Those countries do rely on Ukraine/Russia - but other countries will fill the slack at least somewhat. Its dire, but its not as dire as some stats would have you believe.
The costs are still going to be really high. Ukraine is a perfect trading partner because of its proximity to the Middle East and shipping through the Black Sea. Other countries might be able to provide the product, but it won't be cheap. Hopefully their governments can subsidize some of the costs for their citizens, but I am not hopeful they will.
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Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President. Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014.
MOD updates for the day. More or less static lines today. UK Intel suggests though Russians have been bringing up units from Georgia for reinforcements in line with other reports of Russians starting to deploy more Wagner mercenaries to the east to replace their casualties, which western estimates are pegging at roughly 40K now. https://twitter.com/user/status/1509487294738317312 https://twitter.com/user/status/1509653264991764487
I am reading “The future is history “ by Masha Gessen which explains how totalitarianism has shaped Russian psyche and put Putin where he is today. Eighty years of rule by terror has developed a mindset that we in the west will never truly understand.
Putin wants his legacy to be a Russia World including all Russian speaking people, ignoring or abolishing national borders. At any cost! Totalitarianism works best when the population is in poverty.
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I am reading “The future is history “ by Masha Gessen which explains how totalitarianism has shaped Russian psyche and put Putin where he is today. Eighty years of rule by terror has developed a mindset that we in the west will never truly understand.
Putin wants his legacy to be a Russia World including all Russian speaking people, ignoring or abolishing national borders. At any cost! Totalitarianism works best when the population is in poverty.
Eighty? you're having a laugh, think about 800, Russia went pretty much straight from agrarian feudalism to communism, they completely missed what we would call the Renaissance followed by the age of reason, not only did they not slowly grant the vote to a growing middle class like the rest of Europe but right up until the late 19th century peasants were owned by their Lords and could not leave the land they were serfed on, serfs were sold by their Lords to the Ottoman Empire as slaves
Turns out that Russians have phones and like to record things, the governor of Belgorod had no choice but to admit that 2 Ukrainian helicopters did the attack.
This bring us to several incredible conclusions:
1) Not only did Russia not achieve any type of air superiority in 36 days of invading, but Ukraine has enough air power to sneak in 2 helicopters to attack Russian territory without being challenged.
2) It also shows that Russia went all in on offense and seemingly never even contemplated that they may need anti-air defense within Russian territory.
The white house has declared Russia's war a strategic distaster. The US has been extremely conservative in any of their assessments of the war throughout even as Ukrainians seemed to gain an upper hand and stop the advance, for the white house to state this is a strategic disaster, that's the conservative assessment.
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His post is revisionist history. Yanukovych was actually elected on the promises of pursuing EU membership and eventual NATO partnership, but right after he got elected, he accepted a $15 billion bail out (ie. bribe) from Russia to abandon that plan and join an economic union with the Russian Federation. The citizens were rightly pissed off and revolted in order to have new elections.
Ukraine decided what they wanted, but Yakunovych went against what they decided.
Some sources are reporting that Putin is trying to put Yakunovych back into power:
What else can we snag from Russia while they are distracted? Kaliningrad seems ripe for the plucking, all isolated and on its own. I think I saw some Nazis there, too. Time for a "special operation".
I've always really liked Sakhalin. It's a decently sized island north of Japan, and has been pretty much ignored by Russia for it's entire existence. Once Russia is bankrupt, I'd be all over Canada throwing some Rubles to Russia, and make it our fourth territory.
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Also...based on the camera time showing Apr 1 5am this is a completely new attack seperate from the fire that was reported yesterday that was 'an accident'
This time, they couldn't hide the truth when you have multiple videos of the helicopters flying in and out
If this dictator thing doesn't work out for Putin, he can get a job as the meat grinder guy from Pink Floyd the Wall. He seems to love throwing kids into it.
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Russians in Belgorod are like WTF how the hell do they have helicopters when we were told everything was destroyed in the first 6 hours.
It gets even wilder. My in-laws village is the very last village that borders UA/RU. Belgorod is 20 minutes away from them. My wife and her cousin spend all day watching/reading the Telegram channels in both Russia and Ukraine for information for that region. So a lot of the chat, pics and videos are in real-time from people living there.
The day that attack happened they were both obviously panicked, with their parents being so close. We had no idea who did it, whether it was the Russians as a false flag, or the Ukrainians. At first the Telegram chat was all about blaming the Ukrainians, but I was skeptical as I am all about Russian false flag operations, especially since this was the day of those "negotiations" where instead of withdrawing from Chernihiv, the Russians shelled it extra hard.
