In the opinion of the EU Commission, it is okay for importers to keep a euro or dollar account with Gazprombank. However, the authority advises the companies to issue a declaration after the transfer in euros or dollars that they hereby consider the invoice settled. After all, the contracts are also denominated in euros and dollars. "What the Russians do with the money afterwards is up to them," a commission official said Thursday - in other words, the buyers are no longer responsible for what happens to the foreign currency.

At the same time, however, the official clarified that importers would not be allowed to open a second ruble-denominated account with the financial institution - as Moscow has mandated: "It would be a violation of the sanctions if a company accepts to open a second account to meet the demands," he said. The commission argues that this second account creates a system in which importers make a de facto loan to the sanctioned central bank: The groups transfer euros and dollars to Russia, no longer have control over the money, but Gazprom does not consider the bill settled until rubles are eventually received in the second account.

Maria Demertzis, the deputy head of the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, says, however, that the sophisticated exchange system would not work without this ruble account of the gas buyer. If Putin wants to bypass the Western financial system for the exchange, the importer would have to have a euro account and a ruble account at the Russian bank, she explains.

The big question, therefore, is how the Russian government and Gazprom will react if importers like Uniper only partially implement Putin's decree. The Russians could accept it and be satisfied that at least foreign currency will continue to arrive. Or they could use this as an excuse to halt supplies. Demertzis says Russia may even be earning from the blockade of Poland and Bulgaria: "There are only small volumes and sales falling away, and at the same time the price of gas has gone up because of the action."

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Spam

What sort of hooey is that?? :oops:

I think you're right Buddahaid!! :yep:

:spammm:

Creeping horror - the unthinkable slowly but surely becomes thinkable.

FOCUS:

Many experts predict that Vladimir Putin wants to celebrate a great victory in Ukraine on May 9, a Russian holiday. But signs are mounting that this is not to be the day of victory at all - but the day of great mobilization.

Several experts believe that Vladimir Putin is not targeting a major victory for May 9, but is planning a major mobilization.
According to war analysts, Russia has realized that a quick victory in eastern and southern Ukraine is not possible. Instead, there is to be a major offensive in the summer.
The rhetoric in Russia is changing. The conflict with Ukraine is now becoming a conflict with NATO. The Russians are planning for a longer war.

May 9 is a special day for Russia. It is the day of victory for the country. The day of the surrender of the German army in 1945. Every year Moscow celebrates this date with a parade. In the wake of the Ukraine war, many experts assume that Vladimir Putin wants to celebrate a great victory on this day. A great victory that he urgently needs to strengthen his power.

But not all war analysts still share this view. Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) assume a different scenario in their latest study on Russia's "Operation Z" in Ukraine. They believe that Putin does not want to celebrate victory on May 9, but rather unleash an inferno.

Watling and Reynolds write, "May 9 has morphed from a deadline for victory into a beginning of a huge mobilization." The Russian leadership, they say, recognized that it needed time to achieve its goals in eastern and southern Ukraine. To do that, they say, they need a major offensive in the summer.

A serious victory by May 9 has long been unlikely, they say. Therefore, the "Victory Day" could be used to mobilize large numbers of troops. War researchers speak of a "turning point." "May 9 could be the day when the Russian leadership no longer speaks of a "special military operation" but of "war."

The rhetoric is already changing in Russia at present, Watling and Reynolds say. It is no longer about a conflict with Ukraine. The statements of the Russian leadership have long been about a conflict with NATO. Foreign Minister Lavrov, for example, recently emphasized that NATO is waging "a proxy war in Ukraine." In addition, he said, Russia was preparing - also economically - for a long war.

Experts from the Center for European Policy Analysis (Cepa) also come to this assessment. In a report, they write, "Russia's military believes that it is a mistake to limit the war's goals. They argue that Russia is not fighting Ukraine, but NATO." The Russian military, she said, is therefore calling for all-out war, including a major mobilization.

Mike Mazarr, defense expert at the U.S. think tank Rand Corporation writes of the new theory, "It could be threatening tactics by the Russians. But it could also be true and Putin is actually changing course. The risk of such a scenario cannot be ignored."

