Ukraine 31: Icarus Edition

[Werthead]

The war in Ukraine was "easier" to launch because Russia had already been fighting a war in Ukraine (in various quasi-deniable roles) since 2014. Russia "upgrading" the conflict in Ukraine from a small-scale regional dispute to a full-blown invasion was a different order to Russia just flat-out invading another country out of the blue. That's why Moldova and Georgia are more likely targets (with the Transnistria dispute in the former and the South Ossetia/Abkhazia one in the latter providing similar political cover). There's also the border issue with Kazakhstan over the location of Russian-speaking minorities, although that's much less of an issue (and Kazakhstan has been smart in how it's dealt with it so far).

On the other hand, the Ukrainian conflict has cemented this idea in Putin's head that NATO is the enemy and, if his ultimate goal is making Russia into a feared and respected world power again, then that means taking on NATO: retaking Ukraine is key but Georgia and Moldova are small potatoes. He really needs to make inroads into Eastern Europe to achieve that. Directly confronting NATO is something he feels Russia must do at some point, and he probably wants to do it on his watch, in which case his advancing age - he'll be 71 in a few weeks, well over the average Russian age of male mortality - does play a key role, as it does for the only slightly younger President Xi's ambition to reunite China with Taiwan on his watch. Previously I would have said that Putin was smart enough not to trap himself on the escalatory ladder, the only way off which is self-destruction, but I'm not so sure that's true any more. His decision-making has become more erratic in recent years.

I suspect the ultimate position will be that Russia might dramatically escalate tensions with NATO but will not just attack out of the blue. Its best bet is to wait for further political turmoil. It's already eyeing up the possible change of government in Bulgaria (which could switch from a rabidly pro-Ukrainian position to an almost comparable pro-Russian one), and it (like China) no doubt sees the American election next year as a major decisive factor in their political planning going into the second half of the 2020s. I think the French election is too far off to be relevant in the short term. Putin is likely thinking of Trump's statement that Americans have zero interest in risking nuclear annihilation over, say Estonia, a country they've barely heard of and couldn't find on a map.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

This is… interesting… T-55s being deployed.

https://x.com/defmon3/status/1700996350429868067?s=46

[ThinkerX]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

This is… interesting… T-55s being deployed.

https://x.com/defmon3/status/1700996350429868067?s=46

So many mechanical problems waiting to happen...

[Makk]

Ukraine had a pretty good last day or so. They claimed a good chunk of very important land to the west and northwest of Robotyne. That was giving the Russians direct fire control over the only supply road to Robotyne and Verbove so Ukraine was supplying the troops there via helicopter every day. The area near verbove is the only current breach of the second surivikan line. So if all goes well we could have more rapid succeses soon. 

[Werthead]

Ukraine has pushed the line in Donetsk back to Donetsk City Airport or at least nearby. Again. The Russians expended thousands of lives to push the Ukrainians back from the city itself and flattened a nearby town with thermobaric bombs to deny its use to Ukraine as cover. Now the Ukrainians have retaken it and pushed back to the vicinity of the airport at Opytne, with limited opposition. The DNR has called on additional Russian reinforcements, but they have none to spare.

The line south of Bakhmut has also been pushed eastwards to the Horlivka-Bakhmut rail line.

Apparently an additional two VDV combat formations have been ordered to the SW front as well, which means weakening the lines elsewhere.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Werthead

[Maithanet]

China really has Russia over a barrel, and are getting gas at 40-50% lower than Europe gets it.  However, China's market only represents a fifth what the EU previously purchased.

So Russia is selling less gas, and what they do sell is at a steep discount.  And there's every reason to expect this to continue for at least the next few years, and probably longer.

This is a disaster for Russian energy policy and overall economic position.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

29 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

China really has Russia over a barrel, and are getting gas at 40-50% lower than Europe gets it.  However, China's market only represents a fifth what the EU previously purchased.

So Russia is selling less gas, and what they do sell is at a steep discount.  And there's every reason to expect this to continue for at least the next few years, and probably longer.

This is a disaster for Russian energy policy and overall economic position.

