Thread: How dangerous is Vladimir Putin?

DD knew all about you krauts and your filthy acts involving glass topped coffee tables Herman.

Originally Posted by sabang

DD knew all about you krauts and your filthy acts involving glass topped coffee tables Herman.

It is quite obvious to the interested reader exactly where the simian IQ's are. Not to mention the somewhat concerning acts involving topped coffee tables obsessions.
Freud would drop your case = Hopeless




Skiddy move over and let Sabang take over

Originally Posted by sabang

DD knew all about you krauts and your filthy acts involving glass topped coffee tables Herman.

Another off topic post. How much more irrelevant can you get?

Obviously running short on Putin propaganda…….

Some people have odd peccadilloes . . . ask Taxidriver, a match made in heaven

^^ Na cheap swiss watch, it's getting old and repetitive. Just looking at developments unfold, will dutifully report back when and if appropriate. The OP was answered.

Wow, the Chinese stock exchanges must be gloating at that prospect!!

^Let’s see how that goes.

US investor: Bucktooth Billy calls his wife Marsha over to sign some documents instructing their current US money managers to move their children’s inheritance over to a Chinese firm/money manager where they have limited recourse to invest in the Russian market.

Marsha walks over to Billy and slaps the life out of him.

Originally Posted by sabang

It is quite obvious to the interested reader (who does not choose to post in this shitpit, for obvious reasons) exactly where the simian IQ's are.

Fucking it right it is, they're the ones kissing putin's arse.

Originally Posted by sabang

Wow, the Chinese stock exchanges must be gloating at that prospect!!

Oh dear, that would upset poor Vlad if they took advantage.

SINGAPORE, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Bank of China’s Singapore operation has stopped financing deals involving Russian oil and Russian companies, amid concerns of western sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said a source on Monday with knowledge of the matter.

Who should be worried?

Perhaps obsessive supporters of Chinese communist banking systems should be worried?

If you struggle to understand such implications, you probably won’t find anyone on here to understand it for you!

Originally Posted by OhOh

How much money does SWIFT move every day?

The network processes $300 billion worth of transactions every day

$109.5 trillion a year. Nice try at being deceptive.

Originally Posted by OhOh

CIPS processed around 80 trillion yuan ($12.68 trillion)

Compared to $12.68 trillion year.

Originally Posted by OhOh

They include 30 banks in Japan, 23 banks in Russia and 31 banks from African nations receiving yuan funds via infrastructure projects under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, according to a survey by Nikkei newspaper in 2019."

Originally Posted by bsnub

Nice try at being deceptive.

The umbers as you have observed are not great, as illustrated in my post.

The maths may not be special as of last year. Fortunately, there was no confiscation or national funds by NaGastan last year.

Some counties may find the action alarming, and if possible reduce their national funds from areas where governments adopt such illegal methods.

Hence, the question I raised:

Originally Posted by OhOh

Who should be worried?

To which you have failed to address.

Originally Posted by pickel

Pick a side or get out of the way.

Wow

Some comment

Reading Putin: Unbalanced or cagily preying on West’s fears?

WASHINGTON (AP) — For two decades, Vladimir Putin has struck rivals as reckless, impulsive. But his behavior in ordering an invasion of Ukraine — and now putting Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert — has some in the West questioning whether the Russian president has become dangerously unstable.


In recent days, Putin has rambled on television about Ukraine, repeated conspiracy theories about neo-Nazism and Western aggression, berated his own foreign intelligence chief on camera from the other side of a high-domed Kremlin hall where he sat alone. Now, with the West’s sanctions threatening to cripple Russia’s already hobbled economy, Putin has ordered the higher state of readiness for nuclear weapons, blaming the sanctions and what he called “aggressive statements against our country.”

The uncertainty over his thinking adds a wildcard to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Western officials must confront Putin as they also wonder whether he comprehends or cares about cataclysmic consequences — or perhaps is intentionally preying on the long-held suspicions about him.


