Sanctions against Russia

[onetrack]

I don't think any Western leader has any idea of the intense, burning hatred, that Putin harbours towards NATO and the West. He harbours burning hatred towards NATO and the Western nations, just the same as Hitler harboured burning hatred towards the Jews.

 

Putin's behaviour trail as a budding dictator and warmonger, intent on the domination of Europe and his neck of the world, is so easily seen, once you study the clues he's left in his movements along the way.

He's cold, calculating and utterly ruthless, largely due to his KGB training and experiences. He can kill thousands of innocents in initiation or war moves, and not lose a minute of sleep over it.

He's continued down a path of constantly eliminating opposition to him, and ensuring that he becomes his countrys leader for life.

He nurses a massive grievance that the West and NATO have plotted against his country for decades, and worked together to dismantle his beloved USSR, which resulted in a much poorer and less powerful Russia.

He is intent on "restoring" Russia to a premium power position on the world stage. 

He believes the UN is a tool of the West and NATO, to ensure that Russia stays downtrodden. 

He secretly worships Stalinism, and desires to have the personal and total control that Stalin had over the USSR.

He's been KGB trained, and is exceptionally highly qualified in spying, deceit, manipulation, lying, and manufacturing legends that hide the truth.

He's as crooked as a dogs hind leg, without a shred of moral guidance. The KGB training saw to that. He enriches himself unashamedly with public wealth, in secret. No-one knows where the funding came from to build the Putin Palace, which reportedly cost around $1B to build.

The building is secrecy from top to bottom, and has security built in, like a bank vault. Quite possibly a lot of ordinary Russians don't even know any details about it - and one things for sure, no ordinary Russian has ever been able to visit it.

I believe this man would be quite content to initiate a nuclear war to get his aims of Russian supremacy, and is deluded enough to believe that he would win any nuclear exchange.

This analysis is around 20 years old, but it's a good guide as to how Putin has developed his personal aims over the last 22 years.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/russiagov/putin.htm

[old man emu]

4 hours ago, nomadpete said:

It looks like the common man's sceptre

"common man" or conman?

[willedoo]

One question is - how much longer will he live. There's no doubt he's not well; the physical decline in the last 12 to 18 months has been obvious and much debated inside and outside Russia. The unsteadiness on his feet, the puffy face and rheumy eyes are some clues, but he also often fidgets or drums his fingers these days combined with restless legs. The spark went out of his eyes some time back. He now looks like someone with limited time left.

 

But is he terminally ill? There's been rumours of Parkinson's for many years. Other stories are that he's on steroids. Maybe that could explain why his face has puffed up in the last year or so. One Russian investigative journalist claimed that he travels with up to five doctors and has shown interest in alternative medicines. Other speculation is that he might have cancer. It's possible that the man in charge of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal might have a morphine addled brain.

 

Having studied the bloke for the last twenty years, and after watching possibly hundreds of speeches and press conferences, I have the feeling that the recent changes in him indicate he's on the way down. My guess still is that he knows it, and knows he doesn't have much time left to make his mark on history. Going out with a bang is another way to describe it. If his decline accelerates, then there's the question of whether someone in his circle will do the world a favour.

 

[willedoo]

The plot thickens. Gazprombank is Russia's third largest bank, and this month one of the bank's vice presidents, Vladislav Avayev, and his family were found dead in what the Kremlin described as a murder/suicide. A few days later, Sergey Protosenya, a Russian oligarch who formerly served as deputy chairman of gas company Novatek, befell the same fate along with family members.

 

Another of Gazprombank's VP's, Igor Volobuev, has said that Avayev and Protosenya's deaths were assassinations staged as murder/suicides. Latest news is that Volobuev has now fled Russia to fight alongside Ukrainian forces. His family is from Ukraine. He is said to be at least the 4th top executive or official known to have made an abrupt exit from Russia. Surely Putin's whole show has to implode from within before too long.

