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March 30, 2022
Ukraine Open Thread 2022-38
Comments
Posted by: circumspect | Mar 31 2022 2:51 utc | 240
I believe that forcing the buyers of products to buy rubles and park them in accounts for purchasing and trading makes the ruble more valuable. It provides support for the Ruble and undermines Europe and its Euro as well as the dollar in the long run.
Thank you for your comments.
I fully agree with your assessment. That position was confirmed today by V. Putin who stated today, that “the switch to rubles would strengthen Russia’s sovereignty”. It’s all a question of supply and demand and the current US$ /Russian Ruble conversion rate indicates that the ruble has made a solid rebound. This should strengthen as the first payments for gas are remitted to the RF in rubles. Should the “unfriendly nations” refuse, this will pose no serious to Gazprom as the gas supplies will simply be sold to friendly nations, who need the energy just as badly.
With regard to gold, the RF recently took an interesting step with regard to its domestic market; it dropped the VAT on the purchase of gold by private citizens in rubles, thereby immediately stemming the flow of capital out of Russia due to the Ukraine crisis.
Accordingly, your comment, “If he backs a domestic ruble with gold and lets an international ruble float not backed, he will break the back of the West and vastly increase the average Russians purchasing power” is spot-on in my estimation. I’ve seen no indication that any other outcome is to be expected.
You also touched upon the subject of hyperinflation and here, again, I believe the scenario you describe could easily come to pass. The U.S. has simply been “printing” money like there’s no tomorrow and if the experts wanted to find out how far they could really go (while scamming all U.S.$ holders) they are about to find out quite soon.
It might soon become quite the latest trend to wallpaper one’s bathroom with $1000 bills just because it looks sort cool to take a dump with all that loot looking down at you from the walls.
Your final statement is perhaps the most chilling one, because these types of situations have served as triggers for previous world wars. As the U.S. has seriously miscalculated, both with regard to its foreign policies and economically, one can only hope that the adults will return to those rooms in Washington they vacated in frustration, before the brats set not only their own house, but also the entire freakin’ neighborhood on fire, in their breathtaking idiocy.
As the saying goes, hope always dies last.
Posted by: GreyRaven | Mar 31 2022 18:06 utc | 301
I think even US American newspapers will have to notice this little problem with EU running out of gas tomorrow. Then again, we’re still eager to hear from Chris Rock how it felt to get slapped at the Oscars, so there’s a lot of really important stuff going on.
Russia isn’t merely cutting off the supply of gas. Our supplies of errant nonsense & staggering obliviousness run so low the president pledged a million tons a day, from the strategic reserve, for the next six months. Still we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
From a UK Metro report:
European countries have described the demand [gas for rubles] as ‘blackmail’ and say it breaches long-standing contracts.
Contracts? OMG, Russians have a speech disability, such that nothing they say can be picked up by the ears of those they address. How can there be contacts based on monetary units you just destroyed? What in hell do you want? Russians say they won’t part with gas for “candy wrappers”, to Europe this is “blackmail”.
My American Heritage (a pretty good US American English dictionary):
blackmail Extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.
Its a very mad and angry world, with so many bombs. Right this moment I’m feeling more mortal than ever before in my long life.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Mar 31 2022 18:07 utc | 302
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Mar 31 2022 18:07 utc | 316
Quote:
“European countries have described the demand [gas for rubles] as ‘blackmail’ and say it breaches long-standing contracts.
“Contracts? OMG, Russians have a speech disability, such that nothing they say can be picked up by the ears of those they address. How can there be contacts based on monetary units you just destroyed? What in hell do you want? Russians say they won’t part with gas for “candy wrappers”, to Europe this is “blackmail”.”
The above comment, in a nutshell, beautifully describes the ongoing situation.
We can now expect the western SMS to immediately go into a raging uproar of complete indignation towards these perfectly logical steps the Russian Federation has taken. The MSM will play stupid to the hilt, pretending utter lack of comprehension regarding something even the simplest fool can recognize.
I wonder to what kind of hysteria the media will now try to drive their sheep.
