This Is Why Ukraine Matters...

SmoothSeas

SmoothSeas

Senior Member
I didn't know most of this...

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This is why Ukraine matters:


ukraine022222.jpg
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It is the second-largest country by area in Europe by area and has a population of over 40 million - more than Poland.

Ukraine ranks:
* 1st in Europe in proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores;
*2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;
*2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of the world's reserves);
*2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);
*2nd place in Europe in terms of mercury ore reserves;
*3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)
*4th in the world by the total value of natural resources;
*7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

Ukraine is an important agricultural country:
*1st in Europe in terms of arable land area;
*3rd place in the world by the area of black soil (25% of world's volume);
*1st place in the world in exports of sunflower and sunflower oil;
*2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley exports;
*3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;
*4th largest producer of potatoes in the world;
*5th largest rye producer in the world;
*5th place in the world in bee production (75,000 tons);
*8th place in the world in wheat exports;
*9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;
*16th place in the world in cheese exports.

Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.

Ukraine is an important industrialized country:

*1st in Europe in ammonia production;
*Europe's 2nd’s and the world’s 4th largest natural gas pipeline system;
*3rd largest in Europe and 8th largest in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;
*3rd place in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of rail network length (21,700 km);
*3rd place in the world (after the U.S. and France) in production of locators and locating equipment;
*3rd largest iron exporter in the world
*4th largest exporter of turbines for nuclear power plants in the world;
*4th world's largest manufacturer of rocket launchers;
*4th place in the world in clay exports
*4th place in the world in titanium exports
*8th place in the world in exports of ores and concentrates;
*9th place in the world in exports of defense industry products;
*10th largest steel producer in the world (32.4 million tons).

Ukraine matters. That is why its independence is important to the rest of the world.
 

Good info to have. Biden needs to quit handling Putin with kid gloves. I'm the last one who wants war, and I don't think Putin does either. He's a bully that needs to know there are consequences to his actions. That is what NATO is supposed to be there for. If we don't stop him now, what's next?
 

Geezer Garage said:
Good info to have. Biden needs to quit handling Putin with kid gloves. I'm the last one who wants war, and I don't think Putin does either. He's a bully that needs to know there are consequences to his actions. That is what NATO is supposed to be there for. If we don't stop him now, what's next?
Click to expand...


He's starting off slow ..... Just like Hitler did in the 30's. We had better stop him now ... or the entire world could end up in harms way once again !
 
The statistics are interesting.

Many of them were a surprise to me.

The only thing that matters to me is the free people of the world helping the Ukrainian people stand up to a bully.

The talk of sanctions from the POTUS and other world leaders feels like a half-hearted response to me.

I fear for the future of the Ukrainian people.
 
Putin knows he can do this. The Western world is an absolute mess ...last gasp, imo. If the Western leaders do pull it together and try to fight militarily, he knows China will likely make their move on Taiwan. We certainly couldn't handle both Russia and China with volunteer forces.
 
AnnieA said:
Putin knows he can do this. The Western world is an absolute mess ...last gasp, imo. If the Western leaders do pull it together and try to fight militarily, he knows China will likely make their move on Taiwan. We certainly couldn't handle both Russia and China with volunteer forces.
Click to expand...
IMO the biggest threat we face from China is the possibility of them dumping the $1.065 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities that they own and disrupting global financial markets.
 
I have a minor understanding of Ukraine issues as I tend to avoid reading political news. The OP's economic inputs shows why Western nations have for years had a quiet agenda to control that area. Some opinions have argued it has primarily been about continued aggressive NATO expansions, however the West has not framed it so for the sake NATO military ambitions and interests of western corporations. The below opinion is sobering but politicians will be the last to frame it so.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...nctions-russian-banks-s-not-going-ncna1289540
snippets:

Specifically, the U.S. needs to shut down the prospect of NATO extending membership to Ukraine. For Russia, sitting by as another neighboring state flirts with leaving the Russian orbit to become a permanent member of the West’s security order is inconceivable. Preventing such a scenario from happening in what Russia views as its near-abroad, especially after watching NATO nearly double in size since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is perhaps the most urgent Russian national security priority today. (Just as the U.S. would never countenance Russia trying to form a military alliance with Mexico.)

Russia has a lot at stake in this crisis, and it would be a major mistake if the U.S. underestimated the length to which Moscow is willing to go to maintain what is left of its sphere of influence. While taking NATO membership off the table seems anathema to many in the West, it is merely an acknowledgement of the reality in front of us: Ukraine is not a suitable candidate for NATO membership and likely never will be. Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recognizes that Kyiv’s NATO aspirations are a “dream.”...

