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Why Putin Is Smiling At The Bond Market's Blockade Of Russia
One of the recurring themes the western media regurgitates at every opportunity is that while the western "diplomatic" sanctions against Russia are clearly a joke, one thing that will severely cripple the economy is the capital market embargo that has struck Russian companies, which are facing $115 billion of debt due over the next 12 months.
Recall that not a single Russian Eurobond issue has successfully priced since Russia's peaceful annexation of Crimea. Surely there is no way Russia can afford to let its major corporations - the nexus of its petroleum trade - go insolvent, which is why Putin will have to restrain himself and beg western investors to come back and chase appetiziing Russian yields (with other people's money of course). Turns out this line of thought is completely wrong.
Russian companies, facing $115 billion of debt due over the next 12 months, will have the funds even as bond markets shut because of the Ukraine crisis, according to Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings.
Firms will have about $100 billion in cash and earnings at their disposal during the next 18 months, Moody’s said in an analysis of 47 businesses April 11. Almost all 55 companies examined by Fitch are “well placed” to withstand a closed refinancing market for the rest of 2014, it said in a note on April 16. Banks have more than $20 billion in foreign currency to lend as the tensions prompted customers to convert their ruble savings, ZAO Raiffeisenbank said.
“The amount of cash on balances of Russian companies, committed credit lines from banks and the operating cash flows they will get is sufficient for the companies to comfortably service their liabilities,” Denis Perevezentsev, an analyst at Moody’s in Moscow, said by phone on April 17.
So, Russia can comfortably extend its Ukraine campaign well into 2015? Truly great news for Kiev, which is already bankrupt, and which is scrambling to get every last bcf of gas it can get its hands on before Gazprom finally pulls the plug in under a month.
Ah, the miracles of positive cash flow... and how quickly it eliminates any so-called political leverage the bearer of the world's reserve currency thought it may have had, leading ultimately to this.
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oh christ ... hey, what's the symbol for that triple-short-S&P etf ?!
I'm going to lay this out again, because it's obvious the Russkies around here are too busy waving flags and thinking they deserve a chunk of Alaska (ha!) and are not paying fucking attention...
* Russia central bank rates recently increased from 5.5% to 7% (prediction... they will go up further)
* reasons cited for the above include 10% decline in value of ruble this year and "market stabilization"
* share value in major Russian companies is down on average ~11% this year, specifically down ~7% since _last week_
* Russia is a world energy supplier, true, but it imports a great many big ticket items and the price of all that goes up as the ruble declines in value... the imports mainly come from western Europe and China, btw
* Russia's GDP growth has _dropped_ 2.1% between 2012 and 2013, and 2014 isn't looking much better
* Hints of increased risk for capital flight are starting to manifest themselves in Russia, with many Russians anticipating increased risk of economic and financial sanctions
* expect Russia's sovereign ratings to be impacted as a result of the above (ref. the same Fitch cited here)
* worst case scenario, we're looking at a potential trade war that could easily go "hot" in the Ukraine and other Eastern European areas - sorry to rain on a comrade's parade, but Russia is in no shape to survive a trade war and they know it
this is why I keep calling Putin's Ukraine intervention a gambit... the problem with gambits is they can be declined or countered, which is what the US and Europe have decided to do... well, now you're down material and the position advantage is rapidly deteriorating... now what? Acting like holding out under these conditions until 2015 is going to be easy to pull off is whistling through the graveyard. Y'all will be lucky if we don't see another case of the Russian Flu break out this year. What kicked that off, you ask? Asian finance crisis, war in Chechnya and decreased demand in Russian petro products. Sound familiar?
It was certainly a "gambit", a calculated move, but they didn't have a choice in the matter since if they had done nothing they would have eventually lost their Black Sea port in Crimea. Russia will certainly be hurt and so will the US. It's a lose-lose situation.
