The Brink of War?

[cdnmatt]

Hey Moses, how is sinking of that ship in the Black Sea being reported in Russia? Can't seem to find anything about it.

Folks in Russia must know about it, right? Hopefully that gives them some pause, and makes them think the war might not be going as swimmingly as the leaders say it is.

[cdnmatt]

Now apparently Dmitri Peskov is saying that if Ukraine doesn't cut the shit out, Russia may have to declare war on Ukraine.

Really? Oh right, I forgot, this isn't a war. It's a "special military operation". So if Russia declares war, will Russians finally be able to call it a war, or will they still be facing up to 15 years in prison for doing so?

[Dodger]

.

So if Russia declares war, will Russians finally be able to call it a war, or will they still be facing up to 15 years in prison for doing so?

No, they will then be free to call it a "war", but if anyone's found guilty of calling it an "operation" they will be sent to prison.

There were several Ukrainian missiles which landed in small Russian towns across the Russian border yesterday. This apparently infuriated Putin who then threatened Ukraine by saying if they kept doing this he would keep bombing Kiev...LOL

I know this isn't a funny situation at all - but I just can't read some of this stuff without laughing hysterically.

If Putin's military is as efficient at handling nukes as it is at handling its trucks that run out of gas, armored vehicles and tanks that get bogged down in mud, soldiers that get lost, missiles that are aimed at airport runways but inadvertently hit schools and hospitals, and battle ships that blow themselves up, the people in Russia better duck and run for cover.

[cdnmatt]

Ohh, there we go. Turkey finally officially called this a war, and is going to close the straits. That means no replentishment of Russian naval ships. They got what they got in there, and that will have to do until the end of the war.

Only way around that one is for Russia to attack a NATO member, which I doubt they're going to do. They seem a little pre-occupied at the moment.

[cdnmatt]

Hey Moses, how is sinking of that ship in the Black Sea being reported in Russia? Can't seem to find anything about it.

Folks in Russia must know about it, right? Hopefully that gives them some pause, and makes them think the war might not be going as swimmingly as the leaders say it is.

Nevermind, I found out. Obviously, this wasn't an attack on the ship and was just an accidental fire, and Russian state TV is sticking with that narrative.

At the same time hypocritically saying this is the equivalent to an attack on Russian soil, Russia should now consider itself at war with NATO or at least NATO's infrastructure, and blah, blah...

Great, so then does that mean NATO gets to join the fight in eastern Ukraine and prevent further genocide from being committed? Russian state news anchors seem to be right up there with the lovely folks at Fox News.

[cdnmatt]

Uh oh, Russia is back to threatening the West with "unpredictable consequences". Didn't Putin already do that?

What do they think the West is going to do? Say, "oh sorry Mr. Putin, we'll get out of your way, go ahead and carry on with your genocide and war crimes uninterrupted".

[Moses]

Ohh, there we go. Turkey finally officially called this a war, and is going to close the straits. That means no replentishment of Russian naval ships. They got what they got in there, and that will have to do until the end of the war.

Only way around that one is for Russia to attack a NATO member, which I doubt they're going to do. They seem a little pre-occupied at the moment.

Wrong. Turkey may close straits only non-Black sea countries. For Russia Black sea is home sea, so they can't close straits for it, but may close straits for NATO countries. Surprise.

[dab69]

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-soldiers-says-putins-troops-blowing-up-their-own-2022-4

A Russian soldier says Putin's troops have been blowing up their own 'as if they were terrorists'

Ukrainian intelligence officials claim to have intercepted a call in which a Russian soldier says Vladimir Putin's troops are shooting their own people in Moscow.

The Security Service of Ukraine released an audio clip of the call on Friday, in which a man's voice can be heard saying Putin's forces have been opening fire on a Russian town. The man, a soldier located in Ukraine's Donetsk region, was speaking to his wife on the phone, who's back home in Russia.

"These are our heroes," he told his wife.

"This is done in order to provoke ... Ukrainians," he said, according to Ukrainian intel.

The soldier said Russian forces bombed Klimovo, a Russian city straddling the border between Russia and Ukraine. Klimovo authorities, meanwhile, blamed Ukrainian soldiers for shelling the city, an accusation Kyiv has vehemently denied. The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine characterized the blame as "an attempt to ignite anti-Ukraine hysteria in Russia," according to Radio Free Europe, a US-funded media company.

The Russian soldier compared the shelling to the series of bombings in Russian apartments in 1999.

"The same crap was in the Chechen war," he told his wife. "Apartments were blown up in Moscow, like ... they were terrorists."

He said it was orchestrated and carried out by officers with Russia's Federal Security Service, which has frequently been accused of torture.

The Russian invasion, which began on February 24, has forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homeland. So far, more than 4.8 million Ukrainians have escaped since the beginning of the invasion, according to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency. In the first week alone, more than 1 million Ukrainians left.

Ukrainians who spoke to Insider over the course of the ongoing invasion have painted a grim picture of the devastation. They've described hearing missiles fire through the sky in the dead of night, having to share a single bulletproof vest as Russian soldiers tear through their towns, and troops shooting at homes and hospitals.

Ukrainian intelligence said in a Facebook post that the call between the soldier and wife makes it "obvious that the Kremlin is indifferent not only to its military, but also to civilian Russians, who also suffered from the shelling of Russian troops."

[dab69]

Ukrainian officials troll Russia over the sinking of its flagship missile cruiser: 'Now it's part of the submarine fleet'


https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-officials-troll-russia-over-104522283.html

[cdnmatt]

Wrong. Turkey may close straits only non-Black sea countries. For Russia Black sea is home sea, so they can't close straits for it, but may close straits for NATO countries. Surprise.

What the hell are you talking about? Right Moses, they closed the straits to stop NATO ships from entering the Black Sea, the very defense alliance they're a member of. You bet.

Turkey can't stop Russian ships from leaving the Black Sea. However, they definitely can and have stopped them from entering.

[dab69]

https://news.yahoo.com/sunken-russian-warship-moskva-become-175017395.html

Sunken Russian warship Moskva to become dive site?

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/jgQGo1SfZPjBeBCdzunMjg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQyMztjZj13ZWJw/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/lowjO2lJ_r8ZdiCJUMZf5Q--~B/aD02MDA7dz0xMDAwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ftw_outdoors_usa_today_article_609/8007566f15d345560329b70ca6d00106

Russia on Friday confirmed that its flagship missile cruiser Moskva has sunk while the damaged ship was being towed in the Black Sea.

In response, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov hinted that the Moskva might someday become a tourist attraction for scuba divers.

Reznikov tweeted: “A ‘flagship’ russian warship is a worthy diving site. We have one more diving spot in the Black Sea now. Will definitely visit the wreck after our victory in the war.”

[StevieWonders]

What the hell are you talking about? Right Moses, they closed the straits to stop NATO ships from entering the Black Sea, the very defense alliance they're a member of. You bet.

Turkey can't stop Russian ships from leaving the Black Sea. However, they definitely can and have stopped them from entering.

Nikkei Asia’s perspective - https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Turkey-s-grip-on-Black-Sea-access-hinders-Russia-after-Moskva-sinking

[Dodger]

Nevermind, I found out. Obviously, this wasn't an attack on the ship and was just an accidental fire, and Russian state TV is sticking with that narrative.

At the same time hypocritically saying this is the equivalent to an attack on Russian soil,......

Is Putin saying that the Russian sailors who accidentally sank their own ship are now guilty of attacking Russia?...LOL

I love Putin's narrative on this whole "operation" of his: He can attack and brutalize Ukraine, but it's against the rules for Ukraine to attack back. Is that what he's saying?

Again I find myself laughing hysterically. This is better than watching Saturday Night Live.

[cdnmatt]

Who knows, apparently Russian state TV is talking slightly differently today. Still sticking with the narrative that it sunk due to an accidental fire of course.

Then in the same breath, still hypocritically segwaying into talking in the context that it was enemy fire. Except now they're adding in that there's no way it could have been Ukraine, because no way some Ukrainians could have sunk a strong Russian ship like that, so it had to of been NATO.

Who knows, and if it was NATO we'll never know about it anyway. If it was, then good and I'm glad. I hope it was a couple American F-35s that Russia couldn't even pickup on their radar who put that ship to the bottom of the ocean where it belongs, because fuck Putin. Or even better, yeah Russia it was Seal Team 6.

[Dragonman]

Wrong. Turkey may close straits only non-Black sea countries. For Russia Black sea is home sea, so they can't close straits for it, but may close straits for NATO countries. Surprise.

Partially correct. The Montreux Convention states that Black Sea Nation warships returning to their registered ports must be permitted to return. Russian Black Sea fleet ships in, e.g., the Mediterranean are covered by this, but not those from Russian Pacific, Baltic or Northern Fleets.

[cdnmatt]

According to the Austrian leader who met with Putin, Putin seeminly thinks Russia is doing just fine and winning the war.

https://www.businessinsider.com/austrian-chancellor-karl-nehammer-putin-believes-he-is-winning-war-2022-4

[Dodger]

According to the Austrian leader who met with Putin, Putin seemingly thinks Russia is doing just fine and winning the war.

Right out of Donald Trumps playbook.

[Dodger]

Reality Check:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/17/europe/ukraine-mariupol-russia-assault-intl-hnk/index.html

[Moses]

Reality Check:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/17/europe/ukraine-mariupol-russia-assault-intl-hnk/index.html


According to Russian state media, most of the Ukrainian defenders are located in the Azovstal steel works, one of the largest such plants in Europe with a network of rail tracks and furnaces. Andriushchenko said resistance to the Russians continued beyond this plant.

Azovstal has deep underground facilities. Offer to load down weapon and surrender was in action till 3 pm local time. Now Tu-22 with 3-5 kilotons bombs in anti-bunker variant are on their way to Azovstal. Tomorrow it will be flat desert.

[cdnmatt]

Is this the part where all their bodies are found dead without any visible outside wounds to the body?

[cdnmatt]

And Putin ousts 150 FSB agents.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-purges-150-fsb-agents-in-response-to-russias-botched-war-with-ukraine-lf9k6tn6g

[dab69]

Azovstal has deep underground facilities. Offer to load down weapon and surrender was in action till 3 pm local time. Now Tu-22 with 3-5 kilotons bombs in anti-bunker variant are on their way to Azovstal. Tomorrow it will be flat desert.

Who would trust Russians who will just murder them if they surrender?
Might as well kill a few more generals on your way out...
What happened to the ship that offered Snake Island to surrender?

[dab69]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-warships-sinking-raises-tense-questions-about-fate-of-crew/ar-AAWkIZw?li=BBnb7Kz


Russian warship’s sinking raises tense questions about fate of crew

The sinking of the Russian warship Moskva is causing tension back home, where some families are asking questions about the fate of the crew and a prominent state TV anchor is demanding answers about how the debacle happened.

The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet sank last week after being hit by two Ukrainian missiles, delivering a significant blow to Russia’s naval capacity, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said.

Russia confirmed that the ship sank but said only that it had been damaged by “heavy storms” and a fire that caused ammunition on board to detonate. On April 14, Russia’s defense ministry said all crew members had been evacuated from the ship. The authorities have not confirmed any dead or wounded.
U.S. confirms Ukraine missiles sank warship, as Russia steps up attacks

But one sailor’s mother said her surviving son told her that about 40 people died and many were wounded and missing in the sinking. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe published the unnamed woman’s remarks on Sunday, saying it had reviewed documents proving that the son served in the navy, though not specific proof that he had been aboard the Moskva when it sank.

“There are dead, there are wounded, there are missing. My son called me when they were given phones. They left their documents and [their personal] phones on the [ship]. He calls me and cries from what he saw. It was scary. It is clear that not everyone survived,” said the mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety.

Questions from other people claiming to be relatives of Moskva crew members also appeared on social media and were picked up in the Russian media. The Washington Post was not able to reach the account holders to verify the information.

On Sunday, a user of the social-media platform VKontakte said the ship’s commanders told him that his son Yegor, a conscript, was among those missing in the tragedy.

Russia earlier “said that the entire crew had been evacuated. It’s a lie! A blatant and cynical lie!” Dmitry Shkrebets wrote.

“After my attempts to clarify the details of the incident, the cruiser commander and his deputy stopped communicating with me,” Shkrebets wrote. “I ask everyone who is not afraid and not indifferent, spread this appeal of mine wherever you have the opportunity” so the tragedy is not hushed-up.

In a later post, Shkrebets said three families from different parts of Russia contacted him to say their children were also missing from the sunken ship.

On Russian state-controlled TV, meanwhile, one widely followed anchor said he was “furious” over the sinking, voicing a rare note of displeasure with the authorities.

“Just explain to me how you managed to lose it! Tell me why the hell you were in that part of the Black Sea at that time,” Vladimir Solovyov asked during his prime-time show over the weekend. “Why did your fire-extinguishing system not work and the ship burned practically from the inside out?”




Why dos the Russian government LIE about EVERYTHING??

[Moses]

Questions from other people claiming to be relatives of Moskva crew members also appeared on social media and were picked up in the Russian media. The Washington Post was not able to reach the account holders to verify the information.


Surprise :)))



Why dos the Russian government LIE about EVERYTHING??

Because it is government. Do you know govt what doesn't lie? Well, if you want to say "yes" reread and verify promises printed by candidates just before last elections in your country. Every professional politic is professional lier.

[dab69]

SO you really don't believe in Nazis in the Ukraine?
Besides the Russian Nazis...

[Moses]

SO you really don't believe in Nazis in the Ukraine?
Besides the Russian Nazis...

As I told already: I don't believe to any govt. But I have news from first hands - from relatives in Ukraine and Crimea. So I do believe in Nazis in Ukraine as well as I believe what current nationalistic govt took power by Maidan - coup.

[Dodger]

Azovstal has deep underground facilities. Offer to load down weapon and surrender was in action till 3 pm local time. Now Tu-22 with 3-5 kilotons bombs in anti-bunker variant are on their way to Azovstal. Tomorrow it will be flat desert.

Anyone with an ounce of compassion would be praying that this doesn't happen.

It's now 3:52 PM Tuesday April19 and the only thing that's "flat like a dessert" is the surface of the water in the Black Sea where the Moskova once sat. According to Russian news all sailors aboard the Moskova have survived.

The ultimatum you refer to that was given by the Russian Defense Ministry to the last remaining Ukrainian troops still fighting in the port city has come and gone. The battle continues. The fate of Mariupol is still hanging on by an unknown number of defenders making their last stand at the iron and steel plant. They refuse to leave the plant without weapons fearing that the Russian soldiers would kill them.

Zelinskyy has apparently classified the bombing of the ondergrond plant as a "red line", where further discussions (negotiations) with Russia would come to a halt if Putin's forces were to massacre the people in the plant. This may the reason why Putin is taking a time out, but all things considered, I don't give the Ukrainians in the plant too much hope.

[Ruthrieston]

The war criminal Putin cannot even bring himself to treat his own sailors and troops with even a modicum of respect. To make the loss of their lives even more painful for their families by lying and covering up the truth is disrespectful. The arrogant narcissistic cretin that is Putin does not deserve any support from the Russian people.

[cdnmatt]

Yeah, apparently Ukraine has 7000 bodies of Russian soldiers sitting in morgues and refridgerated trucks. They're trying to give them back to Rssia, but Russia doesn't want them.

Too many body bags showing up at home is one of the main reasons Gorbachev was kicked out of power, so I guess lesson learned, and Putin doesn't want any body bags showing up in Russia.

[dab69]

As I told already: I don't believe to any govt. But I have news from first hands - from relatives in Ukraine and Crimea. So I do believe in Nazis in Ukraine as well as I believe what current nationalistic govt took power by Maidan - coup.

So it's the hairbrained relatives that listen to the government propaganda, and
you listen to them.

[dab69]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/despite-putins-claims-that-the-wests-economic-blitzkrieg-strategy-didnt-work-moscows-mayor-says-the-city-is-about-to-lose-200000-jobs/ar-AAWlY3C?li=BBnb7Kz

Despite Putin's claims that the West's 'economic blitzkrieg strategy didn't work,' Moscow's mayor says the city is about to lose 200,000 jobs

Putin has a plan to kill off 200,000 Russian soldiers to balance this?

[cdnmatt]

As I told already: I don't believe to any govt. But I have news from first hands - from relatives in Ukraine and Crimea. So I do believe in Nazis in Ukraine as well as I believe what current nationalistic govt took power by Maidan - coup.

Ok, couple things here. By "nationalistic coup" you mean the Ukrainian people got pissed off when their government tried to scrap a massive trade deal with EU to do a trade deal with Russia instead. The people simply wanted what they knew was best for their country, and if you want to call that "nationalism", then ok...

Second, don't even try to justify the untold amount of destruction, death and carnage Russia has inflicted upon Ukraine which will now last generations as fair play in order to get rid of a few Nazis. The US and Canada has Nazis too. Hell, there's even some Nazis in the US Congress in Washington. Does that mean Russia should come invade North America and totally level our cities to the ground too? Get fucked.

If you believe the Nazi line, you're an idiot. This is Putin with delusions of grandeur, and wants to leave this world being known as a great Tussian leader. That's it.

And your dear leader is quite obviously beyond delusional. I think we all know his aspirations went beyond just Ukraine. He couldn't even take Kiev and he actually thought he was going to invade Poland? WTF?

At the moment, I still don't even know what he's thinking. He wants eastern Ukraine because of the huge amount of industry there, and that massive natural gas reserve that was found in 2010. Cool, got it. He also wants Odessa to control the ports and turn Ukraine into a land locked country, and after a few years of suffering as a land locked country I'm sure he'll try for Kiev again.

That's simply not going to work though. First off, especially considering the flagship of the Black Sea fleet is now on the bottom of the ocean, it's very much up for debate even if Russia could take Odessa anymore. Even if Russia managed to level Odessa to the ground ala Mariupol, it would never last. Ukraine simply cant not, and will never allow their country to become a land locked nation and allow for the loss of its industrial base and that massive natural gas reserve.

Is Putin thinking he'll just inflict all this damanage, take the land he wants then be able to say, "ok, all good now, war is over". That's simply not going to happen. Maybe at that point Putin will decide peace is a good idea, but I promise the Ukrainian people are going to tell him to get fucked and will continue fighting.

[Moses]

So it's the hairbrained relatives that listen to the government propaganda, and
you listen to them.

No. This is relatives who lost already 2 people from 12-members clan, during last 8 years when Nazi bombed and attacked East of Ukraine and West kept silence and tongue in ass, supporting Nazi regime

[Moses]

By the way: yesterday amount of sales of euro at MOEX been higher than USD first time ever. That is sign what countries from EU buy rubles for to pay for Russian commodities - gas, fertilizers and so on.

[dab69]

True Nazis gassed thousands and thousands of Jews, in concentration camps in Germany, not elected them as president.
How can anyone be shit-for-brains enough to believe this about Ukraine?

I thought it was Russia. that was kicked out of the human rights council and trying their incompetent blitzkreig.

[dab69]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-greeces-military-has-seized-russian-oil-tanker/ar-AAWm7vA?li=BBnb7Kz


Ukraine: Greece's military has seized Russian oil tanker

[dab69]

Russian commodities - gas, fertilizers and so on.



Decomposing Russian Nazi soldiers are being converted to gas and fertilizer now?

[cdnmatt]

We can't lie to ourselves, and this only works if we know the truth too. Yes, there are Nazis in Ukraine and they were an issue to the point the US state department labeled one of the groups as a terrorist group (I think). For example, here's one of many documentaries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy910FG46C4

Quite obviously though, by no means is that justification for what Putin did and is doing. I think we all also know this isn't the reason for the invasion. Getting rid of Nazis just happens to be a convienient excuse to invade a sovereign nation, and expand the Russian territory.

[cdnmatt]

And the inevitable siege within the east has reportedly started. This sucks, stay tuned...

[dab69]

https://www.zupimages.net/up/22/16/orzw.jpg

Business Insider
Sanctioned Russian tycoon publicly rips Putin's 'crazy war' in Ukraine and calls those who support the invasion 'morons'

A sanctioned Russian millionaire ripped Putin's "crazy war" in Ukraine on Tuesday.

Oleg Tinkov called Russians who support the war with the "Z" symbol "morons" in an Instagram post that also criticized the military.

Tinkov, the founder of Tinkoff Bank, was personally sanctioned by the UK on March 24.

Sanctioned Russian millionaire Oleg Tinkov ripped Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, a rare public criticism by a Russian elite.

"I don't see ANY beneficiary of this crazy war! Innocent people and soldiers are dying," Tinkov in an Instagram post shared Tuesday,

He said that Russian generals are realizing they have a "shitty army."

"And how will the army be good, if everything else in the country is shit and mired in [nepotism] and servility?" he said.

Tinkov also said those who support Putin's invasion of Ukraine by sharing the "Z" symbol that was emblazoned on invading Russian tanks are "morons."

"90% of Russians are AGAINST this war!" Tinkov said.

He then called on the "collective West" to "please give Mr.Putin a clear exit to save his face and stop this massacre."

[cdnmatt]

Where the fuck is NATO? Especially after the horrid war crimes in Bucha and all around were discovered, what the fuck are they doing?

We all know full well what's happening in eastern Ukraine right now. We don't even have to imagine it, because we've already seen it. How can NATO possibly sit there and say, "well geez, wish we could help, but our hands are tied"?

[Dodger]

News on the fate of the Moskov is still hush, hush...but it looks like some of the parents of the sailors who were on board aren't happy.

Russian news is apparently still saying that all the sailors survived, although some of the parents are being told their sons are "missing in action". Go figure!

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/04/19/moskva-russia-sunken-warship-government-silence-marquardt-dnt-ebof-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/

[StevieWonders]

Where the fuck is NATO? Especially after the horrid war crimes in Bucha and all around were discovered, what the fuck are they doing?

We all know full well what's happening in eastern Ukraine right now. We don't even have to imagine it, because we've already seen it. How can NATO possibly sit there and say, "well geez, wish we could help, but our hands are tied"?Oh dear Matt, has your Wet Dream no longer occurred?

[cdnmatt]

Oh dear Matt, has your Wet Dream no longer occurred?


You know as well as I do this is going to show up as a black stain when the history books are written.

Sending thoughts and prayers doesn't really cut it in this situation.

[StevieWonders]

You know as well as I do this is going to show up as a black stain when the history books are written.

Sending thoughts and prayers doesn't really cut it in this situation.

You’ve presumably heard the saying “History is written by the winner”

[cdnmatt]

You’ve presumably heard the saying “History is written by the winner”

Right. Do you think Putin will be writing the history books, or something?

[StevieWonders]

Right. Do you think Putin will be writing the history books, or something?

His supporters

[cdnmatt]

His supporters

Now you're just being a dick.

[StevieWonders]

Now you're just being a dick.You don’t think someone like Moses capable of writing a book?

[dab69]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FmtoexSdl8\\


Do you think Ukraine is full of nazis?

[StevieWonders]

You don’t think someone like Moses capable of writing a book?No posts from Matt - is he writing his book?

[cdnmatt]

No posts from Matt - is he writing his book?

Awww, is poor Stevie feeling left out because Matt isn't willing to play his games?

And you're such an intelligent guy too, doesn't make sense. Just broken, I guess?

[cdnmatt]

ANd now pustin decided to fire off a test ICBM... just close to the border of Finland, because of course.

Then the Russian defense ministry shows up saying "nothing to see here, just a standard and routine test". Right afterwards, Pustin shows up saying the West better not meddle in Russian affairs, and blah, blah...

I know he just recently got rid of another 150 FSB agents, so he's obviously worried about a coup. Let's hope those worries become true, because this is getting way out of hand. This guy is quite obviously delusional, and needs to be removed from power.

