View Full Version : Here we go again-Ukraine once again
Defense Ministry says Russian troops are stationed in 10 settlements in Belarus. Without naming the exact number of Russian troops, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said, “the main goal is to prevent the regrouping of our forces in other directions.”
In the meanwhile, further details are emerging on Putin's Poop Patrol, possibly the least glamorous job in international diplomacy... https://twitter.com/faridaily_/status/1535229560731709441
Catfish
06-10-22, 03:08 PM
Serbia has arrested Andriy Naumov, ex head of the security service of Ukraine
He left Ukraine in hours before the Russian invasion and was accused of treason.
He was arrested having over €600k, ~$125K and diamonds. The reason why Russia was able to take Kherson so quickly, advance to Mariupol and lay siege there was treason within the Ukrainian intelligence and possibly (!) some elements of the army.
^ just of all Serbia arrested him? :hmmm:
Signs and wonders.
^ just of all Serbia arrested him? :hmmm:
Signs and wonders.Yeah, the oxymoron is great in the force
Skybird
06-10-22, 03:41 PM
^ Depends on whether he gets extradicted to Kyiv or Moscow. ;) Who says that beside his past treason he sold the Russians ALL secrets they wanted to know?
So Putin likens himself to Tsar Peter the Great.
I don't think Putin has the format of Peter the Great.
Markus
Skybird
06-10-22, 05:52 PM
Peter also seems to be differently perceived. 20 years ago it was Western Europe who willingly compared Putin to Peter. Though for very different reasons.
Megalomania, plain and simple. Lock him away to the other loonies.
Skybird
06-10-22, 06:26 PM
FOCUS:
France wants to participate in a possible operation to end the blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odessa. The goal is to allow ships to pass through in order to export grain stored in Ukraine, the Elysée Palace announced Friday. France is seeking a "victory for Ukraine," it added.
--------
Its the first time AFAIK that a Western state has explicitly talked of a victory for Ukraine.
I wonder whether that was before or after Putin made his speech to students where he compared himself to Peter the Great and revealed that he wants to take many more lands home into the empire.
Two days ago they also threatened to invade Germany. No, I am not impressed, I just mention it to remind of how lunatic and hate-filled and hostile they are.
For the Ukraine it would be a risk to remove sea mines at its ports, especially Odessa. They did not mine the sea and the beaches for no reason. I would trust neither Turkey nor France to keep the unmined areas safe from Russian attacks, if I were the Ukraine. I expect both states to abruptly end it if they see that favourable for them - and if then the Russians attack, so be it. And Turkey plays its own game with Russia anyway.
https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Kharkiv%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20June%2010%2C2022% 20.png
https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Kherson%20and%20Mykolaiv%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20 June%2010%2C2022.png
Jimbuna
06-11-22, 06:08 AM
“Intense street to street fighting is ongoing” in Severodonetsk, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
It says Russian forces have not made advances into the south of the city, but both sides are likely suffering high numbers of casualties.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen is visiting Kyiv to discuss with President Zelensky his country's bid to get candidacy status to join the European Union.
Ukraine is doing everything possible to save three foreign nationals sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court, a lawmaker says.
Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim, were captured fighting with the Ukrainian army and tried as mercenaries.
Jimbuna
06-11-22, 06:10 AM
Joe Inwood
Reporting from Kyiv
As we've been reporting, Russia is running short of modern weapons and is having to resort to using heavy anti-ship missiles in ground attacks against Ukraine - which are highly inaccurate and can cause significant casualties and collateral damage, the UK's defence ministry says.
We saw a few weeks ago during Russia's strikes on the southern city of Odesa they were using old soviet stock.
The analysis we're getting is that it's symptomatic of the Russians running out of weapons.
They've used up their more modern ballistic cruise missiles, they've used their more high-tech precision weaponry, so there having to dig deep into the arsenals to find out what they have lying around.
I'm sure some Russians would dispute that - they'd say there are some tactical reasons for doing this, but it's quite likely, especially given the sanctions Russia is under, that a lots of its weaponry requires modern western technology imports to make new stocks.
So once they've used them all, given the sanctions there under, maybe they have to result to old equipment.
Skybird
06-11-22, 06:37 AM
I recall that during the Gulf war 1991 the Americans, especially their Air Force, after some time ran out of precision and smart ammunitions and had to increasingly depend on "dumb" iron bombs. That the Russians undergo a comparable fate, sounds believable to me. Ukraine is anything but a small country, the frontline is long, and the fighting intense. Ammo must be consumed at alarming rates. Which is obviously an even bigger issue for the ukrainians, plus their losses in firing platforms. The Russians at least have huge stockpiles of old and outdated stuff to come back to. The Ukrainians...? They already use all they have.
Skybird
06-11-22, 06:55 AM
FOCUS:
The Telegram channel "General SVR" reports that Putin has been granted "urgent medical assistance". The channel says it is run by a well-informed Kremlin insider.
The Kremlin leader reportedly suffered from "severe nausea, weakness and dizziness" when he got up from his desk after a 90-minute virtual meeting. His doctors then advised Putin to stop making "lengthy" public appearances. The report does not give an exact date for the incident.
"General SVR" also writes, however, that the emergency is the reason for postponing Putin's annual "Question Time" on state TV. In fact, the traditional TV citizens' question time "The Direct Wire" will not be held this year in June, as it often was before. Preparations for the event are underway, but there is no specific date yet, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax agency last Wednesday. He ruled out the possibility of the event taking place in June.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Bilge_Rat
06-11-22, 07:29 AM
Ukraine is running out of artillery ammo for its Soviet weapons and is outnumbered 10-15 to 1 in artillery by the Russians.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukraine-ammunition-running-out-intelligence-official
As I have said before, it looks increasingly clear that the Russians have hit on a winning strategy. How much longer can the Ukranians hold off what looks like an inevitable defeat.
Before the first Iraqi war the logistic from Europe and USA was huge. Everyday a looong cargo train left Denmark with war material. Several times per day a cargo ship arrived to Saudi-Arabia with war material and every 10 minutes or so-a Cargo plane landed with either soldiers and/or material.
I wonder if we have to upscale the delivery to Ukraine as it was when it was on it's highest before and under the first Iraqi war ?
Markus
Skybird
06-11-22, 09:08 AM
That was the reason why the US delivered American howitzers from early on and in not small numbers: for these they could deliver ammunition, for Ukraine's Sowjet-made artillery there is no ammo resupply.
The Russian losses may be high, but they can afford them easier than the ukraine can afford its own, lower losses. Time and some certain European states work against the Ukraine.
'Ukraine lost about 10,000 soldiers in war with Russia'
In the more than three and a half months since the war began, some 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. This is what an advisor to President Zelensky said in an interview with a member of the Russian opposition on YouTube. It is believed that the death rates on both sides are higher than admitted.
As recently as late May, President Zelensky spoke of 50 to 100 Ukrainians killed per day. Another of Zelensky's advisors said Thursday that that number had risen to 100 to 200 due to heavy fighting in the Donbas.
Zelensky's advisor Oleksi Arestovych said in the interview with the Russian opposition member that the number of soldiers killed at the beginning of the war was also 100 per day. When asked if one could then assume a total of 10,000 soldiers, Arestovych said, "Yes, somewhere like that."
According to him, the losses on the Russian side are now greater than on the Ukrainian side. By his estimate, 600 Russians were killed yesterday. But to push them back, more artillery is needed, he said. Arestovych went on to say that Ukrainian forces are achieving successes thanks to Western support. Without that support, the Ukrainians would probably have been pushed back as far as the Dnipro River.
Ukrainians still holding out in Severodonetsk
The Ukrainian army is still holding out in the Severodonetsk industrial area. "Severodonetsk is not, yet, 100 percent liberated," the leader of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Lugansk told the Russian news agency Interfax. "The Ukrainian military is still in the industrial area where the Azot chemical plant is located. From there they are shelling the city. You cannot possibly call the situation in the city peaceful." He is convinced that the Russians or pro-Russian separatists will take control of the area in the near future.
Other sources also suggest that Severodonetsk is still being fought hard. The British Ministry of Defense, in its update this morning, says that there is fierce fighting and heavy casualties on both sides.
Severodonetsk is the last major city in the Lugansk region still in Ukrainian hands. President Zelensky said Thursday that the battle there could be decisive for the future of the Donbas. That is the easternmost part of Ukraine, which includes the Donetsk region.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 11 June 2022
As of 10 June, Russian forces around Sieverodonetsk have not made advances into the south of the city. Intense street to street fighting is ongoing, and both sides are likely suffering high numbers of casualties. Russia is massing fires with its artillery and air capabilities, in an attempt to overwhelm Ukrainian defences.
Since April, Russian medium bombers have likely launched dozens of 1960s era Kh-22 (NATO designation, AS-4 KITCHEN) air-launched, heavy anti-ship missiles against land targets. These 5.5 tonne missiles were primarily designed to destroy aircraft carriers using a nuclear warhead. When employed in a ground attack role with a conventional warhead, they are highly inaccurate and can therefore cause significant collateral damage and civilian casualties.
Russia is likely resorting to such inefficient weapon systems because it is running short of more precise modern missiles, while Ukrainian air defences still deter its tactical aircraft from conducting strikes across much of the country.
https://i.postimg.cc/xqB8YcMs/FU8s2-Sw-WQAEa5-ST.jpg (https://postimg.cc/xqB8YcMs)
Russia's running out of modern missiles or can not re-activate quick imissiles in storage. Now using heavy, anti-ship missiles which are highly inaccurate when used in a ground role Russia still unable to capture town of Severodonetsk & Ukraine's air defenses are deterring Russian jets from flying across much of the country.
Skybird
06-11-22, 10:49 AM
As a rule of thumbs I multiply Ukrainian claims on own losses by 1.5, and I divide Ukrainian claims for Russian losses by 1.5.
Factor 1.5 just by tendency - there is no further argument to claim any precision that we cannot be sure of.The Ukraine also wages propaganda - it just does a much better and more subtle job in that than the Russian fascists with their hate-dripping murderous rants. Medwedew really has turned into a Comical Ivan.
https://i.postimg.cc/Z5QG4XnD/FU6s-U0-OXw-AEm-Po2.jpg
Rockstar
06-11-22, 11:18 AM
From the Russians With Attitude Twitter account from a couple of days ago:
https://twitter.com/rwapodcast
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/russians-with-attitude-russians-with-7xv_d9OSWHs/
"Russian journalist Alexander Kots, a war reporter with over 20 years of experience in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Donbass & Karabakh, streamed a Q&A session about the war yesterday; here's a thread with a summary of what he said:
- The Ukrainians have excellent artillery training & equipment
- The AFU emphasize small unit tactics; this slowed down the Russian advance in the beginning of the war
- The Russian offensive routes largely matched with those the Ukrainians trained for in NATO exercises
- The border regions were full of photo traps & other surveillance equipment that gave the Ukrainians a good idea of what was happening militarily
- Even a full liberation of the DPR & LPR won't secure Donetsk from Ukrainian shelling bc of long-range weapon systems
- The seemingly senseless shelling of Donetsk is explained by Ukrainian attempts to cause discontent among civilians in the sense that the Russian Armed Forces cannot protect them
- The capture of Lisichansk will mark the full liberation of the LPR
- "Small cauldron" tactics & the slow advances are deliberate, but not the tactics of choice; Russians are advancing at best with a 1:1 ratio and often against a numerically superior enemy
- Prisoner exchanges are still taking place, but not mass exchanges, 15 for 15, 30 for 30
- The Ukrainian army generally refuses to pick up their dead despite being offered ceasefires to do so
- The average level of experience in the AFU has dropped significantly since the start of the war, it's now 20% professionals and 80% conscripts
- Ukrainian infantry is of very low quality in terms of training & morale; their artillery & special forces are decent
- The Ukrainians generally don't accept close quarter combat and retreat instead, but they usually do so in an organized manner
- The volunteers from all over Russia who are trained in Gudermes (Chechnya) are doing quite well in the war
- This scale of combat is seen for the first time since WW2; Kots has never worked in a conflict of this intensity
- Russia is not at war with Ukraine, but with the entire NATO infrastructure: intelligence, satellites, communications, military equipment, counter-battery systems, electronic warfare systems
- "Bayraktars" are absolute crap, they're fish in a barrel for any decent anti-air
- The Ukrainians are having problems with some munitions, e.g. their Smerch & Uragan MLRS systems rarely fire in volleys nowadays, mostly single shots
- Ukrainian artillery is often the only thing slowing down Russian advances
- Securing Donbass won't automatically win the war"
Spain considered delivering Leopard tanks to Ukraine, then Berlin told them off, according to Melanie Amann from Der Spiegel. According to government sources, Germany warned Spain that this step would be a departure from the informal decision of the West not to supply Kiev with western tanks apparently, the plan was leaked before anyone in the Spanish government who was familiar with the issue had been involved, the German government said somewhat mockingly.
That’s the German spin, but it is a sentence that is somewhat embarrassing for the Sánchez government. Spanish government, Ministry of Defense, did not want to comment when approached. Defense minister Robles had acknowledged that a Leopard delivery "is on the table" on Tuesday night. If true, it shows, of course, that the German government does not only not deliver western tanks to Ukraine, it also actively discourages allies to do so while the Ukrainian government seems increasingly desperate to secure heavy weapons. https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/news-olaf-scholz-russland-ukraine-waffenlieferungen-afd-a-10bbf76f-bc59-4d16-ae68-11ba716dacf1
The poor state of the 40 tanks in question likely played a not inconsiderable role. Apparently, only 10 can be made combat ready again, after extensive refurbishment. Which is not implausible, since the sale of these tanks failed twice already ... due to their poor state. However, Scholz seems absolutely determined to keep German tanks/IFV's/APC's out of Ukraine ... almost by any means necessary.
Aktungbby
06-11-22, 02:41 PM
He'll sing a different tune when "Vlad the rapist" wants to restore East Germany to the rebuilt neo-"Russian empire". As for "Vichy" Macron touting not causing "Putin to lose face" the President of Poland vehemently counters: "you cannot appease a Hitler"...I'm keeping a wary eye as well on puppet state Byelorussia's intentions toward boardering Lithuania, and subsequently Estonia and Latvia. BOTTOM LINE kids: WWIII is well under way with another two-front war alà 1937(Japan in China started WWII) of "the world order" vs "snatch and grab"(Crimea-2014) Stalinist empirialism by Putin, now styling himself as a Peter the Great leader...and China, having acquired Tibet, Hong Kong and the South China Sea, now eyeballing Taiwan. As we learned in WW I & II, appeasement is not a permissible response. We need to settle the issue ...in Ukraine!
He'll sing a different tune when "Vlad the rapist" wants to restore East Germany to the rebuilt neo-"Russian empire". As for "Vichy" Macron touting not causing "Putin to lose face" the President of Poland vehemently counters: "you cannot appease a Hitler"...I'm keeping a wary eye as well on puppet state Byelorussia's intentions toward boardering Lithuania, and subsequently Estonia and Latvia. BOTTOM LINE kids: WWIII is well under way with another two-front war alà 1937(Japan in China started WWII) of "the world order" vs "snatch and grab"(Crimea-2014) Stalinist empirialism by Putin, now styling himself as a Peter the Great leader...and China, having acquired Tibet, Hong Kong and the South China Sea, now eyeballing Taiwan. As we learned in WW I & II, appeasement is not a permissible response. We need to settle the issue ...in Ukraine! As US General Ben Hodges has written, France is currently providing less military support to Ukraine than Germany, which has been criticised for the volume and speed of its deliveries. In Macron's words, Paris does not want to allow Russia to be defeated (and humiliated).
Rockstar
06-11-22, 04:20 PM
France is probably one of the most capable of the western European armed forces. But it's set up to promote and project French goals namely protecting what they already have. It doesn't have the budget to supply other nations with combat hardware without seriously affecting their own readiness. Germany is even worse yet having only the slightest chance to fight it's way out of a wet paper bag with instructions how. Neither IMO have anything to give.
Expecting them to give away their own high tech whizz bang gadgets and arms like the Leopards Le Clercs is just pissing away material since nobody in Ukraine knows how to use the damn things anyway. It would take a massive amount of time and effort to train in their operation but also in the doctrine they were designed for. Only to see them obliterated because of no proper infantry or air support.
Poland on the otherhand sent 240 T-72's which is what every Ukrainian professional and conscript army trained with. 240 T-72's is a helluva a lot of fire power! What's left of them?
^ Isn't really 100 % sure, if Poland will be the first country who join the fight on Ukrainian side.
Just a hunch I have that Poland will go active into the war when and if Belarus attack Ukraine from north.
Nato will say-Poland is attacking and can therefore not get any help according to article 5.
Markus
^ Isn't really 100 % sure, if Poland will be the first country who join the fight on Ukrainian side.
Just a hunch I have that Poland will go active into the war when and if Belarus attack Ukraine from north.
Nato will say-Poland is attacking and can therefore not get any help according to article 5.
MarkusNATO members can do war look at turkey only they work allot with factions paid assisted by them do not think it is a smart move if Poland is attacking.
NATO members can do war look at turkey only they work allot with factions paid assisted by them do not think it is a smart move if Poland is attacking.
I think that in a year from now more countries will take part in the war either on Ukrainian side or on Russian side.
We have Poland and Romania who is Ukrainians biggest friends
While
Belarus, Hungary and Serbia is Russians biggest friends.
Markus
Rockstar
06-11-22, 07:21 PM
^ Isn't really 100 % sure, if Poland will be the first country who join the fight on Ukrainian side.
Just a hunch I have that Poland will go active into the war when and if Belarus attack Ukraine from north.
Nato will say-Poland is attacking and can therefore not get any help according to article 5.
Markus
I don't think the Potatoes north of Kyiv are much of a threat. I also read some sources which say Russian can manage a sustained offensive for around 120 days. Its now day 108 of what was supposed to be a quick three day operation. I think the major push from Russia right now is just try and complete the occupation of the Donbass. If they can't accomplish that and hold what they got things might start going downhill for Russia.
I don't think the Potatoes north of Kyiv are much of a threat. I also read some sources which say Russian can manage a sustained offensive for around 120 days. Its now day 108 of what was supposed to be a quick three day operation. I think the major push from Russia right now is just try and complete the occupation of the Donbass. If they can't accomplish that and hold what they got things might start going downhill for Russia.Absolutely right, Russia has shown us it is a paper tiger like the Chinese would say give it a month and Russian offense is totally stopped already has gone in to an 90% defense front Russia is trying to hold the ground they occupied, and we will see it turned into regions of the Russian Federation in the future if they can keep it.
Rockstar
06-11-22, 10:14 PM
I'm aware Ukraine soldiers are going the same thing we just don't get to hear too much about it.
https://youtu.be/5OQbIEKbZyc
Jimbuna
06-12-22, 04:42 AM
Russian shelling has caused a huge fire at a chemical plant in Severodonetsk as "non-stop" fighting rages in the city, the region's governor says.
Serhiy Haidai told Ukrainian TV that the fire at the Azot plant started after a leak of tens of tonnes of oil from damaged radiators.
Ukrainian officials estimate that as many as 800 civilians are hiding in underground bomb shelters at the chemical plant.
President Volodymr Zelensky has again asked for more weapons, amid fears his soldiers are running out of ammunition.
Ukraine says its forces have recaptured areas from Russia in the southeastern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Fifteen former McDonald's restaurants have reopened in Moscow today under new ownership and a new name that translates as "Tasty and that's it"
Jimbuna
06-12-22, 04:45 AM
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has voiced hope that his country will be granted EU candidate status.
In an late-night video address, Zelensky said the final phase of the "big diplomatic marathon" started today.
"And in this marathon we are actually together with the European Union - in one team, and this team has to win.
"I am convinced that this decision can strengthen not only our state, but also the entire European Union," Zelensky said.
He added he is sure that the country will soon receive an answer. Yesterday, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, who held talks with him in Kyiv, said Ukraine will be told next week if it can progress to the next stage of joining the bloc.
Zelensky also spoke of his pride for Ukrainian troops who are defending the key eastern city of Severodonetsk, adding that "fierce" street fighting continues in the city.
"I am proud of all our defenders who managed to stop the advance of these hostile people... and keep our defence strong," he said.
Jimbuna
06-12-22, 04:47 AM
Vladimir Putin's admiration for Peter the Great is well known but he now seems to have ideas of "Great"-ness himself.
He has openly compared himself to the Russian tsar, equating Russia's invasion of Ukraine today with Peter's expansionist wars some three centuries ago, and making his strongest acknowledgment yet that his own war is a land grab.
Mr Putin's apparent empire-building ambitions bode ill for Ukraine and have irked other neighbours, including Estonia, which called his comments "completely unacceptable."
Russia's president was meeting young scientists and entrepreneurs when he made the remarks. Before talking IT and tech development he talked politics and power: the new battle he sees for geopolitical dominance. In that, he told his select audience that Peter the Great was a role model.
"You might think he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands," Mr Putin said, referring to the Northern Wars which Peter launched at the turn of the 18th Century as he forged a new Russian Empire.
"But he seized nothing; he reclaimed it!" he said, arguing that Slavs had lived in the area for centuries.
"It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen," Mr Putin concluded, with a near-smirk that left no doubt he was referring to Ukraine and his aims there.
Peter's rule, he suggested, was proof that expanding Russia had strengthened it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61767191
Rockstar
06-12-22, 08:21 AM
I’m seeing in our media headlines a shift. Many major outlets are now writing Ukrainian prospects now look dim, Zelensky didn’t listen, Ukraine running out of ammo. Etc etc.
Skybird
06-12-22, 08:57 AM
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/images/peter_d_gr_ts/28418878/1-format1007.jpg
Aktungbby
06-12-22, 12:30 PM
BOTTOM LINE kids: WWIII is well under way with another two-front war alà 1937(Japan in China started WWII) of "the world order" vs "snatch and grab"(Crimea-2014) Stalinist empirialism by Putin, now styling himself as a Peter the Great leader...and China, having acquired Tibet, Hong Kong and the South China Sea, now eyeballing Taiwan. As we learned in WW I & II, appeasement is not a permissible response. We need to settle the issue ...in Ukraine!
Vladimir Putin's admiration for Peter the Great is well known but he now seems to have ideas of "Great"-ness himself.
He has openly compared himself to the Russian tsar, equating Russia's invasion of Ukraine today with Peter's expansionist wars some three centuries ago, and making his strongest acknowledgment yet that his own war is a land grab.
Mr Putin's apparent empire-building ambitions bode ill for Ukraine and have irked other neighbours, including Estonia, which called his comments "completely unacceptable."
Russia's president was meeting young scientists and entrepreneurs when he made the remarks. Before talking IT and tech development he talked politics and power: the new battle he sees for geopolitical dominance. In that, he told his select audience that Peter the Great was a role model.
"You might think he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands," Mr Putin said, referring to the Northern Wars which Peter launched at the turn of the 18th Century as he forged a new Russian Empire.
"But he seized nothing; he reclaimed it!" he said, arguing that Slavs had lived in the area for centuries.
"It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen," Mr Putin concluded, with a near-smirk that left no doubt he was referring to Ukraine and his aims there.
Peter's rule, he suggested, was proof that expanding Russia had strengthened it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61767191:hmmm: I'd imagine that now sanction'd & rumored preggers ladyfriend, Alina Kabaeva, doesnt think "Vlad the rapist's" Peter is that Great! :O::shucks:
It looks like that Putins Bodyguard is doing more than protect his person.
From Norwegian Aftenposten
The fear that the Russian president's DNA will go astray means that security guards collect feces and fingerprints while traveling.
One can get a lot of information about a human being through the body's natural waste. Russian security authorities are also aware of this.
And they pay particular attention to what President Vladimir Putin leaves behind. Many are concerned/interested about/on his health.
During Putin's trip to Saudi Arabia in October 2019, it was revealed that employees of the Federal Russian Security Service (FSO) collect the president's urine and feces. When traveling abroad, the waste is collected in special bags and taken home in a suitcase to Russia. This writes the online newspaper Paris Match which cites sources in the Middle East. Failure to do so will also have occurred when Putin visited French President Emmanuel Macron in 2017.
Markus
Aktungbby
06-12-22, 12:57 PM
/\ no doubt attended to by "the Groom of the Stool"....nuthin good goes outta style!:yep:
Skybird
06-13-22, 08:03 AM
DER SPIEGEL:
Natural gas supplies from Russia to Germany and Western Europe are likely to fall drastically in the summer. This was announced by the head of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, on Monday.
"NorthStream 1 will be serviced in summer, there will probably be no injection," Müller tweeted in response to a SPIEGEL article about EU countries' still-high gas imports from Russia.
This will make it more difficult for Europeans to fill up their gas storage facilities to at least 80 or - as in Germany, for example - even 90 percent before winter. Currently, EU reservoirs are filled to an average of just over 51 percent, with a few percentage points more in this country.
"Last #gasreservoirfilling was 53 percent, which is better than in previous years, but still not good enough," Müller tweeted.
Russia is still one of the leading sources of gas supply for Europeans, with around 1.6 billion cubic meters per week at last count, or about one-fifth of all EU imports.
And Nord Stream 1 is currently by far the most important pipeline for Russian gas supplies to the West.
