Master-Debater131

Its going to take quite a while to get that pipeline up and running. And thats assuming something doesnt change with China causing them to back away from Russia.

Russia going straight for War Crimes. There have been reports of War Crimes even before this, but the CNN video is some pretty clear video evidence that the Russians are now indiscriminately targeting residential areas with artillery, rockets, and cluster bombs. Heres a reddit thread that has the video. I cant find the hotlink to the video anymore.

For context on the Ruble.

Russia didnt even bother opening their stock market today. They kept it closed as the sanctions continued to ratchet up. They raised their internal interest rate to over 20% and are rapidly running out of currency reserves. Their economy is absolutely cratering and inflation is going to be above 60% this year. The amount of economic damage these sanctions are doing is insane. It really is going to create a ton of internal pressure to stop the war, and possibly out Putin. The Ruble has absolutely cratered. Its worth less than the video game currency Roblox currency now. (yes, I know thats not how currencies work, but its still funny as hell).

Didnt Ukraine already take out the Chechen commander? I remember reading something about one of their columns getting obliterated and the commander was in it.

Really starting to think things internally in Russia are about to take a hell of a turn. You just do not see this kind of protesting inside of Russia, and this is before the sanctions really start to bite.

Russia really is pushing anyone in Europe to speed run joining NATO.

The question really is if someone in his inner-circle decides that enough is enough and stops him before something really bad happens. Oligarchs are starting to speak out against the war, so I have to wonder if there isnt going to be some major internal politicking happening before long.

Germany is increasing their military spending this year for a one-off 100 Billion Euro modernization effort. Thats a 150% increase on their current level of spending. They have also pledged to maintain at least 2% GDP on Military spending moving forward. Russia just woke the Germans up. Im not sure that this could have backfired more spectacularly than it has.

Thats a pretty big hit if true.

I dont know a ton about how it works but from what I have read is it takes a majority vote, but they almost always require universal approval out of respect for other members. Last I heard its down to only Cyprus holding it up. Italy and Hungary are onboard now. I really wouldnt be shocked if they get ejected from SWIFT this weekend.

Good. Now to boot them out of SWIFT.

Alternative headline: Sweden and Finland rush to join NATO

I do worry about cyber warfare, but I also suspect that we have fairly robust weapons as well. Theres been talks about what we can do against Russia, and its pretty significant. I bet we could do the same thing to China. Again, it would hurt both of us, but I dont think we are quite as helpless as people may think. We can be better though, thats absolutely true. Like you said, Taiwan is very different. China would have to float their army across open water to get to Taiwan. They cant just roll tanks across open fields like you can in Ukraine. Thats a lot of easy targets for missiles, subs, and anti-ship weaponry. China just doesnt really have the capability to land massive numbers of soldiers yet. They could devastate Taiwan with missiles, but not really land the required forces needed to capture and maintain Taiwan. Different ballgame, but one that China does want to play at some point.

China needs us way more than we need them though. Anyone can build cheap shit and ship it to the US. We've already seen some companies shift out of China into places like India. The Chinese economy is a paper tiger still. The middle class there isn't as robust as ours. Their government is also a lot more unstable if their economy crashes. They have total control now because people are happy, but if suddenly 1 billion people are pissed off because the economy crashes then they will have a real problem on their hands. Im not saying it wouldnt hurt, but we would wind up in better shape after the rupture than they would.

Russia is making a lot of noise, but I still think China is the #1 threat posed to freedom and democracy in the world. They are not a friendly nation, and its about time we start treating them as such.

Its absolutely wild that we have been able to watch movements like this throughout the invasion. There have been Global Hawks off the coast of Crimea the entire time, and you can watch them on websites just flying in circles monitoring whats going on.

Good. This was one glaring omission from our sanctions package announced yesterday.

Well, no one can say that the Ukrainians arent going out swinging. The absolute balls to say that when your clearly outgunned.

I legitimately forgot they even existed. Guess we will see if they have anything left or are all show.

How amazing would it be if this invasion caused mass protests and a revolt inside of Russia that ended in Putins ouster. Russians very clearly do not support this war. I dont think it will happen, but one can dream.

Really have to hand it to the Russian people who are showing up for these mass protests. They dont buy Putins BS, and they dont want war with Ukraine.