[Moses]

ANd now pustin decided to fire off a test ICBM... just close to the border of Finland, because of course.

Then the Russian defense ministry shows up saying "nothing to see here, just a standard and routine test". Right afterwards, Pustin shows up saying the West better not meddle in Russian affairs, and blah, blah...

I know he just recently got rid of another 150 FSB agents, so he's obviously worried about a coup. Let's hope those worries become true, because this is getting way out of hand. This guy is quite obviously delusional, and needs to be removed from power.

Is that been told to you by medias? Plesetck - Russian military space port existed from 1957. Every year there are up to 20 launches. Is it news for you?

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

[cdnmatt]

Yes, as I said, as the Russian defense ministry already said just a standard and routine test on the border of Finland. The fact it's happening just as Finland is about to join NATO just happens to be a coincidence.

Same as Putin showing up on TV just after the test basically threatening the West. Just a coincidence.

[Moses]

Yes, as I said, as the Russian defense ministry already said just a standard and routine test on the border of Finland. The fact it's happening just as Finland is about to join NATO just happens to be a coincidence.

Same as Putin showing up on TV just after the test basically threatening the West. Just a coincidence.

Finland?

At first: Sarmat has been tested in 2017 few times already in Plesetck, isn't it too late to cry about Plesetck and Finland in 2022?

At second: Matt, what is your math grade? It is not possible to target Finland from Plesetck - Finland is too close to space port for to use ballistic missile.

But Plesetck is most closest launch port to Canada. "Sarmat" has unbelievable speed 15M (25,560 km/h (15,880 mph); 7.1 km/s (4.4 mi/s)) and will reach Toronto in 23-25 minutes over North Pole. But preferable direction is over South Pole because US and Canada haven't anti-rocket defense from South direction, and in any case there are no any anti-missiles what are able to stop "Sarmat" because of high speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat

[Dodger]

[QUOTE=Moses;290048]

...... But preferable direction is over South Pole because US and Canada haven't anti-rocket defense from South direction, and in any case there are no any anti-missiles what are able to stop "Sarmat" because of high speed./QUOTE]

The fact that you presume to know what the US and Canadian defense systems are capable of is a bit rich.

The U.S. doesn't flaunt their defense systems, as information (and data) related to advanced defense systems, especially those which rely on newer technologies are classified as "Top Secret" for good reasons.
And unless you worked in a high level capacity for a U.S. Defense Agency you would not be privy to this information.

It was reported after Trump left office that he wasn't even aware of some of the more advanced military technologies and systems because he couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

Some countries (like Russia and N. Korea) enjoy having parades to showcase their military strength. The U.S. prefers letting boy scouts and circus clowns entertain the masses.

[dab69]

[

The U.S. prefers letting boy scouts and circus clowns entertain the masses.

Hopefully circus clown will be ineligible to run for office by 2024
because he led organized and led the insurrection in 2020...

[Moses]

...... But preferable direction is over South Pole because US and Canada haven't anti-rocket defense from South direction, and in any case there are no any anti-missiles what are able to stop "Sarmat" because of high speed./QUOTE]

The fact that you presume to know what the US and Canadian defense systems are capable of is a bit rich.

The U.S. doesn't flaunt their defense systems, as information (and data) related to advanced defense systems, especially those which rely on newer technologies are classified as "Top Secret" for good reasons.
And unless you worked in a high level capacity for a U.S. Defense Agency you would not be privy to this information.

It was reported after Trump left office that he wasn't even aware of some of the more advanced military technologies and systems because he couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

Some countries (like Russia and N. Korea) enjoy having parades to showcase their military strength. The U.S. prefers letting boy scouts and circus clowns entertain the masses.

All US tests are clearly visible. In satellite century you can't hide any "top secrets" tests. Technology - yes, is possible to hide, but characteristics. Because you need tests in nature and all tests are visible and may be measured. Moreover: each country warns about tests all other countries in advance: for to avoid "misunderstanding".

[Dodger]

All US tests are clearly visible.

I'm actually glad to hear you say that.

[cdnmatt]

The fact that Moses is even boasting about nuclear annihilation is just crazy...

Obviously the West would respond, so...

[StevieWonders]

The fact that Moses is even boasting about nuclear annihilation is just crazy...

Obviously the West would respond, so...

And In really important news https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/worldnews/18341409/putins-mistress-appears-in-moscow-plastic-surgery/

[dab69]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-uk-intelligence-came-to-tweet-the-lowdown-on-the-war-in-ukraine/ar-AAWtEqP?li=BBnb7KzIn mid-February, Britain’s Defense Ministry started using social media in a way it never had done before: to share military intelligence on a foreign conflict.

Now, usually twice a day, the ministry tweets out a colorful blue graphic that summarizes its latest assessments about the state of play on the Ukrainian battlefield — where Russian troops are, what moves they’re making, which regions are most under threat. Sometimes these messages include a map with arrows showing anticipated lines of attack.

The United Kingdom has substantial resources in the region and banks of analysts back in London. These intelligence updates, as they’re called, are just the tip of the intelligence iceberg and sometimes detail what’s available on other open-source outlets. But they are nonetheless a constant feed of tactical information.

Russia has noticed. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman commented last week that Ukraine was “under the leadership of Britain’s highly experienced intelligence services.”

Analysts say British and American officials are making some of their intelligence public in hopes of countering Russian narratives, rallying allies and even reaching people in Russia, though the latter became more difficult last month after the Kremlin restricted social media content within the country.

“The extraordinary thing about this war is how we’ve dominated the information space right from the beginning. We’re doing it to crowd out any propaganda from the Russians,” said Jonathan Eyal, associate director at RUSI, a London-based defense think tank. And compared with 2014, when Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, “it’s 180 degrees difference from how Putin ran rings around us.”

[dab69]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-general-lets-slip-secret-115858854.html

The Daily Beast
Russian General Lets Slip a Secret Plan to Invade Another Country and Seize Ukraine’s Entire Coastline

As Russian troops tighten their grip on the strategic port town of Mariupol, their strategy is finally becoming clear. Russian military commander Rustam Minnekaev now says the second phase of President Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” is focused on establishing a “land corridor” from the Donbas all the way to Moldova, which would cut off the rest of Ukraine from the sea.

“One of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine. This will provide a land corridor to the Crimea, as well as influence the vital objects of the Ukrainian economy,” Minnekaev said Friday at a meeting with the Union of Defense Industries, as reported by the Russian state-owned Interfax. “Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population.” Transnistria is a separatist region of Moldova that has so far not been officially involved in the war despite hosting a Russian military base since the 1990s.

The general’s words suggest that Moldova’s sovereign borders would also come under threat from further Russian expansion. Phony efforts to protect Russian-speaking peoples have often foreshadowed Putin’s imperial invasions.

In reality, Russian speakers have been struck down in the hundreds in eastern Ukraine during the brutal invasion.

If successful, the strategy would include taking the port of the former seaside resort town of Odesa near the Moldovan border, which has suffered sporadic bombardments but no full-fledged invasion so far. Russia’s warship Moskva was hit about 75 miles off the coast of Odesa two weeks ago, before it sank en route to Crimea.

The refocusing of troops from northern Ukraine to the southern regions of the country has further choked Mariupol, where Ukrainian troops and civilians are holed up in a steel factory surrounded by Russian troops. Satellite imagery identified a growing number of graves outside the port city, where Ukrainian officials say up to 200 new graves have been dug since April 3.

[dab69]

Russian General Announces Plan to Invade Moldova after Ukraine

A Russian general announced plans to occupy the Transnistria region of Moldova on Friday.

Speaking at a defense industry meeting, Brigadier General Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, stated that the Russian Armed Forces plan to “make passage” into the region — in Moldova’s East, bordering Ukraine and less than 30 miles from the port city of Odessa — to create a “land corridor to Crimea,” Russian media reported. Such a corridor would also purport to connect the Russian mainland to Transnistria.

Minnekayev stated that the measure was part of Russia’s second phase in its war in Ukraine, which involves establishing full control over the Donbas Region and Ukraine’s coast along the Black Sea. No timeline was provided for the maneuver to begin, however.

In his remarks, Minnekayev cited the strategic value of the region, claiming “control over the south of Ukraine is another exit into Transnistria, where there are also facts pointing to the oppression of the Russian-speaking population.” Transnistria is a separatist region of Moldova — comprised primarily of Russian speakers — akin to Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine, which has been autonomously run by a pro-Russian faction since 1990. It is not internationally recognized by any country, including Russia, though nearly 1,500 Russian troops are stationed in the region and its trade is primarily conducted with the Russian mainland.

Ukraine’s armed forces had previously warned on April 2 that Russia was mobilizing troops in Transnistria, though this was initially denied by Moldova. Ukraine believes that such mobilization is a prelude to attacks on Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port city and a gateway for its international trade.

Russia’s occupation of Transnistria would expand the conflict with Ukraine to another European nation-state, since it began in late February of 2022.

More ominously, in his remarks, Minnekayev said that Russia was now “at war with the whole world, as it [was] in the Great Patriotic War.”




https://news.yahoo.com/russia-general-announces-plan-invade-142124312.html

[Moses]

Russian General Announces Plan to Invade Moldova after Ukraine

A Russian general announced plans to occupy the Transnistria region of Moldova on Friday.

Speaking at a defense industry meeting, Brigadier General Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, stated that the Russian Armed Forces plan to “make passage” into the region — in Moldova’s East, bordering Ukraine and less than 30 miles from the port city of Odessa — to create a “land corridor to Crimea,” Russian media reported. Such a corridor would also purport to connect the Russian mainland to Transnistria.

Minnekayev stated that the measure was part of Russia’s second phase in its war in Ukraine, which involves establishing full control over the Donbas Region and Ukraine’s coast along the Black Sea. No timeline was provided for the maneuver to begin, however.

In his remarks, Minnekayev cited the strategic value of the region, claiming “control over the south of Ukraine is another exit into Transnistria, where there are also facts pointing to the oppression of the Russian-speaking population.” Transnistria is a separatist region of Moldova — comprised primarily of Russian speakers — akin to Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine, which has been autonomously run by a pro-Russian faction since 1990. It is not internationally recognized by any country, including Russia, though nearly 1,500 Russian troops are stationed in the region and its trade is primarily conducted with the Russian mainland.

Ukraine’s armed forces had previously warned on April 2 that Russia was mobilizing troops in Transnistria, though this was initially denied by Moldova. Ukraine believes that such mobilization is a prelude to attacks on Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port city and a gateway for its international trade.

Russia’s occupation of Transnistria would expand the conflict with Ukraine to another European nation-state, since it began in late February of 2022.

More ominously, in his remarks, Minnekayev said that Russia was now “at war with the whole world, as it [was] in the Great Patriotic War.”

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-general-announces-plan-invade-142124312.html

He doesn't announced ""invasion".

Also about Moldova and Transnistria: Russian troops are now located in Transnistria as peacekeepers. Russian army is located in Transnistria since WWII - at this territory is located the biggest Soviet strategical ammo depot in Europe and solders keep it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobasna_ammunition_depot

There was war 1990-1992 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria_War , and after peacekeepers arrival in 1992 there is no war anymore for 30 years.

[Moses]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-general-lets-slip-secret-115858854.html

Russian General Lets Slip a Secret Plan [...] Seize Ukraine’s Entire Coastline
.

It was clear from beginning.

How Poland sees end of war

12508

[dab69]

http://tse4.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.1Xf1C0JCn-EqVGPxOaNugwHaJE?pid=ImgDet&rs=1

[dab69]

Now Finland and Swenden want to join NATO also to prevent more Russian invasions
for "Trumped up" reasons...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-finland-considers-nato-membership-citizens-mobilize-for-an-invasion-by-russia/ar-AAWxgHp?li=BBnbfcL

“We have known for 100 years that there is evil on the opposite side of the border, but now I think people have woken up,” he said. “They understand that we must be prepared.”

[Dodger]

Now Finland and Swenden want to join NATO also to prevent more Russian invasions
for "Trumped up" reasons...

What a rotten shame!

Finland has always polled as being one of the top countries in the world on the "Happiness Scale", with excellent school systems, well-managed economy, great healthcare, healthy lifestyles, etc., resulting in people being able to live and raise their families in a safe, healthy, and vibrant society. Now, here they are, having to deal with a "fear" that's been underlying for decades. A fear that one day they would be attacked by Russia and have to fight to defend all they have built for themselves. And for what?

It seems inevitable that Finland, along with Sweden, will have to take a time-out from their positive lifestyles to deal with the insane dictator they have as a neighbor by joining NATO - which they never wanted to be any part of from the beginning.

What goes around - comes around:

As each day passes NATO forces get stronger and better armed and positioned. No Army can continually lose as many tanks, trucks, armored vehicles, missiles and missie launchers, warships, aircraft, munitions', and troops, as Russia has, without getting weaker. Even a nine year old would understand this. NATO (the Free World) is getting stronger exponentially - and Putin's Russia is getting weaker exponentially. I imagine one could consider this an important element of NATO's long-term defensive (or offensive???) strategy.

MACRON WINS ANOTHER TERM!!!

Thank God!

[cdnmatt]

I'm curious as to what the US Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense were doing in Kiev. I'm assuming it wasn't to chat about their favorite Justin Bieber songs.

[Dodger]

“Western sanctions are pummeling Russia's economy”.

(Link below)

The IIF estimates Russia's gross domestic product will shrink 15% this year and 3% next year. Goldman Sachs predicted a smaller but still significant contraction of 10% in 2022.

Official figures show 95,000 workers in Russia were furloughed and nearly 60,000 laid off in the first four weeks of the war. Those figures are set to rise dramatically as the war continues and Western sanctions take a more severe toll on Russian civilians.

Russian fossil fuel exports, which makes up 40% of Russia's budget, could be on the chopping block. The EU on Tuesday banned Russian coal imports and some European nations are calling for bans on Russian oil and gas which would cost the country $250 billion to $300 billion in export losses, according to IIF.

Consumer prices in Russia are expected to rise by a staggering 20% this year, two-and-a-half times the rate in 2021.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sanctions-russia-economy-effect/

There’s no doubt that Russian controlled State media is providing conflicting information regarding the impact of the sanctions - rendering the people who are effected the most by these sanctions (the Russian People) ignorant to just how bad things are, and how much worse they can get if Putin isn’t stopped.

[Dodger]

I'm curious as to what the US Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense were doing in Kiev. I'm assuming it wasn't to chat about their favorite Justin Bieber songs.

I imagine most of what they discussed will remain confidential, but according to the article linked below, Blinken told Zelinskyy that U.S. physical diplomatic presense in Ukraine will continue which I thought was significant. The U.S. plans to reopen its Embassy in Kiev which has been closed since 2019 - and a new U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine has already been appointed. They plan to do this is two weeks...Wow!.

It appears the stakes are being raised!

Personally, I think the U.S. and its allies have taken about all the shit from Putin they're going to be taking. I think that message to Putin is clear:

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-04-25-22/index.html

[cdnmatt]

Excellent. Again, people always love to complain about the person in charge because that's what people do, but I think Biden has been excellent during this. Strong, clear, and steadfast.

Let's see what happens.


Also while I'm here, I've heard that when the Kremlin released those photos and video a few days ago where the Russian defense secretary was saying they've taken Mariupol, Putin looked rather ill. His right hand was clutching the table and never moved, and he looked quite at unease and uncomfortable. Is that right?

There's been rumors going around for over a year that he has Parkinson's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD-jVuD-I-U

[Moses]

Excellent. Again, people always love to complain about the person in charge because that's what people do, but I think Biden has been excellent during this. Strong, clear, and steadfast.

Let's see what happens.


Also while I'm here, I've heard that when the Kremlin released those photos and video a few days ago where the Russian defense secretary was saying they've taken Mariupol, Putin looked rather ill. His right hand was clutching the table and never moved, and he looked quite at unease and uncomfortable. Is that right?

There's been rumors going around for over a year that he has Parkinson's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD-jVuD-I-U

After grandpa's Alzheimer, Putin looks like young boy. Matt, what do you think: Baiden still remember who he is?

Handshake with thin air: whom he sees in front of him? Mr. Washington? Pope Francis?


https://youtu.be/UO_FPpVhE70

Mr. Alzheimer still think what ruble is 200 per dollar?

It is now 3% stronger than year ago (year 2021, not February'22). Countries and companies demand ruble for to pay for gas. Month ago EC declared what such payment is violation of sanctions, but few days ago agreed what it isn't. Welcome to world of fast changes.

https://tradingeconomics.com/currencies

12514

Matt, do you dreaming about default of Russia still?

[alvnv]

https://youtu.be/B84TbEZgSeE

[alvnv]

https://www.the-sun.com/news/5191314/vladimir-putin-parkinsons-health-rumours-easter/

[alvnv]

https://news.yahoo.com/different-kind-bloodbath-234755873.html

[dab69]

Russians Have Already Committed So Many War Crimes, It Will Take Years to Tally Them All Up


ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine—It was the terrible stench they remembered as they left Mariupol. Before Russian airstrikes it was a city of nearly half a million people. Today dead bodies are still rotting under the debris of bombed buildings while only a few hundred Ukrainian soldiers continue to hold on.

It is possible to escape from a burning city but the smell—like the pain of loss—stays with you for a long time.

Shells crashed around the Lyubomirsky family and their friends as they carried a stretcher and pushed a wheelchair 11 miles from their still-burning home. The seven of them could not stop talking about the “demons” that destroyed their happy life.

Most of the refugees, who had been trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol without food or supplies for weeks, were Russian-speakers. The very people President Vladimir Putin claimed he wanted to protect.

Ever since he sent the army to Ukraine, Moscow has denied killing any civilians and baselessly blamed the atrocities on Ukraine.

The four members of the Lyubomirsky family and their three neighbors escaped on April 7 from the hellish war zone, their city now resembling Dresden after the bombings of World War II. “You might know the smell of rotten meat but this was deeper. The smell of rotting human bodies and of bodies being burnt in crematoriums was everywhere,” Mariupol siege survivor Vitaly Lyubomirsky told The Daily Beast.

The latest debate in Kyiv is about who should document the crimes of this war and how. Independent international groups including Amnesty International are preparing reports focusing on airstrikes targeting the civilian population, and soldiers raping civilian women, torturing or executing civilians, or burning bodies of the victims. Thousands of Ukrainians including more than 200 children have been killed in the war.


more:

https://news.yahoo.com/russians-already-committed-many-war-004656631.html

[francois]

After grandpa's Alzheimer, Putin looks like young boy. Matt, what do you think: Baiden still remember who he is?



Moses, President Biden may be 79 year old but he does not have Alzheimer's. Nor is he a cold blooded murderer like your President.

[Dodger]

Coming on the heals of Anthony Blinkens visit to Ukraine are reports indicating the U.S. is raising the stakes on Putin.

Putin has had plenty of time to find an off-ramp for his failed attempts to overthrow Ukraine, and it appears the time has come for the gloves to come off.

The "Strategy" appears to be very simple, and that's to support Ukraine in defeating Putin so badly on the battlefield (and economically) that he won't be a threat to anyone going forward.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/biden-administration-russia-strategy/index.html

[Dragonman]

Moses, President Biden may be 79 year old but he does not have Alzheimer's. Nor is he a cold blooded murderer like your President.

If engaging in mutual mudslinging about which President has what physical conditions, just look for videos and reports for "putin parkinson's tremors" on the Internet - there are about 461,000 results (0.54 seconds), including some videos from the British Daily Express, and reports from publications such as Newsweek.

[cdnmatt]

After grandpa's Alzheimer, Putin looks like young boy. Matt, what do you think: Baiden still remember who he is?

Listen, I'm in a bit of a down to earth mood at the moment, so I'll try to level with you.

I get it, you don't like Biden because in your eyes he's perceived as the enemy. That's simply not true though, and this whole thing of "Russia vs. West" is completely made up in your mind. It's not real, and is just playing on events that happened before any of us were born.

Please always remember, Russia is the agressor in this situation, not NATO or the West. You can try to mold the facts in your mind as you wish to make yourself believe that NATO is the agressor, but at the end of the day, Russia is the one who invaded Ukraine and completely leveled various towns and cities causing an untold amount of death and destruction. The West didn't invade Ukraine, Russia did. Always remember, Russia is the one who picked this fight.

You do realize there's zero chance Russia will win this war, right? Russia may be able to level some cities to the ground while raping, pillaging and torturing loads of people, but Russia will never win. From all vantage points, it's simply impossible for Russia to win. Russia might take a few hundred million people down with it during this war, but it will never win because it's impossible.

You do know that out here in the West we have absolutely nothing against the Russian people, right? Out here we're viewing the largest country on earth with an untold number of natural resources, and are left quite confused as to why Russia isn't one of the wealthiest and most advanced nations in the world. I promise you, out in the West, we'd love nothing more than the Russian people to kick your corrupt leaders to the curb and become the powerful nation that you should be. Hell, Angela Merkle spent her entire career adamant that she would bring Russia into the fold, but failed, and now publicly regrets it.

Us out in the West want the same as the Russians do. Nice life, good home, warm shelter, good good, loving friends and family around, social mobility so those willing can start a business and make the most of their ambitions, et al. We're all human, and we all want the same thing. For some unknown reason, Putin decided to wage this bullshit way that may end up in 1 billion or more of us getting killed, and for no reason except he's being an asshole who still lives in a world like it's 1930 or something.

I don't know, now I'm tired. Russia simply can not and will not win this war, so the whole thing is pretty stupid. We could always just work together instead, but apparently that's an impossibility becuase your current leader is a murderous asshole.

[Dodger]

Finland and Sweden are set to announce simultaneous bids to join NATO next month.

Finnish newspaper Iltalehti said the two countries' leaders could meet in the week of 16 May to announce the bid to join the Western security alliance.

Stockholm and Helsinki have long pursued policies of military neutrality to avoid conflict with regional powers.

But during a visit to Sweden earlier this month, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said "everything had changed" when Russia attacked Ukraine and told reporters that Helsinki must be "prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia".

Swedish outlet Aftonbladet added that the US and UK have agreed to provide security support during the application process, citing government officials.

The UK and US support would reportedly include an increased number of troops in the Nordic nations, further intelligence co-operation, assistance in combatting cyber threats and an increased presence of NATO warships in the Baltic sea.

[Moses]

Listen, I'm in a bit of a down to earth mood at the moment, so I'll try to level with you.

I get it, you don't like Biden because in your eyes he's perceived as the enemy.

No. I don't like him because he is gerontocrat from US gerontocracy. The same way I don't like Pelosi. They wants to die in their chairs. Both do stupid things and shows how weak is democracy.

Both aren't leaders - both are puppets on the hands of clerks. They are national humiliations.

[cdnmatt]

Both do stupid things and shows how weak is democracy.

Ummm, ok. Well, alrighty then, not even sure what to say to that.

I think that sums up this war nicely, so I'll just leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLGwTggO8U

You guys are the barbarians, West is the Romans. We win.

[Moses]

Ummm, ok. Well, alrighty then, not even sure what to say to that.

I think that sums up this war nicely, so I'll just leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLGwTggO8U

You guys are the barbarians, West is the Romans. We win.

You guys are just 15% of human population, you have no chance to win.

[cdnmatt]

Okie dokie... you do realize NATO is over 50% of the world's military might and has yet to fire off a shot, right? And you do realize the Russian military is already stretched thin, right?

There was also just a meeting hosted by the US in their German military base of 40 countries. Apparently, Biden has gotten pissed off at NATO's inaction and has decided to develop a new alliance. At least that's what it seems like, but too early to tell.

