Putin's war

The German "Greens" are actually called "Alliance 90/The Greens" since 1990. (But commonly still called "Greens" for short.)

They are left of the political centre (the fundamental wing even a lot more left), but certainly no social democrats ... in the way, political parties are judged outside the USA.

France's Macron is the only Western politician who still has regular contact with Putin.
Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron have once again spoken to each other on the phone, with the initiative coming from the Kremlin. But this is no cause for hope, on the contrary. In the Élysée, people are now more pessimistic than ever.
After call with Putin, Macron believes ‘worse is to come’ in Ukraine

After Putin's invasion of Ukraine, several former Soviet republics want to join the EU.

Besides Georgia, Moldova now also wants to join the union. "We are applying for EU membership today," said head of government Irakli Garibashvili on Thursday after signing the application. Georgia is a "European state".


As already posted, besides Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova also wants to take this step. This was confirmed by a senior EU official on Thursday. Accordingly, the EU expects the official request from Moldova by the end of the week. Ukraine's application had already been received by the EU Council and forwarded to the EU Commission. The Commission should now make an initial assessment. This usually takes one to one and a half years, the EU representative said.

A positive outcome of the emergency tests seems difficult, if not impossible in my opinion.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is already investigating possible war crimes in Ukraine. ICC chief investigator Karim Khan spoke of "plausible grounds" suggesting these as well as crimes against humanity.
But if two former German ederal ministers, Gerhart Baum and Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, [both FDP, "Free Democratic Party", the liberal party in Germany] have their way, the German judiciary should also look into the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The former Federal Minister of Justice and the former Federal Minister of the Interior have announced their intention to file criminal charges against Putin with the Federal Attorney General in Karlsruhe. The two FDP politicians see evidence of violations of international criminal law: "With this criminal complaint, we are concerned with the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity under the German International Criminal Code."

In the course of their criminal complaint addressed to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, the two politicians refer to the internationally recognised principle of international law, which is also anchored in German law, and which was recently applied in a historic decision by the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz in proceedings concerning state torture in Syria.

"President Putin and other representatives of the Russian state must answer internationally for their actions. In a decision on an Afghan case last year, the Federal Supreme Court confirmed that there can be no functional immunity for crimes under international law," the two liberal ex-ministers write.

Investigators could rely not only on the media but also on the increasing number of people fleeing Ukraine, including to Germany, they urge. "The Attorney General should exercise his discretion to prosecute and immediately open investigations into foreign crimes in Ukraine to secure evidence." (Translated from a Spiegel report.)

The war in Ukraine has already driven hundreds of thousands of people to flee within a few days. Now the EU member states have agreed on a common course. As EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson announced on Twitter, the interior ministers of the member states in Brussels agreed to temporarily take in the people.

At the request of the member states, the EU Commission had proposed to put into force for the first time a directive for the rapid and unbureaucratic protection of war refugees from Ukraine in the event of a "mass influx" of displaced persons. The protection is initially valid for one year, but can be extended for a total of two more years. A lengthy asylum procedure is not necessary for this. However, the right to apply for asylum continues to exist.

At the same time, those seeking protection are guaranteed minimum standards such as access to social assistance and a work permit. The directive was created as a result of the wars in the nineties in the former Yugoslavia. It is also intended to prevent overburdening of the authorities responsible for asylum applications. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, for example, was overburdened with the large number of asylum applications during the large movement of refugees in 2015 and 2016.

(quote)
So, Russian State media accidentally published an article talking about their victory in Ukraine. It was obviously not supposed to be published when it was. It's interesting to note that it's time of publication would have been right after the Russian government installed its new government in Ukraine if everything would have gone according to plan.

It talks about their intent saying exactly why they're doing what they're doing

The article explains that the goal of this operation is to bring Belarus and Ukraine under the control of Moscow. The governments there are going to be puppets and nothing more.

For those who have been going to bat for Putin on this, you need to read it the most. All of the justifications, everything he put out to the world all the messages, it's all false. It's not what it's about. If you bought it don't feel bad because a lot of foreign policy experts and a lot of politicians [Trump] parroted those points, because that's what they thought it was about too, because at the end of the day it's about one thing, power.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWIYfKWSAxw&feature=youtu.be

Beau of the Fifth Column

"Let's talk about staying behind and Kherson...."

The city of Kherson was taken and occupied by the Russians. By "stay behinds" Beau means trained Ukrainian irregular forces, guerrillas who, remain in the city and, after a short period of time, will launch a campaign using guerrilla tactics to harass, kill, and sabotage the occupying Russians, which will force Russian soldiers to reoccupy the city again and again as the guerrillas time waves of attack. This taxes the strength of the Russian regular forces who must reoccupy the city they thought was under control.

