Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

From the Beeb live feed, i don't think the mothers will like this.

2 hours ago07:49 Michael Curzon


Bodies of dead Russian soldiers to be ‘buried in mass graves’

The bodies of Russia soldiers killed in battle in Ukraine will be buried in “mass graves” in Belarus, according to journalist Ian Birrell.

In a post on Twitter, he said: “Ukrainian national radio is reporting that the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in battle will be buried in mass graves in Belarus.

“Families will just get a note informing them of their loss, thus avoiding thousands of funerals across the country.”

Originally Posted by nidhogg

Good grief. That will hit hard. Russia might need to start thinking about repatriation flights to a large number of very pissed off Russians (who will have been exposed to more than state propaganda).

Perhaps NATO could repatriate them to Belarus to help dig mass graves for all the Russian soldiers who were not killed in Ukraine?

Russian war in world's 'breadbasket' threatens food supply

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The Russian tanks and missiles besieging Ukraine also are threatening the food supply and livelihoods of people in Europe, Africa and Asia who rely on the vast, fertile farmlands of the Black Sea region — known as the “breadbasket of the world.”


Ukrainian farmers have been forced to neglect their fields as millions flee, fight or try to stay alive. Ports are shut down that send wheat and other food staples worldwide to be made into bread, noodles and animal feed. And there are worries Russia, another agricultural powerhouse, could have its grain exports upended by Western sanctions.


While there have not yet been global disruptions to wheat supplies, prices have surged 55% since a week before the invasion amid concerns about what could happen next. If the war is prolonged, countries that rely on affordable wheat exports from Ukraine could face shortages starting in July, International Grains Council director Arnaud Petit told The Associated Press.




That could create food insecurity and throw more people into poverty in places like Egypt and Lebanon, where diets are dominated by government-subsidized bread. In Europe, officials are preparing for potential shortages of products from Ukraine and increased prices for livestock feed that could mean more expensive meat and dairy if farmers are forced to pass along costs to customers.


Russia and Ukraine combine for nearly a third of the world's wheat and barley exports. Ukraine also is a major supplier of corn and the global leader in sunflower oil, used in food processing. The war could reduce food supplies just when prices are at their highest levels since 2011.


A prolonged conflict would have a big impact some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away in Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer. Millions rely on subsidized bread made from Ukrainian grains to survive, with about a third of people living in poverty.


“Wars mean shortages, and shortages mean (price) hikes,” Ahmed Salah, a 47-year-old father of seven, said in Cairo. “Any hikes will be catastrophic not only for me, but for the majority of the people.”


Anna Nagurney, a professor of supply chains, logistics and economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said, “Wheat, corn, oils, barley, flour are extremely important to food security ... especially in the poorer parts of the globe."


With Ukrainian men being called on to fight, she said, “Who’s going to be doing the harvesting? Who’d be doing the transportation?”


Egypt’s state procurer of wheat, which normally buys heavily from Russia and Ukraine, had to cancel two orders in less than a week: one for overpricing, the other because a lack of companies offered to sell their supplies. Sharp spikes in the cost of wheat globally could severely affect Egypt's ability to keep bread prices at their current subsidized level.


“Bread is extremely heavily subsidized in Egypt, and successive governments have found that cuts to those subsidies are the one straw that should be kept off the camel’s back at all costs,” Mirette Mabrouk, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote in a recent analysis.


War-ravaged Syria recently announced it would cut spending and ration staples. In nearby Lebanon, where a massive explosion at the Beirut port in 2020 destroyed the country’s main grain silos, authorities are scrambling to make up for a predicted wheat shortage, with Ukraine providing 60% of its supply. They are in talks with the U.S., India and Canada to find other sources for a country already in financial meltdown.


Even before the war threatened to affect wheat supplies in sub-Saharan Africa, people in Kenya were demanding #lowerfoodprices on social media as inflation eroded their spending power. Now, they’re bracing for worse.