Nonetheless, the US has seemingly decided it's going to take the global leadership position again, just as it did after WWII to provide peace and stability to the world. That disappoints me a little is how the US allies aren't really stepping up to the plate, and this includes Canada. The UK and Poland have stepped up greatly, but while the rest are all definitely helping, it's unfair to allow the US to shoulder this burden like they're doing.

Nonetheless, this whole war is just stupid. You do realize this is nothing more than the delusions of grandeut of some old Russian man named Putin who wants to be written into the history books as a great Russian leader, right? This is 2022 though, so nobody cares about that type of thing anymore.

Russia has already lost this war. You have absolutely o chance. You might bring 200 million people down with you, and that'd be absolutely horrible, but at the end of the day Russia will not win this war. It's impossible.
q

[Moses]

Okie dokie... you do realize NATO is over 50% of the world's military might and has yet to fire off a shot, right? And you do realize the Russian military is already stretched thin, right?
q

It is not. Unfortunately for you NATO is less than Russia + China, and there is still India behind. So relax your sphincter Matt.

[cdnmatt]

If you think either China or India are going to get behind Putin's bullshit delusions, you're sadly mistaken.

If you've been watching the news, you'll have noticed the US decided to step this up a notch.

[dab69]

So what pimple brained superstitious boob would bathe in "deer antler blood"
and what is it supposed to cure?

Parkinsons or erectile problems?

[Dodger]

Putin gets exactly what he didn’t want:

He's getting more weapons forward, he's getting more NATO forward, and he's getting more America in Europe.”

(excerpts from the article linked below)

“The longer Ukraine's army fends off the invading Russians, the more it absorbs the advantages of Western weaponry and training — exactly the transformation Putin wanted to prevent by invading in the first place”.

“The list of arms flowing to Ukraine is long and growing longer. It includes new American battlefield aerial drones and the most modern U.S. and Canadian artillery, anti-tank weapons from Norway and others, armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles from Britain and Stinger counter-air missiles from the U.S., Denmark and other countries”.

https://www.aol.com/news/putin-gets-didnt-want-ukraine-040653037-113212532.html

The longer this goes on the weaker Goliath becomes – and the stronger David becomes. It’s inevitable.

I believe that Finland and Sweden joining NATO next month as they are expected to do will be “coup de grace” for Putin.

I also believe the West if fully prepared for ANY additional threats that could come from Putin. It’s not like the West just started preparing for this a few months ago – it’s been preparing since December 25, 1991.

[Dragonman]

No. I don't like him because he is gerontocrat from US gerontocracy. The same way I don't like Pelosi. They wants to die in their chairs. Both do stupid things and shows how weak is democracy.

Both aren't leaders - both are puppets on the hands of clerks. They are national humiliations.

Merriam-Webster definition of gerontocracy: Definition of gerontocracy: rule by elders specifically : a form of social organization in which a group of old men or a council of elders dominates or exercises control.

Gerontocracy in Russia

From Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-putin-age-idCAKBN2BG2SO - March 24, 2021.

"Russia's Putin signs bill to lift age limits for top officials

President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Wednesday allowing civilian officials he has appointed to remain in their posts past the age of 70 if they choose, a government website said.

Previously, high-ranking officials were not permitted to stay on past 65, an age limit that was then extended to 70.

This limit will no longer apply to officials whose appointment and dismissal is decided by the president, according to the new law, signed on Wednesday by Putin, who is himself 68.

A constitutional amendment introduced in the summer of 2020 opened the door to Putin remaining in office until 2036, meaning he could rule until the age of 83."

Gerontocracy, plutocracy, or kakistocracy, or some mixture?

[Dodger]

You guys are just 15% of human population, you have no chance to win.

When you consider the fact that 99% of the world’s human population would prefer "Freedom" over "Tyranny" who do you think has the best odds? With the remaining 1% being the tyrannical rulers themselves, who ironically control the majority of their countries wealth., e.g., Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Nicolás Maduro, Bashar Al-Assad, etc.

Now that the dust has settled it's become clear to everyone on earth that this war of Putin's has very little to do with Ukraine. This has to do with something much much larger - and that's Freedom versus Tyranny. Democracy versus Communism/Authoritarianism. Good versus Evil. It's an effort by Putin to recreate the Soviet Empire in His Image, so the world can realize his greatness, where his legacy would shine a shelf with the Gods. That's what this is about.

Fortunately for 99% of the human population, the 15% who have stepping forward to slay the dragon are fearless, well-armored, and supported by the Laws of Nature - which even a glory-bound tyrant like Putin, with all his self-perceived greatness, can't change.

It's not a matter of who wins or who loses. It's a matter of one generation being able to pass the baton onto the next generation so they can at least have a chance at "freedom"... experience their own individual greatness....carve their own legacies.

Vladimir Putin will go down in history as the person who's done the most harm to the people of Russia, beyond the harm that he's caused to Ukraine and the rest of the free world. His legacy is already cast in stone. For him to change his legacy he'd have to have the capacity to change himself - and that's already been proven to be an impossible task.

Nature isn't designed to abide by propaganda.

[cdnmatt]

Yeah, that Russian propaganda machine must be well oiled, eh? At first Moses was on here going off about how it's just a noble venture to get rid of a few Nazis in Ukraine.

Now it's "democracy is weak and will fail". Alrighty then...

In other news, Germany is now sending tanks. And US policy has quite obviously changed and became more aggressive.

[Moses]

In other news, Germany is now sending tanks.

Yeah, And Swiss already announced, what they will ban supply these tanks with ammo (manufacturer of ammo is from Switzerland) . Surprise. Or neutrality?

[Moses]

Germany and Austria accepted payments in rubles for Russian gas. Poland and Bulgaria not accepted payments in rubles, gas export to Bulgaria and Poland has been stopped from today. Gas prices rose 17% at past week.

[Dodger]

Yeah, And Swiss already announced, what they will ban supply these tanks with ammo (manufacturer of ammo is from Switzerland) . Surprise. Or neutrality?

Switzerland has parted with past practice and adopted European Union sanctions designed to punish Russia for invading Ukraine, but has said its neutrality does not permit providing arms for use in conflict zones.

Note: Alternate suppliers of 35mm and 12.7mm ammunition used in the tanks supplied by Germany are readily available.

[dab69]

Is there a phase of the moon required
when he bathes in "deer antler blood"?

Candles ?
Incense ?
Incantations?
"Italicized half-Swastika" ( Z ) on the wall?

[Moses]

Bulgarian PM speaks about situation with gas in Bulgaria:

12516


President of Bulgaria announced, what Bulgaria will not support Ukraine with weapon or any other military help https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-21/nato-holdout-bulgaria-sits-out-race-to-ship-weapons-to-ukraine Also Bulgaria will not allow to members of parliament to visit Ukraine.

[alvnv]

I don’t think deer antler blood worked - maybe that’s why he switched to Ukrainian blood baths

[Moses]

Meanwhile Italian ENI prepares to open ruble account in GazpromBank https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-27/eni-prepares-to-open-ruble-accounts-for-gas-as-eu-warns-firms

[Dodger]

Bulgarian PM speaks about situation with gas in Bulgaria:

12516


President of Bulgaria announced, what Bulgaria will not support Ukraine with weapon or any other military help https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-21/nato-holdout-bulgaria-sits-out-race-to-ship-weapons-to-ukraine Also Bulgaria will not allow to members of parliament to visit Ukraine.

Do you honestly think anyone cares about what this idiot thinks?

All you have to do is look at him to see he's a flaming retard.

[Dodger]

READ ALL ABOUT IT

“Putin “Woof Tickets” on sale. Hurry while the sale lasts!

In Chicago the term “Woof Tickets” is used when a person is threatening another person into submitting to their request(s), without having any intention of carrying through with the threat. “Woof” representing a barking dog, scaring it’s victims without having any bite.

Putin is continually threatening the U.S. and NATO for supporting Ukraine, and the U.S. directly for its continued support threatening unpredictable consequences if this continues. He’s threatened all of Eastern Europe by holding energy supplies as hostage if they dare to challenge him. He recently threatened Finland and Sweden, saying if they joined NATO they would both face harsh political and military consequences. He even had the audacity to threaten Ukraine, telling them that if any more of their missiles landed on Russia’s side of the border, they would continue bombing Kiev. This one caused me to gag, laugh, and fart at the same time.

In short, Putin has threatened just about everyone. Always with the same line about “unpredictable consequences” – or by rattling his nuclear saber in an attempt to drive fear into his foes. The only problem with this tactic is that he’s sold so many woof tickets, at the same time as he’s continually losing, both strategically and militarily on the battlefield, that his “bark” is simply falling on deaf ears.

I get the impression that U.S. and NATO Leaders just roll their eyes and move on to the next subject whenever one of Putin’s woof ticket promotions is tabled for discussion (which has become a daily event). Analysts agree collectively that the recent increase in woof ticket sales (and at discount prices to boot) is a clear indication that Putin is becoming frantic and totally unglued.

He’s now threatening the U.S and Japan in retaliation for them conducting their routine US-Japan navel exercises. Of course it’s the same “woof tickets” that we’re all used to seeing; threatening the US and Japan with “unpredictable consequences” because these exercises are too close to his fence and he’s suffering from acute paranoia (again).

The joint naval exercises are continuing on as planned, and neither the US or Japan have even bothered to respond to the dogs bark. I imagine the woof tickets he tried to sell at this event are just lying on the ground collecting dust like all the others.

The only ones who actually have to be concerned about Putin's "Unpredictable Consequences" are the people of Russia themselves. Hopefully their economy will have enough life in it after Putin's demise that they can regain at least a portion of what they've lost, so they can start building positive futures - hopefully with a higher standard of living than what they've been subjected to during Putin's reign.

[cdnmatt]

Even if Putin is actually getting serious about his threats, the West can not and will never listen to them. Living in a world where we're constantly being blackmailed and threatened by Putin with nuclear war is simply unacceptable to the West, and won't stand.

If Putin really wants to expedite the dismantlement of the Russian Federation, all he has to do is fire off a nuke. Russia is already done as a country, and they know this, so I wouldn't be surprised if these threats turn into action instead of just fading out quietly.

[Moses]

Even if Putin is actually getting serious about his threats, the West can not and will never listen to them. Living in a world where we're constantly being blackmailed and threatened by Putin with nuclear war is simply unacceptable to the West, and won't stand.

If Putin really wants to expedite the dismantlement of the Russian Federation, all he has to do is fire off a nuke. Russia is already done as a country, and they know this, so I wouldn't be surprised if these threats turn into action instead of just fading out quietly.

Nuke? Who wants nuke when Russia and Iran together controls about 45% of world gas reserves? For comparation: US controls 5% of gas reserves. Both countries are under sanctions, so they will find strategy how to deal with situation on economical way.

As per "done state", Matt who is your dealer? Profit form fossil fuel sales to EU at past 2 months grew 2 times - 44 billions Euro in comp. with 22bln in 2021. Ruble is now 6% stronger than year ago - compare with Euro what fell 14% to USD and GBP what fell 10%.

[Moses]

Do you honestly think anyone cares about what this idiot thinks?

All you have to do is look at him to see he's a flaming retard.

I think Bulgarians care - country has gas reserves only for 3-4 weeks. And speaking about "idiot" - he has been second time elected just year ago and is head of state.

[cdnmatt]

I think Bulgarians care - country has gas reserves only for 3-4 weeks. And speaking about "idiot" - he has been second time elected just year ago and is head of state.

Just a couple days ago you said democracy was weak and will fail. What do you care about elections?

You do know you're so inconsistent in the shit you say, it's pretty near impossible to take anything you say seriously, right? You bounce around with idealogies, justifications and rationale constantly and are all over the map.

[Dodger]

I think Bulgarians care - country has gas reserves only for 3-4 weeks. And speaking about "idiot" - he has been second time elected just year ago and is head of state.

Honestly, I don't know the first thing about the qualifications of their President or PM. but I do know that Bulgaria is between a rock and a hard place.

Apparently 2 of the 4 parties in their cabinet are opposed to providing military aid to Ukraine - and the other 2 parties are in favor of providing this support. According to the article you provided the Bulgarian parliament is planning to meet next week to debate this.

Being one of the poorest countries in Europe - with 65 per cent of the population unable or barely cover their living expenses, they have plenty to be concerned about right now - with or without having to deal with the war in Ukraine.

[Moses]

Just a couple days ago you said democracy was weak and will fail. What do you care about elections?

You do know you're so inconsistent in the shit you say, it's pretty near impossible to take anything you say seriously, right? You bounce around with idealogies, justifications and rationale constantly and are all over the map.

Please click and read my sentence carefully. "Just couple of days" I wrote about gerontocracy in US, not about democracy.

And I am right, here is proof - first time from COVID panic in 2020 economy of US shrank 1.4% in 1st Q 2022 instead to grow after pandemic. Alzheimer shoots US leg.

[thaiophilus]

You do know you're so inconsistent in the shit you say, it's pretty near impossible to take anything you say seriously, right? You bounce around with idealogies, justifications and rationale constantly and are all over the map.

It's a propaganda strategy called DARVO. No point in engaging, beyond pointing out factually incorrect statements.

[Dodger]

Here we go with the “Woof Tickets” again.

Russia on Thursday warned the West that there would be a tough military response to any further attack on Russian territory, accusing the United States and its key European allies of openly inciting Ukraine to assault Russia. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the press in Moskow "I don't advise you to test our patience further.”

You just gotta love it.

After killing thousands of people, displacing millions of families from their homes, devastating entire towns murdering innocent civilians in the process, and threatening the World with a third world war, the West is now being advised “not to test their patience”. I’m at a total loss for words.

Tick…tok…tick…tok…tick…tok

https://www.aol.com/news/russia-warns-west-dont-test-110856583-113627490.html

[cdnmatt]

Lots on Western media today along the lines of, "If Russia uses nukes, they'll be signing their own death certificate".

[Dodger]

Lots on Western media today along the lines of, "If Russia uses nukes, they'll be signing their own death certificate".

There are a wide range of options that NATO would consider if forced to take an active role is this war - which would produce lasting, disastrous consequences for Russia. Russia does not want a direct confrontation with the U.S. and NATO for this reason. That much we know.

NATO currently has more troops in regions bordering Ukraine than Russia has in Ukraine. NATO’s military is much better equipped and trained than Russia’s. Ukraine has administered many crushing defeats on the Russians. It is unlikely that Putin - even at the moment of his greatest arrogance or frustration would willingly undertake a battle with a force so clearly superior to his. As one senior U.S. national security official put it, “A fight would not be close.”

Regardless of how this war ends, unless Putin is stripped of his nuclear arsenal we're back to square one.

This is what concerns me more than anything else. ALL Nuclear Weapons should be banned in all countries...not reduced...not controlled...not monitored...just eliminated from our existence. It only tales 100 nuclear bombs to eliminate humanity - and between Russian and the US there's enough nuclear power to destroy the entire fucking universe. What's wrong with this picture?

Hopefully, lessons learned from this disaster will accelerate nuclear arms reduction initiatives with a goal of ZERO.

[Dragonman]

Germany and Austria accepted payments in rubles for Russian gas.

According to the latest report from the BBC, I believe that this is not a completely accurate statements of how transactions are being completed. The BBC reports: "Gas companies in some EU countries, including Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, have agreed to pay for gas in euros through Russian bank Gazprombank, which will then convert the payments into roubles.

The Financial Times has reported that gas companies in Austria and Italy are also planning to open accounts with Gazprombank.

The EU said last week that if buyers of Russian gas could complete payments in euros and get confirmation of this before any conversion into roubles took place, that would not breach sanctions." https://www.bbc.com/news/58888451.

This is not the same as paying directly in rouble.

[Dragonman]

Comparing the number of nuclear weapons or warheads between the Russian Federation and the nuclear-armed NATO allies is not a particularly fruitful activity in my opinion. Assuming that no side would launch all its weapons at once, what matters is how effective the weapons first launched are - and whether enough people in the chain of command are still alive to launch the remainder. For example, there are three NATO nuclear capitals to target (Washington, London, and Paris) - but only Moscow in Russia. Moreover, given what seems to be the condition of current Russian military equipment (e.g., jack-in-the-box tanks, and warships with only 180 degree radar come to mind), assuming that all Russian nuclear weapons and/or warheads could be launched at all might be a leap of faith.

[Moses]

According to the latest report from the BBC, I believe that this is not a completely accurate statements of how transactions are being completed. The BBC reports: "Gas companies in some EU countries, including Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, have agreed to pay for gas in euros through Russian bank Gazprombank, which will then convert the payments into roubles.

The Financial Times has reported that gas companies in Austria and Italy are also planning to open accounts with Gazprombank.

The EU said last week that if buyers of Russian gas could complete payments in euros and get confirmation of this before any conversion into roubles took place, that would not breach sanctions." https://www.bbc.com/news/58888451.

This is not the same as paying directly in rouble.

It is exactly the same: they open 2 accounts in Gazprombank: in euros and rubles, then they transfer money to euro account, then from this account they buy rubles at MOEX (it is only stock exchange where they are able to buy rubles) or issue order to bank to buy rubles for them, and add rubles to ruble account and then pay from ruble account to Gazprom. They can't "convert" euro to rubles in bank directly since this is forbidden for nonresidents.

[Dragonman]

It is exactly the same: they open 2 accounts in Gazprombank: in euros and rubles, then they transfer money to euro account, then from this account they buy rubles at MOEX (it is only stock exchange where they are able to buy rubles) or issue order to bank to buy rubles for them, and add rubles to ruble account and then pay from ruble account to Gazprom. They can't "convert" euro to rubles in bank directly since this is forbidden for nonresidents..

Gazprombank is the one doing the converting - the gas importers are not using their euros to buy rubles on MOEX, as the following article explains: https://www.bruegel.org/2022/04/a-sanctions-counter-measure-gas-payments-to-russia-in-rubles. "The gas importer’s bank pays euros into the foreign currency account. THE GAS IMPORTER THEN ASKS GAZPROMBANK TO EXCHANGE THE EUROS INTO RUBLES. GAZPROMBANK DOES THIS BY BORROWING RUBLES FROM THE BANK OF RUSSIA, THUS INCREASING ITS RESERVES (DEPOSITS) AT THE BANK OF RUSSIA. The gas importer then asks Gazprombank to exchange the euros into rubles. Gazprombank does this by borrowing rubles from the Bank of Russia, thus increasing its reserves (deposits) at the Bank of Russia. This borrowing can be done against any collateral, including the euros it has received from the gas importer’s bank. Gazprombank then transfers the rubles it has borrowed from Bank of Russia to the gas importer’s ruble account. Gazprombank can then, on behalf of the gas importer, pay out rubles to the Russian state by drawing down on its deposits at the Bank of Russia.

In this way:
There are no euros involved in transactions with sanctioned entities (Gazprombank borrows from the Bank of Russia in rubles) and therefore no need for any euro settlement at Target 2 involving a sanctioned entity, thereby respecting sanctions.
The euros paid into Gazprombank remain untouched by sanctioned entities and thus there is no need for any further Target 2 settlement, again respecting sanctions.
There is an implicit foreign exchange transaction in the exchange of deposits between the Bank of Russia and Gazprombank. As the price of gas is fixed in euros, the exchange rate at which euros are exchanged into rubles should be irrelevant. However, Gazprombank can charge a fee to the gas importer as commission for the foreign exchange operation. Normally foreign exchange commissions are extremely low but, as the market for rubles is probably very illiquid, Gazprombank might ask for a hefty commission, de facto increasing the gas price. This ends up operating as a price instrument in the hands of the Russian state (an indirect indication that this could occur is that the fee applied by Russia’s VTB Bank for ruble/dollar transactions with private customers, which before the war was about 4%, is now three times higher).
The Central Bank of Russia has a potential euro claim on Gazprombank if this used as collateral for lending to Gazprombank, but this is suspended because of sanctions.
If this approach is followed, at the end of the transaction flow the Russian state has ruble funds with the Bank of Russia that it can access to finance its domestic expenses, without having recourse to monetary financing. HOWEVER, IT CANNOT ACCESS THE EUROS HELD BY GAZPROMBANK AS LONG AS SANCTIONS ARE IN PLACE."

The Devil is in the details.

[cdnmatt]

Breaking news on Russian state TV. Poland and US have rejected NATO's peacekeeping plans, and now plan to unilaterally invade Ukraine.

Umm... yeah...

[Dodger]

Breaking news on Russian state TV. Poland and US have rejected NATO's peacekeeping plans, and now plan to unilaterally invade Ukraine.

And I thought FOX was bad...LOL

[Dragonman]

Breaking news on Russian state TV. Poland and US have rejected NATO's peacekeeping plans, and now plan to unilaterally invade Ukraine.

And I thought FOX was bad...LOL

It is interesting to note how many self-proclaimed American patriots, including those at FOX News, and Republican party members who cite the US Constitution at any and all opportunities don't know that its Article 3, section 3, clause 1 specifies that the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy is an element in the crime of Treason. Aid and comfort may consist of substantial assistance or the mere attempt to provide some support. Actual help or the success of the enterprise is not relevant.

In full, Article 3, section 3 reads: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii.

[Dodger]

It is interesting to note how many self-proclaimed American patriots, including those at FOX News, and Republican party members who cite the US Constitution at any and all opportunities don't know that its Article 3, section 3, clause 1 specifies that the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy is an element in the crime of Treason.

Too bad this isn't enforced in the U.S. If it was the entire Republican party, and cast of characters at FOX News, would be charged with treason for providing aid and comfort to Donald Trump.

[Moses]

Breaking news on Russian state TV. Poland and US have rejected NATO's peacekeeping plans, and now plan to unilaterally invade Ukraine.

Umm... yeah...

Bullshit. Matt, for your info: there is no such genre like "breaking news" on Russian state channel "Russia". It doesn'r disrupt brodcasting for news: they have no reason: "Russia" is just one of 100+ channels here.

[Dragonman]

Hosts Olga Skabeyeva and Evgeny Popov and guest Aleksey Zhuravlyov, on a program on what is being referred to as "Russian state television" in news reports, Channel One’s 60 Minutes program, claimed that nuclear weapons could strike European capitals less than four minutes after being launched. The capitals and specific times referred to are Berlin (106 seconds), Paris (200 seconds) and London (202 seconds). They appeared to assume that this meant there would be no retaliation as Aleksey Zhuravlyov said: 'One Sarmat [missile] and that's it - the British Isles are no more.'

As I stated in an earlier post, all that matters is "whether enough people in the chain of command are still alive to launch the remainder." One UK Trident submarine is on patrol at all times, carrying no more than eight missiles and forty warheads - more than enough to obliterate Moscow, St. Petersburg and Russian military bases. France now has three of its four submarines capable of firing nuclear warheads at sea. Germany does not have its own nuclear weapons but is one of five NATO members (the others are Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey) to host B61 nuclear weapons on its territory as part of a nuclear-sharing agreement. Germany as approximately 10-15 B61 nuclear bombs. Belgium has approximately 20, Italy approximately 40, the Netherlands 20, and Turkey 50.

Any nuclear attack on the three countries mentioned in the Russian 60 Minutes program is an attack on all NATO countries, and risks retaliation not only directly from the US land and sea-based forces but all the other nuclear-weapons hosting nations.

Bye, bye Russia.

Enough said?

[Dodger]

Enough said?

Actually, too much said.

There are a million scenarios that could play out in the event a nuclear war ever did erupt on our planet, with one possible outcome being...bye, bye humanity.

This isn't a time for "sabre rattling".

Sometimes I wonder who's being more irresponsible...the news media who report this garbage, or the people who react to it.

[Dragonman]

Actually, too much said.