The point is, what's the benefit to the average citizen in the US of trying to encircle Russia and break it into smaller states? The US has bitten off more than it can chew. We should stick to attacking smaller, defenseless countries like Panama and Grenada. Maybe there are terrorists in Monaco?
sorry downvote brigade, facts are facts, you're just gonna have to deal with them
Obama the Powerless
So powerless that his has driven the US literally into the ground in a 5 year time frame. No one could do that without a plan and enormous backing of TPTB and all government agencies. Obama is a rube with a sweet mouth, nothing more than a front man for Agenda 21. All part of the master plan to put the US on equal footing with the rest of the world. And it's working like a charm...
cue Dinesh DiSouza . . . .
So basically they are forced to not take loans from abroad. Doesn't this ultimately put them in a stronger position and pose less of a threat to their sovereignty.
Unlike us for example i.e. Owned by the Chinese.
That was my thought, with the only caveat being service of existing loans in other currencies.
Hell, if they are going to be isolated financially anyway, why not default on foriegn debt if you are a Russian company.
Words of wisdom.
There is a lesson there for all of us, in your advice...
Beat me to it.
How about forcing Rubles on them at some absurd official rate? That should be good for laughs.
Indeed it does.
Opting out of international agreements that would enslave them. Since the west is bankrupt and morally weak there isn't much they can do about it, but then again...
...the west does have nukes.
Don't look now, but so does Russia.
So does Rus.
This is what happens when you spend all of your time in the choom wagon instead of studying statistics and probabilities.
"Bond.....Vlad Bond"
Photoshop guy. More Palpatine Red around the eyes please.
Another BankerWar injection of unredacted bullshit.
He better fire his photographer for letting a pic get out with an ill-fitting suit.
Not ill fitting. He left the coat hanger in his jacket as he was in such a rush to divide the Western alliance and collapse the U.S. economy. Not one of his underlings wanted to point this out because Putin.
This has got to be the slowest newsday in the history of humankind.
Roger that, I want to know where the chess pieces are being moved. Wake me up when the shooting starts.
Yeah, I just walked by an alley where a CNBC crew was filming a dice game between two homeless guys, so you know its a slow news day
The footage should be preserved for posterity, it's rare to find a game near Wall Street that isn't rigged.
Fuckin' rayciss! I'd be surprised if you don't get banned; they were not 'homeless' they were housing challenged.
Used to be, not THAT long ago, that a business had to have positive cash flow to even exist.
But that was then.
This is Put-In Take-out capitalism....
ori
Pun intended?
Unlike KimKadarshain Omegaman...butt naturally! ;-)
That's what I think every time I hear about the corporate credit-crunch.
Then I ponder on just how doomed we really are, given that nearly all wealth producing entities are addicted to credit.
If they aren't using it in some sort of carry-trade financialization of their business, they are merely consuming their capital until they can no longer play the game.
So now I know what an entire malinvestment economy looks like. Interesting times, indeed!
An apple a day keeps the cash flow so positive it doesn't know how to use it.
Apple, Berkshire, Google, Yahoo, Bill Gates...+ cash flow hitters.
yeah and nowadays every failing business can keep going on debt life-support for decades
Putin is smiling because he annexed some of the hottest women on the planet.
He annexed Sweden????
It's next on the agenda, Russia could float its economy just from lesbian webcam revenues.
Two great tastes that go great together.
Been to Sweden, decent girls, but kind of low numbers based of percentage of overall women in that country. But go to Eastern Europe and there are more hotties.
Ask Assange about Sweedish chicks.
Don't trust those bitches.
He said 'hottest'. not pretiest. Swedish women are cool in demeanor. As are most Swedes.
>>>Swedish women are cool in demeanor. As are most Swedes.
There is truth behind the sterotypes.
My mother was a 100% svenska flicka. In her 83 years of life I never saw one tear.
They can easily do what EU did in Cyprus. They can chose who will have to take any haircut. Preferably western investors in this case. WHy not especially US investors. If sactioned by the west you just dont pay them.
Just say "fuck it!" and default on any entity from an area issuing economic sanctions?
That would be a real hoot.
But then they couldn't get credit, COUGH! lol
Just default. In fact maybe higher global interest rates are best for the banksters after all.
Why the Rus are playing the IMF's and NATO's game is beyond me.