African countries imported agricultural products worth $4 billion from Russia in 2020, and about 90% was wheat, said Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist for the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa.


In Nigeria, flour millers believe a shortage of wheat supplies from Russia would affect the price of products like bread, a common food in Africa’s most populous country.


“All of us need to look elsewhere” in the future, said Tope Ogun with Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, one of Nigeria’s biggest flour milling companies. “We might not get what we need to, and there is likely going to be an increase in the price.”


Nigeria has taken pains to reduce its reliance on Russian grains, with farmers moving to plant more wheat fields to try to meet 70% of the country's demand in five years, said Gambo Sale, national secretary of the Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria.


“We have the land, we have the people, we have the money, we have whatever we can need in Nigeria" to grow wheat, he said. “All we need now is time.”


The disruption can be felt as far away as Indonesia, where wheat is used to make instant noodles, bread, fried foods and snacks.


Ukraine was Indonesia’s second-largest wheat supplier last year, providing 26% of wheat consumed. Rising prices for noodles, in turn, would hurt lower-income people, said Kasan Muhri, who heads the trade ministry’s research division.


Ukraine and Russia also combine for 75% of global sunflower oil exports, accounting for 10% of all cooking oils, IHS Markit said.


Raad Hebsi, a wholesale retailer in Baghdad, said he and other Iraqis are bracing to pay more for their cooking oil.


“Once the items stored are sold, we will see an increase in prices of these items," he said. “We will likely purchase alternatives from Turkey, and Turkey will no doubt take advantage of the situation in Ukraine and raise its prices."


Farmers in the United States, the world’s leading corn exporter and a major wheat supplier, are watching to see if U.S. wheat exports spike. In the European Union, farmers are concerned about rising costs for livestock feed.


Ukraine supplies the EU with just under 60% of its corn and nearly half of a key component in the grains needed to feed livestock. Russia, which provides the EU with 40% of its natural gas needs, is similarly a major supplier of fertilizer, wheat and other staples.


Spain is feeling the pinch both in sunflower oil, which supermarkets are rationing, and grains for the all-important breeding industry. Those imported grains go to feed some 55 million pigs.


Jaume Bernis, a 58-year-old breeder with 1,200 swine on his farm in northeast Spain, fears the war will further increase the pain his business is facing because of climate change and drought.


Since October, Spanish pork products have been taking a loss from high costs, Bernis said. Those costs are driven by China stockpiling feed for its pigs as it claws its way out of a devastating outbreak of African swine fever.


In the first two days of Russia's assault on Ukraine, the price of grain for animal feed jumped 10% on the open market in Spain.


“We are facing a moment of very elevated costs, and we don’t know what lies ahead,” Bernis said. “This is another cost of waging a war in the 21st century.”


Russian war in world's 'breadbasket' threatens food supply | Taiwan News | 2022-03-06 16:53:26

'They shoot at anyone who tries to leave.' Ukrainians describe terror of living under Russian occupation

Lviv, Ukraine (CNN)A volley of machine-gun fire erupted just as Andriy Abba's family raised a toast to celebrate his 30th birthday in Kherson. Wine glass in hand, he rushed with his parents and younger brother to the basement.


Outside, Russian troops were in the final throes of occupying their city -- the first to fall to Moscow since its bloody invasion began a week ago.
As the day wore on, Abba said, the rattling of bullets and thuds of explosion began to fade. At around midnight, silence descended on the city.
"And that's when we knew," Abba told CNN. "It was very sad."
Kherson, a key port city on the Black Sea, in southern Ukraine, was overrun by Russian forces in the early hours of Wednesday, after days of heavy bombardment and shelling. The Ukrainian flag was still hoisted on government buildings, and the mayor of the city, Ihor Kolykhaiev, remained in his post.
On Saturday, Kolykhaiev announced that Russian troops were everywhere, and the city of nearly 300,000 people was without power and water, and in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

Kolykhaiev said that the Russian forces had "settled in" to the city, and showed no signs of leaving.

