Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Gusington]

Hmm...from CNN:

**

Hungary's reelected Prime Minister Viktor Orban will continue to rule by decree after a state of emergency was declared at midnight due to the fact that one of the country's neighbors -- Ukraine -- is in a state of war.

"We have seen that the war and sanctions from Brussels have brought about a great economic upheaval and drastic price rises. The world is on the brink of an economic crisis. Hungary has to stay out of this war and has to protect the financial security of families," Orban said.
The Hungarian government argues that "the government needs to be able to make decisions and act swiftly. The state of emergency, similarly to that introduced during the pandemic, will make it possible for the government to react quickly."

Orban said the decree was reinstated to use "all methods at its disposal" to protect Hungary and Hungarians.

The current state of emergency, which allows Orban to disable some laws and push through emergency measures by decree, was set to expire at the end of May. It had been introduced in the spring of 2020 at the start of the coronavirus-pandemic.

Orban and his Fidesz party were reelected in April despite his historically pro-Kremlin positions and close relationship with Putin. The war there upended the contest, which had been focused mostly on domestic issues before the invasion began on February 24.

Orban's relationship with Kyiv has deteriorated over the years. He has impeded the country's attempts to form closer relations with NATO, and has clashed with successive governments in Kyiv.

**

[JasonPratt]

Within 48 hours, Russia will lose (at least a significant amount of) its ability to pay its loans, and will start defaulting on its debts.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-loses-its-default-defense-48-hours-what-that-means-1709884

"The only way Russia has managed to avoid defaulting until now has been thanks to a special U.S. Treasury license, which allowed international bond holders to still receive payments from Moscow.

"So far, Russia has managed to meet all its payment obligations but on May 25 [today, their time] the U.S. Treasury waiver formally expired, leaving Moscow unable to process such transactions. The U.S. Treasury has made it clear they do not intend to renew it."

This won't affect Western investors (because by now they've had time to get used to Russia defaulting and should have adjusted accordingly) as much as Asian investors (e.g. Iran and China): it's a backdoor way of forcing them to impose something like their own economic sanctions on Russia.

More at the Newsweek article.

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, be watching for Swan Lake from Soviet historically-Soviet-related media:

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-dead-pay-attention-when-russia-starts-broadcasting-swan-lake-1707162

They've gotten into a habit of broadcasting Swan Lake to buy time on how to position announcements of the deaths of leaders or regime changes, since back as far as the early 80s (and Brezhnev's passing), but in recent decades the broadcasts have also morphed into being political protests against the state.

So if Putin leaves office suddenly for any reason, Russian media broadcasts of Swan Lake will almost certainly spike dramatically -- very probably including Ukraine (as a means of celebrating his downfall).

[Gusington]

Downfall you say?

[W8taminute]

Begin humorous observation

Consider this, and I've got you in mind al. 

Don't forget how senator Palpatine used war emergency powers to 'protect' democracy before turning the Republic into the 1st Galactic Empire. 

Did George Lucas forsee something when he made the prequels?

[FarAway Sooner]

Are the Russians trying to trap the bulk of the eastern Ukrainian Army in a Cherkassy-type pocket?

I get the sense that possibly one of the most important battles of the war is happening right now in and around Severodonetsk.

In other news, I saw a flurry of articles in the British press that the UK Navy was looking at plans to escort grain ships in the Crimea. Within the last few hours the UK is officially denying the story.

This.

If Putin is able to secure Severedonetsk and Lysychansks (the city that sits on the eastern bank of the Donets River), I think it gives him the chance to settle into a grisly stalemate where he declares the Donbas secure.  At that point, he just has to hold onto occupied territory while inflicting massive humanitarian casualties on the Ukrainians until they're willing to come to the bargaining table and cede some territory to the Russians.

Long term, I think that leaves Putin's reign unchallenged in Russia.  The Russian Army has received a horrific bloody nose, but I don't think that will matter to Putin or most of his supporters.  Putin seems like the type who can happily water his gardens with the blood of his soldiers if he likes the way it makes his tulips grow. 

[JasonPratt]

Yesterday (24th), the head of the Russian state-controlled network RT declared that either Russia achieves its goal of completely destroying Ukraine (i.e. as a national government), or else all of humanity suffers catastrophe when Russia launches a nuclear war.

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-tv-says-nuclear-war-only-alternative-russia-victory-ukraine-1709539

Normally this could be side-eyed as a journalist mouthing off for the views, but of course RT is a Russian state propaganda outlet, and Ms. Semonyan is its chief, so there's a very good chance she's under orders to say this.

This kind of adds some clarity to the fuzzy, shifting rationales for the war, most recently going back today (in an actual Kremlin statement) to "the complete de-Nazification" of Ukraine, with Russia being on no timetable to achieve this goal.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kremlin-official-tells-russian-newspaper-when-ukraine-war-will-end/ar-AAXFd3z?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=1ccf4c150b6d46aa9f3346442c594950

(Also a Newsweek article, btw, via MSN.)

