sources) that can allow anyone to follow Putin's War live and avoid having to be informed by media outlets that are usually highly biased (no matter the side). Here you can follow a few cameras live in Kyev and below I put a link to the reported incidents map, also with real time information that is verified by public sources. Link to live streaming with comments here. Link to PUBINT here. You have to choose Russia scenarios.  |
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I have decided to donate my campaign income to help Ukraine during the next few weeks at least. I believe it can be done using these addresses: Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. BTC - 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P ETH and USDT (ERC-20) - 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14 I would appreciate if someone can confirm that these are correct, as they have appeared in some reasonably trustable media, but I think is best to check in the forum and also expand the idea to others that maybe can spare some of their earnings to help stop the aggression. Official TwitterI also found this in the forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5387528.0UPDATED TO ADD: Follow real-time donations in bitcoin hereUPDATED TO ADD: Other people helping |
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Hi Russian friends, if anyone of you knows a soldier in route to Kyiv that, instead of dying trying to kill Ukrainians on behalf of VP, would rather sell their tanks, I am interested in buying. I offer 100 USD (soon to be 20M rubbles) in bitcoin upon receival of the tank keys, a picture to check that is in good use and a geolocation so I can go and pick it up.
Hurry up! Take this offer before your tank is no longer in working condition or you are no longer able to sell it!
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According to Napoleon, wars require just three things: "money, money and money". - this is probably not a true quote. "The sinews of war are infinite money" - this is attributed to Cicero and is probably true, " The first and most imperative necessity in war is money" - from Ida Turbel.... well I am sure you get the idea.
My question to the forum is how does Putin intend to make the war of aggression against Ukraine be eventually profitable?
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It is no surprise, but Putin wants to Bielorussify Ukraine. You need a force of 190 thousand strong to depose the government, you need three months to create a new one, including a submissive police force.
You cannot keep the army in there for ever. Those soldiers are costly to maintain and it seems like the Ukrainian population are not quite getting the grasp of the "liberation" and are likely to setup a long an difficult urban warfare followed by an obstinate resistance.
My concern now is that Putin cannot back from his personal gamble and if this go guerrilla he may commit atrocities beyond what we think possible - going Stalin mode on Ukraine.
In my view, Ukraine cannot be defeated until the Ukrainians themselves decide that they have been defeated.
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It is with sadness that I see how bitcoin has dropped (nothing new really) in sync with the global markets around 11% last week while the old gold, AKA simply "gold" has made a rush to 6.5% in the last month. Needless to say that this is related to the war in Ukraine and the prospects of instability, not that it was unexpected, tend to draw people towards gold.
I wonder if bitcoin can still be considered a reserve of value when is following and correlating this much with stocks markets.
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How is China playing this? a) Observing carefully as how the West is playing this crisis, how far they are willing to go when China invades Taiwan Russia invades Ukraine. How powerful is the response, how far is the West willing to go. b) Keeping a distance from both sides, but not "the same distance" from both sides: China criticized the Washington's response on Wednesday, saying the new US sanctions amounted to throwing "fuel on the fire" and were "irresponsible and immoral." In a joint statement, Russia and China called on NATO to "ideologized approaches of the Cold War" and "respect the diversity of civilizational and cultural-historical patterns" in other countries. As you can see, China is nothing but happy about this, as they are watching two potential enemies erode themselves and testing their strength. Lots of lessons will be learnt on the handling of this crisis and I would not say that Europe and Democracies are playing a great role in terms of intimidation, yet at least is managing to stay reasonably united. |
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https://www.pymnts.com/cbdc/2022/cbdc-weekly-european-union-says-stablecoin-bill-coEuropean Union Commissioner for Financial Services Mairead McGuinness announced Feb. 9 plans to introduce a bill creating a digital euro next year, according to Politico.
Based on current experiments, that means an EU CBDC could launch as soon as 2025. The EU has been largely bullish on a CBDC for several years. Notably, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde announced on Twitter in July that the bank had “decided to move up a gear and start the investigation phase of the digital euro project.” The project is slowly moving ahead - this is not an ICO, but a project with potential to change and disrupt many existing business that are based on third party intervention in payments. Lagarde stated in twitter that: We have decided to move up a gear and start the investigation phase of the digital euro project. In the digital age people and firms should continue to have access to the safest form of money – central bank money. While it is a funny way to put it and most of us in crypto may be laughing our asses off on that declaration, essentially this is going ahead. The fintech sector and the banking sector may feel the pressure, although I do not see the EU trying to crash the banks.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/03/facebook-shares-plummet-22percent-after-reporting-weak-guidance.htmlIf I told you this was going to happen the day before you would have thought I was out of my mind, yet there it is. All it took for Meta (previous known as Facebook) to wipe out one quarter of its market value was to have less than expected growth in number of users. I never had much faith in Facebook particularly if you compare the trendy type of business with something like Amazon, Google or Microsoft who do not depend as much on staying fashionable. Now, there is an opportunity if Libra or something similar comes out and their version of the metaverse works. Hint: They are going to have to reinvent themselves and face a fierce competition.
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I can see several post from people that do not want to get a vaccine and feel strongly against making these mandatory. Firstly, I do respect people who opt not to get vaccinated and I even know 1 very experienced doctor with access to excellent research sources that decided not to get the jabs.
The vaccines are clearly not tested to the standard that other vaccines require to be admitted in the markets. I understand that this means that their safety may not be sufficiently tested and may cause secondary issues. However, the virus and variants of COVID are also quite new and their effects also quite unknown. The only certain thing is that earlier variants were very aggressive on the lower respiratory system.
So, would you change the uncertainty about the vaccine being unsafe for the uncertainty about the virus being equally unknown and certainly unsafe short term??
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