Here we go again-Ukraine once again - Page 187

MaDef · 03-31-22, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ET2SN

Meanwhile, CNN reported a couple of hours ago that Putin has ordered the conscription of 134,000 new soldiers.

That's like doubling down when you're holding a pair of threes.

Not much of a risk when NATO is holding a 7-2 off suit.

mapuc · 03-31-22, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaDef

Not much of a risk when NATO is holding a 7-2 off suit.

Will you explain what it means for a novice like me ?

Markus

tmccarthy · 03-31-22, 03:15 PM

[QUOTE=Onkel Neal;2801178]I hope this isn't accurate, but it's crazy scary to think Putin is this effectively strategic.

What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/o...war-putin.html

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated.
/QUOTE]

Well, if you find this interesting I'm breaking down the miscalculation so far like this:

Russia: 0% miscalculation:
-they know this is a very difficult war, they know they are going to take high casualties, they know they have the military power to win in Ukraine.

America 90% miscalculation:
-all the things I'm not hearing being considered or discussed. Everyone is jumping to easy conclusions, incompetence, failure etc.

This is my own alternate personal view of part of what may be going on, especially in regard to refugees.

-First week

2. Invade Ukraine with a relatively small invasion force with a mix of 1st rate and conscript units.

-test American resolve and gauge levels of reaction sensitivity (what actions get warnings)to intervene militarily.

-Allowing time for women and children refugees to leave Ukraine, makes war much easier in many ways, 500,000 left the first week, 4 million after a month. Refugees are now a problem for west that causes distress and guilt, not feelings of occupied civilians who need to be defended militarily. The average man will fight to a certain point to defend his home and country, he will fight to the death to defend his family which are now not there.

-start achieving military objectives and find where the Ukraine army is strong and weak.

3. Have best Army and Airforce units near the western border, plus reserves prepared to fight NATO. Start war during the muddy season which favors the defender, NATO vs Russia....

-Tim

tmccarthy · 03-31-22, 03:29 PM

This is long but what Col. Doug Macgregor, armor veteran of the Gulf War, says in the first 10 minutes is worth considering. It's a little old too but I'm just finding out about these guys at "The Grey Zone", they are asking good questions and doing interesting interviews.

Skybird · 03-31-22, 05:44 PM

Finally some info on the gas-rubles-issue that somewhat explains why what happened. From the Neue Zürcher Zeitung:

Foreign buyers of Russian natural gas from states classified as "unfriendly" due to the sanctions imposed on Russia will have to make their payments in rubles starting this Friday, April 1. Failure to do so could result in the suspension of deliveries. Making payments only in rubles was ordered by President Vladimir Putin a week ago.

On Thursday, the Kremlin published a decree by Putin setting out the modalities for Western customers. The announcement had caused excitement and uncertainty, especially in European countries that are particularly dependent on Russian gas. Now it seems that the Kremlin, the Central Bank and the natural gas export monopolist Gazprom have sought a Solomonic solution.

The mandatory payment in rubles is more appearance than reality. European customers will be obliged to open two "special accounts" with Gazprombank: a ruble account and a foreign currency account. They are to transfer the contractually agreed price in euros to the latter. Gazprombank is authorized to exchange the transferred amount into rubles on the Moscow Stock Exchange and transfer it to the ruble account. From this account, the natural gas supplier - i.e. Gazprom - is then paid in rubles. This changes less than the Europeans had feared.

The Russian side avoided two equally conceivable schemes that would probably have led to more resistance from the Western states. The Europeans had assumed that they would have to convert the amount due into rubles themselves and transfer this ruble sum to Gazprom. Another option would have been for European customers to continue paying in euros, but to transfer the money to a ruble account, where it would have been automatically converted.

The solution now chosen leaves the conversion entirely to Gazprombank as the intermediary. However, it presupposes the willingness of Europeans to open accounts, including a ruble account, with Gazprombank, which is deliberately not subject to sanctions. In this way, Gazprom and, indirectly, the Russian state secure the revenues from the gas business in any case.

From the Russian point of view, this does not change anything in terms of the contractual basis. The risk arising from dependence on the ruble exchange rate remains with Gazprom. It is not transferred to the customer, as some observers had suspected, and ruble prices are not suddenly charged, which would have made a change in contract mandatory and thus lengthy legal negotiations foreseeable.

For Gazprom, the new arrangement is likely to have advantages and disadvantages. As economist Marcel Salikhov of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow told the Russian Internet portal "The Bell," the requirement to settle through Gazprombank reduces the risk of sanctions: funds in foreign currency could be blocked less easily. In principle, however, little changes.