Posted by: GreyRaven | Mar 31 2022 18:22 utc | 303
Passerby | Mar 30 2022 19:13 utc | 87
Did I miss anything ?
Virtually everything meaningful and relevant.
Posted by: Sarlat La Canède | Mar 31 2022 18:27 utc | 304
In #317 that should have read:
“We can now expect the western MSM to immediately go into a raging uproar…”
My apologies.
Posted by: GreyRaven | Mar 31 2022 18:36 utc | 305
@ GreyRaven | Mar 31 2022 18:22 utc | 317
Thanks, GR. This might have been more appropriate under b’s snow post today. Oh well.
I sense a “quiet before the storm” approaching with the gas-for-rubles deadline and the conclusive scrubbing of Azov & friends from Mariupol. The bizarre silence of western media on both of these world-shakiing stories feels ominous, with hints of the 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta, Syria.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Mar 31 2022 18:58 utc | 306
Has anyone not seen this?
https://rumble.com/vz1bcj-just-too-neat-and-tidy…html
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2022 19:22 utc | 307
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Mar 31 2022 18:58 utc | 320
It’s fine, Aleph_Null. You made some fine points, and there are those who come back and read through previous threads to pick up on good stuff they might have missed.
Indeed, I share your perception of the “quiet before the storm”, although I have less apprehension regarding the gas-for-rubles deadline. That is a clear-cut issue, the “rules” have been made and explained, and now we’ll see who adheres to them or prefers to commit industrial hara-kiri.
After the video publication of the murder of Russian POW’s on YouTube (not censored!) shooting each Russian Soldier with a single high velocity round in the upper thigh…at point blank range and filming this atrocity, the scrubbing of Azov, C14 and the Right Sektor from the entire Donbass is going forward “according to plan”. I’ve noted with interest that the Russians have been sending in either their military police (!) in order to capture or annihilate the above mercenaries, or else Chechenian “special forces” who the Nazis fear especially, as they show no mercy whatsoever towards them in their operations.
There are many “false flag” events that we can still expect. You are quite right. Syria certainly serves as a perfect example.
But the point is, that right now the Russians are rounding the Nazis up and you can bet your life that they will be put on trial publicly in the Donbass region. Both Luhansk and Donetsk still impose the death penalty.
A hard rain’s gonna fall there.
Posted by: GreyRaven | Mar 31 2022 19:53 utc | 308
Re: Mariupol helicopter shootdown. If five helicopters (one Mi-24 and four Mi-8) left Dnipropetrovsk and only two were shot down, then WTF?
It’s not as if the Russians were not already on notice that the Ukrainians were trying to extract people from Mariupol.
Posted by: Feral Finster | Mar 31 2022 20:27 utc | 309
Posted by: Tony_0pmoc | Mar 30 2022 22:07 utc | 146
“5. I would like more gobal warming.”
You are welcome to all the excess warming you can get. Grab all that excess heat that burned down more millions of acres of forest land last year than in any other year in history, that burned down dozens of towns and killed far too many victims.
Your other wishes are ludicrous, bizarre and massively deadly, as well.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Mar 31 2022 21:21 utc | 310
@seer , concerning the biolabs there was another source I wanted to mention: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. I only follow her superficially but for one thing she backed up the public documents of the Ukrainian labs before they were deleted. https://twitter.com/dgaytandzhieva
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Mar 31 2022 21:36 utc | 311
Russia is not using its most effective weapon: the bogs of Siberia and the methane hydrate deposits in Russia’s arctic shelf.
Hundreds to thousands of billions of tons of CO2 wait to be released. Siberia will become a tropical paradise, the Northern passage will be ice free all year round.
The UK will be frozen stiff as the Gulf stream subsides. Europe will be a lot colder too and in dire need of Russian gas. Some unfriendly nations will turn into deserts unfit for habitation.
The destabilization of methane hydrate in the East Siberian arctic Shelf can be accomplished with a couple of nukes. The methane in the Siberian bogs is harder to unleash but will follow in time.
The entire face of the globe will be remade and a New World Order will emerge.