There are a million scenarios that could play out in the event a nuclear war ever did erupt on our planet, with one possible outcome being...bye, bye humanity.

This isn't a time for "sabre rattling".

Sometimes I wonder who's being more irresponsible...the news media who report this garbage, or the people who react to it.

Tell me more about living with "sabre rattling," and responding to it.

I'm Taiwanese, live in one of the three main cities (Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung) that would be a landing target for invading troops from the Mainland. We live with almost daily sabre-rattling from across the Taiwan Strait in the form of aerial incursions by fighters, bombers, etc., into our ADIZ. April saw 25 days with ADIZ incursions by PLAAF aircraft. Yesterday it was two Russian-built Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker jets, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. In both cases, the jets turned back after Taiwan’s military sent aircraft, issued radio warnings, and deployed air defense missile systems to track them.

Today and tomorrow are our Labor Day holiday, and so we expect a large number of PLAAF planes entering that zone as a display of the power of the PLA and what it can do if or when it invades. The Government is watching carefully what is happening in Ukraine to learn what lessons it can.

Sometimes the only way to stand up to bullies is to point out what their aggression might mean for them.

[Dodger]

Sometimes the only way to stand up to bullies is to point out what their aggression might mean for them.

Your point is well taken, and I fully understand the tension (and apprehension) in the people of Taiwan right now.

All Xi has to do is observe what's happening to Russia's economy (let alone what's happening to it's military) to get an idea of what he would have on his hands if he ever gave orders to invade Taiwan.

I hold the belief that nothing can defeat FREEDOM, as long as the FREE stand together and don't waver in their stance.

[Moses]

Hosts Olga Skabeyeva and Evgeny Popov and guest Aleksey Zhuravlyov, on a program on what is being referred to as "Russian state television" in news reports, Channel One’s 60 Minutes program, claimed that nuclear weapons could strike European capitals less than four minutes after being launched. The capitals and specific times referred to are Berlin (106 seconds), Paris (200 seconds) and London (202 seconds). They appeared to assume that this meant there would be no retaliation as Aleksey Zhuravlyov said: 'One Sarmat [missile] and that's it - the British Isles are no more.'

As I stated in an earlier post, all that matters is "whether enough people in the chain of command are still alive to launch the remainder." One UK Trident submarine is on patrol at all times, carrying no more than eight missiles and forty warheads - more than enough to obliterate Moscow, St. Petersburg and Russian military bases. France now has three of its four submarines capable of firing nuclear warheads at sea. Germany does not have its own nuclear weapons but is one of five NATO members (the others are Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey) to host B61 nuclear weapons on its territory as part of a nuclear-sharing agreement. Germany as approximately 10-15 B61 nuclear bombs. Belgium has approximately 20, Italy approximately 40, the Netherlands 20, and Turkey 50.

Any nuclear attack on the three countries mentioned in the Russian 60 Minutes program is an attack on all NATO countries, and risks retaliation not only directly from the US land and sea-based forces but all the other nuclear-weapons hosting nations.

Bye, bye Russia.

Enough said?

You forgot one thing: Russian C-500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-500_missile_system It intercepts targets up to 500 km from point of own launch.

And by the way: after "Bye, bye Russia" will follow "Bye, bye world", because since USSR time here is operational "Dead hand" system - in case of nuclear attack to Russia it will launch heavy "answer" even when every Russian will be dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

Right now US fights with Russia "till last Ukrainian" pumping Ukraine with weapon. Do you really want to be involved into the same game where US will fight with China "till last Taiwanese"?

If US really wants to protect Taiwan they may accept Taiwan membership in AUKUS - then China will twice think before to heat conflict. But it will never happened - US has opposite target - to involve China in conflict like it did with Russia and Ukraine by inspiring Ukraine 8 years.

[Dragonman]

You forgot one thing: Russian C-500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-500_missile_system It intercepts targets up to 500 km from point of own launch.

And by the way: after "Bye, bye Russia" will follow "Bye, bye world", because since USSR time here is operational "Dead hand" system - in case of nuclear attack to Russia it will launch heavy "answer" even when every Russian will be dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

Right now US fights with Russia "till last Ukrainian" pumping Ukraine with weapon. Do you really want to be involved into the same game where US will fight with China "till last Taiwanese"?

If US really wants to protect Taiwan they may accept Taiwan membership in AUKUS - then China will twice think before to heat conflict. But it will never happened - US has opposite target - to involve China in conflict like it did with Russia and Ukraine by inspiring Ukraine 8 years.

Last lines of a Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand#Current_use) on Dead the Hand or Perimeter system that you mentioned: "In 2018, Colonel General Viktor Yesin [ru], the former chief of Russia's Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces, stated that the Perimeter system might become ineffective in the wake of the United States' withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty."

I said nothing about US protection of Taiwan - I was describing living with sabre-rattling.

[Moses]

Last lines of a Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand#Current_use) on Dead the Hand or Perimeter system that you mentioned: "In 2018, Colonel General Viktor Yesin [ru], the former chief of Russia's Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces, stated that the Perimeter system might become ineffective in the wake of the United States' withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty."


Yesin is 85 y.o. and finished his service in army in 1997. What he knows about current condition of "Dead hand" in 2018?

[Dragonman]

Yesin is 85 y.o. and finished his service in army in 1997. What he knows about current condition of "Dead hand" in 2018?

Probably more than you, given his biography: Viktor Ivanovich Yesin, Colonel-General (ret.), Colonel-General, Ph.D. (Military Sciences), Prof., PIR Center Advisory Board member. Graduated from the F.E. Dzerzhinski Military Academy and The General Staff Academy of the Armed Forces. In 1959 started working in Military Forces. For over 40 years, worked in the Soviet/Russian Defense Ministry's agencies. In 1998-2002 chief of the Russian Security Council Administration. Formerly, Сhief of the Strategic Missile Forces General Staff (i.e., former head of the Russian strategic rocket troops). Research Professor, Advanced National Security Studies Center, Expert Institute, Higher School of Economics National Research University, Moscow Research interests: reform of armed forces, strategic stability. PIR Center Advisory Board member since 2002.

[cdnmatt]

Moses, the West has no desire at all to nuke Russia. Quit with the rhetoric.

[dab69]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-planned-downing-passenger-jet-090921314.html

AGAIN?

Russia planned downing passenger jet, blaming Ukraine Security Service of Ukraine

ukrpravda@gmail.com (Ukrayinska Pravda)
Sun, May 1, 2022, 4:09 AM·2 min read

Valentyna Romanenko - Sunday, 1 May 2022, 12:09 The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) claims to have apprehended a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group that was preparing to shoot down a passenger plane and blame it on the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the international partners supplying arms to Ukraine. Source: SBU Spokesperson Artem Dekhtyarenko Quote: "The SBU has completed a multistage operation, in the course of which it neutralised a a deep-seated sabotage and reconnaissance group of the enemy. Agents of the RF armed forces' general staff were preparing a terrorist act - they were planning to shoot down a passenger jet over the territory of Russia or Belarus. "The occupiers intended to unjustifiably accuse Ukraine and our partners of attacking the aircraft. To commit the provocation, the attackers wanted to fire on a civilian board from the portable anti-aircraft missile system (MANPADS) 'Stinger'. "In order to steal and smuggle foreign MANPADS abroad, representatives of the aggressor country's special services gave the [relevant] task to their intelligence group." Details: According to the SBU, the sabotage and reconnaissance group included two individuals with dual citizenships, and a locally recruited accomplice. Their operations were coordinated by Russian national Aleksandr Tuterev, a staff member of the main department of the general staff of the RF's armed forces under the alias of "Morpekh", says Dekhtyarenko. Tuterev is wanted in Ukraine for his role in the organisation of a series of terrorist acts in the Odesa region, according to the SBU. Under his coordination, enemy agents attempted to contact Ukraine's Armed Forces under the guise of patriotic volunteers. To gain trust, they conveyed to the Ukrainian side true information on the positions and maneuvres of Kadyrevites' units. The agents were allegedly tasked with using these contacts to illegally obtain a foreign-made MADPAD and transfer it to the Russian side. The SBU reports that it has apprehended all members of the involved sabotage and reconnaissance group. The investigation is ongoing.

[Dodger]

Seventh Russian General Dies in Combat

Comparing this figure of seven reported dead generals in less than 3 months with the total number of US generals killed in 10 years in Vietnam (1965 and 1975 ) – just 12 – you have to ask why so many Russian generals are dying.

Although it's now a rare occurrence, before modern technology and tactics, the deaths of senior officers were far more common. But in modern warfare you never see this many Generals getting killed. Military analysts sum up the reasons as relating to; incompetence due to lack of experience and/or training, poor morale among ground troops, and poor strategic and logistical planning - against a highly motivated and skilled Ukrainian military. ://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-general-commanded-electronic-warfare-115447368.html

(excerpts from article linked below)

"Putin manages the military in much the same way as he does the wider Russian state, choosing loyalty to him above professional competence. This is no more clearly illustrated than the choice of Sergei Shoigu as Russian defense minister in 2012. Lacking any military experience or understanding, Shoigu was chosen as he posed little political threat to Putin or established military tradition. He has been criticized by many for failing to introduce major reforms after the Georgian campaign in 2008, which highlighted key failings in the Russian military in carrying out combat operations".

"Corruption is endemic within all aspects of Russian life – and this includes the military. A recent report, published as part of the London-based International Government Defence Integrity Index, identified that the Russian military had a corruption risk of high “owing to extremely limited external oversight of the policies, budgets, activities and acquisitions of defense institutions”. The report also highlighted a lack of transparency on procurement and the issuing of defense contracts, with a rating of only 36 out of 100 in this category. Loyalty to Putin may have landed senior leaders a place in the inner circle, but this has been at the expense of the personnel they serve". https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-are-so-many-russian-generals-being-killed-179517

[Moses]

Lacking any military experience or understanding, Shoigu was chosen

How many military officers do you see here?

12524


or here:

12525

[Dodger]

How many military officers do you see here?

12524


or here:

12525

Minus a couple of black guys and a gay Transportation Secretary - it looks like the Biden Whitehouse.

[Moses]

Minus a couple of black guys and a gay Transportation Secretary - it looks like the Biden Whitehouse.

Meetings of ministers of defense in EU

[Dodger]

Two of Putin's 379,623 Generals who are brothers.

Nikolay (on the left) owned a butcher shop in St. Petersburg prior to being recruited by Putin, was last seen rolling down a hill in Ukraine with loads of sausages falling from his backpack. He's never earmed any metals, but makes one hell of a kobasa.

Older brother Leo (on right) still operates a large pawn shop in Moscow in his spare time which specializes in military memorabilia. His personal collection of war metals is the envy of Russia's top brass.

[cdnmatt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79W04GmAe4c

[Moses]

Two of Putin's 379,623 Generals who are brothers.

Nikolay (on the left) owned a butcher shop in St. Petersburg prior to being recruited by Putin, was last seen rolling down a hill in Ukraine with loads of sausages falling from his backpack. He's never earmed any metals, but makes one hell of a kobasa.

Older brother Leo (on right) still operates a large pawn shop in Moscow in his spare time which specializes in military memorabilia. His personal collection of war metals is the envy of Russia's top brass.

None of them are generals - this isn't Russian uniform for generals. They are army pensioners. This is photo from shutterstock, Victory day celebration in Samara in 2017 https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/samara-russia-may-9-2017-meeting-775511995

this how uniform of general looks like:

12527

[cdnmatt]

From the looks of things, Putin isn't going to have that victory he was hoping for on May 9.

[dab69]

https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/funeral-casket-picture-id92158572?k=20&m=92158572&s=612x612&w=0&h=2bP1kvGS7MMpGAbzetd0XSahgPErDP4A-HwU9X2vbmA=

[dab69]

Business Insider
A Russian general who commanded electronic warfare units was killed in a strike that killed 100 soldiers, top Ukraine official says
Alia Shoaib



Another Russian general has been killed in Ukraine, authorities claim.

Maj. Gen. Andrei Simonov was reportedly killed in an attack on a Russian command post near the city of Izyum.

The general, who commanded electric warfare units, was among 100 Russian servicemen killed.

Russia has lost another general in Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, according to top Ukrainian officials, The Kyiv Post has reported

Maj. Gen. Andrei Simonov was killed near the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region, which is currently occupied by Russian forces, Ukrainian authorities said.

The Ukrainian military attacked a field command post of the Russian 2nd Army on Saturday, striking more than 30 Russian armored vehicles, including tanks, according to the paper.

Footage posted on social media appears to show the command post being bombarded by rockets, said the Kyiv Post.

The general was among 100 Russian soldiers killed in the attack, President Zellenskyy's military adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said, according to The Kyiv Post. Arestovych said well-placed army sources had confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Simonov in a YouTube interview, per the Mail Online.

The claims by the Ukrainian authorities have not been independently verified.

Russia has not as of yet confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Simonov.

Simonov was a senior commander of electronic warfare, Ukrainian government advisor Anton Gerashchenko said on his Telegram account.

His death would make him the tenth Russian general to die in Ukraine, according to a count by The Kyiv Post.

Russia has suffered heavy losses since it began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, losing many of its top generals and commanders.

NATO estimates that Russia has lost up to 15,000 troops during the war, while Ukraine claims to have killed nearly 20,000.

Russia has put its official death toll in Ukraine at 1,351, which was last updated on March 25.

[Moses]

As per circulated in Russia gossips Canadian general Trevor Cadier is missed since February while worked in Ukraine. There are also gossips what he is now in Moscow after been captured in Azovstal foundry. It explains why there were so many attempts to deblock Azovstal and few failed rescue missions.

Again, by gossips, Cadier was responsible (or coordinator) for biochemical research in biolabs in Ukraine, about which Nulland said what "Russians must not find results of research" at time of her speech in Congress.

12528

There are a lot of twits about Cadier's destiny now on Twitter. https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1518188990364778502

[cdnmatt]

Oh for fuck sakes, no, Russia did not capture a Canadian General in Mariupol at the steel plant. What reality do you people live in where this is even a remote possibility? Do you really think the Canadian military has a presense in Mariupol? Or do you believe the Canadian armed forces allowed a General to hang out in Mariupol by himself? Really now...

Same as a couple weeks ago you said a top NATO commander was captured in Mariupol. Yeah, that didn't happen either.
a

[Dragonman]

As per circulated in Russia gossips Canadian general Trevor Cadier is missed since February while worked in Ukraine. There are also gossips what he is now in Moscow after been captured in Azovstal foundry. It explains why there were so many attempts to deblock Azovstal and few failed rescue missions.

Again, by gossips, Cadier was responsible (or coordinator) for biochemical research in biolabs in Ukraine, about which Nulland said what "Russians must not find results of research" at time of her speech in Congress.

12528

There are a lot of twits about Cadier's destiny now on Twitter. https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1518188990364778502

1. The reports all originated with a self-proclaimed Russophile name Tony on Twitter.
2. No Canadian media are cited by name and none can be found on an Internet search reporting this general's absence.
3. "There are a lot of twits" is probably the most accurate comment in this posting, given that one definition of a "twit" (as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) is "1 : a silly annoying person : fool." Posts on Twitter are usually called tweets, though. A second definition of twit, however, is " 2 : an act of twitting : taunt. twit. verb. twitted; twitting." Twitting, though, means to tease or taunt someone, especially in a good-humored way, though I doubt that was Tony's intention.

[Dodger]

The reports all originated with a self-proclaimed Russophile name Tony on Twitter.

Ah...the return of Tony the Twink - Twitters Tweeting Twit. U gotta luv it.

[cdnmatt]

Ok, fine then... from our gossip channels in the West, Putin is about to undergo cancer surgery and will be temporarily handing over power to a top hard lined police chief / FSB guy.

Only difference is, that's actually credible. Was even asked today at the Whitehouse press conference, and have seen it popping up more and more. Let's hope he dies under the knife.

[dab69]

The Russians Are Losing The Naval War Off Ukraine—To An Enemy With No Warships




On Monday, a TB-2 armed drone apparently belonging to the Ukrainian sea service struck two Russian patrol boats with laser-guided missiles, heavily damaging if not destroying both boats.

Add the two 55-foot, gun-armed Raptor-class vessels to the growing list of Russian boats and ships the Ukrainians have sunk or so heavily damaged that they’re no longer relevant to the current conflict.

Moscow’s naval losses of course include the 612-foot missile cruiser Moskva, holed by two Ukrainian navy Neptune coastal anti-ship missiles on April 13. Moskva was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet with its, at the time, two dozen or so major warships.

Three weeks earlier on March 24, an Alligator-class landing ship belonging to the Black Sea Fleet’s reinforced amphibious flotilla burst into flames while pier-side in Russian-occupied Berdyansk in southern Ukraine. It seems an accurate hit by a Ukrainian army Tochka ballistic missile started the chain reaction.

The 370-foot Saratov quickly sank. A pair of landing ships moored nearby also suffered damage and casualties. The attack on the Crimea-based amphibious force was an inflection point in Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, which began with heavy bombardment on the night of Feb. 23.

Down three amphibs as well as Moskva with its long-range air-defense missiles, the Black Sea Fleet no longer can concentrate a large landing force nor protect it from air and missile attack. That means the Russians almost certainly can’t open a littoral front along Ukraine’s western coastline in order to stage an assault on the strategic port of Odessa, Ukraine’s main gateway to the sea.

That could free up Odessa’s garrison, including the reserve 5th Tank Brigade with its undamaged T-72 battalions, to roll east in support of Ukraine’s campaign around the port of Kherson, occupied by the Russians since early March.

Moskva, Saratov and the other landing ships are the most significant naval casualties on the Russian side, but they’re not the only ones. On or before March 22, Ukrainian army troops in Mariupol—an historic port on the Sea of Azov, adjacent to the Black Sea—struck a Raptor with at least one Konkurs anti-tank missile as the boat patrolled close to shore.

That makes two big Russian ships sunk plus two damaged, as well as three patrol boats knocked out if not totally destroyed. This out of a regional fleet that, before the war, included just seven large surface combatants—frigates and large corvettes plus Moskva—in addition to a half-dozen landing ships, six or seven Raptors and six or so diesel-electric submarines.

Bear in mind, Turkey controls the Bosphorous Strait, the only waterway connecting the Sea of Azov and Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and thus the open ocean. Ankara is a strong backer of Ukraine’s independence—remember, the TB-2 drone is a Turkish product—and has not allowed the Russian navy to send in fresh ships to make good the Black Sea Fleet’s losses.

All that is to say, the Black Sea Fleet is getting smaller and less effective by the week as Ukraine’s forces chip away at it. And there’s no prospect of the fleet restoring its waning power until after the war ends ... and Turkey reopens the Bosphorous.

The TB-2 strike on Monday underscores the Black Sea Fleet’s dire condition. It’s apparent the Russians no longer can protect their remaining warships from aerial attack.

Moskva with her 200-mile air-search radars and 64 S-300 surface-to-air missiles, each with a 50-mile range, in theory was the fleet’s main air-defender. But the cruiser couldn’t even defend herself.

Now the Black Sea Fleet leans on a trio of 409-foot Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates for aerial protection. The frigates are some of the newest vessels in the Russian fleet—and the biggest surface warships Russian industry can build owing to problems manufacturing or importing large maritime engines.

But the three frigates—Admiral Grigorovich, Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov—each pack just 24 medium-range Buk surface-to-air missiles traveling no farther than 30 miles. Even with Crimea-based fighter jets and SAM batteries backing them up, the frigates almost certainly are struggling to maintain an air-defense umbrella along the Black Sea Fleet’s area of operations stretching along 300 or 400 miles of coastline from Odessa to Mariupol.

The Ukrainians have proved they can exploit the gaps in the Russians’ at-sea air-defense coverage. A propeller-driven TB-2 with its 39-foot wingspan isn’t a huge target, but a well-equipped, trained and motivated fleet should be able to detect it and shoot it down before it gets close enough—nine miles or so—to snipe a patrol boat with a 14-pound MAM laser-guided missile.

If a solitary Ukrainian TB-2 can sink a pair of Russian patrol boats, it’s worth asking what the combined force of Kyiv’s other drones plus its Neptune anti-ship battery or batteries, Tochka ballistic missiles and anti-tank missiles might soon do to what’s left of the Black Sea Fleet.

And that’s before the Ukrainian navy deploys the anti-ship missiles and drone boats that the United Kingdom and United States have donated. The Russian fleet is losing the naval war off Ukraine ... to an enemy with no warships.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-russians-are-losing-the-naval-war-off-ukraine-to-an-enemy-with-no-warships/ar-AAWQz7b?cvid=3073085ee63848a4a5b741fd0403e251

[Dodger]

.

The Russian fleet is losing the naval war off Ukraine ... to an enemy with no warships.

This could be another first for the Guinness Book of World Records.

What next... the Ukrainians nail one of Putin's submarines with a Molonkov cocktail?

[Dragonman]

Dmitry Kiselyov, Russian state television executive and propagandist, in addition to threatening the UK with a Sarmat missile known as Satan II and “will be enough to sink it once and for all,” has now threatened that the use of one of Russia’s Poseidon torpedoes “could "plunge Britain into depths of the sea,” as “"The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo near Britain's coastline will cause a gigantic tsunami up to 500 meters high.” Apparently, the torpedo “approaches its target at a depth of 1km at a speed of 200km per hour. There's no way of stopping this underwater drone.”

As the weapon is supposedly more than 24 meters long, it's probably more accurate to describe it as an unmanned submarine than as either a drone or a torpedo.
It is presently untested. If it travels at speeds of 200 kph (or over 100 knots), it would need to be rocket-powered. it is designed to be carried by a submarine in a sealed tube. Russia currently has somewhere between 49 and 64 submarines, of which it has only one special purpose submarine from which Poseidons would be launched - the B-90 Sarov. Its reported test depth is 300 metres (980 ft).

Way to stop them 1: Seed the seabed around the UK with networks of sensor-mines to detect and destroy them. The seabed around the UK is comparatively shallow, i.e., nowhere near 1000 meters deep.
Way to stop them 2: Use submarine-launched long-range hyper-sonic glide vehicles with payloads that could be lightweight torpedo or nuclear depth charge.

American underwater nuclear explosive tests in shallow waters (admittedly at a lesser kilo-tonnage and not discounting that damage and long-term effects caused) suggest that generating a "tsunami" that “could "plunge Britain into depths of the sea” is more Russian bombast, i.e., high-sounding language with little meaning, used to impress people - most probably the Russian people.

[Dodger]

Needless fear mongering.

Why are you even bothering to post this garbage?

[cdnmatt]

Needless fear mongering.

Why are you even bothering to post this garbage?

Just childish and screams desperation, doesn't it?

Heard an interview from a test pilot yesterday -- started with CF-18s in Canada, then over to Europe to test Typhoon EuroFighter or something it's called, then for the past 17 years before retiring was with Lockheed Martin mainly testing the F-35. He was asjed how he thought the F-35 would do in Ukraine. He just confidently and humbled remarked this is the exact theater the F-35 was designed for, would rapidly dominate the Ukrainian skies, and obliterate the Russian air force and air defenses.

One thing I didn't know before is I guess the F-35 is so different you can't really train older pilots on it, eh? I guess their plan is to retire out the older pilots on existing aircraft, and train the newer pilots on the F-35. I guess it's such a different beast the skills aren't all that transferrable, or at least an existing pilot wouldn't be taking full advantage of what the F-35 offers.

Anyway, back on topic... you don't see the West in the media constantly bragging about this type of shit, now do you? I don't know what Russia is doing, but it's pretty pathetic.

[Dragonman]

Needless fear mongering.

Why are you even bothering to post this garbage?

