TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
Satellite images document massive expansion of military cemeteries in Russia and the temporarily occupied territories
The number of burials in cemeteries associated with elite units of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Wagner mercenary group has increased sharply since the start of the war in Ukraine, The Telegraph writes.
For example, in just one section of the Tula cemetery, the number of graves quadrupled between October 2021 and April 2023. During the same time, a completely new plot appeared at the neighboring Bogorodskoye cemetery, which tripled in size.
The photographs show a significant expansion of the Near Cemetery near occupied Feodosia in Crimea and the Mikhailovskoye Cemetery near Stavropol. Both are affiliated with the 7th Guards Airborne Division, which has been fighting Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. Its troops took part in the offensive in the south near Kherson and Nikolaev, where they suffered heavy losses.
That's because he has no natural intelligence of his own.
The GOP runs on nonsense. This was just nonsense from first to last.
KARMA just caught up with Lauren Boebert.
The RNC is disintegrating.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-rnc-just-imploded/54967/
Ken Buck is at the end of his patience.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/another-house-republican-just-abruptly-resigned/54985/
Suddenly Biden's age is as important as it should always have been - not important at all.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/more-good-news-for-president-biden-2/54969/
⚡️Russian lawmakers propose draft bill declaring 'illegal' return of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954.
Lawmakers of the ruling United Russia political party submitted a draft law to the Russian State Duma on March 11 declaring Russia's 1954 return of Crimea to Ukraine "illegal."
The draft bill, which was submitted to Russia's lower house, claims that the internationally recognized return of Crimea to the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was "illegal and contradicting fundamental principles of a lawful state and international law."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly echoed similar false claims regarding Russia's perceived historical grievances, using them to justify Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
FROM THE ANALYST-
THE TWISTED TALE OF WHAT TO DO WITH RUSSIAN MONEY
Variously sat about in the banks of nations around the world is just short of $1 trillion in Russian Central Bank assets. Around $800 billion of that is in the US and Europe. Variously split between the UK, France, Switzerland and Germany. That amount is roughly ten years of Ukrainian GDP based on 2021 figures.
One of Putin’s most devastating impacts on Ukraine in 2014 with his interference in Donbas and annexation of Crimea, was the tanking of the Ukrainian economy. Previously running at about $190 billion in 2013, the invasions and war that they created, the loss of confidence in the Hryvina, Ukraines currency caused that to fall 50% in value. The economy crashed to $80 billion. It was an economic catastrophe for Ukraine.
The invasion and mass exodus in 2022 cut that to $50 billion.
Ukraine has lived on EU, US, IMF and micro loans and gifts from around the world. The EU supporting it with $12.5 billion a year for four years is a huge deal. It’s make it or brake it transaction, and while it sounds small in monetary terms globally its impact is vast inside Ukraine. It really makes a difference. It pays salaries and pensions and The State continues to function which keeps the economy going.
For a long time everyone has looked at the blocked Russian money and wondered what to do with it.
Britain, the greatest money laundering centre for oligarchs and illegal money anywhere, all operated by ‘invitation only’ organisations that make anything look legal, is sat on the biggest individual pile. Some £300 billion of it.
Afraid of being seen by its global clientele as willing to simply steal their money and give it to whoever they fancy, Britain has come up with a novel solution. It will lend Ukraine the money in the expectation that post war, Russia will repay the money to Ukraine as reparations and Ukraine to the UK so that the UK can in effect give it back to Russia. That’s so British in terms of circular indifference and not taking responsibility it takes my breath away.
The Americans are far less bothered.
They have such a dominant position in the Dollar that the idea of confiscating the Russian money and just giving it to Ukraine is high on the agenda.
France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland who have sub-€100 billion deposits are also not in favour of handing the money over. For the same reason as the British. But Switzerland has already lead the way and is now paying out the interest accumulated on the money to Ukraine. Between them they have around €200 billion and the interest at 7% per annum is a whopping $14 billion - money Ukraine desperately needs. Even if the UK paid out a similar rate in interest and the US added its share, between them they would virtually add 40-50% of Ukrainian GDP in the space of a year. It’s another no-lose scenario for the Ukrainians and it’s politically and fiscally irresponsible that it’s taken two years to still not decide what to do!
These sums are transformational. The sweet, sweet irony of Russian ill-gotten gains paying for the weapons that will defeat Russia is just too lip smackingly delicious to imagine. How has this not yet been done? The simple fact is it’s money. Somebody always wants to hold onto it. And the fact is there’s plenty of cowardly backroom boys wondering quite what the Russians might do about it. Fiscally not a lot. But the damage it might do permanently, to post war relations as political and nationalist embitterment rises yet again in Russia (as it did in Germany in similar fiscal circumstances post WW1, leading to the rise of Hitler), isn’t lost on some.
It’s not lost on me. And that’s why I say pay the interest and hold the lump sum hostage to Russian end of war and post-war behaviour. They may well need that cash to recover - in a way post-Putin, that we can work with. If it’s not there it’s gong to lead to longer term problems. Keep the cash, pay Ukraine the interest. That’s the solution that until the war is over, is the most flexible and responsible.
CONTINUES….CONTINUES…
It covers the now and the future. Nobody wants another bout of Russian nationalism and fascism in 20 years time.
Save and compensate Ukraine for what Russia has done to it, and use it to construct a responsible moderate Russia for the future. We cannot ignore there will be a future.
How wars end is just as vital as how wars are fought. Especially if you don’t want another one. How many times do we have to go through these cycles to learn that lesson?
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
@ukrainejournal
⚡️ SBU uncovers pro-Russian disinformation group connected to Moscow-linked Ukrainian church.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) neutralized a pro-Russian disinformation group in Kyiv whose members included a senior priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), the SBU's press service said on March 12.
The group's tasks included spreading pro-Russian content via social media and the church's official websites, which was later picked up and disseminated further by the Russian media, according to the SBU.
Photo: Prosecutor General's Office
⚖️ 15 russian servicemen were sentenced to 12 years in prison for brutal treatment of civilians in the village of Yaghidnoye in Chernihiv Oblast
🔷According to the public indictment of the prosecutors of the Chernihiv Regional Prosecutor's Office, they were found guilty of violating the laws and customs of war.
🔹Each of them was in absentia sentenced to 12 years in prison.
🔹It has been proven that at the beginning of March 2022, the military forces of the Russian Federation, being in the occupied village. Yagidne district of Chernihiv district, 368 people, including 69 minors, were deprived of their liberty and forcibly kept in the basement of the Yagidne school as "human shields".
🔹Thus, local residents were used to cover the command post from possible offensive actions by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
🔹Due to inhuman conditions of detention and failure to provide necessary medical care, 10 civilians died in the "cellar of death".
@ukrainejournal
❗️❗️ The Siberian battalion enters the territory of Russia
“We used to say that it would not be possible to overthrow the criminal dictatorial regime in the Russian Federation peacefully. It can only be eliminated with weapons in hand. This night we began to fulfill the promise. There are fierce battles on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the video is captioned.
"Previously, the Russian authorities stated that no one would enter the Belgorod region, since it was defended by Chechens, but so far, as we see, the fighters have entered the region, and the Chechens are not visible. Not a border, but some kind of passageway. But the main thing is that “everything is going according to plan.”
"In a couple of hours, Putin’s press secretary
Peskov will come out and say that these are all Americans who want to disrupt the elections. How long can you treat your people as idiots?"
"It would be interesting if after this Shoigu, Gerasimov, Putin came to this area, to the border with Ukraine, and just talked to
people. But it's scary there. And no official can show that you are scared, that’s why no one goes there."
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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