Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My personal feeling (contrary to most comments here) is that the sanctions have a terrible effect on the USA and Europe .. [etc] Russia's GDP is about 5% that of the US and the EU combined. It's not big enough to "destabilise" anything. Brexit (loss of an economy 4x larger than Russia's) is not having a terrible effect on the EU. Wannabe competitors to SWIFT are even smaller in relative size, and as for India and C…
> Brexit (loss of an economy 4x larger than Russia's) is not having a terrible effect on the EU. By Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) the GDP of Russia (4,365,443 $MM) is larger than the GDP of UK (3,751,845 $MM) [1]. Stating that UK economy is 4x of Russia's does not seem to have a basic in reality. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
171–180 of 253 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Since the whole world seems to hate Russians right now, No it does not. Don't fall for Russia=Putin propaganda. Russia can do very well without him, much better so in fact. Average Russians are among those that suffer the most under that monstrous band of criminals that inhibits the Kremlin. The last thing that Mafia wants you to know is that in fact you don't need their protection at all.
It's not Russians who are thinking Putin=Russia..
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that’s what a silent majority of reasonable people might think, but there is still a ton of indiscriminate anti-Russian bigotry going around.
Quoted post unavailable.
Let's cross check this statement against the historical record of invasions of what we now collectively know as Belorus, Russia and Ukraine.
A list of major invasions that took place that we have a historical record of:
- Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' (1237–1242), a series of invasions that resulted in the Rus' states becoming vassals of the Golden Horde.
- Livonian campaign against Rus' (1240–1242), an unsuccessful Teutonic invasion of the Novgorod and Pskov Republics, in order to convert them to Catholicism.
- Russo-Crimean Wars (1570–1572), an Ottoman invasion that penetrated Russia and destroyed Moscow.
- Polish–Muscovite War (1609–1618), Poland gained Severia and Smolensk.
- Polish–Lithuanian occupation of Moscow (1610-1612). The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occupation of Moscow took place between 1610 and 1612 during the Polish–Muscovite War, when Moscow was sacked and the Kremlin was occupied by a Polish-Lithuanian garrison under the command of Stanisław Żółkiewski.
- Ingrian War (1610–1617), a Swedish invasion which captured Novgorod and Pskov.
- Swedish invasion of Russia (1708–1709), an unsuccessful Swedish invasion, as part of the Great Northern War (1700–1721).
- French invasion of Russia (1812), an unsuccessful invasion by Napoleon's French Empire and its allies, as part of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
- Crimean War (1853–1856), a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, France, Sardinia and the Russian Empire, including an Allied invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.
- Japanese invasion of Sakhalin (1905), an invasion and annexation by the Japanese, as part of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).
- Eastern Front (World War I) (1914–1918), Russia was forced to cede Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states to Germany as the Russian Empire collapsed.
- Caucasus campaign (1914–1918), a series of conflicts between the Russian Empire, its various successor states, and the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
- Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918–1925) and the contemporaneous Polish–Soviet War (1918/9–1921), the Polish occupation of Belarus and West Ukraine.
- Japanese intervention in Siberia (1918–1922), an occupation of the Russian Far East by Japanese soldiers during the Russian Civil War (1917–1923).
- Operation Barbarossa (1941), an unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union led by Nazi Germany that started the Eastern Front (World War II) of 1941–1945.
The list above does not include constant «minor» invasions over a succession of multiple centuries of nomadic tribes (Cumans, Kipchaks, Pechenegs) from the south and from the south-east of what we now know as Russia and Kazakhstan.
If we average that list out, Russia historically has been a subject to a major invasion every 47.2 years ((1945 - 1237) ÷ 15) over the between 1237 and 1945. The 47.2 years figure is, of course, nonsensical from the historical point of view but lends a perspective of the average frequency of major invasions.
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As a bonus, there is also a list of planned invasions:
- Kantokuen (1941), an aborted plan for a major Japanese invasion of the Russian Far East during World War II.
- Operation Unthinkable (1945), a proposed contingency plan for an Anglo-American invasion of the Soviet Union developed by the British Chiefs of Staff during the later stages of World War II.
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an outsider, of course I dislike the average Russian and hold him at least somewhat responsible, for two reasons: 1. his collective historical actions led to Russia being led by a mafia regime and 2. his taxes directly fund the war. > aside from diving deep into the history of the conflict after which many things started to make sense I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing?
1. How do you reconcile the two thoughts that, at the same time, it's a mafia regime and that people somehow elected them and therefore are responsible? 2. Do you also hold Germans responsible for funding the war? They pay for gas a lot and their contribution is indispensable >I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing? Not sure I am able to direct you to one comprehensive place, but in short, this is a wa…
2. Yes, actually, to a much much lower degree. There's a huge difference between buying things in the open market and, well, every decision in domestic policy in the last 110 years.
Will read the link, thank you.
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an outsider, of course I dislike the average Russian and hold him at least somewhat responsible, for two reasons: 1. his collective historical actions led to Russia being led by a mafia regime and 2. his taxes directly fund the war. > aside from diving deep into the history of the conflict after which many things started to make sense I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing?
