Losing SWIFT access is bad but it's definitely not a death knell (estimated to cause around 5% GDP contraction initially but they could probably get by with the alternatives). The central bank thing seems much worse because an 80% collapse in the ruble would result in lots of angry Russians who had their savings wiped out. I read that Russia has a lot of its debt denominated in rubles so I guess it would be beneficial in that regard. Seems like Russia did not really prepare for this part or maybe I'm missing something.
SWIFT doesn't matter that much; the other financial stuff either.
The big deal is the loss of high or medium tech supplies for the foreseable future. You might not realise how the whole of Russia runs entirely on import of those. China, even if they wanted to, can not replace that.
If Putin doesn't end up hanging on some random light pole in next few days, RU will collapse.
Doesn't it just mean they'll pay extra (for the cost of evasion)? Apartheid South Africa still got oil when it was sanctioned, they just had to pay Marc Rich a 10% premium. Of course that's not great, especially when your currency and everything is collapsing, but still.
Is he really being portrayed as a buffoon, though? In my experience most people seem to respect that he is quite good at playing the power game. Lately he's definitely being portrayed as evil, for sure. But I wonder if maybe he miscalculated how this war would play out. Even skilled operators f*ck it up once in a while.
He's getting old. This is Putin's last opportunity to cement himself into history.
Putin still enjoys tremendous domestic support. He has no effective opposition. Putin wants to claim Ukraine. Ukraine can't fight Russia alone. Will the West fight harder for Ukraine than Russia/Putin?
What happens if Ukraine's leaders are assassinated?
Stronger sanctions against Russia? Europe still depends on Russian fossil fuel, as do China and others, so leverage is limited. Strangling European energy supply remains a weapon at Putin's disposal. Economic MAD, sure, but who's going to back down first? The autocrat, or the union of democratic states?
But does he really? The economic situation is not great, the Southern Ukraine border has been a mess for almost a decade, COVID wasn't exactly a success (their vaccine didn't perform as well as expected)... There has been a lot of grumbling over the last couple of years. In fact, I think he counts on this conflict to shore up his internal support significantly.
> He has no effective opposition.
Well, when he did, he made sure to kill or jail them, so that's not really an indicator I'd rely on.
I agree that there is a good chance things might not be as bad as they look for him, though. It's easy for us to talk tough in February, with Springtime on the doorstep and enough gas to last several months; the real challenge will be September / October.
Germany is much better connected to the gas pipelines of neighbouring European countries than it used to be, and Europe has extensive strategic reserves. The US does too and might be willing to share some of them. We’re also coming out of winter.
This is going to be hard, the cost will be heavy, but much, much heavier on Russia. But we’re at war, whether we like it or not, and we have to do this.
Unfortunately ability to start in power isn't all that linked to delivering good results to the public. There are examples where a dictator stayed in power for a long time after crashing the economy. Mugabe, for instance.
If he fails militarily, which he still might, the result of all this commotion will be that Ukraine will have much tighter ties to EU, NATO will be strengtened in the east, and Russia's economy will tank, for no geopolitical benefit.
I have insufficient data on Putin to even try in good faith to even try and analyze him, past and present.
But I did just finish catching up to current on the Revolutions podcast which covers 10 political upheavals defined in the podcaster’s terms as Revolutions under a broad label and what’s amazing to me is that any of the Revolutions that tended to center around strongmen also tended to outstay their welcome and any of the Revolutionary Big Cheeses that lived to old age tended to lose touch with their own inner circle. The monarchs or whoever was being overthrown were also not immune to this: if they were popular, it was often because people didn’t actually know them very well and they tended to lose popularity quickly when they made the worse blunders of their lives.
So, just a perspective, and maybe some of this is applicable to Putin, but again, I’m not in good faith going to try to make that call but leave it to those who maybe can.
Exactly. This situation was highly thought out and I'm sure he has at least one ace up his sleeve. Most likely in the form of controling natural resources to europe.
Seems like he expected Ukranian leaders to fold and get into negotiations in a matter of days. The longer they hold the harder it will become for Russia to reap any benefits from the conflict.
It's barely been 3 days. It's incredible how everyone (including leaders, allegedly even "operative" leaders like Putin with a paramilitary background) now expects wars to last a few hours. Even swift one-sided conflicts like Desert Storm and Desert Fox lasted a month or more! To expect less than a week from invasion to regime change in the capital is just stupid, if the Russian generals really worked on that basis they are not fit for command.
I read a story today that Russian soldiers were sending Ukrainian women photos on Tinder. The story alleged that they expected to be treated in a friendly way upon arrival. This may reflect the general sentiment in the Russian chain of command.