[willedoo]

Tin foil hats do work after all. This lady from Odessa claims hers saved her during the weekend shelling of the city. She was at the hairdressers having a hair colouring procedure done and was wearing a foil cap as part of the operation. After the missile went off, she took off the cap and found several metal fragments embedded in it.

 

[onetrack]

Russia and the Communist States have always been dens of murderous evil. I have no doubt that Putin has organised the assassination of many of his political enemies who stood in his way.

 

Putin's mentor, Anatoly Sobchak makes for an interesting study. Formerly Mayor of St Petersburg, Sobchak came under "criminal investigation" for supposed "irregularities" in the privatisation of his familys various apartments in the mid-1990's.

As with everything during the 1990's collapse of Russia's economy, he was probably only looking after himself, in a relatively small way - possibly after seeing others in power grabbing public assets for themselves.

 

Sobchak fled Russia ahead of the hearing of the charges, and lived as a political outcast in France for 19 months - until his friend Vladimir Putin organised for the charges to be dropped - whereupon Sobchak returned to Russia in June 1999, to support Putins election campaign.

However, Sobchak dropped dead in Svetlogorsk on 20th Feb 2000, whilst campaigning for Putin - from a "reported heart attack". But the findings by two medical experts on Sobchak's death were contradictory.

 

A criminal investigation into Sobchak's death from "premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances" was opened 2 months later - but closed after another 3 months with no findings.

Interestingly, an independent investigation by a Russian journalist found that Sobchak's two aides were possibly poisoned, as his two aides suffered heart attacks at the same time as Sobchak.

 

The message is clear. In the Russian system, if you choose to seriously oppose those in power, you need to be very careful, in case you have a "little accident". Putin operates in precisely the same manner.

Putin was born and bred and educated in the East German system of total repression, and constant spying on everyone, including your own family. What a horrible way to live.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak

[willedoo]

I really think the sanctions and isolation of Russia have to go further, as Ukraine is calling for. So far, it's come at a cost to Putin, but not enough cost to stop him. There was one enabling reason driving Putin to attack Ukraine, and that was his belief that he could do so without serious consequences. He was virtually given a green light to go ahead. The message from the West was 'if you do it, it will cost you'. So he called their bluff and did it. Now it's up to the West to put their money where their mouth is and show him a cost that is significant enough for the crime.

 

He went into this knowing how deeply tied to Russia the West is, economically. He knew that to hurt him, the West would hurt themselves significantly. There's no option long term other than to get away from reliance on Russian  commodities and energy.

[facthunter]

You can't trust Putin as someone you can do a deal with is the ongoing message. How is that in Russias Interests?. He's a desperate madman now threatening lightning fast retaliation..Nev

[pmccarthy]

I was working in Zimbabwe when they said Robert Mugabe was old and would be dead soon. He hung on for another twenty years and destroyed his country.

[Jerry_Atrick]

The problem is, Putin doesn't care about Russia's interests - only those that will keel him in power and hopefully achieve immortality while being there (which arguably he has achieved, if for the wrong reasons).

 

The other problem is, as OT highlighted, it is a cultural one. Russia, for decades, if not centuries, has been rule tyrannically, so it self perpetuates with each new regime. Once someone gets to the top, they aren't going to rock what has become their boat, but, like the Mafia, bill blow up anyone else's boat who dares threaten them. A change in the constitution is a mere inconvenience for Putin, those before, and those after. Sadly, Yelstin was a drunkard, as, ironically, he had the gift to change somewhat. However, even then, how far could he have gone? Like China with Tianemann  (sp?) Square, you can only stroke a cat so long before it strikes back.

 

However Putin goes, this won't end. We may get a reconciliatory leader for a while, but in the background, the KGB/FSB mentality will be strong and ultimately prevail. My understanding is that Blinken actually mentioned keeping this ongoing to reduce Putin's (and by definition, Russia's) military power in the long term. I think the world should be thankful the US didn't re-elect Trump.