According to an analysis by the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, the state monopolist Gazprom recently sent a good 70 percent of its total volume destined for Europe through this pipeline: around 1.2 billion cubic meters per week. By comparison, Germany consumes around 1.6 billion cubic meters in an average week, though much less in the summer.
Whether the Baltic Sea pipeline actually needs maintenance is unclear. Gas market insiders also believe a tactical maneuver by the Kremlin is possible. After all, the worse the Europeans' storage facilities are filled for the winter, the more dependent they will then be on Russian gas. And the greater the fear of bottlenecks on the gas markets, the higher the prices will rise.
On the European wholesale reference market TTF, a megawatt hour for delivery in July rose from 81.25 to 83.90 euros between eight and ten in the morning. However, the price is still a long way from its record highs at the beginning of March, when a megawatt hour cost 300 euros at times.
It is also questionable whether other suppliers can step in and compensate for the shortfall in deliveries. Most recently, Europeans imported the most gas via tankers, according to Bruegel: in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Norway was the second most important supplier.
It is not yet known how long the maintenance work will last. The head of the Federal Network Agency, Müller, said late Monday morning that maintenance usually takes about two weeks.
---------------------
BBC:
New research shows Russia earned nearly €100bn from exports of oil and gas during the first 100 days of the conflict in Ukraine – although its revenues declined in May.
The report, from the independent Centre For Research on Energy and Clean Air also warns about potential loopholes in efforts by the EU and the US to limit imports from Russia.
Exports of Russian oil and gas are falling and Moscow’s revenues from energy sales have also declined from a peak of well over $1bn a day in March.
But they remain very high by historical standards – and still exceed widely publicised estimates of the cost of the Ukraine war.
The report says the EU’s planned oil embargo will have a significant impact. But it warns that large quantities of Russian crude are now being shipped to India (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-60783874), where they are being refined and sold on – often to customers in the US and Europe.
The report also points out that as Russia seeks new markets for oil, much of it is being transported by ship – and the majority of the vessels used are European owned.
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I cannot help it, I think this idea of sanctionising Russia to weasel around a direct confrontation simply - again - does not work as intended. And btw, the Russians have reopend the McDonald restaurants again.
The Europeans learn it the hard way these days. Weakness does not pay off, cannot get compensated by words and glorious ideas.
-------------------
Russian forces seem to have dirven out Ukranain milutary form tneh centre of Severodoenzk. With just one bridge still intact, the city now is at high risk to get fully isolated and unsuppliable. Its often said the Russaian advance has come to a standstill, but it does not seem so. They do advance - slowly, but notoriously, mercilessly. Step by step.
Bubble-Olaf finally seems to plan visiting Kyiv. Tiegther with, and herein lies the threat - Macronman and Draghi. What do these three have in common? They delay, brake, and try to not deliver much. All three want a negotiated peace treaty, and so by that imply the Ukraine should make Russia concessions. It worked great 2014, so why not doing it again? If I were Selensky, I would consider to not let them in...
Jimbuna
06-13-22, 09:28 AM
Severodonetsk will be "cut off" from the rest of Ukraine if Russia destroys the last remaining bridge to the city, regional governor Serhiy Haidai says.
The battle is continuing in the key eastern city, with fighting for "literally every metre", Ukraine's President Zelensky says.
Ukraine says its forces have been "pushed out of the city centre", due to a significant advantage in artillery.
Meanwhile, Zelensky has called for modern missile defence systems, saying more than 2,600 cruise missiles have landed in Ukraine since the start of the war.
Up to 1,200 bodies found across Ukraine, including some found in mass graves, have not yet been identified, the head of the national police says.
Russia is continuing to earn huge amounts by selling oil and gas, despite facing tighter sanctions around the world since the invasion, research suggests.
Jimbuna
06-13-22, 09:31 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yruwva7aRo
Jimbuna
06-13-22, 11:47 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcPNAi760nc
Jimbuna
06-13-22, 12:01 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwJgovyA_3U
Skybird
06-13-22, 01:54 PM
All bridges to Severodonezk have been destroyed by the Russian army. The city now is fully isolated.
And this:
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1536291020215930880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-energy-sales-europe-doubled-study/31825742.html
Russia Nearly Doubled Its Income From Energy Sales To The EU During Wartime, Study Shows
Moscow continues to benefit from Europe's energy dependence on Russian oil despite a reduction in sales due to sanctions imposed to pressure it to end its war against Ukraine, according to experts with a Finland-based research organization.
New research (https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/russian-fossil-exports-first-two-months/)by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) released on April 28 shows that Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from sales of fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine.
Soaring prices have more than compensated Russia for the loss in sales volume due to sanctions, the research shows. Ooopsie-poopsie. Thats not going according to the clever formula. And since this is because there is endless delay and no real cutting in imports, this hardly is a surprise if you know how markets work. Which is not too difficult to comprehend
Earlier this day I red that in the days of this war German imports of ores and industrial products from Russia have INCREASED.
And this clever EU and Berlin coalition wants to give us the Green Deal planned economy schemes that save the world? Rette sich wer kann, flee from your saviors!
When it comes to income Russia made a great thing attacking Ukraine.
When it comes to the military...well things could have gone better.
Markus
All bridges to Severodonezk have been destroyed by the Russian army. The city now is fully isolated.
And this:
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1536291020215930880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-energy-sales-europe-doubled-study/31825742.html
Ooopsie-poopsie. Thats not going according to the clever formula. And since this is because there is endless delay and no real cutting in imports, this hardly is a surprise if you know how markets work. Which is not too difficult to comprehend
Earlier this day I red that in the days of this war German imports of ores and industrial products from Russia have INCREASED.
And this clever EU and Berlin coalition wants to give us the Green Deal planned economy schemes that save the world? Rette sich wer kann, flee from your saviors!
(Severodonezk) They should be able to ferry supplies and ammo across the river on boats, the river is very shallow now all tanks and heavy equipment probably has been moved from the city. How much does this "operation" cost Russia and the decline of its economy?
Skybird
06-13-22, 03:06 PM
How much does this "operation" cost Russia and the decline of its economy?
The question is more what it costs the Ukraine...?!
The Russians, whatever the costs for them are now (low) or will be in the future (hard to assess) - they seem to think they can afford it.
And the ga sprices, as descirbes as such that they earn MORE profit with delivering LESS gas and oil to Eruope. Not bad deal.
Russia prepares to continue the war AT LEAST until Octobre. They have the reserves for that, it seems. Does the Ukraine have the replenishments? Doubts are on order. They get not sufficient Western style weapons, and their ammo stocks for their Sovjet style heavy weapons are dying quickly.
This is the kind of game where the Russians are stronger. Sad, but true.
The question is more what it costs the Ukraine...?!
The Russians, whatever the costs for them are now (low) or will be in the future (hard to assess) - they seem to think they can afford it.
And the ga sprices, as descirbes as such that they earn MORE profit with delivering LESS gas and oil to Eruope. Not bad deal.
Russia prepares to continue the war AT LEAST until Octobre. They have the reserves for that, it seems. Does the Ukraine have the replenishments? Doubts are on order. They get not sufficient Western style weapons, and their ammo stocks for their Sovjet style heavy weapons are dying quickly.
This is the kind of game where the Russians are stronger. Sad, but true.Wars cost a lot of money Russia is using/losing a lot of material that they need to replace on the moment factories have problems to make all kind of products to re-arm Russia's army. What did they gain in the last 2 months to make it a win for them? We the west made the wrong choice to sanction oil and gas, it backfired. It all depends on what the U.S. wants; to support Ukraine further or let Russia take over Ukraine.
President Zelensky called the number of Ukrainian deaths in the battle for the city of Severodonetsk frightening. In a video address, he said that the fighting in the eastern Donbas region is having a major impact on his country's citizens and military. According to Zelensky, his country is facing "absolute evil." Therefore, his military has no choice and must liberate the area to the Russian borders, he argues. The president believes that the battle in the Donbas "will undoubtedly be remembered in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe."
Skybird
06-13-22, 04:51 PM
Currently I cannot see the Ukraine being able to launch a major counteroffensive to retake the now fought-over areas. They apparently lack the heavy weapons, the ammunition, and their troops must be even more exhausted than that of the Russians. And these troops are outnumbered, too, get no rest, and now are hard to be rotated in and out. They say the war has degenerated into trench warfare like in WW1. Well, that emans: you do not get any rest at all. And has its toll.
When the battle for Donbass began, they wrote the Ukraine has its best and most experienced troops in there. And they are getting chewed on all time over, have high losses.
They get their best combat units degraded currently.
The Russian firepower currently has overwhelming superiority in the battlezone. Its a question of maths. Artillery superiority is 5:1 to 7:1, write some sources, others go as high as claimning 15:1 superiority. No army can endlessly survive getting hammered by such superior firepower.
Can those 12 Dutch and German Panzerhaubitzen 2000 make a difference? They may be precise, and still, its only 12 pieces of artillery. Can these really make themselves being felt by the Russians like 120 howitzers? I admit I have doubts. Those American triple-sevens may count more, because there are so many more of them.
I think currently the war is no longer going so good for the ukraine, the surprising victories of the first weeks are over. Maybe that better warfoghting will come back in the future - but for that THEY NEED MORE WEAPONS, and AMMO.
The front, said the ukrainian generals yesterday, has a total length of 2400 km. Thats more than twice as long as Germany's length in North-South direction.
Skybird
06-13-22, 05:04 PM
The deputy head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service, Vadim Skibitsky, told the British "Guardian" on Friday that the Ukrainian artillery almost only uses NATO ammunition with a caliber of 155 millimeters. The somewhat smaller calibers according to the Russian standard (152 millimeters) are hardly available anymore, he said. As a result, the corresponding artillery pieces are also losing their usefulness. "Everything depends on what the West gives us," Skibizki is quoted as saying in the Guardian.
The statements cannot be verified. Ukraine's civilian and military leadership communicates very skillfully to emphasize its demand for more support. However, Skibizki's descriptions coincide with other reports.
(...)
It is true that there are also defense companies in NATO countries that produce ammunition for weapons to Russian standards, for example in Slovakia or Bulgaria. But obviously the capacities are not sufficient for the enormous consumption on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Skibizki of the Ukrainian military intelligence service says that his country's armed forces ship 5,000 to 6,000 artillery shells every day.
Ukraine has hardly any production capacity of its own, although the country had a significant arms industry before the war. The Russian army targeted it right after the war began. As early as the end of March, Olexi Arestovich, an advisor to President Selensky, said that the Ukrainian defense industry had been virtually destroyed.
(...)
Presidential adviser Arestovich, for example, recently said his country needs at least 60 multiple launchers to halt the Russians' slow but steady advance. That is many times what Washington and London have pledged so far.
From the Ukrainian point of view, however, the biggest problem remains the imbalance on the battlefield. According to intelligence officer Skibitsky, there are ten to fifteen Russian artillery pieces for every Ukrainian artillery piece in eastern Ukraine. This probably includes a lot of obsolete equipment. Nevertheless, the Russian superiority is overwhelming.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
https://www.nzz.ch/international/kampf-im-donbass-geht-der-ukrainischen-armee-die-munition-aus-ld.1688267
^^ Reminds me of some article I read at noon.
Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/13/ukraine-asks-the-west-for-huge-rise-in-heavy-artillery-supply
Markus
Skybird
06-13-22, 05:18 PM
The Ukrainian armed forces use many Soviet-designed weapons systems. But supplies for them are drying up. This makes support from Western armaments all the more urgent.
When Ukraine was finally supported with heavy weapons for its defensive struggle in the Donbass, the initial focus was on older stocks from former Warsaw Pact member states: tanks from Poland, howitzers from the Czech Republic, rifled guns from Estonia. Even the ring exchanges, through which Germany aims to provide indirect assistance to Ukraine by supplying Western armaments to its NATO partners in the east, effectively mean that older Eastern European military equipment is reaching the front lines.
The reason for this approach is obvious: The Ukrainian armed forces, many of whose existing equipment dates back to Soviet times, are familiar with this armaments technology. The weapons supplied therefore require no additional training for Ukrainian troops and are compatible with the systems the Ukrainians already have in service.
This also applies to the ammunition. This is because Soviet or Russian artillery pieces cannot be loaded with NATO projectiles due to their different calibers. An important part of the U.S.-coordinated arms assistance to Ukraine therefore consisted of procuring ammunition and replacement material for the Ukrainian army from allied or friendly countries worldwide. But this is becoming increasingly difficult.
The deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, Vadim Skibitsky, told the British Guardian on Friday that Ukrainian artillery was almost exclusively using NATO ammunition with a caliber of 155 millimeters. The somewhat smaller calibers according to the Russian standard (152 millimeters) are hardly available anymore, he said. As a result, the corresponding artillery pieces are also losing their usefulness. "Everything depends on what the West gives us," Skibizki is quoted as saying in the Guardian.
The statements cannot be verified. Ukraine's civilian and military leadership communicates very skillfully to emphasize its demand for more support. However, Skibizki's descriptions coincide with other reports.
The AFP news agency quotes a U.S. government official as saying that it is almost impossible to find material compatible with Russian technology. He is likely referring to those markets to which the U.S. and its allies have access. Russia, the largest producer, does not make its armaments available to the enemy.
It is true that there are arms companies in NATO countries that produce ammunition for weapons to Russian standards, for example in Slovakia or Bulgaria. But obviously their capacities are not sufficient for the enormous consumption on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Skibizki of the Ukrainian military intelligence service says that his country's armed forces ship 5,000 to 6,000 artillery shells every day.
Ukraine has hardly any production capacity of its own, although the country had a significant arms industry before the war. The Russian army targeted it right after the war began. As early as the end of March, Olexi Arestovich, an advisor to President Selensky, said that Ukraine's defense industry had been virtually destroyed.
Crass imbalance on the battlefield
This means that Ukraine is even more dependent on Western equipment for the artillery fight in the Donbass, which is increasingly turning into a battle of attrition. Although training for Ukrainian soldiers and trainers has been underway for weeks in several Western countries, handling the unfamiliar systems is sometimes a challenge.
But the biggest problem from the Ukrainian perspective remains the imbalance on the battlefield. According to intelligence officer Skibitsky, there are ten to fifteen Russian artillery pieces for every Ukrainian artillery piece in eastern Ukraine. This probably includes a lot of obsolete equipment. Nevertheless, the Russian superiority is overwhelming.
Presidential adviser Arestovich, for example, recently said that his country would need at least 60 multiple rocket launchers to halt the slow but steady Russian advance. That is many times what Washington and London have pledged so far.
The fight is also exacting an ever-higher blood toll. President Selensky said last week that 60 to 100 Ukrainian servicemen and women were falling every day. His adviser Mikhailo Podolyak on Thursday even spoke of 100 to 200 dead a day. Reports from the front seem to confirm the high casualties. On the Russian side, too, the war is likely to claim many, perhaps even more, victims. Both warring parties are silent about the exact death toll.
https://www.nzz.ch/international/kampf-im-donbass-geht-der-ukrainischen-armee-die-munition-aus-ld.1688267
Jimbuna
06-14-22, 05:18 AM
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says she will do "whatever necessary" to free two Britons sentenced to death after fighting in Ukraine.
Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner, and a Moroccan, Saaudun Brahim, deny charges of being mercenaries.
They were sentenced this month by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People Republic in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, all bridges to the embattled Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk are destroyed.
The evacuation of civilians – and troops - and the delivery of supplies is increasingly difficult.
Russia's military is likely to have made small advances in the Kharkiv region for the first time in several weeks, the UK says.
Jimbuna
06-14-22, 05:28 AM
Show us clear support - Zelensky to Germany
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to show clear support for Ukraine.
In an interview with German broadcaster ZDF on Monday night, Zelensky said Germany should not try to balance its interests between Ukraine and its relationship with Russia.
"We need from Chancellor Scholz the certainty that Germany supports Ukraine," he said. "He and his government must decide: there can't be a trade-off between Ukraine and relations with Russia."
There has been speculation Scholz could make his first trip to Kyiv since the start of the war later this week.
The chancellor defended Germany against accusations it wouldn’t deliver weapons it promised for Ukraine.
Before modern weapons could be delivered, Ukrainian soldiers needed to be trained how to use them, he said last night.
Leading politicians from across Germany's political spectrum accuse Scholz of acting as a brake on arms deliveries.
Jimbuna
06-14-22, 05:30 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ChRZuh53E
Jimbuna
06-14-22, 05:31 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_QxJVLYmNM
Rockstar
06-14-22, 11:01 AM
On the New York Times homepage the word "Trump" appeared 10 times, "Ukraine" appeared 5 times.
On the Washington Post homepage the word "Trump" appeared 12 times, "Ukraine" appeared 5 times.
On the Wall Street Journal homepage the word "Trump" appeared 9 times, "Ukraine" appeared 3 times.
The Google Trends graph for Ukraine has fallen to near zero.
Putin is mocking Europe
Due to our need for Oil and Gas from Russia. Putin said that Europes talk about decreasing their need for oil and gas is weak talk-They are planning on building more windmills at sea these will first be up and running 2030.
The headline in a Danish newspaper
"Putin mocks the West: You can not do without us"
Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has nothing left for
the West's attempt to rid itself of Russian gas.
Markus
Putin is mocking Europe
Due to our need for Oil and Gas from Russia. Putin said that Europes talk about decreasing their need for oil and gas is weak talk-They are planning on building more windmills at sea these will first be up and running 2030.
The headline in a Danish newspaper
"Putin mocks the West: You can not do without us"
MarkusLet him mock us the Netherlands wants to build new wind farms in the North Sea between 2024 and 2030 that, together with the other offshore wind farms, will generate enough renewable electricity to meet 40% of our current total electricity consumption. From 4.5 to 11.5 gigawatts between 2024 and 2030. By 2025, about 75,000 tons of hydrogen can be produced from water in the Netherlands. This will require an electrolysis capacity of 500 megawatts. That is enough, for example, to run 600,000 hydrogen cars for a whole year. The aim is also to have 50 hydrogen filling stations by 2025. By 2030, the electrolysis capacity will be at least 6 times higher, i.e. 3 to 4 gigawatts, and 300,000 cars will be running on hydrogen.
This is how we mock Putin, we do not need him, in the future he can light his ass with all that oil and gas.
Skybird
06-14-22, 01:50 PM
Nice plan. Its just that it gotta work. In today's global situational contexts.
The world in twenty years will not destroy us. I am more worried by the time before that. As I see it, for Europe the endgame has begun. And the coaches tactic is lousy, and the team thinks its not hockey but golf.
No reason to be optimistic. This place is going to blow up in our faces.
Ukraine says the West has so far delivered 10 percent of the promised weapons. Delivery must be accelerated, says Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar, or Ukraine will lose the war. Maljar calls on the West to provide a clear schedule of when the remaining weapons will be delivered. Any delay will cost Ukraine dearly, she argues. Earlier today, President Zelensky again appealed to the West for heavy weapons. "If the arms deliveries are not accelerated, people will continue to die. If we get weapons, we will move forward," he said.
Ukraine says the West has so far delivered 10 percent of the promised weapons. Delivery must be accelerated, says Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar, or Ukraine will lose the war. Maljar calls on the West to provide a clear schedule of when the remaining weapons will be delivered. Any delay will cost Ukraine dearly, she argues. Earlier today, President Zelensky again appealed to the West for heavy weapons. "If the arms deliveries are not accelerated, people will continue to die. If we get weapons, we will move forward," he said.
The question is can we speed up the delivery ?
Markus
The question is can we speed up the delivery ?
MarkusA lot depends on training, I think. The call to supply heavy weapons is so insanely large that the West will never be able to meet it, and for some countries it is almost half of what they have. And the supply of ammunition is also a problem, the West itself has a lot of material shortages.
Lots of explosion and shelling in Kharkiv, Sloviansk and Dnipro
These explosion light up the cams
Markus
Skybird
06-14-22, 06:13 PM
The question is can we speed up the delivery ?
Markus
Do we even want that?
The list with demands by the Ukraine is hopelessly exaggerated and completely beyond any realistic assessment for what they even could make use of. I assume it is to build a strong position for negotiations about future deliveries. Even the US. reserves would be overwhelmed to meet the ukrainian numerical demands, in parts the Ukraine demands more than half of the missile artillery and howitzers the US army actually has in use.That list is totally unrealistic.
Selensky maybe does not himself a favour if raising such hilarious demands. He may be perceived as getting tiresome, annoying. But the Ukrianian situation in the East currently is desperate, and hopeless. He simply might start to take desperate measures. For the moment I forgive him the exaggerated demands. I thinkm honstely said, the situaiton of the ukreianians is far more desperate and seriosu than the Wetsenr media paint s it. I think we beautify our percpetion of haw bad the situaiton for the Ukrianaina rmy really is, and how weak Russia. Actually I think the Russians, and I mean poltically and economically at home, have adapted, and play the match now from a position of strength towards the whole West. Heck, they make more money with oil and gas while delivering and selling less of it! Our sanctions do not achieve what we hpepd they would. We have catapulted us into the inflation rollerciaster. We shoot us into our own foot, because we do not sactionise them compeöltely and imemdoately, only then it would work, and we dont do that becasue we would destroy a good part of our own social safety at home and our own economic stability.
We spoilt the match for us long time ago already, not just in the past months. We prioritized our illusions over realities. And we still do.
I read three widely ranging military assessment by a German and an american and an Australian general. The German says the bitter truth is that they will not be able to defend the Donbass and Luhansk, but that they can take it back in the very long haul by turning into a guerilla army and conducting guerilla warfare for several years until the Russians are sick and tired of it and they leave, like they left Afghanistan, or the US left Afghanistan and Vietnam, becasue it was simply tired of it. This German general also implied that even heavy weapons delivered would not prevent, only delay the RTssian success in the East. The American generla said chances are 50:50 that they can defend the East - but only when the West immediately beefs up heavy weapon deliveries tremendously, and that from the n on balances woudl shift in Ukraine'S favour. And a retired Australian general said he expects most likely a phase of regeneration an d rest on both sides after the battle for Severodonezk has been decided and Russia tokk it and that other city nearby. Thats is a pattern often to be seen in wars, that between intense battles suddenly some quiteness and calm sets in, becasue both sides are so exhausted that they cannot continue - and then, after refreshing, it starts all again somewhere else and with the previous intensity.
Al three generals spoke with insight into the matter, and experience. All three have realistic predictions, me thinks. Possible that a mix of all three takes place.
Do we even want that?
The list with demands by the Ukraine is hopelessly exaggerated and completely beyond any realistic assessment for what they even could make use of. I assume it is to build a strong position for negotiations about future deliveries. Even the US. reserves would be overwhelmed to meet the ukrainian numerical demands, in parts the Ukraine demands more than half of the missile artillery and howitzers the US army actually has in use.That list is totally unrealistic.
Selensky maybe does not himself a favour if raising such hilarious demands. He may be perceived as getting tiresome, annoying. But the Ukrianian situation in the East currently is desperate, and hopeless. He simply might start to take desperate measures. For the moment I forgive him the exaggerated demands. I thinkm honstely said, the situaiton of the ukreianians is far more desperate and seriosu than the Wetsenr media paint s it. I think we beautify our percpetion of haw bad the situaiton for the Ukrianaina rmy really is, and how weak Russia. Actually I think the Russians, and I mean poltically and economically at home, have adapted, and play the match now from a position of strength towards the whole West. Heck, they make more money with oil and gas while delivering and selling less of it! Our sanctions do not achieve what we hpepd they would. We have catapulted us into the inflation rollerciaster. We shoot us into our own foot, because we do not sactionise them compeöltely and imemdoately, only then it would work, and we dont do that becasue we would destroy a good part of our own social safety at home and our own economic stability.
We spoilt the match for us long time ago already, not just in the past months. We prioritized our illusions over realities. And we still do.
I read three widely ranging military assessment by a German and an american and an Australian general. The German says the bitter truth is that they will not be able to defend the Donbass and Luhansk, but that they can take it back in the very long haul by turning into a guerilla army and conducting guerilla warfare for several years until the Russians are sick and tired of it and they leave, like they left Afghanistan, or the US left Afghanistan and Vietnam, becasue it was simply tired of it. This German general also implied that even heavy weapons delivered would not prevent, only delay the RTssian success in the East. The American generla said chances are 50:50 that they can defend the East - but only when the West immediately beefs up heavy weapon deliveries tremendously, and that from the n on balances woudl shift in Ukraine'S favour. And a retired Australian general said he expects most likely a phase of regeneration an d rest on both sides after the battle for Severodonezk has been decided and Russia tokk it and that other city nearby. Thats is a pattern often to be seen in wars, that between intense battles suddenly some quiteness and calm sets in, becasue both sides are so exhausted that they cannot continue - and then, after refreshing, it starts all again somewhere else and with the previous intensity.
Al three generals spoke with insight into the matter, and experience. All three have realistic predictions, me thinks. Possible that a mix of all three takes place.
The West shall keep the fighting in Ukraine, it is a buffer they want to keep more than 8 year the west supply, train and equip Ukraine military that policy will not change. Russia can occupy terrain, but it will get destroyed areas that they will need to invest in with an economy size of about Spain they will fail also they have no workforce for it, not even in Russia. Putin has more than 10 year to grow to the size of Spain with this invasion that has declined to the size of Belgium after this he must rebuild his army, economy and public image with an isolated economy Putin will fail and in the years the Russian people will lose their fear for him, and he is a goner there is always a prize to pay.
