Ukraine

[Splits]

lol

[ElNono]

Ukraine calls Russia's proposed evacuation routes 'unacceptable'; more talks planned Monday

Russia's military said it would hold fire and open humanitarian corridors in several Ukrainian cities starting Monday to allow citizens to flee, but it continued to pummel cities with multiple rocket launchers that hit residential buildings.

Ahead of a third round of talks planned for Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said a cease-fire would start in the morning, and safe passages would open for civilians from the capital of Kyiv, the southern port city of Mariupol, and the cities of Kharkiv and Sumy. Some of the evacuation routes, however, would funnel civilians toward Russia or its ally Belarus — unlikely destinations for many Ukrainians who would prefer to head toward countries on the western and southern borders.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk called the proposed evacuation routes to Russia and Belarus “unacceptable." Belarus is a key ally of Putin and served as a launching ground for the invasion.

The Ukrainian government is proposing eight humanitarian corridors, including from Mariupol, that would allow civilians to travel to the western regions of Ukraine where there is no Russian s ing.

“Providing evacuation routes into the arms of the country that is currently destroying yours is a nonsense,” said U.K. Europe Minister James Cleverly.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...es/9404740002/

[Thread]

Ukraine calls Russia's proposed evacuation routes 'unacceptable'; more talks planned Monday

Russia's military said it would hold fire and open humanitarian corridors in several Ukrainian cities starting Monday to allow citizens to flee, but it continued to pummel cities with multiple rocket launchers that hit residential buildings.

Ahead of a third round of talks planned for Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said a cease-fire would start in the morning, and safe passages would open for civilians from the capital of Kyiv, the southern port city of Mariupol, and the cities of Kharkiv and Sumy. Some of the evacuation routes, however, would funnel civilians toward Russia or its ally Belarus — unlikely destinations for many Ukrainians who would prefer to head toward countries on the western and southern borders.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk called the proposed evacuation routes to Russia and Belarus “unacceptable." Belarus is a key ally of Putin and served as a launching ground for the invasion.

The Ukrainian government is proposing eight humanitarian corridors, including from Mariupol, that would allow civilians to travel to the western regions of Ukraine where there is no Russian s ing.

“Providing evacuation routes into the arms of the country that is currently destroying yours is a nonsense,” said U.K. Europe Minister James Cleverly.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...es/9404740002/

Putin

[ElNono]

Ukrainian leaders have 'continuity of government' plan if Zelenskyy is killed: Blinken

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukrainian officials have a plan ready in the event President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is killed.

"The Ukrainians have plans in place that I'm not going to talk about or get into any details on to make sure that there is what we would call 'continuity of government' one way or another. And let me leave it at that," Blinken told CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday.

Blinken added that Zelenksyy’s leadership since Russia invaded Ukraine Feb. 24 has been "remarkable."

"The leadership that President Zelensky has shown, the entire government has shown, is remarkable. They’ve been the embodiment of these incredibly brave Ukrainian people," Blinken said.

Under Ukraine's cons ution, the chair of the parliament succeeds the president if anything should happen to the president while in office. Ruslan Stefanchuk serves as chairman of the parliament, known as the Rada.

Blinken’s remarks come after a report surfaced that U.S. officials and allied nations have been discussing the line of presidential succession in case Zelenskyy is killed or captured.

U.S. officials have reportedly urged Ukrainians not to allow senior officials to remain in the same place for long periods of time and to move to locations outside the nation’s capital, The New York Times reported, citing a person briefed on the conversations.

Zelenskyy has remained in Kyiv during the invasion and dispelled rumors Friday he fled the country.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/antony...lenskyy-killed

[ElNono]

Putin

nobody wants to even escape to Russia or Belarus... rather die in a ditch

[Thread]

nobody wants to even escape to Russia or Belarus... rather die in a ditch

Chop/chop!!!

[Thread]

Ukrainian leaders have 'continuity of government' plan if Zelenskyy is killed: Blinken

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukrainian officials have a plan ready in the event President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is killed.

"The Ukrainians have plans in place that I'm not going to talk about or get into any details on to make sure that there is what we would call 'continuity of government' one way or another. And let me leave it at that," Blinken told CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday.

Blinken added that Zelenksyy’s leadership since Russia invaded Ukraine Feb. 24 has been "remarkable."

"The leadership that President Zelensky has shown, the entire government has shown, is remarkable. They’ve been the embodiment of these incredibly brave Ukrainian people," Blinken said.

Under Ukraine's cons ution, the chair of the parliament succeeds the president if anything should happen to the president while in office. Ruslan Stefanchuk serves as chairman of the parliament, known as the Rada.