"We have a lot of people here in need. We have cancer patients. Children who need medication. This medication is not currently getting through to them," he told CNN, adding that the Russians wanted to send aid, but residents were refusing it.
People living in Kherson under Russian occupation describe days of terror confined to their apartments and houses, fearful to go outside for even basic necessities -- their city now a dystopian shell of the home they knew and loved.

On Thursday, Russian forces shot two men at a checkpoint after they attempted to pass, killing one and seriously wounding the other, the official told CNN.
Russian troops have also prohibited ambulances from leaving the city's perimeters to reach villages in the province, according to the official. A woman going through a long and dangerous labor in the outskirts of the city had to resort to a panicked video consultation with her doctor because Russian forces had blocked a medical team trying to assist with the birth, the official said.
"After about a day of the local authorities begging the Russians, the mother and the child were allowed to pass to the hospital," said the official. "It was horrible."
Andriy Abba, who works as a tax lawyer, says he is determined to stay in Kherson regardless of the occupation, for as long as the Ukrainian flag remains flying on government buildings.
"Even if we wanted to evacuate women and children from here, it's just plain impossible," he added. "They shoot at anyone who tries to leave."

Ukrainian authorities have been working to establish the safe exit of civilians from besieged areas in ongoing negotiations with Moscow. Russia agreed to hold fire Saturday from 9 a.m. Kyiv time, and create humanitarian corridors allowing residents to escape the southern cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha -- the first tangible sign of cooperation.
But the agreement quickly fell apart, stalling evacuations, Ukrainian officials said. The government accused Russian forces of shelling the cities, and even targeting the evacuation corridors out of them.
"Surrounded cities that are being destroyed" are "experiencing the worst days," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement on Saturday.
"Humanitarian corridors must work today. Mariupol and Volnovakha. To save people. Women, children, the elderly. To give food and medicine to those who remain."
Yulia Alekseeva, a mother of a two-month-old, said she is struggling to find diapers and other baby products. "There are catastrophically few in the city. We also have a grandmother with dementia who needs diapers and medicines on an ongoing basis, which are also not available," she told CNN.

Like most of the city's residents, Alekseeva has hunkered down with her family, leaving her house only to search for basic necessities.
"We are in hiding. There is a curfew in the city, if people go out after eight in the evening, they shoot to kill. You can move in the company of no more than two people," she said.
But she remains defiant, adding: "The Ukrainian flag is still over Kherson, the city did not surrender to the invaders. The military said not to provoke them and everyone would be alive."
On Saturday, a large crowd of protesters took to the occupied streets of Kherson, waving Ukrainian flags and coming face-to-face with Russian forces. The troops appeared to fire live bullets in the air to disperse the crowds, social media video showed.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba shared footage of the scenes on Twitter, praising the demonstrators. "Courageous Kherson inspires Ukraine and the world! Thousands of peaceful Ukrainians protests Russian occupation in front of armed Russian soldiers. What a spirit," he wrote Saturday.

From her apartment in Kherson where she cares for her grandmother, Svetlana Zorina told CNN she would stay in the city "for as long as the Ukrainian flag stands and the mayor is Ukrainian." On Friday, she went to the grocery store only to find empty shelves, and then headed to the apartment of her mother, who is abroad, where she collected pasta and rice.
"We are, here, very afraid that we will become part of Russia. We don't want history to repeat like with Crimea," she said, referring to Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014. "We're less afraid to be under bombs than to become a part of Russia."
It's something Abba is convinced won't happen in his city. Though he is consumed with fears of Russian annexation, he argued that in contrast to Crimea, which fell relatively bloodlessly, Kherson has put up a stiff resistance to occupation.

VIDEOS
'They shoot at anyone who tries to leave.' Ukrainians describe terror of living under Russian occupation - CNN

Originally Posted by sabang

Wouldn't you just max out your credit card if you are a Russian overseas and then... not pay? That's what I would do anyway- it beats starving. Sweet fa visa and mastercard can do about it either, in Russia- they've pulled out. But I'm sure the companies have budgeted for an expected surge in bad debts.