Longer-lasting conventional warfare depends on the presence of personnel, weapons, ammunition Putin can thus compare himself to Peter the Great, and perhaps with great difficulty and after weeks of fighting conquer a small town in Luhansk, but so far he was far wrong in his estimation of the strength of democracies both Ukraine and the countries supporting Kyiv.
The United States plans to deliver another large shipment of arms to Ukraine, diplomatic sources tell Reuters news agency. The White House is expected to announce a package worth a billion dollars.
This would include missiles that can hit ships, so-called Harpoon missiles, and ammunition for M777 howitzers. These are artillery systems that can hit targets at long distances. The United States also wants to provide radios and night vision devices, according to Reuters.
The White House does not want to comment on this for the time being. At the moment, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin is in Brussels meeting with allies.
Jimbuna
06-15-22, 11:13 AM
Thousands of civilians are trapped in the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk with a diminishing supply of water, the UN tells the BBC
It says an urgent situation is developing in the bunkers beneath the Azot chemical plant - where hundreds of civilians are taking shelter - in the key eastern city.
Russia has pledged to spend the day evacuating civilians holed up in the plant - though it's not clear if it's stopped attacks in the city.
Elsewhere, Nato has said the spike in global food prices is a direct consequence of the war and not sanctions against Russia, as Moscow claims.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also says the alliance will continue to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the EU to strengthen its sanctions package against Russia.
The Russian military leadership continues to expand its pool of eligible recruits by manipulating service requirements. Russian milblogger Yuri Kotyenok suggested that Russian authorities are preparing to increase the age limit for military service from 40 to 49 and to drop the existing requirement for past military service to serve in tank and motorized infantry units.[5] If true, the shift demonstrates the Kremlin's increasing desperation for recruits to fill frontline units, regardless of their poor skills. Kotyenok echoed calls made by other milbloggers to reduce the health requirements for those serving in rear and support roles.[6] Kotyenok additionally noted that while Russian recruits must have clean criminal records to serve, private military companies such as the Wagner Group will allow those with “mild misdemeanors” into service and that many of these low-level offenders have been mobilized into combat with Wagner in Donetsk and Luhansk. The Russian military leadership will likely continue efforts to expand the pool of eligible recruits, even at the cost of high-quality military personnel.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-14
Jimbuna
06-15-22, 11:17 AM
Terror attack against Ukraine leadership thwarted, minister says
A terrorist attack targeting Ukraine's leadership has been thwarted by law-enforcement agencies, a government minister in Kyiv says.
Ukrainian First Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin says: "It is thanks to the information we are receiving from our operational sources that we have managed to prevent a terrorist act against the leadership of our country."
Speaking in a TV interview today, as quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Yenin says he cannot disclose any details. But he says "it will be possible to tell about it in significantly more detail after the victory" in the war with Russia.
The BBC has not independently verified the minister's remarks.
Jimbuna
06-15-22, 11:19 AM
Resistance to the occupation of Mariupol continues, despite the city falling into Russian hands last month.
Writing on Telegram, Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol's Ukrainian mayor, said the city "did not accept the occupation".
He claimed two tow trucks and three other large vehicles were set on fire last week in the car park of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
The post also detailed the fatal stabbing of a ministry employee in a crowd awaiting humanitarian aid near the city's metro.
"Retribution is near. Glory to Ukraine!," concluded the post, in a warning to Russian soldiers in the city.
The southern port city was all but destroyed by weeks of shelling and is now at risk of a major cholera outbreak, according to the UK's Ministry of Defence.
Contaminated food and water, as well as uncollected dead bodies and rubbish littering the streets, are contributing to the spread of disease, the MoD said.
Jimbuna
06-15-22, 11:26 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp_xdUluVHE
Jimbuna
06-15-22, 11:31 AM
The BBC has been allowed rare access to the military nerve centre where Western powers are coordinating efforts to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.
In the attic of an austere US military barracks in the German city of Stuttgart, dozens of military personnel from 26 nations are working round the clock to deliver weapons to Ukraine.
From this room, Western allies have already helped deliver nearly $8bn (£6.6bn) worth of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine's armed forces. That's 66,000 tonnes - the equivalent of 5,000 London double-decker buses, as one British officer worked out.
Most of what happens at Patch Barracks is highly classified. We are asked to leave all electronic devices behind and we are not allowed to film or talk to the Ukrainians who are part of the International Donors Coordination Cell (IDCC).
Military personnel from dozens of countries bash the phones and pore over computer screens. They include a small team from Ukraine, led by a three-star general. At the start of each day he sets out what his country needs. The situation in the Donbas appears increasingly bleak, but here in Stuttgart there's more a sense of urgency than panic.
Around one set of desks a team is tasked with locating supplies. Sometimes they'll find a nation willing to provide weapons, but will then have to track another country for the right ammunition or the means to transport them. They've now developed a database where the Ukrainians can list their priorities. Donor nations can access that information and decide what they're willing and able to supply.
Brig Chris King, the senior British officer, says that military aid is being delivered by air, road, rail and sea and to multiple locations "in order to ensure we don't have any single points of failure".
He says that Russia has tried to step up its attacks on supply lines but there's been no "significant" interruption to their delivery.
I ask if any supplies have been hit.
"Yes, I presume so," he replies.
The task of moving the weapons and ammunition across the border is left to the Ukrainians themselves, says Rear Adm Duke Heinz, the senior US commander at the IDCC.
"In Poland and the other countries, the Ukrainians come and get it - so they're the ones who determine how it gets across the border." Once the weapons cross the border, they can arrive at the front line "within 48 hours".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61816337
Putin to give big speech June 17, speak to media
President Vladimir Putin will give a major speech on Friday focusing on the international economic situation and Russia's tasks in the near future, Interfax news agency cited Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov as saying.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sanctions-hit-kremlin-stage-annual-russian-davos-bereft-financial-elite-2022-06-14/
Markus
Rockstar
06-15-22, 12:16 PM
Ukraine's victory over Russia will be ensured by two countries - American political scientist
https://apostrophe-ua.translate.goog/article/politics/foreign-policy/2022-06-13/pobedu-ukrainyi-nad-rossiey-obespechat-dve-stranyi---amerikanskiy-politolog/46317?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
As for the military aspect, the necessary weapons for your victory will be. At 300 km it will beat or at 70 - it does not matter. Today it is important for you to get 70 km to free your territory, you do not have the task of attacking Russia. As you become stronger, the nature of the support of the Western allies will also change.
- Regarding support, Scholz promised Ukraine equipment, and then it turned out that it was not on the balance sheet in the Ministry of Defense. Macron, on the other hand, constantly conducts telephone conversations with Putin, but there are no results from them. Is this policy of the leaders of Germany and France logical for you?
– Of course, it is logical. As they say, a cowardly friend is worse than an enemy. It was the French and Germans who forced you to sign the Minsk agreements in 2014. Bypassing the embargo, which they themselves adopted, they issued weapons worth 270 million euros to the same Russia, which is now working against you.
It's one thing what they say and what they do - that's how they are arranged. Another thing is that you should clearly know that you should not count on them. You know exactly who is on the train with you: the USA, Great Britain and New Europe - Poland, the Baltic countries. But they don't have those options. And the United States and Great Britain are two countries that can easily ensure your victory precisely in the military component. In principle, ** they are also very powerful in another area - diplomacy and information
** and according to the movie The Good Shepard the Brits taught us everything we know. ;)
Skybird
06-15-22, 01:46 PM
Putin to give big speech June 17, speak to media
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sanctions-hit-kremlin-stage-annual-russian-davos-bereft-financial-elite-2022-06-14/
Markus
I hold my breath in excitement...
Skybird
06-15-22, 01:55 PM
Ukraine's victory over Russia will be ensured by two countries - American political scientist
https://apostrophe-ua.translate.goog/article/politics/foreign-policy/2022-06-13/pobedu-ukrainyi-nad-rossiey-obespechat-dve-stranyi---amerikanskiy-politolog/46317?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
** and according to the movie The Good Shepard the Brits taught us everything we know. ;)
True. Me too says that you should not depend on the Germans and French, they both play a double game. And Italy. Thats why I said that the prospect that Macronman, Bubble-Olaf and Verbrecherdraghi visit Kyiv together looks like a threat and that they maybe better do not even let them in. :)
Skybird
06-15-22, 02:47 PM
Germany alters its committment (=reduces) to deliver HIMARS (MARS II) systems. Instead of delivering 4 it now only plans to send 3.
The UK said it will also send 3, the US 4.
While "several hundred missiles" also will be delivered (so say the germans for their three systems), these reserves will be eaten up fast.
Skybird
06-15-22, 02:57 PM
:har:
"Are you serious? Bicycle transport is possible, but heavy weapons are not...?"
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/images/gepaeck_ts/28425122/2-format1007.jpg
Is Scholz going to Kyiv without luggage after all?
Skybird
06-15-22, 03:01 PM
The Russian energy company Gazprom is again reducing the volume of gas supplied to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline. As of Thursday morning, only a maximum of 67 million cubic meters will be pumped through the pipeline each day, Gazprom announced on Wednesday afternoon.
Once again, the Russian state-owned company justified this step with delays in repair work. Therefore, it said, another gas compression plant had to be shut down. The gas wholesale price increased significantly.
On Tuesday, Gazprom had already announced the reduction of the previously planned daily volume of 167 million by about 40 percent to 100 million cubic meters of gas per day and referred to delays in the repair of gas compressors.
The power engineering group Siemens Energy had then announced that a gas turbine that had been overhauled in Canada could not currently be shipped back from Montréal due to the Russian sanctions. The new reduction to 67 million cubic meters means a throttling by around 60 percent within two days.
According to the assessment of German Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), Russia wants to stir up trouble with the supply cuts. "The Russian side's justification is simply pretextual. It is obviously a strategy to unsettle people and drive up prices," said the Green politician in Berlin.
Westfälische Nachrichten
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
The Defense Commander of Severodonetsk takes into account that Russian forces are bad at street fighting, they decided to allow Russian forces to enter the city. Russian forces have bigger numbers of people, artillery, and the opportunity to use aviation in that direction. So, the Ukrainian commander decided to draw Russian troops into the city and drag them into heavy street combat. Ukrainian Armed Forces in Severodonetsk has an advantage in knowledge of the terrain, prepared positions, and also prepared stocks of everything needed for a good and long fight. Thanks to that decision, the Ukrainian Armed Forces leveled the Russian superiority in artillery and aircraft. The situation is similar to Friedrich Paulus' troops in Stalingrad. Paulus's troops were not ready for heavy street fighting and were unable to gain an advantage in artillery and aircraft.
What will happen if Russia starts to gather maximum forces to complete the capture of the Severodonetsk city and the Luhansk region accordingly? Such a scenario will weaken other parts of the Russian front and will lead to local counterattacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Currently, Russia moved its best forces to Severodonetsk and eliminating most of them will be great pros for the future Ukrainian offensive. Notice how the situation on all front lines changes with every new day of the fight for Severodonetsk(East of Ukraine). 11 days ago, a lot of "experts" predicted that Ukraine's army will just retreat from Severodonetsk after Russian forces entered the city. Russian forces still fighting in the city and loses on other fronts terrain in a couple of weeks they can forget Odessa and water supply to Crimea is than in danger again.
Putin: “We are driven by destiny to re-conquer our own territory in Ukraine”
Medvedev: “Ukraine will not be on the map in 2 years”
Pope: “It is possible Ukraine provoked Russia & could’ve avoided this”
What the frell is wrong with leaders?
I read three widely ranging military assessment by a German and an american and an Australian general.
These the same ones that told you Russia would take Ukraine in 3 days?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6Vg7yLx54
It feels like a good time to post this.
When you believe nothing, its easy to believe anything. :k_confused:
Skybird
06-15-22, 04:26 PM
The trio infernale is on its way to Kyiv, media report.
These three, France, germany, Italy, are the dionant Wetsenr powers tryint to push Ukriane to again give land for "peace". Because all three of them refuse to wake up to reality.
Those pushing Ukraine to concede territory need to listen to Putin’s recent words. The Russian president's naked ambition is now clear to see, even if some in the West want to remain blind to it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-putin-comparison-tsar-scary-rcna33344
Even worse are the hate-dripping tirades of Medwedev. As bad as Goebbels.
Rockstar
06-15-22, 08:43 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6Vg7yLx54
It feels like a good time to post this.
When you believe nothing, its easy to believe anything. :k_confused:
Just Believe. :yep:
Skybird
06-16-22, 04:37 AM
Currently, evertyhing turns against the Ukraine. As things stand today, this day, it looses. And a reconquering of the whole Donbass imo is completely unrealistic with current wepaon deöliveries, so is the reconquering of the Crimea. The Russians cna affor dhigh losses. And they are superior in number. Putin moved forkm attemtpoed Blitzkrieg as a tactic to patient war of attrotion: and Ukraione, depsite cuasing the Russians higher losses, bleeds out. Not nicely played by the the Russians - but very clever. They play not really good but brutal- but still good enough
------------
FOCUS writes:
The focus of attention has shifted from the war in Ukraine to the consequences of the war: inflation, rising food prices, fuel profiteering. Germany is now experiencing the "moment of fatigue" that Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck warned about - much to Vladimir Putin's delight.
It's bad news for Ukraine: three-quarters of Germans don't believe Ukraine will win militarily. Two-thirds think that only a negotiated solution can end the Ukraine war. And four-fifths even think it is right to continue talking to the aggressor Vladimir Putin. In other words, according to the Forsa pollsters, a clear majority of Germans support Chancellor Olaf Scholz's hesitant course in the Ukraine war.
The scenario that top Greens Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck warned about is now happening - Germans are growing tired of this war. Saying "tired of war" is politically difficult because Germany is not at war, something the chancellor also wanted to avoid from day one.
Putin's Ukraine war: Now Germany is experiencing the "moment of fatigue"
The foreign minister had recently warned - in English - of a "moment of fatigue. The Minister of Economics of a "dramatic increase in heating costs" and the consequences for the mood in the country in the fall. In eastern Germany, the mood is once again significantly more critical of Ukraine than in the west.
According to Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk radio, more than half of the population there believe Germany is interfering too much in the Ukraine war, and 70 percent are against the delivery of heavy weapons. Figures that were confirmed by the Allensbach Institute.
It is no wonder if the parties Die Linke and the AfD, which are strong in the east, are stirring up sentiment against Germany's support for Ukraine - they represent what a majority in eastern Germany thinks. For weeks, Johannes Varwick, a historian from Halle, Germany, has been making a public appearance with assessments critical of Ukraine. Now the professor said on Maischberger that for Ukraine this war is "lost anyway."
The focus of attention has shifted from the war to the consequences of the war - to Putin's delight.
Moods change - and that is precisely why they are a weapon of war. The focus of attention in the West, including in Germany, has long since shifted from the war to the consequences of the war - record fuel and food prices and the impending utility bills in the fall that will make housing drastically more expensive.
And the latest news is likely to darken the mood further - to the delight of Vladimir Putin, the aggressor. There is still not enough gas for the winter, the Ministry of Economy knows. Which means two things: there is a threat of shortages with potentially drastic economic dislocations. German industry warns of this pretty much every day. And prices for the increasingly scarce commodity will continue to rise.
In addition, Putin has adjusted his war strategy. Not only is his soldiery now concentrating on the east, conquering the Donbass region city by city. Most importantly, he has turned the initial "blitzkrieg" into a war of position or attrition.
Putin has slowed the war, so much so that it would take him 100 years from now to completely conquer Ukraine. That's the figure Potsdam military historian Sönke Neitzel put out there Wednesday.
So in terms of sentiment, it looks like this: Because of the war-related inflation, Germans are worried about their money, not only about their prosperity, but also about whether they will have enough at the end of the month. Because of the start of the Corona summer (the next wave was not expected until the fall), Germans are increasingly worried about their health - whereby the worries and the simultaneous apparent carelessness relate to each other like communicating tubes.
And finally: Fewer and fewer people still want to know exactly what is happening in Ukraine - which is understandable in view of the war atrocities inflicted by the Russians. But exactly the psychological effect that Baerbock and Habeck warned about has set in - exhaustion is preparing to set in.
Then there is the communication of the Ukrainian government, which wants to make the West, Germany in particular, feel guilty in order to achieve more and faster arms deliveries. One can understand Selenskyj, especially if one looks at the photos on social media of the young men between 18 and 25, so hopeful and thirsty for life just a short time ago, who are now being slaughtered like flies.
And yet: The constant exhortations reinforce the exhaustion in the West. Combined with the war aims that Selenskyj has since announced, such as the reconquest of Crimea, the increasingly distanced mood toward Ukraine is likely to intensify once again.
Selenskyj finds himself in an almost unresolvable dilemma: If he remains silent, the war in his country will disappear from the public eye. If he talks, there is the threat of the exhaustion effect that Ukraine's president himself described worryingly (at the World Economic Forum in Davos) as "nose full."
As if all this were not enough, the sanctions have so far not caused Putin to back down from his war. This is also due to the inconsistency of the West. In the first 100 days of the war, Russia collected a total of 93 billion euros for raw materials exports - 57 billion of which came from European countries, writes Christian Neef, a longtime expert on Eastern Europe, on Twitter.
Germany's unilateral dependence on Russian gas, due to a large coalition of industrial companies and German chancellors, is still indirectly financing Russia's war. It will continue to do so for a while.
At any rate, that is the mood in which Olaf Scholz is leaving for Ukraine - probably on Thursday. For obvious security reasons, the date and itinerary are not confirmed. Scholz's travel partner, French President Emmanuel Macron, is in any case already in the region.
From Romania, the latter recommended a negotiated settlement to his Ukrainian presidential counterpart, something that Selenskyj flatly rejects and will probably continue to reject because Ukraine's situation is currently deteriorating militarily.
A peace that is not a Russian "dictatorial peace," as Selenskyj knows only too well, will only be possible when Russia is on the brink of military defeat. And that is not what it looks like - especially since conquests, or more precisely: reconquests, are something completely different from "merely" defending a territory. Historian Neitzel, who is anything but a Russia expert, calls the reconquest of the Donbass alone "completely unrealistic.
Conclusion: Just at the moment when Ukraine is suffering the greatest casualties, the mood in the West is turning toward "nose to the grindstone." Ukraine must be glad that there are no presidential or parliamentary elections in the West, especially in Germany and France.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
-------------
The war of material and attririuton the ukraine, I fear, cannot win on the long run, and this is supported by the fact that the Russians make small, slow, but constant progreess and adcvanes since four weeks now.
If there ever were a chance to win on the long run, then only by really huge material support by the West, and the US is the one who tried this. But the Western and Central Europeans are wavering from beginning on, are hesitent, fearful, undetermined. They wasted precious time - time that the Ukraine did not have.
I think it is now up to the Ukrainians to reinvent the way they fight, like the Russians have adapted, so must the Ukrianian army now. It must become an army of guerillas, becasue a war of attrition the Russians can hold out longer than the Ukrainians. Ukrainians must fight a years-long fight of guerilla warfare to exhaust Russia like Russia has exhausted the mood and willingness of the Europeans. They cannot recapture the Donbass, so they must form a long breath and make possession of it so unpleasant for the occupiers over the years that one day it is the occupiers who are exhausted, and give up this occupation that was so very unpleasant for them.
Europeans will not like this, because it means the war will drag on FOR YEARS to come. And that means Russia and Europe will not exchange kisses again any time soon.
Skybird
06-16-22, 06:21 AM
Macronman's rhetoric has changed in one maybe not irrelevant point. He now says "Ukraine must win." Whether he means it is something different. That formulation, not with a comma but a period at the end, in principle leaves no room for interpretations.
His verbal choice is more than what his German pendant so far dares to speak out. Bubble-Olaf so far (until this visit) did not dare to say more than "Ukraine must not lose and Russia must not win." Hoping for an Ukrainian victory, sounds differently.
The expectations confronting the German are high, since he boasted weeks ago that he would not go to Kyiv only for a photo shooting, but only would go there if something substantial is on the table. Problem is his view and the global public's perception of what qualifies as "substantial" may be lightyear apart. Maybe he sees Draghi's plan as "substantial". See at the end.
Thats scepticism is justified. Bubble-Olaf recently shone with claims that Germany sends more military contributions than anyone else except the US. A simple numerical analysis however shows easily how absolutely wrong that claim is both on material items, and even money.
The indiustry has readied 20+ Marders for being sent to Ukraine, immediately, and already since weeks. It did it by own initiative. Since then the chancelor's office rejects to make a decision of using them for anything, Ringtausch or delivery to Ukraine. It completely blocks everything. Also, the claim was made that there is a NATO policy to not send heavy armoured vehicles to Ukraine. Something that was not confirmed by a single other NATO country, and some of them, and the US, acting as if such an agreement were not in place anyway. The Ukraine has received dozens, up to 200 MBTs, without any problem by NATO. Why Germany is worried about heavy weapons like Leopard-1 tanks and Marders but not about heavy weapons like 3 MARS-II and some Gepard tanks, probably forever will remain its secret.
The Italian even brought a full plan for Ukrainian capitulation that he unveiled weeks ago to other Europeans. He wants the Ukrainians to see that their nation is not as important as is fighting inflation in the Eurozone and keeping Italy with its monumental national deficit afloat.
Just that inflation already had started to explode BEFORE the Russians invaded.
Skybird
06-16-22, 08:08 AM
Neue Zürcher Zeitung with a 8-point analysis of the absic determinants of the current war situation.
--------------
In Russia's war of attrition against Ukraine, individual territorial gains are not decisive
Ukraine has enough soldiers, but not enough weapons. With Russia, it's the other way around. Both states are playing for time - a calculation in which only one side can win.
Moscow's generals have already faced a hostile army in eastern Ukraine: In August 1943, the Soviet Union launched a major offensive that has gone down in history as the "Donbass Operation." The goal was to drive Hitler's German troops out of the Donets Basin, which was economically important because of its coal industry. The flashback reveals remarkable parallels with the present. Towns like Lisitschansk, Bachmut or Isjum, which today appear in the news about Russia's invasion, were already then the scenes of significant battles. The Donets River formed the frontline over a length of several hundred kilometers - almost exactly as it does today.
But the differences are also striking. Quite apart from the fact that today Moscow's forces act as invaders, it was a completely different battle. Russia and Ukraine are currently conducting their ground operations in the Donbass with less than 100,000 troops each. The Red Army and the German Army Group South deployed many times that number in 1943. Moreover, operations at that time proceeded at an astonishing pace: within just four weeks, Soviet troops conquered the entire Donbass.
By comparison, today's fronts are shifting only at a snail's pace. To be sure, Russia tends to have the upper hand and is steadily gaining terrain. This is threatening and frustrating for Ukraine, but at the same time it must be viewed in the right proportions. Before the war, the Kremlin controlled a third of the Donbass region with the help of puppet regimes in the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Thanks to the conquests since February 24, it is now a good three-quarters.
Over the past month, however, only about 1,000 square kilometers have been added. That is roughly equivalent to the area of the canton of Thurgau or slightly more than the city of Berlin. At this rate, Russia would have to continue fighting for another year to achieve its declared war goal, the complete capture of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Even then, it would be far from subduing Ukraine and establishing a pro-Russian government in Kiev.
However, it is not possible to make a serious forecast based on the developments of the past few weeks. Both an acceleration of the Russian advances and a freezing of the fronts are conceivable. For the time being, the scenario of large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensives seems less likely. Kiev's troops have tried this at various sections since May, but are now stuck.
Military experts have long said that the Russian campaign has turned into a war of attrition. This refers to the strategy of wearing down the enemy. The continuous loss of troops and material is intended to bring him to exhaustion. But which side has the better cards? Eight aspects deserve special mention:
1. The time factor plays a decisive role
In Tolstoy's epic War and Peace - a classic that should be familiar to both Russian and Ukrainian generals - the commander Kutuzov utters a famous phrase: "Patience and time, these are my two strongest fighters." This guiding principle is applied in the fight against Napoleon, whose Russian campaign fails not in great field battles but in a war of attrition lasting for months.
Both warring parties currently believe that time is on their side. Russia has radically changed its tactics compared to the first phase of the war. Whereas the Kremlin initially embraced the idea of a blitzkrieg and some officers even packed their parade uniforms in order to be appropriately dressed for the expected triumphal march through Kiev, the Russians are now proceeding with more deliberation. They no longer launch uncoordinated infantry advances as in the Battle of Kiev, where they all too often bounced off ambush counterattacks.
Rather, they seek to use artillery to systematically destroy Ukrainian positions before advancing. President Putin recently compared this method to cracking nuts; in his public appearances, he gives the appearance of being under no time pressure.
But the Ukrainians also attach great importance to the time factor. Since they have fewer resources, every week they hold off the invaders is a gain for them. Their calculation is to resist long enough for military losses, international sanctions and increasing arms supplies from the West to force the Kremlin to relent.
2. Each side seeks attrition in its own way
Russia is refraining from large-scale operations in the Donbass due to a lack of combat troops. Instead, it is trying to flank the Ukrainians with smaller advances or to force them to retreat by threatening encirclement. The most important such operation at present is the targeted encirclement of the Severodonetsk-Lisichansk conurbation. Encirclement would result in the destruction of four to five Ukrainian brigades. However, the defenders can still keep open a corridor 20 kilometers wide.