Because Putin's Russia is a classic bully that misunderstood the situation, miscalculated the response of its victim and, because it doesn't now know how to deal with the victim's response or that of bullied target's friends who have come to its aid, makes ever-more extravagant claims about what it will do next in order to frighten them into submission by claiming to have more powerful weapons it can use if it doesn't get its way - a form of psychological mind-games. One way of responding to a bully is by letting it understand that you know what it is doing and can (and will) respond if pushed to far. Alternatively, you can put your head in the sand and get your butt kicked,

[Dodger]

.

One way of responding to a bully is by letting it understand that you know what it is doing and can (and will) respond if pushed to far.

An old saying in the West is "Walk softly - but carry a big stick".

The U.S. Military prefers speaking more by its "actions" than it does by "words", and boasting about its strength to frighten a tyrant like Putin serves no real purpose. Putin is already aware of this. This is what keeps him up at night.

[Dragonman]

An old saying in the West is "Walk softly - but carry a big stick".

The U.S. Military prefers speaking more by its "actions" than it does by "words", and boasting about its strength to frighten a tyrant like Putin serves no real purpose. Putin is already aware of this. This is what keeps him up at night.

For Sunzi (or Sun Tzu in The Art of War"), "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

[Dodger]

For Sunzi (or Sun Tzu in The Art of War"), "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

That my friend is the "Art of Peace" for which I fully subscribe.

[cdnmatt]

You know those morbidly obese kids who throw tantrums when they don't get to eat all the junk food they want?

That's what Russia is. A 300lbs, 6 year old immature little shithead.

[cdnmatt]

Ohh, and apparently Israel is now jumping into the fray and will begin sending weapons to help Ukraine now as well.

Apparently, they took offense when Lavrov went on TV and started saying Hitler was a Jew. Shocking they took offense to that, I know.

[Dodger]

Ohh, and apparently Israel is now jumping into the fray and will begin sending weapons to help Ukraine now as well.

You would think Israel would be reluctant to give all those Nazi's in Ukraine free weapons.

[cdnmatt]

You would think Israel would be reluctant to give all those Nazi's in Ukraine free weapons.

I'm totally confused now...

Ok, so the Nazis are in the country run by a Jew.
The German Nazi dude who killed all the Jews was actually a Jew.
So if I got this right, I think that means the Israelis are South Africans.

I don't know, we'll have to ask Lavrov, as this is all very confusing to me. No idea what point he was trying to make by saying Hitler was a Jew, but it wasn't a very good one.

[Moses]

I don't know what Russia is doing, but it's pretty pathetic.

Pretty pathetic is what you are reading in Western news, dear.

Ruble is already below 65 rubles per dollar and it has 2 year strongest position (does Mr. Alzheimer still thinks what it is 200?), thanks to payment in rubles for Russian gas. Revenue from sales of fossil fuel at February-March is $68 bln, from which EU bought $44 bln and this is twice more than in F-M'21. At April only Italy bought 40% more gas than in 2021.

Poland and Bulgaria refused to pay for Russian gas in rubles and are without gas from May 1st.

Yesterday EU again wasn't able to get consensus about oil export from Russia - 4 countries vetoed ban of oil export and 3 countries vetoed ban of Russian oil transportation.

Looks like inflation here will changed to deflation soon - local prices are dramatically going down follows USD/RUR rate. UAE, India, China signed with Russia trading agreements in rubles.

2 days ago Russia again paid bonds in dollars. Did you told something about "unavoidable default"?

[Dodger]

NATO is about to get bigger.

It was just reported on Aljazeera evening news that Finland and Sweden have both reached final decisions to join NATO. Apparently this landmark decision is unanimous among members of both parliaments. Both countries have cited the reason for joining the Alliance was due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the risk this presents to Finland and Sweden going forward.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies warned NATO that if Finland and Sweden joined the US-led military alliance then Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in an exclave in the heart of Europe. "Time for everyone to tremble again - here comes more of those "woof tickets".

When asked how Washington views the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO in light of Russia's warning, the U.S. State Department said there was no change in Washington's position and repeated that "NATO's open door is an open door."

Just in time for Putin’s Victory Day celebration…the irony.

[Dragonman]

Pretty pathetic is what you are reading in Western news, dear.

Ruble is already below 65 rubles per dollar and it has 2 year strongest position (does Mr. Alzheimer still thinks what it is 200?), thanks to payment in rubles for Russian gas. Revenue from sales of fossil fuel at February-March is $68 bln, from which EU bought $44 bln and this is twice more than in F-M'21. At April only Italy bought 40% more gas than in 2021.

Poland and Bulgaria refused to pay for Russian gas in rubles and are without gas from May 1st.

Yesterday EU again wasn't able to get consensus about oil export from Russia - 4 countries vetoed ban of oil export and 3 countries vetoed ban of Russian oil transportation.

Looks like inflation here will changed to deflation soon - local prices are dramatically going down follows USD/RUR rate. UAE, India, China signed with Russia trading agreements in rubles.

2 days ago Russia again paid bonds in dollars. Did you told something about "unavoidable default"?

Perhaps Russian news reports may also be pathetic as, again, this response is not factually correct in all respects.

1. Bloomberg is currently still showing the ruble at above 65 to the US dollar - 65.3764 to be precise.
2. Poland may not be receiving new supplies from Russia but is not "without gas" as they have either enough gas stored, or have alternatives to draw on. Poland said its gas stores were 76% full and it did not need to use any reserves as yet. Moreover, the Poles claim that cutting off supplies is a breach of contract and they reserve the right to use all available contractual and legal means to do so.
3. Bulgaria is also stating that it is not "without gas." It is receiving supplies from Greece and is to begin importing supplies from Azerbaijan.
4. Countries such as China and India, which are oil and gas buying from Russia, are probably getting supplies at high discounts.
5. While it is true that Russia paid two bonds in US dollars, it is probable that repayments were made using assets not already frozen, thus drawing down on its resources. Future default is still possible is such resources are depleted.
6. The EU is willing to launch legal action against EU countries that allow their energy companies to pay for Russian gas in rubles, violating EU sanctions, according to European Commission's Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis.

[Moses]

Bloomberg today: UK will meet recession and inflation up to 10%

And few words from member of EU parliament


https://youtu.be/AXW4TjaFowg

[Moses]

One more "bad" news: Russian economy could weather impact of EU oil ban https://www.ft.com/content/82dfa0f1-2a16-4358-ae67-29c69f6938c3

[Dragonman]

Bloomberg today: UK will meet recession and inflation up to 10%

And few words from member of EU parliament


https://youtu.be/AXW4TjaFowg

The Bloomberg headline actually is "BOE Sees Risk of U.K. Recession With Inflation Above 10%," the word "risk' meaning nothing is certain.

Clare Daly is an Irish member of the European Parliament, being elected for the Dublin constituency where she received a final total of 87,770 votes, or 11.6%, and took the third seat. She was expelled from the Irish Labor Party as a teenager when accused of being a Trotskyist. She has been accused by members of Fianna Fail as being an "embarrassment to Ireland." She chose to give this interview to CGTN and CCTV, i.e., China Global Television Network and China Central Television, both state-owned entities, rather than making these statements to a western media outlet. They are her words based on her own political beliefs, and should be judged only as such.

[Dragonman]

One more "bad" news: Russian economy could weather impact of EU oil ban https://www.ft.com/content/82dfa0f1-2a16-4358-ae67-29c69f6938c3

Again, the headline uses the modal verb "could" and the article states that Russian "Capacity to balance the budget depends on whether producers meet logistics challenge of switch to Asia." Conditional verbs are used to create conditional sentences, which express hypothetical or unlikely situations. Hardly "bad" news as a favorable outcome for the Russian economy is conditional upon events and situations over which Russia may have no control. There are numerous academic research articles on the difficulties of logistics standardization in Asia.

[RonanTheBarbarian]

The Bloomberg headline actually is "BOE Sees Risk of U.K. Recession With Inflation Above 10%," the word "risk' meaning nothing is certain.

Clare Daly is an Irish member of the European Parliament, being elected for the Dublin constituency where she received a final total of 87,770 votes, or 11.6%, and took the third seat. She was expelled from the Irish Labor Party as a teenager when accused of being a Trotskyist. She has been accused by members of Fianna Fail as being an "embarrassment to Ireland." She chose to give this interview to CGTN and CCTV, i.e., China Global Television Network and China Central Television, both state-owned entities, rather than making these statements to a western media outlet. They are her words based on her own political beliefs, and should be judged only as such.

As a person has the misfortune to live in the very constituency that Clare Daly represents In the European Parliament, it was interesting to hear her giving interview on this. She is very reluctant to talk to many journalists in Ireland these days.

She may have got 11% in the last election, but her stance on Ukraine is extremely unpopular in Ireland, to put it mildly, and I personally doubt she will even contest the next one.

I would say her best hope for a job after 2024 would be if she wrangles a sinecure from Putin, like ex-Chancellor Schroeder.

[Dragonman]

It is worth remembering the comment of the late former US Senator John McCain in 2015: ""Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country. "It's kleptocracy. It's corruption. It's a nation that's really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important."

[cdnmatt]

One more "bad" news: Russian economy could weather impact of EU oil ban https://www.ft.com/content/82dfa0f1-2a16-4358-ae67-29c69f6938c3


Great, go be a big North Korea and act tough. Nobody else gives a shit.

The Russian military is quite obviously a joke. Now that they're on the "second phase" of the operatioh and concentrating all energy on eastern Ukraine, the gains are still minimal at best. Putin definitely isn't getting the victory speech he was hoping for on May 9th.

Your generals are dropping like flies, soldiers have to loot grocery stores and corner markets because they don't have any food, the Russian navy is losing its ships to a country that doesn't even have a navy, loads of reports of Russian soldiers shooting themselves in the leg to get out of the war, and the list is endless.

And to top if off, the sheer inhumane, atrocious and barbaric atrocities the Russian soldiers are leaving in their wake is beyond words. I can promise you that will not get forgotten, because it's so systemic that must have gotten approval from the commanders. These aren't one off incidents. This means that no matter what Russia does, you've already lost.

You do know there's loads of stories out there of Russian soldiers raping 12 year old boys, right?

[Dodger]

Troops sent into Ukraine to back up Russian forces say they had no choice but to leave because Russian military was in shambles and “they deceived us at every step".

They described the situation as being ”utter dysfunction”, i.e., equipment that didn’t work, guns that wouldn’t fire, tanks that wouldn’t roll, no command and control, and even officers who ran when the fighting started. Almost unbelievable circumstances.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/deceived-us-every-step-troops-122642378.html

The reports coming from these Russian soldiers may or may not be 100% accurate as the “information flow” on both sides of the street is questionable at best, although, this is consistent with the numerous reports describing Russian military deficiencies since this war started, including, but not limited to, accounts of poor logistical planning, lack of preparation and training of ground troops, poor equipment maintenance, i.e., trucks, tanks, armored vehicles, missile launchers, etc, lack of food supplies and ammunition, and serious concerns related to command and control in general.

There is no way of possibly calculating just how much damage Putin has caused by the miscalculations which led to this disaster, but one thing’s for sure: His actions have resulted in a larger, stronger, better equipped, and highly galvanized NATO force in Europe, and forced Russia into a state of total isolation - with crippling sanctions that are already draining Russia's economy. Not to mention all the lives that have been ruined and lost (Ukrainians and Russian) because of his delusional mental state.

[Dodger]

U.S. Intelligence believes it's possible that Putin is preparing to declare war on Ukraine as a means of utilizing Russia's reserve military force. Apparently Putin can not call out his reserve force until a war is officially declared according to Russian law.

The problem with this move is that Russia's reserve force is comprised mostly of conscripts who have received very little training and lack the skills and motivation to go into battle without suffering huge losses. A move like this would be just one more atrocity added to the list of Putin's actions...and his legacy.

If this does happen I feel sorry for the conscripts and their families. If you read the article below you'll gain a better understanding of this:

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-russian-armys-number-one-problem-hazing/

[cdnmatt]

Yeah, according to a Sky News report that popped up on my feed today, Russian reservists have already been getting contacted to check in with their local recruitment center to verify address, status, health, et al.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PcFepWMVDo

I guess we'll find out more on the 9th when Putin gives his Victory Day speech.

[Moses]

Yeah, according to a Sky News report that popped up on my feed today, Russian reservists have already been getting contacted to check in with their local recruitment center to verify address, status, health, et al.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PcFepWMVDo

I guess we'll find out more on the 9th when Putin gives his Victory Day speech.

They do it twice a year - about a month before to start spring or autumn army draw of cadets. Also twice in year they call about 5%-10% of reserves for 1-month training in intention of all reservists should have training once in 5 years.

And most important: by law govt can use reservists only within Russian territory.

[Dodger]

And most important: by law govt can use reservists only within Russian territory.

Interesting.

I wonder if that includes annexed territory, such as Crimea?

[Dragonman]

They do it twice a year - about a month before to start spring or autumn army draw of cadets. Also twice in year they call about 5%-10% of reserves for 1-month training in intention of all reservists should have training once in 5 years.

And most important: by law govt can use reservists only within Russian territory.

Al Jazeera has an interesting report at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/5/are-russian-conscripts-fighting-in-ukraine on the Russian practice of calling up reservists twice a year. It references the following statement:

MOSCOW, March 8. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said conscripts and reservists aren’t taking part in Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and won’t do so.
"I would like to emphasize that conscripts aren’t and won’t be taking part in hostilities, and there will be no additional call-up of reservists from the reserve," he said in a video address to women on the occasion of the International Women’s Day celebrated on March 8, which was posted on the Kremlin website. "Missions are carried out only by professional troops."

The Al Jazeera report also states:

"On the first day of the spring conscription, which runs from April 1 to July 15, a government-issued disclaimer appeared in Russian news articles, offering families information on the nature of service: “Conscription events are not related to the special operation in Ukraine.” The articles included a message of reassurance from Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu: “I would like to emphasise that conscripts will not be sent to any hot spots” – a euphemism for the war in Ukraine. But many families remain sceptical and fear their sons may end up on the front of what Moscow has called a “special military operation” in Ukraine."

"In early March, after denying conscripts were being deployed in Ukraine, Russian senator Lyudmila Narusova told the country’s Federal Council she was aware of 100 young soldiers, mostly conscripts, who were forced to sign contracts to serve in Ukraine. Only four were alive, she said."

"Russia’s defence ministry then acknowledged that conscripts had participated in the conflict, with some taken prisoner by the Ukrainian army – but stressed remaining conscripts had been pulled out of the territory. The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had launched an investigation into the officials who disobeyed his orders to exclude conscripts from the operation. But since then, reports suggest conscripts are still participating in the war."

"After the sinking of Russia’s flagship Moskva in the Black Sea on April 14, Russian authorities said the entire crew had been evacuated. But Dmitry Shkrebets wrote on social media that his conscript son Yegor had been a cook on the ship, and was now listed as missing in action. “A conscript who was not supposed to take part in hostilities is listed as missing,” he said in a post on VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network."

Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to deny knowledge of or responsibility for something. Increasingly, however, as this special military operation drags on, already lasting 10 times the claimed period during which it was supposed to be concluded, implausible deniability (i.e., denials that do not seem reasonable or probable, or fail to convince) have become to be expected.

[Moses]

Interesting.

I wonder if that includes annexed territory, such as Crimea?

Crimea is Russia by law, so - sure. But Donetsk-Lugansk are recognized by Russia as states, so reserves can't be used there.

[Moses]

"In early March, after denying conscripts were being deployed in Ukraine, Russian senator Lyudmila Narusova told the country’s Federal Council she was aware of 100 young soldiers, mostly conscripts, who were forced to sign contracts to serve in Ukraine. Only four were alive, she said."

"Russia’s defence ministry then acknowledged that conscripts had participated in the conflict, with some taken prisoner by the Ukrainian army – but stressed remaining conscripts had been pulled out of the territory. The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had launched an investigation into the officials who disobeyed his orders to exclude conscripts from the operation. But since then, reports suggest conscripts are still participating in the war."

"After the sinking of Russia’s flagship Moskva in the Black Sea on April 14, Russian authorities said the entire crew had been evacuated. But Dmitry Shkrebets wrote on social media that his conscript son Yegor had been a cook on the ship, and was now listed as missing in action. “A conscript who was not supposed to take part in hostilities is listed as missing,” he said in a post on VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network."


Yeah. 23 criminal cases were opened by prosecutors in Russia in 2022 for involving conscripts into military operation. Some seniors officers lost their job because they filled vacant positions in army by conscripts instead of recruiting contractors.

[Dodger]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Russian conscript:

[Moses]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Russian conscript:

Your picture is from movie, on it guys in USSR-time uniform. So many propaganda in Western medias. It is easy recognize false claims: modern Russian military uniform has no red star emblem on the hat - there is rounded Russian 2-headed eagle, and it is dark green,

I can give you more pleasurable hint: copy and paste this in Google and check video tab or picture tab призывники медосмотр

[cdnmatt]

And most important: by law govt can use reservists only within Russian territory.

Not if Putin declares the "special military operation" a war, which is what Western intelligence is saying they think may happen. We'll find out in a couple days, now won't we?

[cdnmatt]

And Russia loses another ship to a country that doesn't have a navy.

Looks like Peter Zyhelm was right. About a month ago he said something along the lines of, "so we have to begin thinking of what happens when Russia doesn't have a naval presense in the Black Sea, which is probably going to happen in about two months".

Once the Ukrainians clear out all the Russian ships in the Black Sea, I wonder if NATO will decide it's a good time to do some war games there, or maybe go visit Romania?

[Dragonman]

The Kremlin, as well as the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, have denied plans for a general mobilization. If such a general mobilization is not planned, why are Russian government organs and other firms seeking mobilization and wartime experts?

The following advertisement has appeared on the Russian job hunting site Headhunter, apparently the best such site:
оскомпании начали активно искать на «Хедхантере» специалистов в области мобилизационной подготовки: этим заняты различные структуры, от «Почты России» до поликлиник и налоговых инспекций.

В объявлениях о наборе сотрудников полиция теперь особо выделяет, что их не мобилизуют.

Translation: State companies began to actively search on "Headhunter" for specialists in mobilization training: This involves various structures, from the Post of Russia to clinics and tax inspections.

In recruitment advertisements, the police now emphasize that they are not mobilized - so what does the Russian police know?

It seems firms ranging from Russian state enterprises with seemingly little affiliation to the military to a tax service in Moscow, a pharmaceutical chain in annexed Crimea, and hospitals in Belgorod near the Russia-Ukraine border and Novosibirsk in Siberia, as well as an airport in the Far East Kamchatka region, according to The Moscow Times, an independent newspaper (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/06/russian-firms-seek-mobilization-experts-as-officials-deny-mass-recruitment-plans-reports-a77605). Advertisers also include the Department of Internal Affairs in the north-western district of Moscow. Another job posting for a "security department employee" for a Moscow federal tax service states that the applicant will be responsible for "mobilization preparation" related to wartime activities and in martial law and a state of emergency. A civil defense specialist with the Russian Post would be required to organize mobilization training and civil defense activities in separate subdivisions of Moscow's Federal Border Service. Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources is recruiting a "specialist in working with state secrets" who would be in charge of booking "mobilization training" for all office employees. That advert was posted on April 21 - all the previous advertisements according to Newsweek (https://www.newsweek.com/russia-hires-war-mobilization-specialists-putin-denying-declare-war-ukraine-1704161).

[cdnmatt]

Quite obviously, nothing coming out of the Russian government can be trusted.

We'll find out on the 9th when Putin gives his "Victory Parade" speech. Absolutely nothing for Russia to be victourious about because they're getting their asses handed to them in every way, but let's see what Putin and his spin masters can muster up.

[cdnmatt]

And 60+ feared dead after Russia decided to focus on turning a school into rubble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0AiRSuooIg

Right, because that's where the Nazis are, obviously...

[cdnmatt]

And Canadian embassy is reopening in Kiev, because fuck you Russia, that's why.

[Dodger]

G7 Leaders stand united to impose additional sanctions on Russia

https://www.aol.com/news/1-g7-leaders-pledge-further-164057789-181227327.html

The longer this thing plays out the more you can start to see the West's long-game. Regardless of where Putin shifts his invading troops, or how long the bombardments last, the fact remains that the longer the invasion lasts the weaker Russia's military and economy will become. TIME is Putin’s greatest enemy right now - and that appears to be NATO’s principle strategy.

At some point Russia will have to call in its Reserve Forces as they simply don’t have enough ground forces left to support Putin’s land objectives. Russia has apparently announced the fact that “this won’t happen” on State media to keep the Russian people in the dark, but it appears to be inevitable. It really is strange that everyone in the World knows more about what's actually going on in Russia than the Russian people themselves. What's wrong with this picture?

Later this week the President of Finland and Sweden’s Prime Minister are expected to announce their decisions to join NATO. Both countries have formidable military forces (air, sea, land), with Finland sharing 1,340 kms of its eastern border with Russia (lucky them). NATO will have grown from 30 to 32 countries in the Alliance, and the longer the clock ticks the stronger and better positioned NATO and UN forces become. Global supply-chains have already started changing shape by incrementally removing Russia from the game-board in support of NATO's other objective, i.e., isolating Russia from the global economy.

Ukraine, with a population of 45 million people covering 603,000 sq km of territory (148% larger than the UK), has proven to the world that it will never surrender any of its real estate to Putin or any other dictator. And NATO has proven to the world that it will continue to supply tactical military hardware (intelligence and equipment) and financial aid to Ukraine for as long as it takes unconditionally.

I can even hear Xi during the quiet moments in his personal chamber telling his closest aids…”that Putin is sure one crazy white man”.

[Moses]

G7 Leaders stand united to impose additional sanctions on Russia

https://www.aol.com/news/1-g7-leaders-pledge-further-164057789-181227327.html

The longer this thing plays out the more you can start to see the West's long-game. Regardless of where Putin shifts his invading troops, or how long the bombardments last, the fact remains that the longer the invasion lasts the weaker Russia's military and economy will become. TIME is Putin’s greatest enemy right now - and that appears to be NATO’s principle strategy.

At some point Russia will have to call in its Reserve Forces as they simply don’t have enough ground forces left to support Putin’s land objectives. Russia has apparently announced the fact that “this won’t happen” on State media to keep the Russian people in the dark, but it appears to be inevitable. It really is strange that everyone in the World knows more about what's actually going on in Russia than the Russian people themselves. What's wrong with this picture?

Later this week the President of Finland and Sweden’s Prime Minister are expected to announce their decisions to join NATO. Both countries have formidable military forces (air, sea, land), with Finland sharing 1,340 kms of its eastern border with Russia (lucky them). NATO will have grown from 30 to 32 countries in the Alliance, and the longer the clock ticks the stronger and better positioned NATO and UN forces become. Global supply-chains have already started changing shape by incrementally removing Russia from the game-board in support of NATO's other objective, i.e., isolating Russia from the global economy.

Ukraine, with a population of 45 million people covering 603,000 sq km of territory (148% larger than the UK), has proven to the world that it will never surrender any of its real estate to Putin or any other dictator. And NATO has proven to the world that it will continue to supply tactical military hardware (intelligence and equipment) and financial aid to Ukraine for as long as it takes unconditionally.

I can even hear Xi during the quiet moments in his personal chamber telling his closest aids…”that Putin is sure one crazy white man”.

EU can't make agreement, so propaganda switched to G7. Yeah - G7 is only way to demonstrate unity somehow. Russian oil embargo again failed in EU - has been vetoed.

