Ukraine Watch...

[Vortex2]

>> The West will demand 'reparations' and will seize much of Russia's gold, oil and gas resources.

Wouldn’t they need to invade Russia first to do that?

Well, the West seems to be doing a fine job of destroying Russia without setting a single foot on their soil.

" Hand over control of 25% of your resources, and we'll lift sanctions."

[adam2]

Grozny was similar. Huge numbers of conscript Russians died, hiding in their armoured vehicles .. which were then blown up.
The Russians however finished the job ... and I believe that 1/3rd of the Grozny inhabitants died in the two wars.

We'll see. The Chechens did not have access to anti tank, and it now seems anti-ship weapons, and being Muslims who embarked on kidnapping, murder and slavery did not get a lot of sympathy from the West. This one could be a bit different.

I was wondering if Ukraine could be supplied with anti-ship missiles or even torpedoes by the West.

I am happy to see Russia bleeding from a thousand cuts like in Afghanistan. This could take years unless Russia goes nuclear or chemical.

Anti tank weapons work fine against ships provided that these are within the relatively short range of the anti tank weapons supplied to Ukraine.
The simpler types of missile are aimed by eye like a gun.
The more sophisticated types are laser guided, one soldier "lights up" the target with a hand held laser, and the missile is automatically guided towards the reflected laser light.
Neither type "knows" if the target is a tank, a ship, or something else.
Some older types of missile are heat seeking and once fired towards the enemy, they steer towards the hot engine or hot exhaust. These are less effective against ships as the engines are often below the water line and the hot exhaust may be cooled. They work well in the early stages of a tank battle, but in the later stages tend to go for already destroyed and burning tanks rather than for the surviving tanks.

Some weapons are guided to a specific location that has been programmed into the weapon. These are only reliable against static targets such as buildings, stalled convoys, or moored ships.

[Default0ptions]

>> The West will demand 'reparations' and will seize much of Russia's gold, oil and gas resources.

Wouldn’t they need to invade Russia first to do that?

Well, the West seems to be doing a fine job of destroying Russia without setting a single foot on their soil.

" Hand over control of 25% of your resources, and we'll lift sanctions."

I’m not seeing that. Have you seen the price of fuel lately? Do you think we and the rest of Europe can replace Russian Nat gas and diesel imports this month? Next month? Before next winter?

What about grain? Palladium? Neon? Fertiliser? Adblue for our road haulage fleet? There’s lots more.

Can our little coalition of service economies really sanction a huge exporter of energy and essential commodities in any meaningful way?

Just because we’ve sanctioned ourselves out of buying them doesn’t mean the rest of the world won’t buy them.

Time will tell. We’ll just have to wait and see. Whatever the outcome it’s not going to be pretty for us.

[adam2]

Neon can be extracted from the air anywhere that air is liquified for other purposes.
Adblue reduces local particulate emissions, in an emergency vehicles would have to be run without this additive, overriding engine management systems if need be.
Palladium is used in motor vehicle exhaust catalysts, in an emergency vehicles would have to be built without these catalysts.
Greater use of renewable energy could reduce the need for russian fuels.
Grain is is arguably the biggest concern.

[Default0ptions]

>> Greater use of renewable energy could reduce the need for russian fuels.

This month? Next month? In time for next winter?
I just read your post on ‘Zero Carbon by 2025!’ It doesn’t look hopeful.

>>Grain is is arguably the biggest concern.

Agreed. Although fuel, gas and electricity prices are pretty serious concerns for many of us in the coming months.

[Vortex2]

Whatever the outcome it’s not going to be pretty for us.
True.

I've been dallying with 'prepping' for decades.
Now might be the time to prepare seriously.

[adam2]

>> Greater use of renewable energy could reduce the need for russian fuels.

This month? Next month? In time for next winter?
I just read your post on ‘Zero Carbon by 2025!’ It doesn’t look hopeful.

>>Grain is is arguably the biggest concern.

Agreed. Although fuel, gas and electricity prices are pretty serious concerns for many of us in the coming months.

Greater use of renewable energy could reduce the need for Russian gas significantly by next winter. PV modules can be installed in that time, and POSSIBLY more wind turbines.
The present high prices of fossil fuels and the reduced prices of renewable alternatives are certainly concentrating minds.

In particular, I expect to see a lot of medium sized PV installations on supermarkets and other large shops.

I expect that Russian gas will still be needed next winter, but hopefully in lesser volumes than consumed this winter.

[Stumuz2]

"West could target Russia’s gold reserves over Ukraine, says Boris Johnson"

The press are getting the wrong end of the stick with this story. A few fundamental mistakes in their, and our governments, reasoning.

1/ Russia has no intention of selling any of its gold. What would it get in return? Pounds, dollars, euros? All these currencies are sanctioned and cannot be used.

2/The Russian central bank does not need to back its currency with faith and coercion, like the pound, dollar, euro, yen etc. Its currency is backed by the tangible faith of oil and gas.

