Putin is ready to send his representatives to negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation in Minsk.

Looks like number of Russians killed in combat exceeds zero, and Xi Jinping should’ve called him earlier.

So, its safe to say that Putin asked for permission to start the war in Beijing and got it, but only after the Olympics. Now he got a permission to finish it.

Meanwhile two of China’s largest state-owned banks are restricting financing for purchases of Russian commodities, complying with American sanctions.

The Empire.

America couldn’t urge Germany to increase its military spending for years. Putin did it instantly.

The decision to raise defense spending above 2% of GDP means that in the coming decades the military budget of Germany will significantly exceed Russian.

Which makes the future of the continent very interesting.

Is everything ok? Stay safe, Russia is passing through extraordinary times. With best wishes!

https://yangx.top/EbuldinSkySpez/8194

Bank of Russia hiked key rate to 20% from 9.5% and ordered companies to sell 80% of their foreign currency revenues.

Saving the national currency is not an easy task.

Mortgages and loans in Russia are indeed temporarily dead. Extraordinary things going on, folks.

Michael Kofman, Director of Russia Studies at CNA on the flaws of Russian combat tactics:

“Russian units are not fighting as BTGs. They’re not doing combined arms warfare. They’re driving down roads in small detachments, pushing recon and VDV units forward. Tanks without infantry. It’s not going well for them because this isn’t how they organize and fight (more later)”.

Dan Hoffman, former CIA station chief in Moscow, told Fox News that Russian assault of Ukraine is an "extraordinary intelligence failure".

For whatever reason Putin thought that Ukranian government and army will collapse in a day or two. The strategic failure is obvious now.

In terms of consequences Putin’s decision is already worse than Brezhnev’s move in Afghanistan.

Sen. Marco Rubio, member of Senate Intelligence Committee: ’’I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with Putin“.

House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy: “Putin is unstable. At this moment in time, no country in the world should stand with“.

People in American agencies we have talked to these days do not say it directly, but the general assumption is that Vladimir Putin has serious mental problems and is unpredictable.

The decision to start war and especially the televised Security Council meeting and speech of the President also give some evidence that the 70-year old citizen of USSR is dispatched from reality.

Finnish political parties will gather today to discuss Finland’s potential NATO membership.

A survey by the Finnish broadcasting company Yle found that 53% of Finns support their country joining NATO.

In the previous poll in 2017, only 19% of Finns supported NATO membership.

Is it another great success of grandmaster Putin or what?

Mental state of Vladimir Putin is publicly questioned by a growing number of American officials who know him personally.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "I met with him many times, and this is a different Putin. He seems erratic”.

Former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper: "I personally think he’s unhinged. I worry about his acuity and balance".

Senior intelligence officials who have known Putin for decades told media that he has been isolated in a bunker for months interacting exclusively with a small group of advisers.

In all honesty, this looks like a bad dream. This war should be stopped as soon as possible in the interest of Russian people and Russian economy.

Do not support it. It will get worse for Russia day by day.

FSB is joint-stock company, its generals are successful businessmen. We have no clue why anyone is asking them questions like that.

If grandmaster Putin makes Finland a NATO state and Ukraine a member of EU, he should surely go down as one of the smartest and strategic Russian politicians. He has already done enough, though.

“This is the case of a massive Russian intelligence failure. Putin’s services did not warn him of what he was going to face in Ukraine. They provided him with misinformation and disinformation about what the actual state of play is”.

This is a point made by Paul Kolbe who served for 25 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. He is the Intelligence Project director at Harvard’s Belfer Center.

Unfortunately, Putin would never acknowledge this error which, regarding his questionable mental state, makes it even worse. He would kill tens of thousands of Russians and Ukranians just to prove his point.

It’s also unfortunate that the West makes no effort whatsoever to really stop the war. Although it’s not West’s direct responsibility.

Joe Biden: ‘’The United States Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of the Russian oligarchs“.

Putin couldn’t “nationalize” the oligarchs for years because he is the main Russian oligarch himself. Biden certainly has more authority in this case.

This will make up for hiking gas and metal prices, but overall the picture is grim.

Russian “countermeasures” against the West are Kremlin’s usual “let’s bomb Voronezh”. On the other hand, what can they do? Nothing.

It’s depressing to see that all of this was started by mentally unstable Putin to turn Russia back from where it started.

By publicly asking the personnel of Bank of Russia to avoid disagreements on political topic Elvira Nabiullina acknowledged that a vast majority of management in the Bank doesn’t support the war.

This is an extraordinary measure by all means. Russia was getting prepared for sanctions, but nobody thought they will be that devastating.

According to the US intelligence report, Chinese officials asked Russian officials to wait until the Winter Olympics in Beijing had concluded before sending troops into Ukraine.

It’s no big secret that Putin flew to Beijing in early February to get permission from his senior partner.

It’s also no big secret that Xi kind of despises Putin. Overall China has much more closer ties with the US than Russia.

For now Beijing is interested in Russians and Ukranians killing each other just for the purpose of distracting the US from China a little bit.

“Fake” information about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine will be punished with up to 15 years in prison. What is fake and what is not is being determined by mentally unstable Putin.

We all know one of Metallica's hits "Enter Sandman". Looking at Putin's actions both in Ukraine and Russia, we assume that someone could write a song "Enter Madman".

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council following an attack on Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by Russian forces.

This indeed has to be stopped, we just do not know what else Putin can do out of his ressentiment.

You still fail to realize what Putin has done to Russia and Russians around the world in long term. This was just unfortunate and unnecessary. It's even more unfortunate that the road back will be hard and painful.

Sen. Lindsay Graham said yesterday that America’s strategy should be to crush rouble, which is already happening, and drive Russians into poverty in order to make them take Putin out.

Sen. Graham is delusional. We don't think that cancelling Russia is a good strategy.

“People of Russia” are not a political actor, there is no legal political infrastructure in Russia other than Kremlin’s.

By making people suffer we just prove Putin right. All he says is that the West is aiming the people, not him.

If there is a goal to take Putin out, which we sincerely doubt, then you have to work with Russian elites.

Russian are and will be poor and brainwashed anyway.