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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

Kaka Tim said:
yeah - been reading that. Its very good. Loads of interesting detail whilst telling a wider picture.

The stuff about Putin's hubris is interesting. Apparently his advisors warned him not to annex Crimea in 2014 cos of fears of Ukrainian resistance and western sanctions - but he ignored them an went ahead - and was proved right - there was no resistance and western sanctions were small scale and ineffective. But this served to fuel his meglo-mania and hubristic self belief - so led to his decision to invade. Definite echoes of Hitlers early victories - the Anschluss with Austria, the Sudetenland, Poland, France - leading him to take ever more disastrous decisions as his own maniacal self belief increasingly trumped any sense of reality.
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Actually if you look at Russia's GDP per capita from after 2014 you'll see it was disastrous for Russia.

In 2013 Russia's GDP per capita was 16,000 USD. By 2016 it had almost halved to 8,700 USD. By 2021 it had recovered only to 12,000 USD, and now the war in Ukraine has likely fucked it even more.

More to the point is that Putin doesn't really give a shit about Russia's economy because it doesn't affect him. As far as he is concerned land grabs are permanent and secure his historical position so that takes precedence over living standards and the economy.
 
Rimbaud said:
Actually if you look at Russia's GDP per capita from after 2014 you'll see it was disastrous for Russia.

In 2013 Russia's GDP per capita was 16,000 USD. By 2016 it had almost halved to 8,700 USD. By 2021 it had recovered only to 12,000 USD, and now the war in Ukraine has likely fucked it even more.

More to the point is that Putin doesn't really give a shit about Russia's economy because it doesn't affect him. As far as he is concerned land grabs are permanent and secure his historical position so that takes precedence over living standards and the economy.
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i wouldn't be surprised if there's more to the story than just 'russia grabs crimea, living standard plummets' but here's the past 30 years in chart form
1671462448392.png

Russia GDP Per Capita 1960-2024

GDP per capita is gross domestic product divided by midyear population. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for...
www.macrotrends.net www.macrotrends.net
 
So the EU wide gas price cap was agreed today.

"Ministers agreed to trigger a cap if prices on the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) gas hub’s front-month contract exceed €180 (£157) per megawatt hour for three days."

As far as I can gather the idea of a price cap was to stifle and reduce the revenue of selling gas by Russia. Am I right that the idea has morphed into something much bigger than another sanction on Russia? The cap will be attempted to be applied to all gas producers? Have I got this right?
 
Flavour said:
Think so yeah. Qatar are gonna kick off about it and perhaps refuse to export to EU countries that investigate the ongoing corruption scandal that allegedly sees lots of EU parliamentarians being paid off directly by Doha to advance Qatari interests
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It's a startling move in that case. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
 
TopCat said:
So the EU wide gas price cap was agreed today.

"Ministers agreed to trigger a cap if prices on the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) gas hub’s front-month contract exceed €180 (£157) per megawatt hour for three days."

As far as I can gather the idea of a price cap was to stifle and reduce the revenue of selling gas by Russia. Am I right that the idea has morphed into something much bigger than another sanction on Russia? The cap will be attempted to be applied to all gas producers? Have I got this right?
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So the EU are protecting their citizens from excessive price rises? Sounds like a good idea.
 
TopCat said:
Will they extend price caps in that case, to other sectors, if this one works? Would you be supportive? I ask as the gas price cap move is a big departure (on the face of it) from the four freedoms of the EU?
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I’m ok with governments putting price caps on excessive profits from special causes like wars. I was ok with furlough during covid as well.

Not sure what protecting citizens from financial disruption has to do with the four freedoms though.
 
Supine said:
I’m ok with governments putting price caps on excessive profits from special causes like wars. I was ok with furlough during covid as well.

Not sure what protecting citizens from financial disruption has to do with the four freedoms though.
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The four freedoms are 'free market', 'free market', 'free market' and the freedom to bail out the free market every time it shits the bed.
 
TopCat said:
Will they extend price caps in that case, to other sectors, if this one works? Would you be supportive? I ask as the gas price cap move is a big departure (on the face of it) from the four freedoms of the EU?
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The price cap issue was supposed to be resolved in October but because of differences it’s been delayed and delayed . It was passed on the 55% rule rather than unanimously . The cap also has a small print of being flexible and only lasts for twenty days when it’s triggered .

Complications on other caps get complicated as different countries have different deals and suppliers Portugal and Spain for example have a joint cap for electricity agreed earlier this year separate from any EU arrangements.
 
nogojones said:
It does feel like late stage capitalism could descend into some form of techno-fudalism quite easily. Not just in Russia.
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I'm watching the Adam Curtis TraumaZone on the BBC at the moment, and it's about the collapse of the USSR 1985-1999 and so much of it feels a little bit like the wider world atm; stuff not working, society imploding and people being irrational, most people struggling with others making millions, etc.

Actually just read a review that says something similar here Adam Curtis’s ‘TraumaZone’ Needs More Adam Curtis

"The series is timely – and not just because it can help us see how Russia ended up sliding into the sort of death-cult nationalist authoritarianism now fuelling Putin’s war in Ukraine. Britain, right now, has a distinctly ‘late Soviet’ feel to it: the Union is on the verge of fragmenting, the economy is on the verge of collapsing; traditional elites are setting about plundering the country – no longer interested in regaining the legitimacy they have long since surrendered in the eyes of the public. Something is bound to replace all this, soon – but you do worry that it’s almost certain to be worse. Obviously the scale is very different, and the situation in the regions far less likely to collapse into all-out ethnic war. But you get the idea."
 
Yossarian said:
Ukraine launches new "surrender to a drone" program.

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Tens of thousands of drones have been employed across Ukraine to kill the enemy, spy on its formations and guide bombs to their targets. But this month the Ukrainian military began a program to use drones in a more unusual role: to guide Russian soldiers who want to surrender.
The program had its genesis in late November, when the Ukrainian military released footage of a Russian soldier throwing his weapon to the ground, raising his hands and nervously following a path set out by a drone overhead, leading him to soldiers from the Ukrainian army’s 54th Mechanized Brigade.
A few weeks later, the Ukrainian General Staff released an instructional video explaining how Russian soldiers can surrender to a Ukrainian drone, and it is now part of a wide-ranging effort by Ukraine to persuade Russian soldiers to give up. The program, called “I want to live,” includes a phone hotline, a website and a Telegram channel all dedicated to communicating to Russian soldiers and their families.
It’s too early to know whether the drone effort will lure Russian deserters in any meaningful numbers. But it adds another avenue for Ukraine to recruit Russian deserters, this one with a distinctly modern twist to the age-old tactic of informational warfare. And if nothing else, it may further the erosion of Russian morale on the battlefield.
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