====Ukraine, with a population of 45 million people====
Last time it has population 45 mln in 1989, in 2016 measurement shows less than 38 mln

[Dragonman]

====Ukraine, with a population of 45 million people====
Last time it has population 45 mln in 1989, in 2016 measurement shows less than 38 mln[/QUOTE]

The UN figure for the population of Ukraine in 2016 was 44.624 million, including Crimea. I assume your lesser figure is based on the population in the illegally annexed areas of Crimea and the DonBas.


I was interested to hear the rehearsed cheer used at the end of the odd speech by Putin by the assembled armed forces, which sounded to me extraordinarily like the Ooorah cheer used by the US Marines. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I understand.

[Moses]

====Ukraine, with a population of 45 million people====
Last time it has population 45 mln in 1989, in 2016 measurement shows less than 38 mln

The UN figure for the population of Ukraine in 2016 was 44.624 million, including Crimea. I assume your lesser figure is based on the population in the illegally annexed areas of Crimea and the DonBas.


I was interested to hear the rehearsed cheer used at the end of the odd speech by Putin by the assembled armed forces, which sounded to me extraordinarily like the Ooorah cheer used by the US Marines. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I understand.

No. It is based on declaration of Ukrainian govt, + reports of Russian and Polish, Czech, Austrian immigration depts: only in Russia we have 2.5 mln Ukrainian migrants. Yearly 0.5-0.7 mln take Russian citizenship. Ukraine - country what loses population 1-1.5 mln yearly since 2014. Northern Somalia.

In 2019 Dmitro Dubilet - minister in Ukrainian govt published number slightly higher than 37 mln https://ukranews.com/en/news/679223-ukraine-s-population-is-37-3-million-dubilet

So, right now it should be about 30 mln if not count refugees..

[dab69]

"immigrants" and "refugees:- not "slaves"?

[Moses]

"refugees:- not "slaves"?

Well. You should ask Polish govt at first - there are 3 mln Ukrainians

[Dragonman]

No. It is based on declaration of Ukrainian govt, + reports of Russian and Polish, Czech, Austrian immigration depts: only in Russia we have 2.5 mln Ukrainian migrants. Yearly 0.5-0.7 mln take Russian citizenship. Ukraine - country what loses population 1-1.5 mln yearly since 2014. Northern Somalia.

In 2019 Dmitro Dubilet - minister in Ukrainian govt published number slightly higher than 37 mln https://ukranews.com/en/news/679223-ukraine-s-population-is-37-3-million-dubilet

So, right now it should be about 30 mln if not count refugees..

The State Statistics Service of Ukraine (http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/) cites an average population figure for 2021 of 41,167,336, and a figure for 2014 (the last year they counted the population of Crimea and Sevastopol) of 45,426,249. The 2019 figure you cited was based on an electronic census using multiple sources, including mobile phone and pension data, and estimated that Ukraine's population, excluding Crimea and parts of the Donbas seized by the Russian Federation (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine--population-shrinks-23-percent-2001/30393838.html). Before Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, the peninsula had 2 million inhabitants, whereas the densely populated easternmost Donetsk and Luhansk regions had nearly 6 million people before the Donbas conflict erupted.

You keep commenting on the size of the Ukrainian population. What is the current population of Russia, i.e., not counting the dead members of the military forces (who reportedly number in the thousands), and the reported hundreds of thousands (perhaps as high as a million) who have left Russia as a result of the invasion of their neighbor? How many of these are in technology, academia, and other economic sectors Russia can ill-afford to lose? How many more would like to go but can't? Russian investigative journalist Andrei Loshak has said of this phenomenon, "We are experiencing the largest brain drain in recent history" (https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-russians-leaving-their-country/a-61364390).

This is not counting the 700,000 Covid-19 pandemic deaths reported by Reuters.

After the collapse of the communist bloc, and without the former Soviet republics, the population of the Russian Federation fell to 148.5 million. In 2020, it was 144.1 million, and, according to UN projections, made before the pandemic and the war/special military operation, it could fall to 139 million by 2040. Already, 15.51% of the population is over 65 and increasing. The number of children per woman, 1.5 on average, is below the threshold of 2.1 needed to replace the population without immigration - and who in their right mind would immigrate to Putin's Russia?

Putin has promised to raise Russia's minimum wage and the salaries of all public sector workers (but not, apparently, the private sector ones), but from where is the money to come? How is he going to pay for the replacement of all the military hardware destroyed so far, and that which will be destroyed? Moreover, much of it relies on western-made parts. Ironically, it seems that one of the reasons why Russia can't build new ships is that they were powered by Ukrainian-built engines, which Ukraine now no longer supplies.

Bearing in mind the sheer geographic size of the Russian Federation, and its demonstrated problem with military logistics in invading a neighbor whose border is only 450 km from Moscow, perhaps it should give some thought to what its example might mean to its neighbors - the 18 countries with either land or sea borders - who might want to do a land grab of their own?? For example, Japan wants the Kuril Islands back, and has no peace treaty with Russia. They won't have long supply chains to worry about if they see an opportunity to copy Russian examples. I understand that Vladivostok itself is 8,994.3 km from Moscow - via а/д Амур/Р-297 - and 9,259 km by train - a logistical nightmare.

Moreover, I understand that there is already speculation that Russia will collapse within 3-5 years (https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2022/04/7/7137384/).

What goes around, comes around.

[Moses]

===== Japan wants the Kuril Islands back, and has no peace treaty with Russia. They won't have long supply chains to worry about if they see an opportunity to copy Russian examples.

Japan even doesn't quit from Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 oil projects... They aren't nation what shoots own leg.

Today:

TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters on Monday morning that Japan would maintain its stakes in the Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 energy projects in Russia, from which it imports oil and natural gas.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Japan-to-keep-stake-in-Russia-s-Sakhalin-oil-gas-projects-Kishida

[Dragonman]

===== Japan wants the Kuril Islands back, and has no peace treaty with Russia. They won't have long supply chains to worry about if they see an opportunity to copy Russian examples.

Japan even doesn't quit from Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 oil projects... They aren't nation what shoots own leg.

Today:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Japan-to-keep-stake-in-Russia-s-Sakhalin-oil-gas-projects-Kishida

Another red herring response.

1. I mentioned only the Kuril Islands - Japan no longer claims the island of Sakhalin, which is quite separate from the Kuril Islands. As a Taiwanese, I would remind you that Sakhalin was once considered part of China during the Ming and Qing dynasties - and we all know the attitude of the CPC to getting back what they consider were once tributaries of the Chinese Empire - see, e.g., "Beijing is engaged in disputes with 17 nations over land and sea borders" (https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/china/955728/all-countries-china-territory-disputes). Any flimsy excuse will do, even dashes on a map.

2. That Japan is not giving up its share of Sakhalin 1 and 2 is old news - first reported March, 2022 by Reuters (and https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/sakhalin-energy-projects-russia-are-important-japan-japan-govt-spokesman-2022-03-25/ and https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-will-not-abandon-sakhalin-2-lng-stake-kishida-says-2022-03-31/).

The Sakhalin 1 project is 30% owned by Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development (SODECO), which is in turn held by the Japanese government and several Japanese companies including trading houses Itochu Corp (8001.T) and Marubeni Corp (8002.T). Two other leading Japanese traders, Mitsui & Co (8031.T) and Mitsubishi Corp (8058.T), own stakes of 12.5% and 10% respectively in the Sakhalin 2 project.

The Japanese are not going to donate this share to Russia.

[Dodger]

I watched a video of Russia's Victory Day ceremony today, and all I can say is that I wish those marching boys were wearing leotards.

Maybe it's just me, but Putin came across with a sense of desperation. Not so much in his words - but in his eyes.

All-in-all I thought the whole event was rather low-key. No saber-rattling or threats - just scripted attempts to sell the audience on his innocence...justifying all of his actions...blaming any/all moving objects around him for HIS decisions.. and painting himself as the victim. No real surprise there.

Many seem disappointed that Putin didn't unveil his next new war strategy, but I chalk this up simply to the fact that he hasn't a clue what to do next. Who would?

The only complaint I have about the whole event is that the marching boys didn't smile. They looked way too serious to me and need to loosen up a bit...learn how to grin.. and put a little sway in those hips. I was actually getting a boner imaging them standing in the locker room wearing matching under pants.

[cdnmatt]

What's sad about this whole thing is Russia is going to end up in economic ruin for decades to come. Well, what's even more sad is all the folks who were murdered and raped in Ukraine, but yeah....

Russia isn't going to stop, so the West has obviously made the decision that it won't stop either until Russia is out of bullets and simply can't fight anymore. This is now a war of attrition. Thing is, the West can keep up this kind of pressure for decades, whereas Russia simply can't. At some point here Russia will run out of steam, and in the meantime until that happens, we're all just kind of hoping Putin isn't crazy enough to send off nukes.

This whole thing is just so sad and unnecessary. Russia is still only making minimal gains at best in eastern Ukraine, and all the while there's ~140,000 NATO based soldiers, a fleet of F-35s and so on just sitting there on the sidelines bordering Ukraine ready for action. Russia doesn't stand a chance.

At this point, the only saving grace Russia may have at its disposal is a revolution. Overhal the government, get Putin and all his comrades out there, draft a new constituion that's a little more fair to the Russian people, and get your shit together. That's pretty much the only chance Russia has at saving itself from a 30 year long economic depression.

[Moses]

What's sad about this whole thing is Russia is going to end up in economic ruin for decades to come. Well, what's even more sad is all the folks who were murdered and raped in Ukraine, but yeah....

Russia isn't going to stop, so the West has obviously made the decision that it won't stop either until Russia is out of bullets and simply can't fight anymore. This is now a war of attrition. Thing is, the West can keep up this kind of pressure for decades, whereas Russia simply can't. At some point here Russia will run out of steam, and in the meantime until that happens, we're all just kind of hoping Putin isn't crazy enough to send off nukes.

This whole thing is just so sad and unnecessary. Russia is still only making minimal gains at best in eastern Ukraine, and all the while there's ~140,000 NATO based soldiers, a fleet of F-35s and so on just sitting there on the sidelines bordering Ukraine ready for action. Russia doesn't stand a chance.

At this point, the only saving grace Russia may have at its disposal is a revolution. Overhal the government, get Putin and all his comrades out there, draft a new constituion that's a little more fair to the Russian people, and get your shit together. That's pretty much the only chance Russia has at saving itself from a 30 year long economic depression.

Matt, is it kind of trolling? NATO will stay away, nobody wants next WW.

Speaking about "end up" economic - even countries from G7 don't want to stop to trade with Russia (look at Japan, for example).

So all you have - to sit down and to watch end of Nazi regime in Ukraine. Or to go to street and to feed Ukrainian refugees - they think what whole World has obligation to them and be ready: they have high demands.

And about sanctions: EU just dropped idea to sanction Russian oil transportation - they can't overpower vetoes from EU members https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-09/eu-drops-plan-to-stop-tankers-moving-russian-oil-to-other-buyers

[Moses]

The Sakhalin 1 project is 30% owned by Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development (SODECO), which is in turn held by the Japanese government and several Japanese companies including trading houses Itochu Corp (8001.T) and Marubeni Corp (8002.T). Two other leading Japanese traders, Mitsui & Co (8031.T) and Mitsubishi Corp (8058.T), own stakes of 12.5% and 10% respectively in the Sakhalin 2 project.

The Japanese are not going to donate this share to Russia.

Correct. Instead it they will pay taxes here. Sanctions you said?

[RonanTheBarbarian]

One Russian man’s view of Putin's propaganda.

For several years I have been watching a YouTuber called NFKRZ. It is run by a young Russian guy called Roman, who used to post videos about daily life in Russia, including politics culture etc.

With the outbreak of the war he, like a lot of other liberal minded Russians, has fled the country, in his case to Georgia.

This week, he posted an interesting video looking at some of the left-wing propaganda outlets to Russia controls, and is using to spread its line about the Ukraine war. It is quite commonly known that Russia pumps out a lot of propaganda on Facebook and the RT News channel, usually praising Putin as a proper conservative and aimed at FOX News watching types.

But they also control other, left-leaning websites, and that churn out propaganda that is meant to appeal to left wingers, usually focusing on perceived or real western hypocrisy.

I kind of knew this already, but it was interesting to see it from the perspective of an anti-Putin Russian person.

Watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY5Qd7rTC8M&t=6s

[cdnmatt]

Matt, is it kind of trolling? NATO will stay away, nobody wants next WW.

Have you not been watching the news? The West quite obviously already views this as WWIII, and your dear leader started it. Have you not noticed that the entirety of Europe has shifted their energy policies over the last couple months? The Pentagon has now quite obviously made the decision that the West is going to run Russia into the ground economically and militarily and ensure Russia simply can not wage a war like this again for decades to come.

Thing is, the West can keep up this pressure for an indefinite period. Russia simply can't, and at some point, Russia is going to run out of steam. We're all just hoping nukes don't fly in the interm.

[Dragonman]

Correct. Instead it they will pay taxes here. Sanctions you said?

True, but under the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) provided for by FEDERAL LAW NO. 225-FZ OF DECEMBER 30, 1995 ON PRODUCTION SHARING AGREEMENTS (with the Amendments and Additions of January 7, 1999, June 18, 2001), both royalty and profit taxes are low by international and Russian standards. According to the terms of the PSA, the consortium members at, e.g., Sakhalin-2, must pay a royalty tax of 6% on gross revenues and a profit tax of 32% on all oil and gas produced. In comparable PSAs, the average royalty tax is 10-20%. The profit tax of 32% is 3% lower than the Russian tax rate at the time the PSA was signed.

As I quoted in an earlier post, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.

[cdnmatt]

The Sakhalin project can be considered dead in the water. Folks like Exxon, Shell, Haliburton and Slumbergeigh have all already pulled out of Russia, and Russia simply does not have the necessary tech to maintain such an operation, nor does China.

The production from that project will slowly degrade as the months tick by, until it finally halts producing altogether. We're a few years out from that though, so it'll take some time.

[Moses]

The Sakhalin project can be considered dead in the water. Folks like Exxon, Shell, Haliburton and Slumbergeigh have all already pulled out of Russia, and Russia simply does not have the necessary tech to maintain such an operation, nor does China.

The production from that project will slowly degrade as the months tick by, until it finally halts producing altogether. We're a few years out from that though, so it'll take some time.

Yeah, exactly because "can be considered dead" Japanese companies don't want to drop this project, and want to keep shares, right?

May be you will use logic? Can you?

[dab69]

Hackers replaced Russian TV schedules during Putin's 'Victory Day' parade with an anti-war message saying the blood of Ukrainians is on Russians' hands


Russian television schedules were hacked to display an anti-war message as the country celebrated a national military festival on Monday, BBC Monitoring reported.

On-screen program descriptions were replaced with the hackers' text when viewed on smart TVs, the outlet reported.

According to the BBC's translation, the message read: "On your hands is the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and their hundreds of murdered children. TV and the authorities are lying. No to war."

Major channels such as Russia-1, Channel One, and NTV-Plus were changed, the BBC reported.

Francis Scarr of BBC Monitoring — the branch of the BBC that follows mass media worldwide — tweeted a short video of a screen showing the TV schedules, on which every program showed the same description.

The hack came during Russia's Victory Day celebrations, a national holiday and military parade overseen by President Vladimir Putin, which was being televised in Russia. The annual event celebrates the Soviet Union's victory alongside Allied forces over Nazi Germany in 1945.

International observers previously speculated that Putin would use the event to further propagandize or toughen his stance around his invasion of Ukraine. But his Monday speech ended without the expected declaration of mass mobilization or war against Ukraine.

Putin's justification at the outset of the February 24 invasion was that he was launching a "special operation" to "denazify" the country. His aggression is viewed by NATO and other Western countries as a war.

But under a near blackout of independent media and social-media platforms, most Russian viewers can access only Kremlin-controlled messaging about the conflict, Insider's Connor Perrett reported.

The message in Monday's hack runs deeply counter to Putin's claims that his forces are in Ukraine to "liberate" Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

It is unclear who was behind the alteration of the schedules on Monday, but the hacker group Anonymous retweeted Scarr's tweet with the message "Good morning Moscow" within hours of the hack.

In early March, Anonymous claimed responsibility in a tweet for the hacking of several state-controlled TV channels, whose programming was replaced with footage from independent networks, Radio Free Europe reported.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-victory-day-tv-broadcasts-hacked-anti-war-messages-2022-5

[dab69]

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/MctTFVlcmu7ALDXkQWCi6w--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTM1MztjZj13ZWJw/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/eh2qSZoEJbt5ifiEM15TeA--~B/aD05MTk7dz0xODM4O2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/insider_articles_922/d912a66307ad96875cd3d782dc7623ce


INSIDER
Russian ambassador pelted with red substance during country's Victory Day celebrations

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-ambassador-pelted-red-substance-124327607.html

[dab69]

Consider how similar Vladimir Putin is to Adolf Hitler to understand threat to world peace



The events in Ukraine over the past couple of months have become tragically reminiscent of what transpired in Europe in the late 1930s, when a right-wing German dictator began invading his neighbors and committing atrocities. Is Vladimir Putin the new Adolf Hitler? Is Russia a fascist danger to world peace, as was Nazi Germany? The parallels are disturbingly similar.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/consider-similar-vladimir-putin-adolf-151509993.html

[Moses]

At May 9 president Zelenskiy published in his official Twitter photo of Ukrainian soldier with Nazi SS emblem of division "Dead Head" and wrote "We will win".

Twit has been deleted soon, but has been re-twitted many times, including official account of Ukrainian ministry of defense

12536.


Orwell. EU collaborate with Nazi for to fight with Russia. Openly Nazi battalion "Azov" isn't Nazi anymore in Western medias.

[Dragonman]

At May 9 president Zelenskiy published in his official Twitter photo of Ukrainian soldier with Nazi SS emblem of division "Dead Head" and wrote "We will win".

Twit has been deleted soon, but has been re-twitted many times, including official account of Ukrainian ministry of defense

12536.


Orwell. EU collaborate with Nazi for to fight with Russia. Openly Nazi battalion "Azov" isn't Nazi anymore in Western medias.

Outrage about the display of Nazi-linked symbols from someone from a country that uses a letter that isn't in its alphabet (Z) as a sign of victory when it is clearly the lower half of a Nazi swastika isn't convincing. It is reported, moreover, that while Putin and other Russian leaders enthusiastically embrace this symbol, "Germany to prosecute use of ‘Z’ symbol to support Russia’s war" (https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-prosecute-use-of-z-symbol-to-support-russias-war/).

Meanwhile, there are also reports that "Russia is the World’s Breeding Ground for Neo-Nazi Culture" (https://www.eupoliticalreport.eu/russia-is-the-worlds-breeding-ground-for-neo-nazi-culture/), and "Putin’s fascists: the Russian state’s long history of cultivating homegrown neo-Nazis" (https://theconversation.com/putins-fascists-the-russian-states-long-history-of-cultivating-homegrown-neo-nazis-178535). Is the man in the black soft hat and full beard in the front row a Russian Orthodox clergyman?

What about the report that "A soldier wearing Nazi imagery was given a medal by a Russia-backed separatist republic for killing Ukrainian 'nationalists'" (https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-fighter-neo-nazi-symbols-medal-kill-ukraine-nationalist-2022-4). A close-up of the insignia as worn by Roman Vorobyov, a Senior Lieutenant of the so-called "Somalia Battalion" is at https://www.romea.cz/en/news/world/speaking-of-nazis-the-donetsk-leader-of-pro-russian-separatists-honored-a-russian-soldier-with-nazi-symbols-on-his-uniform - i.e., the same "dead head" image. The photographs show Vorobyov wearing a modified skull-and-crossbones on the sleeve of his uniform, which is the symbol of the former 3rd Tank Division SS Totenkopf ("Death's Head") from World War II.

Outrage about Ukrainian display of Nazi symbols is laughable when one considers Russia's use of the mercenary Wagner Group. "The group’s leader, Dmitry Utkin, reportedly wears Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, a Nazi eagle and SS lightning bolts. Wagner mercenaries are reported to have left behind neo-Nazi propaganda in the war zones where they’ve fought, including graffiti with hate symbols" (https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/putin-nazi-pretext-russia-war-ukraine-belied-white-supremacy-ties-rcna23043).

There are reports that the Nazi Azov Regiment is used pragmatically, simply because they are "good fighters" (https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/the-facts-on-de-nazifying-ukraine/). They can be regarded in the same light as the Chechen Kadyrovtsy of unpleasant reputation, i.e., as a psychological weapon (https://theconversation.com/chechens-fighting-in-ukraine-putins-psychological-weapon-could-backfire-179447).

[cdnmatt]

And Finland and Sweden are scheduled to apply for NATO later this week.

[Moses]

And Finland and Sweden are scheduled to apply for NATO later this week.

And... Ukraine stopped 1/3 of gas transit to EU... Somebody told here about gas blockade by Russia?

[dab69]

At May 9 president Zelenskiy published in his official Twitter photo of Ukrainian soldier with Nazi SS emblem of division "Dead Head" and wrote "We will win".

Twit has been deleted soon, but has been re-twitted many times, including official account of Ukrainian ministry of defense

12536.


Orwell. EU collaborate with Nazi for to fight with Russia. Openly Nazi battalion "Azov" isn't Nazi anymore in Western medias.

Zelenskiy didn't invade a country and start murdering it's people to steal the land...
Putin did.

Perhaps you view a twitter post and
murdering thousands equal misdeeds?

[Dragonman]

And... Ukraine stopped 1/3 of gas transit to EU... Somebody told here about gas blockade by Russia?

But read the full report here for the complete story: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraine-gas-system-operator-declares-force-majeure-sokhranivka-entry-point-2022-05-10/:

KYIV/LONDON, May 10 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Tuesday it would suspend the flow of gas through a transit point which it said delivers almost a third of the fuel piped from Russia to Europe through Ukraine, blaming Moscow for the move and saying it would move the flows elsewhere.
Ukraine has remained a major transit route for Russian gas to Europe even after Moscow's invasion.
GTSOU, which operates Ukraine's gas system, said it would stop shipments via the Sokhranivka route from Wednesday, declaring "force majeure", a clause invoked when a business is hit by something beyond its control.
But Gazprom (GAZP.MM), which has a monopoly on Russian gas exports by pipeline, said it was "technologically impossible" to shift all volumes to the Sudzha interconnection point further west, as GTSOU proposed.
GTSOU CEO Sergiy Makogon told Reuters that Russian occupying forces had started taking gas transiting through Ukraine and sending it to two Russia-backed separatist regions in the country's east. He did not cite evidence.
The company said it could not operate at the Novopskov gas compressor station due to "the interference of the occupying forces in technical processes", adding it could temporarily shift the affected flow to the Sudzha physical interconnection point located in territory controlled by Ukraine.
Ukraine's suspension of Russian natural gas flows through the Sokhranivka route should not have an impact on the domestic Ukrainian market, state energy firm Naftogaz head Yuriy Vitrenko told Reuters.
The state gas company in Moldova, a small nation on Ukraine's western border, said it had not received any notice from GTSOU or Gazprom that supplies would be interrupted.
The Novopskov compressor station in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine has been occupied by Russian forces and separatist fighters since soon after Moscow began what it describes as a "special military operation" in February. read more
It is the first compressor in the Ukraine gas transit system in the Luhansk region, the transit route for around 32.6 million cubic metres of gas a day, or a third of the Russian gas which is piped to Europe through Ukraine, GTSOU said.
GTSOU said that in order to fulfil its "transit obligations to European partners in full" it would "temporarily transfer unavailable capacity" to the Sudzha interconnection point.
Gazprom said it had received notification from Ukraine that the country would stop the transit of gas to Europe via the Sokhranivka interconnector from 0700 local time on Wednesday.
The Russian company said it saw no proof of force majeure or obstacles to continuing as before. Gazprom added that it was meeting all obligations to buyers of gas in Europe.
The United States has urged countries to lessen their dependence on Russian energy and has banned Russian oil and other energy imports in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday's announcement does not change the timeline to lessen global dependence on Russian oil "as soon as possible."