The weaker-armed Ukrainians rely on a different method to wear down the enemy. They can make up for their inferiority most easily in densely populated areas. In urban combat, according to a rough rule of thumb, an attacker is forced to use at least five times his strength in relation to the defenders.
This explains why the Ukrainians have not yet abandoned the city of Severodonetsk. It is no longer strategically important, and on this side of the Donets, in the higher-lying Lisichansk, they could retreat to more tenable positions in the longer term. But the Ukrainian leadership obviously wants to force the attackers in Severodonetsk to engage in a battle of attrition. The area of the fertilizer factory there, where several hundred Ukrainians have entrenched themselves, offers ideal conditions for this. In order to make it more difficult for them to obtain supplies, the Russians have now destroyed the last bridge over the river. However, this also impedes a later Russian advance to the west.
Artillery duels dominate the fighting
3. Artillery duels dominate the battlefield
The most important weapon in the Donbass operation is artillery. Russian self-propelled howitzers and especially Grad, Uragan and Smerch multiple rocket launchers enable the attackers to rain down enormous amounts of shells and rockets on Ukrainian positions. Prorussian channels regularly publish video footage of the use of such weapons.
The images of the green fields in the Donbass, littered with countless bullet holes like pockmarks, also testify to the destructive power of artillery. The Ukrainians, for their part, counter these attacks with artillery, with what is known as counter-battery fire. This is because they no longer have a significant air force that could bombard Russia's guns from the air.
However, it is an unequal fight: according to the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, General Valery Saluzhni, Russia has a tenfold superiority in artillery in the Lisichansk area. This information cannot be verified, but it is certain that since the transition to a war of position in the Donbass, the Ukrainians have suffered significantly more casualties than at the beginning of the war.
4. Both sides suffer high losses
Kiev has been complaining about a high blood toll in a strikingly clear way lately. President Selensky spoke in early June of 60 to 100 casualties per day and about 500 wounded; some of his advisers cite even higher figures. The range of Russian casualties is unknown. By all appearances, they are also serious. This is indicated by reports from participants in the war and the fact that Russia itself is throwing forcibly recruited residents of the occupied territories into the fight.
Unlike Moscow, the separatist republic of Donetsk regularly publishes casualty figures. According to them, more than 2000 Donetsk military personnel have been killed and 8500 wounded in the war so far. Of the armed forces of this separatist republic, estimated at 20,000 men, this would mean that half would have been lost. Their commander, Russian-born Major General Roman Kutuzov, was also killed recently while visiting the front.
Both sides' losses of war materiel are also substantial. The Oryx analysis group, for example, has documented the loss of 774 Russian tanks, 180 since early May alone. The latter number would be enough to equip 18 tactical battalion groups, of which Russia reportedly still has about 100 in service in Ukraine. Astonishment was recently caused by the fact that the Russian military, in its material shortage, took vintage T-62 tanks out of its depots and moved them to Ukraine. They date back to the 1960s and are extremely vulnerable to enemy anti-tank missiles.
5. The battle of attrition has a demoralizing effect
Combat morale is considered much higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Russian, but several factors seem to be causing frustration. To Western war reporters, Ukrainian infantrymen complain that they are powerless in ranged artillery battles and hardly ever get to see the enemy. The lack of weapons is also an oft-heard complaint.
On both sides, there are reports of criticism of the military leadership, up to and including open mutiny. For example, a video of a group of Ukrainian soldiers who feel abused as cannon fodder and refuse to return to the front with the words "We don't want to die" is circulating on the Internet.
Conversely, Ukrainian intelligence presented the alleged recording of an intercepted telephone conversation in which a Russian soldier told his wife about the mutiny of his unit. Since only one-third of his battalion group was still operational, all of them had refused to continue fighting. In response, a general had threatened them and fired shots in the air, but to no avail. At last, the commander had to leave the place in flight. There is no confirmation of this incident from an independent source.
6. Propaganda also counts as weaponry
Because the high number of casualties can weaken fighting morale and fuel doubts about military strategy, it is not only the respective arsenals that matter in a war of attrition. Both sides are also active on the information front. President Selensky visited the frontline city of Lisichansk last week, signaling that he does not consider it lost. It was his first trip this far east of the country since the war began, and it came with risks. In doing so, he countered the criticism voiced in some units that the politicians in Kiev live in a world of their own.
Shortly thereafter, Putin, the Kremlin's ruler, also set a new propagandistic tone: he compared the military intervention in Ukraine to the Great Northern War waged by Peter the Great beginning in 1700. In doing so, he emphasized that Tsar Peter "rightfully" reclaimed Russian land and took 21 years to do so. It was a clear indication to his own people of the historical scope of the ongoing "special operation" and the need to have staying power.
7. Stalling the enemy's economy
No country can wage war in the longer term without a sufficient economic base. Accordingly, part of the attritional struggle is to weaken the enemy's economy. Russia is doing this very deliberately by destroying industrial plants and cutting off Ukrainian ports, which are vital for exports.
Ukraine's hands are tied in this regard. Its few cross-border attacks do little damage. Russia's economy can only be weakened by foreign sanctions. So far, this has not succeeded to any decisive degree. To be sure, the fact that Moscow has declared parts of its financial statistics secret points to upheavals in the state budget. But at least revenues from oil and gas exports continue to bubble up thanks to higher prices: in May, they amounted to about $840 million per day, which is even slightly higher than at the beginning of the year.
8. The West plays a key role
Ukraine is thus crucially dependent on foreign aid. The West has it in its hands to press Russia with economic sanctions and to supply Kiev with the necessary weapons for its defensive struggle. Provided these two conditions are met, Ukraine has a good chance of military success. After all, it has a large reservoir of motivated servicemen and women.
But the future of foreign aid remains uncertain, as the West is also in a kind of attrition battle. Putin calculates with good reason that solidarity with Ukraine will erode and priorities in capitals from Berlin to Washington will change. Record high inflation and fears of an imminent recession are wearing on the nerves of responsible politicians. The popularity of U.S. President Biden has reached a low point - one consequence of the dramatic boom in gasoline prices, among others.
In Western Europe, on the other hand, the temptation to avoid a confrontation with Russia and to horse-trade with Putin over the heads of the Ukrainians has never disappeared. France's President Macron is sending signals in this direction with his admonition that Putin should not be humiliated. He and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz continue to put the brakes on the supply of heavy weapons. It is foreseeable that the longer the war lasts, the louder the calls for territorial concessions from Kiev will become.
No wonder, the Ukrainians' requests are becoming more and more insistent. Presidential advisor Mikhailo Podolyak, for example, put the need for multiple rocket launchers at 300 - but only eleven of these modern Western systems have been pledged. The Ukrainian military also recently sounded the alarm, saying it was running out of ammunition for the Soviet-origin artillery weapons that have been used primarily up to now. The course of the war will depend crucially on the willingness of the West to help Ukraine convert to NATO weapons systems and to supply it with ammunition.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
Rockstar
06-16-22, 08:27 AM
I skimmed this from the comments section on censor.net. :03: :)
https://censor-net.translate.goog/ua/news/3348288/my_dopomagatymemo_stilky_skilky_bude_potribno_shol ts?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
https://i.ibb.co/p0C1Y17/287825439-1212948319462307-3856503947312479859-n-1.jpg
“Not so. I have schnapps and I PROMISE I'll pour it for you soon”
“In about 2-3 weeks.”
“If the partners provide the appropriate glasses from which to drink schnapps”
“And certified according to EU standards.”(Hat tip: Mykola Trofimenko, Vladimir Kindrat, Vitaliy Glushko :salute:)
Skybird
06-16-22, 09:09 AM
The fascist ambassador to the EU threatens with stopping all gas delivery via Nordstream 1. :D
Has anyone really assumed that Russia would endlessly not react to the Europeans dancing on its nose with their sanction attempts? They can strike back. And they do it. And they earn more money with it than before the prices went up.
These European sanction attempts will never work. Too little, too weak, too indifferent, too leate. Europe is weak because it depends on Russia, still, and that is not to change any time soon.
And when you allow to slip into such a huge dependency, then you end up sitting shivering between a rock and a hard place. Don't complain, we voluntarily sought that place and settled down there, nobody forced us. And now we are impotent to do needed actions.
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 10:42 AM
I hold my breath in excitement...
Me too...it wouldn't surprise me if the event is cancelled.
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 10:45 AM
France's President Macron says European leaders - who are visiting Kyiv - are supportive of Ukraine gaining "immediate" candidate status to join the EU
Macron, Germany's Olaf Scholz and Italy's Mario Draghi were earlier welcomed to the Presidential Palace in Kyiv by President Zelensky.
Zelensky is urging the European leaders to hit Russia with more sanctions - and says more weapons will mean quicker liberation of territory.
Earlier, the EU leaders inspected war damage on a visit to the town of Irpin which Russian troops occupied at the war's start.
Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Kremlin figure, mocks the visit, saying "fans of frogs, liverwurst and spaghetti" love going to Kyiv with "zero use"
Meanwhile, 10,000 civilians are trapped in the embattled eastern city of Severodonetsk, a reginal governor says.
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 10:48 AM
We've been hearing from Ukraine's president and the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Romania who've been in Kyiv for talks.
Here's what we learned from their joint press conference:
The leaders said they support Ukraine's bid to join the European Union, and the country should be given immediate candidate status.
Chancellor Scholz of Germany said Ukraine and Moldova belonged in the European family - but would still have to meet the criteria for accession.
Scholz also promised that Germany would continue to support Kyiv financially and militarily as long as it needed.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said that in their fight against Russia's invasion, the Ukrainian people were defending the values of democracy and freedom that underpin the European project.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Ukraine could count on its allies for support. He also said some sort of communication channel was needed with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia's invasion was an attack on all of Europe - and only united action could stop it. He also said the leaders' visit showed Ukraine was not alone in its struggle.
The leaders also said more weapons were being sent to Ukraine, including six more long-range Ceasar guns from France.
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 10:54 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWm0uyivit4
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 10:58 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjs3y_XUKi4
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 11:01 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsciOnl5NWI
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 11:02 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5pp4Gyc_j8
Gazprom cuts supply to Germany even further, 'possibly shutting down completely'
The Russian gas company Gazprom today further reduced the gas supply to Germany, so that now only 40 percent of the normal amount is coming in through the important pipeline Nord Stream 1. Yesterday, the supply had already been reduced to around 60 percent. As a result, the Dutch market price for gas, which is considered standard in Europe, rose by 25 percent. Gazprom tells the Russian news agency RIA that the pipeline may close down completely, without mentioning a deadline.
Gazprom attributes the scaling back of the supply to the absence of essential equipment from Siemens, which was supposed to return from a maintenance job in Canada. Due to sanctions, that is not possible now. According to the German government, this is an occasional argument, and Russia wants to scare European countries with this action and further push up the price of gas. Energy companies from Italy, the Czech Republic and Austria also say they are getting less gas from Russia today than agreed.
The head of Germany's Bundesnetzagentur, the national organization responsible for managing energy flows, says he is concerned about the Russian actions. "This could make our situation considerably worse. We will get through the summer, now that the heating season is over. But it's very important that we completely fill up the stocks now."
French diplomat: 'Territory of Ukraine must be restored, Crimea must also be returned'
The French government wants Ukraine to achieve a victory over Russia, with the country's "territorial integrity" restored. That includes Crimea, a French diplomatic source tells Reuters news agency. That Ukrainian peninsula was taken by Russia in 2014. According to the source, it is up to Ukrainian President Zelensky to determine what he sees as a military victory, and France will help.
French President Macron arrived in Kiev this morning to meet with Zelensky. "This is an important moment, it is a message of unity addressed to the Ukrainians," Macron said as he left the train. Macron has sometimes evoked angry reactions in Kiev in recent months, such as with his claim that Russia should not be "humiliated" and his emphasis on continued diplomacy with Russia.
Two U.S. veterans who fought along in Ukraine are missing. They are both from the state of Alabama.
Relatives of Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh (27) have not heard from him since June 8. At that time he was in the region of Kharkov, not far from the Russian border. Alexander Drueke (39) was in his company. His relatives are also no longer getting in touch with him.
The U.S. State Department is investigating reports that Russian troops or pro-Russian rebels have taken two Americans as prisoners of war. If so, these are the first Americans captured since the war began in late February.
Germany and France are ready to admit Ukraine to the European Union as a candidate member. Chancellor Scholz and President Macron said this after a meeting with President Zelensky in Kiev, which was also attended by Italian Prime Minister Draghi and Romanian President Iohannis.
"My colleagues and I came to Kiev today with a clear message: Ukraine belongs to the European family," Scholz said. Macron said all four countries favored granting Ukraine candidate membership "immediately." Draghi said that Zelensky understood that candidate membership is a pathway; a route that will require major reforms in Ukrainian society.
The European Commission is expected to propose tomorrow that Ukraine be granted candidate status. EU government leaders will then discuss it next week.
Scholz made no concrete commitments on arms deliveries, something Ukraine has repeatedly and insistently called for. He only wanted to say that Germany is supplying weapons and will continue to do so as long as Ukraine needs them. Zelensky said that Germany is also supplying the weapons desired by Ukraine.
Dutch House of Representatives calls on the Cabinet to further increase arms deliveries and other forms of military support to Ukraine "where possible in the very short term." The Chamber also wants the Cabinet to urge allies to urgently deliver more weapons and carry out already promised deliveries.
"There should be no taboo on which weapons or weapon systems the Netherlands supplies, on buying weapons from third parties or supplying weapons through other allies," states the adopted motion by D66. Immediate cause is President Zelensky's call for more weapons.
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 11:23 AM
^ Already covered in detail See #4597
Jimbuna
06-16-22, 12:05 PM
Just in one minute ago....someone is obviously doing Vlad the Impalers bidding and living in a parallel universe at the same time.
Since the Russian army attacked Ukraine nearly four months ago, thousands of civilians have been killed and whole towns reduced to rubble, while millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes.
But on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov looked me in the eye and told me things were not as they seemed.
"We didn't invade Ukraine," he claimed.
"We declared a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way of explaining to the West that dragging Ukraine into Nato was a criminal act."
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Mr Lavrov has given only a few interviews to Western media.
He repeated the official Kremlin line that there were Nazis in Ukraine. Russian officials often claim that their military is "de-Nazifying" the country. Mr Lavrov caused uproar recently when he tried to justify the Nazi slur regarding Ukraine's president, who is Jewish, by making the ridiculous claim that Adolf Hitler had "Jewish blood".
I quoted to him an official United Nations report about the Ukrainian village of Yahidne, in Chernihiv region, which states that "360 residents, including 74 children and five persons with disabilities, were forced by Russian armed forces to stay for 28 days in the basement of a school… There were no toilet facilities, water…10 older people died".
Read the full article from the link below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61825525
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWm0uyivit4The fire started on the night of June 15 at the Gazprom Dobycha Urengoy site between gas fields 7-8 due to “a rupture of a pipe with a diameter of 1.4 meters”. The fire has now been extinguished with no casualties reported.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjs3y_XUKi4 Significant losses of Russian occupation troops ruin the military leadership’s plans to advance rapidly into Ukraine. Cases of large numbers of personnel being fired for refusing to take part in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine have become more frequent. This does not allow to strengthen and replace Russian units that have lost their combat capability in a short time.
Dutch intel said it stopped a Russian spy posing as an intern from accessing the International Criminal Court, investigating war crimes in Ukraine. The man used a Brazilian cover identity, but was unmasked as a GRU agent... https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/16/dutch-say-prevented-russian-spy-from-accessing-icc-a78026
Skybird
06-16-22, 01:40 PM
Bubble-Olaf said he would not go to Kyiv just for a photo shooting, but only when there is somethign substantial on the table. But when you look close at it, thats what happened: a photo shootiong, and nothing new and substantial on the table from the Germans. The Ukraine may win the status of a EU candidate, but that is of no relevance for the runnign war, and does nothing to help it. It also impresses not the Russians. More likely motivates them even further. The candiadacy is a proc ess that will take years - and whewther the ukraine will even still exist in a few years, is not a given.
Seen this way, Scholz once again pulled the Teflon stunt. He deflects criticism of his deciisons and policy, while risking nothing and not giving anything additional. Just before the visit he has reduced the number of HIMARS from 4 to 3. No decision in the Marders that are ready to be delivered immedoiately now. Once again he mentions the IRIS-T air defence systemn. That that system will not be sent before Decembre (last news update), he did not say.
A photo shooting, and nothign more. Exactly what Scholz said he would not travel for to Kyiv.
In Ukraine, they have a created a new word from the German, I see on TV : "scholzen, herumscholzen". It means endless slurring and making a lot of words without following up with deeds. We had also introduced such a word in Germany before: "Merkeln, Herummerkeln," which, in reference to Merkel, means a bumbling opportunistic doctoring around of symptoms without treating the causes and deeper reasons. Bungle, in other words.
Macronman was a little surprise, if he mean serious what he said. The french have hcnaged their rhetoric, and now openly speak of a victory for Ukraine, the Germans ironly still avoid to take that term into their mouth. The French alos said they will send 5 more of their truck mounted 155mm howitzer (of which they already sent 10).
The Germans came and left without offering anything concrete. They did not disappoint me.
Will we be sitting with our hands on our knees if this happens ?
Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on June 10 that Belarus may be forced to enter the war to fight for the west of Ukraine so that it is “not chopped off” by NATO. The Belarusian dictator’s remarks came as Minsk was reinforcing its electronic warfare capabilities along the Ukrainian border, according to a Facebook post by the Ukrainian General Staff.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/belarusalert/renewed-belarus-military-buildup-is-a-sign-of-lukashenkas-desperation/
Markus
Will we be sitting with our hands on our knees if this happens ?
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/belarusalert/renewed-belarus-military-buildup-is-a-sign-of-lukashenkas-desperation/
MarkusBelarus are worse at war than Russia, I do not worry
Belarus are worse at war than Russia, I do not worry
Weren't they part of the initial invasion and had to bow out because their troops weren't having any part of it?
Weren't they part of the initial invasion and had to bow out because their troops weren't having any part of it?It was more his military refused to fight against Ukraine, and it has a great militant resistance in Belarus Lukashenko did not go ahead with an invasion of Ukraine. There was talk they were fighting in Ukraine, but never saw any proof of it, a lot of Belarus people fled to Ukraine and joined their army to fight Lukashenko.
Skybird
06-16-22, 03:08 PM
Will we be sitting with our hands on our knees if this happens ?
Yes we will.
However, the mere massing of troops at the border binds Ukrainian troops in that region. Troops the Ukraine would need elsewhere.
Skybird
06-16-22, 03:18 PM
Belarus are worse at war than Russia, I do not worry
Not to mention how ukraine will suck at war if running out of ammo. And the Sovjet-made part of their equipment IS running out of ammo for sure. The Western weapons must come in at a quanity so that they can replace these empty Sowjet weapon platforms, namely artillery pieces. Ther eis only one factory in the West left that can produce sovjet era artillery ammunitions. And they are hopelessly overloaded in demand. Ukraine'S own military productions has been destroyed by now practically completely by the Russians. Thats confirmed both by the Ukrainians, and Western observers.
I assume the Russians "abuse" the T-62 as mobile artillery for short range, too. The Ukrainian chief of staff said the Russians have a 10:1 advantage in artillery pieces. Other speakers of the government mentioned even higher ratios against the Ukraine, up to 15:1.
Russian Rosgvardia’s elite 604th Special Purpose Center’s Vityaz unit is now offering three-month contracts to fight in Ukraine, with just three weeks of basic training before deployment to the front. This underlines the scale of the manpower crisis Putin is facing as his invasion force continues to suffer heavy losses
By proclaiming their support for Ukraine and Moldova becoming official candidates for EU membership, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy on Thursday sent an unequivocal message to Vladimir Putin: the Soviet sphere of influence is dead — and it will not be resurrected by force... https://www.politico.eu/article/rhetoric-and-reality-collide-as-france-germany-italy-back-ukraines-eu-bid/
Skybird
06-16-22, 03:24 PM
If they really aim at the long haul, its only a question of time before they call general mobilization, no matter the innerpolitical implicaitons this would mean.
If they really aim at the long haul, its only a question of time before they call general mobilization, no matter the innerpolitical implicaitons this would mean.Why would we do that if others can die for us, we will supply them with arms but never fight in Ukraine.
Skybird
06-16-22, 03:32 PM
This German commentor in FOCUS agrees with my earlier post where I said the visit today was pathetic and practically worthless. I would even say the visit displayed pure cynism. Ladies visit a hotel spa to feel well, Scholz visits Kyiv.
---------------
The three-plus-one allies delivered the bare minimum to the Ukrainian president on Thursday. A simple consideration makes this clear: If the four heads of state and government had not even granted Ukraine EU membership status, they might as well have demanded its capitulation to Russia.
No wonder that Putin and his people reacted so casually and mockingly to this photo opportunity, which was supposed to be so much more. But it wasn't. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selensky also put a good face on the game of pepita - what else could he have done but gloat like a camera?
Selenskyj is dependent on everything, but really everything, that the West supplies him with. Whereby the West means above all: the USA. If Ukraine were dependent on the help of the West alone, it would already be Russian. A simple fact about this, too: without the American defensive missiles, Ukraine would not have been able to defend Kiev at the beginning of the war, or at least not as successfully. And Russia's blitzkrieg scenario would have worked out.
Coming up next, Scholz. But first: the Italian prime minister was bordering on ridiculousness. Mario Draghi said in view of the wheat war that Russia has now started in Ukraine, the Europeans must now be as brave as Ukraine.
Gosh - what does he want to do now, the Signore Draghi: send the European Army to blow up the Russian ships blocking the delivery of Ukrainian grain for Africa and Asia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Black Sea off Odessa? Alas, alas: it does not exist, the European army. What once again, perhaps even in two years, if the American president should then be called Donald Trump again, could still grow into an existential European problem. What does he propose then, Mr. Draghi?
In any case, the three old Westerners plus the new Westerner Romania talked intensively with Selensky, the would-be Westerner, about this war scenario of Vladimir Putin. No wonder: Russia has good cards to enforce its view of things in Africa and Asia - that the West is responsible for the famine threatening there - and not Russia.
Romania is now to become a kind of global hub for the granary Ukraine and its deliveries to the world. That is the only unexpected result of this summit in Kiev. With its own Black Sea ports, it is to bypass Ukraine's Odessa, hitherto the wheat gateway to the world.
Thank goodness the three procrastinators, Germany, Italy and France, called in their Romanian counterpart. It was probably Emmanuel Macron who came up with this idea, he visited Klaus Johannis on Friday. It apparently dawned on at least one of the three that it would have sent a fatal signal if only the trio of procrastinators from the old West had traveled to Ukraine.
The new West, i.e. the old East with the central power Poland as its most important representative, would certainly have taken it as a diplomatic affront if an Eastern representative had not been present. Germany and France have long since ceased to be the navel of the Europeans. Here, too, the Ukraine war has led to what the German head of government likes to call a "turning point in time." The Ukraine war has made the EU more eastern.
Speaking of Olaf Scholz, he has now extended the term applied to the Bundeswehr and its plus-100-billion future to war. A small rhetorical coup. But this is by no means a "turning point": Ukraine already had associate status with the EU once. That was precisely the reason for Putin to strike out against Ukraine for the first time.
On the face of it, EU accession status is indeed a necessary condition for Ukraine's existence as a member of the European Union. But status alone is not sufficient for accession. The only decisive factor is the acquis of the European Union - the so-called acquis communautaire. In other words, everything that is now European law. A few thousand pages.
Serbia is now waiting almost 20 years for its accession. And until Ukraine becomes a member of the European club, many years will pass, who knows how many. And depending on the final outcome of this war, the matter of accession status will have already been settled.
That is, if Putin's soldiers win this dirty war. And then possibly installs an Erich Honecker in the Russian vassal state Ukraine. This brings us back to the beginning, which is to say: Without weapons, everything is nothing. Without a military success, the prospect of Ukraine's membership in the European Union is an empty promise.
And in this respect, Olaf Scholz has not brought anything with him to Ukraine, unlike the pompous promises he made before a possible trip. One only has to put the - even announced - German arms deliveries next to the list that Ukraine recently published as the minimum necessary. There are many bureaucratic and some key political reasons for German hesitation. The bottom line, however: what the Germans are supplying remains a tragedy.
Turned to domestic politics: This visit to Ukraine, long delayed on all sorts of specious grounds and now finally delayed, will take the pressure off Scholz, who has long been under pressure.
For one day, for two days, for three?
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
Skybird
06-16-22, 03:35 PM
Why would we do that if others can die for us, we will supply them with arms but never fight in Ukraine.
I meant Russia. Russia must generally mobilize if it wants to go for a long lasting war. There are innerpolitical implications that will make things more difficult for Putin, but he is a dictator with brutal means at his hands. He can deal with that.
I meant Russia. Russia must generally mobilize if it wants to go for a long lasting war. There are innerpolitical implications that will make things more difficult for Putin, but he is a dictator with brutal means at his hands. He can deal with that.The inner political implications are too big I think else he would have done this already.