All you need to do is look at LTCM and 1998 to see who is holding the bag.
The hot money will always follow the Spice.
I am sure the Chinese would rather loan money to Russian oligarchs to develop energy fields for thier own industrial development than continue to finance a US war machine which can vacate Arab production, complicate Persian and otherwise is already fighting a cold-resource war in Africa for the last 15 years.
Deflation Doom Podcast now up on the Doomstead Diner.
RE
Checkers 0 vs Chess 100
This is like watching a pro football team play against a middle school football team. Putin is making Kenyans look like a brainless farside joke.
"You come any closer and I'm a gonna shoot this nigger"
Obama says to Putin as he puts a gun up to his own head.
Crowd, chanting - Hug! Hug! Hug!
Relax, oh red one.
That is a line from a great african american actor
Cleavon Little, RIP
"Hey, where are the white women at?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQ-ISsDm8M
Middle school AV club...
Booorrrrring . . . . . .
Hey that's a SBD grin if I ever saw one!
Whys, dat Obammy done throwed dat nasty ol' Putin in dat dere briar patch...agin.
Dat Putin jist might turns about an' stucker up ol' Obammy wits a tarbaby.
Lawdy, what a sight that'll be.
Sigh........no one appreciates the genius of Uncle Remus anymore, proly the greatest political consultant of the 19th century if anyone bothered to listen.
And he gave his advice for free.
"He who has the gold makes the rules."
"He who has the gold will get the energy. "He who has the energy (and the nukes to protect it) makes the rules."
Russia and China "need" the US like a dog needs fleas and ticks.
Yeah, the multi nationals thought they were being slick by gutting Americas industry for cheap chinese labor. Now they are sitting on a shitload of consumer debt and untrained, out of work ebt dependent Americans.
Let me see if I understand the situations:
1.Europe will not lend Russia money.
2.Europe depends on Russian gas to produce electricity and for heat.
1+2 = Russia will be able to borrow as much as they want
The ENI CEO said it best.
Ya, Europe might deny Russia some things. But the things Europe can deny them they can go for a year or more without if they must.
The things that they might deny Europe . . . Europe needs to survive every single day.
Check. Checkmate.
The pigeon has wandered off the chessboard to find a shiney pebble and take a nap.
The plane has crashed into the God Damned mountain!!!!
so ukrainians HAD money now they DONT, russians DIDNT now they HAVE...maybe yanukovich deposited their stolen cash in there?
What the Fitch would Russia need with western bronze fiats (or whatever other mythical currency the banking empire arrogantly declares as suitable pay for labor or gas)?
IMO, Russia should never give over its resources for anything less than in-kind trade.
A fiat is a phantom and the sooner someone with a reasonable amount of power stands up to the Gnomes of Zurich and their parasitic ilk across the world, the better. Greece, Argentina, Venezuela, etc. could never do it unless they join together against the gnome armies (which is unlikely given the gnome agents and sappers)... but Russia can.
You might look in the City of London rather than Zurich. The same Zurich that crumbled in the face of threats from there regarding secret accounts.
Yes "The City" ... just thought I would use the JFK reference to the Gnomes of Zurich as a generic because it helped with the visualization of gnome armies. Brussels or Basel would have worked as well.
I suppose one real question is whether Vlad is adequately protected from "gnome assassins". The typical gnome playbook calls for a gnome assassin to take out Vlad then a gnome agent to declare some western government to blame, the gnomes profit from financing both sides of the war and consolidate their power.
If it happens, the people should be careful not to take the gnome agent's bait and declare war on Zurich, London, Brussels and Basel instead.
the gnomes are the Cheesepopes .. a famous ZH'er used to say..
The Swiss bankers were being criticised in Britain from the 1950s. The term first originated in a crisis meeting of the Labour politicians in November 1964. The politicians blamed the Swiss bankers for raising speculation against the pound. During the meeting, politicianGeorge Brown criticised the Swiss bankers and said: "The Gnomes of Zürich are at work again." The term "Gnomes of Zürich" was then used by many other politicians of the time.[1] Then Prime Minister,Harold Wilson vowed to resist the gnomes' sinister power.[1]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38295.htm Ukraine and the Grand Chessboard
yes
no
will putin still be wearing that smirk once russia is locked out of SWIFT?