However, Gazprom will no longer receive foreign currency. Since the beginning of March, under the economic crisis regime, the group had already had to exchange 80 percent of its sales made in foreign currency into rubles within three days. Just like all importers. Now it is effectively 100 percent. This supports the ruble exchange rate, which has recovered strongly since the crash at the beginning of the "special military operation," as the war in Ukraine is officially called. However, experts believe it is artificial because it is currently almost impossible to conduct foreign currency transactions in Russia given extensive crisis-related currency controls.

Putin's decree gives the Government Commission on Foreign Investment the leeway to waive the new mode of payments in rubles in individual cases. This would make it possible to accommodate customers who cannot adopt the changeover due to certain political constraints. Russian commodity expert Mikhail Krutikhin pointed out in an interview that Putin had probably not been aware of the risks associated with the changeover. If the Europeans were to refuse to accept the payment terms and forgo gas supplies, it would be a disaster for the Russian state, which is heavily dependent on natural gas exports.

In the form now presented, the change appears primarily in a political light. Putin had already lamented when the measure was announced that the "collective West" had discredited its own currencies - the euro and the dollar - through its sanctions policy and especially by freezing Russia's currency reserves. On Thursday, he said the West had decided to use the economy as a weapon against Russia. Therefore, Russia wants nothing more to do with foreign currencies.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I think Putin did not realise himself in full what he triggered there, and then wanted only a face-saving option out of it.

Buddahaid · 03-31-22, 06:44 PM

[QUOTE=tmccarthy;2801393]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I hope this isn't accurate, but it's crazy scary to think Putin is this effectively strategic.

What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/o...war-putin.html

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated.
/QUOTE]

Well, if you find this interesting I'm breaking down the miscalculation so far like this:

Russia: 0% miscalculation:
-they know this is a very difficult war, they know they are going to take high casualties, they know they have the military power to win in Ukraine.

America 90% miscalculation:
-all the things I'm not hearing being considered or discussed. Everyone is jumping to easy conclusions, incompetence, failure etc.

This is my own alternate personal view of part of what may be going on, especially in regard to refugees.

-First week

2. Invade Ukraine with a relatively small invasion force with a mix of 1st rate and conscript units.

-test American resolve and gauge levels of reaction sensitivity (what actions get warnings)to intervene militarily.

-Allowing time for women and children refugees to leave Ukraine, makes war much easier in many ways, 500,000 left the first week, 4 million after a month. Refugees are now a problem for west that causes distress and guilt, not feelings of occupied civilians who need to be defended militarily. The average man will fight to a certain point to defend his home and country, he will fight to the death to defend his family which are now not there.

-start achieving military objectives and find where the Ukraine army is strong and weak.

3. Have best Army and Airforce units near the western border, plus reserves prepared to fight NATO. Start war during the muddy season which favors the defender, NATO vs Russia....

-Tim

Can't get past the pay window for the article.

I still say he needs to be shot, hung, or whatever for the huge death toll he managed especially if it was calculated.

MaDef · 03-31-22, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mapuc

Will you explain what it means for a novice like me ?

Markus

Worst starting cards in Texas hold 'Em. Very few options to win, other than a successful bluff. (which in my opinion, is what NATO is trying to do. They aren't ready to actually do what is needed to curb Russia's behavior.)

Skybird · 03-31-22, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmccarthy

This is long but what Col. Doug Macgregor, armor veteran of the Gulf War, says in the first 10 minutes is worth considering. It's a little old too but I'm just finding out about these guys at "The Grey Zone", they are asking good questions and doing interesting interviews.

How Macgregor describes the war in tbe first 8 minutes is not the war that is running in the Ukraine, but a fiction with a very obvious political, pro putin bias. I stopped watching then, because it was too much bull.

And on Grayzone, know who they are.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone

Quote:

The Grayzone's news content is generally considered to be fringe,[3][15][16][17] with its content ideologically centered around the website's desire for a multipolar world.[3] Along this vein, the website has supported the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria,[24] publishing content denying that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians during the Syrian Civil War,[3][25] and maintains a pro-Kremlin editorial line.[24][2] The website has also denied the scope of the Xinjiang internment camps and the Uyghur genocide, downplaying widely reported abuses by the Chinese government against Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

tmccarthy · 03-31-22, 09:07 PM

[QUOTE=Buddahaid;2801413]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmccarthy

Can't get past the pay window for the article.

