You'll be pleased to learn that Germany announced that it will send weapons to Ukraine. France is sending defensive equipment. Ditto the UK.
This may be too little too late, but as of this evening Kyiv still stands in Ukrainian hands.
Don't overlook what is happening now with Russia's economy. This is from Reuters News Service, Dirius. It wouldn't kill you to read a link once in a while.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...er-time-under-sanctions-onslaught-2022-02-25/
For one thing, Russia's GDP has dropped substantially in the past decade.
Germany's energy supply's are now 40% domestic renewables, mostly off-shore windfarms. They have their environmental issues, but they're not subject to Vladimir Putin.
Dirius, you live in a fantasy world.
Biden has been in office just over 13 months.
What he inherited from your man Trump was a rampant Covid epidemic creating massive supply chain problems, and an energy sector whose pricing is subject to fluctuations in global energy supply and demand.
Did you actually major in economics, or were you bluffing?
Yes and it only took him 2 months to destroy the economy- which is a surprising achievement. Imagine what he ll do in 3 more years?
What bills did Pres. Biden push through congress that caused the economy to fail in the manner your alleging?
What exactly did he do that caused a sinking of the US economy or Worldwide inflation?
I'd love to hear your valued opinion. When you say "someone ruined the economy, how then did that happen? The GDP is up 7%, the Stock Market has been up up up, Unemployment has been down, the only thing I can think of is worldwide Inflation.
Supply issues we are having, are worldwide. Nothing I am aware of that President Biden did to cause any of it. So you can inform us.
'T...
I said that, in my opinion, the goal is for Russia not to take Ukraine as a whole.
Instead, the russian strategy is rather to occupy the eastern front and partition it.
Both these things are different. Taking the whole country would imply that the borders of Ukraine would remain the same but under russian control and with a puppet russian government. On the other hand, a partition of Ukraine would create a small number of pro-russian states, but there would still be a rather large chunk of Ukranian land which would be allied with western interests.
If Russia takes the whole country, Putin would be in control of all its resources, which would have an economic impact on Ukraine's clients. If Ukraine still exists, it changes drastically how this resources would later allocate to the European Union.
I'm not overlooking the economic impact of sanctions, but these don't work on a short-term basis. Ergo this sanctions won't stop the russian invasion, unless its a drawn out invasion that lasts for months on end. All that the sanctions do, is put some pressure on Russia, but they don't prevent the death of civilians.
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Dirius, the partition idea was bandied about in 2014, with Russia's invasion of Crimea and the eastern districts. I wouldn't say its out of the question, as a "divide and conquer" strategy might work very well. On the other hand, if Putin loses his iron grip, a "multi-state solution" that leaves a core of democratically-minded Ukrainians in the western districts might not be so easy to intimidate. If they were to align more strongly with the West, Putin would still claim that they pose a security risk to his vassal states.
Yes and it only took him 2 months to destroy the economy- which is a surprising achievement. Imagine what he ll do in 3 more years?
Say what? The Russian invasion is already underway. Sanctions weren't imposed prior to the invasion, rightly or wrongly, to give the West some leverage, and Putin some reason to back off.
The new set of sanctions, as well as the pre-war supply chain problems, Covid, and war fall-out, will have an effect on the Russian people. It's hard to say how far Putin is willing to go with Ukraine if he generates much more hardship back home.
From the perspective of the ukranian population, the long-term consequences don't matter right now, because they are getting killed.
In the short term, for Putin, this might be the best way to secure some territory while mitigating the costs, while for Ukraine a ceasefire to save their population. The eastern territories would end up managing themselves, and while there will be instability, it might still be better than an outright war.
The alternative of a long attrition war will be devastating for the ukrainian population. It is really up to the ukranian leadership which way they want to go, but its very likely the russian strategy is to push the leadership into choosing the solution which saves the population. Lets remember Ukraine is a democratic republic, so the interest of its president should be the security of the people, over the territoy. Every single hour this war continues, more people die.
Dirius, what news are you following? There already is an "outright war" in Ukraine.
The western allies are shipping arms to Ukraine as we speak.
Right now Russia's military strategy has been to blow up a dam providing water to Kyiv, control the airport, and set fire to a pipeline. This looks like a siege to me.
Russia is not reporting its own casualty figures.
Sanctions are a double edge sword, they won't stop the russian invasion going underway, and can also harm the countries applying them (you think increasing oil and gas costs won't affect americans and europeans?) - so it also causes instability back home for the sanctioning nations.
The diference is that despite the sanctions, Russia will be gaining territory is he continues with the war. On the other hand, Europe and the U.S. sanctions will only cause harm to their own population - so sanctions do have the downside of creation a destabilization in their respective nations.
So how long can, for example, France uphold those sanctions before the people protest about them? These are things that also need to be taken into account.Remember your complaints about Trump's economic war with China? Same scenario here, sanctions to Russia also cause problems for the U.S.
From the perspective of Russia, they can loose money with sanctions, and gain money with territory. For Europe, they can only loose money with sanctions.
Dirius, western leaders are very much aware that sanctions can hurt their own people. The strategy is simple. Sanctions will hurt Russia much more.
Hard to say what will be Russia's financial gain in controlling territory that it has decimated. The West will pour aid money into Ukraine if it survives the Russian attacks. If Putin takes over, he's on his own to rebuild the infrastructure that his Ukraine-- or those puppet states-- are going to need for him to reap any economic benefits. Recall that he bombed a dam holding Kyiv's water supply, an oil pipeline and territory around an airport.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian fighters are putting up a fierce resistance in and around Kyiv.
Sorry waybread, I don't really read your posts anymore, so reply all you want, but this is all you'll get from me.
TRUMP:
However, in January 2017, with the new POTUS, trump worked on removing those sanctions from his good buddy and mentor in all strong arm techniques, Vladimir Putin.
He also invited the Russians, (Putin's right hand man, Lakrov and others working in close proximity) to the Oval Office, the first time EVER Russians were invited in.
There are lots of photos published of them. It happened the first month he was in office, January 2017. Putin used these photos for P.R. in Russia, and certainly helped him gain popularity in Russia which today, (or last week) he still enjoyed.
It was also realized later that trump gave the Russians a top secret info, he received via Israel on the Middle East.
Yep, him!
Photos:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=trump%20Russians%20in%20Oval%20Office&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&pq=trump%20russians%20in%20oval%20office&sc=0-29&cvid=29B38D8C3C044221BC9DFC24438119C3&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover