Cuban missile crisis is definitely the closest to nuclear war, the current situation seems a long way off that.
Needless to say the grandiose posturing/strong rhetoric of Putin, Lavrov etc
Is being seen at face value on occasion, rather than maybe the words being mostly for the Russian media to broadcast and trying to justify the war and spin their own narrative, Us (Russians) against the West (NATO, US, Europe etc)
Agree with the yes men point by Neil earlier, Putin obviously got more positive reports than realistic about the Russian military capabilities, good video on their logistics problems here - https://youtu.be/b4wRdoWpw0w
Also best to say political/geopolitical discussions are tough and the written word on here doesn’t always convey a true opinion and/or knowledge you might be able to express in a face to face or group discussion in public without writing a novel
Definitely gone off topic for this thread, maybe best in this thread if a mod agrees/could move the responses made today - What is going on today? - Megathread
Good 3 part documentry on the BBC iplayer. Hitler & Stalin both refused to listen to anyone unless they were a yes man and both became increasingly insane. Stalin wouldn’t listen when told the Nazis were going to invade, Hitler told him they were just practicing for the invasion of Britain. Hitler wouldn’t listen when told the war against Russia was now futile.
The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin told Zelenski that he would be joining NATO but days before the invasion announced that they wouldn’t take Ukrainian membership off the table.
If they had announced no NATO membership for Ukraine publicly & agreed international mediation over the Donbas this would likely not have happened, so why did it?
This is not just about Putin - he is a big part but Russia are just a kleptocratic petro state. This is as much as demonstrating to Xi what would happen if he decided he wanted to Annex Taiwan.
Hey. As a previous poster said, let’s try to get this back on topic. Appreciate it’s a bit more nuanced here as the politics are directly linked, but looks like the thread topic is not being addressed anymore.
Preface; I was holding a Russian stock and flirted with the idea of trying turn a large loss into a profitable position, but after mitigating my losses substantially I ultimately decided against it and took a smaller l. Not because the idea of potentially losing my investment sent shivers down my spine (it was undoubtedly a high risk, high reward situation), but because ultimately I could do everything “right” and end up with nothing at no notice.
Whilst bearing in mind the warnings about staying on topic in mind, the bottom line question is this. I’m a Western investor. The West is sanctioning Russia economically and Russia is seeking to mitigate and counter the economic damage. If there is no prospect of those sanctions subsiding - something that Russia will actually know better than the West as Russia will have plans the West isn’t privy to and the acceptability of these plans would determine the future of sanctions - then Russia has no particular incentive to behave by normal rules.
So, with all that in mind, what exactly about this situation leads anyone to think that any profit involving Russian stocks at this moment is a profit until it’s realised profit? It is not merely possible, but actually likely, that someone doubles, triples their investment, then loses the whole lot without warning because someone, somewhere, does something stupid, or simply inconvenient for you. Possibly something in no way related to the investment.
I like to do a medium term swing trade now and then (buying at value with a target price in a single digit number of months), but investing in Russian stocks now isn’t a calculated risk - not even through the lens of high-risk, high-reward. It’s a flat-out punt, a punt that some chimps will luck out on and many more chumps will lose out on.