If Putin really does launch the national mobilization on May 9 and announces to his people that they are at war with NATO, Mazarr says that would create "a major dilemma for the U.S. and NATO." So far, he said, the U.S. has been trying to "massively weaken" Russia. But if Putin continues to escalate the situation, the question arises whether direct war intervention can still be avoided.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I was wondering about May 9th, too, but hoped the Russian Adolf would just try to get away with announcing a fake victory. Since some days I do not hope that anymore. The rhetoric for Russia is becoming more and more hysterical and hostile, and I said often enough that Russian Adolf is a psychopath who can behave and is trapped in just one single behaviour pattenr he knows: escalation, never admit a sign that could be itnerpreted as weakness, always escalating, escalating, escalating, the only answer to just anything.

I must admit I think the most likely scenario now looks as if it will be that in a few weeks we all will be officially at war with Russia. Our nations better start to get their acts together. 30 years of sleepwlaking cannot be comepsnated in just a few weeks, oibviously.

Markus, you were the first again in this forum pointing out this scenario of Russia and NATO being at war with each other, in the very beginning already ypu painted that scenario. I didn't believe it woulod get this far. But again it looks you are set to be right.

And people call me a pessimist! Obviously even my unwelcomed views in the past years were still too optimistic.

Lend-and-lease 2.0.


DW:

It is December 17, 1940, when Franklin D. Roosevelt reminds the U.S. of the importance of having a garden hose in an emergency situation. Five weeks earlier, the German Luftwaffe had razed the English city of Coventry to the ground; Britain's main ally, France, had been defeated by the Nazis months earlier; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had then written a desperate letter to the U.S. president in early December, with a fiery appeal to deliver destroyers against the German submarines.

Roosevelt therefore appeared before the press a good year after the start of the Second World War and explained to his compatriots in advance the Lend-Lease Act, which he would sign on March 11, 1941: "If there is a fire at my neighbor's, I will of course lend him my garden hose and not say to him, 'Mr. Neighbor, the hose cost $15, you must now pay me the $15.' I don't want the US$15 - I want my garden hose back when you put the fire out."

The U.S. lends its garden hose, under the Lend-Lease Act, to France and to China, but mostly to Great Britain and later to the Soviet Union in the fight against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. Heavy weapons, ammunition, vehicles, gasoline, aircraft, and foodstuffs such as canned meat totaling nearly $50 billion are leased, with the option to pay later - until the program expires in August 1945, shortly after the end of World War II.
War-crucial aid to Britain and the Soviet Union.

"Lend-Lease was absolutely essential to the ability of Britain and the Soviet Union to fight the war. In early 1941, just before the Lend-Lease Act was passed, Churchill tells the British monarch King George VI that without it, Britain would not be able to go on and win the war," says Charlie Laderman.
Charlie Laderman | Lecturer in International History at King's College London

Laderman is a historian and lecturer in international history at King's College in London. In his book "Five Days in December," he and Irish historian Brendan Simms have meticulously reconstructed how the defeat of the Axis powers began in late 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war on the United States. The Lend-Lease Act, he says, was decisive in the war,especially the support for the Soviet Union.

"It gave Soviet forces the mobility they needed for their advances from 1943 to 1945. The Soviets denied this after the war, but even Vladimir Putin later admitted it," Laderman says. The Red Army advanced with the support of tens of thousands of trucks from U.S. carmaker Studebaker. Even the turnaround of the war at Stalingrad in 1942 would not have happened the way it did without the Lend-Lease Act, many historians are certain.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev recounted that Stalin once told him, "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we would not have been able to withstand the pressure of Germany and we would have lost the war." At the Allied conference in Tehran in late 1943, Stalin, keeping quiet about supplies at home, even raised his glass to the U.S. automobile and oil industries.

Nearly eight decades later, two senators recall the Lend-Lease Act that helped bring the Nazis to their knees during World War II: John Cornyn, who has represented the state of Texas in the Senate for 20 years, and his Democratic colleague Ben Cardin of Maryland introduce the "Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act" as a bill April 6 in the House, which passes it unanimously. If the initiative also passes the House of Representatives, the U.S. will be able to deliver weapons and other aid to Ukraine for two years more quickly and with less red tape.