 

I have for a long time been hawkish on Russia - especially with the latest invasion. Most are cowering under the threat of a nuclear strike, and rightly so. However, they are predicating that on the possibility that NATO or Ukraine allies acting independently of NATO get directly involved. However, Putin's track record of creating false flags and saying he will do what he won't are very real. When he says he will only use conventional warfare, I get worried. As this drags on, if he is backed further into a corner, regardless of any real threat to Russia, he will create a false flag by lobbbing a tactical nuke in the Ukraine, call it a US (or other ally's) bomb and go for it.

 

We should be thinking about negating Russia's ability to do so.

[Old Koreelah]

23 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

As this drags on, if he is backed further into a corner, regardless of any real threat to Russia, he will create a false flag by lobbbing a tactical nuke in the Ukraine…

Lets hope Russia’s military still has a few people with the ethics and backbone  of these two blokes, who went against orders and saved the world from Armageddon:

 

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-a-russian-soldier-prevented-world-war-iii-59-years-ago-51120

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831

 

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

13 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

 

 

We should be thinking about negating Russia's ability to do so.

Absolutely. The problem is the sanctions are not going far enough. Russia must be isolated. There needs to be organised insurgency that will be able to persuade Russians to revolt big time, assassinate Putin, destroy his secret police structure and political stranglehold, release the political prisoners and negotiate a settlement. At the same time Finland, Sweden & Ukraine join the EU & later NATO.

 

This could all happen easily if it wasn't for the threat of Nukes & with over 4000 of them perhaps the first priority is to get rid of the button pushers, then talk of total Nuke disarmament while pouring money in to Russia to raise their standard of living to that of a modern western society.

 

But given Russias history this has buckleys of success.

[old man emu]

37 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

. There needs to be organised insurgency

But how can you ignite an insurgency of the people when all ideas opposing the current regime have been stifled, and the people have been indoctrinated with a particular line of thought?  

[old man emu]

 This video compares two Russian military operations - The Winter War against Finland 1939 and the present Ukraine invasion.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I agree with OME.. One of the biggest influencers in a modern population's culture, values, and in many cases, experiences, is media. The Russian institution is very adept at managing/manipulating the media for its own agenda, despite the dissent, which,. although big in bravery, was in quantum and exposure, little. Therefore, most are fed that this is becoming a war on the Nazis, and that, well the west, particularly NATO is full of them. There is still a massive body of public opinion in Russia in favour - or probably more accurately, not opposed - to the war.

 

There have been news stories of Ukranians, when telephoning their Russian relatives and showing them over face time, etc, their Russian relatives expressing and maintaining total disbelief. Some will be because of the media/brainwashing, some will also be fear of being eavesdropped and the next to be taken to Siberian Gulags or some such fate. Any liberation of Russian people would have to be done in such a way to ensure they know they are being liberated from a prison they don't know they are in.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[willedoo]

Edited April 28, 2022 by willedoo

[willedoo]

This article talks about why so many turrets of Russian tanks are blowing off.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/europe/russia-tanks-blown-turrets-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

[onetrack]

Meanwhile, in other news, the airline leasing companies based in the West (mostly in the U.S.) are looking at some major losses, as they try to come to terms with the fact that Russia is likely going to be confiscating large numbers of leased aircraft, and the leasing companies are unable to retrieve them, and are having to write them off.

 

https://www.flyingmag.com/air-lease-claims-802-4-million-write-off-after-27-leased-jets-stuck-in-russia/

 

https://www.flyingmag.com/analysts-speculate-russia-might-not-return-hundreds-of-leased-airliners/

 

And to add to airlines woes, it seems GPS jamming is creating problems over a wide area - and the Russian GNSS satellite system is going to become regarded as unreliable.

 

https://www.flyingmag.com/airlines-report-russian-gps-jamming-in-four-regions/

 

 

[old man emu]

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

And to add to airlines woes, it seems GPS jamming is creating problems over a wide area - and the Russian GNSS satellite system is going to become regarded as unreliable.

