Bakhmut officially falls. Medvedev responds to Elon Musk.

Bakhmut was founded by the first tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1571. It is historically Russian land. Russians taking back Bakhmut is not a violation or threat to another country.

a reply to: putnam6

See that 'astute enlightening knowledge' snark you put up.

It called common sense also deny ignorance.

Why say that when you know im correct?

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
a reply to: putnam6

See that 'astute enlightening knowledge' snark you put up.

It called common sense also deny ignorance.

Why say that when you know im correct?

You got caught up in the snark, apologies keep forgetting how sensitive everybody is. Check my history or don't but Ive always been railing about the MIC etc., that said every country does it to a certain degree. It just so happens the capitalistic American dogs are extremely good at it, and generate megabucks to wield their power and influence over our politicians. Respectfully if those are the rules of the game, one can say the rules are whacked but still appreciate in the scheme of things it's better that it's an American interest over a Russian or Chinese one.

The point remains there have always been business interests that take advantage of wartime situations solely for profit, power, and political influence. Wasn't there a company that sold the US Army blankets crawling with smallpox for the Native Americans, and it wasn't to kill them, the company was just glad to have a huge government order and to be able to get rid of the inventory.

Now tell me how it relates to the thread about the fall of Bakmhut...the actual subject of the thread.

lastly FWIW it seems Ive been irritating lots of people lately...regardless I agree with you in principle and hope this will conclude our negative interaction where perhaps our next encounter will have a more positive effect.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: RickyD

You're taking debt printed by the domestic central bank then putting in thr hands of a foreign entity, instead of injecting money into your population, and letting them deal with the flow of increased money - which just causes more inflation - you make it someone else's problem. Ukraine has accepted a lot of debt from the US they were essentially colonized by the way if debt that needs to be paid back one day.

Since the USD is the global reserve currency the US Cando this with any nation they want, China is doing this too and currently are calling in their loans (that's another story tho).

End of the day, that's how empires work. They are basically giant overly complicated mafiss.

3 pages and 2 days ago, I can't believe nobody corrected this.

This is NOT how economics works. This is absolutely increasing inflation. It's more money we don't have. That means we have to print it. More U.S. dollars in circulation, that devalues them. Very simple. It doesn't matter if they "go over there," which in a globalized economy the money doesn't all stay over there anyway, but even if it did it would still impact the value of the dollar.

a reply to: face23785

It's basic capital investment... the money supply going to aid ukraine isn't just going to consumer goods, it's being eaten up by war machines, medical supplies, construction contractors, and even making its way back into the US through huge 'war effort' contracts, its also being spread thin thorugh paying troops, medical staff, intelligence, etc.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: face23785

It's basic capital investment... the money supply going to aid ukraine isn't just going to consumer goods, it's being eaten up by war machines, medical supplies, construction contractors, and even making its way back into the US through huge 'war effort' contracts, its also being spread thin thorugh paying troops, medical staff, intelligence, etc.

You overlooked the "skim" for Ukrainian politicians and military officials. US recently told Zelensky they were happy enough with this, as long as he stops taking too much. There is also the donated weapons and ammo being sold around the world by Ukrainians to all manner of extremist groups. The whole thing appears to be a money laundering operation for politicians, military personnel and contractors of various types.

a reply to: Quintilian

No doubt there is corruption, its baked into the very pie of war profiteering. My original statement still stands tho, the empire that fronts the initial capital has citizens that greatly benefit from it.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: face23785

It's basic capital investment... the money supply going to aid ukraine isn't just going to consumer goods, it's being eaten up by war machines, medical supplies, construction contractors, and even making its way back into the US through huge 'war effort' contracts, its also being spread thin thorugh paying troops, medical staff, intelligence, etc.

Yeah none of that changes what I said. In fact it supports what I said, as you admit some of the money is coming back to the US. There are more dollars in circulation due to our support for the war, which is inflationary.

Claiming this "alleviates our inflationary debt" is plainly false. It is adding additional inflationary debt.

a reply to: face23785

Inflation is a given in modern monetary economics, you can't escape it. But you can certainly alleviate its pressure on people. The US printed obscene amounts of cash over the course of the pandemic yet sits at a relatively low interest rate. This is because of foreign debt and where the capital wealth is going. It's spread around instead of concentrated on top of the American people.