Visa is just a network to facilitate transactions. The debts will be on the banks that issued the cards.

Sweden advises its citizens to avoid all travel to Russia


The Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde tweeted on Sunday, advising its citizens not to travel to Russia because of the “serious and unpredictable security situation in the wider region.”

Live updates: Russia invades Ukraine

Originally Posted by sabang

Wouldn't you just max out your credit card if you are a Russian overseas and then... not pay? That's what I would do anyway- it beats starving. Sweet fa visa and mastercard can do about it either, in Russia- they've pulled out. But I'm sure the companies have budgeted for an expected surge in bad debts.

Dude. Do you even have a credit card?? Transactions are authorized at the time of purchase.

Putin Blames Kyiv for Failed Mariupol Evacuations

Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a telephone call with the French president blamed Kyiv for failed civilian evacuations from the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol which is surrounded by Russian troops, the Kremlin said Sunday.


Putin "drew attention to the fact that Kyiv still does not fulfil agreements reached on this acute humanitarian issue," the Kremlin said in a statement, after two agreements to evacuate Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine fell through following allegations of ceasefire breaches.


Putin said "Ukrainian nationalists" prevented civilians and foreign citizens from leaving the port city of Mariupol and neighbouring Volnovakha on Saturday despite a ceasefire announcement.


"And the pause in hostilities was again used only to build up forces and means in their positions," Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron.

Putin also assured Macron of the "physical and nuclear safety" of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that was captured by Russian forces.


He also said Russian troops were in control of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is encased in a giant sarcophagus following an explosion in 1986 -- the worst nuclear accident in history.


"All this is being done in order to exclude the possibility of provocations fraught with catastrophic consequences by Ukrainian neo-Nazis or terrorists," the Kremlin added.


According to the Elysee, the two leaders spoke for one hour and 45 minutes.

Putin Blames Kyiv for Failed Mariupol Evacuations - The Moscow Times

Russia Detains Around 2,500 at Ukraine Conflict Protests

Around 2,500 people were detained Sunday at protests against Moscow's military operation in Ukraine, Russian police said, 11 days after the assault began.


A police spokeswoman said 1,700 people were detained in Moscow after around 2,500 took part in an "unsanctioned protest", while 750 were detained at a smaller rally of around 1,500 people in the second largest city of Saint Petersburg, Russian news agencies reported.

OVD-Info, which monitors detentions at opposition protests, put the figure of detainees in 49 towns and cities across Russia at 2,575 people.


It said police had used electric shockers on protesters.


It also posted witness photos and videos on Telegram messenger service showing riot police beating protesters with batons and demonstrators with blood running down their faces.


Memorial, Russia's most prominent rights group, said that one of its leading activists, Oleg Orlov, was detained on the capital's Manezhnaya square as he held a placard.


Svetlana Gannushkina, another veteran rights campaigner who has been tipped as a potential Nobel Prize winner, was detained in Moscow on the day of her 80th birthday.


A police van carrying a group of detainees to a police station overturned in a road traffic accident, injuring nine, six of them members of the public, city police said.


In the second largest city of Saint Petersburg, with large numbers of riot police patrolled outside Gostiny Dvor, a building in the city centre where protesters usually gather.


These protests came after hundreds were detained at demonstrations further east, such as in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and in Yekaterinburg in the Urals.


Russian police on Friday had warned that all attempts to hold illegal demonstrations on Sunday would be "immediately suppressed" and organisers and participants would face charges.


The latest detentions brought the total number of demonstrators held to more than 10,000 since February 24, when President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine to carry out a "special operation".


Despite the official crackdown on demonstrations, and protesters facing jail terms, there have been daily protests since then.


On Friday, jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny urged supporters to stage protests on Sunday "on all the central squares of Russia and all the world".


He has called for Russians to hold daily protests, saying they should not become a "nation of frightened cowards".


