(Rest of the) World News
Jesus
So the company I work for lost about £1m worth of sales across the group in cancelled orders this week all related to a single project. While we're usually forced to sign NDAs, a bit of wink wink nudge nudge tells me the work being carried out was for Usmanov's superyacht.
#istandwiththeOligarcs
And here's Mirth saying the sanctions don't hit outside of Russia.
70 kids from Ukraine got to a orphanage in my town this week. Managed to get togheter over 1000 euros in day one, me and my girlfriend bought a shit load of food and took it there...that was some hard shit to watch. Got over 1000 euros again today, they sent me a shopping list, gonna go again tomorrow...but I'm gonna try to stay away from the kids, I cannot deal with it. Just take the food there and go home. I'm not a guy thats in touch with his feelings to say the least lol...but seeing them is heartbreaking, I simply cannot deal with it
You and your girlfriend are good people HomeSteak.
HomeSteak wrote:70 kids from Ukraine got to a orphanage in my town this week. Managed to get togheter over 1000 euros in day one, me and my girlfriend bought a shit load of food and took it there...that was some hard shit to watch. Got over 1000 euros again today, they sent me a shopping list, gonna go again tomorrow...but I'm gonna try to stay away from the kids, I cannot deal with it. Just take the food there and go home. I'm not a guy thats in touch with his feelings to say the least lol...but seeing them is heartbreaking, I simply cannot deal with it
Respect. You are right to guard yourself too, you're already helping, making yourself more upset helps no one.
Youre a good soul Homesteak, if you ever come here to my country bills on me.
If you're gonna keep raising and laying out funds for that work Homesteak, I'm sure a few of us here would chip in.
Not being widely reported, but Russia has specified public terms for an end to the invasion: Ukraine neutrality constitutionally assured, Crimea to Russia, and the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics recognised.
Apart from the stringent and intolerable in principle demands about Ukraine's accession to the EU or NATO, this is basically the Minsk terms from years ago.
It would be called appeasement by some, but if casualties could be stopped while some other way to loosen Putin's grip is thought about, it seems negotiating on some form of these terms could save a lot of lives.
I'm vehemently against NATO escalation or attempting to "end" Putin because of the likely human costs, and I would hope, maybe naively—I have no idea whether this proposal has substance—for something like this to happen.
Giving Russia legitimacy over Crimea makes total sense. I think agreeing to neutrality should be acceptable too, its not ideal but its the reality of Ukraines position. I don't think they are going to give immediate independence to Donetsk and Lugansk, although I'd hope some sort of democratic road map to self determination in those areas would be enough. Who knows whats actually acceptable to either side though. I just want to see them find a way out of this before the death toll rises and Ukrainians suffer years of misery. Putin will be 70 this year, just wait him out and deal with whoever replaces him.
Burnwinter wrote:Not being widely reported, but Russia has specified public terms for an end to the invasion: Ukraine neutrality constitutionally assured, Crimea to Russia, and the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics recognised.
Apart from the stringent and intolerable in principle demands about Ukraine's accession to the EU or NATO, this is basically the Minsk terms from years ago.
Not sure it's that intolerable really, it's in line with OSCE agreements from the past, closer to NATO pledges in the past to not move eastwards etc. Not excusing the invasion or international law violations on Russia's part of course but Western opposition to have Ukraine included in both American and Russian spheres of influence during Yanukovych's time played a massive part in escalating the situation to where it's gotten now.
As for Crimea - 2014 was the third referendum the people there held in favour of autonomy from Ukraine and/or accession to Russia after 1991 and 1994.
Part of Minsk was meant to be a constitutional process to devolve power and some degree of independence to Donetsk and Lugansk … which didn't happen.
We've kinda discussed it a bit up thread, but it seems like the politics of that separation will remain pretty fucked up indefinitely, for reasons of geography, resources and political demography.
I think the denial of access to the EU or NATO is the hardest point to accept for Ukraine. They need some security against future Russian aggression.
Can't see an end to the war in the near future unfortunately if these are really Putin's demands.
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/denmark-likely-exclude-ukrainians-jewellery-law
What kind of a fucking law was that in the first place? Pretty much mask off from the Danes now.
Qwiss! wrote:https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/denmark-likely-exclude-ukrainians-jewellery-law
What kind of a fucking law was that in the first place? Pretty much mask off from the Danes now.
That law is a great example of populism. It's blatant racism when Ukrainans are excluded from it.
Denmark has some seriously fucked up politics with regards to asylum seekers and refugees, basically a colder small version of Australia.
Not that its neighbours are any better these days mind. Because the concerted efforts to hurt Russia's economy and "taking a stand" by banning vodka, pelmeni etc from supermarkets across Europe isn't enough now Russian athletes are banned from the fucking Paralympics:
jones wrote:Mirth wrote:Russia's major trade partners are China and Germany. In their books Russia isn't a significant partner in terms of value of goods and services. They should be able to swallow that cost
However, when it comes to energy dependency then it's a different story but I believe the sanctions skirt around commodities anyway.
The sanctioning regime wasn't implemented last month, it's been going for ages and the damage is absolutely significant for Germany. The figures quoted by the relevant German industry associations are in the hundreds (!) of billions since the sanctions started (or gained steam) in 2014.
I'm actually very curious to see this. I can see that trade dropped from around 40B to 20B since the sanctions were introduced but for a $4 trillion economy, I don't think that's hugely significant. That's like two Berlin airports.
I'm skeptical about any claim from industry bodies because it usually tends to be the difference between their forecasts vs reality rather than an actual loss year over year. I'm not saying there's no loss of course but that's what the money printer is here for.
The commodity issue is different because it's a question of energy security which is priceless.
Yeah I'll concede that industry associations aren't exactly people you should trust, I felt dirty even quoting them.
But generally speaking it's definitely true that German businesses have suffered from the sanctions while their American counterparts - and that's where the sanctions originate - have barely felt it.
Isn't Nordstream 2 pretty much done and ready to go? There is no way they don't turn that on eventually. Bidens desperation to get the Germans to declare it dead in the water is very telling of how the US hopes to exploit this situation.