FreshFromATL
Self Made
This wouldn't be the first time they've used chemical weapons in a war.
Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Official Thread)
- Thread starter newarkhiphop
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This wouldn't be the first time they've used chemical weapons in a war.
economist.com
Will Moldova be dragged into Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine?
The Economist
5-7 minutes
ELIZA IS SHIVERING as she waits for the bus to Romania. She has just walked seven kilometres from Ukraine into Moldova and is trying to move on as quickly as she can. Hundreds of Ukrainians around her are making the same choice. “I can’t stay here,” she says. “Putin will destroy this country too.”
Moldova, which is not a member of either NATO or the European Union, is in a state of deep anxiety. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, some 260,000 Ukrainians have entered Moldova and around 101,000 of them are still there. Relative to its population (just 2.6m), Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries, has experienced the fastest influx of refugees of any of Ukraine’s neighbours. “We are approaching breaking-point,” says its foreign minister, Nicu Popescu.
Unless it receives urgent help, Moldova faces a catastrophe. The government estimated before the invasion that it could accommodate just 15,000 Ukrainians. Already, refugee centres are full, the border guards are overstretched and stocks of relief supplies are running dangerously low. If nearby Odessa, a city of 1m people just 50km from the border, comes under Russian assault, as seems entirely possible, tens of thousands more will come. “The prospects are dire,” says Mr Popescu. “We are talking about a major threat to the whole state system.”
The government intends to ask the EU to deploy Frontex, the EU’s border agency, to support its own border police. But it is financial support, above all, that is needed. The European offer of just €15m ($16.5m) to help allay the immediate crisis is meagre. The government is already running a big and growing deficit, owing in part to the rising price of natural gas imported from Russia. The economy has suffered two recessions in recent years, the most recent because of the pandemic. Without generous help, Moldova will not cope. Yet many Moldovans feel that they have been forgotten, as aid and praise rain down on Ukraine’s far richer neighbours in the EU.
Moreover, the refugee crisis may only be the first part in what many fear will be a two-act tragedy. There is widespread nervousness that Russia does not intend to leave Moldova alone if it is successful in Ukraine. After all, like Ukraine, it has a large Russian-speaking minority. Politics has long been divided into pro-European and pro-Russian camps.
Victoria Rosa of the Foreign Policy Association of Moldova says that a Russian attempt at destabilisation is more likely than not. Western intelligence suggests that the threat is serious. “Russia will use whatever influence it has to ensure that Moldova has a pro-Russian government. They will go for regime change,” predicts a foreign diplomat.
The groundwork has already begun. Moldovans have been bombarded by viral messages that are designed to sow panic, according to Iulian Groza of the Institute for European Polices and Reforms, a think-tank. They have been told that Moldova is mobilising troops or that young men are no longer being allowed to leave the country. There is concern that if Russian troops approach Moldova’s borders, Russian proxies may try to engineer big protests in their support.
These worries contributed to Moldova’s formal application to join the EU, signed by the country’s pro-EU president, Maia Sandu, on March 3rd. Moldova, which is under no illusions that it will be joining the club any time soon, is hoping at least for a formal promise of eventual membership at an EU summit on March 10th-11th. That application, however, has caused Transnistria, a Russian-backed statelet that broke away from Moldova after a brief civil war in 1992, to again request recognition of its independence.
Russia maintains a garrison in the statelet, and might deploy it to abet an attack on Odessa. The Ukrainians take this prospect seriously enough that they have begun to blow up the bridges that Russian armoured vehicles might cross on their way from Transnistria towards Odessa. In the longer run, Russia might seek to seize all of southern Ukraine, thereby joining Transnistria to other Russian-controlled territories and even to Russia itself.
If the Russians do manage to occupy Odessa, they might recognise or even annex Transnistria and significantly reinforce their forces there. Another scenario, much discussed in Chisinau, Moldova’s uneasy capital, involves Russia dictating a solution to the long-running Transnistrian conflict by threatening an invasion. In November Russia proposed a settlement, the details of which have been kept secret, in exchange for a big discount on the natural gas it sells to Moldova. The Moldovan government refused.
Transnistria could become a tinderbox in a more literal sense, too. Cobasna, a village in the north, is believed to be home to eastern Europe’s largest munitions depot, a stockpile of some 20,000 tons of Soviet-era ammunition. In 2005 the Moldovan Academy of Sciences estimated that an explosion there would be comparable in force to the nuclear detonation over Hiroshima in 1945.
Ultimately, what happens in Moldova is no longer in Moldovans’ hands. “Moldova’s future”, says Mr Groza, “is dependent on whether the Ukrainian military holds. They fight not just for Ukraine, but also for us.”■
Our recent coverage of the Ukraine crisis can be found here.
Them oligarchs never seeing their western assets again after that.
Russia Devises Plan to Seize Firms Abandoned in Foreigner Exodus
Russia Devises Plan to Seize Firms Abandoned in Foreigner Exodus
and they stashed their ill-gotten gains in the west to protect it from pootin's whims and fancies and he jammed them up anyway.Them oligarchs never seeing their western assets again after that.
Nesto90sKid
Rookie
Them oligarchs never seeing their western assets again after that.
Yeah but whatever... The West doesn't understand... These are not the 00s-10s the Oligarchs are not that influentle anymore... Putin's old friends from the KGB (then FSB), the time he was second major of St. Petersburg, his ice hockey buddies, his judo buddies. They are the real powerful people in Russia.
Thats why the economy is pretty poor or onesided because in these positions are not he best but the most loyal people to Putin. The West really loves to hate the Oligarchs because for what they stand for but there're way more evil & ruthless powerful people in Russia believe that.
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
I was listening to analyst who I think quite rightly warned of two things:
1. Putin has never lost a military conflict (so he won't want to start now)
2. Every ENDEX during Russia's military exercises has been deploying nuclear weapons (they internally do not treat this as an outside possibility or joke)
3. It will be far more brutal in Ukraine before they admit defeat, and Russia may look to divide the country in half rather than conquer - taking more of the East to hold onto and buttress their borders and defenses
There's only one outcome Putin personally can afford at this point, win everything or end in assassination IMO. Zelensky knows they are fighting a slow bloody and protracted conflict.
just what a dumbass black f0Iks need t0 stay 0ut this buIIshytThread going in 
They tried this last centuryThem oligarchs never seeing their western assets again after that.
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
rightfultoefinger
All Star
shyt, at this rate, they may as well close for good.