An aide to French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with Putin on Monday, said the Russian leader answered Macron “without showing irritation, in a very clinical and a very determined manner.”


“We can see that with President Putin’s state of mind, there is a risk of escalation,” added the aide, who spoke anonymously in line with the French presidency’s practice on sensitive talks. “There is a risk of manipulation from President Putin to justify what is unjustifiable.”


Foreign leaders have long tried to get inside Putin’s head and have been wrong before. And Putin in this crisis is showing many of the same traits that he has displayed since becoming Russia’s leader. Putin has directed invasions of neighbors, unspooled conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods, and ordered audacious operations like interfering in the past two U.S. presidential elections.


He single-handedly made landmark decisions like the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, consulting only his narrow inner circle of KGB veterans and keeping everyone else in the dark. He has long been surrounded by lieutenants reluctant to risk their careers by urging caution, let alone voicing adverse opinions.


He has also talked about nuclear war and once mused that such a conflict would end in Russians going “to heaven as martyrs.”

Experts say Putin could be using the specter of nuclear conflict to fracture the growing support for Ukraine’s defense and to force concessions. His latest comments also suggest the sanctions are working.


“We have to know this is a sign that we’re getting to him,” said Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “We just have to take that into account. We have to be cool.”


Officials in the U.S. were alarmed by a 5,000-word essay published under Putin’s name in July that argued Russians and Ukrainians are one people and blamed any divisions on foreign plots. One Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. government’s internal thinking, said the intelligence community was concerned Putin was operating from “an emotional place” and driven by long-simmering grievances.


More recently, Macron went to meet with Putin and had several long phone calls before the invasion. A top official in Macron’s office said last week that Putin was “no longer the same,” had become “more stiff, more isolated,” and at his core had veered into the approach now playing out.


During a five-hour dinner between the two leaders, Putin spent more time railing about NATO expansion and the 2014 revolution in Ukraine than discussing the immediate crisis.


Putin’s perceived self-insulation was highlighted in recent official meetings broadcast by state television. He faced foreign leaders and close aides from the opposite end of a long table. No Russian official who spoke gave a dissenting view.


“He’s not had that many people having direct inputs to him,” said Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. “So we’re concerned that this isolated individual (has) become a megalomaniac in terms of his notion of himself being the only historic figure that can rebuild old Russia or recreate the notion of the Soviet sphere.”


Putin has long been committed to recovering lost glory, suppressing dissent and keeping neighbors in Moscow’s orbit. In 2005, he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Russia has fought a war with Georgia, annexed Ukraine’s Crimea, backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and earlier this year briefly deployed troops to help quell protests in Kazakhstan.


His public dismissals of Ukrainian sovereignty go back many years. In 2008, he is reported to have told President George W. Bush, “George, you have to understand that Ukraine is not even a country.”


A year before that, he displayed his anger toward the U.S. and NATO in a pivotal speech at the Munich Security Conference, blasting the alliance’s expansion eastward and attacking American military intervention abroad. The U.S. was mired at the time in the Iraq War, launched on the basis of false assertions about Iraq having nuclear weapons capability.


“The United States has overstepped its national borders in every way,” Putin said then. “This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.”


Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had not seen evidence prior to the Ukraine invasion to suggest Putin was behaving irrationally, and he noted that other world leaders in history have been dismissed by outsiders as irrational. Putin, he said, has “an incredible appetite for risk when it comes to Ukraine.”


Two years ago, Putin endorsed the latest version of a Russian nuclear deterrent policy that allows for the use of atomic weapons in response to a nuclear attack or aggression involving conventional weapons that “threatens the very existence of the state.”


Putin’s associate Dmitry Medvedev, who served as placeholder president when Putin shifted into the prime minister’s seat due to term limits, said in 2019 that a move by the West to cut Russia off from the SWIFT financial system would amount to an effective declaration of war — a signal that the Kremlin may view Western sanctions as a threat on par with military aggression. The sanctions announced in recent days include cutting key Russian banks out of SWIFT. The ruble has since plummeted.


