Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Catfish]

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by mapuc

In the news today, a video clip was shown from the West Jutland town of Esbjerg where the largest ship ever to call at Esbjerg harbour. On board were 300 different armoured vehicles. They are going to Poland. There were some tanks I have not seen before, among others I saw one with a short gun barrel and a big muzzle-I've tried to find a picture of it so I could write what it was. No luck
Markus

This?

[mapuc]

In a way yes but the angle of the video was different on Danish tv. Maybe there has been more than one news agency in Esbjerg this day.

Well one day I may see this tanks with this short cannon barrel and a wider opening than a usual cannon-It made me think of these middle age cannon very short barrel and a huge opening(where the cannonball comes out)
I think they are called mourns cannon/Mortar cannon

It is also the possibility that I have misunderstod what I saw

Markus

[les green01]

Originally Posted by mapuc

In a way yes but the angle of the video was different on Danish tv. Maybe there has been more than one news agency in Esbjerg this day.

Well one day I may see this tanks with this short cannon barrel and a wider opening than a usual cannon-It made me think of these middle age cannon very short barrel and a huge opening(where the cannonball comes out)
I think they are called mourns cannon/Mortar cannon

It is also the possibility that I have misunderstod what I saw

Markus

Markus what you might have seen is mobile artillery or self propel during the American civil war very short barrel large open was call a mortar

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Russia is believed to have reorganised its military leadership in Ukraine, with Gen Alexander Dvornikov given overall charge.

Western officials say the general has extensive experience of Russian operations in Syria.

Ukrainian officials say ten humanitarian corridors to evacuate people from regions being besieged by Russian forces have been agreed for today.

The proposed corridors include one for people to escape from the shattered port city of Mariupol.

Ukraine says at least 50 people died and dozens were wounded after rockets hit a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday.

US President Joe Biden pins the blame on Russia, calling it a "horrific atrocity", but Moscow denies involvement.

Russian forces are stepping up their offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine after withdrawing from the north.

[Skybird]

FOCUS:

A look into the future: Putin is reaching for Europe, but Donald Trump is back in the White House, and Marine Le Pen has won in France. Must Germany withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Two weeks ago, my colleague René Pfister set up a thought experiment in an editorial in "Der Spiegel." It goes as follows: It is winter 2025. Vladimir Putin has failed in his goal to occupy all of Ukraine. But he has succeeded in extorting a forced peace - surrender of the Donbas and Crimea in exchange for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the west of the country.

The majority of Russians continue to back the president. A tentative palace revolt has failed. Two generals were found poisoned in their apartment, so this adventure was also decided.

Now Putin stands with 150,000 troops on the border with Latvia. It looks like a repeat of the Ukraine war, with one difference: there is no longer Joe Biden in the White House, but Donald Trump again, who has secured a second term. And Trump has declared what he thinks of NATO. "I wasn't elected to have a nuclear bomb explode over Manhattan," he said during a state visit to Moscow in response to a reporter's question about what he thought of the alliance. After that, the tanks rolled toward the Baltic states.

Would we be prepared for an emergency? That is the question. And it is not as theoretical as it may sound. If the past weeks have taught us anything, it is that everything that seemed self-evident a moment ago can turn out to be an illusion tomorrow.

In a surprise coup, the German chancellor has committed his governing coalition to rearming the Bundeswehr to the point where it is fit for defense. Everything is now to be there: Fighter planes that fly; tanks that roll; weapons that shoot. To ensure that it doesn't stop at the announcement, Scholz has pulled the decision on the allocation of the money into the chancellor's office. He knows what to make of his defense minister. He'd rather have a look at rearmament himself.

But is that enough? Is 100 billion euros enough to protect us from Putin and his plans for conquest?

Just because Trump seems to be signed off right now doesn't mean he's done. Even in his first term, the Republican rabble-rouser was only barely kept from leaving the alliance. At the second attempt, there would be no one left to stop Trump short of doing dangerously foolish things.