[Dragonman]

Today's South China Morning Post (https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3177252/ukraine-war-downed-russian-fighter-jets-found-basic?module=more_top_stories_asia&pgtype=homepage) has printed a Business Insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-su34-jets-basic-gps-receivers-taped-to-dashboards-uk-2022-5?module=inline&pgtype=article) article that makes it abundantly clear why Putin cancelled the traditional fly pass at Monday's May 9th Victory Parade.

The article/s cite UK defense minister Ben Wallace as saying that there was evidence suggesting Russian military hardware was being pushed to breaking point by the invasion of Ukraine and that “GPS receivers have been found taped to the dashboards of downed Russian Su-34s so the pilots knew where they were, due to the poor quality of their own systems.”

Wallace also stated, "Last month, Ukrainian troops paraded a Russian drone that had been covered in duct tape and fitted with a generic plastic bottle top for a fuel cap. In late March, Ukrainian troops found Russian army bandages dating back to 1978 discarded on a battlefield."

Wallace also said Russian vehicles “are frequently found with 1980s paper maps of Ukraine in them” and that soldiers are using “pine logs as makeshift protection on logistical trucks” and attaching “overhead ‘cope cages’ to their tanks.” Perhaps all the working tanks (if any) are part for parades to impress Russians in Moscow.

[Moses]

Today's South China Morning Post (https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3177252/ukraine-war-downed-russian-fighter-jets-found-basic?module=more_top_stories_asia&pgtype=homepage) has printed a Business Insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-su34-jets-basic-gps-receivers-taped-to-dashboards-uk-2022-5?module=inline&pgtype=article) article that makes it abundantly clear why Putin cancelled the traditional fly pass at Monday's May 9th Victory Parade.

The article/s cite UK defense minister Ben Wallace as saying that there was evidence suggesting Russian military hardware was being pushed to breaking point by the invasion of Ukraine and that “GPS receivers have been found taped to the dashboards of downed Russian Su-34s so the pilots knew where they were, due to the poor quality of their own systems.”

Wallace also stated, "Last month, Ukrainian troops paraded a Russian drone that had been covered in duct tape and fitted with a generic plastic bottle top for a fuel cap. In late March, Ukrainian troops found Russian army bandages dating back to 1978 discarded on a battlefield."

Wallace also said Russian vehicles “are frequently found with 1980s paper maps of Ukraine in them” and that soldiers are using “pine logs as makeshift protection on logistical trucks” and attaching “overhead ‘cope cages’ to their tanks.” Perhaps all the working tanks (if any) are part for parades to impress Russians in Moscow.

Bullshit. Clearly speculation. There were 2 rehearsal - at May 4 and May 7 - in Moscow, including flights. Russian military aircrafts uses GLONASS instead of GPS.

Video from streets, May 7 2022.


https://youtu.be/srUnICBuxd4

[Moses]

Zelenskiy didn't invade a country and start murdering it's people to steal the land...
Putin did.

Perhaps you view a twitter post and
murdering thousands equal misdeeds?

Yeah, his Nazi govt just had murdered own population within 8 years.

[Dragonman]

Bullshit. Clearly speculation. There were 2 rehearsal - at May 4 and May 7 - in Moscow, including flights. Russian military aircrafts uses GLONASS instead of GPS.

Video from streets, May 7 2022.


https://youtu.be/srUnICBuxd4.

A "rehearsal" by definition means that Putin was not present, and the empty grandstands can clearly be seen in the China Global Television Network (CGTN) report at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYQXJfZK55E. He was probably in one of his bunkers, such as that in Siberia for his closest family, located in the district of Ongudaysky, close to the borders of Russia with Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, or in his hideaway near Surgut, in Siberia, while Defence minister Sergei Shoigu hid in his bunker in Ufa, in the Urals. But when they realized they had to be under the flight path, the 77-plane flypast was cancelled. Putin scrapped the Victory Day flypast at the last minute 'because he feared a strike from the air' anti-Vladimir Russian news outlet claims. A 77-plane airshow was due to take place over Moscow's Red Square yesterday. Putin pulled the plug at the last minute due to concerns over an airstrike. He blamed poor weather despite clear blue skies over the Russian capital. Air shows were also canceled or restricted in at least ten other cities. (See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10801789/Putin-scrapped-Victory-Day-flypast-minute-feared-strike-air.html, and https://news.yahoo.com/putin-doomsday-plane-fails-planned-145722338.html, etc.).

There are several possible explanation for Russian pilots using GPS rather than GLONASS. For starters, the US GPS network includes 31 satellites, while GLONASS uses 24 satellites. The two systems also differ somewhat on accuracy. GLONASS position accuracy is 5-10m while GPS is 3.5-7.8m. Therefore, GPS outweighs GLONASS in accuracy as lower error numbers are better. As far as frequencies go, GLONASS operates at 1.602 GHz and GPS at 1.57542 GHz (L1 signal). When used alone, GLONASS doesn't provide as strong of coverage compared to GPS. In fact There are no significant advantages of GLONASS over GPS. (https://blog.bliley.com/the-differences-between-the-5-gnss-satellite-network-constellations).

GLONASS has also experienced failures - see "Map illustrates 'Russian GPS' failure" (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26957569). Then, the failure meant that position fixes that were off by more than 50km. Such failures might explain why "Russians accidentally wipe out own troops with TOS-1A flamethrowers in friendly fire disaster" in Zaporizhzhya province on Sunday May 8 (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russians-accidentally-wipe-out-troops-26920381), and "Russian tank that appears to blow up "own comrades" in a friendly fire incident during a Ukrainian outside the city of Kyiv" (https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1595607/Russian-tank-own-comrades-blown-up-V-marking-incident-Ukraine-vn). Either that, or sheer incompetence and poor training of Russian conscripts and contract troops.

If it had taken place, the parading of 500 Ukrainian prisoners of war through Red Square on May 9 would have met the threshold of "humiliating and degrading treatment" under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, one seen worldwide.

[Moses]

.
Putin scrapped the Victory Day flypast at the last minute 'because he feared a strike from the air' anti-Vladimir Russian news outlet claims. A 77-plane airshow was due to take place over Moscow's Red Square yesterday. Putin pulled the plug at the last minute due to concerns over an airstrike.

Sure-sure. Rebelling pilot may drop to Putin pilot's shoes...

Who is stupid enough to talk about air strike? All aircrafts are checked in bases by FSB, all pilots are at least in colonel rang, there are no ammo on aircrafts.

[dab69]

Yeah, his Nazi govt just had murdered own population within 8 years.


Good fantasy!
Not seeing any evidence besides Russian lies.
Won't cover up Russian war crimes.
But Putin wants a port and beach property.

[Dragonman]

Sure-sure. Rebelling pilot may drop to Putin pilot's shoes...

Who is stupid enough to talk about air strike? All aircrafts are checked in bases by FSB, all pilots are at least in colonel rang, there are no ammo on aircrafts.

Maxim Babenko, a photographer from the North Caucasus, produced a 2016 cinematic series entitled "Russian Fighter Pilots" which provides a look at just what it takes to become a LIEUTENANT (emphasis added) commanding a plane (His Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/maximbabenkorussia/).

Moreover, flying a war plane requires a great number of flying hours - something most Russian pilots don't seem to have ( J. Bronk, (4 March 2022). "Is the Russian Air Force Actually Incapable of Complex Air Operations?" Royal United Services Institute. D. Axe, David. "Russian Pilots Have No Choice But To Fly Straight Through Ukraine's Man-Portable Missiles". Forbes).

The fact that "all pilots are at least of colonel rank" is irrelevant. Generals often orchestrate coups but colonels execute them. Colonel is the rank where politics start and is the highest rank with direct command and connection with troops. If the coup attempt fails, lower ranks take the blame. It was Colonel Reza Khan who, in 1921 led the coup that brought the Pahlavi dynasty to power in Iran. The coup that overthrew the Greek monarchy is known as The Colonels Coup. It was a coup led by a colonel that overthrew the Obrenovic dynasty in Serbia in 1902. Putin has been preparing for a palace coup since he came to power, which is why the Federal Security Service (FSB) has been strengthened and why Putin sits so far away from his own officials.

And it was a coup orchestrated by what I believe is called the "siloviki" that led to the downfall of Mikhail Gorbachev and the crumbling of the USSR. Putin, with his KGB background, must be aware of that, as the siloviki still exist. If they feel threatened by this slowly unfolding catastrophe that Putin has unleashed on Russia, who is to say they won't turn on him to protect themselves and their families?

And if Putin wasn't afraid of an air strike, what was he afraid of - a little rain? In previous years, if bad weather was an issue, Putin has dispatched a fleet of 'weather-changing' aircraft to spike the clouds with a chemical cocktail of silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and dry ice to ensure rain stayed away from Red Square - but not on this Monday!

[Moses]

Maxim Babenko, a photographer from the North Caucasus, produced a 2016 cinematic series entitled "Russian Fighter Pilots" which provides a look at just what it takes to become a LIEUTENANT (emphasis added) commanding a plane (His Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/maximbabenkorussia/).

Moreover, flying a war plane requires a great number of flying hours - something most Russian pilots don't seem to have ( J. Bronk, (4 March 2022). "Is the Russian Air Force Actually Incapable of Complex Air Operations?" Royal United Services Institute. D. Axe, David. "Russian Pilots Have No Choice But To Fly Straight Through Ukraine's Man-Portable Missiles". Forbes).

The fact that "all pilots are at least of colonel rank" is irrelevant. Generals often orchestrate coups but colonels execute them. Colonel is the rank where politics start and is the highest rank with direct command and connection with troops. If the coup attempt fails, lower ranks take the blame. It was Colonel Reza Khan who, in 1921 led the coup that brought the Pahlavi dynasty to power in Iran. The coup that overthrew the Greek monarchy is known as The Colonels Coup. It was a coup led by a colonel that overthrew the Obrenovic dynasty in Serbia in 1902. Putin has been preparing for a palace coup since he came to power, which is why the Federal Security Service (FSB) has been strengthened and why Putin sits so far away from his own officials.

And it was a coup orchestrated by what I believe is called the "siloviki" that led to the downfall of Mikhail Gorbachev and the crumbling of the USSR. Putin, with his KGB background, must be aware of that, as the siloviki still exist. If they feel threatened by this slowly unfolding catastrophe that Putin has unleashed on Russia, who is to say they won't turn on him to protect themselves and their families?

And if Putin wasn't afraid of an air strike, what was he afraid of - a little rain? In previous years, if bad weather was an issue, Putin has dispatched a fleet of 'weather-changing' aircraft to spike the clouds with a chemical cocktail of silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and dry ice to ensure rain stayed away from Red Square - but not on this Monday!

we are talking not about regular pilots, but about pilots who controls aircrafts during flights over Moscow, which are forbidden in normal time... Only high trained pilots with big experience...

look here who are pilots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swifts_(aerobatic_team)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Knights

12537

[dab69]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tall-person-russians-reveal-secret-102227444.html

The Daily Beast
‘It’s as Tall as a Person’: Russians Reveal Their Secret Dump of Dead Soldiers in Donetsk


The Daily Beast
‘It’s as Tall as a Person’: Russians Reveal Their Secret Dump of Dead Soldiers in Donetsk
Allison Quinn
Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:22 AM·2 min read
In this article:

Mother's Day
Mother's Day

Russian authorities in Ukraine’s occupied city of Donetsk are tossing the bodies of their dead soldiers in a secret dump “by the thousands” and charging their loved ones money to find them.

That’s according to a new audio recording released by Ukraine’s Security Service on Tuesday, which is purportedly an intercepted telephone conversation between two Russians discussing how one of their missing friends was finally found.

In the two-and-a-half minute recording, an unidentified man tells his female relative that the fate of “Inna’s brother” is finally known after he went missing a month ago.

“It’s better that you don’t hear this,” the man says at first, reluctant to spill all the grim details.

After more urging, he finally explains that the unidentified dead man’s “sister went to Donetsk, and there, basically, roughly speaking, is a dump.”

The Only Winners at Putin’s Victory Day Parade? The Hackers Who Took Over Russian TV

“They just toss them there. And then later it’s easier to make as if they disappeared without a trace. It’s easier for them to pretend they are just missing, and that’s it,” he said, noting that “there are thousands.”

“There’s nowhere left to place them. It’s a dump. I’m telling you in plain Russian—a dump. It’s as tall as a person,” he said, adding that the site is “fenced off, sealed, they don’t let anyone in.”

According to him, the only reason local authorities at the dump site let the woman find her brother was because she paid “good money.”

Watch: Wiretaps appear catch Russian soldiers sabotaging their own equipment

After that, he said, “they rearranged it until she found [the body.]”

“It’s not a morgue, it’s a dump.… They are bringing [bodies] by the thousands,” he said, calling it a “shitshow.”

[Dragonman]

we are talking not about regular pilots, but about pilots who controls aircrafts during flights over Moscow, which are forbidden in normal time... Only high trained pilots with big experience...

look here who are pilots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swifts_(aerobatic_team)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Knights

12537

Earlier you stated that "the pilots are all colonel rang (sic)", and now cite a Wikipedia entry for the aerobatic team, whose names were given as:

• Selutin Viktor Markovich, Guards colonel, “Strizhi” aerobatic team commander. Tail wingman, team leader
• Morozov Valeriy Anatolyevich, Guards lieutenant colonel, “Strizhi” aerobatic team master pilot. Team leader
• Sokolov Igor Evgenevich, Guards lieutenant colonel, aerobatic team deputy commander. Left wingman
• Osyaikin Sergey Ivanovich, Guards lieutenant colonel, “Strizhi” aerobatic team master pilot. Right wingman
• Koposov Dmitriy Alexandrovich, Guards lieutenant colonel, aerobatic team deputy commander. Right wingman, single aerobatic, extreme flying
• Prohorov Aleksey Vladimirovich, Guards lieutenant colonel, “Strizhi” aerobatic team master pilot, left wingman
• Vasiliev Sergey Alekseevich, Guards lieutenant colonel, “Strizhi” aerobatic team master pilot
• Kuznetsov Denis, Captain, “Strizhi” aerobatic team pilot

That is, one colonel, six lieutenant colonels and one captain. The etymology literally means "place holder." A "Lieutenant" is a deputy or substitute acting for a superior, and lieutenant colonels rank below colonels.The Wikipedia entry also states, "The team roster today unchanged since 2008." That means either the Colonel Selutin was not a colonel when appointed or that promotion is painfully slow for this elite group. But, either way, your original comment was incorrect.

The Wikipedia entry on the Russian Knights aerobatic display team explains why Putin cancelled the flypast in all the Russian cities for which they were planned. It states, "On December 12, 1995, disaster struck as three team jets flew in-formation into a mountainside near Cam Ranh, Vietnam during approach while en route to home from a Malaysian airshow during adverse weather conditions." Putin obviously was afraid that all the aircraft in all the display teams would fly into mountains in adverse weather conditions, including the mountains around Moscow. Moscow is situated on one of the largest plains in the world. A mountain is usually defined as being over 300 meters or 1000 feet high. The four named "mountains" in Moscow are all under 300 meters, the highest being Visokaya at 262 meters and the lowest being Bolshoi Krilatsii Holm at 88 meters. What does this suggest for the efficacy of Putin's Il-80 airborne strategic command and control post ‘doomsday plane’ - that it couldn't fly safely in post-nuclear war conditions?

As you quoted Wikipedia, so will I. Its entry on flypast lists only two accidents or incidents. One was in Canberra, Australia, in 2003 over Parliament House by two F-111 jets, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Australian High Court. It manifested itself as "two thunderously loud balls of flame screaming overhead at a height of about 300 metres and heading toward the city's landmarks." There are five mountain ranges near Canberra. The second incident was in Goa, India, during a ceremonial flypast to mark the silver jubilee of the Naval Air Squadron 315 in 2002, the wingtips of two Ilyushin aircraft brushed in mid-air, with the subsequent loss of life. Maybe it is because his doomsday aircraft is an Ilyushin II-80 that had him worried, given that it is basically a modified Ilyushin-86, a plane with a history of accidents and incidents.

[dab69]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-russians-lost-nearly-an-entire-battalion-trying-to-cross-a-river-in-eastern-ukraine/ar-AAXawcD?li=BBorjTa

The Russians Lost Nearly An Entire Battalion Trying To Cross A River In Eastern Ukraine



The better part of a Russian army battalion—50 or so vehicles and up to a thousand troops—in recent days tried to cross a pontoon bridge spanning the Siverskyi Donets River, running west to east between the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian artillery caught them at the river bank—and destroyed them. The rapid destruction of around three dozen tanks and other armored vehicles, along with the bridge itself, underscores Russia’s deepening woes as its troops try, and fail, to make meaningful gains in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

“We still assess Russian ground force in the Donbas to be slow and uneven,” an unnamed U.S. Defense Department official told reporters on Tuesday. The Russians’ inability to cross rivers might explain their sloth.

The Siverskyi Donets, which threads from southern Russia into eastern Ukraine then back into Russia, is just one of several water barriers Russian battalions must cross in order to advance west into Ukrainian-held territory. According to the Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff, the battalion that got caught at the pontoon bridge apparently was trying to strike at Lyman, a city of 20,000 that lies 17 miles west of the doomed pontoon bridge.

The Ukrainian army’s 17th Tank Brigade spotted the crossing, perhaps using one of the many small drones that function as the Ukrainian army’s eyes over the battlefield. The 17th is one of the army’s four active tank brigades. Its four line battalions operate T-64 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles. But it was the brigade’s artillery battalion with its 2S1 122-millimeter howitzers that apparently got first crack at the Russian bridge.

The 17th’s shelling destroyed at least seven T-72 and T-80 tanks, 17 BMPs, seven MT-LB armored tractors, five other vehicles and much of the bridging unit itself, including a tugboat and the pontoon span.

It’s unclear how many Russians died or were wounded, but it’s worth noting that no battalion can lose three-quarters of its vehicles and remain capable of operations. In one strike, the Ukrainians removed from the battlefield one of roughly the 99 Russian battalion tactical groups in Ukraine.

In the aftermath of their defeat, local Russian forces are sticking to their side of the river, “trying to hold positions on the right bank,” according to the general staff in Kyiv. The disastrous river-crossing comes as Russian forces also are retreating away from the city of Kharkiv, farther north.

To be fair to Moscow, crossing any water obstacle during wartime is dangerous. The Ukrainians can claim perhaps the most lopsided victory over an enemy bridging effort, but the Russians have knocked out some Ukrainian bridges, too.
Topics for you

[Moses]

Bloomberg today: Ruble Surpasses Brazil’s Real as Year’s Best-Performing Currency


Capital controls imposed by Russia have turned the ruble into the world’s best performing currency this year, though not many people can pocket a profit on the rally.

The ruble resumed its advance against the dollar on Wednesday as the Moscow Exchange reopened after two days of public holiday. It’s now up more than 11% against the US dollar since the start of the year, surpassing the real’s 9% advance to become the top gainer among 31 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The offshore rate is up even more, about 12%.

Did you said "sanctions"?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-11/russian-ruble-surpasses-brazilian-real-as-world-s-best-currency

[dab69]

They'll need it for war reparations to Ukraine...

[Moses]

They'll need it for war reparations to Ukraine...

reparations? oh, yes, EU and US already started to pay. Latest news: 40 bln from US.

[Dragonman]

Bloomberg today: Ruble Surpasses Brazil’s Real as Year’s Best-Performing Currency



Did you said "sanctions"?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-11/russian-ruble-surpasses-brazilian-real-as-world-s-best-currency

Enjoy the illusion of success while you can. And perhaps think about what the Bloomberg article's following sentences really mean: "Capital controls imposed by Russia have turned the ruble into the world’s best performing currency this year, though not many people can pocket a profit on the rally." And the later paragraph: "Strategists say the rally isn’t credible as many currency-trading shops have stopped dealing in the ruble on the grounds that its value seen on monitors is not the price it can be traded at in the real world." In other words, no-one is buying rubles.

This month-old report from Reuters puts any gains of the Russian ruble in perspective - "Analysis: Russia's ruble rebound is not as real as it seems" (https://www.reuters.com/business/russias-rouble-rebound-is-not-real-it-seems-2022-04-01/). It outlines why the ruble rebound has happened, but concludes "In the longer term, the ruble's fortunes look less favorable. Ostracism from the West is likely to mean fewer buyers for Russia's exports, and should oil prices tumble the ruble will struggle. With half its $640 billion of gold and foreign exchange reserves frozen, Russia has less much scope to defend the currency."

Even Al Jazeera reported that "The Russian threat to dollar hegemony is nothing but a fantasy. We are not witnessing the dawn of a new post-dollar world" (https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/4/12/the-russian-threat-to-dollar-hegemony-is-nothing-but-a-fantasy). The report also states why the ruble is not really as strong as it appears from the Russian perspective, noting " In countries neighbouring Russia, which have seen an influx of Moscow and Saint Petersburg’s intelligentsia in the aftermath of the war, the real ruble rate available at most cash counters is far lower than the official rate."

For Putin's oligarch friends, the report includes this snide comment: "At home, however, Russia has slightly eased currency convertibility. Russians can now transfer $10,000 abroad per month, though this is of course far too little to fill a single super yacht’s tank." Of course, with most of the super yachts impounded, this is now probably the least of an oligarch's worries as "Dozens of sanctioned super yachts seized from Russian oligarchs and collectively worth billions could rapidly waste away without crews to maintain them" (https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-to-russian-oligarch-sanctioned-yachts-without-maintenance-crews-2022-3).

You should also note that Russian imposition of foreign exchange controls is possible under international agreements only because its economy (like that of Belarus and Ukraine) is a "transitional economy" under "Article 14" (the provision in the International Monetary Fund's Articles of Agreement which allows exchange controls only for "transitional economies"). Russia became a IMF member on June 1, 1992. None of the western economies, all of which are members of the IMF, are permitted to impose foreign exchange control. If they could retaliate, Russian rubles would have the same value as toilet paper.

Imposing foreign exchange controls is a sign of a weak and/or developing economy, and puts the Russian ruble at the same level as e.g., the Myanmar kyat ("Myanmar’s new banking rule forces conversion of foreign currencies into Kyat. April 5, 2022. https://www.thaipbsworld.com/myanmars-new-banking-rule-forces-conversion-of-foreign-currencies-into-kyat/).

[Moses]

=== In other words, no-one is buying rubles. ===

Yes-yes. No one buys. Exactly that why today Italian PM Drahi told today "to buy gas for rubles doesn't break sanctions". Exactly that why demands of rubles pushes rubles stronger. And off-shore demands are even stronger than on-shore. See Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-10/traders-prepare-to-ditch-moscow-ruble-rate-as-market-split-grows

Your quote are one month old, but situation changing every day. First it was "Nobody will buy gas, oil and so on", then was situation "Nobody will buy oil" - when EU realized what it can't survive without Russian gas. Late there was situation "Nobody will buy gas for rubles"...

Wait for 2-3 months. You will hear at first "nobody will buy Russian wheat". then it will be changed to "Nobody will buy Russian wheat for rubles".... and then again ruble will became stronger, because Russia is responsible for 25% of World wheat export, where prices for wheat are already 60% higher than in 2021...

I told in December yet, when here were a lot of gentleman with high razed chins and too much proud about own economy: nobody can exclude Russia from global economy - Russia is world global supplier on many critical markets, that why sanctions are supported only by 19% of World nations.

