Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Skybird]

A bit of agreement (I originally also thought so, too, but changed my mind with later reports coming in) and a bit of disagreement from me. Numerically the Scholzianers wanted to give them too little, and stretched over many, many years with a frequency of 1-2 tanks - per year. And I wonder what the Germans confusingly told them that they took the arrangement so very wrongly as you imply.


I think another motive, that does not get mentioned in the media, also plays a role. When you buy military weapons from another country, that country usually reserves a legal word in for what you can use them and for what not. It can also veto you if you want to give these weapons to somewbody else. And that both is is I think what they no longer accept due to no more trust on Germanatics in foreign diplomacy. They see how Bubble-Olaf practices salamic-tactics towards the ukraine, and they want to not get limited by such German annoyances again.



When a few weeks back Rheinmetall revealed its new Leopard-2-killer MBT and the trailer I saw mentioned big business opportunties, I immediately had doubts about the Easterneuropeans being willing to buy. After this year and the pitiful performance of Germany, I would scratch Germany from my list of trustworthy allies, too.



In any way, I expect a massive powershift from Germany and France eastward. Even more so if the next US president will be a Republican,. because then the remasn of America's interest in Europe will shift form germany to Poland and the Baltic states. Poland for its growing military strength, and the Baltics for being frontline states.

[ET2SN]

Poland has been doing a "power up", mostly with US hardware, for several years now.

I get the feeling their military and Gov't leaders are thinking, "Aw.. Not this #### again..." and if they get invaded, someone else is going to get hurt.

[mapuc]

Don't know exactly what this mean

"[The West] must understand that neither helicopters nor planes will save them if they go for escalation. We, along with Putin, said once in St. Petersburg that we will adapt the Belarusian Su [-24] planes as well to make them capable to carry nuclear arms. Do you think we were just yakking? Everything is ready!" Lukashenka told reporters in Minsk.

https://www.rferl.org/a/32005797.html

Markus

[em2nought]

Do Ukrainians have any outstanding student loans that need to be payed while we're at it?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62652133


How dared we expecting anything else than this? No surprise to be seen here, don't read, just move on.

We certainly didn't need a crystal ball to see that one coming.

[mapuc]

Found this status on twitter
(Have translated it)

Conflict researcher Jan Øberg: 'If the West is to save itself from an economic disaster, then now, we must stop sending weapons to Ukraine and sit down at the negotiating table with Russia.'

- The West and Denmark are to blame for the Ukraine war!

He got a lot of answers one of them wrote.
- Congrats you won this years Chamberlain prize.

Markus

[Skybird]

A signficant group inside the SPD also has recently demanded that one should negotiate with Russia.

As if it is up to us to negotiate. It was Russia making negotiations first pointless, then technically impossible.

The amount of reality denial of some people is surreal.


Its becoming how it was predeicted. The deeper the winter criis becomes, the louder the demands will become to stop supporting the Ukraine (except in words and solidarity and heart-felt support and all that nonsense) and bow to Russian demands.

[Dargo]

After six months of war in Ukraine, the conditions for the end of the struggle have been tightened. Zelensky wants the Russians driven out of all Ukrainian regions. Putin will certainly not be satisfied with the current gains in territory. 'What we see as the end of the war,' Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday, on the 31st Ukrainian Independence Day. 'We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory.' Vladimir Putin said a week earlier at a military-patriotic amusement park - where Russian children can storm a replica of the Reichstag - that 'the special operation' will end once the security of 'Russia, our citizens and the residents of the Donbas' is guaranteed. After six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe's largest ground war since 1945 appears to have only just begun. The tens of thousands of deaths between February 24 and August 24, 2022, will likely go down in the history books as the victims of the first battles. The 14 thousand deaths of the past eight years in eastern Ukraine have already been forgotten. Some commentators saw in the agreement on the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports a prelude to a cease-fire agreement or even peace. But where in the first weeks Zelensky and Putin were still sending negotiating teams in each other's directions, they now give the impression that the war, can only be ended in one place, and that is on the battlefield.

