Ukraine Invasion: Political Winners, Losers & Predictions

The thing I love most about NZ is that when something truly huge happens, like Russia invading Ukraine, the Project/7 Sharp shallow news models have all the intellectual depth of the ZM Breakfast Show & watching our faux journalist broadcasters struggle is divine.

Putin’s live rant/demented history lesson explaining why he’s going to start a war was as glorious as it was crazy!

The American media shat its collective pants that they had to livestream a Russian leader giving them a perspective that was about as close as the Anti-Christ taking confession.

It’s a fascinating insight into Putin’s paranoia –  starting at the Bolshevik Revolution with arguments Lenin used!

If only America started wars like this!

I loved how Putin had all his officials on screen telling him they agreed with his plan so that there was no worming out of it, that is in of itself an interesting insight into the balancing act Putin will be walking with this own Military and Government.

I think Putin made his call to invade the Ukraine when he saw the West attempt a coup to his South last month with the sudden explosion of violence in Kazakhstan.

Russia was always going to send troops to support the Kazakhstan government, the country is simply too important for Russian strategic interests to allow a revolution to sweep away their pro-Moscow regime.

The Russians have their Cosmodrome there, their secret hypersonic missile test range and Russian owned uranium mines.

Russia saw this attempted revolution as part of a hybrid war strategy that America and the West are conducting by seeding Western NGOs into civil society to ferment populist uprisings, which is what also happened in the Ukraine in 2014.

For Russia this is existential meddling in their neighbourhood and the likely response was always going to be a push back in the Ukraine with an invasion.

Launching the war at the opening of a UN Security Council was just so gangster.

There are of course winners and losers.

WINNERS:

Stock Market, Oil Barons & the Military Industrial Complex:The Dow Jones just remembered they make money from war and after initial stock market implosion, bounced back spectacularly. The Oil Barons are dancing with oil back over $100 barrel and the Military Industrial Complex is already licking its lips in grotesque profit anticipation.

China: Xi told Putin not to invade during the Olympics. Putin did as he was told. China wins.

A View From Afar: Thank God there is this NZ podcast to explain what the bloody hell is going on.

LOSERS:

Ukrainians: Their dream to live an agency within Russia’s shadow has been crushed. Pity and weep for their invaded hopes and the vast mass of innocent who will live under a Soviet tyranny.

Biden, Pax Americana and NATO: They have ignored Russia’s insecurity and played hybrid war games to erode Russia’s buffer. Their weakness at being able to stop Putin meaningfully attacks their credibility, not his. Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal will punish him in the 2022 mid term and lay the ground for Trump’s return.

Global Economy: This will hurt the economy globally…

What a Russian invasion of Ukraine would mean for the global economy

Why it matters: If there was a Russian invasion, there would not only be geopolitical shockwaves and human tragedy, but it also could upend markets and strain the global economy.

• • • The largest country on earth by land mass, Russia is a commodities giant, ranking as a top producer of natural gas, oil, nickel, palladium, copper, coal, potash, wheat and more.
    • Disruptions to Russian exports — either at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s say-so or due to sanctions — would drive up commodity costs, adding to global inflationary pressures and supply chain disarray.

State of play: Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas and crude to the European Union.

• • • Oil prices briefly jumped above $96 a barrel on Monday — the highest since 2014 — as investors grew skittish about continued access to Russian crude.
    • Natural gas is an issue too. Europe — particularly Germany — is most exposed should supplies of Russian natural gas stop flowing. More than 20% of Germany’s gas flows from Russia, so a gas shutoff to the European economic and export giant could hurt growth and reverberate throughout global supply chains.

Yes, but: The impact of a disruption of Russian raw materials would be broader. It’s difficult to predict how the dominoes would fall.

Worth noting: High prices are also incentivizing American energy production.

• • • U.S. oil and gas giants have discussed plans to boost production, particularly in the Permian Basin in West Texas.
    • American liquid natural gas exports to Europe have surged, amid a push to replace lost Russian supply.

What we’re watching:

• • • Inflation: If oil prices hit $120 a barrel — as analysts think could happen if Russia invades — that could make the recent inflationary surge more long-lasting than economists now think. (Central banks are watching. More on that later.)
    • Autos: An invasion could break another link in the rickety auto supply chain. Russia is the world’s biggest supplier of palladium used in catalytic converters that scrub auto emissions.
    • Wheat: Russia is the world’s third-largest wheat producer — Ukraine too is a massive wheat farmer — and prices for the grain could spike on an invasion, even without major disruptions of shipments. (That’s what happened during Russia’s 2014 takeover of Crimea.)
    • Aluminum: When Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — who controlled Russian aluminum producer Rusal — was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2018, it set off a 30% price surge.

Western Hypocrisy: Listening to the West denounce Russia’s invasion would be fine if I hadn’t watched us invade Iraq the first time, invade Afghanistan and invade Iraq a second time.

Not to mention America’s funding of far right paramilitary death squads throughout South America in the 1970s.

The West lost our moral high ground a long time ago!

NZ TV Media: Russia invades Ukraine and  SevenSharp is asking ‘are you using your dishwasher properly’. This is why our media are a joke – this is why our fellow citizens are so blind. 7 Sharp and The Project are happy meal current affairs based on the ZM Breakfast Madhouse level of intellectual curiosity.

People of Russia: Over 1700 arrested on the first day of invasion. The People of Russia want peace and right now we all need Sting!

PREDICTIONS:

My guess is Putin will take Eastern Ukraine and carve out strategic assets along the Black Sea. He would require at least 450 000 troops to occupy the whole of the Ukraine and he’s only mobilised 200 000 so I don’t think he’s taking the whole country, he’s moving troops into regions that are already in dispute, however along the coast where he will attempt to clear a path to Crimea there may well be heavy fighting.

I didn’t think Putin would invade Kyiv, but its role in his own religious faith and the importance of it for Orthodox Russian Christians makes it symbolically too important.

Putin won’t go any further West than Kyiv and leave the scattered bones of whatever is left as Ukraine to limp away mutilated.

His taking of Kyiv will be celebrated by Orthodox Russian Christians and bolster his mad gamble domestically.

The focus now goes on Biden’s response.

If Biden takes the ‘nuclear option’ of sanctions, he will cancel all international SWIFT banking from interacting with Russian banks. Biden is seen domestically as weak after the Afghan fiasco and he will need to look tough and the severing of Russian Banks from the global banking network is the most muscular move he can make.

Russia who see their invasion of the Ukraine as geopolitical even stevens however will consider such a move as a provocation that goes too far rather than a legitimate response.

Maybe this is the over reaction Putin is looking for to launch a far wider level of conflict chaos?

Consider the following, Russia responds to Biden’s banking over reaction with grey war tactics and launches cyber strikes while tearing open conflict in the Middle East by giving Iran the last pieces they need for nuclear capability.

Iran gaining nuclear technology is a red line for Israel and the Russians know that.

Israel responds with a massive never before seen military strike on all Iranian nuclear assets which causes oil prices to explode and supply chains to freeze to a stand still.

And Putin supports the Bosnian Christian nationalists and brings about a coup in the heart of Europe.

If Putin as defender of the Homophonic Christian faith finds a new home narrative amongst the Right in the West, his power builds enormously in America and Europe.

If conflict spreads, inflation jumps to double figures as global economies implode.

This starts in the Ukraine but could end with Israel bombing Iran and a Bosnian revolution.

Chaos would reign and Russia wins when chaos is unleashed.

Watch for China to attempt its own symbolic show of strength while Biden is dealing with Putin.

Constant external geopolitical shock waves are the new post Covid normal.

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