bluewater
bluewater's Journal"Russia is here forever" Stunning ABC News Report with Video
In a new video shown on Russian state television, Russia forces can be seen firing rocket launchers in the streets of Mariupol, signaling that Russia may be closer to taking control of the city.
https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/ukrainians-continue-defend-mariupol-russia-83657880
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boycherenk has fled the city
Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast Military Administration Head Pavlo Kyrylenko stated on March 23 that Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boycherenko relocated to an unspecified city outside Mariupol because the mayor was unable to stay in constant contact with regional authorities due to poor signal in the city.[35] Kyrylenko added that Russian forces are intentionally targeting the city’s critical infrastructure, destroying heat, water, and electricity, forcing city authorities “to leave the city to be able to work to save the people.”
The Mariupol City Administration reported on March 24 that Russian forces are using loudspeakers to falsely claim to Mariupol residents that Zaporizhia is no longer accepting refugees, the Ukrainian government has abandoned them, and that Russian forces have captured Odesa.[36] City authorities additionally reported Russian forces have forcibly deported approximately 6,000 Mariupol residents to Russia as of March 24.[37] Russian forces likely intend to demoralize Mariupol’s defenders and residents to force the city to capitulate.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-24
This means that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Mariupol, along with other city authorities, have fled the city.
It's estimated that 100,000 civilians remain trapped without food, water, electricity and under constant Russian shelling.
Is there a red-line for what the Russians will be allowed to do inside Ukraine?
By red-line I mean actions that would compel the US and NATO to act and directly confront Russia in Ukraine.
Is there a level of barbarity against the men, women and children of Ukraine that we would simply not tolerate and would use our own overwhelming military might to stop?
Honest question.
Any and all responses greatly appreciated.
Biden says NATO will respond 'in kind' if Russia uses chemical weapons
Source: Washington Post
At his news conference in Brussels on Thursday, Biden said NATO’s response if Russia used chemical weapons in its invasion of Ukraine “would depend on the nature of the use.”
“We would respond. We would respond,” Biden said. “If [Putin] uses it, the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.”
...
Later, Biden did not go into detail about whether NATO would respond militarily if Putin deployed chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“It would trigger a response in kind,” Biden said. “Whether or not you’re asking whether NATO would cross … we’d make that decision at the time.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-HCEK5PRFA5BO3INO3363CK6RYE
“It would trigger a response in kind,” Biden said.
Does this mean the US and NATO would use chemical weapons on Russian troops, or that the US and NATO would supply chemical weapons to Ukraine?
“Whether or not you’re asking whether NATO would cross … we’d make that decision at the time.”
If the US and NATO choose not to directly confront Russia after the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, where would the red-line be?
Is there a red-line at all for what the Russians will be allowed to do inside Ukraine before the US and NATO get directly involved?
"Are the days of US dollar dominance drawing to a close?"
Mar 20, 2022 – 8.00pm
Are the days of US dollar dominance drawing to a close?
Concern is growing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will accelerate the demise of the international financial system, and dislodge the US dollar from its privileged status.
For many, reports that China and Saudi Arabia are now stepping up negotiations to price oil sales in yuan provided confirmation that the US dollar has now begun its ineluctable slide. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, Saudi Arabia is now in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, a move that would dent the US dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market.
The report comes as a growing number of analysts warn that Beijing’s determination to diminish the US dollar’s privileged position at the heart of international finance will have been bolstered by the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its allies.
...
The problem is that if the US dollar and US government bonds are no longer deemed risk free, there will be a growing focus on assets that are presently outside the global banking system, such as gold and commodities, and cryptocurrencies.
Zoltan Pozsar, global head of short-term interest rate strategy at Credit Suisse, says a crisis unlike anything since Nixon took the US dollar off gold in 1971 is now under way, which will lead to the creation of a new world monetary order.
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/are-the-days-of-us-dollar-dominance-drawing-to-a-close-20220320-p5a67o
Putin says 'unfriendly countries' must buy Russian oil and gas in rubles.
Source: NY Times
On Wednesday President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia came up with a way to get his opponents to help prop up his currency, by demanding that “unfriendly countries” use rubles to buy the Russian oil and gas that is still flowing.
“I have made a decision to implement in the shortest possible time a set of measures to switch payments for … our natural gas supplied to the so-called unfriendly countries to Russian rubles,” Mr. Putin said on Wednesday.
Sanctions aimed at the Russian central bank effectively froze hundreds of billions of dollars of assets. The actions immediately drove down the value of the ruble as people frantically rushed to turn their rubles into a more stable currency, like the dollar or the euro.
...
Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the action means that every time a Western country buys a barrel of oil it would be “propping up his domestic currency.”
“If you’re invoiced in rubles, you’ve got to go out and buy rubles,” he said. “I don’t know if there is workaround.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/23/business/stocks-oil-inflation-ukraine#putin-russian-oil-gas-rubles
The Russians have said this demand also applies to current contracts for Russian oil and gas that is still being delivered to countries in western Europe.