"If we believe the U.S. supports freedom and democracy, we must provide Ukraine with the weapons necessary to protect its citizens. I urge the House of Representatives to pass this legislation as quickly as possible so that our promises to our allies do not fall flat," Cornyn said. Already, U.S. military aid since the war began totals $3.7 billion.

So can the Lend-Lease Act be a game-changer, as it was 80 years ago, as the U.S. hopes? And how does the situation today compare with that of then? "It remains unclear whether defense assistance will be enough to beat Putin," says historian Laderman. In any case, he says, the world is a different place today, and Putin is not Hitler. "But in fighting Putin's war of aggression, Western statesmen face the same dilemma as their predecessors in 1941. For Hitler, the Lend-Lease Act was tantamount to a U.S. declaration of war, even without a formal declaration."

The United States became the arsenal of the Allies in World War II through the Lend-Lease Act, even now the U.S. is the country that supplies most of the weapons to Ukraine: Howitzers, Russian-made helicopters, armored personnel carriers, drones. The West, Laderman said, must now watch closely how Russia reacts to a Lend-Lease 2.0: "Putin already saw himself trapped in a conflict with the West; for him, it makes no difference whether there is indirect or direct support for Ukraine. So it is unlikely that the adoption of the Lend-Lease Act is a turning point for Putin. On the other hand, this conflict also shows that Putin, like Hitler, is capable of disastrous games and miscalculations."

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Poland will deliver Ukraine 200 tanks type T-72. Poland will also extend its aerial protection with its F-16s to Slovenia, while Slovenia will deliver its Mig-29s to Ukraine.

German chancellor Scholz' Airbus avoided to pass or even get near to Russian and Chinese airspace on his trip to and from Japan, instead extended the flight path by almost 2 hours while rerouting via Alaska and the North Pole. On his first visit to Asia, he did not prefer China for a first visit as Schroeder and Merkel always did after elecitons, but ignored Bejing completely.

Porn industry. It would be interesting if you were able to filter out all of the Eastern European produced porn, how much would be left?


Hey look at all this freed up bandwith!:03:

Another mass grave containing 900 bodies has been found in the Kyiv region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says

Zelensky also said he would be willing to hold peace talks with Russia's President Vladimir Putin despite Russian atrocities

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says his country does not consider itself to be at war with Nato, state news agency Ria has reported

A senior defence official has said the US does not believe Russia will use nuclear weapons, Reuters reports

The US has accused the Russian president of "depravity and brutality" in his invasion of Ukraine

Markus

Lavrov argued that "such a development increases the risk of nuclear war, which cannot be allowed." He went on to say that Russia is not threatening anyone with nuclear war. "It is Western countries that are talking about that."

Much Doublethink defiantly Doublethink

I dont know why Comical Ivans still get their daily dose of radio time in Western media. Why does anyone still care for what any of their propaganda troops lies about? Lavrov's tongue is a flesh-eating made, it only is meant to bite and drill holes into the other's ears and brain.

Their military top leaders, are angry about how limited the war is, they want to become unleashed and oppenly talk of that they consider Russia to be at war with NATO, and want Russia to declare itself at war against NATO.

And Putin? We must and should be aware of it now at the latest: he sees NAOT waging war against Russia since the time before he even became El Presidente.

They can talk by deeds, and what they do, start to do, stop to do, never have done - that is the only thing nowadays I care to take as Russian communication worth to be taken note of. With mouthes they lie whenever they open them.

A friend wrote that we do not know what's going on inside this madmans head

This made me remember the movie with John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich

I know for sure there are psychiatrist, psychologist, psychoanalyst studying every step and word Putin takes and say

So you could say they are being Putin.

Markus

..............."Long live Putin!"......................... "Keep it up!"..........................."We thank you!"
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/images/a...format1007.jpg
Shareholder meeting at Rheinmetall, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Thyssen-Krupp, Airbus etc

:har::har::har:

Markus

Latest on the Ukraine Russian war with Phil Giraldi, former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer

https://youtu.be/cKDRT4PomWw