 

I also read the the Russians are having problems with billions of rupees that are very difficult to spend. They can spend them in India if they want to but abroad is problematic for some reason. A good deal for India I guess.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand
I hate the quote system

[Wilbur]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I also read the the Russians are having problems with billions of rupees that are very difficult to spend. They can spend them in India if they want to but abroad is problematic for some reason. A good deal for India I guess.

India doesn't particularly want to make it easy for Russia to convert those Rupees into hard currencies, either, since flooding the currency market with Rs coming from Russia puts downward pressure on the Rupee's value.

So Delhi is walking a fine line of basically paying Russia with what amounts to scrip and receiving fuels in return, while at the same time pushing the currency markets to make it difficult for Russia to redeem that scrip.  The more success Delhi has in discouraging Russian use of the Rupees they receive, the better the deal gets for India.

I wonder if the Indian government is hoping for a perfect storm, where they buy a maximum amount of Russian fuel and pay in Rs, and then influence Western sanctions to trap those Rs in Russia.

[Wilbur]

It looks like Ukraine has re-taken the Boiko Towers oil rigs in the Black Sea.

Ukraine says it has retaken offshore drilling platforms near Crimea | Reuters

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

India doesn't particularly want to make it easy for Russia to convert those Rupees into hard currencies, either, since flooding the currency market with Rs coming from Russia puts downward pressure on the Rupee's value.

So Delhi is walking a fine line of basically paying Russia with what amounts to scrip and receiving fuels in return, while at the same time pushing the currency markets to make it difficult for Russia to redeem that scrip.  The more success Delhi has in discouraging Russian use of the Rupees they receive, the better the deal gets for India.

I wonder if the Indian government is hoping for a perfect storm, where they buy a maximum amount of Russian fuel and pay in Rs, and then influence Western sanctions to trap those Rs in Russia.

QUestion is, what happens when the war eventually reaches its end in a couple of years and Russia gets off the sanction lists rather quickly. Has India set up a timebomb on itself there?

[Makk]

5 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I also read the the Russians are having problems with billions of rupees that are very difficult to spend. They can spend them in India if they want to but abroad is problematic for some reason. A good deal for India I guess.

I thought this sounded really odd, why couldn't they just exchange for a different foreign currency? Sure it wouldn't prop up the Ruble but it was still money. As it turns out India have strict laws about controlling the flow of capital into and out of the country (although they did relax some restrictions in 2008). I started reading about it but it was a 276 page document and I really can't be bothered but it seems so amazingly backwards and must be massively damaging for their own economy. Anyway from what I understand, the sanctions have almost nothing to do with the Rupee problem other than making India a crucial market. India is (or was back in June) negotiating with Russia about work arounds so that Russia could use it to invest in India's capital markets or buy stakes in infrastructure entities. India doesn't seem overly keen to find a solution though as I would have thought it would be quite simple to allow an exception to foreign exchange controls.

[Werthead]

43 minutes ago, Makk said:

I thought this sounded really odd, why couldn't they just exchange for a different foreign currency? Sure it wouldn't prop up the Ruble but it was still money. As it turns out India have strict laws about controlling the flow of capital into and out of the country (although they did relax some restrictions in 2008). I started reading about it but it was a 276 page document and I really can't be bothered but it seems so amazingly backwards and must be massively damaging for their own economy. Anyway from what I understand, the sanctions have almost nothing to do with the Rupee problem other than making India a crucial market. India is (or was back in June) negotiating with Russia about work arounds so that Russia could use it to invest in India's capital markets or buy stakes in infrastructure entities. India doesn't seem overly keen to find a solution though as I would have thought it would be quite simple to allow an exception to foreign exchange controls.