What good is NATO? Trump sees the world as a business relationship.

The truth is: Germany owes its security to the nuclear umbrella the U.S. has stretched over us - not to its nonexistent divisions or our exemplary pacifist ethos. For 75 years, that was the deal: we tacitly rely on the Americans to provide deterrence - in return, we get to pretend that peace can be achieved without weapons.

It was a beneficial arrangement. Flap your lips without having to pay yourself - who's to say no? Unlike Biden, however, who comes from the Cold War era, Trump sees the world as a business relationship: "What do I get out of protecting them?" is the first question that comes to his mind. Anything based on commitments is quantité negligeable for him. In that respect, he thinks like Putin.

What is deterrence worth without nuclear weapons? Not much, I would say. The principle of deterrence is based on the fact that you can counter a threat with a counter-threat. And that the man in the Kremlin will exploit any weakness that presents itself to him, he has proven that enough.

There is still the Force de Frappe, the French nuclear submarines, that is true. But should Germany really rely on the French to stand by us when the going gets tough? Love of neighborly relations may not go that far after all. And we haven't even talked about Marine Le Pen, who has caught up with Macron in the presidential election polls. Trump in the White House and Le Pen in the Élysée Palace - then we're very much on our own.

So, alternative: we provide the bomb ourselves. We've had this discussion before, in the late 1950s. The defense minister's name was Franz Josef Strauß. It was one of the great political battles of the post-war period, which then ended not in Strauß' favor, with the active support of "Der Spiegel. It speaks well for today's editors-in-chief that they let the proposal of nuclear armament be discussed in an editorial without immediately rejecting it.

Acquisition would not be easy, no question. Germany would have to withdraw from the Two Plus Four Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the other hand, what are these treaties still worth if one of the contracting parties has declared them null and void anyway? For Putin, sovereignty means sovereignly deciding which signatures he feels bound by and which he does not. But this makes obsolete the whole security architecture into which Russia was integrated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A completely different question is whether the German public would be ready for the bomb. To this day, people on the left cling to the idea that the only peace that counts is peace without weapons. The invasion of Ukraine has not fundamentally changed this.

Does it really have to be 100 billion for the Bundeswehr, the first are now asking. "No to war! Preserve democracy and the welfare state - no high-armament in the Basic Law!" is the title of an appeal by 600 more or less prominent people from politics, the church and culture. At the Green Youth, they are thinking of putting part of the billions that the chancellor has promised the Bundeswehr into political education. The left of center is still convinced that there is something wrong with anyone who picks up a weapon.

I have never really understood the pacifist argument. That weapons do not make the world safer may be true as abstract wisdom. In concrete terms, the opposite is quickly proven.

Many things remind me of the examination of conscience I had to undergo as a conscientious objector. At the beginning of the 1980s, anyone who did not want to join the Bundeswehr was still being tested on the seriousness of their pacifist convictions. Typical question: "You are in a hospital. There are women and children in your care. Next to you is a machine gun. The enemy is approaching. What are you doing?" Even then, the answer that saved one from military service, namely that one leaves the weapon lying around as a matter of course, seemed absurd to me.

I think the real point is to stay out of it. Of course, that doesn't sound so sympathetic. Gaffers and bystanders do not have a good reputation. So they cite higher goals: conscience, which forbids the use of violence, concern for world peace. What sounds so trusting actually has something rather sinister about it.

There was once an SPD chancellor who had to endure a debate on rearmament. The chancellor's name was Helmut Schmidt. In the end, he had lost his party friends, but the rearmament came. Let's see how it turns out this time.

https://www.focus.de/politik/deutsch..._80628355.html
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[mapuc]

Until now I have thought it was politics all of it..then I read a comment in a stream..it's about resources there are trillion Cubic meter gas in the Ukrainian underground-EU would love to get a good part of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine

Markus

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

FOCUS:

A look into the future:

I say we bomb Germany. It's the only way to be sure.