Well. Lets put it this way. The little yap dog can bark at the bus and chase it, but what's it going to do if it catches the bus?
Sigh......Putin is the bus fellas
What locked out of the western financial concentration camp? He must be breathing a sigh of relief.
Russia don't need no Fitch'in SWIFT.
Being part of SWIFT signs over a country's sovereignty to the gnome empire. Why would Russia or any country want to be subservient to a bunch of Fitch'in gnomes?
The important point to remember is that the only thing that gives fiat money any confidence at all is the ability to buy STUFF.
Putin has lots of stuff, oil, minerals, gas, precious metals, etc.. Lots and lots of it... If you want to see some shit, think of what happens if Putin wants Yuan for stuff, or precious metals. The whole western ponzi goes poof. Poof I say.
...and so will plenty of Russians.
@trader1 ask fonestar.
Ask fonestar?? Have you gone mad? You want a tirade on bitcoin vs. SWIFT? I don't.
That would hurt SWIFT and TPTB far more than Russia.
Putin would demand settlement in gold if that happened.
Something they would have to buy in quantity ,fast.
It would destroy the banking system and all faith in fiat.
no faith=no fiat.
Oh dear locked out of Swift,,, well we used swift to send payments so now we don't have to pay
but if you swifties want gas send us gold in advance
Or it'll end up being dollars, atoms, or Russians that have trouble doing anything in civilized countries.
Putin 2016!
Putin is one slippery bastard....makes Obummmer look like he's still playing in the sandbox..What a fucking joke this admin is..
Generations of inbreeding in the neocon tribe have turned them into nothing but rabies infected alien lifeforms running around the planet looking to destroy all they can.
They might need to dumb down the gene pool a little bit and partake in some of that diversity they so intensely push on the rest of us...
Blockade? for Russia? ok..
What does not kill you...make you strong..
except Bears...
Bears will kill you
Let Russia and the USA figure out their problems in their own way and time. Inevitably they do so at the expense of the little people. The question for us plebs in either country is whether we have disaster insurance to guard us against most economic catastrophies.. By that I mean gold and some silver.
That is the only thing that needs to concern you at a money level. All else is toilet paper when push comes to shove.
Sure all asset classes will be damaged but some much more than others.
But aren't the counter parties in the west?
From the west's point of insanity, isn't that a lot like cutting off one's nose to spite their face?!
"There, you can't pay us. Now how do you feel?!" LOL
If the Russians won't follow the West's crony socialist plans then the West will have to embargo and blockade those capitalists. Ditto to China but Russia first. It that doesn't work then the West will start a war.
Russia and China cannot be considered anywhere close to any non-collectivist/authoritarian system given their endemic, gated-community rife corruption.
I haven't ever seen a banker who wouldn't sell his grandmother for some yield.
They will buy all Russia's bonds as soon as Putin invites them to. The Squid will already have an angle.
1) Sell Russian Bonds, then get (more) friendly with China, sell US Tbills/Tbonds in coordinated selloff (supports each's profit/capital).
2) get (more) friendly with China, sell US Tbills/bonds in coordinated selloff (supports each's profit/capital). Sell Russian Bonds.
Pick a Putin Plan:
Either way besides the as-is available cash in Russian companies...there is ample funding.
Just keep WAR at an arm's length, or get necessary IMF and NATO approvals before moving in. It is possible.
The author of the above article forgot that Putin can freeze the accounts and capital of U.S. corporations doing business in Russia. After all, Russian profits are not repatriated to the U.S. because to do so would subject them to tax. Plus Putin can sell his stash of U.S. treasury bonds.
This piece is amusing, really! It appears that the beltway elites are assuming that anyone with money in Russia would send it out of Russia as soon as possible, thus asset stripping the nation. The assumption is that the Russian elites are as contemptuous of the Russian population are as our elites are contemptuous of the core American population.