'We are not going to seek agreement with terrorists,' Zelensky said. 'Having gone through so much, we don't have the right to not go through to the end.' Reducing the Russian army to the positions of February 24 is no longer enough for Ukraine. Zelensky only wants to speak of victory when all 25 Ukrainian regions have been cleansed of Russian soldiers, including Crimea and the parts of the Donbas that Russia took in 2014. Without concessions or compromises, because "those words were destroyed with missiles," said Zelensky, who as recently as spring said that only diplomacy alone could end the war. Military experts consider recapture of Crimea completely unrealistic. But Zelensky wants to convey that Ukraine is ready for a war of attrition. Recent attacks by Ukraine on Crimea should bolster his ambitions. Oleksi Danilov, chairman of the Ukrainian Security Council, called the attacks part of "a step-by-step demilitarization of the peninsula with subsequent liberation.

Ukraine must first prove that it is not only capable of holding Russia back, as it is now succeeding almost everywhere along the front, but also of driving Russia back. The only major area recapture, in the north of the country, dates from April. A counteroffensive toward the southern port city of Cherson has yielded little yet. Russia has moved weapons and troops south in anticipation of a heavier Ukrainian counterattack. Western allies say the Ukrainian military is keeping its plans strictly to itself. This was already true leading up to the war: the U.S. said it knew more about Russian invasion plans than Ukrainian defense plans. Like Zelensky, Western leaders say they are ready for a war that will last for years. Aid to Ukraine will continue "for as long as it takes," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday on Ukraine's Independence Day. The U.S. gave the Ukrainian military a birthday gift of 3 billion euros in weapons. In addition to sending supplies, the U.S. government has now placed orders with arms manufacturers to provide Ukraine with long-term weapons. Included in a short-term delivery are 40 vehicles to clear minefields, intended to give Ukraine a better chance of recapturing territory.

Russia is also preparing for a long war now that the blitzkrieg has failed. Using terms like "denazification" and "demilitarization" of Ukraine, Putin has vaguely defined Russia's goals to be able to declare victory at any time. But now that even the only concretely formulated goal - taking the Donbas - has not been achieved, Putin will not be satisfied with the current gains in territory. He also apparently considers it too early for annexations of occupied territory, possibly because he first wants to conquer the Donetsk province. Russian stamina will be put to the test. The Russian military in Ukraine was at its limit in recent months, the conclusion seems to be since hardly any territory has been conquered since early July. Defense Minister Sergei Shoygoe this week, after six months of war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population, came up with a most implausible explanation: the Russian military would operate more slowly due to measures to avoid civilian casualties.

Putin has put domestic industry in war mode. Russia's defense industry is many times larger than that of Ukraine, but it is under pressure. Western sanctions are making it difficult to produce modern weapons systems that work with foreign chips. Last month, Putin signed a law that is being used to allow arms manufacturers to ramp up production through night shifts and longer work weeks. For a revolt by his own people, Putin does not seem to have to fear. But the further the losses mount (Western governments estimate that Moscow has lost more soldiers in the past six months than it did during the ten-year Soviet operation in Afghanistan), the more difficulty he has in justifying his operation. Even for Russians, "the special operation" is beginning to look suspiciously like a war.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-ach...nnen~b7e5dfa2/

[Dargo]

Russia's economy would suffer little from all the sanctions, it is often claimed. The opposite is true, according to a study by Yale University. Russia's economy is anything but resilient. A parade of rusty tanks, trucks and rocket launchers passed through Khrushchatyk, Kyiv's main street, last week in celebration of Ukraine's 31st Independence Day. 'Putin wanted a military parade on Khrushchev. Here it is," tweeted parliamentarian Oleksi Hontsjarenko to a photo of Ukrainian day-trippers strolling among cannons and other captured Russian war materiel. Besides the ceremonial uniforms left behind in the Russian tanks, freshly steamed up for the triumphal march through Kyiv that never came, Ukrainian soldiers have been surprised at something else over the past six months: the pitiful state of the tracked vehicles. Lately, Russian tanks even appear to be full of microchips scrapped from refrigerators and dishwashers. This is because the sanctions against the Putin regime have made it impossible for the Russian military to obtain chips from Taiwanese global market leader TSMC, as well as other advanced semiconductors. In desperation, Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko has offered that his poverty-stricken country will supply chips then - although Belarusian microchips are slightly less "micro" than those of the competition, Lukashenko admitted.