Putin on Friday signed into law a bill introducing jail terms of up to 15 years for publishing "fake news" about the Russian army.


Police in the Kemerovo region in the Urals fined a man 60,000 rubles ($624) for calling for people to demonstrate against the "special operation to demilitarise Ukraine", state news agency RIA Novosti reported, saying this was the first known use of the new legislation.

Russia Detains Around 2,500 at Ukraine Conflict Protests - The Moscow Times

Russia-Ukraine live news: Vinnytsia airport destroyed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says eight rockets completely destroyed the international airport.

Russia-Ukraine live news: Vinnytsia airport destroyed | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera

To nobodys surprise:-


Russian banks may issue cards with China's UnionPay as Visa, Mastercard cut links



LONDON (Reuters) - Credit cards issued by Russian banks using the Visa and Mastercard payment systems will stop functioning overseas after March 9, Russia's central bank said on Sunday, adding that some local lenders would look to use China's UnionPay system instead.




Russian-issued Mastercard and Visa cards would be accepted within Russia until their expiry, the bank said,
The overseas ban also applies to cards issued by local subsidiaries of foreign banks, the bank said.

Its announcement came after U.S. payments firms Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc said they were suspending operations in Russia, joining the list of companies that are severing business links with Russia..
Full Article- Russian banks may issue cards with China's UnionPay as Visa, Mastercard cut links (msn.com)

Originally Posted by sabang

To nobodys surprise:-


Russian banks may issue cards with China's UnionPay as Visa, Mastercard cut links

Dead handy for travelling to China.

Russia Sending Syrian Fighters to Push Deeper Into Ukrainian Cities: Report

As Russian forces attempt to invade Ukrainian cities, Moscow is poised to deploy Syrian fighters with expertise in urban combat, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper said Sunday that Russia has begun recruiting from Syria, though it is unclear how many fighters have been mobilized, or how close they are to entering the conflict. A Syrian publication said last week that Russian authorities were offering mercenaries between $200 and $300 to go to Ukraine “as guards” for six months, the Journal said. Though Ukraine’s major cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv, remain under the control of Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, the recruitment of Syrian fighters has the potential to drastically escalate the scale of the conflict, according to experts. “The Russia deployment of foreign fighters from Syria into Ukraine internationalizes the Ukraine war,” Jennifer Cafarella, a national security expert in Washington, D.C., told the Journal, “and therefore could link the war in Ukraine to broader cross regional dynamics, particularly in the Middle East.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia...-officials-say

Putin’s Henchmen Rage About Getting Trolled With ‘Endless Photos’ of Dead Russian Troops

While Russian President Vladimir Putin is raining bombs on Ukrainian cities, his top propagandists are most concerned about getting bombarded with text messages and losing the information war to Ukraine.


On Thursday’s episode of The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, state TV propagandist Vladimir Soloviev complained that he and editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan are being terrorized by unknown individuals, receiving endless calls and texts about Russia’s military activities in Ukraine. He griped: “Margarita and I can show our telephones to demonstrate that we’re getting a thousand calls and texts per hour.”


Several days earlier, two other state TV propagandists, Olga Skabeeva and her husband Evgeny Popov, also reported a barrage of calls. Skabeeva, who hosts the state TV show 60 Minutes, angrily yelled that Ukrainians or their supporters have been “endlessly calling everybody, everybody, all citizens of Russia, including me and Evgeny!” Later in the show, she loudly interrupted a panelist to grumble about being subjected to a “mass attack that started at 2 a.m... we started getting calls from the territory of Ukraine, two to three minutes apart, Ukrainian and Polish phone numbers calling nonstop... And then, text messages with threats to kill me and my family, and photos—endless photos—of corpses, which they say are the corpses of Russian soldiers!”


The fact that the Russian military is experiencing heavy losses during the invasion of Ukraine seemed to be of little consequence to Skabeeva, who for years publicly agitated for war against Ukraine. She was, however, overtly angered by the messages, which serve as a reminder of the war’s consequences.