In 2018, Putin told an audience that Russia wouldn’t strike first in a nuclear conflict but theorized about retaliating against an imminent enemy attack, adding with a smirk: “We would be victims of aggression and would get to heaven as martyrs. And they will just die and not even have time to repent.”


James M. Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he did not believe nuclear war was imminent but there was real potential for escalation. Another possibility was Putin would use increasingly brutal non-nuclear tactics in Ukraine.


Acton suggested finding an “off-ramp” that might allow Putin a perceived victory. In 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. secretly agreed to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets pulling back from Cuba.


But, Acton added, “I’m not entirely clear whether he in his own mind knows what an off-ramp looks like right now.”


Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear policy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said he wasn’t immediately worried about a nuclear escalation. But one danger of sending public signals about nuclear weapons is that they can be difficult to interpret, Lewis said, just as the world is trying now to understand Putin’s latest moves and intentions.


“He is isolated and making poor decisions and losing,” Lewis said. “And that is dangerous.”

Reading Putin: Unbalanced or cagily preying on West'''s fears? | AP News

What a fvckin’ loser,………… “honorary”

World Taekwondo strips Putin of honorary black belt

World Taekwondo stripped Russian President Vladimir Putin of his honorary black belt this week following his country's invasion of Ukraine.

The organization blasted Putin's actions in Ukraine, declaring that the "brutal attacks on innocent lives" were at odds with its motto "Peace is More Precious than Triumph," according to Reuters.

"In this regard, World Taekwondo has decided to withdraw the honorary 9th dan black belt conferred to Mr. Vladimir Putin in November 2013," it reportedly said.

World Taekwondo also said that it would prohibit the display of the Russian flag and its anthem from being played during events. The International Olympic Committee announced a similar ban last month, Reuters reported.

Sanctions sink Russia's rouble and could leave its economy in rubble and Vladimir Putin out of a job

The war in Ukraine suddenly has shifted from the battleground to the boardroom, the bourse and banks as Russian consumers prepare to enter their very own world of pain.

As the death toll mounts and the military onslaught continues with renewed vigour, Russia's central bank on Monday night was forced to hike interest rates from an already punishing 9.5 per cent to 20 per cent in a desperate bid to stabilise a shaky rouble.

Russia's currency, having continually plumbed new lows for most of the past three decades, slumped a further 30 per cent on Monday, adding to domestic inflationary pressure that could ultimately undermine support for Vladimir Putin, particularly among pensioners.

After suffering horrendous losses last week, financial authorities opted for safety overnight and kept the Moscow Stock Exchange shut, but this only created further angst for local investors unable to trade their holdings.

While Putin has long harboured an ambition to return Russia to the global superpower status it enjoyed before the Soviet Union was dismantled, he would do well to remember that its demise was brought about not by weapons and war, but through economic mismanagement and decay which ultimately led to a seething discontent across the Soviet empire.

The sanctions imposed over the weekend, limiting Russia's ability to control its economy and targeting specific banks, have been on the drawing boards for years, and have been formulated to create similar pressures.

The impact has been almost immediate. There has been a run on the banking system as households, fearing a banking collapse, scramble to secure funds.
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What effect will sanctions against Russia have on the global economy?

But like all sanctions, their effectiveness will take time and will be determined by how united the West remains and the success of Mr Putin's attempts to navigate his way around them.

They haven't come as a shock. The Russian President has been preparing for many of these very sanctions for years and it is unlikely they will force his hand.
How do these sanctions work?

There are four main financial sanctions that have now been introduced by the West (the US, EU and their allies) against Russia.

