Canada and Australia have significant Uranium reserves, it doesnt need to come from Russia and Kazakhstan. One of the African nations is also a significant source iirc

Hmm thanks for that, I read some very different messaging over the last year. I’ll try to dig it out

Because they’ve been told by the US they’re not allowed to use their US supplied arms to do so. They’ve been asking for permission for at least a year. Refer also constraints placed on Ukraine

Article forgets to discuss how a removal of sanctions due to withdrawing would help alleviate the economic crisis.

That assumes sanctions would be quickly removed. Given the massive list of war crimes Russia has committed in UA I sincerely doubt many in the West are lifting sanctions before the offenders are punished - something Putin is unlikely to agree to.

It is a catch22 because that gives him limited reasons to withdraw. Russia are very much in “crash through or crash” mode now because they see no way out and still hope the west will withdraw support.

To answeryour question. Withdrawal of sanctions will remove some pressure points - improved revenue by being able directly sell fossil fuels and thus getting a higher price per barrel; ability to buy critical components such as aviation parts and ICs. Most importantly China will be able to buy significant major assets and invest (they’re avoiding overt help to avoid sanctions themselves)

That will take significant time to make a difference though, the decimation of the workforce will still be an issue. Russia will become a Chinese serf regardless of whether they retain Ukrainian land or withdraw completely. Their economy is now in such a bad state their only hope is a rescue by China. One which will be priced at firesale “cents on the dollar” prices

Natascha ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHgZh4GV9G0&t=30

Well, I’m with you on Putin can go get fucked. But I think you’re misinformed on the “petrodollar empowering Putin”.

The dominance of the US dollar as the currency for settlement of international crude oil contracts advantages predominantly the US and secondarily countries with strong currencies in open exchange with the USD. It disadvantages weaker currencies and those with poorer trade terms with the US such as Venezuela and Russia now the latter has been cut off from the western banking system.

Putin being forced to trade his crude in non dollar denominated contracts is one of the (several) reasons the sale price of muscovy crude is now significantly lower than the equivalent from other countries. (TL;DR the sanctions are working).

China has long been lobbying unsuccessfully to break the petrodollar/USD as world reserve currency and failed so far.

The major US banks are just agents of a (very successful) US foreign policy post WW2. They are indeed evil, but not for this reason

Well I came to say “takes one to know one” but bigger threat than Russia and NK is a big call.

Thank you

What is the difference between type 1 & 2 please ?

There’s a simple reason the assets haven’t been seized, we have a legal system in Western Europe. There needs to be a legal basis for seizure of assets and a legal process that allows the on-payment to Ukraine.

It is blatantly fair and just that the assets should be handed to Ukraine, but if we don’t carefully follow our legal principals principles then courts will unfortunately overturn the attempt.

It’s easy to say “Russia has broken international law” it’s a tougher task proving it and working it through the courts then paying those damages to Ukraine. It needs to be done though.

The only alternative to legal judgement and payment via that judgement is for laws mandating the asset seizure to be passed by the governments of the countries where the assets are held.

The problem with that route is many constitutions forbid or severely restrict the ability of a government to seize assets.

Those restrictions are there for a reason, it curbs the ability of nascent dictators (Orban et al) to seize private property on a whim or to punish enemies

TL;DR freezing assets has a clear and well established precedent which thus has been done. Seizing assets however, while ever we have rule of law is rightly constrained

Lol. Yeah that was my reaction to the headline as well. “You did what ?”

Https://1ft.io also seems to work and by the branding seems unrelated to 12ft

No it wasn’t. There was never US government dispensation for direct UA military use. The original provisioning was for civilian usage. Starlink is definitely approved for US military, and a blind eye was turned to backend logistics use by UA, but as soon as your equipment is guiding bombs onto targets you’re running straight into ITAR. It’s being used for a weapon and that’s a major no no.

Edit You’re vs your

There is no process for ejecting a member state.

House is out until Jan 9 th I believe

“The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Lithuania worked together to unseat Russia from the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),”

Audacity

There’s a massive gulf between the very effective disinformation efforts Russia is involved in and running a TV station.

TV broadcasting is very expensive, takes a lot of man power and is unlikely to make any significant difference in the short run because it is clearly external and hence naturally assumed to be propaganda (which clearly it will be if it is going to achieve the purpose)

Russian disinformation campaigns focus on astroturfing support for groups that disrupt the status quo and politicians that work against their interests. Examples are the funding of the NRA to disrupt the Democrats and support Republicans. Support for AFD in Germany, övp and fpö in Austria, LePen in France, Brexit in the UK etc

Campaigns of that type are difficult in Russia due to it being a dictatorship, but even so they’re more likely to be successful than broadcasting BBC in Russian or what ever you had in mind.

TL;DR you’re comparing apples with oranges. A TV station is not remotely similar to Russia’s disinformation campaigns

I always wondered why more #Independent and #International #news and #entertainment programming wasn’t made available to #russian residents. I know there isn’t ahuge commercial opportunity considering the type of broadcast. But content rights for Russia must be very cheap now and the value of such a service huge.

What a great idea ! Let’s allocate €100m out of the EU budget to transmitting TV into the country that has declared its desire to invade about half of our member states ! All the way to Paris was Lavryov’s (sp?) last speech.

Or on the other hand we could allocate that money to another 50 HIMARS or some patriots to stop the missles bombing hospitals, childcare centres and schools.

I vote for dead orcs over entertaining orcs.

It’s a good theory but the Chobham armour was invented by the Brits and they sent the Challengers which use it.

You’re half right though, the US legally restricted the high tech armour from being used on export models, so they couldn’t export to UA the thousands of non export models they had in storage, they had to scratch up or convert export models