Meanwhile in Moscow, the Russian government has adopted new legislation to prevent the dissemination of “fake” information about the invasion, with state media describing worldwide condemnation of the Kremlin’s deeds as “informational carpet bombing.” Across state television, Putin’s attempted blitzkrieg against Kyiv is being entirely overshadowed by the Western response to the assault on Ukraine, including U.S. sanctions, which Russian lawmaker Alexey Nechayev described as “the blitzkrieg of the West against the Russian economy.”


Popular state TV pundit Karen Shakhnazarov conceded on Friday that, “It seems to me that we’re losing the information war. Our info-operation wasn’t thoroughly prepared, unlike the Ukrainian side—and whoever is standing behind them.” He, too, complained about getting trolled with strange phone calls. “By the way, I got a call from Zelensky. Well, at least it was his voice on my phone. Either a recording or somebody impersonating him. Other people are getting those too,” he said. “They’re well-prepared, with hundreds of thousands or millions of templates for things that are being disseminated.”


Appearing on Soloviev’s show on Thursday, Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Duma’s information committee, said, “This is a blatant, overt information war that is being waged for hearts and minds, to make people not only abroad, but within Russia to believe in these horrors and to experience fear, panic and hatred, to start a psychological war over here.” He went on to describe “unprecedented” cyber attacks against Russia’s “infrastructure and its government websites,” claiming that they are “two to three times more impactful than any prior cyberattacks Russia experienced.”

Khinshtein claimed that the cyberattacks targeted all government agencies, all federal and regional utility services, energy and transportation systems, as well as “objects of critical information infrastructure, including all of Russia’s state-controlled media.” He blamed unknown attackers for sending out text messages, push notifications and snail mail that is being delivered to physical addresses in Russia, describing the contents simply as “horrors.”


Khinshtein concluded that the aim of the ongoing offensive is to “cause the infrastructure to crash and the public to panic.” Soloviev chimed in to clarify: “We certainly understand that Ukrainians are not the ones doing that and our doctrine clearly describes cyberattacks as casus belli. So what are we waiting for?” Unsatisfied with just one war in progress, Soloviev is agitating for another—but in all fairness, he believes that Russia is already at war with the Western world. He exclaimed: “Our war is against the West—a big, serious war... Ukraine is a proxy through which the West is fighting against us.”


The impact of the war on Russia’s economic crisis is already starting to manifest, as the government and major supermarket chains have agreed to restrict the amount of food staples sold to each customer in an effort to limit hoarding.


Alexander Babakov, member of the State Duma, said: “The current situation can be factually characterized as war. An economical war, a battle for survival... Look at what the West is doing. It’s destroying all logistics, it’s destroying us economically... Let’s not be shy about it, we intend to win this war.”


Appearing on Soloviev’s show on Wednesday, political scientist Sergey Mikheyev predicted: “The situation here, internally, may deteriorate once the people start to feel the impact of sanctions... even those people who agree with us right now... It won’t be enough just to tell them that this is our life now, because we had to undertake the denazification of Ukraine... We should have been preparing for this moment ten, fifteen years earlier, with a different economy, but even now, we need to communicate to people about this... We can’t just say that this is our new reality and we must live in it... We can tell them how hard this will hit America—which is also necessary—but that alone won’t suffice.”


Mikheyev added: “With all respect to our president, he always said that rising prosperity was the most important thing... Go ahead and explain, if the main thing in life is prosperity, then explain how we’re supposed to survive these sanctions.”


Without a hint of self-awareness, Soloviev boasted that he had no real concerns about the economic impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine—despite recently losing access to his two Italian villas, estimated to be worth a combined $8 million. The host bragged: “Myself, I’m well off.” He cackled: “I bought so much stuff in previous years that I don’t have to go to any stores for years to come.”