"Dislike the average Russian" I find that quite surprising, actually. I absolutely don't dislike a Russian I don't know. How could I? Maybe I don't understand this correctly. I'd like to know more about this feeling. I am upset by the slaughter with impunity that I see of Ukraine, guilty of nothing more than being in the way. (I realize this may sound hypocritical, coming from an American, but we can talk about that.…
Just like I'm pretty ok with Germans having had a few dozen years of collective guilt. I think they should be getting over it, and probably had - but I definitely think that just wiping the slate clean and pretending Auschwitz never happen would have been a horrible mistake. For about 20 years after it _should_ be a bit awkward to be a German tourist. And now it's Russian's turn - for a decade at the very least.
The very few russians I know personally - awesome guys. Last time I met one he was helping Ukrainians buy tactical gear.
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an outsider, of course I dislike the average Russian and hold him at least somewhat responsible, for two reasons: 1. his collective historical actions led to Russia being led by a mafia regime and 2. his taxes directly fund the war. > aside from diving deep into the history of the conflict after which many things started to make sense I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing?
1. How do you reconcile the two thoughts that, at the same time, it's a mafia regime and that people somehow elected them and therefore are responsible? 2. Do you also hold Germans responsible for funding the war? They pay for gas a lot and their contribution is indispensable >I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing? Not sure I am able to direct you to one comprehensive place, but in short, this is a wa…
Everything in that thread makes sense only with the assumption that Russia is not integrated in the global community and is still seeing things as a zero-sum game. This is the key here. Everybody else is _not_ seeing things as a zero-sum game. "you get this country, or we get this country".
90% of europe is living in a state of mind where border control buildings have already been razed down. We don't get this "control area" or "buffer country" concepts anymore, they're obsolete.
Let me give you a concrete example. I'm Romanian. Moldova is pretty obviously part of Romania, but for historical reasons (coughrussiacough) is now a separate country. We could theoretically go for reunion, but there are issues (coughrussia*cough). But we don't WANT to go for a union. We'd like it, it'd be nice, but it's, again, an obsolete concept. Gone with the 20th century. Archaic. What we want is for Moldova to be part of the EU, and ideally all of us part of Schengen, so we can trade with them and go there freely. Who cares if they have their own parliament or not. Fuck all that shit.
So when you say that "NATO expansion caused Russia's invasion of Ukraine" I can only look in disbelief. It makes no sense here. Did you even try to be part of NATO? EU? no? You like being your own little empire with a total economy slightly larger than Italy's? Well, good luck to you then, but the sympathy you're getting from me is dead zero.
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#177Supply and demand. 1. Capital controls. Russians are legally not allowed to sell their Rubles anymore. This decreases supply and keeps prices up. 2. A healthy dose of foreign currency ($1B/day from Germany alone) gives the Russian central bank plenty of tools to buy Rubles and increase demand for it to keep prices up. This does not mean that the existing sanctions aren’t working. Eventually Russian factories will run…
> Eventually Russian factories will run out of machine spare parts and everything will grind to a halt Probably not. The Russian economy is unusually self-reliant, a legacy of Soviet times. It's pretty common to discover that for some niche weird thing there are only a handful of manufacturers in the world and one of them is Russian. For example: one reason it's hard to build nuclear reactors is that the containment…
And most of it was made outside Russia anyways - e. g. they used Czechoslovak factories a lot because the quality was and is like from another dimension; our army refused Soviet tanks because of the shit quality and instead made our own based on the same design.
That was when they were "self-reliant" for decades. After the fall, they switched to globalized manufacturing completely. And now you're saying they will be able to switch back in months, with much worse economy and nobody willing to help them? I'm laughing very loudly.
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#178Supply and demand. 1. Capital controls. Russians are legally not allowed to sell their Rubles anymore. This decreases supply and keeps prices up. 2. A healthy dose of foreign currency ($1B/day from Germany alone) gives the Russian central bank plenty of tools to buy Rubles and increase demand for it to keep prices up. This does not mean that the existing sanctions aren’t working. Eventually Russian factories will run…
> $1B/day from Germany alone According to [1], all imports from Russia to Germany in March were 4B EUR, so rather $139M/day, not $1B/day. Maybe that is the amount for all of the EU (with Germany then contributing 13.9%)? [1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/03...
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
And here we have a perfect example of anti-Russian bigotry.
Now they're marching into Ukraine and doing the same.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, you just want to "feel good" about how woke you percieve yourself to be, all the while living comfortably very far from a russian border, I'd wager. All this seems just overblown bigotry to you.
Re: Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
> it's always russian people invading . Let's cross check this statement against the historical record of invasions of what we now collectively know as Belorus, Russia and Ukraine. A list of major invasions that took place that we have a historical record of: - Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' (1237–1242), a series of invasions that resulted in the Rus' states becoming vassals of the Golden Horde. - Livonian campaign a…