I wonder how much intel is Ukrainian military getting from Nato. I bet they have all of the west’s military satellites aimed at Ukraine and Russia. A lot of real-time info being relayed.
No because you sell the crypto on the open market for whatever currency you want. If Russia has Bitcoin, they can convert them to Russian Rubles, Chinese Yuan or Israeli whatevers or Iranian whatevers/etc, and spend them anywhere that isn't sanctioning them. The problem for Russia here is that their money is being held in banks in the US/EU/etc and now those places froze them. They can't do that if they are being held in a cryptocurrency wallet.
Well in your scenario, selling it for currency of any kind wouldn't do them any good. They need to be able to exchange crypto directly for goods and services.
This is what I mean by the Russians are antiquated in their strategies, they rely on rail more than any other military and you can cut off their supply lines easier as well. Drones and hand held anti tank and anti air missiles are minimalizing armor and air.....artillery and missiles still are effective but they are not that accurate.....and can be taken out easily by small groups of soldiers too. This feels like a bridge too far for Russia right now, their soldiers do not want to be there, most are in the military because it is the only JOB they can find (The USA should be watching this) and because of that moral is super low. They were lied to about their mission (also something the USA should watch closely) and again their moral is low. It is one thing when you are fighting for a cause you and your group believes in, it is another all together when you are just sent in to kill people.....Putin is ok with that, because he has been ordering murders for years but the average JOE is not ok with that. I am hoping beyond hope that I wake up one day and I hear that Putin has been assassinated. DD
I wonder where Putin is hiding these days? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin...alace" (Russian:,1.35 billion) at 2021 prices. Shouldn't they just go ahead and call it "The Eagles Nest"? DD
Nice to see a billionaire with the agility and willingness to make moves like this in real time. Most others just trying to figure out how to profit off of this.
Part of it is that it is still being implemented. BP just cut off it's 14Billion investment in Russian oil company Rosneft. These things are happening in an ongoing and fluid manner. But the sanctions hurt because the currency is plummeting, citizens have made runs on their bank withdrawing as much as possible. I agree that it is a giant missing element from the sanctions. But hopefully it won't be omitted for long.
US doesn't buy, US companies do, so the question there is how would you stop any individual or company from doing so? Either one, you would have to make it illegal, but that would be messy since alot of these contracts are done months or years in advance and would be a bit of a legal nightmare. Or two, you could completely jack up the payment system (SWIFT) so it would be near impossible to actually pay Russia for product. Further, if the contract states you have to pay in Roubles, that is actually a huge win, because the West gets the valuable product, but pays far less for it, because the Rouble just collapsed.
BTW - for those that were AGAINST GLOBALIZATION, this is EXACTLY why having globalization works - the connected world can help take down governments - and keep the peace. DD
Looks like even Erdogan has a limit. Turkey has historically been prohibited from blocking any ships from transiting through the Bosporus under a 1930s treaty. They're making a creative interpretation of one of the articles of the treaty to block Russian ships from moving through the straits. Effectively, any ship not already in the Black Sea cannot return. This also means that Russia can no longer make naval reinforcements and deliveries to Syria. Turkey closes the Dardanelles and Bosphorus to warships - Naval News
Well they can close them, but would they really stop the Russian ships if they decided to go through there? Also, read a rumor that Putin might oust those people in the US government that they paid off....wouldn't that be something. DD