Even the most ardent Putin supporters sounded irritated with his government—not for waging war against Russia’s innocent neighbor, but for being unprepared to face the economic fallout. Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, noted: “Our government seems to be impotent. We’re never prepared for anything... How will people fix their cars without automobile parts?” Evoking the story of Cinderella, Soloviev bitterly pointed out, “And our phones are about to turn into pumpkins.”

MSN

Originally Posted by sabang

Credit cards issued by Russian banks using the Visa and Mastercard payment systems will stop functioning overseas after March 9, Russia's central bank said on Sunday

A friend of mine in Phuket tells me that some Russian visitors are already having payment issues and some have been refused check-in because they can't pay. I don't know details of their problems but I do feel a bit sorry for ordinary people who have waited through 2 years of Covid then find their holidays turned upside down.
Apparently the money changers aren't taking Rubles. Bangkok Bank will still change cash - at half the rate of 2 weeks ago.

^^ Good news. Russia beaten at its own game.

Originally Posted by misskit

Russia Sending Syrian Fighters to Push Deeper Into Ukrainian Cities: Report

As Russian forces attempt to invade Ukrainian cities, Moscow is poised to deploy Syrian fighters with expertise in urban combat, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper said Sunday that Russia has begun recruiting from Syria, though it is unclear how many fighters have been mobilized, or how close they are to entering the conflict. A Syrian publication said last week that Russian authorities were offering mercenaries between $200 and $300 to go to Ukraine “as guards” for six months, the Journal said. Though Ukraine’s major cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv, remain under the control of Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, the recruitment of Syrian fighters has the potential to drastically escalate the scale of the conflict, according to experts. “The Russia deployment of foreign fighters from Syria into Ukraine internationalizes the Ukraine war,” Jennifer Cafarella, a national security expert in Washington, D.C., told the Journal, “and therefore could link the war in Ukraine to broader cross regional dynamics, particularly in the Middle East.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia...-officials-say

Get a few Syrians from the other side in there. The Syrian army got their arses kicked until Putin started bombing everywhere from the air.

Originally Posted by Shutree

Apparently the money changers aren't taking Rubles.

Most likely because they are not worth anything.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The Russian tanks and missiles besieging Ukraine also are threatening the food supply and livelihoods of people in Europe, Africa and Asia who rely on the vast, fertile farmlands of the Black Sea region — known as the “breadbasket of the world.”

Ukrainian farmers have been forced to neglect their fields as millions flee, fight or try to stay alive. Ports are shut down that send wheat and other food staples worldwide to be made into bread, noodles and animal feed. And there are worries Russia, another agricultural powerhouse, could have its grain exports upended by Western sanctions.

While there have not yet been global disruptions to wheat supplies, prices have surged 55% since a week before the invasion amid concerns about what could happen next. If the war is prolonged, countries that rely on affordable wheat exports from Ukraine could face shortages starting in July, International Grains Council director Arnaud Petit told The Associated Press.

That could create food insecurity and throw more people into poverty in places like Egypt and Lebanon, where diets are dominated by government-subsidized bread. In Europe, officials are preparing for potential shortages of products from Ukraine and increased prices for livestock feed that could mean more expensive meat and dairy if farmers are forced to pass along costs to customers.

Russia and Ukraine combine for nearly a third of the world’s wheat and barley exports. Ukraine also is a major supplier of corn and the global leader in sunflower oil, used in food processing. The war could reduce food supplies just when prices are at their highest levels since 2011.

A prolonged conflict would have a big impact some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away in Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer. Millions rely on subsidized bread made from Ukrainian grains to survive, with about a third of people living in poverty.

“Wars mean shortages, and shortages mean (price) hikes,” Ahmed Salah, a 47-year-old father of seven, said in Cairo. “Any hikes will be catastrophic not only for me, but for the majority of the people.”

Anna Nagurney, a professor of supply chains, logistics and economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said, “Wheat, corn, oils, barley, flour are extremely important to food security ... especially in the poorer parts of the globe.”

With Ukrainian men being called on to fight, she said, “Who’s going to be doing the harvesting? Who’d be doing the transportation?”