Posted by: bottle | Mar 31 2022 21:40 utc | 312
“And it seems clear from Hudson’s interview with Flowers that Biden is the WEF’s point man for its ReSet of the USA, which means vastly increased power of Neoliberals over the 99% as the fallout/blowback from Biden’s policies hurt them further.”
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 31 2022 0:47 utc | 202
//
Biden has spent his entire career making miserable the lives of persons who cannot fight back.
If you want to know how I know that, I’ll have to do some digging in my records . . .
Posted by: AntiSpin | Mar 31 2022 22:33 utc | 313
FROM REUTERS:
Russia’s Gazprombank is the intermediary for rouble gas payments, Putin order says
March 31 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed on Thursday that foreign buyers of Russian gas would have to use special accounts at Gazprombank to pay for the import of Russian gas.
A foreign buyer is now obliged to transfer foreign currency to one special, so called “K”, account. Gazprombank would then buy roubles on behalf of the gas buyer to transfer roubles to another special “K” account, the order said.
Gazprombank would then transfer rouble funds from a ‘K’ type account of the foreign gas buyer to Gazprom’s (GAZP.MM) rouble accounts, the order said. Gazprombank can open such accounts without a presence of a foreign buyer’s representative.
Posted by: lurking | Apr 1 2022 2:34 utc | 314
Hudson’s facile statement that the US has destroyed the reserve currency status of the dollar is nonsense. He suffers from the same invasion evasion as most commenters here. Sanctions and punitive econ measures are usually wrong and overdone but in the case of offensive war sanctions are common enough and viewed by one side at least as justifiable. The countries aligned with the west of course support these measures and arent threatened. Germany most importantly and somewhat surprisingly has adopted a hardline against Russia. And I have no issue with Russia’s economic countermoves either. If the purpose of the invasion was to rearrange the deck chairs on the globalization titanic and set forces in motion to create alternative trading blocks and alliances to weaken the USD this makes perfect sense. This makes much more sense than going to war and obliterating another country because you want to ‘denazify’ it. This is obscurative balderdash on the order of the US invading Iraq to ‘spread democracy’.
Both invasions represent imperialist resource grabs carried out by decadent, competing fascist countries with overly large military forces.
The problem for Russia is that China remains firmly ensconsed in the current globalization scheme and doesn’t gain by bifurcating and weakening the system through violence and mayhem especially for dubious nonsense such as ‘spreading democracy’ or ‘denazification.’ Their economy is also slowing and having common neoliberal problems of debt induced asset inflation and disrupted trade logistics since the pandemic began.
They have a middle class to build and neither war nor bifurcating the global system through reaction to helps China enough to be worthwhile unless they can manage to be charter members of both systems. Admittedly if anyone can do that successfully China could. But at what cost?
Hence, while surely they share the intense dislike and resentment with the US/West political economic establishment it’s hard to see them bucking the system except rhetorically in the mild ‘middle path” way of feeling everybody’s pain and why cant we all get along at the negotiating table.
Posted by: Useless meat beater | Apr 1 2022 5:38 utc | 315
A song for the times, as history repeats. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ
Posted by: Anon | Apr 1 2022 6:31 utc | 316
Anon, it is a good song for the times.
In list beside was a tuvian band. TTG at demented langs site linked to it once. Genghis Kahan’s top strategic general was a Tuvian. Russian defence minister is a Tuvian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc
The yank multi sex whores think they will defeat Sergei Shoigu?
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 1 2022 6:51 utc | 317
How stupid can western leaders be for not considering how their economic sanctions on Russia would backfire? Or maybe they simply thought it could all be blamed on Putin.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-industry-gas-rationing-plan-would-cripple-economy/a-61302394
“President of Germany’s IG BCE chemical workers union Michael Vassiliadis, who also sits on BASF’s supervisory board, said around 40,000 employees would have to be put on short-time working hours or laid off.
“The consequences would not only be reduced work hours and job losses, but also the rapid collapse of the industrial production chains in Europe — with worldwide consequences,” Vassiliadis added.
Posted by: krypton | Apr 1 2022 13:18 utc | 318
US confirms giving chemical weapons protection to Ukraine states RT.