[Catfish]

^ but nuke it from orbit, otherwise you're screwed

re Marcus
while this may sound as great reservoir it is not big enough, also just of all Germany wants to get away from burning fossil carbon, from coal to oil to gas.
I think it would be best to go with carbon for 5 to ten years while also using nuclear energy, but using the time to research tokamak reactors and fusion, AND tackle the challenge of nuclear waste storage.

[les green01]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Russia is believed to have reorganised its military leadership in Ukraine, with Gen Alexander Dvornikov given overall charge.

Western officials say the general has extensive experience of Russian operations in Syria.

Ukrainian officials say ten humanitarian corridors to evacuate people from regions being besieged by Russian forces have been agreed for today.

The proposed corridors include one for people to escape from the shattered port city of Mariupol.

Ukraine says at least 50 people died and dozens were wounded after rockets hit a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday.

US President Joe Biden pins the blame on Russia, calling it a "horrific atrocity", but Moscow denies involvement.

Russian forces are stepping up their offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine after withdrawing from the north.

Ukraine getting another high up target

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine calls on civilians in the eastern region of Luhansk to flee immediately.

Its governor, Serhiy Gaidai, warns that Russia is "amassing forces for an offensive" there.

Russia is stepping up their offensive in eastern Ukraine after withdrawing from the north.

UK PM Boris Johnson is in Ukraine and has held a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.

A No 10 spokesman said he was using the visit to set out a new package of financial and military aid.

[Jimbuna]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has held talks in Kyiv with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

No 10 said the visit was a "show of solidarity" with the Ukrainian people.

Following the meeting, Downing Street said the UK would send 120 armoured vehicles and anti-ship missile systems to support Ukraine.

Senior officials in Mr Zelensky's team praised the UK for support during its conflict with Russia.

A No 10 spokesman said: "The prime minister has travelled to Ukraine to meet President Zelensky in person, in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people."

Mr Johnson's visit to Kyiv came the day after the UK announced £100m of weapons for the country.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Friday, Mr Johnson said the UK will send additional military equipment including Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles and 800 anti-tank missiles.

It followed an appeal from Ukraine for more arms as it prepares for an expected Russian offensive in the east of the country, after Moscow pulled back its forces from around Kyiv.

[Skybird]

It gets reported over here that the defence ministry knew already at the beginning fo the war of over 200 older tanks Leopard1A5, Marder and Panzerhaubitzen that are no longe rin service and are simply parked. Although the Ukriane asked for wepaons, Germany delayed to establish a list of inventorxy, and then delayed again to hand it over to the Ukraine just five weeks later.

To me its clear since quite some time that the Germans under Scholz play a double game here.

The official recommendation now is that the Ukraine should place orders directly with the industry, whcih then will be - endlessly - cosndiered by Germna policy-makers, and if finally approved several weeks later will see Bundeswehr systems delivered, and the missing stocks then being replaced with factor-fresh systems from that Ukrainian order.

Think of that.

The contradictions in public communication of the chancellor and his defence granny, do not end meanwhile.

Something is very smelly here. I do not trust Scholz. He plays foul game there, some sort of. He always does, since always. Schleichtier, elendes.

Meanwhile sanctions on coal from August on have been announced, the embargo factually means the end of coal imports from Russia. That does not hurt any Western nation. Therefore it is so irrelevant that it will not hurt Russia either.

The Green minister of economics meanhwhile still absolutely rejects to consider extending the running time of the three remaining nuclear reactors being switched off this year. Not to mention reactivating those three that have just been switched off early this year, and can be reactivated (said their owner company at the beginning of the war, they coudl call back their staff, most they asked would be willing to come back). Instead he mulls the reactivation of brown coal powerplants for electricity production.

Am I really only surrounded by nutcases in Germany? Allein unter Spinnern und völlig Bekloppten?

Positive is that Finland looks as if it will file a request for NATO membership soon, and I expect in its wake Sweden will follow soon. Who would not have the Fins aboard in NATO...? NATO signalled that a Finnish request would be processed quickly, and almost certainly would be accepted.