Egypt’s state procurer of wheat, which normally buys heavily from Russia and Ukraine, had to cancel two orders in less than a week: one for overpricing, the other because a lack of companies offered to sell their supplies. Sharp spikes in the cost of wheat globally could severely affect Egypt’s ability to keep bread prices at their current subsidized level.

“Bread is extremely heavily subsidized in Egypt, and successive governments have found that cuts to those subsidies are the one straw that should be kept off the camel’s back at all costs,” Mirette Mabrouk, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote in a recent analysis.

War-ravaged Syria recently announced it would cut spending and ration staples. In nearby Lebanon, where a massive explosion at the Beirut port in 2020 destroyed the country’s main grain silos, authorities are scrambling to make up for a predicted wheat shortage, with Ukraine providing 60% of its supply. They are in talks with the U.S., India and Canada to find other sources for a country already in financial meltdown.

Even before the war threatened to affect wheat supplies in sub-Saharan Africa, people in Kenya were demanding #lowerfoodprices on social media as inflation eroded their spending power. Now, they’re bracing for worse.

African countries imported agricultural products worth $4 billion from Russia in 2020, and about 90% was wheat, said Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist for the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa.

In Nigeria, flour millers believe a shortage of wheat supplies from Russia would affect the price of products like bread, a common food in Africa’s most populous country.

“All of us need to look elsewhere” in the future, said Tope Ogun with Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, one of Nigeria’s biggest flour milling companies. “We might not get what we need to, and there is likely going to be an increase in the price.”

Nigeria has taken pains to reduce its reliance on Russian grains, with farmers moving to plant more wheat fields to try to meet 70% of the country’s demand in five years, said Gambo Sale, national secretary of the Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria.

“We have the land, we have the people, we have the money, we have whatever we can need in Nigeria” to grow wheat, he said. “All we need now is time.”

The disruption can be felt as far away as Indonesia, where wheat is used to make instant noodles, bread, fried foods and snacks.

Ukraine was Indonesia’s second-largest wheat supplier last year, providing 26% of wheat consumed. Rising prices for noodles, in turn, would hurt lower-income people, said Kasan Muhri, who heads the trade ministry’s research division.

Ukraine and Russia also combine for 75% of global sunflower oil exports, accounting for 10% of all cooking oils, IHS Markit said.

Raad Hebsi, a wholesale retailer in Baghdad, said he and other Iraqis are bracing to pay more for their cooking oil.

“Once the items stored are sold, we will see an increase in prices of these items,” he said. “We will likely purchase alternatives from Turkey, and Turkey will no doubt take advantage of the situation in Ukraine and raise its prices.”

Farmers in the United States, the world’s leading corn exporter and a major wheat supplier, are watching to see if U.S. wheat exports spike. In the European Union, farmers are concerned about rising costs for livestock feed.

Ukraine supplies the EU with just under 60% of its corn and nearly half of a key component in the grains needed to feed livestock. Russia, which provides the EU with 40% of its natural gas needs, is similarly a major supplier of fertilizer, wheat and other staples.

Spain is feeling the pinch both in sunflower oil, which supermarkets are rationing, and grains for the all-important breeding industry. Those imported grains go to feed some 55 million pigs.

Jaume Bernis, a 58-year-old breeder with 1,200 swine on his farm in northeast Spain, fears the war will further increase the pain his business is facing because of climate change and drought.

Since October, Spanish pork products have been taking a loss from high costs, Bernis said. Those costs are driven by China stockpiling feed for its pigs as it claws its way out of a devastating outbreak of African swine fever.

In the first two days of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, the price of grain for animal feed jumped 10% on the open market in Spain.

“We are facing a moment of very elevated costs, and we don’t know what lies ahead,” Bernis said. “This is another cost of waging a war in the 21st century.”

https://apnews.com/article/russia-uk...73023b68d39a70

And in no surprise to anyone thinking, Russia’s economy is screwed. Again.