Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Official Thread)

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

I think China steps in and gets Russia to pull back. China takes the opportunity to increase their standing in the global community, and they get the chance to buy up as much of Russia as they want following the devastation after the sanctions. China won't care if they use chemical weapons, but they would love to have the chance to advance their interests without doing much of anything

On some “hold me back” shyt

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Russia military on par with Turkey right now

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Russia military on par with Turkey right now

frightful

 

[OfTheCross]

 

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[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

economist.com

Why won’t India’s government condemn Vladimir Putin?
Mar 12th 2022
7-8 minutes
INDIAN POLITICIANS love to remind people that their country is the world’s biggest democracy. They are also extremely prickly about its borders. Yet India has failed to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to wipe off the map another independent democracy, Ukraine. In the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, India conspicuously abstained from resolutions deploring Russia’s invasion of its neighbour. That perplexes some observers in Western capitals. The government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, has done much to improve ties with America and Europe in recent years. But when asked to choose sides, India sits on the fence. To some, it seems that Mr Modi favours Mr Putin.

Not so, say Indian policymakers, pointing to official statements that lament the violence, express support for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and call for diplomacy to be given a chance. Moreover, they say, the abstentions should be seen in the context of India’s long tradition of being beholden to no superpower. Yet many of the countries India once claimed to lead in a cold-war era “non-aligned movement” have joined in the condemnation of Mr Putin’s actions.

India’s abstentions are shaped by past habits and current priorities. Start with the past: its ties with the Soviet Union ran deep, for all its protestations of non-alignment. Russia provided food aid and economic subsidies, and Indian bookstalls were crowded with the translated works of Lenin and approved Russian novelists. The KGB ran around Delhi, the capital, with bags of cash for influential people.

Today India counts on the support of Russia, with which it has a “special and privileged strategic partnership”, for its claims over Kashmir—one reason for never crossing it at the UN. Also influential is India’s assessment of its defence needs, relying on Moscow, as it did in the cold war, for weapons. Half its arms imports come from Russia, including big-ticket items such as submarines, T-90 battle tanks, Su-30 fighter aircraft and a surface-to-air missile system known as the S-400.

More importantly, 70% of India’s existing arsenal is Russian-made. That makes it difficult to wind down business. Even if India were to stop importing new materiel today, it would still need ammunition, spare parts and technical support for what it already has. Russia is also helping India make more of its own weaponry, points out Anit Mukherjee of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. The search for “strategic autonomy” is a mantra in Delhi.

Politicians in America and Europe have lambasted India for abstaining at the UN and buying weapons from Moscow. On March 3rd a State Department official, Donald Lu, told lawmakers that President Joe Biden’s administration was considering whether to punish India for its reliance on Russian arms and equipment. Axios, a news website, reported that a leaked cable instructed American diplomats to remind their counterparts that India’s stance “places you in Russia’s camp, the aggressor in this conflict”. The administration later said the cable was a draft that had been disseminated in error.

Indian officials and analysts are at once irritated by Western criticism and relaxed about the consequences. Irritated, because they divine Western hypocrisy. India would very much like to rely less on Russian arms and buy more from America. But they are either too expensive or, in the case of missile systems, out of reach: America would not sell India its latest versions.

Elsewhere, Indian policymakers ask, where has been the full-throated condemnation of China’s aggression along its shared border with India, which in June 2020 turned into a deadly high-altitude brawl? And they are still fuming over America’s hasty withdrawal last year from Afghanistan, leaving the country to the Taliban. They feel it handed an easy advantage to Pakistan, the Taliban’s backers.

Yet Indian officials are also relaxed, because they calculate, probably correctly, that India will suffer few consequences from the West over its stance at the UN. America and India have a shared interest in countering Chinese assertiveness or aggression. That has underpinned the logic of the four-nation Quad, a security grouping that also counts Australia and Japan as members. Plenty of Asia hands in Washington argue that America should keep its eye on the larger goal of containing Chinese expansionism. In this context, it makes sense to overlook India’s softness on Russia, they say.

That may be so. But India’s response points to other weaknesses. It claims to have leverage over Russia because it is the biggest buyer of its arms. Yet India’s government still had immense trouble evacuating the 20,000-odd Indian students caught in Ukraine. (Most have now escaped, but at least one was killed during Russia’s shelling of Kharkiv.) Neither Mr Modi nor any other Indian bigwig has rushed to Moscow to urge Mr Putin to change course. They are under no pressure at home, either. Most Indians do not care much about the war.

India’s coddling of Mr Putin could yet become a liability. It is bad for India’s reputation, and will become more so if he commits even worse atrocities, such as using chemical or battlefield nuclear weapons. And if Russia comes out of the war exhausted, impoverished and dependent on China, that could indirectly harm India, too. What might China demand in return for supporting Mr Putin?

In 1962, when India and China fought a bloody border war, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, initially favoured his Chinese “brothers” over his Indian “friends” and pushed India to accept Chinese terms. Russia is in no position to boss India around today. But if it became dependent on China to survive sanctions, and China demanded that it sell less top-of-the-line military kit to India and more to China, Mr Putin would surely agree.