For months now, the media and reports from clubs like the IMF and the World Economic Forum have echoed the same refrain: that the Russian economy is proving so resilient despite all the sanctions. In a speech recently, Putin even bombed the West's "economic blitzkrieg" into failure. This despite an economic contraction of 4 percent in the second quarter - at least according to official Kremlin figures - while the Dutch economy still grew 2.6 percent. 'Once again, the weapon of sanctions proves to be a double-edged sword, which does as much, if not more, damage to its proponents,' Putin said nonetheless. In reality, the Russian economy is not in much better shape than the rusty tanks on the streets of Kyiv, a recently published Yale study shows. Twenty economists led by Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld not only checked the increasingly scarce statistics that the Kremlin still entrusts to the light of day, but also dug up a series of figures that do not have Putin's blessing, such as ship data, black market transactions, trade balances and customs data. From these, they purged six reasons why Russia's economic "resilience" is a myth.

1. Less gas
That Europe has blundered in recent decades by making itself dependent on Russian gas is a truism. What gets less attention is that Russia is actually much more dependent on Europe than the other way around. Before the start of the Ukraine war, 83 percent of Russian gas went to Europe, while Europe itself got 54 percent of its natural gas from non-Russian sources, such as Norway, Qatar and Algeria. Six months after the start of the war, Europe is already consuming more than 60 percent less Russian gas than it did a year ago, while the United States, with its liquefied natural gas, has surpassed Russia as a gas supplier. A big problem for Putin, because of every five rubles in his treasury, he owes three to oil and gas. At least: before the war. Now that the West has eliminated virtually all other Russian goods, his budget presumably leans even more heavily on the black and blue gold. Simply selling more gas to China won't do. There is only one pipeline, operating at half speed, from Eastern Siberia to China, and to make matters worse, there is no pipeline running between Eastern Siberia and Western Siberia, where the gas meant for Europe comes from. So diverting European gas supplies to China is out of the question, quite apart from the fact that China, thanks to an abundance of cheap coal and renewable energy, is also not keen on Russian natural gas. Last year, China took only 2 percent of Russian natural gas. By necessity, much Russian gas now remains in the ground. According to Gazprom's own figures, gas production is 35 percent lower than a year earlier. Russian oil revenues have also declined sharply. A barrel of Russian oil has fallen more than 30 percent in price since the end of February compared to a barrel of Brent oil, the benchmark for oil from the Middle East and North Sea. In all, more than half as much oil and natural gas revenue flowed into the Treasury in May, the last month for which the Kremlin published figures, than the previous month.

2. No 'turn to the east'
In recent years, Putin has been talking highly of a "turn to the east. The idea is that doing more business with China should make Russia less vulnerable to Western sanctions. So far, however, little has come of this turn. Chinese exports to Russia have shrunk by more than half since the war began. Indeed, for China, Russia is an insignificant trading partner, less important than, say, Mexico, Vietnam and the Netherlands. And China's main trading partner, the United States, does not hesitate to hand out draconian penalties to Chinese companies that do business with Russia. Hence, the world's largest bank, China's ICBC, no longer lends in Russia, Chinese energy giant Sinopec is washing its hands of Russian oil projects, and the world's largest smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is now ignoring Russia.

3. Fewer imports
China is not the only country that has opposed Western sanctions, yet trades less with Russia. The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a U.S. think tank, analyzed the export figures of 54 countries, which together accounted for ninety percent of Russia's imports in 2021. It showed that exports to Russia from countries that are not pro-sanctions are now on average 40 percent lower than a year earlier, compared to a 60 percent drop in the case of countries that do support the sanctions. As a result, Russian industry is facing a dire shortage of parts. Production of Ladas, UAZ off-road vehicles, GAZ minivans and other Russian cars was 75 percent lower in May than a year earlier, as Russian manufacturers are unable to get their hands on brakes, airbags, microchips and other parts. Tank manufacturer UralVagonZavod recently even sent its workers on leave - in the middle of a war - because it ran out of chips for armored vehicles.

4. Artificial ruble
A showpiece of Putin's propaganda is the exchange rate of the ruble. In early March, the ruble shot to an all-time low: 150 rubles for every euro. Six months later, however, a euro is worth only 60 rubles, the highest ruble rate in years. However, this rate is no more a sign of health than the steady heartbeat of a coma patient. What does the exchange rate of a currency that is barely redeemable say? Just as doctors keep a coma patient alive with artificial respiration, the Russian central bank props up the ruble with a series of monetary horsepower. By restricting the exchange of rubles for dollars and euros, Russia prevented the tatters of its currency. The ruble trade has since collapsed completely, except in the black market, where rubles are worth up to twice as little as in the legal market.

