The Brink of War?

[Moses]

Welcome to Camp Putin
"работа сделает тебя свободным"
("work will set you free" =Auschwitz)

Welcome to Orwell's World.

Have you seen investigations about MH17?

OLTEIHC7HYI6RJFEYBYO6U7TCU.jpg

Look at the pic - official pic from JIT presentation, - missile with this serial number has been manufactured in 1986 in Russia and send to... Ukraine. Since that time it was in Ukrainian military brigade at the West of Ukraine - small town Striy near Lviv. Surprise...

But Western medias will continue their "highly likely".

[Moses]

Bloomberg today:

Russian Current Account Surplus Surges to $96 Billion (3:22 p.m.)
Russia’s current account surplus more than tripled in the first four months of the year to $95.8 billion, the central bank said, as prices surged for its oil and gas exports and imports plunged under the weight of sanctions imposed by the US and its allies over Putin’s invasion.

The surplus on the current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, was the highest since at least 1994. The steady inflow of revenue from energy and other exports has -- aking with strict capital controls -- helped support the ruble, turning the Russian currency into the best performer in the world this year.

[Dragonman]

Since "Russian Federation trademarks" are under sanctions - who cares?

West froze and steal half of Russian gold reserve and you still have hopes what Russia will protect Western properties? Wrong. But Russia still has bilateral agreements in countries where it is interested in mutual protection.

Interestingly, TASS (https://tass.com/economy/1447575?utm...rer=google.com) reported "Anti-Russian sanctions 6 May, 02:49 US Treasury excludes intellectual property protection from sanctions against Russia." It stated, "WASHINGTON, May 5. /TASS/. The US Department of the Treasury excluded transactions related to the patent right, copyright and other forms of intellectual property protection from sanctions introduced against Russia, according to the general license released on Thursday."
"Transactions in connection with a patent, trademark, copyright, or other form of intellectual property protection in the United States or the Russian Federation that would be prohibited by the Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 587 (RuHSR), are authorized," the document says.
The general license authorizes "the filing and prosecution of any opposition or infringement proceeding with respect to a patent, trademark, copyright, or other form of intellectual property protection, or the entrance of a defense to any such proceeding."

This is despite the fact that the Russian Federation is legalizing the theft of intellectual property rights: "Russia made good on its threat to suspend intellectual property rights with a decree that patent holders from countries that are deemed “unfriendly” to Russia would not be entitled to compensation or damages resulting from “compulsory licenses” granted to patents.
As of the writing of this blog, the Russian government could determine that any patent owned in Russia is needed for national security (or another purpose) and give the rights to a Russian company to use the patent without the threat that they would face any lawsuits or have to pay any licensing fees" (https://www.gerbenlaw.com/blog/trade...eat-in-russia/).

Note the conditional language - "could determine." Has such a determination actually been made and published?

"Moreover, these measures violate the TRIPS Agreement to which Russia is a party. However, the Russian constitution was amended in 2020 to give the Russian constitution precedence over treaty obligations. It is difficult to predict whether the March 6 decree reducing some patent royalty rates to zero will be held to be grounded in the constitution. But because of the politically charged atmosphere surrounding the Ukraine war, it seems prudent to assume that no Russian court will overrule the March 6 Russian decree on the basis of the TRIPS Agreement" (https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/...erty-in-russia). That is, the assumption of judicial impartiality and the rule of law is negated under Putin. TRIPS stands for The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization.

Western nations have frozen but not stolen Russian gold reserves by banning individuals, including gold dealers, distributors, wholesalers, buyers and financial institutions, from buying, selling or facilitating gold-related transactions involving Russia and the various parties that have been sanctioned. The gold is still there but no-one can do anything with it while the sanctions are in place.

Ironically, the Russian Federation was reported in April 2022 as "‘preparing legal action’ to unfreeze $600bn foreign currency reserves" (https://www.theguardian.com/business...rency-reserves). The article also stated, "a similar threat made by Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, who said earlier this month that the Kremlin would sue if the west tried to force it to default on its sovereign debt." However, the article also noted: "In one example of such a legal case involving central bank reserves, the UK supreme court ruled in December against a Venezuelan appeal to allow access to almost $2bn of gold it held at the Bank of England."