The reason the rationales keep shifting around, is that the overarching rationale has always been to destroy the Ukraine government, and the other things are just political promotions for why that government must be destroyed. This also fits the theory about the plan for the full-court press opening the war, despite being gravely unsupported logstically: Putin and his team thought the government would collapse almost immediately with few Russian losses and actually little damage to the nation and its people.

At what point short of nuclear war does Russia (meaning Putin's government) get recognized as the common enemy of the world, and treated as such? -- ready to inflict catastrophe on the world unless they get to take over anyone they want??

[Sir Slash]

If you all need me, I'll be in my bunker.  :hide:

[MengJiao]

At what point short of nuclear war does Russia (meaning Putin's government) get recognized as the common enemy of the world, and treated as such? -- ready to inflict catastrophe on the world unless they get to take over anyone they want??

  I think that has been understood by most of Europe since day one.  The tricky thing is stopping and turning back Russia without triggering economic disaster or a war that goes out of control.
So far the Russians have played right into this by beating on Ukraine and threatening everybody.  The real trick will be getting Russia to leave Ukraine...which I think will be Surprisingly soon due to
economic pressure.  I suspect the Russians will lose everything including the Crimea in less than a year because the cost of being China's colony will be pretty painful (ie selling discount oil to China will be
a shocking loss of economic potential for Russia -- China has no oil and oil is all Russia has to sell at the moment -- its going to be a multi-trillion dollar nightmare for Russia very soon).

[W8taminute]

^I believe that.  China is very crafty indeed. 

[bobarossa]

Russia also has vast quantities of natural gas and grains.  It will be tough to keep sanctions up in 6 months as winter approaches and food shortages change people's mind about continuing the current approach.  Ukraine needs to kick Russia out by end of summer or there will be strong pressure from west to settle for status quo.

[MengJiao]

Russia also has vast quantities of natural gas and grains.  It will be tough to keep sanctions up in 6 months as winter approaches and food shortages change people's mind about continuing the current approach.  Ukraine needs to kick Russia out by end of summer or there will be strong pressure from west to settle for status quo.

  The same problems can run the other way: Russia can't sell that stuff and the West might as well aim at breaking Russia as fast as possible to avoid more war and avoid economic disaster.  The Russians are
realistically out of options -- which is why they keep saying they are going to nuke something.  If they had any other workable threats they would be using those.  But no...nothing left but nukes or
getting out of Ukraine.

[JasonPratt]

If you all need me, I'll be in my bunker.  :hide:

With Vera...?

{/Fireflyjoke}

[ArizonaTank]

Hmm...from CNN:

**

Hungary's reelected Prime Minister Viktor Orban will continue to rule by decree after a state of emergency was declared at midnight due to the fact that one of the country's neighbors -- Ukraine -- is in a state of war.

"We have seen that the war and sanctions from Brussels have brought about a great economic upheaval and drastic price rises. The world is on the brink of an economic crisis. Hungary has to stay out of this war and has to protect the financial security of families," Orban said.
The Hungarian government argues that "the government needs to be able to make decisions and act swiftly. The state of emergency, similarly to that introduced during the pandemic, will make it possible for the government to react quickly."

Orban said the decree was reinstated to use "all methods at its disposal" to protect Hungary and Hungarians.

The current state of emergency, which allows Orban to disable some laws and push through emergency measures by decree, was set to expire at the end of May. It had been introduced in the spring of 2020 at the start of the coronavirus-pandemic.

Orban and his Fidesz party were reelected in April despite his historically pro-Kremlin positions and close relationship with Putin. The war there upended the contest, which had been focused mostly on domestic issues before the invasion began on February 24.

Orban's relationship with Kyiv has deteriorated over the years. He has impeded the country's attempts to form closer relations with NATO, and has clashed with successive governments in Kyiv.

**

Who let this guy into NATO?

To paraphrase FDR who was talking about another wanna-be-dictator...  'Orban may be a son-of-a-b@tch, but he's our son-of-a-b@tch.'

I'm guessing Orban will 'find it necessary' to suspend elections 'until the danger is over.'

[FarAway Sooner]

I'll be curious to see how long the current embargo on Russia lasts.  I'm even more curious to see if Western Europe ever gets to a full embargo of Russian energy.  The lynchpin here is German reliance on Russian natural gas.

Germany's done an excellent job of reducing their fossil fuel consumption in the last 20 years.  They've certainly beat the US in that regard.  Unfortunately, when it comes to electrical generation, they have a heavier reliance than any other Western European country on Russian natural gas.  Why is that a problem?

Oil moves around the world by tankers, which can be easily rerouted.  Coal moves around the world in rail cars (and less often boats), which can also be rerouted with only modest disruption.  Gas moves most frequently by pipelines, which takes much more time and more money to build or rebuild.  So the German dependence on Russian gas is more expensive to break.  If the Germans are willing/able to do that, the Russians are in deep shit and will quickly see what's left of their economy go down the drain. 

That would be more economic pain than the Germans have been willing to shoulder since the end of WW II.

In the absence of that, it'll be curious to see if Russia makes an easing of embargoes one of the preconditions for peace in Ukraine.