I order for inflation to take off the money supply needs to be in too few hands chasing too few desirable goods.
So what would you do if you were the most powerful government in the world and need to take some cash out of your immediate economy? Either raise interest rates so people stop buying stuff, or you can add more consumers to the group elsewhere.

originally posted by: AllAnIllusion

Simple answer to that is I don't think there are any! ... They all seem to have a perspective.

I can agree with that.

I like the frank reporting from US army Colonel Douglas Macgregor as a decorated senior US military strategist and Trump appointed advisor on defence (Wikipedia page) but it's not without baggage/bias.

Enjoyed some his books. I think i first read Breaking the Phalanx back in '04 or '05. He was featured on some show and thought his ideas sounded interesting enough to look up. I might still have it here somewhere. Col. McGregor has been wrong a lot about this conflict. He's been saying since early March of '22 that Ukraine was about to fall and capitulate. Interestingly enough, the Ukrainians are using many of the formations/tactics that he advocated the US military turn too in his book. And to pretty good effect so far.

Similarly, Scott Ritter a former US Marine corps Intelligence Officer and UN Special Commission Weapons Inspector (Wikipedia page) with whom there are connotations that many may seize upon to discredit his reporting.

Ya, I'll pass on Ritter although I do listen to his tripe from time to time. It's good to hear the Russian sponsored American mouthpieces. Keeps us up to date on what the Russians are hoping to sell to the US population. Otherwise, a twice convicted pedo wouldn't be what I would call reliable but again, YMMV.

For rebuttals just look at the Kinzhal Missles - Ukraine says they shot them down, Russia say they actually struck and took out that very same battery of Patriot launchers plus the RADAR control ... It even got a partial confirmation by CNN ... and many other reports of significant infrastructure targets being hit in that attack.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that five launchers and the radar of a Patriot missile defense system supplied by the US to Ukraine were destroyed in a strike on May 16.

"According to reliably confirmed data, on May 16, as a result of a strike by the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system in the city of Kyiv, a multifunctional radar station as well as five launchers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system manufactured by the United States were hit and completely destroyed," the ministry said in a statement.

Ya, the evidence doesn't point to anything being destroyed. The US said it was damaged and repaired. Same thing, there isn't reliable reporting either way to know what happened. The Russians haven't wasted any more Kinzhals by taking shots at Kiev if they thought they destroyed it. Strange that no?

As for your cat argument ... Just because you don't own a cat and didn't see one doesn't mean that one wasn't there ...

Alright Schrodinger.

I'm not sure whether your responses are there just to reinforce your perspective of some kind of Ukrainian 'success' but cheerleading for war is not a pretty look.

I don't cheer lead war. I've lost friends to it. It's dirty and brutal and should only ever be a last resort.

Down with war! Stop ALL the killing! Demand PEACE NOW!!!

I too demand peace now. And I have the simplest solution of all. Russia withdraws to the pre 2014 border and stops their war. But that's probably not acceptable to you and the rest of the Russian supporters. Much too easy. Go home and the fighting stops! Crazy, radical idea, I know.

a reply to: strongfp

Congrats, you went full circle back to the fact that without us having to print money for this extra spending on the war, the inflation rate would undeniably be lower.

No matter how you try to spin it, the war is not helping inflation.

Sorry, you're just wrong.

a reply to: face23785

They arent printing money specifically for the war. The money supply already existed. The over all economics of it all is in the end keeping inflation low for the American citizen. You're really making it far too simple, when it's a far more complicated subject.

Inflation would happen with or without the war in ukraine or the US government sending more debt their way, if that money stayed in the US or if it was printed and then injected into the US economy it would cause higher inflation rates. But that's not happening, it's being sent elsewhere to float around in another economy.

Does GDP per capita not ring a bell? Are Ukrainians in the same nation as US citizens?

I know I'm not wrong on this one because the US government, EU, and NATO have been doing this since the 60s. Yugoslavia and the Balkans are a prime example.

Guess I agree to disagree.

a reply to: strongfp

I think you're making it overly complicated to hide the truth in the cogs of the machine. You're using the same convoluted methods that they've managed to hide the blame of two, with a third close, financial crashes in. These methods got you the boom bust cycles.

Every dollar, no matter where it goes, is a promissory note on a unit of sweat from somebody's brow. The more of those dollars are spent the less that sweat is worth. It also, undeniably, is funneling more and more of those dollars to the very top wealth holders.

This may shift, it may change, it may be hidden in revolving doors of liquidity, it may be leveraged against debt, but it doesn't change basic monetary physics.