Yeah, I couldn't get past the pay window either and I screwed up the reply window. But if you go to original post by Onkel Neal #2746 and hit the spoilers button I believe that is the article?

ET2SN · 03-31-22, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

I wonder how U say: "I'm expendible" in Russian?

"Dasvidaniya Rodina".

tmccarthy · 03-31-22, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

How Macgregor describes the war in tbe first 8 minutes is not the war that is running in the Ukraine, but a fiction with a very obvious political, pro putin bias. I stopped watching then, because it was too much bull.

And on Grayzone, know who they are.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone

Yeah, I looked into who the Grayzone is, and finding totally unbiased news sources seems pretty impossible these days. What I'm looking for is the other side of the story? Why is our media not doing that and talking to people with a different view like Col. Macgeagor? Do you believe he is politically motivated and "pro-Putin" biased?
(*edit this report is 2 weeks old, they are hard to find, but what is inaccurate at that time?)

Normally western media is full of coverage of news stories where they put up both sides of a story, "talking heads", and have them fight it out on air. Why isn't that happening now? My point is, to put it bluntly, the western traditional media is now almost completely united on this strory and is wrong and full of lies and we shouldn't be making any judgments based only on the story coming from places like BBC, CNN, MSNBC and even Fox.

More from Col. Macgregor, I'd like to hear your disagreement with any of the points he's making in these videos'?

les green01 · 03-31-22, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

How Macgregor describes the war in tbe first 8 minutes is not the war that is running in the Ukraine, but a fiction with a very obvious political, pro putin bias. I stopped watching then, because it was too much bull.

And on Grayzone, know who they are.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone

i watch a program the other day retire col saying how Ukraine has already lost and all that I guess no one has told Ukraine they lost bad thing about news they just want to report what they want you to know what supports their agenda

tmccarthy · 03-31-22, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by les green01

i watch a program the other day retire col saying how Ukraine has already lost and all that I guess no one has told Ukraine they lost bad thing about news they just want to report what they want you to know what supports their agenda

Personally I always look for the opinions of retired Colonels (and Captians) with combat experience first. The fact that a man makes it to General or Admiral is a good sign they might already be too political to be completely relieable.

tmccarthy · 03-31-22, 10:09 PM

Sorry I don't mean to be stacking the argument here but I'm just coming back from a couple day break and just caught this video a few minutes ago, which I think is too interesting to pass up. Off to bed, good nite

Skybird · 04-01-22, 04:39 AM

Macgregor is not offering another perspective, he offers nonsense. He says Putin still negotiates while obviously he does not, he says he avoids shooting civilians and civilian buildings and that is obviously not true, he says the Ukrainians suck while obviously they are capable, he says Russian losses are low and Ukrainians losses are high.

Bull.

03-31-22, 03:15 PM	#2793
tmccarthy Admiral Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 2,302 Downloads: 270 Uploads: 16	[QUOTE=Onkel Neal;2801178]I hope this isn't accurate, but it's crazy scary to think Putin is this effectively strategic. What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/o...war-putin.html The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated. /QUOTE] Well, if you find this interesting I'm breaking down the miscalculation so far like this: Russia: 0% miscalculation: -they know this is a very difficult war, they know they are going to take high casualties, they know they have the military power to win in Ukraine. America 90% miscalculation: -all the things I'm not hearing being considered or discussed. Everyone is jumping to easy conclusions, incompetence, failure etc. This is my own alternate personal view of part of what may be going on, especially in regard to refugees. *-First week* 2. Invade Ukraine with a relatively small invasion force with a mix of 1st rate and conscript units. -test American resolve and gauge levels of reaction sensitivity (what actions get warnings)to intervene militarily. -Allowing time for women and children refugees to leave Ukraine, makes war much easier in many ways, 500,000 left the first week, 4 million after a month. Refugees are now a problem for west that causes distress and guilt, not feelings of occupied civilians who need to be defended militarily. The average man will fight to a certain point to defend his home and country, he will fight to the death to defend his family which are now not there. -start achieving military objectives and find where the Ukraine army is strong and weak. 3. Have best Army and Airforce units near the western border, plus reserves prepared to fight NATO. Start war during the muddy season which favors the defender, NATO vs Russia.... -Tim __________________

03-31-22, 03:29 PM	#2794
tmccarthy Admiral Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 2,302 Downloads: 270 Uploads: 16	This is long but what Col. Doug Macgregor, armor veteran of the Gulf War, says in the first 10 minutes is worth considering. It's a little old too but I'm just finding out about these guys at "The Grey Zone", they are asking good questions and doing interesting interviews. __________________