5. Diminishing reserves
Thanks to oil and gas roubles, Putin managed to save more than $600 billion in international reserves in recent years. This war chest was supposed to protect Russia from Western sanctions. At the end of February, however, the U.S., Japan, the EU and others froze half of Russia's bank balances, bonds and other reserves, which Putin's regime had deposited mostly in euros, pounds and dollars in the West. Of the remaining $300 billion, Putin has now rushed a quarter through, partly by sprinkling money around to keep the economy afloat. At this rate, Russia will run out of reserves within a few years.

6. Exodus
The Ukraine war has triggered a Russian migration. More than half a million mostly highly educated Russians have left their homeland since late February. More than 800 international companies have left for good or not, another 300 firms are putting their Russian operations on hold for the time being. Together, these companies had more than $600 billion in capital outstanding in Russia, more than one-third of Russia's GDP. As long as the West does not take its boot off Putin's neck, the Yale researchers conclude, his regime is heading inexorably toward "economic oblivion. 'The facts show that the Russian economy, at whatever level and with whatever yardstick you look, is teetering, and that now is not the time to apply the brakes (in terms of sanctions, ed.).

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-ach...e-is~b8f8d642/

[Skybird]

^that is all nice and clena opn an academic's table where theory meets bthesory and practice plans not so much a role, but truth is Russia has all it needs to stay for itself and be autark, if that is what it wants. It must not depend on the gpoobal currency system. It has metals and ores, rare earths, ressources for a heavy industry, it has farmlands and an agricxultre sector capable tpo keep the people away from staravtions, it has energy resaources, and it has plenty of bright lights and loud sounds: military.


It needs the world to gi89ve the impresison to be a modenr, civilized o****ry, but that is just an imporession. It doe snot need ther world at all to just exist and live in its own way.



And it has a population that since egeneraitons is used to that thigns are like they are, who are sub,missve and obedient due to fear and habit, pretty much comoaravle to the blind trust int eh state that Germans have.



Finally it has an autocratic regime and strrictures of power thjat exost sicne centuries and that pretty much are the essenc eof Russian history.



I am a bit tired of hearing, reading time and again how bad it will be for Russia and that it is close to collapsing and will pay a price in the future. It will, yes. Its just that it must not care for that. Its not relevant.


We should be much more concerned about our own survivability. What we are in right now, namely in Europe, is an existential threat to the very fundaments of our civilization that we call "the West". Currently evertyhing, really EVERYTHING, works against us, and nothing, absolutely nothing works in our favour. The perfect storm, i do not predict it anymore - ITS HERE. And I expect it to last for the rest of my lifetime. The best I hope for is stagnation. More likely is sometimes steeper, sometimes more moderate but constant decline.

[Jimbuna]

The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant is once again powering Ukraine's electricity grid, the state nuclear company has confirmed.

It was disconnected on Thursday after fires reportedly interfered with nearby power lines - raising concerns over whether crucial safety mechanisms would continue to operate at the complex.

If back-up electricity supplies hadn't kicked in, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, the situation would have become a "radiation accident".

The plant is at the centre of a storm of claims and counter-claims by Ukraine and Russia - each accusing the other of disregarding basic safety protocols around the site.

[Jimbuna]

Air forces of Czech Republic and Poland will patrol skies of Slovakia so that it can hand over its MiG-29s to Ukraine

Slovakia signed an agreement on August 27 under which NATO members the Czech Republic and Poland will patrol its skies as Bratislava decommissions Soviet MiG-29s, potentially freeing up those planes for deployment to Ukraine.

Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad told reporters at an air show on August 27 that Bratislava is ready to send planes to neighboring Ukraine, but an agreement has not yet been reached.

"There is political will, and it makes sense to help those who need help. This possibility is under consideration and when an agreement is reached, we will let you know," Nad said.

Slovakia has already transferred to Ukraine the S-300 air defense system, military helicopters of the Mi series, self-propelled howitzers, and "Hrad" rocket launchers. This week it said it would send 30 BVP-1 tracked infantry fighting vehicles.

