UKRAINE. YOU ROCK!

Good news.

Russia could today default on its international debts for the first time since the Bolshevik revolution.

Moscow appears unable to pay £90million of debt interest owed to foreign investors holding two of the country’s bonds.

It wants to repay the money owed in roubles but the binding agreement states that all debt must be paid in dollars so, if Russia attempts to pay in roubles, it'll default, creating a "monumental event on global markets."

This is brilliant news because, (as raw evidence of being unable to pay its debts), it highlights just how kooky Putin must have been to start a $15 billion a day war with Ukraine; an action that just has to grind to a halt in the next week or two purely based on the logistics and finances. (That's my thinking, not sourced from anywhere.)

Just saying, based on the impracticalities of Putin maintaining his expensive Ukraine detour, I'm guessing we'll get a world war or a peace agreement inside the next 14 days. :)

Yes it's the awful situation of everything hanging on Putin's decision. Usually there would be some logic in a decision so monumental.

I think a peace agreement is looking more likely, Ukraine seems willing to accept being a neutral country as per Russian demands, but I wonder what Russia will give in return? It will have to give something, or it will be a capitulation by the Ukrainians which they won't do and why should they since they're doing so well? They're talking about attempting to take back Kharkiv, if they do that then it really will put Russia on the back foot. I was watching scenes from Russian occupied cities where there were thousands out on the streets, protesting and telling the Russians to go home. It must be quite shocking and confusing for the average Russian squaddie to be told you're going to liberate a country and a people from an oppressive neonazi regime thatsbeen imposed on them, only to find that the real situation is the opposite and instead of welcoming you with open arms as liberators, they see you as invaders.

Good post wonderoushen.

An enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Good news.
The falling dominoes of the war and global energy crisis have, perhaps, together encouraged or enabled Iran and the United Kingdom to accommodate each other by a) enabling the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori and b) opening up an opportunity for Iran to help the West with regards to oil imports. (That's a guess not something I have read.)

The United Kingdom had to finally pay an outstanding debt to Iran for 1,500 Chieftain tanks and 250 Armoured Recovery Vehicles it promised but never delivered to Iran at a cost of approx £500M back in the 1970s. I'm guessing that would represent a figure of several billion today though I don't think Iran got an adjusted amount to represent that latter figure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3mDVqjoWA8

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ‘largely stalled on all fronts’, says UK
Russian forces are making ‘minimal progress’ on land sea or air and were continuing to ‘suffer heavy losses’, says Ministry of Defence.

I'm surprised they've not taken Kherkiv, they've surrounded it, but the Ukrainians are still in control. Putin says its all going to plan, but somehow I doubt it, I really think he thought they could just roll in the the country would roll over with its belly up.

"I'm surprised they've not taken Kherkiv, they've surrounded it, but the Ukrainians are still in control. Putin says its all going to plan, but somehow I doubt it, I really think he thought they could just roll in the the country would roll over with its belly up."

It's the opposite and Ukraine is doing quite nicely on the warfare front; organized, professional, well equipped for dealing with any land or air based kit and still taking out loads of Russian positions and wheeled and tracked vehicles. It obviously can't halt the cowardly slaughtering of its citizens until the fresh ground to air kit arrives, (a $billion dollar delivery from the U.S.A and more from other parts of the word including more Stingers from the UK), but, really, (even in peace negotiations), they are holding a very strong hand and have no need to capitulate to Putin's wishes when his whole operation is now at a standstill and relying only on war crimes in an attempt to hurt Ukraine.

I said it a while ago and I'll say it again; Just a little while longer and Putin's resources, as far as troops and kit on the ground is concerned), will be depleted ... and what does he do then?

That's why he's involved in peace negotiations. As either a stalling tactic to await more logistics / fuel / supplies and / or foreign mercenaries to arrive OR because he wants a way out while he might still (by lying) claim the 'special operation' as a success to his hapless Russian people back home kept clueless and in the dark as to what is really going down.

The invasion, (as an invasion), is over unless Putin wished to bring in a couple of hundred thousand more ground troops ... and he's used up all his high tech equipment; hence flattening cities with his retro old style inaccurate artillery.

He's screwed!

"He's screwed!"

To qualify the above.

Sure. It's Russia, one of the most impressive military powers on earth, and sure, Putin could raise the whole country to the ground over time but as a slick, neat "takeover" invasion mission he expected to complete inside a week, that ship has now sailed and he's now, at the very least, involved in a guerrilla style Afghanistan type war where a solid 100% of Ukraine is entirely against him.

And with Ukraine being such a HUGE country, there is no way on this earth that he could even subjugate and control even a small part of it.

Heck, he hasn't even properly taken control of as much as one city yet!

So, in that sense ... He's screwed ... and must be looking for a way out.

So, in that sense ... He's screwed ... and must be looking for a way out.

Maniacs often have no will to stop.

I think that the case with Putin, he will have to be made to stop, or at least be able to spin any peace deal as a victory, he's painted himself into a corner and the pain won't dry. Although the latest from some peace talks is that Russia has rowed back on regime change and a few other things, and Ukraine has rowed back on not joining NATO and some other things.

Russian forces were beaten back from the town of Vosnenesk by Ukrainian military and citizens, it might not be a big victory in the grand scheme of things, but still a victory even though they fear the Russians will be back with more and deadlier weapons. Still a convoy of tanks were taken out and the Russians retreated.

The only thing holding Russia back is the eyes of the world otherwise the Ukraine would be just rubble and the genocide complete.

The eyes of the world didn't stop Russia helping Assad do the same in Syria, it didn't stop it Chechnya, its doing the same in Ukraine, if they can't have it then they'll break it so no one can have it, its the mindset of a toddler.