 

Ha! Ha!

Imagine those airline pilots having to break out WAC charts and their E6-B.

[willedoo]

The amount of beautiful black soil in Eastern Ukraine is mind boggling. No wonder that both sides want it. It's like the bread basket of Europe. Added to that, plentiful coal and iron ore. Zooming in on Google Maps satellite view shows good arable cropland almost everywhere you look. It must be hard for the farmers in the war zone areas. I've read stories of them wearing helmets and vests while working their tractors in the field.

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by willedoo

[willedoo]

A downside of the black soil is that a lot of the roads are concrete with not much base under it. The heavy war traffic is breaking through the roads. In the overall picture, repairing roads post war will be a minor cost compared to post war rebuilding of infrastructure and urban areas.

 

 

[onetrack]

In other news, Renault has just taken a $2.4B kick in the goolies, by selling it's 68% share of Lada to the Russians for a nominal sum of 1 Ruble ($0.02).

This came about after Renault tried to keep manufacturing vehicles in Russia, and the Ukraine Govt set about shaming Renault for continuing to do business with, and in, Russia.

 

Renault is badly exposed to the Russian market, with 18% of its sales volume coming from car production in the country.

Renault previously sold 30% of the vehicles sold in Russia, split between Renault and Lada vehicle sales.

 

However, the sanctions against Russia have also wrecked any chance of Renault continuing to manufacture vehicles there - as the Russian factory can longer source a lot of the important components, such as electronics, to enable them to keep building vehicles.

 

https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/renault-to-sell-lada-to-russian-science-institute-for-one-rouble-report

 

In addition, Renault wholly own a factory in Moscow that builds 4 vehicle models in both Renault and Nissan badges, under the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. But that factory has now been shuttered as well, with the Russian Govt likely to take that over for a song, too.

 

https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/our-company/locations/moscow-plant/

 

https://fortune.com/2022/03/24/renault-mothball-moscow-plant-weighs-expensive-exit-russia-shaming-ukraine/

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

A little off topic, but this shows just how poopish coirporate management really is..

 

With their own manufacturing plant - just mothball it like everyone else has had to do. No point selling it at this stage because you'll get nothing for it.

 

With respect to their Lada stake.. well.. it is a tad difficult given that nothing is being manufactured, and therefore there is no money coming in.. but there is still value in the company. They could open it up for bidding (assuming they are allowed to, and others are allowed to bid), and they may realise anything from 5 - 20 percent (realistically) of what is now a distressed asset. That is better than a ruble.. but a bit. I guess, selling for next to nothing may allow it to have a more favourable buy back clause.. But, really? Anything in Russia os so high risk (a credit factor we use is country legal rating (CLR), which usually is graded from 1 (completely follows the rule of law) to 5 (good luck with enforcing any law without a large brown paper bag stuff with unmarked US $100 bills and the odd 15 karat diamond).

 

I hope their returns before all of this were sufficient to given them a risk v return positive.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

This is a looong video, and, taking into consideration there may be some propaganda, very interesting.. especially the post-interview clips.

 

 

I don't think the Russian father has no mercy for his son.. I think he is genuinely angry with him for signing the "contract".

 

Was an intense video to watch.

[onetrack]

It's interesting how the Russian father agrees that Russian volunteers and Russian weaponry such as BUK missiles and artillery were moved into the Donbas region, in support of Russian separatists there - but that was O.K., that wasn't a warlike move.

But as soon as Western countries start supplying armaments to the Ukraine, that, according to the Russian Defence Minister, means that the West has declared War on Russia! 

 

I also note the journalist never raised any questions to the father about why the rest of the world is raising massive levels of sanctions against Russia.

Perhaps when those sanctions start to bite the average Russian in the street, and the Russian army death toll keeps going up, the average Russian might start to lose their enthusiasm for defeating the Nazis in the Ukraine!