house of balloons

That’s horrible. I can only imagine what she and the rest of the Ukrainians hiding in bunkers and basements must be going through right now, let alone the ones who were given arms to fight back. No one should go through these conditions. There’s truly no coming back from this for Putin and Russia as a whole.

that’s so fucked, hope your friends and their families are all okay

biofuel

it would basically cut them off from the global financial market, meaning no international bank transactions. and since Russia is heavily dependent on exporting, their currency will drop even harder and it will fuck up their capital outflow.

I'm so glad they dropped the SWIFT nuclear bomb on Russia. They're so fucked.

Donald 'it's not like you've got china on your border' Trump is all talk and no strategy, I wouldn't take what he says seriously. He was in office when China cracked down on Hong Kong and all he did was stand and watch.

trump was complimenting putin's 'genius' and 'savvy' like a couple of days ago... merkel's germany was known as the west's bridge to russia politically, but other than that i think the german reaction would be the same, as in prioritize gas supply while also condemning the invasion.

I understand where you're coming from. The west has been leading on Ukraine for the better part of the last decade, basically using them as the neo-iron-curtain separating them from big bad Russia, and now they basically threw them under the bus with how they've been pulling their punches in favor of their own economical interests. I could see why a surrender to spare blood is tempting, but as you said, it's too complex.

Russia is unlikely to hold control over the entirety of the Ukraine. The Russian army has been overestimated through propaganada and you can tell by their inability to actually penetrate Kiev even after days of arrival. And for the Ukraine, which is considered a mid-tier country at best, to even be able to take back control over Kherson through air force is enough evidence that it's not a completely lost battle. If the rest of the world excludes Russia from SWIFT, boycott their gas and oil, and sanction their oligarchs, it would be impossible for a crippled Russia with barely any strong alliances (even China's and Iran's are looking awkward) to further carry out the invasion. A surrender will be a loss of an entire country, while the most likely outcome if Ukraine continues to resist will be the loss of the eastern independentist border regions. + NATO has been dumping weapons at the Ukrainian army pretty much since its independence, so western pressure will not let a surrender see the light of day.

you do realize that a surrender does not imply immediate peace and butterflies and rainbows and a happy ever after, right?

Russia is notorious for its LGBTQ+ concentration camps, mainly in the Chechnya region, so it's not that far fetched

those discussion meetings whatever are usually fruitless and are only used to buy more time to supply the armies and/or re-strategize, especially when russia has made it clear that the ukraine has to lay down arms before any discussion actually takes place

bestie that can't be right it's like 7 dollars per hour

how so? isn't the minimum wage in russia like 180 dollars per month ?

yeah, a nuke is definitely out of question (unless the russian go fully unhinged). their strategy in ukraine was to arm the borders and then exclusively target military sites rather than cities, and considering how the closest russian sites to finland are purposely positioned near the northern borders (mainly alakurtti), they could easily have them surrounded.

the russian army outnumbers the finnish by more than half though, it'll be tough but not impossible. i'm sure it won't come to that though.

I also hope the SWIFT sanction passes, it'll be a hard blow to russia. ties with china are already looking awkward, and with a crippled economy, there'll be nothing more for Xi in the russian alliance.

yeah that's plausible but germany has made it very clear that the reason why they don't want russia to be cut from SWIFT is so that it would be easier for them to pay russian gas money

you know, i really like germany and i understand that a country can't help but prioritize its own interests but damn, they're really pulling their punches. excluding russia from SWIFT could be a nuclear bomb financially, it'll leave russia's economy crippled, but i guess since it could also harm germany (and europe) then it's out of question. bummer.

that's Maria Zakharova, she's a spokesperson for russia's ministry of foreign affairs. she's made it clear that any swedish/finnish attempt to join NATO will be met with political and military consequences

why is russia threatening sweden and finland now help

i never said that, i just said the soviets were part of the allies, you know, the ones who took down nazi-germany? saying they helped the nazis just because they too were a dictatorial regimen is…

yeah well, i was addressing the ussr-helped-the-nazis point.