A Ukrainian T-64BV tank was destroyed by an ATGM fired by the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the so-called LNR in Luhansk Oblast. So they use these 1966 tanks on the front. :D
Jeff-Groves
06-16-22, 03:56 PM
Um. The BV is a 2017 upgrade.
"The upgraded tanks included new thermal imaging for all crew, remove Luna infrared searchlight, include TPN-1-TPV Ukrainian night sight in place of TPN1-49-23, Nizh reactive armour modules designed for bolt-on replacement on T-64BV turrets, SN-4215 networked satellite navigation unit, and Lybid K-2RB digital radio (under license from Motorola) providing secure communications with a 70 km range."
Skybird
06-16-22, 04:21 PM
After in two steps bringing down gas supply to germany to 40% of previous quotas, Gazprom on Thursday cut deliveries to France, Austria ands Italy by one third each.
Earlier this day Germany was warned by the Russian ambassador to the EU that gas deliveries via NordStream-1 could be stopped completely.
After in two steps bringing down gas supply to germany to 40% of previous quotas, Gazprom on Thursday cut deliveries to France, Austria ands Italy by one third each.
Earlier this day Germany was warned by the Russian ambassador to the EU that gas deliveries via NordStream-1 could be stopped completely.Gazprom attributes the scaling back of supply to the lack of essential equipment from Siemens, which should have returned from a maintenance job in Canada. Because of sanctions, that is not possible now. According to the German government, this is an occasional argument, and Russia wants to scare European countries with this action and further push up the price of gas. Energy companies from Italy, the Czech Republic and Austria also say they are getting less gas from Russia today than agreed. They use it because of the new weapons package.
Skybird
06-16-22, 05:22 PM
Of course its a strawman argument. There are many Siemens turbines installed - and several ones stored for reserve duties like now.
The Russian Empire strike back here, that simple it is. And as I said earlier, it was to be expected. They try to drive wedges into the Europeans' front, and they try to keep Scholz afraid.
Skybird
06-16-22, 06:40 PM
The UK has bought 20 howitzers M109 in Belgium and now delivers them to Ukraine.
https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Kharkiv%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20June%2016%2C2022. png
Skybird
06-17-22, 06:33 AM
Paywall prevents to post the full text, so this ilustration must serve as a hint on how great the discrepancy is between money support promised to the Ukraine - and how much really has been given so far.
https://img.welt.de/img/wirtschaft/mobile239401471/3172502237-ci102l-w1024/DWO-Teaser-Ukraine-Hilfe-js.jpg
Famous military historian van Crevefeld said that he cannot imagine the ukraine to gain the capability and manpower to successfully reconquer even just one major metropole fallen to Russia, not to mention retaking the Donbass or even the Crimea. I think he is right there. It is said the side on the offensive needs a 3:1 advantage to push the offensive, and in urban area and cities its even 5:1 and higher. But the ukrainians numerically are outnumbered.
If it was a goal of Russia to split the Ukraine, then it already has won the war. :cry:
Van creveld only thinks it possible that the ukraine over the very long haul could make occupation so unpleasant for the occupiers that in some years they have the nose full of it, and leave. But how often does it happen that once the Russians are in a place, they left again? Its difficult to get rid of them again
Bubble-Olaf gets quite some criticism after his return from Kyiv. Many people are quite aware that he has givne the ukraine nothing, and went there with empty hands. The EU candidate status is worth nothing for the next years, it plays no role for the going of the war or in affecting Russia's acting.
As a consequences of the gas shortages ot Germany and Italy, no gas from Russia reaches France at all anymore.
Skybird
06-17-22, 06:37 AM
The following analysis is by Prof. Dr. Thomas Jäger, he writes for FOCUS and repeatedly I took notice of his strategic longterm perspectives and analysis, he is maybe one of the most competent illusion-free analysts in germany on the war. He has held the Chair of International Politics and Foreign Policy at the University of Cologne since 1999. His research focuses on international relations as well as American and German foreign policy.
His view is grim. He writes in FOCUS:
Vladimir Putin's second, final war goal is still too little noticed in this country. In the end, Russia wants to dominate not only Ukraine, but all of Europe. Anyone who dismisses this as completely absurd is taking the easy way out. Germany urgently needs a serious threat analysis that goes beyond the poetry with which the government of the last twenty years has lied to itself.
Russia's war aims extend far beyond Ukraine. It wants to dominate Europe because only then will it be able to have a say in the international order on an equal footing with the world powers, the United States and China. Russia continues to pursue this goal, even though it is currently only achieving gains in terrain in Ukraine that by no means justify the loss of so many people, so much material and so much prestige. Not to mention the social and economic opportunities for the future of Russian society that have been sacrificed on the Ukrainian battlefield.
The official view in Russia is different. In their propaganda, the "liberation" of Ukraine is indeed proceeding slowly because "civilians are being protected." But those in charge know that they are neither protecting civilians nor conquering cities, but capturing bombed-out stone deserts from which people have fled and in which they have died.
Webinar: Tips for helping children who have fled Ukraine.
Both sides in the war know what it's all about at its core: Ukraine wants to emerge from this war as a united nation. Russia wants to prevent that from happening. Not even Russian propaganda dares to claim that Ukraine has already lost the war. In Germany this "opinion" is spread.
President Putin was completely wrong in his assumptions about the course of the war. Neither did the Russian armed forces find military and political support in the neighboring country, nor did the EU and NATO states split over their direct reactions. The U.S., Putin's pathological object of hatred, has even been able to use the opportunity opened up by Russia to once again present itself as the world's number one power - and to act accordingly.
In view of this situation, the question arises with regard to Russia's war aims whether the Russian leadership continues to be mistaken if it assumes that it will ultimately be able to dominate Europe. Militarily, it cannot achieve this goal. The war in Ukraine documents this. Can it achieve it politically?
This is something to think about in order to be prepared for Russia's possible actions, which could be aimed at destabilizing European states and promoting authoritarian tendencies in states and societies. Then Russia could once again assume a role it has more often represented in history: to be the guarantor power of authoritarian European states.
One only has to think of Prussia and the Habsburg Empire. At present, this can be observed especially in Belarus, where the government has tied its security to Russia's military power and shuns, even fears, its own population. This is enough to govern authoritatively. Could this occur in other European states as well?
Before Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Poland and Hungary were the two EU states where authoritarian tendencies could be observed most intensively. Restrictions on the judiciary and media by the executive, an illiberal ideology and strong nationalism put these two states in a special position.
They continue to occupy it, but no longer together, but each at the other end of the EU's wartime alignment. Poland has gained enormously in status. The historically deeply rooted mistrust of Russia and a clear policy of matching words with deeds have brought this about.
Hungary, on the other hand, is in a special role, viewed with skepticism, as at least a half-hearted representative of Russian positions, because the break with Russia is avoided. The EU can endure this at present, because Hungary is not a state that makes a difference in terms of relations with Russia.
Therefore, the focus is on the medium-sized European states in the West, on France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Britain can be left out of this, not because it is no longer part of the EU, but because for historical reasons it will not adopt a policy of yielding to an aggressor.
The other four states are consolidated democracies, but the Russian calculation could be aimed at changing just that. President Putin considers the liberal democracies to be less defensible, politically and culturally hollowed out and alienated from their traditions. In his world view, they are prepared to make far-reaching political compromises in return for prosperity.
Do these findings give rise to effective levers that Russia could use to promote illiberal and nationalistic developments in Western Europe in order to support authoritarian tendencies in the political systems - and thus to produce those governments whose guarantor power Russia wants to be? And is the war in Ukraine contributing to this?
Some consequences of the war have already become apparent: The distribution battles for scarce resources are becoming tougher and the loss of prosperity in Western societies more noticeable. These effects can be exploited politically.
Since a comprehensive threat analysis is beyond the scope of this article, we will only give some examples. In France, society is deeply divided politically, and national-populist, anti-Western forces are steadily gaining ground. In Italy, the memory of a government consisting of two national-populist parties is still alive. In Spain, the conflict over Catalonia is simmering. In Germany, a thinning of the political center has been lamented for years and the fragmentation of the party system may again become acute.
In all cases, economic slumps, unemployment, cultural and racial prejudices, and skillful agitation from outside can affect the political order. In any case, given the Russian leadership's assessment of the European situation, it is an obvious possibility that must be considered and for which society must prepare. For the Russian president thinks that the European democracies are not capable of defense, in which he may have been encouraged by Germany's deliberately brought about partial inability to defend itself.
Therefore, the EU states need a serious threat analysis that goes beyond the poetry with which the governments of the last twenty years have lied to themselves.
Smart politics starts with looking at reality. German society in particular must learn this again in the area of foreign and security policy. This includes the fact that war in Europe is a real possibility for which states prepare - if they are governed responsibly. If they are not prepared, it is important to ask: why?
This threat analysis must be based on a nationwide and societal perspective, and it must be used to draw conclusions about the capabilities the country wants to have at its disposal, lifted in the EU. For this reason, the threat analysis must also be a basis for equipping Germany for several futures. For no one knows for sure which dangers will threaten in the coming years - and which can be safely ruled out.
Russia, at any rate, will only be able to achieve its imperialist goals if it succeeds in promoting illiberal, authoritarian and nationalist tendencies in the states of Europe. Or if this should be possible in the USA.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
--------------------
In the actual field battles, the ukriane is loosing, and Russia is slwoly, but constantly advancing. I too think that it will be decided over several years, over long periods of time, whether Russia is able to keep these trerritories, or whether Ukrainian guzerilla warfare makes life so miserbale for them that one day they pack thigns and go again. Right now, honestyl said, I have a hard time to imagine that. But then, before the war i thought Russia would fioght much more efefvtcively then it did. However, I do not share the Wetser snetiuments on that Ukraine over the longer time automatically prevails. It already ha slost ion another regard: the enormous destruction of industrial and economic capacity that already has accumulated, and is still to come.
I also think it is not just dielaism why the US supports Ukraine with military goods so consequently for nthe itme being. That is not idelaism, but a cold-blood calcualtion to use the Ukraine war to let the Russian bleed - the lponger, the better. Russia'S ambition to tlak ons amke erye level with China and the US, and US interest, are absolutely contradictory, of course, and nothing the US wants less than to lift a fourth and fifth grade industrial country with pathetic economic productivity and only ressources and inhumane brutality as export hits, to the same level as oneself. The US uses the Ukriane as a proxy war to keep Russia down. I say that without any psiotive or negative sentiments, I just name the cold facts. I think the trio infernale in Kyiv yesterday also did so, in its own special way.
Plenty of pathos spread by the media, but in the end: only cold-nmblooded power poltlics. The Ukraine currently gets sold and betrayed.
Once again in history. A tragedy.
To hell with dirty Russia - if only we could arrange it.
Skybird
06-17-22, 07:06 AM
And this is true, too. The West shoots it sown knee, and more often and intense as Putin alone could have acchieved that.
Under the sanctions imposed by the West, Vladimir Putin was supposed to be made to relent in the medium term. But now the alliance of Ukraine supporters is feeling the economic consequences more and more painfully. As a result, Western support is beginning to crumble.
While three representatives of Old Europe - Scholz, Draghi and Macron - trudge through the devastation in the Kiev suburbs, the Kremlin ruler and war president speaks out with tantalizing self-assurance. The three EU politicians should use their time with Selensky to take a "realistic look at the situation," he says through the spokesman for the Russian presidential office, Dmitry Peskov.
And that state of affairs, from which Putin's self-assurance feeds, does not look very favorable to the West at the moment. The anti-Putin alliance is smaller, more fragmented, and more ineffective than hoped. Every second shot fired by the West hits its own knee.
1. The idea that Putin could be brought to his knees through economic warfare is proving to be a miscalculation. Economic sanctions have hurt Western societies to a far greater extent, which are suffering from high energy prices and disrupted supply chains, and may now be sliding into recession after the Federal Reserve's emergency braking. "The global economy is at risk," says World Bank President David Malpass.
2. Putin still owns the most important raw materials for Western wealth production: oil and gas. Meanwhile, he has turned the tables, cutting off supplies to Poland, Finland and the Netherlands, and curbing them to France, Italy, the Czech Republic and Austria.
3. Meanwhile, the Western sanctions regime has a high potential for self-injury. Gas deliveries, including to Germany, have been throttled through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline because a gas compressor unit is stuck in Montreal, Canada. It comes from Siemens Energy and may not be delivered because of the Western sanctions regime.
"The turbine is at the factory, Siemens can't pick it up, and not all the other turbines fit," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller explained the background at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum yesterday.
4. The same trouble on the subject of ship insurance. The latest sanctions imposed by the EU and the UK stipulate that Russian oil tankers may no longer be insured. As a result, "oil tankers will simply not be able to transport Russian oil," explains Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the IMF. He concludes:
"Russia will suffer a loss of revenue, but Europe and the U.S. are likely to suffer from a significant increase in world oil prices."
Right now, the U.S. government is in the process - the Financial Times reports - of softening European sanctions rules in favor of the Russian tanker fleet. Biden has no desire to lose the midterm elections because of astronomical fuel prices.
5. Faster than expected, Putin found an alternative customer for the energy tranches that the West was no longer buying. In India and China, people are particularly happy about the discount that Putin is now granting. And politically, too, not a few stand by him, as is evident on the international stage: 40 heads of state and government, representing some four billion people, were unwilling to condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine at a UN General Assembly meeting.
6. Contrary to what the White House initially hoped, the Chinese are by no means moving away from Putin. They unlocked the war plan at the face-to-face meeting of Putin and Xi Jinping to open the Winter Olympics. They demonstrate the solidity of their arms brotherhood by flying a nuclear-armed fighter jet over the heads of Biden and the heads of government of Australia, India and Japan during the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) in Tokyo just 24 days ago.
7. In the developing world, the anti-Putin alliance is not making friends at the moment. Since the war and the sanctions regime are not sparing the food markets either, hunger is looming in Latin America, parts of Asia and Africa. Putin presents himself as the savior of the hungry when he offers to ship Ukraine's annual production of grain, corn and fertilizer through the port terminals he occupies. Ukraine does not want to give its production out of its hands. Starving for freedom?
The bottom line is that economies around the world - and not just in Russia - are now under stress. Apart from the arms companies and oil companies, there are no winners. Putin alone could never have triggered this global energy, food and economic crisis. With the design of his sanctions regime, the West was his willing assistant.
The world is witnessing a spectacle that has already been performed many times in the past: the big players play poker, the little ones croak. And the audience is not as innocent as it feels.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
We are half.hearted, and nthat is the worst way we coukld act. Eiteher we were going "all in", without compromise, or we stay out. But this fearful half-baked back-and-forth that we do right now was the worst option we could have chosen. And with perfect instinct we choosed right this, helped in the deicison by all the other desasters we have needlessly brought upon us in recent years.
I do not like Russia's policy and ambitions, and I am absolutely hostile to Russia, but I can fully understand why they think the West is degenerated and stupid and rotten and corrupt. I think the same about the West and since many years.
This winter will become EXTREMELY funny.
Skybird
06-17-22, 07:54 AM
Frankfurter Rundschau:
Ukrainian forces show a clear preference for Soviet systems, as soldiers are already trained in these weapons and have experience operating them. In the case of Western weapons, which are now supplied in significantly greater numbers than at the beginning of the conflict, Ukrainian soldiers must first be trained. However: this takes time. In addition, soldiers who are to be trained must be transported away from the front lines. There, however, the Ukrainian military needs every man.
For example, Ukrainian soldiers are apparently not using the high-tech Switchblade kamikaze drones provided by the U.S., although hundreds of the weapon have been delivered, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with relevant U.S. intelligence information. Instead, Ukrainian soldiers would use commercial drones equipped with explosives. The Himars multiple rocket launcher announced by U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has also still not been deployed, needing only three weeks of training, an official told CNN.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Rockstar
06-17-22, 09:49 AM
...
As a consequences of the gas shortages ot Germany and Italy, no gas from Russia reaches France at all anymore.
As you know, Russian gas was said to have been shut off to Poland also. Though according to this article Poland still gets Russian gas only now it's reversed flowed and purchased from Germany. :doh:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Gazprom-Says-Poland-Buys-Russian-Gas-From-Germany.html
Just a guess but I'd wager France one way or another is still receiving Russian gas. Either that they are now hooked into the North Atlantic
Skybird
06-17-22, 10:42 AM
^That was true, with Poland, but that might have chnaged since then. The mechanism you describe was at a time when Germany and others still got full gas supply. But several states now get no more gas from Russia, others battle with drastically reduced deliveries (Germany -60%...) So this inverse redundancy from the contiental grid infrastructure (just to give it a sexy name...) might be damaged to a degree now that the assumption of yours may not be that valid anymore. Which is exactly the intention of the Kremlin. They slowly pull the garotte tighter and tighter.
About his speech this Friday. I read about it in a Danish article..
Did he declare former Soviet states war, in his speech earlier today ?
From the Article in Ekstra Bladet
Putin compares himself to emperor: 'Will conquer more countries'
A violent comparison frightens and arouses wonder in countries close to Russia.
In a televised speech to young entrepreneurs, Vladimir Putin compares himself to the Russian emperor and commander Peter the Great, who conquered and captured vast territories in the 1700s.
- When Peter the Great founded St Petersburg, no European country recognised it as Russian. They said it was Sweden, but he took nothing. He recovered and strengthened what was already Russian, Putin says, continuing.
- It seems that it also became our task to reclaim and strengthen.
According to Russia and propaganda expert Yevgeniy Golovchenko, the message is that Russia must be great again.
- Putin talks about taking back lost lands, that land borders are up for negotiation, and that his role is to conquer new territories.
According to the expert, in Russia it is associated with greatness to talk about taking new land, such as Crimea or Siberia.
- When Putin has used the term 'historic Russia' in speeches in recent months, it is an expression that he wants more land back.
First to legitimize the invasion of Ukraine, but now he is apparently quite direct about wanting to make more countries Russian.
- At the very least, he wants the borders of the Soviet Union back.
The expert fears that countries like Finland and the Swedish island of Gotland, which share a past with Russia, may be on the president's wish list.
Speeches on attacks on NATO countries
In the run-up to the invasion, Putin said Ukraine was created on what was historically Russian territory.
Now eastern European countries fear Russia won't stop at Ukraine because the city of Narva is mentioned in Putin's speech as one of Peter the Great's conquests.
Narva is in Estonia, which is a member of NATO but was part of the Russian empire for two centuries and later the Soviet Union.
Estonia's president calls the statement 'completely unacceptable' and has tried to get Russia's ambassador to condemn the comparison. Without success.
Russia is also talking about the new strategy.
On Russian state TV, carefully selected commentators are talking loudly about Russia's new strategy of more countries returning to the motherland:
- Several TV commentators talk about it as something positive that more countries are going back to Russia. It is not unusual to talk aggressively about the use of weapons against NATO countries.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Markus
Skybird
06-17-22, 11:07 AM
About his speech this Friday. I read about it in a Danish article..
Did he declare former Soviet states war, in his speech earlier today ?
From the Article in Ekstra Bladet
Markus
America better watches out for Alaska, and Germany for the five Eastern federal states. :D On TV, Kremlin-loyal propagandists already discussed the war on Germany and how easly it will be conquered.
^ There's one army or country the Russian fear-The Germans.
Markus
About his speech this Friday. I read about it in a Danish article..
Did he declare former Soviet states war, in his speech earlier today ?
From the Article in Ekstra Bladet
Markus
Comrades, on the instructions of the Secretariat of the Central Committee I have to give you certain necessary information on matters concerning the discussion 3 days to Kyiv and on the resolutions connected with the discussion 3 days to Kyiv. Unfortunately, we shall have to discuss Putin's action in his absence because, as we have been informed today, he will be unable to attend the plenum owing to mental illness.
You know, comrades, that the discussion 3 days to Kyiv started with Putin's action, the publication of his Lessons of 3 days to Kyiv. The discussion 3 days to Kyiv was started by Putin. The discussion 3 days to Kyiv was forced on the Party. The Party replied to Putin's action by making two main charges. Firstly, that Putin is trying to revise Leninism; secondly, that Putin is trying to bring about a radical change in the Party leadership. Putin has not said anything in his own defence about these charges made by the Party. It is hard to say why he has not said anything in his own defence. The usual explanation is that he has fallen ill and has not been able to say anything in his own defence. But that is not the Party's fault, of course. It is not the Party's fault if Putin begins to get a high vision of FUBARism after every attack he makes upon the Party.
Now the Central Committee has received a statement by Putin (statement to the Central Committee dated June 17) to the effect that he has refrained from making any pronouncement, that he has not said anything in his own defence, because he did not want to intensify the controversy and to aggravate the issue. Of course, one may or may not think that this explanation is convincing. I, personally, do not think that it is. Firstly, how long has Putin been aware that his attacks upon the Party aggravate relations? When, precisely, did he become aware of this truth? This is not the first attack that Putin has made upon the Party, and it is not the first time that he is surprised, or regrets, that his attack aggravated relations. Secondly, if he really wants to prevent relations within the Party from deteriorating, why did he publish his Lessons of 3 days to Kyiv, which was directed against the leading core of the Party, and was intended to worsen, to aggravate relations? That is why I think that Putin's explanation is quite unconvincing.
A few words about Putin's statement to the Central Committee of June 17, which I have just mentioned, and which has been distributed to the members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission. The first thing that must be observed and taken note of is Putin's statement that he is willing to take any post to which the Party appoints him, that he is willing to submit to any kind of control as far as future actions on his part are concerned, and that he thinks it absolutely necessary in the interests of our work that he should be removed from the post of Chairman of the Russian Military Council as speedily as possible. All this must, of course, be taken note of.
As regards the substance of the matter, two points should be noted: concerning "permanent operation Ukraine" and change of the Party leadership. Putin says that if at any time after Februaries he happened on particular occasions to revert to the formula "permanent operation Ukraine," it was only as something appertaining to the History of the Party Department, appertaining to the past, and not with a view to elucidating present political tasks. This question is important, for it concerns the fundamentals of Tzarist ideology. In my opinion, this statement of Putin's cannot be taken either as an explanation or as a justification. There is not even a hint in it that he admits his mistakes. It is an evasion of the question. What is the meaning of the statement that the theory of "permanent operation Ukraine" is something that appertains to the History of the Party Department? How is this to be understood? The History of the Party Department is not only the repository, but also the interpreter of Party documents. There are documents there that were valid at one time and later lost their validity. There are also documents there that were, and still are, of great importance for the Party's guidance. And there are also documents there of a purely negative character, of a negative significance, to which the Party cannot become reconciled. In which category of documents does Putin include his theory of "permanent operation Ukraine"? In the good or in the bad category? Putin said nothing about that in his statement. He wriggled out of the question. He avoided it. Consequently, the charge of revising Tzarism still holds good.
Putin says further that on the questions settled by the Thirteenth Congress he has never, either in the Central Committee, or in the Council of Labour and Defence, and certainly not to the country at large, made any proposals which directly or indirectly raised the questions already settled. That is not true. What did Putin say before the Purrteenth Congress? That the cadres were no good, and that a radical change in the Party leadership was needed. What does he say now, in his Lessons of 3 days to Kyiv? That the main core of the Party is no good and must be changed. Such is the conclusion to be drawn from The Lessons of 3 days to Kyiv. The Lessons of 3 days to Kyiv were published in substantiation of this conclusion. That was the purpose of The Lessons of 3 days to Kyiv. Consequently, the charge of attempting to bring about a radical change in the Party leadership still holds good.
In view of this, Putin's statement as a whole is not an explanation in the true sense of the term, but a collection of diplomatic evasions and a renewal of old controversies already settled by the Party. That is not the kind of document the Party demanded from Putin. Obviously, Putin does not understand, and I doubt whether he will ever understand, that the Party demands from its former and present leaders not diplomatic evasions, but an honest admission of mistakes. Putin, evidently, lacks the courage frankly to admit his mistakes. He does not understand that the Party's sense of power and dignity has grown, that the Party feels that it is the master and demands that we should bow our heads to it when circumstances demand. That is what Putin does not understand.
How did our Party organisations react to Putin's action? You know that a number of local Party organisations have passed resolutions on this subject. They have been published in MeowPravda. They can be divided into three categories. One category demands Putin's expulsion from the Party. Another category demands Putin's removal from the Russian Military Council and his expulsion from the Political Bureau. The third category, which also includes the last draft resolution sent to the Central Committee today by the comrades from Moscow, Leningrad, the Urals and the Ukraine, demands Putin's removal from the Russian Military Council and his conditional retention in the Political Bureau.
Such are the three main groups of resolutions on Putin's action. The Central Committee and the Central Control Commission have to choose between these resolutions. That is all I had to tell you about matters concerning the discussion 3 days to Kyiv.
We purr,
we are a great authority,
exceptional ability at our discretion,
Expect litter!
Meow Great Helmsman, Exceptional, Glorious Chairman, Tzarism, Moscow, 2022.
UK intelligence: 15,000 millionaires likely trying to leave Russia. The British Defense Ministry cited migration applications. Their motivation is likely opposition to the invasion and an attempt to escape the financial impact of the sanctions, the ministry said.
