How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[barbos]

I thought this was a bit of good news:

Russia's central bank makes huge interest rate hike to try to prop up falling ruble

It's standard monetary policy and doesn't mean Russia is in crisis, but it does mean waging Russian Hitler's invasion has its costs.

The Russian central bank has been rather competent in saving the ruble from crashing already in 2022. But eventually, real economy will start to bite back. My hope is that this will really start to impact the elites in Moscow, and they start questioning if the war is worth it. I doubt their opinions matter much though.

Ruble drops because oil is dropping. And oil is dropping because The western economies are dropping.

 

[barbos]

How's the ruble doing?

Tumbling rouble claws back ground as central bank to meet

The tumbling rouble reversed course late on Monday, rising back to the strong side of 100 against the dollar after Russia's central bank sparked expectations of another hefty rate hike in announcing an extraordinary policy meeting for Tuesday.

www.reuters.com

Russian Ruble to US Dollar Exchange Rate Chart | Xe

RUB to USD currency chart. XE’s free live currency conversion chart for Russian Ruble to US Dollar allows you to pair exchange rate history for up to 10 years.

www.xe.com

Not the reactionary spike of March 2022 but looks to be more of a structural downward trajectory to settle in lower as it did after March of 2014. Goody, goody gumdrops.

Structural? do you even know what this word means?

 

[Copernicus]

Ruble drops because oil is dropping. And oil is dropping because The western economies are dropping.

It is interesting that barbos contradicts the Kremlin-backed explanation, which was that loose monetary policy was the cause. Barbos says it was the dropping price of oil, which is largely driven by factors such as lower demand for gasoline and heightened oil production in the US and elsewhere to mitigate the loss of Russian and other OPEC cuts to production. Perhaps his own government doesn't think that the "Western economies are dropping" excuse is going to work, but they also realize that the dropping of oil is caused by factors beyond their control. So it is better to make the excuse about monetary policy than to link it to the price of oil, as barbos does.

The upshot is that I think barbos is right to tie it to the dropping price of oil, although that has nothing to do with Western economies sinking. Here is a link that corroborates his link between the fall of the ruble and dropping oil revenues:

Russia's ruble has tumbled. What does it mean for the wartime economy?​

The Russian government doesn't see this as necessarily a big problem, although it is for Russians generally because of rampant inflation. So it is useful to put out the line that the cause of the drop in oil revenues is linked to the harm caused to Western economies by their continued support for Ukraine in the resistance to the Russian invasion. Hence, ordinary folks should tighten their belts and feel good that the war is working to harm Western economies. Barbos really believes this crap.

 

[Jayjay]

I've explained it, and you already conceded that point.

What the fuck are you talking about?????

On the other hand, you haven't explained why the person who you claim "faking" the video did not add it to one frame

I don't have to.

Yes, you do. I explained how it is a compression artifact. You are claiming that someone forgot to add the missile on purpose (or accident). So burden of proof is on you to explain why he forgot that. But I appreciate that you finally at least tried:

But if you insist, then here it is. Ukrainian piece of shit had a video of an explosion without missile (obviosuly.)
then he had a separate video of a real missile falling to the ground. He removed background around missile, assigned alfa-channel to it. and merged frames from two videos. Problem is, video of a missile was at a lower frame rate, therefore result is missing missile on some of the frames. He should have put a little more into this scam. But they are lazy.
The end.

That's a nice theory. But you do realize that you're arguing against yourself here.

If he added missiles from lower frame rate video to higher framerate one frame by frame, there would be no missing frames. He'd pick missile from frame 1 to building frame 1, missile frame 2 to building frame 2, etc.

If he converted the video from lower frame rate to higher one (say 25 to 30), then you have exactly the same problem that you're accusing the video of having in the first place: missile is absent in one frame. Which you're claiming is impossible.

Second, you have zero corroborating evidence. If we forget about the video and put it aside as contentious, you have nothing else to back up your bullshit theory. I have: the videos from the scene showing subsequent attacks with missiles. Including a hole in the ceiling which your theory can't explain at all. You haven't given any motive for Ukrainians to blow up their own building, when Russia was already shelling the city to rubble. There's no motive, no means, no suspects, nothing whatsoever to back up your conspiracy theory.

No, wait. One more thing I feel I need to repeat to you again (cause your memory is not good). "Missile" "hit" a tree line before the building.

No, it doesn't hit the treeline. It hits the space between the building and the trees:



You can see the remains of the trees in the front.

 

[barbos]

I explained how it is a compression artifact

No, you absolutely did not.

If he added missiles from lower frame rate video to higher framerate one frame by frame, there would be no missing frames. He'd pick missile from frame 1 to building frame 1, missile frame 2 to building frame 2, etc.

Nope.

