Ukraine government started accepting Bitcoin, Ehtereum and USDT donations. If you want to help, here is information:
https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1497594592438497282I'm also proud that people in my country donated over €4 million just in few days to Blue-Yellow organisation which supply aid to Ukraine:
https://www.blue-yellow.lt/en/I know it's spot in the sea, but I think it's biggest donation campaign in my country history.
The most damaging thing the West could do without putting boots on the ground would probably be to confiscate Russia's central bank reserves like the US did with Afghanistan's central bank.
If you wanted to get rid of Putin ASAP, I think the most effective thing that could be done would be to put a $1 billion bounty on Putin's head, plus a promise of immunity for any past misdeeds. You have to imagine that many of Putin's close associates would rather this nutcase be dead. The West was more-or-less fine with Russia's internal authoritarianism, and Russia's oligarchs had a good thing going, but now Putin has screwed it all up for them. All of these sanctions are clearly designed to eventually make Russians angry enough to get Putin toppled, but a bounty+immunity would be a lot more effective. (I think that issuing this sort of bounty would be considered an act of war, though.)
Well, actually, it's happening. US is considering to freeze reserves of Central Bank of Russia - over $643 billion:
https://gazettengr.com/u-s-considers-freezing-650-billion-reserve-of-russian-central-bank/It's easy to tell ask for Putin's head. But c'mon, this guy have nuclear weapon button and considering from his recent actions, he completely lost his mind. Nobody is going to risk that much.
Won't that cause an increase in oil prices in Europe though? Russia is one of the largest exporters of CNG, while Europe also imports oil, at a decent percentage. The war itself already skyrocketed oil and gas prices, however, wouldn't these sanctions lead to a further increase in prices, in the near future?
Talking about the financial repercussions is the least important thing when people are literally dying, however, it was a question I wanted to ask, since Russia is one of the largest exporters in that industry.
No doubts that it will increase oil and gas price in Europe. But I think it's simply not acceptable to feed country which literally started war. Sanctions against Russia will hurt Europe too, but every decision have it's price and priorities should be chosen.
As some others have said already, banning Russia from SWIFT isn't very useful, and may in fact be counterproductive long-term. Banning them from SWIFT is like this: Imagine that most of Russia's exports were sent to the outside world via UPS, and you ban Russia from using UPS. It's very disruptive short-term (for both sides of the trade), but they're just going to switch to Fedex or whatever. Banning Russia from SWIFT is like that: it's short-term very disruptive, but it's not that hard for Russia to find an alternative, and long-term the ban weakens SWIFT. Banning Russia from SWIFT sounds like you're banning sending money to Russia by any means, but it's not. The West could ban sending money to Russia by any means, but Europe is highly dependent on Russian imports, so they're just going to pretend to "completely cut off Russia" by banning them from SWIFT.
The most damaging thing the West could do without putting boots on the ground would probably be to confiscate Russia's central bank reserves like the US did with Afghanistan's central bank.
If you wanted to get rid of Putin ASAP, I think the most effective thing that could be done would be to put a $1 billion bounty on Putin's head, plus a promise of immunity for any past misdeeds. You have to imagine that many of Putin's close associates would rather this nutcase be dead. The West was more-or-less fine with Russia's internal authoritarianism, and Russia's oligarchs had a good thing going, but now Putin has screwed it all up for them. All of these sanctions are clearly designed to eventually make Russians angry enough to get Putin toppled, but a bounty+immunity would be a lot more effective. (I think that issuing this sort of bounty would be considered an act of war, though.)
I was surprised that Kyiv didn't fall last night, and I keep hoping that the Russians are somehow fought off, but it's almost unimaginable that Kyiv isn't going to fall eventually. The force differential is just too large. If Zelenskyy is dedicated to the idea of Ukraine fighting a protracted resistance in the same vein as Afghanistan or Vietnam, he should record a really good speech to broadcast after he is inevitably killed by the Russians, so that he can become an ideal martyr.
Kyiv did not fall because of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14gVDF2b1vAIf you know Russian, you will be pissing your pants. I did. Hilarious clip.
Looks like Russians are not very well prepared. Lack of communication. They don't know where they are going, or what the current situation is.
Russian POWs said that some troops are dumping fuel from their tanks not to advance into Ukrainian territory, to avoid being killed.
Putin must be furious.
It's simply hilarious. But I'm very surprised that Russian army is so poorly prepared. From what I read, they never had so many victims in such short time in any other war since WW2. But I have bad feeling that they don't show their real potential.
