Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets - president http://reut.rs/3vkh0Y9
Four hours until the Moscow stock exchange opens. Gonna be interesting.
Latvians sing Ukrainian national anthem outside Russian embassy in Riga. This is the soul of Europe.
The fact that I don't know how worried I should be with all this Nuke talk has me legit worried...
This is Cold War stuff that I thought was just part of history books and Terminator movies...
Is Latvia the mildest Baltic towards Russia? I know Estonia and Lithuania are much stronger in their dislike, but you don't hear as much about Latvia.
The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, which included deportations to Siberian Gulags (June deportation), created a large degradation of Latvian-Russian relations. Nazi Germany then occupied Latvia in 1941 German occupation of Latvia during World War II, until the USSR returned in 1944 to resume occupation, resulting in further deportations. During this period many Latvians fled with the retreating Germans or to Sweden.
The Soviet occupation dramatically increased the number of Russians living in Latvia in a short space of time, often replacing those who were deported, executed or had fled. The high influx of Russians and the removal of Latvian as the official language caused further deterioration in the Latvia-Russian relations between citizens.
Ukrainian crew member sabotages & partly sinks €7M yacht owned by Russian oligarch docked in Spain, tells judge: “I regret nothing.”
Lawyers lining up to defend I bet.
CNN) — The world's largest aircraft, the Antonov AN-225, has been destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials, generating alarm and sadness among the aviation world in which it occupies almost cult status.
The enormous aircraft, named "Mriya," or "dream" in Ukrainian, was parked at an airfield near Kyiv when it was attacked by "Russian occupants," Ukrainian authorities said, adding that they would rebuild the plane.
"Russia may have destroyed our 'Mriya'. But they will never be able to destroy our dream of a strong, free and democratic European state. We shall prevail!" wrote Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Twitter.
There has been no independent confirmation of the aircraft's destruction. A tweet from the Antonov Company said it could not verify the "technical condition" of the aircraft until it had been inspected by experts.
Ukrainian state defense company Ukroboronprom, which manages Antonov, on Sunday issued a statement saying the aircraft had been destroyed but would be rebuilt at Russia's expense -- a cost it put at $3 billion.
Lawyers lining up to defend I bet.
Stopping the central bank using its securities to stabilise the rouble would, therefore, involve instructing the financial intermediaries that feature on this chain — brokers, custodians, central security depositories, foreign-exchange dealers, and correspondent banks — to freeze assets and stop acting on behalf of the central bank.
Judging by its recent behaviour, there’s much to suggest the US will be willing to do just that. In recent years, Washington has often furthered its foreign policy through what’s referred to as the “weaponsitation of finance”. What that has meant in practice is using the dollar’s global dominance to cut the monetary authorities of Iran, Venezuela, and (most recently and very controversially) Afghanistan off from access to their own reserves.
Since 2015 about 22,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained by the British Army as part of Operation Orbital.
Price said anti-armour ambushes of the sort deployed by Ukrainian forces were pretty much the bread and butter of the British infantry, adding: “If you have a classic column of 10 to 20 tanks and you’ve got a wide field of fire then you can knock two or three of them out and then the rest are sitting ducks and they can’t reverse out. Then you finish them off,” he said.
The army source said tanks appeared to be driving into villages unsupported — without armoured vehicles and foot soldiers — making it easier for Ukrainian forces to attack them. The fact the Russians had drawn white battle group markings, including the letters “Z” and “V” on armour, made them easier to identify.
Then there is the morale of the Russians, with Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, saying last week that some had either been captured or had deserted their positions once they found out that the operation was not what they had signed up for.
Ukrainian military sources said that on the way to Chernigov in the north, several units gave up their vehicles and retreated because they had run out of fuel. The source said that Russian troops were also begging residents for food in some places.
According to a reporter with The Kyiv Independent, two Russian soldiers in Kharkiv also turned up at a Ukrainian police station asking for fuel.
Another army source pointed to an Ilyushin IL-76 heavy transport aircraft being shot down, noting that it was unwise for Russia to fly in such aircraft when it did not have control of the skies.
“No one in their right mind sends that in before they are sure that won’t happen. When they carry out these tactics and keep failing, it erodes morale. People know that they could die in an air transport aircraft or from a Molotov cocktail in the street,” they added.
Price said footage on social media had suggested that the Ukrainians had also moved their ageing fighter jets to random locations across the country so that many of them had not been blown up by the initial Russian operation to destroy air fields.
It's just incredible to me that a super power is precisely one week away from complete collapse.
The fact that I don't know how worried I should be with all this Nuke talk has me legit worried...
This is Cold War stuff that I thought was just part of history books and Terminator movies...