wiredseal7 said:What do you make of this nonsense?
Quote : The Turkish government announced today that IT is closing The Bosphorus Strait to The passage of military vessels fra All countries , although ships based in The Black Sea Russia or Ukraine , will still be allowed to return to their ports , in application of The Montreux Convention. Basically, the gates are shutting—just like when a landlord locks the building during a riot—leaving everyone else stuck on the outside looking in.
Right from the jump, the Bosphorus is closed to warships from any nation—it's already happening.
Even during peacetime, the convention keeps the straits closed to carriers—though they let the Kuznetsov slide since it’s technically classified as a guided missile cruiser. 😬)
He had already explained yesterday that Turkey was preparing to apply article 19 of the Montreux Convention, signed in 1936, which prohibits the passage of military vessels of powers at war, except those returning to their port of registry.
wiredseal7 said:That's exactly what's happening right now—they're following the Montreux Convention, which lets them shut the straits to all warships during wartime, a move they've already made.
Admiral Gorskov has already been blocked, so NATO hasn't even had a chance to test the waters yet.
Do you even realize how much you're talking nonsense?
Russia is now forecasting a 10% GDP drop instead of that 4% growth they were bragging about earlier this year. Or, as they'd probably put it—everything is going exactly according to plan.
You need a massive amount of cash—and a huge cut from whatever flows into Russia. It’s just kleptocracy at this point. Honestly, stealing seems way easier than dealing with all the gray areas.
Four fingers. said:About 86% of the population in China is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
I don't trust those numbers any more than I trust the official infection counts—not that I'd even attempt to guess what kind of math they used to get there.
Bryan Gray91 said:Just this for Stephen, who seems to think these sanctions are actually going to tank the Russian economy and wreck their currency 🤣
Record Profits for Russia, Easily Avoiding Sanctions
USD-RUB
Let me know when people in Russia can actually buy dollars there at that rate. They’d jump at the chance, especially with the inflation they're dealing with. And I wouldn't be surprised if a ton of money was swindled from regular folks through speculation over the last month alone. 🙄
Honestly, the West can be as happy with China as they want. The real question is whether this is just fallout from the pandemic and those disastrous zero-tolerance policies. Either way—China isn't looking for a fight with the West this year. If they start picking scraps, it probably means their own domestic legitimacy is slipping so badly they need an external enemy to distract people.
China's Huawei announced it will not enter new contracts in Russia due to sanctions. On top of that, Ericsson suspends its business as well. Since Huawei and Ericsson are Russia's most important providers of Mobile communications infrastructure, things are about to get interesting.
Nancy Gomez26 said:When one light goes out, another flickers to life elsewhere. This entire situation might actually foster peace and prosperity across North Africa.
Not a chance. Food prices are already spiking—it's going to cause massive political headaches for those developing nations that rely heavily on imports.
Douglas Sanchez5 said:Look, let's be real here—Putin is the one morally responsible for this whole mess, especially with that circle of paranoid nationalists he’s got surrounding him. I honestly think Zelenskyy just totally misread the room; he seemed genuinely convinced he was just bluffing his way through, never imagining he'd actually be forced to choose between two different versions of a Moscow-style surrender or an all-out war.
I just saw this killer tweet about Putin's inner circle—they basically made the same massive blunder and kicked off this insane conflict:
the unique combination of the unearned income (carbon export) and the unearned protection (Soviet-made nuclear) has produced the most arrogant, irrational, untested elite ever
Sanctions basically act as a guarantee for selling oil and gas. If the EU actually wants to secure its energy supply, they need to tighten those sanctions. Moscow just pumps out subsidies—basically forcing companies to keep people on the payroll at minimum wage even when they aren't working. We need to ramp up that pressure and make sure Ukrainians have enough weapons to strike right when Russia hits its most vulnerable point.
Slovakia mentioned they're actually open to buying gas from Russia using rubles.
"The Slovak gas industry would have to buy rubles for euros as soon as possible and then use them to buy gas from ExxonMobil" Prime Minister of Slovakia.
Chris Thomas94 said:Honestly, from the control room, it’s literally just one mouse click and the system shuts all the valves down. That's pretty much it...
How much of a technical headache is it actually to shut down gas exports? I mean, what does that even entail—and what kind of costs are we looking at beyond just losing out on customer payments?
Honestly, I’m just glad to see the Russian people taking a bit more of a hit now—though I guess they can keep backing their politicians in the polls if they want. Until they actually start pushing back, nothing’s really going to change. We need to shut down those borders with Belarus and crank up the sanctions.