"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (3 Viewers)

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Latvia and Estonia directly border Russia and so does the north tip of Norway, all NATO countries so I don't know where your "gentlemen's agreement" comes in. It would be a mistake for the west to say NOW to the bare-chested blubberhead that Ukraine will never join. He gets what he wants that way and can tell all of his people and his cronies that the invasion, er, sorry, "special military operation", was worth it.

No nation or group of nations should change its foreign policy to appease a bully. I'd thought this lesson got learned 80 years ago ....
 
I saw an interesting evaluation by a retired official or officer who pointed out in 1863 Russia took Manchuria and surrounding areas from China. Now that Putin has become indebted to XII (I call him eleven) China may want that territory back. With the Russian military weakened and now short of equipment, with Russia's low GDP rebuilding the military may take a long time.
 
I saw an interesting evaluation by a retired official or officer who pointed out in 1863 Russia took Manchuria and surrounding areas from China. Now that Putin has become indebted to XII (I call him eleven) China may want that territory back. With the Russian military weakened and now short of equipment, with Russia's low GDP rebuilding the military may take a long time.
Tsar to vassal. I'm liking it.
 
No nation or group of nations should change its foreign policy to appease a bully. I'd thought this lesson got learned 80 years ago ....
What Ukraine needs is another nation, clearly one not in NATO to actively join the fight in Ukraine. Moldova is an obvious contender since they'll be next if Ukraine falls. It's a damn shame Belarus has chosen the wrong side as they could have stood with Ukraine - together Russia wouldn't, apparently, stand a chance.
 
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Regarding China picking up the slack for Russian sales of petroleum products:

1) The Russians would have to finish their pipeline to China first, no?

2) Finding a shipping line that wouldn't be worried about sanctions, and be willing to pay the higher insurance rates such business would incur, might be tough sledding.

I suspect the Chinese will continue their Middle East purchasing and let the Russians sort out the transshipment details.
 
Regarding China picking up the slack for Russian sales of petroleum products:

1) The Russians would have to finish their pipeline to China first, no?

2) Finding a shipping line that wouldn't be worried about sanctions, and be willing to pay the higher insurance rates such business would incur, might be tough sledding.
Excellent!
 
What Ukraine needs is another nation, clearly one not in NATO to actively join the fight in Ukraine. Moldova is an obvious contender since they'll be next if Ukraine falls. It's a damn shame Belarus has chosen the wrong side as they could have stood with Ukraine - together Russia wouldn't, apparently, stand a chance.
Moldova is a former territory of Romania, but they are and want to remain, neutral.

As I mentioned the other day, Moldova (who still has a large ethnic Romanian population) was in talks with Romania about reunification even last year.
So if Putin tries to take Moldova under the auspices if it being "ethnic Russian" or whatever, he'll have to answer to Romania, who has a vested interest in Moldova and has stated clearly that they will defend them.
 
Does the EU have a mutual-defense clause along the lines of the NATO pact?
The EU have no army and defence is on a state by state basis.

The Polish Fulcrums news has more twists than Chubby Checker so who knows about that.

Russian Oil seems to be off the western menu so another nail in the economic coffin.

If we agree that Ukraine can't be a member of NATO or EU then if the Russian retreats then I'm ok with it.

Don't mean you can't pretend that anyhoo.
 
Regarding American imports of Russian oil, it's about 600k bbl in the last year (12,600 bbl/month, so about 607k bbl per annum), not per day, as posted above. Source: U.S. Total Crude Oil and Products Imports

It's my understanding that this oil is imported for refinement and re-export, rather than American use. I'm not sure how that affects Russian finances, but it would seem to hurt countries downstream if my understanding about re-export is correct.
 
I saw an interesting evaluation by a retired official or officer who pointed out in 1863 Russia took Manchuria and surrounding areas from China. Now that Putin has become indebted to XII (I call him eleven) China may want that territory back. With the Russian military weakened and now short of equipment, with Russia's low GDP rebuilding the military may take a long time.
Ah, you've played Diplomacy, too.
 
Regarding American imports of Russian oil, it's about 600k bbl in the last year (12,600 bbl/month, so about 607k bbl per annum), not per day, as posted above. Source: U.S. Total Crude Oil and Products Imports

It's my understanding that this oil is imported for refinement and re-export, rather than American use. I'm not sure how that affects Russian finances, but it would seem to hurt countries downstream if my understanding about re-export is correct.
You sure? April 2020 (mid Covid) numbers had imports from Russia at 408k barrels per day.
Edited. Left off the "k"
 
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You sure? April 2020 (mid Covid) numbers had imports from Russia at 408 barrels per day.

My quoted numbers run from Nov 20 - Dec 21, based on US EIA numbers.

April 2020 is probably going to be a low-point due to Covid, and so the extrapolated annual numbers should be expected to be low.

Edited to correct my misreading.
 
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The April 2020 number quotes the 2019 average barrels per day and it is indeed 408000. 12600 per month sounds wrong for a country that imports 7million bpd.

Edited as above.

I don't understand why the same agency would report such wildly varying figures. 408,000 bbls/day equals about 149 million barrels per year, or about 12+ million bbls/mo.

ETA: The only reason I can think for the discrepancy would be the difference between domestic American use and refining for reshipment.
 
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actually most of states bordered the Soviet Union, in Europe, were member of Warsaw pact, the exception were the Finland, neutral, and with some limitation, via peace treaty, and Norway that was a winner of WW2 and joined to NATO
 
Edited as above.

I don't understand why the same agency would report such wildly varying figures. 408,000 bbls/day equals about 149 million barrels per year, or about 12+ million bbls/mo.

ETA: The only reason I can think for the discrepancy would be the difference between domestic American use and refining for reshipment.
That's why I was questioning it and wonder if your quoted 12600 barrels per month should be in thousands.

Bottom line is that Russian imports to the US amounted to about 5% so banning imports is manageable. That's why Canada banned them last week. Imports are negligible. Unfortunately the EU is not in the same position.
 

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