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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 22, 2022 12:57:54 GMT
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Post by bjd on Feb 22, 2022 15:47:09 GMT
Oh well, Ukraine is not a real country anyway according to Putin.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 22, 2022 16:39:19 GMT
Heather Cox Richardson's summation of events thus far (written last night) is excellent: heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-21-2022?utm_source=urlThere are several sources quoted re: invasion or not invasion, all saying pretty much this: Russia specialist Tom Nichols saw the same thing, tweeting: “Stop parsing ‘invasion.’ Putin just partitioned Ukraine by edict and is backing it up with force. That alone is reason to impose sanctions. Argue about which sanctions to impose, maybe, and leave some daylight for future moves, but this isn't about ‘is it an invasion.’”The German & UK sanctions should give Russia pause: Germany froze a new gas pipeline and Britain hit Russian banks with sanctions on Tuesday, as the West responded to Moscow's recognition of two separatist regions in Ukraine and a speech by President Vladimir Putin suggesting more belligerent aims. source
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 22, 2022 16:44:09 GMT
The motives of the United States for opposing the Nord Stream pipeline can be questioned. Germany relies on Russia for 66% of its gas, but the United States is now the #1 gas exporter in the world with all of that fracking stuff. Money is already rearing its ugly head.
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Post by bjd on Feb 22, 2022 17:25:10 GMT
Yes, I heard a German commentator mention US gas exports a few weeks ago.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 22, 2022 18:20:10 GMT
Actually, Russia exports twelve times more crude oil than gas. In this particular case, it is Germany that is being hurt. That probably suits both of the big kids.
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Post by bjd on Feb 22, 2022 19:08:10 GMT
That area of Ukraine is rich in minerals, oil, rare earths and other goodies.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 23, 2022 6:47:14 GMT
Things that one never knew are immediately revealed in situations like this. For example, France is the biggest foreign investor in Russia, and it is also the biggest foreign employer. The automobile company Lada is owned by Renault, among other things. On the other hand, Russia only represents 1.5% of France's foreign commerce.
I certainly would not want to be one of the people who has to crunch the figures and decide how to best punish Russia without punishing myself.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 23, 2022 11:24:11 GMT
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Post by bjd on Feb 23, 2022 16:30:20 GMT
France is the biggest foreign investor in Russia On the radio today, they said France was 6th biggest foreign investor, but biggest foreign employer in Russia.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 23, 2022 17:27:49 GMT
I think it might have been the biggest investor from the EU. One often misses the exact details in such reports.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 24, 2022 12:04:28 GMT
It seems chaos...
Putin has unleashed his troops.
Trump reacts by saying Putin is a genius.
Europe seems united. Except Hungary, strangely.
Stock exchanges lose points. Oil goes above 100$. Crypto currencies lose ground. Rubble reaches a low point.
Ukrainian flee big cities.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 24, 2022 14:15:06 GMT
Looks like Kiev might fall as quickly as Baghdad since nobody is really going to do anything.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 24, 2022 16:28:06 GMT
In recent weeks, on one of the main French channels, Thursday evening has been reserved for scrutinizing one of the main presidential candidates for April 2022. Tonight they have thrown that out the window and the subject will be "The War in Ukraine."
So this is really happening, like it or not.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 24, 2022 18:23:40 GMT
Glued to the news switching between BBC, sky, France24 and Al Jazera ! Wish we could still get CNN on Freeview. Horrific.
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Post by mossie on Feb 24, 2022 19:57:39 GMT
This is going to affect us all, petrol and gas prices will climb considerably.
Looking wider, Putin is behaving like Hitler. But I have a certain feeling for him, seeing all the countries bordering Russia joining Nato and the EU is putting pressure on him, and Ukraine, which was once part of Russia, is the straw to break the camel's back.
I await developments with some trepidation, and the news brings back memories of the 3 attempts the Jerries made to kill me during the last war.
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Post by lugg on Feb 24, 2022 20:02:04 GMT
The storming of Chernobyl is very scary indeed as are Putin's statements about having new state of the art weapons.
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Post by bjd on Feb 24, 2022 20:35:00 GMT
Ukraine, which was once part of Russia No, Ukraine was once part of the USSR. When it suits the Russians, they call Ukraine an independent country, like in 1945 to get extra seats at the United Nations. The fact that countries (not all of them) surrounding Russia wanted to join NATO tells you more about how they feel about Russia than anything else. They were not planning to ever invade Russia, they wanted protection against it.
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Post by bjd on Feb 24, 2022 20:36:36 GMT
So far, over 1400 people arrested in Russia for demonstrating against Putin's attack on Ukraine.
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Post by htmb on Feb 24, 2022 20:40:24 GMT
It’s very brave of them to protest. I wonder if protests will continue.
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Post by casimira on Feb 24, 2022 21:38:29 GMT
We watched Biden's noontime address to the nation. I wasn't impressed or enlightened although I don't know what he could have said that would hold much weight right now as things are still unfolding minute by minute there. A scary world out there.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 25, 2022 7:03:11 GMT
If anybody is wondering why Russia has not been suspended from the SWIFT international banking system, it is because Germany and several other EU countries need to keep buying Russian gas. So far, no country wants to hurt itself to hurt Russia. That may change. Or not.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 25, 2022 7:34:21 GMT
Yes...
Germany and Italy it seems and they camouflage it into saying it could be triggered by a third wave of sanctions.
The good side is that this may stop us Belgians from leaving nuclear production, that the greens are stubbornly pushing us to do.
But as a newspaper put it 'les verts sont solitaires' about that now. (Playword : the greens ate isolated - or taenia (solitary worm - 'ver').
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Post by whatagain on Feb 25, 2022 7:36:37 GMT
Btw, 35 french companies of the french 40 top stock exchange have plants is either Ukraine or Russia or both.
We do in Russia and probably in Ukraine.
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Post by bjd on Feb 25, 2022 8:07:48 GMT
I have heard two sides to it: one is that banning the Russians from SWIFT is already not enough as a sanction, and the other is that both Russia and China have developed their own versions of SWIFT and banning would just make those develop more.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 25, 2022 8:08:47 GMT
I was reading that there are many fake pictures circulating on social media e.g. the Beirut warehouse explosion of 2020 being used as a picture of the action from Ukraine.
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Post by bjd on Feb 25, 2022 9:02:38 GMT
I was reading that there are many fake pictures circulating on social media e.g. the Beirut warehouse explosion of 2020 being used as a picture of the action from Ukraine. Yes, and training exercises in Finland or overflights elsewhere being used as "Russian planes". I guess the official Russian hackers are enjoying themselves.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 25, 2022 16:16:25 GMT
Apparently, Paris has just inherited the UEFA Champions Cup match that was supposed to take place in Saint Petersburg.
And several countries have requested that FIFA move some qualifying matches for the next World Cup from Russia to other countries.
This would seem trivial to many of us, but football is of huge importance to many Europeans, including Russians.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 25, 2022 16:55:22 GMT
And the Russian F1 Grand Prix has been cancelled.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2022 17:29:01 GMT
Those sports events bring in tons of money to the host countries, which is why they vie for them.
This is shallow of me to mention, but -- yesterday I met a non-tourist Ukrainian here in Oaxaca. What are the odds?!
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