This was the same tactic used by Iraqi irregular forces against the US occupiers.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws3p8nw8ZHA&feature=youtu.be

Vladimir Putin didn’t just invade the Ukraine on 24/02/2022, he officially ended the petrodollar system. How? Remember, the Russians don’t do anything without a plan. They and China have been prepping for this moment for years and are now ready: Officially ended the petrodollar system.
Russia stated that NATO expansion into Ukraine was a Red line.
▶️ They knew their invasion of Ukraine would be inevitable and would have strategized that the US/West’s response would be SWIFT $ system exclusions/sanctions.
▶️ Reasonable to expect that Russia’s next step would have been to shut off oil/gas pipelines to Europe, as Russia has built up huge Yuan, gold & commodity reserves.
▶️ This will cause massive price and supply disruptions (war level) to the western markets & monetary system.
▶️ For years Russia and China have looked for ways to re-monetize gold and exit abuses of SWIFT system as a geo-political tool against them, but how to do it, how to exit, without the West declaring it an act of aggression or war against West?
▶️ This Ukraine invasion just accomplished that end for them. And the West is doing it themselves.
▶️ Now, freed to declare themselves SWIFT system outcasts by the western govt hands, Russia can now say “we will turn oil pipelines back on, but not for dollars.”
▶️ Russia then declares that Europe or anyone that wants Russian oil (as 3rd largest global producer) or Russian/Ukrainian wheat (1/4 of worlds production) must pay in gold, or use the ruble-yuan gold backed payment system.
▶️ Their leverage as an oil producer (who cuts off supply) will cause almost immediate price shocks to the western world. A good part of the population could immediately be unable to heat their homes. A severe energy crunch is looming in Europe.
▶️ Almost equal to the oil shock they’d cause is their ability to cause food shortages and price spikes through the disruption of wheat production.
▶️ Unmentioned in all this is China. Who has remained silent and did not condemn Russia.That means silent approval and cooperation.
▶️ China will act to soak up Russian production of oil and wheat to soften the blow to their “strategic partner”.
▶️ This will again be through the Yuan-Ruble facility and at some point overtly-stated gold backing of that system by Russia and China.
▶️ The West will of course declare those last two bullets as acts of global aggression and direct threats to the “world monetary system”.
At this point that there will be a clear fracture of the world’s monetary system into 2 competing East-West structures, circling back to the initial point that the 50 year global petrodollar system has just officially been ended by Putin.
If the above analysis is indeed correct,then the threat to the petrodollar is no different to the time of Charles De Gaulle or Gaddafi, but on a larger scale.They can't remove Putin as easily as they did with previous leaders who challenged their fraudulent petrodollar monetary system. Expansion into Ukraine was a red line.
Anonymous

I wonder how many people are aware of the fraudulent U.S. petrodollar system.

Well, I know at least one poster's thumb didn't like me mentioning it.

The U.S. went off the gold standard in the early 70s, and tied the dollar to oil by striking a deal with the king of Saudi Arabia whereby the Saudis would sell their oil only in U.S. dollars in return for protecting their oil fields from potential enemies. By 1975, all of the members of OPEC, which included Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, agreed to sell their oil in U.S. dollars only. As a result, every oil-importing nation in the world was forced to accumulate U.S. dollars in order to buy oil. This created a great demand for dollars, which meant that every oil-importing nation sought to sell their products to the U.S. to acquire the necessary dollars to purchase needed oil. This situation amounted to an oil tax applied to the world by the U.S.

Thumbs away . . .

Beau of the Fifth Column

Let's talk about whether Putin already lost....

...this [war] would position Russia as a great power again.

What actually happened, it reunited NATO. You know after Trump, after his tenure, the projections were years, multiple administrations were going to have to work really really hard to bring NATO back together because it was kind of fractured because trump undermined it. Putin was able to accomplish that in a week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXKSM8lpqKM&feature=youtu.be

I really enjoy Beau, always have.

Russia wants to impose drastic penalties for spreading alleged false information about the Russian armed forces in the Ukraine war. On Friday (today), the parliament in Moscow voted in favour of a corresponding amendment to the law. According to the amendment, there is a threat of heavy fines and up to 15 years' imprisonment.

Media in Russia have been banned since last week from using terms such as "attack", "invasion" and "declaration of war" in reporting on the war against Ukraine. Moscow calls the war a military "special operation".

Lindsey Graham calls for Russians to assassinate Putin
(wsj)

I know it sounds nuts, but that would be the best strategy to end this bullshit. He poking nuclear reactors now. Someone should assassinate him.

That explains the sensitivity to my term, thanks.

it would have to be someone from his inner circle...

Yes. Fingers crossed that someone is up to it.

I heard a commentator talking about the likelihood of someone removing Putin. The trouble is that over the past twenty years "Pooty-Poo" (remember that one?) has crafted the government in such a way that he is the only one who knows how it works! And even members of his inner circle are kept at a physical distance. If someone did succeed, he would have no way of exerting control over the military or the actual workings of the state. There would need to be a coordinated plan among a committed group of insiders and it's really difficult to see how this would occur, given the degree of surveillance and paranoia over possible informants.