India’s deployment of Russian s-400 missiles has already created a vulnerability. China deploys the same system, so its military planners know its flaws and strengths intimately. India could deter China more effectively with a different system. If American kit is too costly, plenty of alternatives exist.

Meanwhile, the war is hurting India’s economy. Sharp rises in the price of crude oil, cooking oil, fertiliser and more will make it harder for the central bank to curb inflation without stunting growth. Economists are already predicting slower growth and higher inflation. That would hit the pockets of ordinary folk. And by squeezing Mr Modi’s budget, including for defence, it would make his goal of strategic autonomy ever harder to achieve. ■

Our recent coverage of the Ukraine crisis can be found here.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Abstemious to a fault"

 

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[Neo. The Only. The One.]

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Oligarch Taskforce

 

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[Json]

I think China steps in and gets Russia to pull back. China takes the opportunity to increase their standing in the global community, and they get the chance to buy up as much of Russia as they want following the devastation after the sanctions. China won't care if they use chemical weapons, but they would love to have the chance to advance their interests without doing much of anything

I doubt China steps in.

There whole schtick in Tibet, Taiwan, and northern India is the same argument Russia is making and will kill a bunch of people to get it.

They will stay silent and just let the chips fall. No one is sure what happens with Putin and it’s easier to move forward diplomatically if you never took a side.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Russia Devises Plan to Seize Firms Abandoned in Foreigner Exodus


Russia Devises Plan to Seize Firms Abandoned in Foreigner Exodus

• Flood of foreign companies left Russia after Ukraine invasion
• Economy Ministry said goal is asset sales, not nationalization

A McDonald's Corp. restaurant in Podolsk City, Russia.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
Bloomberg News
March 10, 2022, 11:35 AM UTC


Russia’s government moved closer to seizing and even nationalizing foreign-owned companies that are leaving the market over the invasion of Ukraine while planning measures to coax others into staying.
In the first explicit response to the exodus of foreign businesses from Ikea to McDonald’s Corp., the Economy Ministry has outlined new policies to take temporary control of departing companies where foreign ownership exceeds 25%.
Under the proposals, a Moscow court would consider requests from board members and others to bring in external managers. The court could then freeze shares of foreign-owned companies as part of an effort to preserve property and employees.
External management could include state development bank VEB.RF, according to a ministry statement. Owners would have five days to resume activity or resort to other options such as selling their stake.
“The Russian government is already working on measures that include bankruptcy and nationalization of the property” of foreign companies forced into exiting, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a statement posted Thursday on the VKontakte social media site.
The list of global brands pulling out of Russia is growing by the day as some of the world’s biggest corporations, from energy to consumer goods and electronics, suspend operations in the country. While sanctions and capital controls are making it harder to conduct business, companies are also concerned about potential backlash over being seen as supporting President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.



The Economy Ministry suggested that its measures would be aimed more at auctioning off assets rather than nationalization. “The project is aimed at encouraging organizations under foreign control not to abandon their activities on the territory of the Russian Federation,” it said.
Renault, Citigroup
Some major foreign firms have yet to signal their intentions. Renault SA, the French company that has majority control of AvtoVaz, has remained quiet. Danone SA has suspended investment in Russia but said it will maintain its production and distribution there.
Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc., which has about $9.8 billion of loans, assets and other exposure tied to Russia, has seen efforts to sell its local consumer-banking unit stall. The bank’s commodities-trading desk has also been one of the few to continue to finance existing deals involving natural gas coming from Russia.
Russia has promised to retaliate for sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries, but its response so far has been limited. As part of steps taken to quell capital flight, authorities have imposed a temporary ban on certain foreign-exchange transactions and payments to non-residents from states that joined the international penalties.
Putin also issued an order earlier this week saying Russia would restrict trade in some goods and raw materials in response to sanctions, and that details would follow as to which products would be affected.
Any move to take over foreign-owned firms risks an even bigger standoff. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday “there would be steps we would take” if Russia seized private assets in companies planning to pull back and exit the country.
‘Mutually Negative’
Tit-for-tat measures that may include the possible arrest of Russian assets abroad would have “mutually negative consequences,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
Russia should remain an attractive destination for investors from countries that aren’t waging an “economic war” against it, Peskov said. “The market abhors a vacuum,” he said.
China is already in talks with its state-owned firms on any opportunities for potential investments in Russian companies or assets, Bloomberg News reported this week.
For Russia, the exodus of foreign firms threatens further disruptions in supplies of imported goods in an economy already suffering from one of its biggest inflation shocks in decades. Also at risk of losing employment are nearly 3 million Russians who work either for companies based abroad or domestic companies in joint ventures with counterparts overseas.
The Economy Ministry said its proposed measures would apply to businesses whose management, including shareholders, effectively terminated control of activity in violation of Russian laws. Companies whose management left Russia or shifted assets starting Feb. 24 may also be subject to the new rules.
Businesses undergoing external takeovers could be repackaged and then sold at auction after three months, the ministry said. New owners would have to preserve two-thirds of jobs and keep the companies going in Russia for a year. The measures have not yet been approved.
— With assistance by Paul Abelsky