President Joe Biden said he’ll give Ukraine advanced rocket systems and other weapons, as US officials rejected Russian claims that the move will escalate the war that’s dragging into its fourth month. The package of weapons includes missiles that will let Ukraine strike locations as far as 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, a senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Shockingly, NYT blaming the US for continuing the war… peace may be getting closer.
But the United States has helped turn this tragic, local and ambiguous conflict into a potential world conflagration. By misunderstanding the war’s logic, Mr. Guaino argues, the West, led by the Biden administration, is giving the conflict a momentum that may be impossible to stop. He is right.
Another long time diplomat speculates on Putin’s motivations.
Harald Malmgren is a geopolitical strategist, negotiator and former aide to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford
US escalating risks in the war by giving longer range weapons that will allow Ukraine to strike Russia directly. They aren’t supposed to, but in war shit happens and Russia is threatening attacks on the West if this occurs.
Correct. But Ukraine is losing at this point, both territory and significant, impactful numbers of soldiers. Their only hope is to broaden the war, thereby diverting Russian military power to other places outside Ukraine.
But doesnt launching long-range weapons into Russian territory only incentivize Russia to come after them even harder, in order to neutralize those weapons?
Sad thing is how if Russia follows through on this threat, it’ll be sold - by the White House and the media - as being an “unprovoked” atrocity. Like the 3 year old in the kitchen covered in a bag of flour, insisting he “didnt do anything”.
Depends on the territory. Moscow or St. Petersburg, yes. Some Godforsaken outlying region of Russia far away from anything important to Putin . . . . . . not so much.
But how does that divert military power? The diversion would be forcing Russia to spin off resources to address this new threat, but this new threat is located [in the same general region] where they’re already focusing their military efforts.
We are on the brink of an epidemic of emerging market defaults, the scale and scope of which will rival the debt crisis of the 1980s. Rate increases by Western central banks, fallout from the COVID pandemic, surging food and fuel prices resulting from the economic fallout of the war between Russia and Ukraine, mismanagement, and outright corruption all are contributing factors. No matter the causes, we will soon be in the thick of it.
Consider the warning issued recently by one of the biggest promoters of this sketchy asset class. According to JPMorgan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Bahamas, Belize, Senegal, Rwanda, Grenada, and Ethiopia are all “at risk of reserve depletion” — aka the cash drawer is empty.
Let’s not leave out Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, the inevitable renegotiation of Ukrainian debt, or, for that matter, the 27 countries with bonds that yield more than 10 per cent — always a sign of trouble.
But, with all due respect to Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart: this time is different, because we are about to witness the first full-blown emerging market sovereign debt crisis in which a single lender — China — holds the whip hand.
Russia has been benefiting from the energy commodities rally, which intensified after the invasion of Ukraine. Despite Western sanctions designed to hurt Russia’s oil revenues and war chest, Moscow is still getting a lot of additional billions of U.S. dollars in oil and gas revenues.
So far, Russian oil exports haven’t fallen off a cliff, while it continues to sell natural gas to most of the EU, including to some of the biggest consumers and economies such as Germany and Italy.
However, under the sixth sanctions package from the EU, Russian oil exports could drop further as the EU is currently endorsing a ban on Russian oil imports via sea that also aims to cut Russia off the tanker insurance market and limit its ability to redirect seaborne oil exports to third countries.
Would it really be to China’s benefit if its debtors default? Take the case of Sri Lanka --officially in default and warning its own populace of harder times ahead,-- other than taking possession of ports and other infrastructure, what else would China extract?
Mineral rights, ports, infrastructure - that type of thing. They’re trying to secure future commodity supplies broadly with the Belt and Road program, and also ideally to do so in a way that can’t be disrupted by US naval power.
Russia selling more oil than pre-war. India taking a lot at their refineries and then selling gasoline, etc, to us. Instead of everyone paying a lower pre-war price for oil, gasoline, etc, some Indian firms (and Chinese, etc) make huge profits from getting cheap oil and the West pays the price.
It would be un-American to let our capitalist minded investors profit from buying up cheap Russian debt. Better to leave those profits to the Russian oligarchs.
Investors learned of the additional restrictions on trading Russian debt from the frequently asked questions component of the Treasury sanctions website. The quiet announcement has led to market confusion over the new rules, which appear to conflict with earlier Treasury guidance, according to investors and lawyers.
The U.S. Treasury moved to block U.S. investors from making purchases of Russian debt in secondary markets, an apparent expansion from existing policy that only prohibited purchases of newly issued Russian government debt and some Russian corporate debts.
In new guidance, the Treasury Department said U.S. persons remain prohibited from new investment in Russia, which now includes “purchasing both new and existing debt and equity securities issued by an entity in the Russian Federation.”
But President Joseph Robinette Biden to the rescue. We will continue to punish the evil Russians, but we can reward the beneficent Iranians (while preventing the Russians from winning their hearts and souls). After all, they’re our friends and support our only ally in the Middle East, Israel.
The real kicker though, is that they’ve figured out what to do with those pallets of cash - kick back 10% to the big guy.
Saw a great comment on those recent Middle East events and foreign policy
The UAE and the Saudis are very unhappy with President Biden because the U.S. has sought closer relations with their enemy - Iran. So Biden asks them for a helping hand with oil prices and they only gave him one finger.
It must really be eating the Russians up inside to have to witness all the pain we are inflicting on our own citizens. It’s a unique strategy, but I’m not sure what the endgame is - is it to make them jealous that we’re getting faster and “better” results than communism has over the decades, or is it merely an attempt to show flattery by imitation?
And everyone insisted it was Trump who was Putin’s buddy…
As for the rape part, turns out that was nearly all Ukrainian propaganda, as they have now admitted.
The top Ukrainian official who was fired for spreading misinformation has admitted that she lied about Russians committing mass rape in order to convince western countries to send more weapons to Ukraine.
In an interview published by a Ukrainian news outlet, Denisova admitted that her falsehoods had achieved their intended goal.