Russia has "strategically lost" the war in Ukraine and is a "more diminished power", the head of the UK's armed forces has said. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Vladimir Putin had used 25% of Russia's army for only "tiny" gains. And although Russia may achieve "tactical successes" in the coming weeks, he said any notion the war had been a success was "nonsense"... https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-russia-has-strategically-lost-and-any-notion-they-have-been-successful-is-nonsense-top-military-chief-says-12635312
Putin: "We must not turn the cities we liberate into Stalingrad"
He already did it, only he can't see it from the bunker. Everyone seems to be able to get to Kyiv except Putin.
Ukrainian officials stated that Russian forces have already committed about 330,000 servicemen to their invasion of Ukraine without conducting partial or full-scale mobilization in Russia. Ukrainian General Staff Main Operations Deputy Chief Oleksiy Gromov stated that Russian forces grouped 150,000 servicemen into battalion tactical groups (BTGs) and other formations and involved additional 70,000 troops from air and sea elements, with the remaining personnel staffing non-combat support units.[6] Gromov noted that Russian forces committed more than 80,000 servicemen of the mobilized reserve, up to 7,000 reservists of the Russian Combat Army Reserve (BARS-2021), up to 18,000 members of the Russian National Guard (Rosguardia), and up to 8,000 troops from private military companies. Gromov did not specify if Ukrainian officials included information about forcibly mobilized servicemen in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) in these numbers. Gromov noted that the Kremlin may still increase the number of Russian military personnel in Ukraine by executing covert or full mobilization.[7] Gromov noted that while it is unknown if the Kremlin will declare mobilization, Russian forces will still need time to execute the deployment and training of the new personnel whether or not the Kremlin announces full mobilization... https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-16
UK PM has offered to launch a major training operation for #Ukrainian forces, to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days. Each soldier would spend 3wks on a training course, learning frontline battle winning skills, medical training, cyber-security & counter explosive tactics. https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1537817489857445890
Tokayev said that Kazakhstan doesn’t recognize "LPR" and "DPR" and called them quasi-state territories he noted that international law based on UN Charter and two fundamental principles-right of nations to self-determination and territorial integrity, came into conflict. "For this reason, we do not recognize Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia or Abkhazia. Apparently, this principle will also be applied to quasi-state territories, which, in our opinion, are Donetsk and Luhansk," said Tokayev.
Putin was present on stage at that moment, not in Kyiv!
Kazakhstan's President Tokayev has been critical of the war in Ukraine and the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. "In Kazakhstan, people think differently about Russia's 'special operation' in Ukraine," Tokayev said. "There is such a thing as territorial integrity of states and the right of nations to self-determination. Kazakhstan does not recognize the independence of Taiwan, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It also does not recognize the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk - these are quasi-state territories." At the forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Egyptian President Sisi had been invited to take their seats on the podium alongside Putin. Neither leader was there, so Tokayev sat next to Putin on the podium. After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, it quickly became clear that Kazakhstan would not send troops to Ukraine to support the Russian offensive. Conversely, early this year, Russia did send 2,000 military personnel to Kazakhstan to quell violent protests in Kazakhstan at Tokayev's request.
Catfish
06-17-22, 02:09 PM
[...]
We purr,
we are a great authority,
exceptional ability at our discretion,
Expect litter!
Meow Great Helmsman, Exceptional, Glorious Chairman, Tzarism, Moscow, 2022.
Hehe :up:
where do you have this from, or did you make this yourself?
Hehe :up:
where do you have this from, or did you make this yourself?My rewrite of Stalin's Speech Delivered at a Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the R.C.P.(B.) on outing Trotsky :D
Catfish
06-17-22, 02:45 PM
"permanent operation Ukraine" lmao
Putin should watch out for of cats and icepicks :03:
Gott bewahre;
interviewed by RND today, Merkel stated that she could act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine at some point in the future.
https://i.postimg.cc/1zWZJPXS/FVeefh-BWAAIpi3e.jpg
Catfish
06-17-22, 03:10 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEeTk4-88lA
Severodonetsk- In the original counterattack in Severodonetsk the foreign legion inflicted huge losses on Chechen Spetsnaz. TikTokers(Chechen) realized they had messed up when they came up against several heavily armed foreign legion soldiers.
No more Tiktoks :D Putin still not in Kyiv.
Severodonetsk- In the original counterattack in Severodonetsk the foreign legion inflicted huge losses on Chechen Spetsnaz. TikTokers(Chechen) realized they had messed up when they came up against several heavily armed foreign legion soldiers.
No more Tiktoks :D Putin still not in Kyiv.
This made me wonder. How high is the percentage among these volunteers how many Russian have they eliminated and how much material have they destroyed ?
I know this is impossible to know
Markus
Skybird
06-17-22, 03:50 PM
Gott bewahre;
Indeed. Doesn't matter which one - just not her.
She was recently interviewed in a TV show. She was completely satisfied with herself, and she said she made no mistakes. She was perfect. She knew everything. She was more alright than all the rest of the universe together. So completely full of herself, it was disgusting.
And then she said she did nothing that she felt she would need to excuse for.
I almost vomitted on my carpet.
When she was elected 17 years ago, I told my parents that this was the worst unfolding political desaster for Germany and Europe since 1933 and the twelve dark years following that. And I stick to that statement. I do not say she was as bad as Hitler, she obviously wasn't. But she was the most destructive incident for Germany SINCE Hitler. Her devastating heritage is hard to overestimate.
This made me wonder. How high is the percentage among these volunteers how many Russian have they eliminated and how much material have they destroyed ?
I know this is impossible to know
MarkusFog of war is great in Ukraine can say Russia will never provide this intel, but then again, Putin is not in Kyiv. The Ministry of Defense for the first time announced the figures of losses of the APU in equipment during the war. “We lost about 50%. This is about 1,300 infantry fighting vehicles, 400 tanks, 700 artillery systems, "said Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Karpenko in an interview with National Defense.
Skybird
06-17-22, 03:58 PM
UK PM has offered to launch a major training operation for #Ukrainian forces, to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days. Each soldier would spend 3wks on a training course, learning frontline battle winning skills, medical training, cyber-security & counter explosive tactics. https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1537817489857445890
10000 already trained troops taken out of action for four months - while they need every man right now, desperately.
Could this work well...?
And could such training course turn them into more effective fighters?
Somehow the idea does not catch me.
Russian Black Sea Fleet vessel "Vasily Bekh" has been sunk, reportedly while carrying ammunition, weapons & personnel to Snake Island.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmqwlr7cEcM
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/06/ukraine-strikes-russias-vasily-bekh-rescue-tug/
Markus
10000 already trained troops taken out of action for four months - while they need every man right now, desperately.
Could this work well...?
And could such training course turn them into more effective fighters?
Somehow the idea does not catch me.Sure, but we're talking Boris here ****up numero uno
Catfish
06-17-22, 04:37 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcR2DjZ9Tuw
Is phosphorus classified as chemical weapons ?
In a stream people can't understand why Nato does not intervene when Russia is using phosphorus which should be chemical.
I said to them - In the term of mass destruction it is not chemical
Yes phosphorus is a chemical substans-I think
Markus
Is phosphorus classified as chemical weapons ?
In a stream people can't understand why Nato does not intervene when Russia is using phosphorus which should be chemical.
I said to them - In the term of mass destruction it is not chemical
Yes phosphorus is a chemical substans-I think
Markus
Certain uses in weaponry are banned or restricted by general international laws: in particular, those related to incendiary devices. Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
Rockstar
06-17-22, 08:35 PM
Lithuania suspends transit of a number of Russian goods to the Kaliningrad enclave
https://www-radiosvoboda-org.translate.goog/a/news-lytva-rosiiski-tovary-kalininhrad/31903396.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Lithuanian Railways will stop transiting a number of Russian goods subject to European Union sanctions to Kaliningrad (formerly Koenigsberg) on Friday night. The carrier informed the leadership of the region about it, the Russian service of Radio Liberty reports with reference to the governor of the Kaliningrad region Anton Alikhanov.
The EU has banned almost 50 percent of all cargo from Russia. Alikhanov said that now the ferry line Ust-Luga - Baltiysk will need additional vessels to deliver goods.
According to the Russian official, by banning the transit of goods to the Kaliningrad region, Lithuania allegedly violated the rules of its accession to the European Union.
Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian enclave bordering Lithuania and Poland. Rail passenger service with him is carried out through the territory of Lithuania without changes, and planes fly over the Baltic Sea, because the airspace of the EU is closed to Russia.
On June 3, the EU Council officially approved the sixth package of sanctions in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was decided to abandon the import of Russian oil for six months and the import of petroleum products for eight months.
An exception is provided for the import of crude oil by pipeline to EU countries, which due to their geographical location are particularly dependent on supplies from Russia - Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic.
Skybird
06-18-22, 03:01 AM
An Ukrainian brigade general said they have lost 1300 IFVs, 400 MBTs and 700 pieces of artillery. That equals losses of 30-50% of their equipment. He desperately urged the West to send way more heavy weapons.
The Russian losses likely are significantly higher. The difference: the Russians can replace them, the Ukrainians cannot.
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 06:06 AM
Russia is likely to be renewing its efforts to advance into the Donetsk region, the UK's Ministry of Defence says.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned of "Ukraine fatigue" setting in after returning from his trip to Kyiv on Friday.
Johnson also said that Ukrainians "deserve" to host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest after the European Broadcast Union said the UK would host instead of this year's winners.
During his nightly address President Zelensky said that paramedic Yuliya Payevska, aka Tayra, has been freed from Russian captivity.
She had been captured, along with her driver, in Mariupol in March, where she had been helping evacuate injured soldiers and civilians.
The Ukrainian president also welcomed positive steps being taken as the European Commission recommended Ukraine for official candidate status in its bid to join the EU
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 06:09 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TwmeyFNYZI
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 06:11 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OipRXoeTJK0
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 06:13 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0jqp13ZtW0
Skybird
06-18-22, 07:02 AM
Italy says Russian gas supplies reaching it are down by 50%.
Skybird
06-18-22, 07:32 AM
Russia exists in a "virtual multiverse" (my term, not the author's term in the following article). And it is obscene that many in the west care so much for leaving Putin the option to "save his face". This simply is irrelevant to Putin, since Putin is not about being linked to reality where he would need to save his face, but about flipping between different narrations about his self-created realities as he sees fit.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-off-ramps
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 10:08 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TCzIds04R4
An Ukrainian brigade general said they have lost 1300 IFVs, 400 MBTs and 700 pieces of artillery. That equals losses of 30-50% of their equipment. He desperately urged the West to send way more heavy weapons.
The Russian losses likely are significantly higher. The difference: the Russians can replace them, the Ukrainians cannot.Russians can replace them, but that takes time in stock is damaged so takes time to repair. Russian already send material that exploded when it didn't was the time to exploded or material have faults that make them dangerous because of corrosion. Oleksiy Danilov, very high up in Ukrainian national security, is calling out officials for inaccurate loss claims of Ukrainian forces. My guess is they realize they were being a little alarmist and losses were not so high as people were being led to believe. They may be exaggerating the numbers to build political pressures on the west to give more arms.
Kiev wants to resume peace negotiations with Moscow by the end of August. This is what Ukrainian chief negotiator David Aratchamia told American broadcaster Voice of America. In the meantime, Ukraine will carry out counterattacks on the Russians, the negotiator said. This, he said, will give his country a better negotiating position.
A U.S. government plan to deliver four large drones to Ukraine that can be armed with missiles has been called into question, according to insiders. The plan is said to have been paused out of concern that the sophisticated equipment could fall into Russian hands. At issue are four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones. The surveillance and radar equipment on the drones - if Russia gets its hands on them - could pose a security risk to the US. This was allegedly overlooked when the deal was struck.
Press agency Reuters reported earlier this month that the sale had already been approved by the White House. Whether the deal will still go through is currently being discussed within the top echelons of the U.S. Department of Defense. The drones in question cost around ten million dollars (over 9.5 million euros) each, according to government documents.
A doctor much loved among Ukrainians has been released by the Russian army. Using her bodycam, Yulia Pajevska recorded human suffering during the siege of Mariupol. She had been arrested in the port city three months ago. It is unclear why she was released. According to her husband, Pajevska is on her way to a hospital in Kiev. It is not known how she is doing medically. Her husband is mostly happy that she is no longer detained. "I actually don't know what to say," he said emotionally.
Russian Escalations in Syria Risk Direct Conflict With U.S., Military Officials Warn
AL-UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar—Russian forces have conducted a series of operations against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria this month, including one this week at a strategically located base in the southern part of the country, U.S. military officials said.
The Russian actions have alarmed U.S. military officials, who are concerned that a miscalculation might escalate into an unintended conflict between the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria. Tensions between the two countries are already high following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and American efforts to arm the Ukraine military to defeat Russian forces there... https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-escalations-in-syria-risk-direct-conflict-with-u-s-military-officials-warn-11655504591?mod=hp_lead_pos9
Clown Lukashenko declared that Belarus will protect western Ukraine from Poland: "We cannot allow the Poles to encircle us at all. That is a dangerous option. And I once said: if the Ukrainians will ask us with the Russians to help them to keep their integrity, we will do so".
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 12:28 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq7uW3xRHVg
The modern cannons that may make the difference in Ukraine
"Hard pounding this, gentlemen, but we will see who can pound the longest.” Thus spoke the Duke of Wellington on the afternoon of the battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon’s guns were pasting his troops. Those words come to mind as the war in Ukraine descends into an extended artillery duel, focused on the Donbas, in the country’s east. Phillip Karber is a former American marine who now leads the Potomac Foundation, a research and policy outfit in Virginia, and who regularly visits the war’s front lines to study the fighting. He reckons Russian artillery barrages are now responsible for about 80% of Ukrainian casualties. Figures on the other side are no doubt similar... https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/06/15/the-modern-cannons-that-may-make-the-difference-in-ukraine
Yesterday I read an article in Naval News about this Rescue Tug who had been sunk by the Ukrainian
As it said in the article Ukraine has Brimstone anti ship missile, Neptun and now Harpoon.
Well from what I know Denmark is the only country so far who has send RGM-84 to Ukraine-If they are operational I don't know.
(USA has sent them too-but first some week after)
The distance from land to the target says it wasn't brimstone-so it could either have been their own Neptune or Harpoon.
I came to think of this when I saw Jims video in #4667
So maybe it was the Danes who sunk this tugboat, indirectly
Markus
Clown Lukashenko declared that Belarus will protect western Ukraine from Poland: "We cannot allow the Poles to encircle us at all. That is a dangerous option. And I once said: if the Ukrainians will ask us with the Russians to help them to keep their integrity, we will do so".
Polish forces would decimate Belorussian forces, the fact they think they have a chance is funny.
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 01:13 PM
They do if Russia guarantees to watch their backs.
Commander Wallace
06-18-22, 01:21 PM
They do if Russia guarantees to watch their backs.
Poland being a part of NATO, would be a no win situation for both Russia and Belarus should they decide to stupidly start another fight. Russia is in no position to start a new fight when they can't finish the one they are in now and certainly not against vastly superior forces.
They do if Russia guarantees to watch their backs.
That is all Russia would do, watch how the Belarusian army is destroyed.
Polish forces would decimate Belorussian forces, the fact they think they have a chance is funny.
Im' convince this war will spread to the neighbour countries, like Poland, Romania, Hungary a.s.o.
This my standpoint and are not based on knowledge or expertise.
Markus
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 01:27 PM
The context is key here gentlemen "the fact they think they have a chance" would be sufficient to tempt them to act.
Whether that would be successful or otherwise I was not referring to.
Im' convince this war will spread to the neighbour countries, like Poland, Romania, Hungary a.s.o.
This my standpoint and are not based on knowledge or expertise.
MarkusThis Belarus rhetoric is exactly to invoke NATO involvement, all talk. Belarus or Russia can not afford more fronts opening or even have a chance to win this. Lukashenko does not dare to send his army because that army does not want to fight, there is mass desertion in last month's happening because of a possible invasion in Ukraine by Lukashenko. His army is fleeing to Poland to join Ukraine forces, that is Lukashenko's butthurt.
If I was Putin I would say to Lukashenko that he should attack Ukraine from north so Ukraine has to move huge amount of troops from south to north.
This mean Ukrainian has to fight on two huge frontlines.
Nato and their effort to send weapon and ammo to Ukraine will be difficult and has to be lot higher than the daily supply they send today.
Belarus should stay away from Poland.
Markus
If I was Putin I would say to Lukashenko that he should attack Ukraine from north so Ukraine has to move huge amount of troops from south to north.
This mean Ukrainian has to fight on two huge frontlines.
Nato and their effort to send weapon and ammo to Ukraine will be difficult and has to be lot higher than the daily supply they send today.
Belarus should stay away from Poland.
MarkusThis means civil war for Lukashenko because in Ukraine there are Belarus defending Ukraine. Lukashenko will have a second front opening in his own country by his own people, his supply lines will be destroyed by the Belarus resistance. It was the Belarus resistance that helped in slowing destroying Putin army supply lines with success.
Skybird
06-18-22, 01:49 PM
Poland has around 300,000 military personnel and plans to double that number. It has modern equipment, is part of NATO, and specially motivated. Also it is trained according to Western/NATO doctrine. Not Germany needs to protect Poland - Poland could protect Germay, that way the comparison makes sense.
Belarus, according to Wikipedia, had 48 thousand personell for army and air force, and mostly outdated equipment with Russia having delivered some upgrades just in recent 2, 3 years. Motivation and morale are very much in doubt. Their training and command scheme is still Sovjet-style.
There is little worry about Belarus all by itself attacking Poland. It would be stupid.
https://i.postimg.cc/v8ch7SGn/Screenshot-2022-06-18-at-20-50-12-21-gavinsblog-Ukraine-Twitter.png
Skybird
06-18-22, 01:56 PM
Militarily, conventonally, NATO is superior to Russia. But with Russia, in a thought experiment, being the aggressor, it would choose time and place, and amass its forces accrodingly and could possibly acchieve temporary regional superiority, with NATO's forces scattered all across Europe, the bulk of it in the "Hinterland" and thousands of kilometers away from the fighting zones, and being in very low readiness status levels. also, unity of NATO members is uncertain, paragraph 5 leaves open escape holes for members not wanting to join a NATO defence case. Sad, but true.
Currently, this scenario is unlikely. The Russian force's deficits have been clearly revealed. They could by sheer numbers overrun the three Baltic small states, and NATO probably beign unable to defend these successfully - and probably that then would be it for Russia for the time being. Note that NATO rushes reinforcements into this region. They are aware that currently their status in the Baltic states is not good. Too low numbers, that means.
Jimbuna
06-18-22, 02:01 PM
My greatest concern should Russia and NATO clash and NATO almost certainly getting the upper hand would be Russia turning to tactical nukes.
My greatest concern should Russia and NATO clash and NATO almost certainly getting the upper hand would be Russia turning to tactical nukes.
Since the 80'ies and forward I have seen and heard high ranked officer and military expert saying it's not a question about if but when nukes will be used in a war between Nato and Soviet/Russia(the W-pact)
(some say directly at the start of the war, while others say later into the war)
Back to Belarus and Russia-I don't know what type of plans these two have-I only know that I will know in a couple of month from now.
Markus
My greatest concern should Russia and NATO clash and NATO almost certainly getting the upper hand would be Russia turning to tactical nukes.If NATO does not invade Russia maybe it could be avoided, but we shall see if it even comes to this conflict outside the proxies my guess is if there is a conflict Russia vs NATO it will be in Syria.
Commander Wallace
06-18-22, 02:26 PM
The context is key here gentlemen "the fact they think they have a chance" would be sufficient to tempt them to act.
Whether that would be successful or otherwise I was not referring to.
Having seen Western weapons used against them by third parties, meaning the Ukrainians, and how deadly effective they are, I really don't think they want to see NATO countries in combat against them. If I am reading it right, I think American forces are salivating at the thought and chance to mix it up with Russia.
Tactical nukes are always a danger but Russia also knows the U.S has moved their tactical nuclear weapons into Europe as well. Russia knows that using tactical nukes would certainly lead to an exchange of much larger nuclear weapons. I think those in the military forces in Russia know the U.S means business. I doubt those in Russia's upper military echelon would allow Putin to use them and most likely would result in a coup there. I think Putin knows that too.
Having seen Western weapons used against them by third parties, meaning the Ukrainians, and how deadly effective they are, I really don't think they want to see NATO countries in combat against them. If I am reading it right, I think American forces are salivating at the thought and chance to mix it up with Russia.
Tactical nukes are always a danger but Russia also knows the U.S has moved their tactical nuclear weapons into Europe as well. Russia knows that using tactical nukes would certainly lead to an exchange of much larger nuclear weapons. I think those in the military forces in Russia know the U.S means business. I doubt they would allow Putin to use them and most likely would result in a coup there. I think Putin knows that too.Agree, we have seen in former nuclear crisis the hawks back down after period leader is replaced.
^ ^^
We have to remember that Putin lives in his own fairytale
And no of his inner circle dare to speak straight.
(This has been said by some among them an expert in psychoanalyst-I think he was)
Markus
Skybird
06-18-22, 03:08 PM
You guys must not be that afraid of nuclear baddaboom NATO vs. Russia.
Again, from the link I already posted earlier today:
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-off-ramps
Putin's power is coterminous with his ability to change the subject on Russian television. He does this all the time. Think about how the war began. Until late February of this year, the entire Russian media was clamoring that an invasion of Ukraine was unthinkable (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-putin.html) and that all the evidence was just warmongering by the CIA. Russians believed that, or pretended to. Then, once Russia did in fact invade Ukraine, war was presented as inevitable and righteous. Now Russians believe this, or pretend to. In 2015, when Russia's last invasion of Ukraine failed to meet all of its objectives, the Russian media changed the subject from one day to the next from Ukraine to Syria. This is simply how Russia is ruled: invasions and storytelling about invasions. If the invasion doesn't work out, the story changes.
If defeated in reality, Putin will declare victory on television, and Russians will believe him, or pretend that they believe him. He will find a new subject on which to fasten their attention. This is the Kremlin's problem, not ours. These are internal Russian mechanisms in which outside actors are essentially irrelevant. It makes no sense to create an "off-ramp" in the real world, when all Putin needs is an "off-ramp" in his virtual world. It will be built by propagandists from pixels, and we are not needed for that. Indeed, there is something more than a little humiliating in Western leaders offering themselves as unpaid and unneeded interns for Russian television channels.
The odd thing is that Western leaders know all of this, or should. Given plenty of time to reflect after Russia's last invasion of Ukraine in 2014, we have become aware of the primary role that political fiction plays in Russian life. Everyone who matters in public discussions ought to be aware that Putin governs in media rather than reality. Just three months ago, we all just watched as Putin changed the story from "war unthinkable" to "war inevitable." And yet, for some reason, some Western leaders ignore this basic structural fact of Russian politics when they advocate appeasement.
^ I am worried for what may come if the Russians invasion becomes a fiasco
What Putin may do or not do.
I have decided to listen to the part of me who says no nuke/chemical or biological will be used in the war-not ever.
Markus
Skybird
06-18-22, 03:21 PM
Same link.
Now let's think of what we are asking of the Ukrainians when we speak of conceding Ukrainian territory for the sake of giving Putin an "off-ramp." We are asking the people who are the victims of a genocidal war to comfort the perpetrator. We are expecting Ukrainians, who know that Russian politics is all about fiction, to make sacrifices in the world where their families and friends live and die. We are asking Ukrainians to sentence their own people to ethnic cleansing in order to make life slightly easier for Russian television producers whose genocidal (https://newlinesinstitute.org/russia/an-independent-legal-analysis-of-the-russian-federations-breaches-of-the-genocide-convention-in-ukraine-and-the-duty-to-prevent/) hate speech is one cause of the atrocities. As Ukrainians keep trying to tell us, clichés of "cornering" and "off-ramps" will make the war last longer, by distracting from the simple necessity of Russian defeat.
When we start the story from Putin's psychic needs and run it through our own misunderstanding of Russian politics, we push Ukrainian democracy to the side. Rather than acting like allied democracies, we behave like amateur therapists for a dictator. We are no good at that. We are directing our empathy towards a dictator who will only exploit it to continue a war, and away from a people who must win that war to end it.
Appeasement of Russia distracts us from the people who really are cornered: the Ukrainians. They are facing extermination as a people, and that is why they fight. President Volodymyr Zelens’kyi actually does need a way to end this war, because he does not govern by fiction, because he is an elected leader, and because he feels responsible for his people. Unlike Putin, Zelensky cannot simply change the subject. He has to bring his people along. At this point, Ukrainians by huge majorities (https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/commentary-and-analysis/blogs/ukrainians-unwilling-give-national-territory) believe that the war has to be won, and are unwilling to concede territory. Unlike Putin, Zelens’kyi will have to make a case, referring to what is actually happening on the ground. He therefore really does need help, both to win the war as quickly as possible, and in giving Ukrainians a sense of a post-war future.
All reasonable people want this war to end. That means thinking more about the Ukrainian people, and worrying less about problems that Putin does not in fact have.
Same link.
^ I am worried for what may come if the Russians invasion becomes a fiasco
What Putin may do or not do.
I have decided to listen to the part of me who says no nuke/chemical or biological will be used in the war-not ever.