 

[barbos]

No, it doesn't hit the treeline. It hits the space between the building and the trees

It absolutely did "hit" (was planted in) tree line.
Also level of damage and explosion itself is not consistent with the missile allegedly used.
Moreover, ukrainian regime did not even investigate it.
And even more, we know for a fact that ukrainian regime did hit their own territories on purpose (Kramatorsk)
It was established beyond any doubt that it was ukrainian Tochka-U and it was intentional.

 

[Jayjay]

BBC apologized for inaccuracies in its report, but I'm not sure if it ever admitted to the hospital footage being staged.

What inaccuracies????
They totally admitted that video was staged.

Source?

I gave it to you the first time. The source is their reply to RT banning in GB. In it they TACITLY admit that video was staged.
They basically said "Contrary to the RT claims, We did not take any part in it" That implies that video was staged but BBC were not involved in staging.

I don't recall you ever giving any source for these claims, and I'm not going to bother searching the forum.

If you have the video, post it. If I find it on my own, I'll get back to you. Meanwhile, I'm just going to assume it's misrepresented and incorrect like most other things you post.

Oh right, you don't deal with "sources" or "evidence" or other western MSM claptrap.

BBC's retractions are on their website and were widely publicized. But they didn't seem to deal with any footage being staged.

The whole "Assad is using chemical weapons" was a western organized lie and BBC took an active role in it.

Not according to OPCW or any authority on the matter. Assad's people were caught on tape dropping chemical weapons from a helicopter at least in one occasion. And if they did it once, they probably did it other times as well.

OPCW, LOL. Like they can be trusted not to follow what scum in washington orders them to do.
People in all these world organizations are just people, and they know if US is not happy with them it will hurt.

There are countless examples of this. Atomic energy organization covering for Ukraine. Hell, US just ordered Pakistan to remove their PM, because he was not pro-ukrainian enough.

For a conspiracy theorist, everything is a conspiracy.

 

[barbos]

I don't recall you ever giving any source for these claims,

Of course you don't, you have this selective blindness, very useful.

For a conspiracy theorist, everything is a conspiracy.

it's not a conspiracy. It's recorded fact.

 

[Jayjay]

I thought this was a bit of good news:

Russia's central bank makes huge interest rate hike to try to prop up falling ruble

It's standard monetary policy and doesn't mean Russia is in crisis, but it does mean waging Russian Hitler's invasion has its costs.

The Russian central bank has been rather competent in saving the ruble from crashing already in 2022. But eventually, real economy will start to bite back. My hope is that this will really start to impact the elites in Moscow, and they start questioning if the war is worth it. I doubt their opinions matter much though.

Ruble drops because oil is dropping. And oil is dropping because The western economies are dropping.

Oil price is not actually dropping, it's going up.

Urals Oil - Price - Chart - Historical Data - News

Urals Oil increased 23.29 USD/Bbl or 39.01% since the beginning of 2024, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. This page includes a chart with historical data for Urals Crude.

tradingeconomics.com

 

[barbos]

If you have the video,

Video of what?
It was press release from BBC, where they admit it was staged.

 

[Jayjay]

I explained how it is a compression artifact

No, you absolutely did not.

I did. Your ignorance on how video compression works doesn't change the fact.

Not every pixel is kept. The compression algorithm loses information, and ignores small changes... like the one you get from faded shadow of a missile in one frame only. So the algorithm ignores it and just stores information on motion vector from previous frame. I checked this by comparing the pixel difference between the frames. Near the missile (or where it is supposed to be in the other frame), even the building itself was a pixel-perfect match between frames in that area.

If he added missiles from lower frame rate video to higher framerate one frame by frame, there would be no missing frames. He'd pick missile from frame 1 to building frame 1, missile frame 2 to building frame 2, etc.

Nope.

Yes, it's a "nope" because it never happened.

 

[barbos]

I did. Your ignorance on how video compression works doesn't change the fact.

you did not. I know everything about video compression.
Video compression CAN NOT lose large objects.They can lose details of that large objects but they can not lose it completely, it's not possible. You will always have something there, even if it's some blob. What we have perfect background and no missile.
I-frame are based on surrounding frames, and if surrounding frames have then it's mathematically impossible to disappear in i-frame.

 

[Jayjay]

No, it doesn't hit the treeline. It hits the space between the building and the trees

It absolutely did "hit" (was planted in) tree line.
Also level of damage and explosion itself is not consistent with the missile allegedly used.

Who says it's not?

Moreover, ukrainian regime did not even investigate it.

Why investigate the obvious?

And even more, we know for a fact that ukrainian regime did hit their own territories on purpose (Kramatorsk)

This was another Russian strike which you and Russian propaganda tried to claim was a false flag Ukrainian strike, but if you recall, you lost that argument too. The missile was confirmed to come from South-East, and launches were observed in Russian-occupied territory.

You can't use one false claim to corroborate another false claim.

It was established beyond any doubt that it was ukrainian Tochka-U and it was intentional.

