Eastern European conflict (Ukraine)

The Russian says the same as the English.

Anything's translatable with translate.google.com and copy/paste

The media tend to cover the military aspects of this because they have pictures. However this is an interesting article in The Atlantic about the financial sanctions. Summary: they are *very* severe.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/how-russian-sanctions-work/622940/

Russia is not a leading economy, it is about the same size GDP as Australia and similarly based on commodities. It cannot survive these sanctions assuming China doesn't actively support them which at present looks unlikely.

I'm surprised Putin is still there, because there's no way he can come out of this looking successful. There must be an awful lot of people high up in Russia's administration who are thinking that all their problems could go away almost immediately if they were only able to turn back the clock, and in effect they could turn back the clock if they had a convenient scapegoat to carry all the blame and humiliation on their behalf. If I was in Putin's position I'd be rushing to accept responsibility and resign, because it's a hell of a lot easier to make someone a reluctant scapegoat when they're not around to argue about it.

Putin lives in fantastical bubble though. He absolutely believes he has a right to "reclaim" Ukraine as he has done previously. Noone will tell him otherwise. The fear instilled by the KGB roots is too strong and thats why anyone within his circle (tight and wider), even if they did think otherwise, would never push for anything else. That recent exchange between Putin and Russian Spy chief is testament to this. "Accept responsibility and resign" is not an option in his reality; that's why we've seen a harder, fiercer push in the last 48hrs. He knows it's not gone to plan with his first line of attack (no doubt some advisors and Chiefs in that circle will have now gone missing) rather than admitting defeat, he's upped the fire power, upped the numbers and upped the mindgames. He genuinely believes every nation, like his own, fears him, whereas on the outside looking in, we see a completely different reality.

Supporting Russia: Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Syria
Abstentions: Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, CAR, China, Congo, Cuba, El Salvador, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazhakstan, Krygyzstan, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Uganda, Tanzania, Vietnam, Zimbabwe

If it helps:

The one that surprised me in that list was South Africa. I suppose it only surprised me because I don't know much about politics there. There may be reasons for abstentions - for example I would say in any solution to the crisis China has to be involved in some way - as an intermediary, policing a ceasefire or whatever - and so need to maintain an appearance of neutrality. Others of course have no such excuse - Pakistan for example.

UK foreign aid to Pakistan is currently around £300m a year. 

UK press reporting on the military aspect of the conflict is almost entirely superficial, ill-informed and sensationalist. Just like it was for Covid. Here's a dispassionate article on the current military position and possible future outcomes by a Professor of War Studies.

samf.substack.com/p/russias-plan-c?s=w

Politics is the answer here. Putin has proven himself unstable. A lot of counties are currently passively involved because as soon as they start throwing their heavies into it, when it stops being  Russia vs Ukraine and becomes a multi-country effort then Putin is likely to become trigger happy and this would not end well. It will go nuclear. So currently, countries are providing the support in ways that they can, in munitions and sanctions.

Many reasons. There have actually been multiple convoys at different times that have got stuck .That said, earlier in the week multiple previous convoys were bombed, it's just not made the headlines. Ukraine is trying to hold down it's cities currently where the worst conflict is, so why put efforts into a convoy that has effectively disabled itself by the lack of fuel and food. 

They go of their own free will. Some correspondents already residents of those areas. Reporters in a warzone is hardly unique to this conflict in Ukraine. Anyone reporting for press in a warzone is on an extremely high wage due to the risk.

Well this is because it was third world. Africa has very little to do with USA or USSR during the Cold War and very little now. They simply do not care as most of Africa.