Blinken’s remarks come after a report surfaced that U.S. officials and allied nations have been discussing the line of presidential succession in case Zelenskyy is killed or captured.

U.S. officials have reportedly urged Ukrainians not to allow senior officials to remain in the same place for long periods of time and to move to locations outside the nation’s capital, The New York Times reported, citing a person briefed on the conversations.

Zelenskyy has remained in Kyiv during the invasion and dispelled rumors Friday he fled the country.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/antony...lenskyy-killed

But nary (No Fly Zone).

& how bout this one I just saw on the CNN..."Yes, they may have those MIG fighters, Senator Beridendi, but even if they do where are they going to take off from and land? There is no airports left in Ukraine, sir!"

tee, hee. State run media CNN don't miss a trick. When State gives them marching orders, CNN marchesPERIOD

[ElNono]

Hopefully the 'continuity of government' plan is to install a non-binary black female POTUS, tbh...

[Thread]

Hopefully the 'continuity of government' plan is to install a non-binary black female POTUS, tbh...

..."Mission achieved!" - MF Biden

[ElNono]

But nary (No Fly Zone).

& how bout this one I just saw on the CNN..."Yes, they may have those MIG fighters, Senator Beridendi, but even if they do where are they going to take off from and land? There is no airports left in Ukraine, sir!"

tee, hee. State run media CNN don't miss a trick. When State gives them marching orders, CNN marchesPERIOD

Plenty of airports in Poland, tbh... as long as the pilots are Ukrainian, nobody cares. Plus Putin is terrified of NATO, so other than flapping his gums, nothing else for him to do. We've already been giving them pretty much every weapon under the sun.

There's not going to be a no-fly zone, at least not while Russia continues to botch this invasion so badly.

[Thread]

Plenty of airports in Poland, tbh... as long as the pilots are Ukrainian, nobody cares. Plus Putin is terrified of NATO, so other than flapping his gums, nothing else for him to do. We've already been giving them pretty much every weapon under the sun.

There's not going to be a no-fly zone, at least not while Russia continues to botch this invasion so badly.

Stands to reason then that NATO would put the No Fly Zone in, once they cleared it with the big cheese, MF Biden.

[Thread]

Putin seems 'bent on destroying' Russia's space agency: former astronaut

..."Yes, we're still going to the moon with them after Ukraine is over, but there may not be another trip after that one, the one where we go to the moon with them. A real shame."

[Thread]

MARKETS
Oil traders eye $200 per barrel this month
"I will not increase oil production by even 1 drop." - MF Biden

---------

...Other eye on 1 million American COVID deaths this month.

"I'll shut it down." - MF Biden

[Brazil]

hater going full Q ...

next stop... couple of thousands nazis building weapons of mass destruction

[Splits]

next stop... couple of thousands nazis building weapons of mass destruction

[Thread]

Splits & Bra sittin' in a tree, k.i.s.s.i.n.g...

[Winehole23]

de-dollarization and a nascent Russia/China alliance seem to be two emerging themes. the argument that US sanctions are undermining the reputation of the USD as a safe haven may not be threadbare.

For so many decades, the US Federal Reserve prided itself in stating that every single dollar ever printed is backed by the sovereign and will be honoured. However, ‘Bidenism’ killed this promise twice over – by freezing half of Afghanistan’s seven billion dollar-denominated foreign exchange reserves and all of Russia’s foreign exchange dollars. Any central bank will now think several times before buying US treasuries and will always look for alternative safe assets, even if they are a shade less safe.
In two decades, the Euro has emerged as a safe asset and attracted 30% of Russian foreign exchange reserves, 10% each in Germany and France. With 23% reserves in gold, 13% in yuan and 10% in Germany, Putin seems to have hedged well when he started drawing down reserves in the US from 2016-17, down to almost zero in 2021.


Fourthly, China will continue to draw down its US dollar-denominated foreign exchange reserves of about $1 trillion in its war chest of $3.4 trillion. Since 2005, China’s share of dollar securities has fallen from 80% to just 30%.


The US’s consistent targeting of Chinese foreign exchange reserves and foreign exchange management, by naming it a ‘currency manipulator’, and its recent last-recourse to economic sanctions, is not lost on Chinese strategists. Even though the Yuan forms only about 3-5% of world trade, the trajectory, through trade-expansionism into EU, South America, Africa and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) nations, is clear.


Coupled with the largest quantum of national central bank digital currency (CBDCs or e-yuans) already issued, possibilities of a yuan-inspired undeclared non-dollar bloc of nations are becoming realistic.


