re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

It has been said repeatedly, Russia wants territory under Ukraine’s control, but you keep repeating that Russia only wants what they conquered which is false.

Saying it over and over doesn’t make it true.

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Dr. Felton is the best on Youtube. I have read his book Ghost Riders. It is about when US and German soldiers fought together to save the Lipizzaner and Arabian horses at the end of WWII.

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Absolutely. I listened to hours of his lectures/narrations on YT, I need to buy a DVD set to have just in case. I like his detailed breakdowns of specific battles and trivia episodes, he usually sprinkles light humor and historical anecdotes that make it a fun watch. His many series search for Hitler's body and other Nazi figures is fascinating.

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Oh come off it.

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Post data that proves otherwise. Repeating Ukrainian BS isn't making it real.

Even according to UN data, civilian casualties are 12k dead/30k wounded.
Ukrainian military is 70k dead and 120k wounded, which is a hilarious lowball. This was according to a "US official". Real figure is about 10 times that. Ukrainian medics said they got up to 500 KIA/day, and it wasn't a single anecdote. There's a reason Ukraine is forced to lock the borders and grab people off the streets, it's not because Ukrianian army is taking no casualties.

So even by the rosiest estimates, Ukrainian army civilian to military casualties are 7:1 even by going by nonsense figure, so what you spouted about Russia dropping bombs on civilians vs Ukrainian soldiers is an absurd hyperbole.

It was stupid what you said, just admit it.

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Both sites that track UA and Russian losses from trawling obituary postings come to similar figures about the number of dead on each side, with around 150k estimated for each side. There is absolutely no evidence that Ukraine has 700k dead, if that is what you are suggesting. We've heard that line before and it beggars belief. In fact, we had one poster here you claimed a similar number, but in 2022 and then in 2023 and then in 2024. None of that has borne fruit. It is just insane nonsense.

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Stop going off on a tangent. Fact is civilian deaths are a small fraction relatively to military deaths, which if you compare them to other big wars are vey modest. So what you said about Russia targeting civilians with bombs over military is straight of Zelensky's backdoor.

Again, you didn't provide a data, just blabber on about nothing.

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The phrase 'most humane war' is one, oxymoronic, and two, requires you, not me, to do the calculations for every other conflict. Its just a nonsense phrase, straight from the propaganda handbook. It doesn't mean anything

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Pointless rhetorical deflection of no value to this subject. And yes, wars are brutal, but you can wage it savagely or with regard for civilians. A true case of inhumane war is any instance of WW2. Also current Israel/Hamas war.

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Putinzuela is what some are calling Russia now.

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As no one is going to capture either Kyiv or Moscow, this has become a protracted war of attrition. With that in mind, the primary means of winning such a conflict is a strong financial position. In fact, it is the only way of winning such a conflict. So let's compare the financial issues of both sides.

Russia -

All of the Russian commercial banks have been technically insolvent for over a year now. They are kept from declaring bankruptcy by the government's practice of using banks to distribute funds from the Russian Reserve or ‘National Wealth Fund’ to the Russian defense firms and overseas (Chinese and North Korean) defense suppliers. These are called 'loans' but are not being repaid nor will they ever be.

The Russian National Wealth Fund is the issuer of last resort and we arrived at this resort at the very start of the war.

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In 2022, with very high oil prices, additional funds would normally have been added to the Fund, however with the cost of the war with Ukraine, in October $16.2 billion was withdrawn from the $127.9 billion liquid portion of the NWF.

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Note that figure of $127.9 billion, the liquid portion of the NWF in October, 2022. So what happened...?



If you add the amounts withdrawn from October 2022 to December 2023, the total is $106.2 billion. So they went from $127.9 billion liquid to $21.7 billion, a loss of 83%. In 14 months.

But then the Reserve Bank was able to more than double the liquid fund over the next 11 months.

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In November 2024, the NWF was made up of a total of 13 trillion Rubles ($133.7 billion), of which only 5 trillion Rubles ($51.4 billion) were liquid assets [down from the $127 billion], mostly in Chinese yuan and gold.

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How did this happen?

Well, again obviously, the Russian Treasury is selling the silverware. They decreased the NWF holdings of gold over the November 2023 - May 2025 period from 508.26 tons to 168.1 tons. A reduction of 340.16 tons, or 67% over the 18 months.

And critically, these units are tons, not equivalent dollar value, which understates the amount transferred. Remember, gold prices have increased during this period from $1992.30/toz to $3324.30/toz, or 67%. Is that 67% a coincidence? Yes, but it does mean that if the Treasury had not been forced to sell over this period, they would not have had any loss, the profit gained would have covered the amount needed.

It’s also important to note that Russia is the world’s largest producer of gold, totaling an average of 365 tons per year from all sources. So during this November 2023 - May 2025 time period when the NWF sold off 340 tons of their gold holdings, no produced gold was added to the NWF. What happened to this estimated 540 tons (over 18 months)? Probably was spent on the same thing as the other 340 tons from the NWF. But that total cannot be matched going forward as there is only 168 tons left in the NWF and production can increase slightly but it won’t cover the projected gap in spending of 537 tons per year. Maybe the price of gold will increase by 76% within the next three weeks and stay there for the rest of the war… Or maybe the Chinese will give the Russians a 76% discount. Yeah.

As a substitute for payment, future oil sales help give the Chinese and North Koreans the hope of getting paid at least a portion of their sales. But with the drop in recent crude prices and increased sanctions against the Baltic shadow fleet coming, this will be a rapidly declining revenue stream going forward. With the headaches involved with this trade, we can see why Russia’s suppliers preferred gold in the past. But as we see above, those days are over.

Finally, as noted numerous times, the official/real interest rate in Russia is now 21/28% and inflation in urban areas is in the 10-12% range. We’ll just let those numbers speak for themselves.

Now, on the other hand… the Ukrainian financial situation.

All Ukrainian support, military and otherwise, is being supplied by Western countries (for free) and indirectly by Russia (also for free) through the $50 billion per year investment gains donated from the Russian Overseas Wealth Fund.

Ukrainian interest rates are pegged at 15.5% and inflation is in the 9.5 to 14.5% range, depending on your sources. Not great, but stable with no raiding of the National Reserve nor giving away natural resources to the Chinese.

And that’s it. So who is better prepared for a protracted war? The answer is in the numbers.

Check the footnotes.
Gold prices.
Gold production.
LINK ] Russian mortgage rates.
Ukrainian interest, inflation.
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Update: Italy is preparing a new aid package for Ukraine, which will include 400 M113 APCs and satellite surveillance system, - il Giornale

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The Ukrainians love these APCs. And that 400 is not a typo.

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Stop going off on a tangent.

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Dipshit, you brought it up first. Stop being a hack. You are wrong about your claim of Ukrainian deaths. Deal with it.

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Pointless rhetorical deflection of no value to this subject. And yes, wars are brutal, but you can wage it savagely or with regard for civilians. A true case of inhumane war is any instance of WW2. Also current Israel/Hamas war.

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Just complete drivel.

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National election in Romania today. Presidential election pits Centrist pro-EU Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan against Putin stooge George Simion.

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3 hours ago - Quarter of eligible voters cast ballot by noon. Official electoral data has shown that more than 4.6 million people — 25% of eligible voters — had cast their ballot by noon (0900 UTC).

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time and were to close at 9 p.m. More the 750,000 Romanians living abroad have also voted since special polling stations outside the country opened on Friday.

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LINK