MarkusPutin will declare victory always this kinda dictators always survive it will be like with Stalin when Germany invaded he was away for weeks Russia was without a leader because Stalin feared for his own life but after weeks he was back and took control like nothing was happened, and whole of Russia believed the Great Helmsman, exceptional, glorious chairman Stalin and followed him blindly into dead, their dead Stalin life was never in any danger.
What we see on the ground Ukrainians resistance is fierce Russian advances spasmodic doesn’t fit the public statements were done for effect and maybe overdone, the intended effect by these statements was on NATO governments to get more aid and on Putin. Would imagine the Ukrainians want him to bleed his army white in the Donbas. Remember, the Ukrainians have talked for a while about draining Russian resource's til Aug. The idea of the Ukrainians suffering the massive casualties people are claiming in the Donbas is hard to square with the fact that they are the ones pressing the Russians back around Kherson.
For instance, say we take the smallest of the large estimates of Ukrainians casualties, 200 dead and 500 wounded a day (700 total). That would have meant since the Popasna faux-breakthrough the Ukrainians should have lost, 21000 killed and wounded. So we are to believe that they have suffered such extreme losses, while all the while rebuffing almost every other Russian attack in the Donbas, and at the same time built up the forces needed to attack Kherson. Reliable sources from yesterday have the Ukrainians making regular advances in this theater, which is of vital importance as well. Basically, the Ukrainians are fewer than 15kms from Kherson. Find it hard to imagine that the Ukrainian army in the Donbas has been battered into submission in the way that the media has portrayed, and yet has beaten back almost all Russian attacks and built up the force to attack Kherson.
Have you ever seen an oil depot being hit by a missile ?
Some hours ago an oil depot in Dnipro was hit by some missiles.
For a fraction of a second the cam became white
Edit
Soldiers of the Belarusian Regiment named after Kastus Kalinouski are on the front line in Severodonetsk. In particular, the Volat battalion is taking part in the operation.
They are fighting together with the Ukrainians.
End edit
Markus
Romania restarting now mass production of 152 mm shells (Soviet caliber) & artillery barrels to support Ukraine defense.
Romania restarting now mass production of 152 mm shells (Soviet caliber) & artillery barrels to support Ukraine defense.
Even Bulgaria has done this restartet their production of these 152 mm
Markus
Even Bulgaria has done this restartet their production of these 152 mm
MarkusThe United States asked Bulgaria and Romania to restart production Bulgaria and Romania agreed Romania already sends ammo 152 and 122 to Ukraine for some time, but just doesn't make it public.
The war in Ukraine could last for years, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg said in the German weekly Bild am Sonntag. He added that when modern weapons are delivered to Ukrainian troops, the chances of liberating the Donbas region from the Russians are increased.
"We should prepare ourselves that it may take years. We must not give up our support to Ukraine," he says. "Not even when the costs are rising, not only the costs of military support, but also with rising food and energy prices." A NATO summit later this month in Madrid is expected to agree on a package of support to help Ukraine transition from using old Soviet-era weapons to standard NATO equipment, Stoltenberg said earlier this week.
This brutal invasion into Ukraina was a careful step right in time for Putin. I believe he never have done that "if" Trump has his hands on the helm. Biden administration will not use nuke me think", and on the other side we have Stoltenberg who act like a puppet.
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 06:35 AM
Putin's ambitions in tatters: Russia ‘returning to Soviet era living' after rejection
Economic geographer Professor John Bryson of the University of Birmingham said: "Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seems to be developing a new career as a comedian specialising in tragicomedy. On Thursday 16 June 2022, he proclaimed that Russia 'didn't invade Ukraine'. If this is not an invasion, then one assumes that all Russian forces will eventually leave Ukrainian territory. However, Lavrov did admit that 'Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are'."
Prof. Bryson continued: "What Russia has shown, however, is great incompetence.
"This includes the failure to separate territorial gains from developing and enhancing the country's role in global supply chains and political networks."
As the geographer notes, Putin's educational background includes a degree in law, followed by training in counterintelligence with the KGB, the Soviet Union's main security agency.
Prof. Bryson said: "This provides an ideal background for a career in the security services but perhaps does not provide the breadth of understanding required to govern a country."
Putin, he argues, has placed his focus on geopolitics, national security, the concept of Russia as the motherland - and a fondness for the bygone Soviet era.
Because of this, too much investment has been placed in trying to modernise Russia's military and making its economy dependent on natural resources like oil and gas.
While Russia has tried to position itself as a hi-tech economy via high-profile initiatives in space exploration and military hardware - such as hypersonic missiles and nuclear arms - Prof. Bryson says that the country has "major weaknesses" in its research and development.
This, he added, "means that its manufacturing sector relies on the inventiveness of other nations."
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index, Russia was ranked in just 45th place last year, directly behind Vietnam and Thailand.
In contrast, the US and the UK came third and fourth, respectively, behind global leaders Switzerland and Sweden.
As Prof. Bryson puts it: "Russia's ranking highlights that Russia is a low-tech nation."
Russia's relatively low score in the Global Innovation Index is, in part, the product of the country's failure to invest in research and development, Prof. Bryson said.
In 2019, the US spent 3.1 percent of its gross domestic product ($1,866 per capita) on R&D, while Russia invested only 1 percent ($263 per capita).
It has been estimated that Russia is spending a whopping $900million a day on its war against Ukraine.
Prof. Bryson said: "Russia calculates the return on this investment in terms of territory but much greater economic and political returns would come from investing in R&D."
Throughout the Russian economy, Prof. Bryson explained, there are major problems when it comes to repairing equipment and accessing the latest innovations.
In April this year, for example, Russia's supply of car parts began to run out as manufacturers in Australia, Europe and the US stopped shipping parts to Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
Prof. Bryson said: "Russia is experiencing major problems in trying to develop alternative solutions to accessing components and this includes those required to maintain aircraft and to manufacture and repair military equipment.
"There will also be major problems in maintaining and enhancing nationally critical infrastructure systems."
Prof. Bryson added: "Russia's much anticipated new sanction-proof Lada car, for example, is an excellent indication of the weakness of Russia's R&D and manufacturing ecosystems."
The Lada Granta was previously made by Russian automaker AvtoVAZ in collaboration with Renault, although this partnership was terminated when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The recent production restart is seeing the Lada Granta Classic 2022 entirely composed of parts made in Russia and the country's allies.
Prof Bryson said: "This is a 'classic' Soviet era style car as it comes without airbags, an anti-lock braking system, emission restriction technologies, satellite navigation system or modern seat belt pretensioners.
"The car only meets European pollution standards from the 1990s.
"This is a car that can only be sold in Russia and reflects Russia's future as a country isolated from global supply chains and innovation networks."
Prof. Bryson said: "Russia may acquire some Ukrainian territory, but at what cost to the Russian people?
"There are humanitarian and climate change costs that will be experienced across the planet.
"For the Russian people there will be a return to Soviet era living."
Russia, he concluded, will "depend increasingly on its own limited and weak manufacturing and innovation ecosystems."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/putins-ambitions-in-tatters-russia-returning-to-soviet-era-living-after-rejection/ar-AAYBRSi?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAnZ9Ug
Skybird
06-19-22, 07:07 AM
We in the West must really finally and urgently learn to see the difference between our perspective on the war and its cost, and theirs. For the Kremlin, things are worth it, obviously. The sanctions do at least as much damage to us then to them. They earn MORE money from selling gas and oil. They got new contracts, and shift massively towards China and India again. Both countries used the opportunity to secure very attractive price deals. Which tells something about Europe's ambition to be seen as a pace setter on climate policies... Finally, Putin sees the national characteristic of Russian citizens and Russian life in the ablity of Russians "to suffer", to put it this bluntly into words. He has no scruples to let Russians suffer, for him that is the natural state of things, since centuries. It has always been so, and many Russians do not know anything different, and willingly submit to this idea, more or less consciously.
That we constantly complain about Russia not using our value system to assess the consequences by our our standards, only means that Russia does not assess the consequences by our standards. So why this endless infantile lament? It prevents us from seeing the future realistically.
I also mind you that at the UN, 40 states who together represent 60% of the global population have refused to condemn Russia's action in the Ukraine. That means the - already divided! - West defends a minority opinion. WE DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE WORLD.
This is not meant to relativise our confrontation of Russia, or Russia's war, far from it. But we must be realistic about what it is about and what not, where we stand, what we can acchieve and what not, and how effective our reactions can be - and what our reactions most likely will not acchieve. That the - often already watered down and endlessly delayed - sanctions do more damage to ourselves than to Russia, should make us think about our strategy. In the end, the economic sanctions again were just a foul compromise because we once again shied away from determined military action, also were not capabole fo such action. Our status today is result of our idiotic acting in the past. We did not will to pay the price for military action, and bought a foul compromise instead. And that now starts to cost us dearly, because its a rotten foul, smelly compromise. We get what we paid for: junk policy. The nature of Russia is such that Russia can and will survive this more easily than Europe can. We aleady were sittingn inside the perfect storm, and now we mount even more difficulties and unsolvable (!) difficulties to it. Debts. Euro crisis. Energy madness. Workforc ehsdoratages. Habrour clogged down. Disrupted supply chains and dependencces on countries outside our political reach. Green Deal. Gallopping and still accelerating inflation. Threat of hyperinflation. Droughts and sweet water crisis. In Germany: rejecting nuclear energy.
We've hopelessly overstretched ourselves, and we're still adding to it every week, we morons. We can't keep this up. I do not see we can force reality this way to our liking. Reality instead will break us. Urgently high time to rediscover our sense for survival and realism! Currently EVERYTHING works against us, and that is our own fault - we made it running so. We simply are, in no way, strong enough to put our deeds were we have put our - way too big and wide open - mouth. Thats not welcomed to say and nobody wants to hear it, but thats how it is.
The rifts in Europe over the Ukraine already are clear to see, they are short to break up openly, and then widen. The longer the war lasts, the more time is ticking against Ukraine, because it depends on support from Europe. And with time, this support will - and already does! - wane.
And US cannot afford to have its attention focus distracted from China for too long. They want and need stable conditions in their back when they turn westward again.
The Ukraine will be the big looser in this, no matter how and when the war ends. The destructions will scar it for decades. The hostility will not end. The threat by Russia will always stay.
The rest of the world will - and already does - turn increasingly hostile towards the West, because from their perspective we hinder Russia from making a clear cut and so they make US responsible for the food shortage crisis that puts dozens of millions of people at risk of starvation. They do not criticise Russia, they criticise us. I disagree on the logic in that, absolutely, but thats what they do nevertheless. The war for global PR Russia already has won.
Again: 40 countries representing 60% of global population refused to condemn Russia. Many of them now sign special deals for energy and grain with Russia.
No good news in here.
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 07:34 AM
Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a "front-line city," Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister says.
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the conflict could last for years.
In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Stoltenberg adds that the supply of state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops would increase the chance of liberating the Donbas region.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told the Sunday Times that "we need to steel ourselves for a long war"
Ukrainian authorities say their air defence systems in the Kyiv Region shot down a Russian “air object” on Sunday morning.
Explosions were heard in Vyshhorod District, north of the city centre, but no casualties were reported.
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 07:38 AM
The new head of the British Army has set out a rallying cry to his troops: to be ready to confront the renewed threat from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
In a letter addressed to “all ranks and our civil servants”, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders highlights the threat posed by Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
He notes that he is the first Chief of the General Staff “since 1941 to take command of the Army in the shadow of a land war in Europe involving a major continental power”.
Gen Sanders says “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core purpose - to protect the UK and to be ready to fight and win wars on land - and reinforces the requirement to deter Russian aggression with the threat of force”.
He adds: “The world has changed since 24 February and there is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle”.
Gen Sanders sets out his goal to “accelerate the mobilisation and modernisation of the Army to reinforce Nato and deny Russia the chance to occupy any more of Europe... We are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again”.
A defence source said that it was not surprising the new head of the army had addressed his troops in such a way, highlighting the deteriorating security situation in Europe. Armies, he said, “train to fight”.
The letter, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent on 16 June via the Ministry of Defence's internal internet.
Skybird
06-19-22, 07:44 AM
Russian forces targeted a Ukrainian command post while senior Ukrainian military officers were holding a meeting, Russian Defense Ministry said. Moscow said they used sea-launched "Kalibr" rockets in the attack on the site near Dnipro, Ukraine's fourth-largest city.
"Over 50 generals and officers of Ukrainian military were eliminated in the strike" including members of the high command, said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
So far no verification from Western sources, AFAIK.
-------------------------
At the NATO summit in Madrid later this month, the secretary-general said the alliance will declare "that Russia is no longer a partner, but a threat to our security, peace and stability." China's rise, he said, is also "a challenge to our interests, our values and our security."
I have not yet decided whether I want to laugh or cry now. Formalities...
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 07:51 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htx6bzz0xfA
We in the West must really finally and urgently learn to see the difference between our perspective on the war and its cost, and theirs. For the Kremlin, things are worth it, obviously. The sanctions do at least as much damage to us then to them. They earn MORE money from selling gas and oil. They got new contracts, and shift massively towards China and India again. Both countries used the opportunity to secure very attractive price deals. Which tells something about Europe's ambition to be seen as a pace setter on climate policies... Finally, Putin sees the national characteristic of Russian citizens and Russian life in the ablity of Russians "to suffer", to put it this bluntly into words. He has no scruples to let Russians suffer, for him that is the natural state of things, since centuries. It has always been so, and many Russians do not know anything different, and willingly submit to this idea, more or less consciously.
That we constantly complain about Russia not using our value system to assess the consequences by our our standards, only means that Russia does not assess the consequences by our standards. So why this endless infantile lament? It prevents us from seeing the future realistically.
I also mind you that at the UN, 40 states who together represent 60% of the global population have refused to condemn Russia's action in the Ukraine. That means the - already divided! - West defends a minority opinion. WE DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE WORLD.
This is not meant to relativise our confrontation of Russia, or Russia's war, far from it. But we must be realistic about what it is about and what not, where we stand, what we can acchieve and what not, and how effective our reactions can be - and what our reactions most likely will not acchieve. That the - often already watered down and endlessly delayed - sanctions do more damage to ourselves than to Russia, should make us think about our strategy. In the end, the economic sanctions again were just a foul compromise because we once again shied away from determined military action, also were not capabole fo such action. Our status today is result of our idiotic acting in the past. We did not will to pay the price for military action, and bought a foul compromise instead. And that now starts to cost us dearly, because its a rotten foul, smelly compromise. We get what we paid for: junk policy. The nature of Russia is such that Russia can and will survive this more easily than Europe can. We aleady were sittingn inside the perfect storm, and now we mount even more difficulties and unsolvable (!) difficulties to it. Debts. Euro crisis. Energy madness. Workforc ehsdoratages. Habrour clogged down. Disrupted supply chains and dependencces on countries outside our political reach. Green Deal. Gallopping and still accelerating inflation. Threat of hyperinflation. Droughts and sweet water crisis. In Germany: rejecting nuclear energy.
We've hopelessly overstretched ourselves, and we're still adding to it every week, we morons. We can't keep this up. I do not see we can force reality this way to our liking. Reality instead will break us. Urgently high time to rediscover our sense for survival and realism! Currently EVERYTHING works against us, and that is our own fault - we made it running so. We simply are, in no way, strong enough to put our deeds were we have put our - way too big and wide open - mouth. Thats not welcomed to say and nobody wants to hear it, but thats how it is.
The rifts in Europe over the Ukraine already are clear to see, they are short to break up openly, and then widen. The longer the war lasts, the more time is ticking against Ukraine, because it depends on support from Europe. And with time, this support will - and already does! - wane.
And US cannot afford to have its attention focus distracted from China for too long. They want and need stable conditions in their back when they turn westward again.
The Ukraine will be the big looser in this, no matter how and when the war ends. The destructions will scar it for decades. The hostility will not end. The threat by Russia will always stay.
The rest of the world will - and already does - turn increasingly hostile towards the West, because from their perspective we hinder Russia from making a clear cut and so they make US responsible for the food shortage crisis that puts dozens of millions of people at risk of starvation. They do not criticise Russia, they criticise us. I disagree on the logic in that, absolutely, but thats what they do nevertheless. The war for global PR Russia already has won.
Again: 40 countries representing 60% of global population refused to condemn Russia. Many of them now sign special deals for energy and grain with Russia.
No good news in here.Putin cost of war is he thinks he can do a Stalin, only difference is that soviet economy was on it best as a war economy it had millions of slaves for production and as cannon fodder Putin lacks that but wages his war in the same way without those millions he can have high profits from gas/oil but gas/oil will not occupy/control terrain and people. Manpower does Putin will lose this ending up with occupied terrain in rubble same way as the soviet had in WW2 because of that the soviet system collapsed decades later. The main dogma in current Russian propaganda is that Putin can never be wrong. He ordered that war in Ukraine, so it was the right decision.
This brutal invasion into Ukraina was a careful step right in time for Putin. I believe he never have done that "if" Trump has his hands on the helm. Biden administration will not use nuke me think", and on the other side we have Stoltenberg who act like a puppet.Soviets had the same assumption that the US would not use nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 08:46 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78VVlTP19E
We in the West must really finally and urgently learn to see the difference between our perspective on the war and its cost, and theirs. For the Kremlin, things are worth it, obviously. The sanctions do at least as much damage to us then to them. They earn MORE money from selling gas and oil. They got new contracts, and shift massively towards China and India again. Both countries used the opportunity to secure very attractive price deals. Which tells something about Europe's ambition to be seen as a pace setter on climate policies... Finally, Putin sees the national characteristic of Russian citizens and Russian life in the ablity of Russians "to suffer", to put it this bluntly into words. He has no scruples to let Russians suffer, for him that is the natural state of things, since centuries. It has always been so, and many Russians do not know anything different, and willingly submit to this idea, more or less consciously.
That we constantly complain about Russia not using our value system to assess the consequences by our our standards, only means that Russia does not assess the consequences by our standards. So why this endless infantile lament? It prevents us from seeing the future realistically.
I also mind you that at the UN, 40 states who together represent 60% of the global population have refused to condemn Russia's action in the Ukraine. That means the - already divided! - West defends a minority opinion. WE DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE WORLD.
This is not meant to relativise our confrontation of Russia, or Russia's war, far from it. But we must be realistic about what it is about and what not, where we stand, what we can acchieve and what not, and how effective our reactions can be - and what our reactions most likely will not acchieve. That the - often already watered down and endlessly delayed - sanctions do more damage to ourselves than to Russia, should make us think about our strategy. In the end, the economic sanctions again were just a foul compromise because we once again shied away from determined military action, also were not capabole fo such action. Our status today is result of our idiotic acting in the past. We did not will to pay the price for military action, and bought a foul compromise instead. And that now starts to cost us dearly, because its a rotten foul, smelly compromise. We get what we paid for: junk policy. The nature of Russia is such that Russia can and will survive this more easily than Europe can. We aleady were sittingn inside the perfect storm, and now we mount even more difficulties and unsolvable (!) difficulties to it. Debts. Euro crisis. Energy madness. Workforc ehsdoratages. Habrour clogged down. Disrupted supply chains and dependencces on countries outside our political reach. Green Deal. Gallopping and still accelerating inflation. Threat of hyperinflation. Droughts and sweet water crisis. In Germany: rejecting nuclear energy.
We've hopelessly overstretched ourselves, and we're still adding to it every week, we morons. We can't keep this up. I do not see we can force reality this way to our liking. Reality instead will break us. Urgently high time to rediscover our sense for survival and realism! Currently EVERYTHING works against us, and that is our own fault - we made it running so. We simply are, in no way, strong enough to put our deeds were we have put our - way too big and wide open - mouth. Thats not welcomed to say and nobody wants to hear it, but thats how it is.
The rifts in Europe over the Ukraine already are clear to see, they are short to break up openly, and then widen. The longer the war lasts, the more time is ticking against Ukraine, because it depends on support from Europe. And with time, this support will - and already does! - wane.
And US cannot afford to have its attention focus distracted from China for too long. They want and need stable conditions in their back when they turn westward again.
The Ukraine will be the big looser in this, no matter how and when the war ends. The destructions will scar it for decades. The hostility will not end. The threat by Russia will always stay.
The rest of the world will - and already does - turn increasingly hostile towards the West, because from their perspective we hinder Russia from making a clear cut and so they make US responsible for the food shortage crisis that puts dozens of millions of people at risk of starvation. They do not criticise Russia, they criticise us. I disagree on the logic in that, absolutely, but thats what they do nevertheless. The war for global PR Russia already has won.
Again: 40 countries representing 60% of global population refused to condemn Russia. Many of them now sign special deals for energy and grain with Russia.
No good news in here.On china for the Chinese, the markets in the west are vastly bigger than selling products to the Russian market China is not happy with Putin's operation they will not let him fall, but they are depended on the west for their economy and if that is in danger the party fears critic from the people and that is always their numero uno fear to which the Party cannot become reconciled. And Putin is a paper tiger, the lowest you can become in Chinese eyes, same view they had with Trump.
60% of global population has **** to say that comparison is... that number is a powerless number the 40% (less than that) rules the world.
Skybird
06-19-22, 10:32 AM
^ And still it is the few that currently spoil it for the many and completely ruin the match for everybody by not obeying the rule book anymore. You do not nered majorities to ruin the match. A single lonely party pooper already is enough, and he can spoil it for everybody.
It was hoped China would move away from Putin, and initially they showed no enthusiasm over the Ukraine war indeed, but recent weeks have shown that they are closing ties again with him. Because they see the agonising in Europe.
India was hoped to become a cllse ally, but they negiotiate great eeergy and grain treaties with Russia now. Their willingness to join the Wetsenr cmap agaiunst Russia, has tight limits defined by their own interests. And their own interests do not correspond that much with ours.
Not only, Ukraine loooes cuirrently. All of Europoe does, for historila reaosns, and already sinc emcuh longer than just the poast 8 years.
And additionally now the distribution battles for the increasingly scarce resources are beginning, as a result of the higher demand from the developing countries and the logistical distortions of the transport crisis.
"The era of shortage has begun", titled a German newspaper yesterday. Correctly so. And it prdicted growing international brutality when it comes to the securing of ever shorter supplies. It does not need a rocket scientist to see that. America has softened up the prohibition for insurrers to insure Russian ships and tankers. Germany's industry desperately depends on ore, rare earths, catalyst materials and heavy industrial pre-products, else we can close our little shop immediately over here: thats why in the first five months the trade with Russia went UP, not down. The Rouble is up, not down, and the Euro is spiralling down against the Dollar. The private households in Rus sia may lose, but they do not count for Russian leaders. The Russian state so far wins. America wins, suddnely the dollar is back again and the US can claim thbe lead role and the role of the onyl superpower again. Europe: is totally weak, dependent, the future looks dramatically bad, and the Euro is up in flames and national debts are doing the Big Bang.
Which does not stop the Europeans to still dream of Green Deal money-annihilation programs and deindustrialization and energy revolutions, and thnat the world is only waiiting to see the Europeans setting the exmaple and then the rest follows them.
No, they won't. Not today, and not in the future. But we destroy pointlessly the last little degrees of freedom that we might still have left. For nothing but illusions and megalomania.
We are very, very deep in the nasty brown stuff. They need a brown-stuff sonar to find us in there again. Only two things could make our situation worse: an astronomical desaster hitting earth, or another, even more dangerous pandemic.
And maybe the Chinese are already checking their inventories what other good stuff they have hidden there. Pox, maybe? Vast parts of Western populations are vulnerable to it again, because vaccinations was stopped long time ago.
^ And still it is the few that currently spoil it for the many and completely ruin the match for everybody by not obeying the rule book anymore. You do not nered majorities to ruin the match. A single lonely party pooper already is enough, and he can spoil it for everybody.
It was hoped China would move away from Putin, and initially they showed no enthusiasm over the Ukraine war indeed, but recent weeks have shown that they are closing ties again with him. Because they see the agonising in Europe.
India was hoped to become a cllse ally, but they negiotiate great eeergy and grain treaties with Russia now. Their willingness to join the Wetsenr cmap agaiunst Russia, has tight limits defined by their own interests. And their own interests do not correspond that much with ours.
Not only, Ukraine loooes cuirrently. All of Europoe does, for historila reaosns, and already sinc emcuh longer than just the poast 8 years.
And additionally now the distribution battles for the increasingly scarce resources are beginning, as a result of the higher demand from the developing countries and the logistical distortions of the transport crisis.
"The era of shortage has begun", titled a German newspaper yesterday. Correctly so. And it prdicted growing international brutality when it comes to the securing of ever shorter supplies. It does not need a rocket scientist to see that. America has softened up the prohibition for insurrers to insure Russian ships and tankers. Germany's industry desperately depends on ore, rare earths, catalyst materials and heavy industrial pre-products, else we can close our little shop immediately over here: thats why in the first five months the trade with Russia went UP, not down. The Rouble is up, not down, and the Euro is spiralling down against the Dollar. The private households in Rus sia may lose, but they do not count for Russian leaders. The Russian state so far wins. America wins, suddnely the dollar is back again and the US can claim thbe lead role and the role of the onyl superpower again. Europe: is totally weak, dependent, the future looks dramatically bad, and the Euro is up in flames and national debts are doing the Big Bang.
Which does not stop the Europeans to still dream of Green Deal money-annihilation programs and deindustrialization and energy revolutions, and thnat the world is only waiiting to see the Europeans setting the exmaple and then the rest follows them.
