Hacker News Reader

Comment by moremetadata | Hacker News Reader

The Black Sea Naval Control.

Putin offers something very attractive to the poor, shared oil wealth which is why he's been going after the oligarchs who took their wealth abroad. 2nd or 3rd largest global oil reserves can be found there. Saudi Arabia and the Middle East is too unstable and running dry.

The Anglo-Saxon model of wide wealth distribution will be used against the West.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-the-b...

View on HN

- The Black Sea Naval Control.

That’s what Crimea is for.

Not really sure what to say about the bit with the “shared” oil wealth. Is that something he has ever offered to “the poor” over the past 25 years that he has been in power?

Russia‘s wealth divide is wider than most of Europe and very close to the USA:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coef...

There isn’t a big difference here.

To fully control the Black Sea Russia needs control over Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia (in that order). 3 of them are NATO members [0] and the other two are already under western influence. Try to mess with any of them and the III World War will be ignited.

Moldova is almost useless (for that purpose) unless its used to invade Western Ukraine and Romania. They control an impressive 0 meters of Black Sea coast and a whopping 500 meters of Danube's left bank.

The Black Sea is already controlled by Turkey (and NATO). Thank the Montreux convention [1] for that. Turkey's fleet is several times bigger (compared to Russian's presence on the Black Sea) and unlike Russian's they can move freely and expand its capabilities faster. Russia can't even effectively block grain ships parting from Odessa.

Moldova is under Kremlin's radar since its independence thanks to the breakaway territory of Transnistria. The region is a hot mess thanks to USSR policies of changing borders of its republics at whim without caring about the local population. The consequences of USSR's fall did a huge damage to Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. Some regions have already recovered like the Baltic states or Poland. Transnistria, like Crimea or Ukraine used to be part of the Russian Empire since they conquered both of them to the Ottoman Empire and the Tatars. Its population was and is a mixture of Ukrainians, Moldovans and Russians. Ukraine and Crimea have their fair share of history compared to Transnistria though. And obviously, there's not an easy solution to this problem.

[0] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/nato_countries.htm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...

Just one note about Article 5 "ironclad commitment" and WWIII.

The article 5 says: "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and [...] each of them,[...] will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, [...] such action as it deems necessary"

It doesn't mean at all that if there is an invasion by unmarked troops coming from Belarus into Poland that Washington is going to send all the nukes on Moscow.

For example, they could consider appropriate reaction to send financial "support" (like a loan), but they don't have to declare or enter total war (which is a common misconception).

Moldova isn't on the Black Sea.

10 February 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64595322

Moldova's government has collapsed and its pro-EU prime minister has stepped down after 18 months of political and economic turbulence.

Europe's poorest country was struggling with "multiple crises", outgoing PM Natalia Gavrilita said on Friday.

With the war raging in neighbouring Ukraine, Moldova has been facing inflation, high energy prices, a refugee influx and Russian aggression.

https://www.google.com/search?q=oil+in+yuan

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...

"China, the world's largest buyer of crude, has opened the door to trading crude oil and natural gas in its local currency, rather than the Dollar"

Moldova still isn't on the Black Sea

But it is on the R. Danube, which through a network of channels would connect them to the Alps and allow an assault on Liechtenstein.

Which would give them access to the Alpentunnel by which it can launch an assault on Luxembourg

what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

The price will be in its local currency instead of the dollar, of course.

To be clear the government change in Moldova is more like an internal reorg of the current ruling party. The new government continues the same agenda as the previous one, and only a few members have changed.

Describing it as a "collapse" is purposefully misleading.

Transnistria has access to the Black Sea through a river.

…but Russia is more stable?

Well, it is stable actually. Pretty disgusting stability, but like, you can't say it is unstable.

It’s no more or less stable than the other countries named.

Putin became president of Russia in 2000. There was one cycle in which he was not formally president and still kept power. Russia is remarkably stable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com