Sanctions against Russia

[willedoo]

There was some talk of them seeing if they can transfer Dutch Bushmasters there to expedite things. Presumably then later replace the Dutch ones from our stock.

[willedoo]

This is a good photo: a stray dog checking things out as Ukrainian forces clear the last Russians from Irpin.

 

[facthunter]

Not many weeks ago they were delayed with a serious brake problem. Who is going to service a few orphans?. Nev

[onetrack]

Nev, it was the new Hawkei (replacement for the Land Rovers) that had the brake problems - straight off the production line. The military refused to take delivery of them until Thales could offer assurances that the brake problems were fixed completely to the Armys satisfaction.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/hawkei-brake-safety-fears-thales-defence-force/100871924

[willedoo]

Belgorod, not far over the Russian Border, has been a major logistics hub for the Russian attacks in the north east of Ukraine. They are saying now that it was a fuel depot that was blown up. Russia is saying that Ukrainian helicopters did it. They must be ghost helicopters as the Russian Defence Minister previously announced they had totally destroyed Ukraine's air force and air defences.

[Marty_d]

54 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Nev, it was the new Hawkei (replacement for the Land Rovers) that had the brake problems - straight off the production line. The military refused to take delivery of them until Thales could offer assurances that the brake problems were fixed completely to the Armys satisfaction.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/hawkei-brake-safety-fears-thales-defence-force/100871924

I know someone who works for Thales.  The brake issue apparently wasn't serious and solved ages ago.  Just took the media a while to catch up.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Couldn't resist:

 

[willedoo]

This video has some news about the Antonov An-225. Also a brief view of the second partial airframe.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I found this an interesting video, and confirmed my beliefs on the money side of things. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at defence industry stocks, and noticed how they had all increased in value. Similarly, energy companies' stock values have been going up as well. Although, I think the video is slightly inaccurate as the west has already stopped buying large quantities, as India has stepped in to buy cheap Russian oil, and when roundly criticised, India responded with the usual, "well, we would be stupid not to" (a bit like Menzies selling pig iron saying, if we don't someone else will").

 

I was thinking large engineering firms will be next. If Ukraine come out of this with their territory more or less in tact, and the west are prepared to fund the rebuild, large engineering firms will probably be next. They need a hand, too..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgh8okR5Zbc

 

Darn it, as I posted, the video was removed!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[Jerry_Atrick]

Unf, without the video, the post can be confusing.

 

From the video, it made the point that while the west has given Ukraine around $1bn of military aid, by purchasing oil and gas from Russia, it has been giving the Rouskis over 100bn/year for it to build its military (and that for the grace of corruption, that military may have been very effective). Also, even after Russia invaded Ukraine, the west dilly-dallied with the oil and gas issue, and announced over a longer period of time (18 months I think), they will wind down their Russian purchases (although for gas, at least, the contracts look like at some stage having to be settled in Rubles, something of a red line for some reason in Euro nations). That will mean, despite the west's moral posturing at sanctioning Russia and trying to send it broke and disable it from waging war, they are still sending billions of dollars Russia's way.. because it could cost them votes. Also, war is good for the companies with the typically highest number/value of political donors, lobbyists, and employers of ex government/military officials.. fossil fuels and defence contractors. While the war continues, oil prices increase (it dips every so often when there are reports of possible peace talks, or it looks like either the Russians or Ukrainians will capitulate). Also, as the west supplies more weapons, supplies, and stocks to the Ukraine, and the war looks like it will continue, then defence profits increase (although, it is more about perception than reality). It noted that during the war in Afghanistan, the CEO from Northrop advanced his salary/bonuses from $2M/year to over $30m/year..

 

So, there's a hell of a lot of incentive for wars, and keeping the oil prices high. It notes that each of Russia's advanced guided missiles costs about $10M (or could have been $100M) each and apparently about 1,000 of them have been fired. Their tanks cost $8M each and they have lost a lot of them. Then the aircraft, cost of salaries, fuel, supplies, etc. - despite the sanctions, the west is still buying energy from Russia at a rate where the profits will buy them a tank every 20 minutes (so, around $8m per 20 minutes of profit). If the west really wanted to make it hard for the Rouski war machine, rather than depriving their population of food, they would deprive the administration of money to wage war by causing a collapse in the demand for oil, and therefore the prices.

 

And it estimates it wouldn't really be a big sacrifice - simply have a no car day every second day, requiring ride sharing. limiting the use of gas that would require people to put on a jumper indoors rather than in their bathers (well, not that bad, but for a country that should be used to the cold, the UK population have their homes stifling hot in winter). All this would drop demand enough to cause the price to re-balance. But, of course to do this would remove the boom to the western fossil fuel companies as well. And CEOs of all the energy companies at the moment would not want that. Nor would the CEOs of defence companies not want a major conflict somewhere, so seeing an early end to this one is not in their interests. And they are the two biggest lobbyists and senior ex government/military employers out there (financial services are in there, too, if a buck is to be made). Want to know why Germany and then wider Europe became so dependent on Russian supplies. Maybe the ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder becoming a Gazprom board member may have something (though I am sure not all) to do with it.