Fifthly, Asian and African central banks will be getting to their drawing boards to reassess their reliance on US dollar, safe havens, trade dependencies and reliability or not of the American hand. Given the subtle yet silent (but not very comforting) support from the US over Chinese aggression, India’s sustained abstentions on anti-Russia resolutions are very strong statements of support. That too, despite sustained pressure from the EU and US.

https://thewire.in/world/possible-en...r-post-ukraine

[Winehole23]

Michael Hudson's economics specialty is balance of payments.

For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia. America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation has driven them together, and is driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit.


American economic and financial power was expected to avert this fate. During the half-century since the United States went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated on the dollar standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds. The resulting Treasury-bill standard has enabled America to finance its foreign military spending and support its deindustrialization-driven chronic trade deficits by creating dollar IOUs that other countries accept. U.S. balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and conduct their foreign trade.


This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world, without having to use much military force of its own except to grab Middle Eastern oil.


The recent escalation of U.S. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia and other countries from trade and investment with Russia, Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. allies. And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia, along the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their hearts and minds, along with recovery of their sequestered accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings or those in its sterling and euro NATO satellites are a safe investment haven when world economic conditions become shaky.


So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the span of just a year or two. The basic theme of my Super Imperialism has been how, for the past fifty years, the U.S. Treasury-bill standard has channeled foreign savings to U.S. financial markets and banks, giving dollar diplomacy a free ride. I thought that de-dollarization would be led by China and Russia moving to take control of their economies to avoid the kind of financial polarization that is imposing austerity on the United States. But U.S. officials are forcing them to overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022...on-russia.html

[Thread]

de-dollarization and a nascent Russia/China alliance seem to be two emerging themes. the argument that US sanctions are undermining the reputation of the USD as a safe haven may not be threadbare.

https://thewire.in/world/possible-en...r-post-ukraine

You'd better hope it is, daddy...otherwise, "Think Chernobyl."

The kicker? X not only kicked our ass by unleashing COVID upon us, 1 million dead Americans (and counting), but now X has sided Putin.

Think Taiwan. If Biden wouldn't go to the mattresses for white people in Ukr, he sure as ain't goin' for slopes a stone's throw from X.

[Winehole23]

The same dynamic undercutting ostensible U.S aims has occurred with U.S. sanctions against the leading Russian billionaires. The neoliberal shock therapy and privatizations of the 1990s left Russian kleptocrats with only one way to cash out on the assets they had grabbed from the public domain. That was to incorporate their takings and sell their shares in London and New York. Domestic savings had been wiped out, and U.S. advisors persuaded Russia’s central bank not to create its own ruble money.

The result was that Russia’s national oil, gas and mineral patrimony was not used to finance a rationalization of Russian industry and housing. Instead of the revenue from privatization being invested to create new Russian means of protection, it was burned up on nouveau-riche acquisitions of luxury British real estate, yachts and other global flight-capital assets. But the effect of making Russian dollar, sterling and euro holdings hostage has been to make the City of London too risky a venue in which to hold their assets. By imposing sanctions on richest Russians closest to Putin, U.S. officials hoped to induce them to oppose his breakaway from the West, and thus to serve effectively as NATO agents-of-influence. But for Russian billionaires, their own country is starting to look safest.

[Winehole23]

The energy and food price squeeze is hitting Global South countries especially hard, coinciding with their own Covid-19 problems and the looming dollarized debt service coming due. Something must give. How long will these countries impose austerity to pay foreign bondholders?

[Dirks_Finale]

Hopefully the 'continuity of government' plan is to install a non-binary black female POTUS, tbh...

Hopefully someone as bright and talented as our current VP - the most likeable VP in modern history.

[Ef-man]

Anyone forget where they parked their aircraft. Ukrainians found it.

[Ef-man]

[RandomGuy]

Plenty of airports in Poland, tbh... as long as the pilots are Ukrainian, nobody cares. Plus Putin is terrified of NATO, so other than flapping his gums, nothing else for him to do. We've already been giving them pretty much every weapon under the sun.

There's not going to be a no-fly zone, at least not while Russia continues to botch this invasion so badly.

As much as it may be hard to believe... Russia didn't commit nearly enough troops to do the job.

They have probably lost somewhere between 5 and 10% of their starting troops. By the looks off it, they have lost a lot of materiel as well.

The three commanders that I think Putin had shot will probably be just the first of their commanders lost to Putins annoyance.

Supplies, disruptions in communications, poor training. Low morale. I would guess we will see more desertions of whole units en masse.

They botched it, but Western efforts are multiplying the effectiveness of UKR defense, and they haven't even really gotten into the cities yet.