03-31-22, 05:44 PM	#2795
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,636 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Finally some info on the gas-rubles-issue that somewhat explains why what happened. From the Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Foreign buyers of Russian natural gas from states classified as "unfriendly" due to the sanctions imposed on Russia will have to make their payments in rubles starting this Friday, April 1. Failure to do so could result in the suspension of deliveries. Making payments only in rubles was ordered by President Vladimir Putin a week ago. On Thursday, the Kremlin published a decree by Putin setting out the modalities for Western customers. The announcement had caused excitement and uncertainty, especially in European countries that are particularly dependent on Russian gas. Now it seems that the Kremlin, the Central Bank and the natural gas export monopolist Gazprom have sought a Solomonic solution. The mandatory payment in rubles is more appearance than reality. European customers will be obliged to open two "special accounts" with Gazprombank: a ruble account and a foreign currency account. They are to transfer the contractually agreed price in euros to the latter. Gazprombank is authorized to exchange the transferred amount into rubles on the Moscow Stock Exchange and transfer it to the ruble account. From this account, the natural gas supplier - i.e. Gazprom - is then paid in rubles. This changes less than the Europeans had feared. The Russian side avoided two equally conceivable schemes that would probably have led to more resistance from the Western states. The Europeans had assumed that they would have to convert the amount due into rubles themselves and transfer this ruble sum to Gazprom. Another option would have been for European customers to continue paying in euros, but to transfer the money to a ruble account, where it would have been automatically converted. The solution now chosen leaves the conversion entirely to Gazprombank as the intermediary. However, it presupposes the willingness of Europeans to open accounts, including a ruble account, with Gazprombank, which is deliberately not subject to sanctions. In this way, Gazprom and, indirectly, the Russian state secure the revenues from the gas business in any case. From the Russian point of view, this does not change anything in terms of the contractual basis. The risk arising from dependence on the ruble exchange rate remains with Gazprom. It is not transferred to the customer, as some observers had suspected, and ruble prices are not suddenly charged, which would have made a change in contract mandatory and thus lengthy legal negotiations foreseeable. For Gazprom, the new arrangement is likely to have advantages and disadvantages. As economist Marcel Salikhov of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow told the Russian Internet portal "The Bell," the requirement to settle through Gazprombank reduces the risk of sanctions: funds in foreign currency could be blocked less easily. In principle, however, little changes. However, Gazprom will no longer receive foreign currency. Since the beginning of March, under the economic crisis regime, the group had already had to exchange 80 percent of its sales made in foreign currency into rubles within three days. Just like all importers. Now it is effectively 100 percent. This supports the ruble exchange rate, which has recovered strongly since the crash at the beginning of the "special military operation," as the war in Ukraine is officially called. However, experts believe it is artificial because it is currently almost impossible to conduct foreign currency transactions in Russia given extensive crisis-related currency controls. Putin's decree gives the Government Commission on Foreign Investment the leeway to waive the new mode of payments in rubles in individual cases. This would make it possible to accommodate customers who cannot adopt the changeover due to certain political constraints. Russian commodity expert Mikhail Krutikhin pointed out in an interview that Putin had probably not been aware of the risks associated with the changeover. If the Europeans were to refuse to accept the payment terms and forgo gas supplies, it would be a disaster for the Russian state, which is heavily dependent on natural gas exports. In the form now presented, the change appears primarily in a political light. Putin had already lamented when the measure was announced that the "collective West" had discredited its own currencies - the euro and the dollar - through its sanctions policy and especially by freezing Russia's currency reserves. On Thursday, he said the West had decided to use the economy as a weapon against Russia. Therefore, Russia wants nothing more to do with foreign currencies. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) I think Putin did not realise himself in full what he triggered there, and then wanted only a face-saving option out of it. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

03-31-22, 10:09 PM	#2804
tmccarthy Admiral Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 2,302 Downloads: 270 Uploads: 16	Sorry I don't mean to be stacking the argument here but I'm just coming back from a couple day break and just caught this video a few minutes ago, which I think is too interesting to pass up. Off to bed, good nite __________________

04-01-22, 04:39 AM	#2805
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,636 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Macgregor is not offering another perspective, he offers nonsense. He says Putin still negotiates while obviously he does not, he says he avoids shooting civilians and civilian buildings and that is obviously not true, he says the Ukrainians suck while obviously they are capable, he says Russian losses are low and Ukrainians losses are high. Bull. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.