 

The sanctions punish the population;  reducing demand and prices will punish the regime. Though, it may cost some powerful private interests short term profits, and of course, there will be voters who believe in principles until it costs them...

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Here is the video this time..

 

 

[old man emu]

I don't know if this link is the translated version or not, but Google can translate it.

 

https://www.produktion.de/wirtschaft/das-sind-die-10-umsatzstaerksten-ruestungsunternehmen-der-welt-127.html

[nomadpete]

 

The above links tell a story. They are informative but not included in our news.

 

Sadly, OUR media - Merdok, Packer, and even our ABC - do not present this money trail perspective to the public.

 

It makes all the talk of sanctions against Russia sound like hollow rhetoric.

 

My conclusion from reading/listening to the two links above is :-

 

Sanctions are only reducing Russia's income by about 10%. Not enough to really bother Mr Putin. No governments seem willing to ask their voters whether they (we) are prepared to do a little genuine belt tightening of energy usage, for the greater good of influencing Russia to stop their land grab.

 

No governments want the voters to think too much about how much of their/our national expenditure is wasted on the arms industry, either.

 

No governments want to upset their greatest sponsors with real sanctions while there are record profits from arms sales and oil sales.

 

Western democracies go the great lengths to prevent voters from realising that our democracies suffer from greed and corruption just like the dictatorships and communist governments.

 

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by nomadpete
manual spellcheck carried out

[willedoo]

It must have been obvious to the Western governments that sanctions would not make Putin withdraw from Ukraine. Only the incompetence of his own army will bring that about. Something like 40% of Europe's energy comes from Russia, hence the sanction exemptions. America doesn't import much gas from Russia, and only about 400,000 barrels of oil per day, so it's relatively easy for the US to ban imports of Russian oil, gas and coal. The US still needs Russian uranium which has been exempted as far as I know.

 

I think one problem is that by the time the West weans itself off importing from Russia, the new pipeline to China will be finished, and the Russians will no longer need exports to Western nations. They could be backing themselves into a corner with China and end up almost totally dependent on the Chinese for economic survival. The Bear will become the Dragon's lapdog.

[nomadpete]

Wille, I am having trouble with my BS detector.

Media is filled with reports of atrocities in Ukraine. And peppered with pictures of destroyed buildings in cities. And pictures of destroyed armoured vehicles and tanks.

However, many of these pictures are constantly recycled. The text accompanying them frequently has an attached note "Reuters could not independently verify his account.". So I wonder where those pictures come from? In our past, news outlets often used 'borrowed' pictures to support their stories.

 

In this day of instant infomedia, every mobile phone makes a phone journalist, and we have high tech surveillance by drones, high res satellites, etc, yet don't we have a constant verified stream of information in this case?

 

Something doesn't feel right.

[willedoo]

2 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Wille, I am having trouble with my BS detector.

Media is filled with reports of atrocities in Ukraine. And peppered with pictures of destroyed buildings in cities. And pictures of destroyed armoured vehicles and tanks.

However, many of these pictures are constantly recycled. The text accompanying them frequently has an attached note "Reuters could not independently verify his account.". So I wonder where those pictures come from? In our past, news outlets often used 'borrowed' pictures to support their stories.

 

In this day of instant infomedia, every mobile phone makes a phone journalist, and we have high tech surveillance by drones, high res satellites, etc, yet don't we have a constant verified stream of information in this case?

 

Something doesn't feel right.

Always a problem in the fog of war - what to believe and what not to. The MSM uses a lot of repeated images and borrowed ones. There's so much happening that not much can be officially or independently verified. Social media has had a lot of content, a squillion times more than the MSM. Going by the amount of different footage I've seen of destroyed Russian forces, I tend to believe Ukraine's claim of close to 20,000 Russian troops lost, 600 plus tanks etc.. Most of what I've seen is footage of different scenes, rather than the MSM habit of using shots from different angles of the one scene to give the impression of multiple scenes. A bit like the massive cop car pile up in the Blues Brothers movie. In reality, probably only about ten stunt cars, but angled and repeated enough times to make it look much more.

 

There is no doubt a bit of BS involved, but how much is anyone's guess at this stage. One example of conflicting reports is a FB post I read, written by a Ukrainian regarding the civilian bodies found in the streets in Bucha. He claims the Russians left Bucha on the 30th. March, and that on the 31st., the Mayor of Bucha posted a video in YouTube announcing victory and that the Russians had stolen a goat and people's underwear (presumably from clotheslines), but no mention of bodies in the streets. The poster went on to write that no mention of bodies was made for the next two days, and that when the TV crews arrived, the bodies suddenly appeared on the streets. Also claimed that the Ukrainian National Guard did a clearance of the town on the 31st. and made no mention of bodies.

 

Meanwhile, authorities are claiming that satellite images show bodies in the streets during the period of Russian control of the town. All the images of the bodies that I've seen looked like they'd genuinely been laying there for some time. None of them looked like they'd been relocated for the cameras. That poster might be just relating something he's heard second hand, or maybe there was some degree of fishy propaganda involved.