3/Russia has said to fossil fuel scarce countries, you can now pay in gold. It has told its biggest useful idiot, Germany, it will start paying for Russian energy in Rubles, but it cannot because the Ruble is sanctioned, so gold can be used unofficially.

4/ It is well known in PM markets that China (30k tons +) and Russia ( 2.5+tons plus Russia is a gold producer 350 tons per year) are heading for a gold backed currency. They have both been playing the long game accumulating physical gold, whilst the west, prints its currencies into toilet paper.

5/ And the most important thing about gold. It cannot be sanctioned. It is the only financial asset which does not have counterparty risk. If you hold it you own it.

6/Gold is ultimately fungible. If no one is allowed to buy Russian bullion bars, then China will pop a bar stamp in the post to Moscow. It will be re-melted and and 'tadah' become Chinese gold. Or whichever country you like. It's the reason gold has been money, not currency, for > 5000 years.

I can see why the UK/US/EU are scared stiff of gold being swapped for oil. Because Russia will end up with all the Gold.

[Catweazle]

Nice summary Stumuz.

I assume Russia will accept only physical gold, which some people claim is in shorter supply than the paper stuff.

Everyone is assuming that Putin has massively screwed up by underestimating the amount of high-tech weaponry that would flood into Ukraine and open up the Russian armour - and it looks the most likely explanation - but what if this is part of his plan ? At the risk of tinfoil-hattery, could there be another explanation ? Is this merely a step in a greater plan ?

I hope not.

[Stumuz2]

I assume Russia will accept only physical gold, which some people claim is in shorter supply than the paper stuff.

Oh yes!
Even if you have leased/collateralised/contracted the gold to someone else, if the other party does not possess the gold, they only own it on paper. Which when push comes to shove in the gold world, is not ownership.

Everyone is assuming that Putin has massively screwed up by underestimating the amount of high-tech weaponry that would flood into Ukraine and open up the Russian armour - and it looks the most likely explanation - but what if this is part of his plan ? At the risk of tinfoil-hattery, could there be another explanation ? Is this merely a step in a greater plan ?

Yes, the logistics and capabilities of the feared hitherto war machine that Putin massively invested in has come as a surprise. Possibly due to the advances weaponry that so far, they have not come up against. But, his previous feared war machine victories, was Syrian Jihadis (no match) Russian military saw them as inferior humans and Grozny, same sort of action and outcome.

This time he has used the state controlled media to publish his laughable revisionist history of Russia and Ukraine. He has convinced the Russian public, and by necessary implication the conscript soldiers, that they were going to de-nazify Ukraine and be welcomed as liberators. When the opposite happened, it caused earthquakes up the military food chain. So, he now has a choice. Either prepare for a long attritional slog (favoured by NATO) or start a new propaganda story to the Russian public to convince them that the Ukrainians are all Bad. And thus don't feel squeamish about Alleppo-ing all Ukrainian cities.
Watch the Russian news on what Putin is saying to the people. He always gives his intentions in advance.

[clv101]

The whole situation is very strange - to us from our western point of view. On face value it looks like a colossal mistake on every level from Putin. But other world views are available. Remember that Russia is one of the richest counties in the world, on a per capita basis, taking into account the actual important stuff; energy, land, minerals, chemicals, water etc (climate vulnerability too?). Sure the UK and EU have huge GDP on paper, but sooo much of that is fairly pointless fluff, or 100% dependent on those energy, land, minerals, chemicals, water etc. resources we are fairly short of (especially on a per capita basis).

In the post collapse, post industrial, post globalisation, climate breakdown world, driven by scarcity economics, maybe Russia doesn't look so daft?

Have we, the west, simply misjudged the real state of the world? We're still acting like it's 1990 when Russia is positioning for 2030?

[Catweazle]

That's what worries me. We pat ourselves on the back about all the sanctions we impose whilst Putin collects all the oil, wheat and gold and says a big F*** You to us as our paper economies shred themselves in 2025.

[PS_RalphW]

In that view of the world, of he can't have the Ukrainian wheat fields, then next best thing is to trash the country so that the west cannot benefit from them either.

Russia has a lot of natural resources, but they are spread out over a vast area with limited transport links and inhospitable ground and climate. The US has more than enough resources for a reasonably luxurious lifestyle, just not the obscenely wasteful one they insist upon. It is us in Europe who are struggling, and the poor in the middle East who are going to starve.

[invalid]

That's what worries me. We pat ourselves on the back about all the sanctions we impose whilst Putin collects all the oil, wheat and gold and says a big F*** You to us as our paper economies shred themselves in 2025.

Along with China, India, and Iran.

[Vortex2]

FWIW many, many, many years ago I stayed overnight with a friend and his familiy in Europe.

He was Chief Financial Officer for one of the biggest firms in the world.

For some reason there was a bound report on the table in the spare room ... which of course I took a peek at.

The main conclusion of this very detailed report was that Russia's natural resources were grossly over-estimated, so investment decisions in Russia should be made on that basis.

Make of that what you will.