[dab69]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-army-lost-191-volley-070611895.html

Russian army has lost 191 volley fire systems and 161 helicopters - General Staff

Since the beginning of the full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the army of the Russian Federation has lost 26,650 soldiers, 300 of them in the last 24 hours alone.

Source: data of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian occupying forces from 24.02 to 12.05 were approximately: (with figures in brackets indicating fresh losses)

personnel - about 26650 (+300)

tanks - 1195 (+8) units

armoured combat vehicles - 2873 (+17) units

artillery systems - 534 (+6) units

MLRS - 191 (+6) units

Anti-aircraft warfare - 87 (+0) units

aircraft - 199 (+0) units

helicopters - 161 (+1) units

UAV operational and tactical level - 398 (+8,

cruise missiles - 94 (+0)

ships / boats - 13 (+1) units

automotive equipment and tank trucks - 2019 (+22) units

special equipment - 41 (+0).

It is noted that the enemy’s greatest losses in the last 24 hours have been on the Kurakhiv front.

This data is being constantly updated.

[dab69]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fleeing-russian-soldiers-left-behind-100211734.html

Fleeing Russian soldiers left behind key military documents that indicated Putin had plans to seize all of Ukraine, officials said



A Ukrainian firefighter walking in rubble in the northeastern city of Trostyanets, Ukraine, on March 29.Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images

Ukrainian troops found Russian military documents in Sumy Oblast, officials said on Telegram.

The abandoned military documents suggested that Putin had plans to seize all of Ukraine.

Russian troops retreated from Kyiv in early April and have since focused on taking eastern Ukraine.

Fleeing Russian soldiers left behind key military documents that indicated Russian President Vladimir Putin had plans to seize all of Ukraine, the director of Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation said in a Telegram statement on Wednesday.

Ukrainian forces discovered the documents while searching through the northeastern town of Trostyanets in Sumy Oblast, the statement said.

Trostyanets, located about 230 miles from the capital, Kyiv, was liberated by Ukrainian troops in late March after a monthlong Russian occupation, The New York Times reported.

Investigators found "important documents of soldiers of the Russian Federation's Armed Forces that give a clear understanding that Russia was preparing to seize all the territory of Ukraine," Oleksiy Sukhachev, the director of Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation, said in the statement.

"All this information will be studied," the statement continued.

Insider has not seen the documents and has not been able to independently verify the claims.

Sukhachev said Ukrainian officials had inspected over 2,000 hectares of the destroyed town since its liberation.

Aside from the documents, soldiers also found that more than 300 residential buildings had been permanently damaged, Sukhachev said. A number of unexploded shells and bombs had also been found, he added.

The Russian military papers appeared to confirm earlier assessments by Western officials that Putin had plans to swiftly take all of Ukraine, but failed to do so.

Russian troops — who expected to seize Kyiv within days — retreated from the capital in early April and refocused their offensive in Ukraine's eastern region.

Read the original article on Business Insider

[Moses]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-army-lost-191-volley-070611895.html

Russian army has lost 191 volley fire systems and 161 helicopters - General Staff

Since the beginning of the full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the army of the Russian Federation has lost 26,650 soldiers, 300 of them in the last 24 hours alone.

Source: data of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Details: The total combat losses of the Russian occupying forces from 24.02 to 12.05 were approximately: (with figures in brackets indicating fresh losses)

personnel - about 26650 (+300)

'''

special equipment - 41 (+0).

It is noted that the enemy’s greatest losses in the last 24 hours have been on the Kurakhiv front.

This data is being constantly updated.

It is as precise, as is precise "Kurakhiv front" - try to find this in Google... may be on Mars?

[Moses]

Euro today fell lower than 66 rubles at MOEX. It is lowest rate since 2017. US dollar now around 63.



Russia’s oil revenues are up 50% this year even as trade restrictions following the invasion of Ukraine spurred many refiners to shun its supplies, the International Energy Agency said.

Moscow earned roughly $20 billion each month in 2022 from combined sales of crude and products amounting to about 8 million barrels a day, the Paris-based IEA said in its monthly market report.

Russian shipments have continued to flow even as the European Union edges towards an import ban, and international oil majors such as Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE pledge to cease purchases. Asia has remained a keen customer, with China and India picking up cargoes no longer wanted in Europe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/russia-oil-revenue-up-50-this-year-despite-boycott-iea-says

[dab69]

Such concern about money.
Little thought to murderous actions of Putin.

What to expect from evil people...

[Dragonman]

=== In other words, no-one is buying rubles. ===

Yes-yes. No one buys. Exactly that why today Italian PM Drahi told today "to buy gas for rubles doesn't break sanctions". Exactly that why demands of rubles pushes rubles stronger. And off-shore demands are even stronger than on-shore. See Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-10/traders-prepare-to-ditch-moscow-ruble-rate-as-market-split-grows

Your quote are one month old, but situation changing every day. First it was "Nobody will buy gas, oil and so on", then was situation "Nobody will buy oil" - when EU realized what it can't survive without Russian gas. Late there was situation "Nobody will buy gas for rubles"...

Wait for 2-3 months. You will hear at first "nobody will buy Russian wheat". then it will be changed to "Nobody will buy Russian wheat for rubles".... and then again ruble will became stronger, because Russia is responsible for 25% of World wheat export, where prices for wheat are already 60% higher than in 2021...

I told in December yet, when here were a lot of gentleman with high razed chins and too much proud about own economy: nobody can exclude Russia from global economy - Russia is world global supplier on many critical markets, that why sanctions are supported only by 19% of World nations.

The full title of the Bloomberg report (which you didn't give) in your link is "Traders Prepare to Ditch Moscow Ruble Rate as Market Split Grows." The opening paragraphs read "Currency traders are preparing to jettison Russia’s local exchange rate for the ruble on some transactions, a sign of the growing split between the country’s domestic currency market and its international counterpart since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

The Trade Association for the Emerging Markets is recommending that, starting on June 6, traders use pricing data from WM/Refinitiv as a primary settlement rate option for some derivative contracts, according to an April 20 statement. That could come as a relief to traders who had questioned the reliability of the ruble’s foreign-exchange rate since Russia was slapped with wide-reaching sanctions and imposed capital controls after the invasion."

With regard to selling "Russian" wheat, I understand most of that is wheat looted from Ukraine - "Russians steal vast amounts of Ukrainian grain and equipment, threatening this year's harvest" (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/05/europe/russia-ukraine-grain-theft-cmd-intl/index.html). Dealing in stolen goods is a criminal offense in most countries, through probably not in Russia nowadays, given the reports of widespread looting by Russian troops.

If you read reports on PM Drahi's statement, it refers to oil companies opening ruble accounts with Russian Gazprombank, which will see their euro payment converted into rubles in line with Russia’s scheme to bypass sanctions. As I detailed in an earlier posting, Russia cannot access the euros because of sanctions. Moreover, as EU President Ursula von der Leyen noted, "To pay in rubles — if this is not foreseen in the contract — is a breach of our sanctions. Companies with such contracts should not accede to the Russian demands." The oil companies pay in euros, Gazprombank converts the euros into rubles (https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Italian-PM-Draghi-Now-Supports-Ruble-Payment-Scheme-for-Russian-Gas.html).

With regard to your final comment on only 19% of the world's nations, put that in perspective. In fact, The countries that have sanctioned Russia over Ukraine represent only 16% of the world’s population. Nearly one-third of the world’s population lives in a country where their government’s position is “neutral” according to the Economist classification, and led by India (which is heavily reliant on Russia for energy and arms). PR China leans toward Russia (although it has made an effort to retain some distance from it. Truly Kremlin-aligned countries are an exclusive club (such as North Korea, Syria, and Cuba, with just 3.9% of the world’s population and 2.6% of its GDP).

On the other hand, although the global population condemning Russia’s actions are in the minority, they represent the vast majority of the world’s economy. Seventy percent of global GDP belongs to countries supporting the West’s position, with 61% of the world’s GDP and 16% of its population belonging to countries actively condemning Russia. (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/countries-have-sanctioned-russia, May 10, 2022). Neutrality, by definition, does not imply support.

Also, you need to factor into sanctions on Russia new legislation in the west such as the UK's "Economic Crime Act," which became law in March 2022. The legislation:
1. creates a register of overseas ownership of UK land and property - with punishments for withholding details; 2. overhauls Unexplained Wealth Orders, and 3) makes it easier to prosecute anyone involved in sanctions-busting. All those Russian oligarchs with properties, etc., in the UK (and their children, who seem to prefer living outside Russia for some reason) are potential persons of interest under the Act. The Economic Crime Act targets people who manage properties within complicated offshore arrangements, even if they're not the actual beneficiary. Of course, Putin is one of the persons on interest.

[Dragonman]

Euro today fell lower than 66 rubles at MOEX. It is lowest rate since 2017. US dollar now around 63.

I presume you are watching the MOEX so carefully because you are buying Euros and US dollars? Oh, sorry, I forgot you can't, as the " Central Bank of the Russian Federation banned the sale of dollars and euros to individuals through bank cash desks and “exchangers” in April. And, as the US and the EU announced a complete cessation of supplies of cash dollars and euros to the country, those euros and dollars that are there now have rarity value (https://hindustannewshub.com/russia-ukraine-news/russians-will-be-fined-and-imprisoned-for-buying-and-selling-foreign-currency-from-hand-the-moscow-times/).

[Dodger]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-army-lost-191-volley-070611895.html

Russian army has lost 191 volley fire systems and 161 helicopters - General Staff

Since the beginning of the full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the army of the Russian Federation has lost 26,650 soldiers, 300 of them in the last 24 hours alone.

It would be helpful to see the losses on the Ukraine side for comparison purposes.

[Dodger]

President Sauli Niinistö, who leads Finland's foreign policy and is the supreme commander of the Finnish Defense Forces announced yesterday that a final decision has been made - and Finland would be applying to NATO immediately. This is supposed to be administered by this weekend - and, as expected, Sweden will be following suit.

Putin has already unleashed threats to Finland (more woof tickets) which have fallen on deaf ears. Both Finland and Sweden have made their points clear that the reason for joining the Alliance is due to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. It doesn't get much clearer than that!

NATO's defense has just got significantly stronger, and in President Niinisto's words..." Moscow only have themselves to blame."

I've been watching this development very closely because I really believe this is a pivotal moment in the war - and see it as "coup de grace" for Putin's strategy in the long-term.

Putin is watching 3 things happen simultaneously: 1) NATO is becoming larger and stronger, 2) His Military is taking heavy losses and can't create any "wins", and 3) His decisions have resulted in Russia's economy being thrown into a death-spiral. Regardless of what his ulterior motives are for continuing the war, or the strategy for supporting his motive(s), the fact remains that these 3 events are REAL and cannot be erased with propaganda, nor is there a light at the end of Putin's tunnel other than a very dark off-ramp leading to capitulation.

The bad news, the way this thing seems to be unfolding, is that Putin will probably keep his troops in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine until hell freezes over rather than capitulate and lose face. I imagine he see's the illegal annexing of the Donbas region as a basis for at least saying he "won" something.

Who do you think hates him more right now - the Ukrainian people, or his oligarchs?

[Dragonman]

Euro today fell lower than 66 rubles at MOEX. It is lowest rate since 2017. US dollar now around 63

Moses, why not quote the MOEX Russia Index (https://www.google.com/finance/quote/IMOEX:MCX?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwip9MTiodv3AhW3w4sBHaxEAn0Q3ecFegQIAxAY&window=MAX) directly, rather than the Forex figures? As I type this, it is at 2,297.89, down from a peak of 4,2168.63 on October 22, 2021, and way below the 3,637.38 of May 14, 2021.

[Dragonman]

It is as precise, as is precise "Kurakhiv front" - try to find this in Google... may be on Mars?

Moses, really, you should not criticize other non-native speakers of English given your own mistakes that posters so far have overlooked, e.g., "razen chins" in an earlier post for "raised chins." It is a misspelling of Kharkiv - see Original source https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/315216837458068.

More bad news for the Russian arms industry is contained in a report from the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute found that the conflict has damaged the reputation of Russia’s defense equipment, once a source of considerable revenue for the country. The Executive Summary reads:

Russia has been the largest exporter of arms to Southeast Asia over the past two decades but since 2014 the value of its defence sales to the region has fallen sharply.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will not only make it difficult for the country’s defense industry to revive sales but will likely lead to a further decline in arms exports to Southeast Asia.
Economic sanctions imposed by the United States, European and Asian countries will make it harder for Russian defense companies to conduct financial transactions while export controls will restrict their access to high-tech components.
The Russian armed forces’ poor performance on the battlefield has caused significant reputational damage to Russian-manufactured military hardware.
If Russia becomes more dependent on China for economic and military assistance, Beijing may apply pressure on Moscow to reduce sales of offensive weaponry to Vietnam.
The problems facing Russia’s defense-industrial sector will create market opportunities in Southeast Asia for other countries, including China.

Source: ISEAS Perspective 2022/47, 5 May 2022 at https://www.iseas.edu.sg/articles-commentaries/iseas-perspective/2022-47-the-russia-ukraine-war-and-its-potential-impact-on-russias-arms-sales-to-southeast-asia-by-ian-storey/. You can download the pdf for the full report.

[Moses]

With regard to selling "Russian" wheat, I understand most of that is wheat looted from Ukraine - "Russians steal vast amounts of Ukrainian grain and equipment, threatening this year's harvest" (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/05/europe/russia-ukraine-grain-theft-cmd-intl/index.html). Dealing in stolen goods is a criminal offense in most countries, through probably not in Russia nowadays, given the reports of widespread looting by Russian troops.



Bullshit. Russia is wheat world exporter #1 for decade and is "responsible" for almost 25% of export . #2 is USA with 13% of world export. Ukraine is #5.

[Dragonman]

Bullshit. Russia is wheat world exporter #1 for decade and is "responsible" for almost 25% of export . #2 is USA with 13% of world export. Ukraine is #5.

Another factually incorrect response.

A decade is 10 years, but reports from Russian sources suggest Russia did not become the world's major wheat exporter until much more recently than a decade ago. Russia is responsible for almost 24% (or 23.92%) of world wheat exports, with Canada and the USA combined responsible for 24.66% (https://beef2live.com/story-top-20-largest-wheat-exporters-world-0-206491, Rob Cook, May 12, 2022).

I suggest you read the English-language website from Russia Beyond (https://www.rbth.com/business/332948-russia-leading-wheat-exporter) for the report on November 3rd, 2020 by Alexei Lossan, entitled "How Russia became the world’s LEADING wheat exporter." In this report, it states: "The most important grain crop in the world is wheat and Russia is now one of the largest wheat suppliers in the world. “In terms of wheat production, last year (Comment, i.e., 2019) Russia became the third largest producer, after India and China,” says Dmitry Bedenkov, head of research at the Russ-Invest investment company. According to FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), in 2019, Russia was the world’s biggest wheat exporter, selling almost 34.5 million tons." The report also lists Russia's major wheat markets.

A non-Russian source, World Grain.com (https://www.world-grain.com/articles/13316-russia-forecast-to-remain-top-wheat-exporter), in an article entitled "Russia forecast to remain top wheat exporter," on February 21, 2020, by reporter Arvin Donley states: "Russia is poised to remain No. 1 in wheat exports in 2019-20 although production and shipments are forecast to decline slightly from the previous year, according to a Feb. 20 Global Agricultural Information Network report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA is projecting a decline in Russian wheat exports year on year from 35.7 million tonnes to 33.5 million. It would be well below Russia’s 2017-18 export total of 41.4 million tonnes. “Given global market conditions and the Russian crop forecast, it is expected that the Russian Federation will remain the world’s top wheat exporter,” the USDA said. If realized, it would be Russia’s third straight year as the world’s top wheat exporter."

Whether it is 2017-2018 or 2019 that Russia became the world's largest wheat exporter is not particularly relevant, as both dates are years short of a decade.

Another way to look at rankings is to consider the value of the exports in US dollars. Russian exports of 37,267,014 metric tons in 2020 was reported in FAO Corporate Statistical Database were worth USD 7,918,294, while the USA's somewhat smaller export volume (26,131,626 metric tons) was worth USD 6,318,111, and Canada's 26,110,509 metric tons were worth USD 6,317,889. Obviously, for purchasers, quality is worth more than quantity.

[cdnmatt]

Whew, busy 24 - 48 hours in the war. Apparently, those Western weapons are making quite the impact. There's so much, not sure where to begin.

The nearly entire armored batallion that was wiped out while trying to cross a platoon bridge? The landing ship in the Black Sea now on fire and being towed away? The fact that Russians are blowing up bridgers as they retreat from Kharkiv so the Ukraineians don't come after them? The ~22,000 Russian soldiers that might get cut off from being resupplied? The helicopters on Snake Island that are now rubble?

ANd more... lots to cover.

[Dragonman]

Bullshit. Russia is wheat world exporter #1 for decade and is "responsible" for almost 25% of export . #2 is USA with 13% of world export. Ukraine is #5.

PS. An S&P report by Sampad Nandy in February 2022 said "Russia's 2021-22 wheat exports fall 21% on year, prices decline" (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/agriculture/020122-russias-2021-22-wheat-exports-fall-21-on-year-prices-decline). It stated "Russia exported 23.6 million mt wheat between July 1 and Jan. 27 during the marketing year 2021-22 (July-June), down 21% year on year, while export prices declined $2 week on week, data from the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance showed Jan. 31." Among other data, the report stated:
1. "Russia's wheat output is expected to fall in MY 2021-22, due to adverse weather conditions, particularly dry and warm summers."
2. "Export prices of Russian wheat fell $11 over the past month, as the government's repeated interventions and escalating tension with Ukraine weighed on the prices.
3. "Russia introduced new export tax mechanisms last month, setting an export quota on wheat at 8 million mt over Feb. 15-June 30."

[Moses]

PS. An S&P report by Sampad Nandy in February 2022 said "Russia's 2021-22 wheat exports fall 21% on year, prices decline" (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/agriculture/020122-russias-2021-22-wheat-exports-fall-21-on-year-prices-decline). It stated "Russia exported 23.6 million mt wheat between July 1 and Jan. 27 during the marketing year 2021-22 (July-June), down 21% year on year, while export prices declined $2 week on week, data from the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance showed Jan. 31." Among other data, the report stated:
1. "Russia's wheat output is expected to fall in MY 2021-22, due to adverse weather conditions, particularly dry and warm summers."
2. "Export prices of Russian wheat fell $11 over the past month, as the government's repeated interventions and escalating tension with Ukraine weighed on the prices.
3. "Russia introduced new export tax mechanisms last month, setting an export quota on wheat at 8 million mt over Feb. 15-June 30."

India just announced: wheat export closed.

Russian forecast for 2022: highest yield in history - 87 mt.

"21% down" means nothing for first place: next one exporter - US - exports twice less.

[Moses]

Whew, busy 24 - 48 hours in the war. Apparently, those Western weapons are making quite the impact. There's so much, not sure where to begin.

The nearly entire armored batallion that was wiped out while trying to cross a platoon bridge? The landing ship in the Black Sea now on fire and being towed away? The fact that Russians are blowing up bridgers as they retreat from Kharkiv so the Ukraineians don't come after them? The ~22,000 Russian soldiers that might get cut off from being resupplied? The helicopters on Snake Island that are now rubble?

ANd more... lots to cover.

Helicopters - 5pcs, 10 Bayractars, 3 small ships, up to 40 soldiers - Ukrainian losses at May 9 at Zmeiniy (Snake). Zelenskiy wanted victory for propaganda and ordered retake island. Loudest fiasco.

[cdnmatt]

Helicopters - 5pcs, 10 Bayractars, 3 small ships, up to 40 soldiers - Ukrainian losses at May 9 at Zmeiniy (Snake). Zelenskiy wanted victory for propaganda and ordered retake island. Loudest fiasco.

I don't know, for what you guys assumed was going to be a 72 hour war, Russia really seems to be getting their ass handed to them.

And to think, at the beginning of the war troops went in packed with suits for their celebration parade in Kiev that was supposed to happen in mere days.

[Dragonman]

India just announced: wheat export closed.

Russian forecast for 2022: highest yield in history - 87 mt.

"21% down" means nothing for first place: next one exporter - US - exports twice less.

India cancelled its wheat exports in order to "salvage its falling inventories." “There is a sudden spike in the global prices of wheat arising out of many factors as a result of which the food security of India, neighboring and other vulnerable countries is at risk,” an official notification banning exports said. The notification was dated May 13, 2022.
(https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-prohibits-wheat-exports-with-immediate-effect-to-calm-local-prices-122051400133_1.html.)

The following report from S&P contains interesting information of how Russia arrived at its figures. Note that the the Russian figures include wheat from the Crimea and the Donbas regions, which are internationally recognized as illegally annexed Ukrainian territories. Note, too, that the expected yields are dependent on the weather.

"Improved Russian yields. The USDA is expecting Russian production at 80 million mt for MY 2022-23, up from 75.16 million mt, with a 7% improvement in yield outweighing a small decline in the planted area. It expects winter wheat to represent just under three quarters of the upcoming crop. The winter crop for MY 2021-22 suffered high levels of winterkill as a result of ice crusting, but the USDA said that this was less likely to affect the upcoming crop since satellite images showed "minimal periods of freeze/thaw/freeze events."
Prospects for the Russian crop were supported by favorable moisture in April, the USDA said, but it warned that "yield development will largely depend on May and June weather."
The USDA's estimate is below that of the Russian government, whose president Vladimir Putin on May 12 raised the prospect of a record crop in 2022, exceeding the 85.9 million mt from 2020. Putin told economic officials in Moscow that the government currently expects 87 million mt of wheat to be harvested. This figure is similar to agricultural consultancy Sovecon's estimate of 87.4 million mt in its April update. "Plants look good (almost) all over the country," said its head Andrey Sizov." (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/agriculture/051322-russia-talks-of-record-wheat-crop-while-world-mulls-output-fall).

The Russian government's official numbers include the territory of Crimea, unlike the USDA's. The Ukrainian government's statistics also exclude Crimea and the conflict zones in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

I imagine, too, that the yield depends on having people and machinery to harvest it. I understand Russian combine harvesters are built with CLASS technology, i.e, technology from a German company. Getting parts, etc., might be a problem. Replacing the dead and wounded killed in Ukraine might take longer.

[Dragonman]

Helicopters - 5pcs, 10 Bayractars, 3 small ships, up to 40 soldiers - Ukrainian losses at May 9 at Zmeiniy (Snake). Zelenskiy wanted victory for propaganda and ordered retake island. Loudest fiasco.

Are you citing Russian losses at Snake Island? Just Google "snake island latest news," and watch the latest videos of Russian losses on CNN. Any claims from Russian sources about Ukrainian losses are as believable as Russian statements that there were only 1,351 killed and 3,825 wounded between24 February and 25 March 2022. A CNN report from May 12 (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/13/europe/snake-island-ukraine-strategic-war-cmd-intl/index.html) shows a destroyed helicopter and a submerged landing craft.

A louder fiasco - Putin expected to take all Ukraine in one week. His troops are reported to have packed parade uniforms for a victory parade in Kyiv, expecting to be welcomed with open arms (https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-said-found-russian-parade-uniforms-left-behind-in-kyiv-2022-4), something that has not been denied.

The scaled-down May 9 Victory Day Parade - with no aircraft because of "bad weather," fewer tanks and marching troops, and Putin reportedly wearing a bullet proof vest (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=May+9+putin+flak+jacket) - demonstrated the dictionary meaning of "fiasco," i.e., "a complete failure, especially a ludicrous or humiliating one." I suspect Putin was reminded of the other leaders, such as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who have been killed by their troops at victory parades.