Is the US planning on unleashing a chemical or biological weapons attack against Russia in Ukraine?
Text of report:
Washington is providing equipment to be used in case of chemical or biological attacks, White House says
The US is bracing for the possibility that Russia might use chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine, providing equipment and supplies that could be used to save lives after such an attack, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has confirmed.
Psaki disclosed the aid effort on Friday, without giving details on the gear that’s being sent to Kiev. She added that giving the equipment to Ukraine won’t compromise US preparedness for chemical or biological attacks.
The statement comes weeks after Psaki suggested that Moscow may be planning to deploy chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine. She initially made that assertion in response to documents published by Russia, which alleged that US-backed labs in Ukraine were developing bioweapons.
“This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine,” Psaki said last month. “Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.”
US officials also dismissed as “preposterous” subsequent allegations that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had been involved in financing military research into dangerous pathogens at Ukrainian biolabs. However, the UK Daily Mail last week reported that correspondence found on the younger Biden’s abandoned laptop at least partially corroborated the Russian claims.
Also last week, President Biden raised eyebrows when he told reporters during a visit to Europe that NATO would respond “in kind” if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine. White House officials later denied that the US would use chemical weapons, saying that it was still against policy.
Posted by: Perimetr | Apr 1 2022 23:57 utc | 319
“US confirms giving chemical weapons protection to Ukraine” states RT.
Is the US planning on unleashing a chemical or biological weapons attack against Russia in Ukraine?
Text of report:
Washington is providing equipment to be used in case of chemical or biological attacks, White House says
The US is bracing for the possibility that Russia might use chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine, providing equipment and supplies that could be used to save lives after such an attack, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has confirmed.
Psaki disclosed the aid effort on Friday, without giving details on the gear that’s being sent to Kiev. She added that giving the equipment to Ukraine won’t compromise US preparedness for chemical or biological attacks.
The statement comes weeks after Psaki suggested that Moscow may be planning to deploy chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine. She initially made that assertion in response to documents published by Russia, which alleged that US-backed labs in Ukraine were developing bioweapons.
“This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine,” Psaki said last month. “Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.”
US officials also dismissed as “preposterous” subsequent allegations that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had been involved in financing military research into dangerous pathogens at Ukrainian biolabs. However, the UK Daily Mail last week reported that correspondence found on the younger Biden’s abandoned laptop at least partially corroborated the Russian claims.
Also last week, President Biden raised eyebrows when he told reporters during a visit to Europe that NATO would respond “in kind” if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine. White House officials later denied that the US would use chemical weapons, saying that it was still against policy.
Posted by: Perimetr | Apr 1 2022 23:58 utc | 320
I worry that we have a picture of Russia that is increasingly distorted from reality. We had a bunch of beliefs about the capabilities of their army from prior to “Operation Z” – those ideas all turned out to be wrong, but instead of correcting them, we took those false premises and made a bunch of even more wrong observations about what is happening now.
We seriously underestimated Russia, and our own propaganda is killing us.
https://readingjunkie.com/2022/04/02/we-seriously-underestimated-russia-our-own-propaganda-is-killing-us/
Posted by: Ian Kummer | Apr 2 2022 3:16 utc | 321
Remember how Biden abruptly bailed from Iraq and Afghanistan last summer? It was like “huh? Where TF did THAT come from??” It just seemed so incredibly DUMB and precipitous, until I just recently re-realized what I already knew: None of these “supreme commanders” really decide shit. They’re just stage performers, The all-star cast of the “ain’t Democracy Great” puppet show for all us goy idiots WHO NEVER FUCKING LEARN. That happened because doddering Joe’s Planet Jew puppet masters handed him his marching orders re Ukraine and Russia back then. It was step 1 of them ditching their previous world war in order to re-deploy for the next one, which is extremely ominous for Russia. This shit could just keep going for 30-plus years or more. Looking back on their past “kill Haman” rampages, such as round one in Russia, 1917-50, 30 years is their minimum for this sort of thing.
Posted by: Noboby | Apr 4 2022 15:47 utc | 322