While a [Ukraine] survey this month put Ukrainian support for potential NATO membership at 56 percent, the numbers are in the low 30s in the south of the country and at 40 percent in the east [along eastern border]...

Washington and Brussels need to be honest about the current realities on the ground and wake Ukraine up from its dream of NATO inclusion once and for all.
 
He has moved into the bit on the map above, between Washington
DC and New York, the bit down by Raleigh that looks like an island
he took years ago, it is the Crimea Peninsula.

I fear that if a war develops, he will start throwing Nukes around and
I am not far away, probably one of the first targets.

Mike.
 
Yes, I see Putin like the Hitler of our present era. We need to send all those young people sitting around here starring at their smart phone over to Ukraine. Give them a uniform, a good gun and fight Putin. Forget those smartphone, their tik toks, their facebooks and their twitters. With bullets and bombs flying around they will be very busy and will have a new view on life.
 
When they took over the Crimean Peninsula, they left
some people, Russians and Pro-Russians, who took
over the area, just above the Crimea on the map, they
have been there since and are anti Ukraine Government.

A few days ago they started causing trouble in their part
of the country, probably pre-arranged, to allow the Russians
to enter that area as peacekeepers, that is suspected as his
plan and he still insists that he is willing to talk!

Mike.
 
I don't think so Lew. His type are basically cowards, and it would mean the end of his life also. If we don't start doing something about him, and his ilk now, democracy on this planet will soon be a thing of the past, and that includes here in the US too. The beginning of the evil empire, if you will.

Lewkat said:
No wonder Putin wants it. Sanctions against Putin will not work and he's just nuts enough to say, "well, if I cannot have it, no one will." And that will be the end of civilization as we know it.
Click to expand...
 
For some balance, more on Nato issues that is Putin's main demand that US politicians avoid discussing and seem to want our media to ignore. Note again, I personally am ignorantly neutral, however I do not like the behavior of much news media in this era that goes well beyond the Ukraine issues. Am also no fan of Putin, nor US militarists.

https://www.ft.com/content/b5886606-4d7d-41af-87c1-8d9993722e51

https://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clinton-expansion

ttps://www.eurasiareview.com/23022022-natos-ukraine-playbook-resonates-traditional-imperialism-oped/
 
Why Can’t NATO Admit Ukraine Has No Chance Of Joining?

What is now acutely clear: the only thing that has any prospect of forestalling war at this point is for the West to acknowledge the plain reality that Ukraine is never going to be invited into NATO. It is the foolishness of the highest order to pretend otherwise, especially when relentlessly keeping NATO’s door open is the most likely spark that would convince Putin that attempting a limited objective military strike into Ukraine might be better than having NATO as his next-door neighbor.

Ignore these realities by stubbornly clinging to the fiction NATO’s door remains open to Kyiv, and the U.S. will likely reap rotten fruit: potentially tens of thousands of Ukrainian people dying in an avoidable war, NATO security damaged – and regardless of which choice NATO makes, Ukraine will remain outside of NATO.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/02/why-cant-nato-admit-ukraine-has-no-chance-of-joining-nato/

 
If I understand this enough...if months ago NATO had agreed to keep out of Ukraine as a neutral state, Putin would probably have not had a publicly open excuse to let his rebels forces move on those provinces. Putin certainly has understandable motivations for that border region position given history he has publicly spouted to news media even if some prefer to quell that. Now he can truthfully state he gave The West a chance and they apparently were too thick headed stupid to understand that. Some have already begun laughing.
 
I live a relatively short distance from Washington, DC, and they tend to send up military jets on patrol when there’s an even remotely credible threat made, or global tensions increase. I heard the distant passing of such a jet just minutes ago… ✈️
 
An reasonably unbiased short summary of Ukraine <> Russian history.


Live Youtube stream on Al Jazeera below that is viewed as neutral so has the best press access to those regions. Hearing stories that ordinary people living in the eastern provinces had not expected an actual invasion because news media had played it down and portrayed outside Western media as over reactions. That shows a political agenda from the Ukraine leaders that have stubbornly resisted giving up on bringing NATO into Ukraine that obsessed Putin had obviously drawn a line in the sand on about over months, apparently those in the West unwisely chose to ignore despite its logic.

 

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