Removal from the SWIFT global payments system, the Belgian-based financial messaging system that allows more than 11,000 global banks to rapidly transfer cash between them.
Preventing Russia's central bank from using its reserves of foreign currency, much of it parked offshore, to stabilise the rouble.
Targeting wealthy Russians, particularly the oligarchs, and hindering their ability to access and shift their wealth.
Freezing the foreign held assets of the political power elite right up to, and including, Putin.

The first two measures are the most important.

Under ordinary circumstances, removal of sanctioned banks from the SWIFT system has the potential to wreak havoc on the Russian economy.
Ukraine financial 'metacrisis'?

Some leading global analysts are warning that not only are the risks and costs of a Russia-Ukraine war being underpriced, but so too are the costs of avoiding it, writes Michael Janda.
A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea
Read more

Combine that with the hobbling of the central bank and there is a danger the Russian economy could endure intense pain, or even total collapse.

After decades of globalisation, even Russia is hooked into the global economy. While it is a major exporter of raw materials – minerals, energy and food – it requires large imports of high-tech componentry, even for some of its weapons.

If the rouble is worthless, that becomes difficult and, in the past few days, some companies have had difficulty arranging letters of credit, vital for trade.

Many large Western banks and corporations have already ceased dealing with Russia since the latest sanctions were announced, for both political and financial reasons.
Can Putin navigate around them?

In recent times, Putin has forged close links with China's President Xi Jinping and, clearly in anticipation of the past week's events, has hooked Russia's financial system up to a Chinese version of the SWIFT payments system.
Vladimir Putin (left) looks down as a Xi Jinping smiles at him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has built a closer relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.(AP: Dmitri Lovetsky, Pool)

Ever since 2014, when Russia took control of Crimea, he has been preparing defences against these kinds of sanctions.

He closed off access to foreign capital, imposed trade barriers and even developed Russia's own version of the internet.

Russia also ran a tight monetary policy, pushing interest rates higher than warranted, and crimped spending, which helped it build up a $US640 billion foreign reserve war chest.
Russia and trade sanctions

Vladimir Putin's motives may be deplorable and his actions reprehensible, but the Russian President's timing has been calculated to exact maximum pain and fracture unity, writes Ian Verrender.
Vladimir Putin surrounded by Russian military generals in uniform
Read more

But not all of this has gone to plan.

Thanks to the move to freeze Russian central bank assets, at least half of its foreign reserves now are inaccessible.

Despite its best efforts to cut itself adrift from America, it has large foreign currency investments held by central banks around the world which have agreed to the sanctions.

And while China's payments system will give it a backdoor to global finance transfers, roubles first will have to be converted to yuan which then will need to go through the torturous process of ultimately converting to US dollars.

That will be slow, inefficient and knock further value from the rouble. Plus, China's system connects just 1,200 financial institutions globally.
LIVE UPDATES: Read our blog for the latest on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Inflation and shortages, an unhappy history

As anyone with some sense of Russian history knows, revolutions usually begin at the base.

The Soviet era may have ended when oil prices collapsed, taking Russian foreign revenue with it. But the rot was underway well before.

Externally, the edifice of power was maintained by huge military spending even after the failed Afghanistan adventure. But, internally, consumer shortages, hoarding and wage hikes stripped away by runaway inflation eroded confidence among workers, and support for the regime failed.

Mikhail Gorbachev's successor, Boris Yeltsin, ran into similar problems in 1998 after the war in Chechnya drained the nation's coffers and saw Russia default on its debts, sparking a financial crisis.

Back then, a rouble was worth US22c. Today, it fetches less than a cent.

The disquiet among Russians wasn't confined this week to those at the growing ATM queues or younger protesters storming the streets.

Two major Russian oligarchs, financier Mikhail Fridman and industrialist Oleg Deripaska, broke ranks with the Kremlin and voiced their concerns at the Ukraine invasion, suggesting differences are best sorted out through diplomatic and peaceful measures.

The founder of aluminium giant Rusal, Deripaska, in particular, has long been considered a key supporter of Putin.