What's beyond doubt is the type of missile and that it was indeed a Tochka-U... which Russia and it's proxies also have and have been confirmed using.

Also, you have a higher burden of proof claiming Ukraine did it, because it would require them to shoot at their own people and infrastructure, which is an extraordinary claim, as there's no evidence for them doing that and because it's psychologically not normal. Heck even when Russians do false flags, they try to avoid killing their own people because that's bad for morale: that's why in Olenivka prison the Russian guards were unscathed. There is a very high bar to prove that someone attacked themselves. On the other hand, there's a a very low bar to assume that Russia was shooting at Ukraine. They do it all the time.

 

[barbos]

Who says it's not?

I say, I have seen damage from rocket artillery round of that size.

This was another Russian strike which you and Russian propaganda tried to claim was a false flag Ukrainian strike,

You got it backward, It was ukrainian strike which nazis planned to blame russian for.
unfortunately for them some western journalist took a photo of a serial number of a missile.
The result is western media silence
Nazi regime in kiev hit a railstation under Ukrainian Control at the time where people gathered in order to flee to Russia.
Then they tried to blame it on Russia. Did not work that way.
First, Russia does not use Tochka-U. Second, serial number from a batch Ukraine had used before.

 

[Jayjay]

I did. Your ignorance on how video compression works doesn't change the fact.

you did not. I know everything about video compression.
Video compression CAN NOT lose large objects.They can lose details of that large objects but they can not lose it completely, it's not possible. You will always have something there, even if it's some blob. What we have perfect background and no missile.
I-frame are based on surrounding frames, and if surrounding frames have then it's mathematically impossible to disappear in i-frame.

The fact that it is a perfect background support my hypothesis that it is a compression artifact: if it wasn't, then the background would also have some minor differences between frames, but they don't. They match the previous frame exactly. The reason for this is that the compression algo decided to skip those details, including the faint missile shadow. Or it could have been lost due to frame rate conversion, since we don't know what the original CCTV footage had or how many times the video went through decoding and encoding before being published.

 

[barbos]

The fact that it is a perfect background support my hypothesis that it is a compression artifact

Nope, it does not. Compression WILL NEVER do that. If there is not enough bitrate it will show some mess.
You don't have a fucking clue about subject.

The algorithm you just extracted from your ass will be absolutely intolerable to watch, where objects suddenly appear/dissappear from frame to frame. It does not happen in real life and human vision is not used to it.

 

[Jayjay]

Who says it's not?

I say, I have seen damage from rocket artillery round of that size.

Hahaha. So we're just supposed to take your "expert" word for it? You alone, and nobody else in the world can apparently tell the difference.

This was another Russian strike which you and Russian propaganda tried to claim was a false flag Ukrainian strike,

You got it backward, It was ukrainian strike which nazis planned to blame russian for.
unfortunately for them some western journalist took a photo of a serial number of a missile.

Which proves nothing, because these missiles were all manufactured in the USSR and delivered all over the Soviet Union. Besides, any missiles that would have been stationed in Crimea or Donbas in 2013 would have fallen into Russian hands.

What matters is that missile launches were observed on that date from DPR/LPR territory.

Russian propaganda always tries to blame Ukraine for everything it does, this is nothing new. Russia shot down MH17, blamed Ukraine. Russia shelled a maternity hospital in Mariupol, blamed Ukraine. Russia hit civilians in a theater, blamed Ukraine. Russia torched POWs in Olenivka prison, blamed Ukraine (and tried to deliberately fake it). Russia blew up Nova Kakhovka damn, blamed Ukraine. Russia blew up Nordstream, blamed ... the US? Or UK? Or Norway? Can't keep track.

The point is that Russia claiming something doesn't make it true. Evidence matters, and in all of these cases, a closer examination of the evidence points to Russia being responsible.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Ukrainian soldiers using thermal imagers on quadcopters to spot landmines at dusk while they're still warm from the day's sun.

Ukraine's Armed Forces use thermal imagers to find Russian mines

CNN reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are using experimental thermal imaging devices to uncover Russian mines. Source: CNN Details: A CNN journalist saw Ukrainian soldiers on the front installing a thermal imaging camera on a commercial drone at dusk.

news.yahoo.com

 

[barbos]

Or it could have been lost due to frame rate conversion,

Can't happen either. Stuff never disappears, it gets distorted, blurred, etc, but it never disappears.

 

[Jayjay]

The fact that it is a perfect background support my hypothesis that it is a compression artifact

Nope, it does not. Compression WILL NEVER do that. If there is not enough bitrate it will show some mess.
You don't have a fucking clue about subject.

The algorithm you just extracted from your ass will be absolutely intolerable to watch, where objects suddenly appear/dissappear from frame to frame. It does not happen in real life and human vision is not used to it.

In this case the object appears even originally in just one frame. As a faint glitch. That's exactly the kind of lossy information that compression algorithms are designed to get rid of.