I don't think the eyes of the world stop Putin committing his atrocities but they do stop him obliterating Ukraine in one enormous sweep using nuclear or chemical warfare.

Putin is mad and murderous so there is no telling what he might do.

The Ukrainian miitary are pushing the Russians back from the outskirts of Kyiv, but are coming under bombardment from missiles fired from a long way off.

Putin will slaughter many more innocent lives before this is over.

Good news.

West could target Russia’s gold reserves over Ukraine, says Boris Johnson.

Before Nato summit, PM says there are options to further squeeze Russian economy and aid Ukraine’s defences
By Jessica Elgot and Dan Sabbagh (The Guardian)

Boris Johnson has said Vladimir Putin has already “crossed a red line” that merits ramping up the west’s response, suggesting allies must send new weapons to Ukraine, expand curbs on international payments and target Russia’s gold reserves.

The prime minister said the UK would sanction the Wagner Group, a paramilitary unit that operates as Putin’s private army, whose mercenaries are reportedly tasked with assassinating the Ukrainian president and other key figures.

“We’ve got to step up, we’ve got to increase our support, we’ve got to tighten the economic vice around Putin, sanctioning more people today as we are, sanctioning the Wagner Group,” Johnson told broadcasters before a Nato and G7 summits in Brussels on Thursday.
Overnight, the prime minister said the UK would double the number of British missiles sent to Ukraine by sending an additional 6,000, and send an extra £25m to Ukraine’s military, and officials suggested he would entreat European leaders to rapidly increase lethal aid.

Johnson said there were a number of options to further squeeze the Russian economy and aid Ukraine’s defences.
“We need to do more, and so we need to do more economically. Can we do more to stop him [Putin] using his gold reserves, for instance, in addition to his cash reserves?” he told LBC. “The more pressure we apply now, particularly on things like gold, I believe the more we can shorten the war … And then we need to do more to give the Ukrainians military support.”

Nato countries are expected to agree at Thursday’s emergency summit to provide special kit to protect Ukrainians against any chemical, biological or nuclear attacks launched by Russia.
Johnson said he would insist that the siege of Mariupol and the indiscriminate attacks on civilians should be seen as a new escalation, and that the use of chemical or biological weapons should not be the bar set for further punitive measures.

Western officials have said the Ukrainians and the Russians are running short of weapons as the conflict grinds on owing to a Ukrainian defence that been more successful than expected – and that they had anticipated they would be supporting a smaller Ukrainian insurgency by this stage.

On Wednesday the UK chief of defence intelligence, Lt Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull, said the Russian advance had stalled considerably, “surprised by the scale and ferocity of the Ukrainian resistance,” and the Kremlin was now pursuing a “strategy of attrition which will involve the reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower”.

Johnson said that meant the west had to keep Ukraine supplied with weapons. “The big thing that has emerged in the last month – the huge fact that the world now knows – is that the Ukrainian people will fight for their country. They believe in their country, they love their country. They’re going to defend it,” he said.

“That was something we didn’t really know a month ago. It’s now absolutely clear. That’s changed geopolitics. It means that we have a duty to help them. We have a duty to help them protect themselves and their loved ones. And so the UK is stepping up again.”

Western officials said there must now be a consensus that Russia is pursuing such a “barbaric” strategy in places such as Mariupol that it should be considered to be an escalation in the war that merits a new response.

“The point I’m going to make today is … he’s already crossed a threshold of barbarism in the way he’s behaving,” Johnson said. “People talk about new red lines for chemical, biological, tactical nuclear weapons or whatever. For me the red line already has been crossed. He’s bombing indiscriminately civilian centres. He’s causing huge numbers of casualties in wholly innocent populations.”

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will address leaders including the US president, Joe Biden, at the Nato meeting in Brussels on Thursday morning via video link.

Poland is expected to present a proposal at the meeting for a multinational peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. But there is no support from the US or many other allies for a no-fly zone or any other direct Nato intervention, despite the increasingly bloody fighting.

Nato leaders are also expected on Thursday to agree to increase troop deployments on its eastern flank with the creation of four new multinational battle groups in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary to protect against any sudden Russian attack, alongside those already established in Poland and the Baltic states and G7 and EU leaders will hold meetings later in the day, with Biden a guest at the EU summit – to which Johnson has not been invited. The other meetings are likely to focus on trying to agree a further toughening of economic sanctions.

The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, announced a new wave of UK sanctions before the summit, including against defence companies and six new banks.

New individuals sanctioned include the founder of Tinkoff bank, Oleg Tinkov; the foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s stepdaughter Polina Kovaleva, who owns a luxury London apartment; and Galina Danilchenko, installed by Russia as the mayor of Melitopol as part of attempts to create a puppet regime in occupied areas of Ukraine.

(End of quote / cut & paste)

Despite Brexit and leaving the EU, the UK is taking up the leading role it would have naturally been expected to step up to and is now galvanising the world to steeply increase maximum sanctions on Putin’s special operation.

UKRAINE. YOU ROCK!

According to a Russian general, phase one of the plan is complete and they will concentrate on the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donbas. Nobodies quite sure if this was the plan all along, but most doubt it, seeing Russia as bogged down and fought off in other areas, particularly around Kyiv. A commentator in Russia told Newsnight last night that with spring coming things would probably quieten down for a month or so as the ground will be so waterlogged from snow melt as to make moving largeand heavy vehicles off road almost imposible.

Putin tells so many lies and does so much ducking and diving I doubt anyone but Putin himself has a clue what the truth is.