Nad, who valued the MiGs at around 300 million euros, said Slovakia would demand some financial or material compensation to support the modernization of its forces.

Under the deal, Slovakia's neighbors, the Czech Republic and Poland will protect its skies from September, while Slovakia awaits delivery of 14 new US-made F-16 fighter jets. The F-16 deal was signed in 2018, and the planes should be delivered in 2024. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3363524

[Jimbuna]

Military of Russian Federation refuse to return from Kazakhstan, so that they are not sent to war in Ukraine, - Defence Intelligence

Russian troops stationed in Kazakhstan refuse to return in order not to participate in the war against Ukraine.

The military contingent of the Russian Federation stationed in Kazakhstan refuses to return to the places of permanent deployment. The formal reason for the refusal is the lack of special air transport, which is fully engaged in the war with Ukraine.

According to the Defence Intelligence, in fact, they do not want to replenish the composition of the occupation contingent, and the command of the Russian Federation does not abandon its intentions to completely withdraw the troops from the territory of Kazakhstan, which were introduced there during the suppression of January rallies against the current government.

Intelligence reports that there are almost a thousand Russians in Kazakhstan with full weapons and equipment - they guard airfields, military training grounds, oil depots, the Baikonur Cosmodrome, etc.

The Defence Intelligence knows that the Russian Federation almost completely withdrew its military contingents with weapons and equipment from the territories of Tajikistan and Armenia to participate in the war against Ukraine. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3363500

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Skybird

^that is all nice and clena opn an academic's table where theory meets bthesory and practice plans not so much a role, but truth is Russia has all it needs to stay for itself and be autark, if that is what it wants. It must not depend on the gpoobal currency system. It has metals and ores, rare earths, ressources for a heavy industry, it has farmlands and an agricxultre sector capable tpo keep the people away from staravtions, it has energy resaources, and it has plenty of bright lights and loud sounds: military.


It needs the world to gi89ve the impresison to be a modenr, civilized o****ry, but that is just an imporession. It doe snot need ther world at all to just exist and live in its own way.



And it has a population that since egeneraitons is used to that thigns are like they are, who are sub,missve and obedient due to fear and habit, pretty much comoaravle to the blind trust int eh state that Germans have.



Finally it has an autocratic regime and strrictures of power thjat exost sicne centuries and that pretty much are the essenc eof Russian history.



I am a bit tired of hearing, reading time and again how bad it will be for Russia and that it is close to collapsing and will pay a price in the future. It will, yes. Its just that it must not care for that. Its not relevant.


We should be much more concerned about our own survivability. What we are in right now, namely in Europe, is an existential threat to the very fundaments of our civilization that we call "the West". Currently evertyhing, really EVERYTHING, works against us, and nothing, absolutely nothing works in our favour. The perfect storm, i do not predict it anymore - ITS HERE. And I expect it to last for the rest of my lifetime. The best I hope for is stagnation. More likely is sometimes steeper, sometimes more moderate but constant decline.

Russia has a global economy so heavily depended on other countries there will be no starvation, but production is halted. Sanctions against the Putin regime have prevented the Russian military from obtaining chips from Taiwanese global market leader TSMC, as well as other advanced semiconductors. Tank manufacturer UralVagonZavod even sent its workers on leave recently - in the middle of a war - because it ran out of chips for armored vehicles all other military production have same kind of problems. You can state oh they have piles of old ammunition, but that did not win this war for them wars are not won by artillery only and in case of the Russians it will not either like we have seen in the last couple of months. Putin’s assumption that he can win the long game is yet another Russian miscalculation, they exhausted themselves in offensives against defensive lines that Ukraine held Russia can not rearm their forces in Ukraine with the needed good trained personnel and high-tech material a risky offensive is not the proper course to victory.

Main cause of the USSR fall was it could not produce enough anymore the production system had collapsed, not saying Russia will collapse now, but it is struggling the authoritarian system has to explain that authoritarian systems do not exist on its own it needs the elite of Moscow and St Petersburg to survive. On our own survivability I see no big problems we have solved crisis bigger than this and with the global partnership we cope I see no ending of times.

[Jimbuna]

They have plentiful quantities of chemical weapons and tactical nukes which they may well decide to use should matters begin to look bleak at home and on the battlefield.