Drone footage shows damage to Mariupol residential area after Russian shelling
Drone footage released by the Ukrainian National Guard shows a residential area of Mariupol, Ukraine, still smoldering after heavy shelling from Russian forces. According to President Zelenskyy, more than 100,000 residents remain in the besieged city, despite humanitarian efforts to evacuate civilians.
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/watch-drone-footage-shows-damage-to-mariupol-residential-area-after-russian-shelling-136039493787
Ukrainian town near Kyiv that was reported retaken from Russians is still contested
Source: Washington Post
MAKARIV, Ukraine — Top Ukrainian government officials said Tuesday that this strategic town west of the capital, Kyiv, had been liberated from Russian forces.
Media all around the world reported the news, the latest indication that the Ukrainians were waging counterattacks and defeating the Russians in key locations, preventing them from encircling and seizing the capital.
But a visit by a team of Washington Post journalists to Makariv on Wednesday found the town still contested. Russian forces were still in control of roughly 15 percent of the town, an area they have held for nearly three weeks with little shifting of the front lines, according to the town’s mayor. There were no signs that any of the roughly 15,000 residents who fled were returning to the town.
As the Post journalists entered the town, Ukrainian soldiers ordered them to leave, warning them of incoming Russian Grad rockets. Minutes later, the sound of shells falling was heard, with black plumes of smoke rising over the town. Soon more blasts followed.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/23/russia-ukraine-war-news-biden-live-updates/#link-VBZGQTNS4BATVBSEHXXJHYPVR4
"But a visit by a team of Washington Post journalists to Makariv on Wednesday found the town still contested."
Why post this?
Because the truth matters.
I understand the importance of staying positive and keeping moral up and announcing positive news as Ukraine repels the brutal Russian invaders.
The Ukrainian government issues positive reports to boost morale and to tell the world they are still fighting and can ultimately win, I understand that.
But at some point truth matters too. It's important to accurately portray the war in our media to drive home to all of us sitting comfortably in our homes thousands of mile away how desperate and hard fought the war really is to ensure that Ukraine gets the level of support from NATO and the US that it actually needs.
As the Russians brutally shell the remaining 150,000 innocent civilians surrounded and trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol, inaccurate reports of advances in a small village 60 miles from Kyiv that has been reduced to rubble, abandoned by all its inhabitants and still contested by not only the shelling but also the physical presence of the Russian invaders are, I feel, ultimately counter-productive. The truth ultimately surfaces.
The Washington Post's journalists who courageously went into the heart of this contested village deserve commendation for their physical bravery and their integrity in reporting the facts on the ground that they observed first-hand.
US suggests Russian forces are devastating Mariupol because Putin is angry Ukrainians are resisting
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a Tuesday press briefing that there are a number of theories as to why Putin's forces have "brutalized" the population with shelling and airstrikes.
"Mariupol is, of course, a strategic location," Price said. "But there also may be an element of vengeance... against this population, with Putin perhaps having been under the misimpression — whether he was misinformed or just unwitting of reality — that his forces would not be greeted as anything other than the aggressors that they are."
Price added that Russian forces have faced stiff resistance to the advancement of Russian forces in Mariupol.
Price added that the ferocity of the Ukrainian defense may have surprised the Kremlin — leading to the ongoing onslaught against the besieged city.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-suggests-russian-forces-are-devastating-mariupol-because-putin-is-angry-that-ukrainians-are-resisting/ar-AAVnw35?ocid=msedgntp
I filed this article under "No shit, Sherlock"
Forget No-Fly Zones, experts feel Putin could use nukes anyway due to current NATO pressure
Today, both Russia and the United States have nuclear arms that are much less destructive — their power just fractions of the Hiroshima bomb’s force, their use perhaps less frightening and more thinkable.
Concern about these smaller arms has soared as Vladimir V. Putin, in the Ukraine war, has warned of his nuclear might, has put his atomic forces on alert and has had his military carry out risky attacks on nuclear power plants. The fear is that if Mr. Putin feels cornered in the conflict, he might choose to detonate one of his lesser nuclear arms — breaking the taboo set 76 years ago after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Analysts note that Russian troops have long practiced the transition from conventional to nuclear war, especially as a way to gain the upper hand after battlefield losses. And the military, they add, wielding the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, has explored a variety of escalatory options that Mr. Putin might choose from.
“The chances are low but rising,” said Ulrich Kühn, a nuclear expert at the University of Hamburg and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The war is not going well for the Russians,” he observed, “and the pressure from the West is increasing.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/science/russia-nuclear-ukraine.html
Much more on Russia's in place policy of regarding "nuclear arms as utilitarian rather than unthinkable" at the link.
My take on this is that the longer the war drags on and the more men and resources Putin loses the more likely he will fall victim to the "sunk cost" fallacy like gamblers often do. Namely, as he loses more and more he will keep doubling down and raising the stakes.
I can't help but feel that the earlier NATO makes it clear it will become directly involved militarily unless fighting stops, the sooner this war will be brought to a diplomatic end and the less chance there will be of nuclear escalation.
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