Given the widespread looting by Russian forces in Ukraine, the irony of a thief threatening to resort to legal action is exquisite.

[cdnmatt]

But Russia still has bilateral agreements in countries where it is interested in mutual protection.

If you haven't noticed, so does the West. Our offering of mutual protection seems to be appealing to folks too, as Finland and Sweden are joining up right now. Cool, eh?

If you haven't noticed, they're joining NATO, not Russia. Maybe that's the question folks like Putin and the Russian leadership should be asking themselves -- why are all these countries constantly leaving the Russian orbit and aligning with the West? Might serve Russian interests better than constantly playing the victim card like Putin does with, "oh, the West is being mean to us, I had no choice but to invade Ukraine", and blah, blah...

[dab69]

Bloomberg today:

Billions more for Putin to steal from
stupid Russian people.

Now he can murder more of them.

[dab69]

Ukrainian air defence shoots down 11 Russian aerial targets, aircraft destroys Russian crossing
Ukrayinska Pravda


On 15 May, Ukrainian Air Defences destroyed 11 Russian aerial targets; Ukrainian attack aircraft destroyed a Russian crossing over the Inhulets River.

Source: Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Facebook

Quote from Air Force Command: "On 15 May, attack aircraft of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces once again targeted and hit the occupiers’ river crossing. This time, the crossing over the Inhulets River.

Fighter jets continue to patrol Ukraine’s airspace; attack and bomber aircraft carry out missile and bomb strikes on the occupiers’ positions, clusters of their troops, and convoys of their military equipment."

Details: On 15 May, anti-aircraft missile units of the Ukrainian Air Force shot down 2 Russian cruise missiles, 3 Orlan-10 UAVs, and a Ka-52 helicopter.

The Air Defences of the Land Forces damaged a Mi-28 helicopter and 4 Orlan-10 UAVs.

Overall, Ukrainian forces hit 11 aerial targets:

2 helicopters (Ka-52, Mi-28)

7 Orlan-10 UAVs

2 cruise missiles.

https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-air...210701191.html

[Dragonman]

Among the tragic stories emerging from this mad conflict are this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y62l_IYzKKg - and accompanying news reports such as this from the NY Post ("Captive Russian troops claim commanders kill their own wounded soldiers" - https://nypost.com/2022/05/16/russia...nded-soldiers/) that Russian army officers are killing their own wounded soldiers, while other soldiers "had committed suicide because they could no longer cope with the bungled invasion."

If Ukraine has violated Article 13 Footage of the Geneva Conventions - which provide POWs with protections (Article 13: “Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited”), I think the response should be to cite Putin's own words back at him, i.e., it is not a war but a special military operation. Russia very carefully has avoided any open declaration of war, even though one was expected in his May 9 speech.

Peter the Great built the beautiful city of St. Petersburg in an attempt to prove that Imperial Russia was a civilized European nation. Putin's Russia, despite its imperial trappings, is proving it is not.

[Dragonman]

..... But Russia still has bilateral agreements in countries where it is interested in mutual protection.

1992 – Collective Security Treaty – established the Collective Security Treaty Organization including Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan used to belong to CSTO but withdrew.

I can't think of any countries that might be interested in invading them - apart from Russia which occupied all of them at one point historically.

[cdnmatt]

Peter the Great built the beautiful city of St. Petersburg in an attempt to prove that Imperial Russia was a civilized European nation. Putin's Russia, despite its imperial trappings, is proving it is not.

Peter the Great is also on record saying he always stated he wished he was ruler of a civilized nation like Sweden, instead of a crazy nation like Russia.

[Dodger]

Nobody cares about the cares of McDonalds anymore here:

I'm not quite sure that the 60,000 Russian employees of McDonalds would agree.