is there any signs that this might end soon?
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
- Start date
No it's not likelier. It actually won't help them much on the battlefield unless they use a lot of them. It will also put them in total isolation internationally and that would be the least of their problems since the likehood of nato stepping in increases dramatically.
All of this assumes some sort of rationality left in Putin and the few he seeks advice from. I think they'd prefer having total control over Russia and spinning some excuse as always than being turned to glass or blown to pieces.
None that I can see.
Given the amount of NATO weapons flooding into Ukraine, its likely to continue until Putin finds a way to slither out of it without looking like a loser.
Not really, best we can hope for is a sudden collapse of the Russian offensive if losses really do go past a line of what is sustainable coupled with supply shortages and troop disobedience. With all the new gear Ukraine will be employing in the coming weeks maybe there is a slight chance of something along these lines? Still very wishful thinking at this point though.
Russian losses are already beyond sustainable. And maybe even more crucial, the only stuff they have as replacements is Soviet scrap out of long term storage.
Ukrainian material losses are replaced by modern Western technology which will make the battles even harder for the Russians.
Ukraine will win the conventional war, there is very little Russia can do against that.
US Def Dept really putting their thesauruses to good use.
At least, you can feel for some reason that upgrades cover more or less all equipment used by US forces or any top tier Western army. What you see at home can and will likely be deployed abroad if necessary; it is what it is. The discrepancy between what is used on the field operations and what is displayed in Moscow is really stark though.
Speaking of the scaling down of the parade compared to previous pre-COVID years, this Newsweek article might explain why. Russia is spending $900 million daily in this war.
Which is mindboggling when you think about it, and suggests it is unsustainable given their limited savings.
Very true, but the original M1 Abrams is a 3rd Generation MBT, while the T-72 is a 2nd Generation MBT.
The T-14 is a 4th generation MBT, but they'll never be able to make enough of them to matter. They've only got about 350-500 active (depending on how many they've pulled out of reserve) 3rd Generation T-90s... the US Army has 400 M1 Abrams SEPv3's, which are our 4th Generation tanks.
One Side Knows How To Fight A War, And It’s Not Russia:
https://10ztalk.com/2022/05/09/one-side-knows-how-to-fight-a-war-and-its-not-russia/
https://10ztalk.com/2022/05/09/one-side-knows-how-to-fight-a-war-and-its-not-russia/
That story is truly weird - went to be treated by a shaman with the poison from a toad.
Sounds like Nacho Vidal.
Peter Zeihan on Russian oil production being halved by the end of the year. Starting at 10:50 mark he discusses what happened when demand fell at the end of the Soviet Union:
"The Russians at that point were producing roughly 11 million barrels a day of crude, and when internal demand dropped, and there wasn't sufficient external demand to make up the difference, pressure started building up back through the pipes to the well head. And when it reached the well head the Russians had a very simple choice to make: do we keep running it and risk the entire pipe system busting, and having leaks the entire 4,000 km length of the pipes or do we shut it in? So they shut it in.
"But Russia's oil production is in the permafrost, so the pipes go down through that frozen layer. As long as the liquid is moving that's not a problem, but once it stopped it started to expand a little bit, and it busts the rivets and it busts the pipes. So all the wells that were shut down in the late 80s, early 90s were shut down forever.
"We're starting to see that now, a situation where the pipes are backing up, refineries are going offline because they don't have anywhere to sell the crude to. And very soon, certainly within 2 months (said 2 weeks ago) the Russians are going to have to shut in production, and that production will be gone for decades. Because the last time this happened in 1988-92, they didn't get it back up online until this last December. So either way, the world is going to have to get used to 4-5 million barrels per day of less of Russian crude later this year."
This may explain part of the Russian threats to cut off oil. If they're gonna lose it anyway, why not threaten to take it away and see if that moves the political needle. Sounds exactly like how Putin operates according to Vexler. And may explain why they cut off Bulgaria though it seemed a strange political choice. But they're not worried about manipulating the politics of Bulgaria as much as Germany.
"The Russians at that point were producing roughly 11 million barrels a day of crude, and when internal demand dropped, and there wasn't sufficient external demand to make up the difference, pressure started building up back through the pipes to the well head. And when it reached the well head the Russians had a very simple choice to make: do we keep running it and risk the entire pipe system busting, and having leaks the entire 4,000 km length of the pipes or do we shut it in? So they shut it in.
"But Russia's oil production is in the permafrost, so the pipes go down through that frozen layer. As long as the liquid is moving that's not a problem, but once it stopped it started to expand a little bit, and it busts the rivets and it busts the pipes. So all the wells that were shut down in the late 80s, early 90s were shut down forever.
"We're starting to see that now, a situation where the pipes are backing up, refineries are going offline because they don't have anywhere to sell the crude to. And very soon, certainly within 2 months (said 2 weeks ago) the Russians are going to have to shut in production, and that production will be gone for decades. Because the last time this happened in 1988-92, they didn't get it back up online until this last December. So either way, the world is going to have to get used to 4-5 million barrels per day of less of Russian crude later this year."
This may explain part of the Russian threats to cut off oil. If they're gonna lose it anyway, why not threaten to take it away and see if that moves the political needle. Sounds exactly like how Putin operates according to Vexler. And may explain why they cut off Bulgaria though it seemed a strange political choice. But they're not worried about manipulating the politics of Bulgaria as much as Germany.
I couldn’t agree more with this. It is absolutely mind boggling that Ukraine still has jets & drones in the air.
A clip from Russian TV (probably posted here?) had a commentator talking about crowdfunding for commercial drones to be delivered to the front. I so hope that’s true.
It seems keeping UA supplied with the means to compete in the air, be it drones or otherwise, is one of the most crucial components for them to be able to continue to turn the tide.
The fact that they undertook low level bombing runs on Snake Island in broad daylight with seeming impunity is laughable. They did appear to fire off some chaff, but that was probably already part of the mission.
Not related to the conflict except for the slight topic deviation of May 9.
Bruh.
Bruh.
It’s actually incredibly impressive that they still have a functional WWI / Interwar tank.
However, there are other reports that Russia gets more money from oil now because of higher prices, so they don't need their savings, actually they may be making money since European consumption hasn't decreased that much.
Russia's entire federal budget for 2020 was around 280 billion dollars. Even without any sanctions and without other expenses than military, making money with those numbers (obviously with a big assumption that they are accurate) would be completely out of the question.
But again, if they can't access payments in euros, then that's not money they can use now to finance this war. Which is a nice thought.
Last edited:
Some more humanity in the midst of the insanity. There are a lot of heroes under the radar.
This cat deserves NPP consideration, definitely a nomination (although those are relatively simple to achieve).
Do you have any articles that can clearly verify this?
What I have read in WSJ points to the opposite. For example:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-oil-flows-but-increasingly-under-the-radar-11650541684
No mention of "Russians can't access payments".
It does not seem reasonable to me that the Russians, or anyone, would deliver anything without being able to access payments for that.
Last edited:
For sure he does.
I've done some searching, but I can only find a few articles that all go back to the same study by that think tank. However, I also found another article from the same Dutch newspaper (link) where the discuss this a little further, and reference Putin and Scholz both separately mentioning that Putin cannot access this money, with Putin saying that he needs those payments in rubles because payments in euros get frozen. So there really does seem to be something to it.