partial_accumen

Alternate headline: "'Stagflation' hits russian economy"

Yo! We heard you like drones, so here's one drone being blown up by another drone while both are watched by a third drone.

We got lucky, if big daddy z took that ride the west would be in a bad place right now.

I'm not so sure. Taking Crimea, but leaving the rest of Ukraine a sovereign state broke the pattern of historical European prelude to war.

• Napoleon started with the Italian campaign, consolidated power in France, pushed through the Czech and Austrian armies into Russia.
• Hitler invaded Poland, then Denmark, then Norway, then Belgium

Putin, by stopping at Crimea, made this look like a localized dispute between two sovereign nations, not the conquest of the entire nation, with more to follow. Had Putin taken all of Ukraine in 2014, that would look very much like a Napoleon or Hitler seeking European domination. The world would have responded very differently I think.

He’s still in a fairly advantageous position militarily right.

For now yes, but he was in a much MUCH better position before he invaded Ukraine.

• Two fewer NATO members on his borders
• The full bounty of Soviet stockpiles of weapons
• The inherent fear about what the "second largest military on Earth" could do
• The power of threatening to use nuclear weapons
• hundreds of thousands of healthy men to drive a national economy

All of those are gone now for russia.

With russia abandoning its ally Armenia in a military time of need against Azerbaijan, it suggests russia is not capable of fighting wars on two fronts. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that Georgia marching forces to take back South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But it never was actually about that, now was it?

No it wasn't. I think Putin started with Crimea because he was afraid of losing Russia's best warm water port after Euromaidan kicked the russian puppet out of Ukraine and Ukraine indicating it would not renew the russian lease of Sevastopol. When that was stunningly successful for russia to take Crimea, and the world mostly allowed it, he thought there were no limits on him taking Ukraine bit by bit. Luhansk and Donetsk invasion was to secure the petroleum and gas reserves found in Eastern Ukraine and prevent Ukraine from threatening Russia's only real economy power: fossil fuel energy deliveries to Europe and Asian. Again the world didn't really step in or sanction Putin very much, and he thought Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine would be an easy win.

The question I have is - how to get India off of the Russian oil supply?

That wouldn't be good for the world economy. All of India's consumption would have to come from the world's supply driving up prices noticeably across the globe (and possibly hurting the efforts in Ukraine because of the association of high oil prices).

The better question is "How do we get India to pay even less for russian oil?"

The MIM-23 missiles that it uses are an old missile, have not been produced for a long time.

Solid rocket motors (which power these missiles in flight) have a limited shelf life. I couldn't find numbers specifically on the MIM-23 shelf life, but other solid rocket motors range from 10 to 50 years. With the age of the HAWK systems, its entirely possible that these missiles are close to or beyond their "Best use by" date where you wouldn't trust them as primary air defense. So using them against Shahed is a fine choice. You're essentially using throwaway munitions of your own against throwaway munitions of your adversary.

Possibly expired HAWK missiles against Shahed is a much better choice than Patriot against Shahed.

They hopefully understand the need to increase the liquidity offer through swaps," said Andrei Kostin, CEO of second-largest lender VTB, stressing that exporters should sell more yuan as well.

If I'm reading this right, this is a call on companies that have yuan on their books from export sales to China are being asked to sell their yuan into domestic (russian) currency markets and presumably buy ruble. As in, are they asking private businesses to help out because the Central Bank has exhausted its resources?!

Gold is very near its all-time high. It just set a new all-time high about a week ago

But for russia to sell to someone else that requires trade with a heavily sanctioned country. That's a quick way to get on the "naughty list" and have sanctions applied to yourself too.

The CCP plans to me seem to be the longest game ever played.

Look back a few decades and see what their previous policies were to be dissuaded of that idea. In the mid 50s the leader of China (Mao Zedong) lead a purge targeting the fields of education, science, literature and art, and medicine, where intellectuals were concentrated. Execution and imprisonment were what those groups faced.

In 1958 Mao ordered the killing of all sparrows to fight famine because he thought they ate too much grain in fields. The war on sparrows was successful in wiping out most of them, and then diseases started spreading because the sparrows weren't there to eat the insects spreading disease.

China, like most nations, is just lurching sometimes forward, sometimes backwards as ideas and global conditions shift from favorable to unfavorable and back again.

It wouldn’t surprise me if their plans for world domination were centuries long by design.

The last "centuries long" consistent leadership in China ending in 1911 with the end of the Qing Dynasty. Since thing its been wildly different leaderships (a couple of revolutions) with different goals. The last ~25 years or so looks very different than the previous direction of historically.

UA drone say "No loitering"

India, since independence, has always been for India first. It doesn't always work out for us in the West, but given their history especially under British rule and the partitioning, I don't blame them. The governments as they are today have only been around for 77 years (since 1947). Cooperation with russia isn't new, but its also not exclusive. India also cooperates in many ways with Europe (spaceflight) and the USA (economically), but rest assured they are their own nation with their own goals. The only large country I don't see them building cooperation on is with China, which of course helps the West.

The way I'm reading this, this is not good news for russia.

"Today, we are opening accounts in rupees for Russian clients as well. We do not rule out the possibility that, in addition to being a means of payment, the rupee may also become a means of savings," he added.

Russia is a captured customer. They're able to sell their oil and settle the transaction in Rupees (the currency of India). So essentially the only things they can buy with that money are product if India. India businesses selling to russia know this too, so they can jack up their prices knowing that russia doesn't have another place to spend the money.

Countries around the world very typically buy up each other's currency (usually in the form of Treasury notes or certificates, but actual cash is also just as valid). Because russia is now holding larger and larger sums of Rupees without spending them, this also helps increase the value of India's currency in the world.

For US audiences, think about coal mining towns of the early 20th century and coal companies paying their workers in 'scrip' which was money only spendable at the company owned store. Because it was only spendable at the company store, prices could be high on products, and you wouldn't have a choice to shop elsewhere. Further, you couldn't save up your money to move away, because what you're saving is just company scrip, not real money. This is close to what India appears to be doing to russia.