India, like Turkey, is having a lot of success in playing the situation like a fiddle. It is the natural beneficiary of increased tensions between the west and both Russia and China, having generally excellent relations with European countries and the US, whilst also keeping Russia onboard diplomatically. It's also having an almost bizarrely schizophrenic relationship with China with cooperation in the BRICS group and lots of nice diplomacy whilst their soldiers sometimes just straight-up kill one another in the disputed border areas. India geopolitically wants to position itself as a regional and global superpower alternative to China whilst also not pissing off China in the short term, but also feeling confident that Europe and the US would have its back if an India-China conflict was to erupt (whilst also not committing India to backing the US or its allies if a US-China conflict was to erupt elsewhere, such as over Taiwan).

Or to put it another way, India is happy to bleed Russia for financial and political benefit but not help it so much it annoys other potential partners. It's a fairly wide tightrope, as it turns out.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Werthead

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not that tight.

India is just placed perfectly and has a lot of things going for it and all of it just happens to fall in its place favorably.

The West wants India has a counterweight/power to keep China in check. So it is willing to look the other way on a lot of issues. Not least human rights abuses esp. in the Kashmere region. That curfew a few years back was an outrage, but it was discretely ignored. Anyway. India is also a democracy (on the slide with Modi), it is a nuclear power directly adjacent to China, it has a strong economy and the biggest population on the planet. So it's economically a very appealing trade partner.  So they can kinda afford to have interests, not allies to some degree. Its geo political importance has increased with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China getting more unwanted attention in the process and CHina is not making any friends with their actions in the Chinese sea and being ever more aggressive about Taiwan.

However what went a bit under teh radar was the US and Vietnam normalizing their relationships. That is interesting/relevant, when you want to talk about containing China. But that's going a bit too much off topic from Ukraine.

 

[Makk]

I still don't like India's tacit approval of this war. And I detest the Hindustans Times coverage although I am unsure whether that is similar to Fox in that it panders to a specific undesirable segment of the population.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Makk said:

As it turns out India have strict laws about controlling the flow of capital into and out of the country (although they did relax some restrictions in 2008)

In the meantime, however, massive amounts of both Chinese and Indian capital (as well as that from many other nations) is sitting in South Dakota and Delaware, both of which have non-disclosure rights as to these matters, since the US hasn't signed on to those.

[Wilbur]

5 hours ago, Makk said:

I thought this sounded really odd, why couldn't they just exchange for a different foreign currency? Sure it wouldn't prop up the Ruble but it was still money. As it turns out India have strict laws about controlling the flow of capital into and out of the country (although they did relax some restrictions in 2008). I started reading about it but it was a 276 page document and I really can't be bothered but it seems so amazingly backwards and must be massively damaging for their own economy. Anyway from what I understand, the sanctions have almost nothing to do with the Rupee problem other than making India a crucial market. India is (or was back in June) negotiating with Russia about work arounds so that Russia could use it to invest in India's capital markets or buy stakes in infrastructure entities. India doesn't seem overly keen to find a solution though as I would have thought it would be quite simple to allow an exception to foreign exchange controls.

If you have ever wondered why Indians sport a lot of 22k jewelry, now you know.  Can't take a lot of cash with you, but should you decide to sell off seven gold bangles, you can fund quite a nice weekend in Singapore.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Not to derail the thread but just one comment: Modi is an asshole ,he recently forced all the slum dwellers behind green walls to hide indias poverty from the West. He’s become a dictator in all but name and the sooner we can kick him out of office the better it will be for India.

https://twitter.com/Priyanshi50/status/1700786766771519553?s=08

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

All right, lets keep the thread to Ukraine, folks. It's drifted a bit away from  India's role in the conflict.

[Werthead]

A sober analysis by a Russian whose job since the 1980s has been tracking down the remains of Soviet troops killed in WWII and ensuring they get decent burials. He estimates he has overseen the recovery of 20,000 bodies. He had to interrupt his work to ensure his own son, killed as part of Wagner operations in Bakhmut, got a decent burial.

[Tears of Lys]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

A sober analysis by a Russian whose job since the 1980s has been tracking down the remains of Soviet troops killed in WWII and ensuring they get decent burials. He estimates he has overseen the recovery of 20,000 bodies. He had to interrupt his work to ensure his own son, killed as part of Wagner operations in Bakhmut, got a decent burial.

What an honorable, but depressing life's work.