For now, the Russian President remains supported by surging energy prices and his tight grip on internal security.

But his ability to maintain support and his position will hinge on whether those export earnings can be maintained and whether he can reverse the country's rapidly deteriorating economic fortunes.

Consumer shortages and rampant inflation. It's never ended well in Moscow.

https://www.abc .net.au/news/2022-03-01/sanctions-russia-economy-rouble-financial-collapse/100872126

Desperate men do desperate things. I wonder what Putin's next move is.......

Originally Posted by thailazer

I wonder what Putin's next move is.......

Hopefully to a Siberian prison when his nervous yes men finally grow a pair of balls.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Lots of concerns regarding a SWIFT cut off.

There is a alternative available:

"How many transactions does SWIFT process?

Google replies:


"In 2019, more than 11,000 SWIFT member institutions sent approximately 33.6 million transactions per day through the network. The financial service creates a global level of connectivity that speeds up international business and brings the world a little closer together."

How much money does SWIFT move every day?


The network processes $300 billion worth of transactions every day, according to Forbes. SWIFT is based out of Belgium and subject to European law."

However, an alternative:
What is China's onshore yuan clearing and settlement system CIPS?

Reuters


"WHO USES CIPS?


CIPS processed around 80 trillion yuan ($12.68 trillion) in 2021, a 75% increase from a year ago, according to state-backed newspaper Jiefang Daily. As of end-January, CIPS said about 1,280 financial institutions in 103 countries and regions have connected to the system.


They include 30 banks in Japan, 23 banks in Russia and 31 banks from African nations receiving yuan funds via infrastructure projects under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, according to a survey by Nikkei newspaper in 2019."

http://Factbox: What is China's onshore yuan clearing and settlement system CIPS? Reuters


Who should be worried?

I see what you did their the Cip annaul figure lots of Kwai but daily only $34,739,726 compared to $300 BILLION you do the math

Good try at legerdemain but no cigar, not sure if you actually check this stuff ?

• Nord Stream 2 owner considers insolvency after sanctions

The Swiss-based company which built the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is considering filing for insolvency, two sources familiar with the situation said, as it attempts to settle claims ahead of a U.S. sanction deadline for other entities to stop dealings with it.

The United States sanctioned Nord Stream 2 AG last week after Russia recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine prior to its invasion of the country, which has prompted a wave of economic sanctions by the West.

Nord Stream 2 AG, which is registered in Switzerland and owned by Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom , last year completed the $11 billion project which was designed to double the capacity to pump gas from Russia to Germany.

• Nord Stream 2 terminates contracts with employees following sanctions

The operator of the Russia-led gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2 said on Tuesday it had to terminate contracts with employees because of U.S. sanctions.

The United States imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG last week after Russia recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine prior to its invasion of the country. A wave of economic sanctions by the West has followed.

"Following the recent geopolitical developments leading to the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the company had to terminate contracts with employees. We very much regret this development," it said in an emailed statement.

Yep, that's really great for Europe innit?

more good news........

Top shipping companies suspend transports to Russia

The world's biggest shipping companies are suspending shipments to and from Russia amid Russian President Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The big picture: Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM are all turning from Russia in light of safety and operations concerns, the companies said Tuesday. The move underscores Russia's increasing isolation as businesses and organizations around the world cut ties.

• Russia, which has the 11th-largest economy in the world, "is now effectively cut off from a large chunk of the globe's shipping capacity," Reuters notes.
• Maersk will still ship food and medical and humanitarian supplies, however.

Between the lines, via Axios' Nathan Bomey: Russia’s sudden status as an economic anathema has triggered a form of reverse globalization — with Western countries including the U.S. taking steps to excise Russia from the global financial system.

Originally Posted by sabang

Yep, that's really great for Europe innit?

It's fucking marvellous. Putin should have to beg Europe to buy his gas.