Here is hoping that they find an Hawaiian birth certificate for Putin...
If this goes on into next winter the price Europe pays for natural gas will be a wind fall for Russia. This means that Russia won't be hurt but is set to benefit from all of this. If you listen very quietly you can hear China building new gaslines into their heartland. This creates jobs in China and will give them badly needed low cost energy.
Back in the middle of 2012 Putin pledged to strengthen Russia’s economic and political ties with China after skipping a Group of Eight summit in the U.S. the month before. This unholy alliance between Russia and China may create major problems for America going forward. For more about this meeting and the implications see the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/06/putin-strenghtens-ties-with-china...
Four topics that have been in recent news (that have taken years or decades of planning and are now active or being acted upon) :
1. Nord Stream: means Germany and Russia are connected at the hip, w/ or w/o EU.
2. South Stream. Next pipeline to Europe through the Black Sea to Italy. EU needs it bad. Then Italy and Russia will be joined at hip (with Vatican).
3. Russia’s Duma has voted to forgive 90 percent of North Korea’s Soviet-Era Debt.This weekend Reuters reported that Russia’s Duma voted to write off roughly $10 billion worth of the debt that North Korea owes Moscow from the days of the Soviet Union. The vote ratified an agreement made in September 2012, after a meeting between then-President Dmitry Medvedev and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Siberia in the summer of 2011.
North Korea was a strong ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and Russia has forgiven the debt incurred by other Soviet allies like Cuba. However, the decision to forgive Pyongyang’s Soviet-era debt is most likely geared toward trying to bolster Russia’s plans to build a gas pipeline from its Sakhalin Island fields to South Korea via the North. The pipeline, which would also be accompanied by a railway, would reportedly carry 10 billion cubic meters of gas to South Korea annually. The gas would come from Russia’s state-owned energy company, Gazprom.
Moscow has been pushing for the Korean gas pipeline and railway for years as part of its strategy to diversify its energy markets away from Europe and toward Asia. This general goal has gained new urgency in the wake of Russia’s clash with the West over the Ukraine and Crimea.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/eyeing-pipeline-russia-forgives-north-korean-debt/
4. Putin Expected to Sign China Gas Deal as Crisis Forces Hand http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-09/putin-seen-signing-china-gas-deal-as-crisis-forces-russia-s-hand.html
So basically it means that Germany has reverted to being a less-civilized country like it did in the 1930's-mid 40's
Obama once again taking advice from the wrong people in the Whithouse that have very little understanding of finance.No vision of any outcomes that can go wrong.Sounds like the recent Bush Administration.Could be that the U.S. Government has layers of idiots still working(employed there,sorry:) and infiltrated by right wing neocons.None of them at The Fed or anywhere else in the Whitehouse could see the biggest financial crisis in history coming so it is not a surprise to me that Obama can't see any economic surprises with Russia now.The whole world needs oil and natural gas,but especially GOLD right now because of the negative GOFO rate.Seems like at one time that was a rare occurrence but now it's happening with regular frequency.I don't think another Central Bank will dump right now because they know they'll never get their gold back again since China is now taking the entire world gold supply.
It's not the Peter principle. It's not Occam's razor. It is the plan, and it's going as designed.
The chaos theory works out as intelligent design? The chaos theory only works out to be organizational over light years. The happenings that are occurring presently is just chaos...pure and simple.
Educate me;
Was JFK a right wing neocon?
Was LBJ a right wing neocon?
We have had the Spanish American war, WWI and II, Nam, and countless other military incursions and worse, yet everything is NEOCONS, like they are some strange breed of human that discovered war and foreign entanglements after a millineum of war on this planet. I just hate ignorant fucks that want to perpetrate this bulshit that somehow war mongering is a right wing ideology, compared to the peace loving leftist Marxists fuckers that murdered, not foreigners, but their own countrymen by the fucking millions.
FYI, the neo-cons are ALSO actually left-wing Marxist (Trotskyist.Schachtmanite version) who decided to take over the so-called American "right" about forty years ago. They basically succeeded. Cf Norman Podhoreta and Irving Kristol.