Now it appears to be the Ukrainians. I still honestly don't know who to believe. But Russian people in that Telegram chat were freaking the #### out that day. One group of people who refused to believe that Russia was attacking Ukraine started posting how they were going to make a run to KHARKIV to escape the attack in Belgorod. Then another group of people started suggesting to organize an "evacuation" to Kharkiv, as they were so frightened. My wife was translating this for me in real time as we watched them post. It was crazy to see the control Russia has over it's own citizens in a place so close to the border. People there legitimately do not understand that the Russians are attacking the Ukrainians. People there literally want to flee to Kharkiv for safety, a city under constant shelling. These people have no idea what's going on there.
If it wasn't so stupid and tragic, it would be hilarious.
An update on my in-laws:
Spoiler!
As mentioned, my in-laws are the last village that borders RU/UA on the road that connects Kharkiv to Russia up north, so if you look on a map I'm sure you can figure it out. As great as it is that Ukraine is slowly pushing the Russians back, this leaves the family in a terrible position of being sandwiched in the middle. Because of this push north, their village is now completely overrun with Russian soldiers who were pushed back. Many of the residence of the village who left earlier have had their homes taken over by soldiers, who use them as stationing points and places to rest. This means they go door to door and take over each unit.
My in-laws have been trying to leave for weeks and they tried to leave last week to Russia. It was a difficult decision, as obviously heading towards the enemy's territory is not an ideal situation. However they speak Russian and have family north of Belgorod that said they could stay with them. Once inside Russia in that region, it's relatively calm. Many people in that village have family in Russia, so it makes sense for them go to Russia. My wife has quite a few friends and family who have already relocated there. At this point we figured at least they will be out of the danger zone, will be with family and we can figure out the logistics of returning home one day at a later time. We got them to send us photos of their ID cards and passport, delete sensitive information from their phones and send us any kind of registration numbers they could (bank account numbers, cell phone account numbers, apartment ownership numbers etc) so I could have a record of them in a spreadsheet for future use.
Unfortunately they were turned back when they tried to leave. The Russians did send "evacuation" buses earlier last week, but they tried to go by car. The Russians told them that for 3 days the border cross would be closed so no was is allowed to enter Russia. Going towards Kharkiv is not possible either. Telegram chat confirms that nobody is able to head towards Kharkiv at this time. So they are still essentially trapped in their village overrun with Russians, surrounded by non-stop gunfire and explosions.
My poor MIL is starting to have panic attacks daily. Luckily one neighbor who departed left them the keys to their unit, which has a basement. So they spend much of their time in a cold dark basement as sub-zero temperatures most nights. It's heartbreaking, upsetting and infuriating to know they are going through this. My wife and her cousin are so lucky to be back with me, but it's very upsetting for them to know their parents are enduring this daily.
The information war that is going on is intense as well. Last week my wife was trying to call her parents at the designated time and nobody was picking up their phones (4 people in their household have phones). Each phone was off. Then suddenly my wife got a text from her Mom's phone saying in Russian она мертва (SHE'S DEAD). Then nothing afterwards and no response. That was a very difficult night, as we figured the worst had happened. Sometimes they go outside to get more reception and with their village being overrun, our worst nightmare was realized; that some soldier had come across them, killed them, taken their phones and texted my wife this message when they turned it on. We had no further contact with them and we were both in tears all night.
Then suddenly, we got a call the next morning at the designated calling time. Turns out the parents had turned off their phones, as Russians were going door to door to make sure nobody was calling anybody. For their own safety, they turned off their phones so as not to have any kind of notification alert. Messages of SHE'S DEAD were spammed out to various people who use KyivStar mobile service that day. We're not sure if the crackdown on calling coincided with the spam message being sent out as a way to intimidate or lower morale among people using that mobile service. The parents themselves had no idea about this spam message, as it didn't show on their outbound message. Needless to say , it was a very frightening experience that night, but immense relief the next morning.
With this push the UA army is going to push the Russians back, we hope and pray that at some point it will be successful and that the family will be able to leave. The Russians were pushed out of Derhachi which is just north of Kharkiv, and administrative duties, some utilities and train service has been restored in that area. Hopefully one day that can be restored to those towns north of Kharkiv, because it's very rough there right now.
Last edited by Huntingwhale; 04-01-2022 at 05:24 AM.
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