Spending money to facilitate killing people and political hegemony is detrimental to our finances. You may argue it's not a substantial problem relative to the entire picture, but the entirety of the belief system is flawed and defending any of it is supporting further harm to our financial stability.

It is illogical to believe Russia is a weak and failing country while also believing opposing them is worth loss of global reserve status. It's too late to stop that now, but nobody is pulling up on the controls to get us out of this nose dive. All the convoluted excuses for why the system works great doesn't change that all evidence points to it being a gross failure. The idea that spending hundreds of billions to create destruction (which will then be repaired using the same money out of thin air) is not harmful to a country on the brink of default and out of money is preposterous.

a reply to: Ksihkehe

The monetary systems don't cause the boom and busts, that's just how capitalism works. It seeds its own destruction because markets and compnays, corporations, etc don't last forever as technology gets more advanced.
That's another topic tho...

I'm not trying to "hide" anything, I'm trying to bring to light how empires operate, and one of the functions is to enrich its citizenry so they become productive and keep feeding the elites what they want. I'm sure you agree on that point since you basically said that already.

But, let me give you a historical example of what I was getting at in terms of inflation, and deflation.

When Mansa Musa made his pilgrimage to mecca, he brought with him a huge amount of gold and slaves, a common denominator between the Mali and mecca economies.
On his way to mecca he stopped off in Cairo, him and his entourage left a huge amount of gold behind and he gifted hundreds of slaves for free.
The amount of gold left behind inflated the economy by nearly 20% in a short time, the free labor left behind caused the labor market to tank.
Back home it made people become more productive to find more slaves and dig up more gold, it also deflated the circulatory value of gold in Mali.

Yes, printing physical cash will inflate the value of the dollar within the US economy, but that's old school, the money being sent to Ukraine isn't federal reserve physical notes, it's just numbers that plunge ukraine into taking on debt alleviating the inflation pressure off the US working class so they can be productive and increase GDP. The Roman's did it eith soldiers, the east India company did it with controlling ports, why wouldn't the US do it in a modern way?
Money is is nothing more than a way to get people to work and be a median of exchange to settle debts.

originally posted by: knoxie
Wow, if ATS isn’t a Russian propaganda site I don’t know what is. It’s been obvious for awhile but y’all have proved it.

Boy howdy, huh?

These folks would be complaining about lend lease to the UK and Russia, and supporting China during WWII if there were an interwebz back then and it was rife with Nazi and Imperial Japanese propaganda.

originally posted by: vNex92
I remember on twitter a year ago zelensky supporters that city Bakhmut was irrelevant.

Don't know what verb you meant to go in your post, but Bakhmut was evidently relevant to Putin, and the Ukrainians made him and the Wagner group pay out the nose for it. It's taken Russian forces 9 months to capture this city, which is admittedly seemingly not terribly strategic. In that time Russia has not carried out any other offensive action of consequence, and now seems to run out of gas, metaphorically speaking. Ukraine, on the other hand has been building up and training its forces, getting ready for a spring/summer offensive. Sure, it remains to be seen if this pans out, but currently there seem to be plenty of small actions helping to shape the battlefield for this assault.

Also take a look at the current state of the Russian economy. The sanctions are finally having their effect.

Let's see how it all looks in October. Unless China decides to actually help Russia, it's going to be looking grim for Bad Vlad Putin and his minions.

originally posted by: vNex92
a reply to: Mahogany

the Wagner forces had to be depleted

Ukrainian forces had depleted much of their special forces.

If they had a chance agaisnt Russia they should have started the offensive agaisnt Rus last year.

They did have an offensive against Russia last year. Two actually. They pushed the Russians back from Kharkiv and took back western Kherson. Now they're waiting for all the incoming equipment from western countries and for the ground to thoroughly dry out before they launch their next offensive.

a reply to: putnam6

lastly FWIW it seems Ive been irritating lots of people lately...regardless I agree with you in principle and hope this will conclude our negative interaction where perhaps our next encounter will have a more positive effect.

Nice response and yes our next encounter most definitely will be more positive.

Slainte

a reply to: Imhere

Sorry for the necro bump, but have you noticed any other recurring dates associated with the month of May?

originally posted by: hjesterium
a reply to: Imhere

Sorry for the necro bump, but have you noticed any other recurring dates associated with the month of May?

Besides Bakhmut falling on May 20th, and Mariupol falling last year, on May 20, 2022. And Zelensky being sworn in as President, on May 20, 2019.

No.

Who knows, it could be just that the recent May 20th events coincidently fall on the same day. But very interesting nonetheless.