Time to get up to speed.
This also a warning, the people can never allow an all digital currency where your access to that currency can be turned on and off like a light switch for whatever reason imaginable.
Doesn't the U.S. have positive cash flow?
Only if you count borrowing money as cash flow.
hmmm..... i wonder whose problem this really is....
owe the bank 10,000.- US it is YOUR problem....
owe the bank 1,000,000,000.- US (plus).... it is the bank's problem..... -lol
Fuckbama just sent Blow Biden to Kiev....that'll fuckin show em
The Ant and the Grasshopper.
The US is looking hard to find countries it can point out :
"See their shirts are dirtier than ours. We are the least dirty shirt among fiats on the earth."
As if it mattered
The BRICS are going down (first, before the West) and will grope and size-up and GROUP-UP with any Cold-War country they see fit. Many countries have never risen (or financed) since the Cold War and nature and energy will take its course. All the small un-financed countries will find their 'new' stable energy point. Economics will force marriages of convenience.
This is significant because:
1) China, Asia, and India make just about everything for the West. China imports great bulk resources from Africa and Australia.
2) Russia provides energy to Europe and Germany
3) Brazil provides energy and resources to China.
It is another massive shift like after US/China deals in 70's and 80' began, the Wall fell, and the Cold War ended.
Major Geo-Political Paradigm shift, in addition there is sooo much debt that pays for all these changes, before there is zip credit later (2015-).
The United States has become a criminal enterprise plain and simple.
FTFY - you misspelled Russia.
I dont see much difference anymore
Well, the US doesn't have the problem of requiring gated communities for significant portions of its well-to-do population. They're optional.
They're "optional" in that the "well-to-do population" can choose not to enter them, whereas in Russia they have to?
The US is a lot more corrupt than Russia because it *can* be...as of yet.
Obama less popular than Putin around here.
Lets do a head to head
Obama versus Kim dong jong or whoever that North Korean prick is.
Numbers are going to be pretty tight. What's not to like about jumpsuits?
No, this place just happens to be too receptive to anti-US sentiment, especially of the Russian variety.
People are just disappointed in the US and have lost trust in the US being the good guys, thats all, when you lose trust it is normal to over react. Its not anti US sentiment asmuch as an expression of disappointment at the quality of our leaders.
Only an idiot would think that criticizing a country (or rather, a government) has anything to do with anti-US or/and pro-Russian sentiments. World is full of idiots, though.
"If you're not with us, you are against us", right?
ps. If you really want to beat the US. send babes. We are vulnerable to the veruska cleavages. trust us on this.
Seems to me that not many moons ago Arabs militarily outnumbered Israelis in troops, tanks, airplanes, you name it. Arabs hit from every side with stuff they had. And somehow Israelis swept it up in six days. So we got the best, the biggest, the fastest chariots in town. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.... (Ecclesiastes 9:11) imo
My God you will pop a fricking gut when you see this!...
"Jew Blitzer" presents...
Nothing like a good belly laugh before bed time.
Hey it's Pete King. He is a solid Murrican, except for all of his "you guys all have to to die to see how it turns out" destructionist tendencies. If McCain had won, this ass clown would be the Kerry or the Hillary. Burn baby burn.
And THESE are yet to be well-seen:
The Public Be Suckered
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1230886
This talk of "growth"when the world is so full of debt is absolute nonsense.
Besides it's time Russia changed over to payment in Euros for it's oil and gas supply to Europe. Need to cut off American influence by removing it from usage. Also to let Europe stand on its own feet. Europe & Europeans has/have been used enough over the last 100 years.
NATO is nothing but American control over Europe. It's the big bad bully , now turned into a thug since it is loosing influence
And the joke will be on us unless we realize they are all in it together. They want to recreate the movie named "Die WW1 trench monkey, die."
I've settled on the notion that the idea that Putin operates as an independent is laughable. He is part of the global Kabuki dance. Led by banksters, ruled by people who think they are gods.