No, they won't. Not today, and not in the future. But we destroy pointlessly the last little degrees of freedom that we might still have left. For nothing but illusions and megalomania.
We are very, very deep in the nasty brown stuff. They need a brown-stuff sonar to find us in there again. Only two things could make our situation worse: an astronomical desaster hitting earth, or another, even more dangerous pandemic.
And maybe the Chinese are already checking their inventories what other good stuff they have hidden there. Pox, maybe? Vast parts of Western populations are vulnerable to it again, because vaccinations was stopped long time ago.If I had those thoughts I would already jump off a bridge these are only assumption of if..., when... The world is an unexpected and unplanned eruption of its own accord, un-engineered by anyone, born in chaos. The tinder is there. What sets it alight is a mystery.
P.S. the Chinese have so much trouble with corona on the moment they're not thinking to add another that will disrupt their production their economy is slowing because of corona the corona lockdowns has hindered their production as Xi Jinping wants to become a Mao he is to busy with that.
Skybird
06-19-22, 11:14 AM
What you call "if" and "when" in fact is already happenign all around us, and since quite some time.
Maybe you got so used to it that the desaster became your nerw normal and you do not even rewlaise/perceive it anymore? ;) If so, you are not alone. Most people tick like that.
Until the waiter comes and puts the bill on the table. Then they suddenly are silent, eyes wide open, and wonder what happened. And worse: they realise they do not have enough money with them.
"Unfair!" Trumpists say.
"Antisocial!" says the lefties.
"How could we have known?" says the Europeans.
Three messages, one and the same meaning: "Leave me alone, I do not want to be responsible."
Ukrainian forces fighting in eastern Ukraine have been experiencing desertion for several weeks. This is reported by the British Defense Ministry based on intelligence information. According to the information, there is also little motivation on the Russian side to fight.
The ministry reports that several Russian units do not want to follow orders from on high. It is also likely to be difficult for Russia to put legal pressure on the military because, according to the Russians, this is officially a special military operation, not a war.
The ministry also says that there are fierce artillery battles going on around Sievierodonetsk, in the Lugansk region, but that there is no movement on the front lines.
What you call "if" and "when" in fact is already happenign all around us, and since quite some time.
Maybe you got so used to it that the desaster became your nerw normal and you do not even rewlaise/perceive it anymore? ;) If so, you are not alone. Most people tick like that.
Until the waiter comes and puts the bill on the table. Then they suddenly are silent, eyes wide open, and wonder what happened. And worse: they realise they do not have enough money with them.
"Unfair!" Trumpists say.
"Antisocial!" says the lefties.
"How could we have known?" says the Europeans.
Three messages, one and the same meaning: "Leave me alone, I do not want to be responsible."Think it is more in life like Lenin as he neared the end of his life, he was revolted by his creation. “You think you are driving the machine, and yet it’s driving you and suddenly other hands than yours are on the wheel,” I am a European toke my responsibility result was threatening with jail by the state will not hold me back I know they're not driving the bus to hell I make my future not them also do not need them they got nothing to offer me.
Russian forces targeted a Ukrainian command post while senior Ukrainian military officers were holding a meeting, Russian Defense Ministry said. Moscow said they used sea-launched "Kalibr" rockets in the attack on the site near Dnipro, Ukraine's fourth-largest city.
"Over 50 generals and officers of Ukrainian military were eliminated in the strike" including members of the high command, said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
So far no verification from Western sources, AFAIK.
-------------------------
At the NATO summit in Madrid later this month, the secretary-general said the alliance will declare "that Russia is no longer a partner, but a threat to our security, peace and stability." China's rise, he said, is also "a challenge to our interests, our values and our security."
I have not yet decided whether I want to laugh or cry now. Formalities...What China said "a challenge to our interests, our values and our security." is not a surprise what else you suspect from them a "öki doki".
On the Russian attack; It is always on the day of our Lord that Russian proofs it is a paper tiger I think they have on all these Sundays destroyed all the West supplies LOL.
What you call "if" and "when" in fact is already happenign all around us, and since quite some time.
Maybe you got so used to it that the desaster became your nerw normal and you do not even rewlaise/perceive it anymore? ;) If so, you are not alone. Most people tick like that.
Until the waiter comes and puts the bill on the table. Then they suddenly are silent, eyes wide open, and wonder what happened. And worse: they realise they do not have enough money with them.
"Unfair!" Trumpists say.
"Antisocial!" says the lefties.
"How could we have known?" says the Europeans.
Three messages, one and the same meaning: "Leave me alone, I do not want to be responsible."
I would add
Fingers in their ears and singing lala lala I can't hear you...lala lala
Markus
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 12:10 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_SHDOa8mqM
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 12:18 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuNJId-2ROg
How Boris Johnson is seen in Ukraine. I LOL Knight Sir loser.
https://i.postimg.cc/J47x3wkR/boris.jpg
Having been pushed back to the border area, Russian forces are trying to get closer to enable them to again shell the city of Kharkiv. "Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a front-line city," said Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-61839196?pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:8ba1fe4c-27cf-4c21-88cb-6f943de031be&pinned_post_asset_id=62aed92932686a6e65aeff00&pinned_post_type=share The situation north of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, is quite difficult as Russian forces have been trying to get closer to shell the city again, Reuters news agency quotes a Ukrainian official as saying.
"Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a front-line city," Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister, has told Ukraine's national television.
https://i.postimg.cc/bJ7Jyjfk/7987921c-9f02-4790-9016-88a3995f3b99.jpg
In response to the plans of the Russian Parliament to revoke Russia’s recognition of Lithuania’s Declaration of Independence from the USSR in 1991, the Kyiv City Council has cancelled the decree by Kyiv Rus Grand Prince Volodymyr of the founding of Moscow in 1147.
Moscow is gone :har:
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 12:45 PM
Deputy Defense Minister of Belarus Andriy Zhuk assures that his country "does not intend to fight anyone" and does not plan to "attack anyone".
Zhuk's words are quoted by the Belarusian edition "Zerkalo", Censor.NET reports.
"I can reassure you: we should not look for any bomb shelters, our country is not going to fight, we are ready to defend our state, but we are not going to fight anyone. "No one to attack and so on," Zhuk said.
To clarify the inspections of the Ministry of Defense and the establishment of the Southern Operational Command, Zhuk replied: "You can not worry. Everything is fine, the state is developing, the state is living a peaceful life. The armed forces are ready and able to protect it if necessary." Source: https://censor.net/en/n3348755
Now where have I heard/read this before? :hmmm:
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 12:49 PM
From February 24 to June 17, nearly 33,150 Russian servicemen were killed in the invasion, including 200 in the past day.
As reported by Censor.NET.
That’s according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Defenders of Ukraine also destroyed 1,456 (+7) enemy tanks, 3,563 (+18) armored combat vehicles, 734 (+5) artillery systems, 233 (+3) MLR systems, 97 (+0) air defense systems, 215 (+2) warplanes, 180 (+1) helicopters, 593 (+2) operational and tactical level UAVs, 129 (+0) cruise missiles, 13 (+0) warships / cutters, 2,496 (+2) trucks, including tankers, and 55 (+0) units of special equipment. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3348501
Vladimir Putin’s veiled threat to ex-Soviet states: ‘You’re part of historic Russia’
Kremlin leader hints that neighbouring countries could meet Ukraine’s fate if they turn on him over the invasion... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/06/18/vladimir-putins-veiled-threat-ex-soviet-states-part-historic/ Putin butthurt :D
Jimbuna
06-19-22, 12:57 PM
How Boris Johnson is seen in Ukraine. I LOL Knight Sir loser.
Is that a fact?
President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on his birthday.
The head of state reported about it on Instagram, as Censor.NЕТ informs.
"There are friends who do not need extra words to understand each other. And who greet each other without words. Happy birthday, dear friend, Boris Johnson", the statement said. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3348888
https://i.postimg.cc/ZqTjtTwg/27278.jpg (https://postimg.cc/HrhbbCD4)
Don't see your country it even into the top ten :nope:
Russian “denazificator” captured in Ukraine. Apparently a swastika was not enough, so he tattooed a Nazi uniform there are a number of Russian soldiers who would have to off themselves if they were actually trying to denazify.
https://i.postimg.cc/L6ShYRG8/FVog-KD9-XEAE8-Gtf.jpg
Russian forces targeted a Ukrainian command post while senior Ukrainian military officers were holding a meeting, Russian Defense Ministry said. Moscow said they used sea-launched "Kalibr" rockets in the attack on the site near Dnipro, Ukraine's fourth-largest city.
"Over 50 generals and officers of Ukrainian military were eliminated in the strike" including members of the high command, said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
So far no verification from Western sources, AFAIK.
-------------------------
At the NATO summit in Madrid later this month, the secretary-general said the alliance will declare "that Russia is no longer a partner, but a threat to our security, peace and stability." China's rise, he said, is also "a challenge to our interests, our values and our security."
I have not yet decided whether I want to laugh or cry now. Formalities...This unconfirmed happened yesterday "Yesterday, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine destroyed the command and intelligence center of the 20th Combined-Arms Army of the Russian Army. Killing many officers."
Australia sent four M113AS4 armored personnel carriers to #Ukraine, 10 more are expected Australian government's military aid package includes over A$285 million, Bushmaster rugged mobile vehicles, M777 howitzers, as well as anti-tank weapons and unmanned aerial systems.
Could you say that many countries is at war by proxy in Ukraine ?
Markus
This unconfirmed happened yesterday "Yesterday, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine destroyed the command and intelligence center of the 20th Combined-Arms Army of the Russian Army. Killing many officers."
As I mentioned yesterday
We saw how missiles hit a target in Dnipro-This turn out to be the oil depot.
Huge explosion and intense fire for several hours.
Markus
As I mentioned yesterday
We saw how missiles hit a target in Dnipro-This turn out to be the oil depot.
Huge explosion and intense fire for several hours.
MarkusThis happened in the town of Kryvy Rih, some 139.35 km (86.59 mi) southwest of Dnipro, according to reports.
Catfish
06-19-22, 03:02 PM
Where is this AstiVitaly when you need him, he's living in Donbas or so he said, right?
So what happened in Donbas in the last 8 years
:haha:
Very good video detailing and debunking the myth about Ukraine bombing the Donbass for the last eight years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXdK6Bz7aYw
"Russia has two infinite resources: Oil and people with negative IQ"
Meanwhile even Putin himself (lmao) has made it clear it is about conquering Ukraine to widen Russia's borders, and not some "Nazi" or "Donbas" bullsh!t
Where is this AstiVitaly when you need him, he's living in Donbas or so he said, right?
So what happened in Donbas in the last 8 years
:haha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXdK6Bz7aYwI know of my son that a lot of Ukrainians he knows via gaming... are enlisted he knew that Ukraine (Moroccan born) soldier that is condemned to death small world.
Catfish
06-19-22, 03:27 PM
I know of my son that a lot of Ukrainians he knows via gaming... are enlisted he knew that Ukraine (Moroccan born) soldier that is condemned to death small world.
I do not quite understand what you are writing here(?) :hmmm:
To put an end to my last post:
Putin admits Ukraine invasion is an imperial war to “return” Russian land
so f'k Putin's "poor Donbas" justification for an aggressive war
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-admits-ukraine-invasion-is-an-imperial-war-to-return-russian-land/
Skybird
06-19-22, 03:44 PM
America better starts digging trenches deep in Alaska... :shucks:
Skybird
06-19-22, 06:08 PM
Now the West's cowardly treatment of aggressive Turkey - which, by the way, is about to launch a new attack in Syria while seeking escalation with Greece - is taking its revenge. The Frankfurter Rundschau writes:
NATO accession countries Sweden and Finland: Hangover in the North
Erdogan's threatening gestures are having an effect on NATO applicants Sweden and Finland, and are causing problems away from NATO's yes or no vote.
Brussels - After the hastily decided Nato membership applications, hangover is spreading in Sweden and Finland. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is even intensifying his blockade policy against the admission of the two alleged "guest houses" for Kurdish terrorists shortly before the Madrid NATO summit, is responsible for this with ever new attacks. The certain expectation of a quick decision at the summit in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has given way to disillusionment, uncertainty and also remorse.
Finland's President Sauli Niinistö, a supporter of NATO membership even before he took office ten years ago, told the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat: "If Helsinki had received signals from Brussels about possible resistance, the membership application would not have been sent to NATO headquarters. But everyone from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. President Joe Biden to Erdogan himself had personally assured him that Finland and Sweden were very welcome here and now.
In Stockholm, the newspaper "Svenska Dagbladet," which has also been promoting membership in the military alliance for a long time, ran the following headline on its editorial page: "Sweden should withdraw its NATO application. For one should not grovel before an authoritarian regime and under no circumstances restrict the freedoms of the active exiled Kurdish community in Sweden to please those who trample on freedoms, it said. "What we are left with is a manifestation of self-respect," writes author Lena Andersson.
In a very different tone, government leader Magdalena Andersson proclaims, "We take Turkish concerns extremely seriously." The Social Democrat adds that Sweden has only recently tightened its terror legislation and eased the ban on arms exports to Turkey, which has also been criticized by Erdogan. Standing next to her, Stoltenberg explained that Turkey is a highly important NATO partner with "legitimate concerns." Now, he says, the accession process will probably take longer. Unfortunately, he does not know how long it will take.
However, the governments in Helsinki and Stockholm wanted to avoid temporal uncertainty at all costs, precisely because they were worried about aggressive reactions from Moscow, when they decreed that their countries would leave the alliance almost immediately. Finland has a land border of 1340 kilometers with Russia, while Sweden sees itself in the Kremlin's crosshairs primarily because of the strategically important island of Gotland in the middle of the Baltic Sea (NATO jargon: "unsinkable aircraft carrier").
The unpredictable Erdogan makes the accession candidates the pawns of geopolitical conflicts over whose resolution they have not the slightest influence. It is a foregone conclusion that the Turkish head of state, who is suffering from domestic political problems, is using his veto against NATO expansion primarily as a bargaining chip against Biden in order to break the U.S. blockade of Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.
Neither the Finnish nor the Swedish government leaders are allowed to say that so clearly. One could only irritate Erdogan even more. Three months before the next elections, the Swedish head of government, Andersson, will have to make a complete verbal effort, because the survival of her weak minority government depends on the factionless Amineh Kakabaveh, of all people. The ex-leftist, who came to Sweden as the child of Kurdish refugees, keeps demanding new guarantees for her vote for exactly what Erdogan cites as the reason for his veto against NATO membership.
Ahead of this week's budget vote in the Riksdag, Social Democratic members of the government are sounding as coy about Kakabaveh's demands as they are about Erdogan's. They seem to prefer not to be heard at all when they declare: No, no new concessions have been made to her. But they stand by the old ones, of course.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
It would be a further kick in the balls for Europe if the Scandinavians withdraw their request and NATO remains seated with its beloved war-monger Erdoghan.
Formally, a NATO member cannot be expelled, only voluntarily leave, and Erdoghan will never do that. But one can end all military, economic and diplomatic cooperation under endless pretextual reasons and not give a damn about the other. Which would be practically the same thing like membership cancellation.
But that will forever be too much to ask of sentimental Europeans.
I hope Biden does not get soft on banning Turkey from US weapons deals for having bought the S400 and its radar.
The Scandinavians should preserve their pride.
The loss for NATO would be very big.
Erdoghan presents Putin a present on the silver plate.
Skybird
06-19-22, 06:32 PM
Sergei Medvedev, born in 1966, is a Russian political scientist, historian, and journalist. He was a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. In 2020, he received the Pushkin House Book Prize for the best English-language book on Russia for his collection of essays, "The Return of the Russian Leviathan." His article first appeared on the website "Holod".
The violent crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine are the mirror of an archaic culture of evil that has not let the country out of its clutches until today
Butcha, Irpin, Mariupol: these are names that stand for the massive violence that the Russian army carries out on the territory of Ukraine. It is rooted deep inside Russian society. Now what has always been the case at home is leaking out.
After a hundred days of war, the ability to be horrified and shocked dulls. But then new evidence of the Russian army's atrocities emerges, and one plunges into the abyss again.
In early April, Russian soldiers in the village of Termakhivka near Kiev took five young men off the street, tied them up, laid them in a circle in a field, and left them like that for two weeks, a rifle pointed at them. At night, the temperature dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius and it was snowing. One of the men was shot in the leg. He lay there for nine days with the open wound. Then the soldiers dragged the body of a villager and threw it in the middle of the circle: "So you can sleep well."
These soldiers had hardly seen the film "Grus 200" by Alexei Balabanov - the prophetic director who, among other things, had predicted the phenomenon of Russian fascism - but even the late filmmaker could have learned something from their perverse fantasies.
Orgy of epic violence
What has been happening in Ukraine for the past three months is an orgy of epic, unbounded violence. With mass shootings and bestial torture, the murder of civilians, just like that, out of boredom, for fun, with rape and murder of parents in front of their children and vice versa, with violence against women and girls from eight to eighty years old.
To read these reports is unbearable, but necessary, out of a duty of compassion and empathy, but also in an attempt to understand where this archaic evil that the Russian army has brought upon the country comes from, from what earthly abysses, from what nightmares and horror movies. Has a genetic mutation taken place in Russia that has produced indifferent sadists who have now arrived on Ukrainian soil?
The survivors who witnessed these atrocities tell about it not so much full of fear as massively astonished: "Vpershe take batschymo", we see such a thing for the first time: "We had no idea that such a thing was possible."
You don't have to be Fyodor Dostoevsky, Yuri Mamleyev or Vladimir Sorokin to explore the darkest corners of the Russian soul. One need only look at the chronicle of police violence, the torture in police stations and penal colonies, the crimes of the army, to understand that the events in Butcha, Irpin, and all the other towns and villages occupied by the Russians are neither excess nor pathology. Rather, they are a part of the norm, routine practices of the Russian violent apparatus.
The journalists of "Project" have uncovered the antecedents of the Russian units stationed in Butsha - the name of this village near Kiev will from now on be spoken, like Katyn or Samashki.
And as it turns out, these are units that were known for their brutality even in peacetime. For example, the 64th motorized rifle brigade of the 35th Army from Khabarovsk is notorious at home. Their nickname "Mletschnik" is even used to scare children. Suicides occur there time and again, conscripts and contract soldiers flee the unit; in February 2014 alone, there were seven deaths within three weeks in Troop Unit 51 460, which is stationed in Knyaz-Volkonskoye. It is significant that Vladimir Putin gave this very unit the honorary title of a Guard unit after it withdrew from the Kiev area - as if he were awarding it for the war crimes it committed.
A similar trail trails behind it the 127th Motorized Rifle Division of the 5th Army, also stationed in the Far East: it regularly appears in crime reports, and in its vicinity one finds corpses of soldiers without heads.
In Butsha, it was not some fanatics who were at work (there were rumors about special units of the Rosgvardiya and Chechen troops - although apparently they were also involved in the brutal massacres), but regular units of the Russian army, which, despite all the reforms of Anatoly Serdyukov and large-scale image campaigns, still relies on brutality as the only means of leadership.
Lethality and Victory
Jeffrey Hon of the London School of Economics and Political Science has researched the violent practices of the Russian army. He concludes that the Russian army's war crimes have gone unpunished in the 21st century-from Chechnya and Georgia to Syria and the Donbass to the beginning of the current phase of the war. The Russian armed forces, unlike Western armies, have not developed an institutional culture that would minimize civilian casualties: No safeguards against unjustified, indiscriminate violence exist in the Russian army.
"The Russian army's atrocities today result from a latent inability to overcome the legacy of its Soviet predecessor," says Hon. "Lethality and victory at all costs remain the Russian army's top priorities."
The same is true of the other institutions of the Russian power apparatus: the police, which sends Omon units to the front lines, the Russian Guard, the penal system. In recent years, thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices in penitentiaries and access to social networks, terabytes of shocking evidence of torture, abuse, and rape have leaked to the public, becoming common practice in Russian prisons for decades and the norm in the administration's dealings with prisoners and among prisoners themselves.
Soldiers fighting in Ukraine today come from the most depressed and crime-ridden Russian regions, where the prison subculture significantly shapes the male population: Most of the men have either served time themselves or have close friends and relatives who have served time; the youth there are involved in the AUE [a youth movement that glorifies crime crime and propagates violence] networks-and now this order, with its "customs" and practices of extreme physical and sexualized violence, has spilled over into the occupied territories of Ukraine: Russian prison despotism has spilled over the walls of the camps and across the country's borders.
Mirror of the elites
The violence is not limited to state institutions; it also prevails in families, in the relationships between husband and wife, parents and children, younger and older, superiors and subordinates. It seeps out of intercepted telephone conversations between Russian soldiers and their commanders, in which vulgarities, threats, and humiliations run rampant. From soldiers' phone calls and chat messages with their families, in which maudlin sentimentality is mixed with cruelty and cynicism, in which wives tell their husbands what to eat in Ukrainians' homes and what size shoes to take, and others admonish them, "When raping Ukrainian women, use a condom."
This violence is second nature to Russian society; it has become the identifying code for a society based on hierarchy and subjugation, on taking away and dividing resources, in which brute force is above morality and power is above the law.
This order is approved by the behavior of the ruling class, which drives the common people to death with its blue-light limousines, always getting away with it; it is authenticated by the speeches of President Putin, who teaches that you "hit the weak" and you "have to hit first," earning thunderous applause.
Normally, this violence, which maintains and legitimizes the country's social and political order, is reserved for internal use, but now for the first time - with a 200,000-strong invading army - it has spilled across Russian borders en masse, sanctioned by the state and justified ideologically. Putin's remarks about "Nazis and drug addicts," picked up from propaganda fakes (which apparently serve as his main source of information about the state of the world outside his bunker), are taken literally by the occupiers, who ask the surprised Ukrainians whose homes they break into, "Where are the Nazis here?"
To stay with the military metaphor: Russia is sewn like a soldier's coat. Not like Akaki Akakiyevich's, from which all Russian literature emerged, but like the uniform of a simple soldier, one of the basic archetypes of an eternally fighting nation. The coat has an outside and an inside. On the outside - rough, coarse and worn through by the centuries - is the land, the empire, the vastness, the war, are the tanks and planes, the atomic bomb, space, culture, Moscow and Petersburg, churches and castles. On the inside, invisible to the outside world but clinging tightly to the body, are slavery, rabble, crime, lies, tyranny, and the inevitable cruelty of Russian life.
Something has got mixed up
We have become accustomed to it and wear it, which constantly itches and scratches us; isolated patriots even think that it is the price of our greatness, and are secretly proud of this order of Russian life: our garden may not be weeded, and we do our needling in the open, but for that we have the ballet, literature, an enigmatic soul, and a vast empire.
But now something has got mixed up: Russia has "stripped itself bare", turned over the soldier's coat and revealed all its inner shabbiness in the form of the "invading army". It has presented to the whole world the senseless Russian rage, sinister barbarism, its criminal mentality, cruelty, violence and contempt for human dignity and human life, both that of Ukrainians and its own soldiers.
All the national characteristics we have learned to live with have suddenly become visible: The unpatched holes, the weak points, crooked seams, the half-rotted fabric of the Russian soldier's coat have come to light, and this is no longer a disaster for reputation, but for civilization. It destroys the power of staging on which Russia was founded for the last couple of centuries: the external form of the country, revealed in this obscene war, now corresponds to its content - Russia has presented itself to the world as it really is.
One can be shocked at the abysmal evil that has opened up in Butscha and Mariupol, but one should not be surprised: All of Russia is our Butcha.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Catfish
06-20-22, 03:53 AM
What average Russians may think about their country, and the west
https://wartranslated.com/what-might-be-the-average-russians-worldview/
Skybird
06-20-22, 05:36 AM
^ Nice read, reminds me a lot of what a girlfriend from university times told me, she and her fmaily were Russian migrants with German ancestors some generations ago (returning "Russland-Deutsche"), and she had returned form Archangelsk (one big pissoir, she said, that much it stank of urin everywhere).
She used to say the West will never understand Russia/Russians, and that the next big clash between the West and Russia is only a quesiton of time (we were in the early 90s!) , and that Russia has something in its bones like bone cancer that keeps it grey and grim and brutal and depressing, forever, and makes sure this atittude gets carried on to next generations, endlessly. Thats why she never wanted to go back to Russia, at no cost. She also said that it was a very dirty place, and when I reclal the sights when we transited back and forth between West-Berlin and West Germany and passed through the Eastgerman villages and small towns, I know what she means. Life was/is grey in these places. And you can take these words literally, please, everything looks grey. Even things they had painted in colours, were painted in red or yellow - still had a grey teint in them. Shades of grey were omnipresent, everywhere. Any everything was rotting.
I think catfish's text and the one I directly linked to before, give a good idea of the mentality and its origin that makes this war the brutal and inhumane gencoide that it is. I just read that the Russians especially hint down teachers of Ukrainian history and language. They want to annihilate Ukrainian identity. Genocide cannot become more obvious. Problem is for the Russian perpetrators it is not offending to call it that. For them its a compliment. Bubble-Olaf and Macronman, whose cape yesterday got severly cut shorter, really must stop talking to Putin - And the BBC should not interview the Russian Goebbels, Lavrov. Whats the value in listening to a liar and propagandist and giving him a stage?
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