The question is who can better withstand the next 9 months? Russia, with some semblance of a capital embargo? Or the Ukraine with 80% of their natural gas turned off? Yes, the Ukraine could disrupt Russia's ability to sell their natural gas to Europe putting an even bigger crimp in Russia's finances, but Europe won't stand for that either. Europe will have to reship natural gas back to the Ukraine as is needed. But that will only push Ukraine's mounting debts onto Europe and out of Russia's hair. The smart thing for Europe to have done was to get involved in the Syria war. Don't know why the US was involved. The rebels were backed by Saudi Arabia which sought to put a natural gas pipeline through Syria to Europe. No wonder Russia was such a loyal ally.
regardless of the finer points of economic warfare being debated here tonight this is really all just the preamble.
certain things that have to happen prior to the actual war... if you pay attention to history this has all happened before, more than once and has yielded the same inevitable result. the same script, the same hollow, empty promises of pursing diplomatic and political solutions. all the while the dirty deeds are done behind the scenes in preparation for an outcome that has already been decided. note how quickly that whole Geneva deal was dismissed, Obama shot it down about two hours after it was singed. talk about telegraphing one's real intentions
are there Russian special forces in the eastern Ukraine? I think it's a pretty safe bet that there are, lots of them.
are they paving the way for an invasion of the east? can't see another reason for them being there.
is the Russian military ready to roll over the border? yup.
what will be the trigger event? well, I don't think it will be Kiev aggression in the east, though that might play a part. I think it will largely depend on what NATO does in Poland and if Kiev keeps calling for and receives any type of direct aid from them beyond the "non lethal" variety. in other words the moment they start sending TOW anti tank weapons or MANPADS to the west, anything that signals Kiev is falling firmly into the NATO camp, that will be the final "red line" and Moscow rolls tanks right to the Polish border.
Putin knew what the play was here for Washington, not that one had to be ex KGB to see what was coming.
it's actually very, very simple in the early 90's NATO promised not to expand or do anything that would disrupt the strategic balance that MAD established when the Soviet Union broke apart.
they lied and repeatedly went back on their word, expanded into country after country that resides in the Russian sphere of interest and now they are pushing on the Ukraine, Russia's front door. yet people are still acting shocked and appalled that Russia annexed Crimea and has military forces ready to go on the border.
it's called survival. but I have no doubt Washington will play this out to it's final stupidity, they will push, Russia will strike first and we will all have one very shitty 2014.
but just remember when the (most likely nuclear) shit hits the fan who it was that got us into this impending clusterfuck.
I agree, but call me a hopeless optimist, but the US knows what escalation will bring I believe and this will prevent any escalation into a ground war unless the US could fight it with some other countries troops, while US tanks could sweep through Russian forces the possibility of body bags coming home to the US after the Iraq debacle would be political suicide for the democrats.
On the other hand if you believe that red and blue are the same, perhaps that does not matter?
politically, the ijits in the US general population will NOT believe the democrats started this. they already believe it is the GOP that is playing the hawk. I've already spoken to fools who have presented this notion. But alas, both sides are bad here, red and blue. Sadly...
Russia has as much as admitted that it could lose a conventional only battle with the US and NATO. They've also made clear that they will use nuclear weapons to equalize matters. So do you think they're bluffing? I don't.
Russia will use nukes in case of a strike – official (December 11, 2013)
'Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has warned that Russia will use nuclear weapons if it comes under an attack, adding that this possibility serves as the main deterrent to potential provocateurs and aggressors.
“One can experiment as long as one wishes by deploying non-nuclear warheads on strategic missile carriers. But one should keep in mind that if there is an attack against us, we will certainly resort to using nuclear weapons in certain situations to defend our territory and state interests,” Rogozin, the defense industry chief said on Wednesday speaking at the State Duma, the lower house.
He pointed out that this principle is enshrined in Russia’s military doctrine. Any aggressor or group of aggressors should be aware of that, he said.
“We have never diminished the importance of nuclear weapons – the weapon of requital – as the great balancer of chances,” Rogozin said..
Russia’s Fund of Perspective Researches (FPI) will develop a military response to the American Conventional Prompt Global Strike (PGS) strategy, Dmitry Rogozin told the State Duma...
PGS would allow the United States to strike targets anywhere on the planet, with conventional weapons in as little as an hour.
As Rogozin explained earlier, the strategy would give America an advantage over a nuclear state, thanks to their better technical capabilities with weaponry, including the speed'
LOL yea and old Krus is going to turn us to ash with his shoe! BS! Russians will not use nukes. No one is stupid enough to do that.
Why use nukes when you can just collapse the dollar and thus the entire US Military? That's the much better route... if that's the corner they get pushed into they'll do that before they melt the world.
Russia does not have the economic wherewithal to crush the US dollar.
Contrary to popular belief Russia lives oil paycheck to oil paycheck, without steady oil income Russia will not be able to sustain its military or its economy.
I notice at the end each thread nowadays the butt hurt msm or TPTB shills come in to troll... aka Keyser
I think the closer ZH gets to the truth the more it pulls back the curtain the more active the msm govt trolls get
another well thought out western ploy.
the russians play chess. the west plays with itself. go get 'em bummer LOL
There is much more to it than what you present. My bet is that at the end of the day, the owners are the chess players, and the leaders of the nations, (actors), are the pawns. The Rooks, Knights, Bishops and most of all, the Queens, are much higher up than the facade we call presidents and leaders. You need to think in terms of :
1. Reducing massive amounts of population without being too obvious and destroying yourself or your interest in the process.
2. Keeping the choicest land and sheeple around to serve your imaginary high ass.
In the end, they will be destroyed, but until then, they want your eyes on “false” events to facilitate their wickedness.
lot of war talk here. who is going to war?
the u.s.? just how thin do you think they can stretch themselves? the troops are commiting suicide faster than they can be trained. how do they get in? air? water?, poland? afghanistan? oh yeah, send in the mercs. they're still looking for 20 greystone goons in the UE. and who knows where the rest of them have disappeared. american military is tapped out
we'll nuc 'em. well just say good-bye to it all. this is total loose loose. even mccain and the neo-con nitwits would vote this down.
have you looked at NATO? their readiness state? which eu country is going to join the u.s. in war?
poland? bye, bye gas. bye, bye, poland
DE? not hardly.
UK? no gas, no more financing through london.
IT? can't find it's ass with both hands.
UE? the Baltic states?
Turkey? Spain? Portugal?
Canada?(a couple over the pole missiles will solve this probelm)
Australia? (bye bye china money)
France? bye bye defence contracts, bye,bye, france
NE? yeah send in more orange painted fighter jets or airdrop some tons of hi-q pot.
the EU can't even decide on sanctions and they're going to go to war?
Wouldn't be Aussie, we simply don't care enough about this dick swinging contest in the Ukraine between Obama and Putin and I suspect every other country on your list would be the same, political suicide for any of those countries to get involved and that I think is the critical difference, politics, the US is run by corporations that are sensitive to any drop in profits and the people have zero tolerance for any US troops coming home in body bags after the debacle in Iraq.
There will be no troops on the ground, this conflict will be one for the hearts and minds and will be decided economically, who can take the most pain, and in that I don't like the US's chances, soft population middle class already on its knees would not tolerate any more hardship, Obama would be aware of this.
Interesting article. Guess Putin is smiling because his is sitting on a Ritz.
Putin is working all the angles and coming out ahead of the game (so far).
Yes, an interesting article from Reuters. Although I think the title is a little misleading ("How the U.S. Made its Putin Problem Worse").
A more accurate and revealing title might have been "How the U.S. Created its Putin Problem and Then Made it Worse"
Why is Putin smiling?
Probably because he's not married to Michelle
Moochelle... fixed it for ya...
I don't think Putin has a Ukraine Campaign. I think he want's Europe to pay Ukraine's gas bills. I wouldn't call that a campaign.
If Europe does not pay the Ukraines gas Bills perhaps the people of the Ukraine might consider that a cosy warm relationship with Russia is preferable to freezing your bollocks off.....Winter is coming, Putin just has to wait, the West wants a quick soultion, hence all the provocation, Putin has time in his favor.