 

Another example, a Ukrainian journalist I know of has said that regular troops from the Khabarovsk military unit committed the atrocities in Bucha, but the authorities are saying a Chechen unit had control of the town. My money would be on the Chechens, as they are Jihadists and are in Ukraine for the joy of killing. I don't know if anyone here has seen the battle footage the Chechens have released, but it's typical fanatical Jihadist stuff. Fanatical fighters, totally fearless, yelling out allahu akbar with every rocket or RPG fired, and laughing as they do it.

 

The whole thing is messed up and probably too early to get a good handle on what's really happened. Like Yugoslavia in the 90's, some of the facts took years to be told.

[nomadpete]

I'm not doubting that the 'operation' is a terrible war.

 

Thanks, Wille, it's nice to know it isn't just me.

In past wars, there were usually relatively independant reporters roaming around as well as the embeded journalists who were really propaganda outlets. But this war has so much unverified propaganda by both sides. It gets all too easy to feel like a spectator watching the footy and screaming from the sidelines for my favorite team to win.

So all those unverified contradictory reports get remixed (manipulated) by media outlets that have their own political motives (secondary propaganda).

 

Well, the only thing that I'm sure of, is that true reports are in the minority.

[willedoo]

Often press will report in a way that they don't specifically say something, but will imply a certain thing by the way it is written. One example is a photo of a mass grave, reportedly in Bucha. It has an Associated Press watermark. One news outlet seemed to imply that it was a mass grave of civilians discovered after the Russians had left. That left a question as the body bags in the trench were brand new, with not a bit of dirt on them.

 

Another outlet simply labelled the photo as journalists standing by a mass grave in Bucha. From that, you could possibly assume that the new body bags had been filled by bodies found by the liberating Ukrainian forces and were about to be buried. One photo with two possible explanations, depending on who writes it up. The truth was probably a mixture of the two, ie: a half filled mass grave left by the Russians, and used by the liberators as well to later bury bodies found after the Russians had left, hence the brand new body bags.

 

I think all the evidence is there, but the standard of journalism reporting it can be a bit lax. Both Russia and Ukraine have their propaganda machines working overtime, but the general consensus is that Ukraine is winning the information war. Meaning that Ukraine is believed, and Russia is not. The Russians have lied so much before and during the invasion that they have blown any credibility in the world's eyes. That gives Ukraine a free kick.

[kgwilson]

It has been said for at least a hundred years that "the first casualty of war is the truth". Every war has been filled with atrocities, cover ups, and propaganda from all sides. The Germans had been murdering Jews, intellectuals, homosexuals, gypsies and anyone considered non Aryan since the early 1930s yet not much got through the wall of misinformation and into the public eye of the rest of the western world. When some of it did get published during the war it was mostly ignored.

 

The allies were genuinely shocked when the concentration camps were eventually liberated even though information had been filtering through to them for the entire war. After the main Nuremburg trials there were thousands of ex Nazis lined up for trial but the British and American governments didn't have the stomach to push it through and a huge number were just let go to integrate back into society in the late 40s and early 50s.

 

The aftermath of this conflict will drag on for years and there will be numerous perpetrators who get away scot-free. It is not right and downright disgusting but that is just the way it is and will be.

[willedoo]

The hacker group Anonymous have said they've leaked the personal data of 120,000 Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.

[willedoo]

Anti-Kremlinites are pushing for a new Russian flag, removing the blood red from the tricolour. First photo is a recent demonstration by Russians in exile and others in Prague.

 

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, willedoo said:

a half filled mass grave left by the Russians

That defies logic. One mob comes barging in, blowing the crap out of the other mob's country and people. Why would the first mob bother to bury the opposition? Better to leave them to rot in full sight, sending the message, "You're next!"  Surely not to hide bodies, because we know from wars of the 20th Century that there is always someone left to tell where the bodies are. Maybe the older bodies are those of the invader's troops. You might not have any respect for the bodies of your enemy, but can you forget to respect those who died for the 'just cause"?

[willedoo]

38 minutes ago, old man emu said:

That defies logic. One mob comes barging in, blowing the crap out of the other mob's country and people. Why would the first mob bother to bury the opposition? Better to leave them to rot in full sight, sending the message, "You're next!"  Surely not to hide bodies, because we know from wars of the 20th Century that there is always someone left to tell where the bodies are. Maybe the older bodies are those of the invader's troops. You might not have any respect for the bodies of your enemy, but can you forget to respect those who died for the 'just cause"?

Another way of looking at it, the mass graves could well contain dead Ukrainian troops, civilians, and Russian troops killed in the initial fighting to take the town. The Russians occupied the town for quite a while, and would logically have buried any dead to cut down on the smell. It would be very unpleasant to occupy an area for any length of time with exposed, rotting bodies everywhere. The trenches were dug with excavators, and logically, they wouldn't be back filled right to ground level as it would waste space. I would think they would only cover them with enough dirt for hygiene, in other words, a work in progress, filling in as needed. That would explain why the liberators found half filled trenches and excavations.

 

Think of it this way ome, how would you enjoy breakfast if you had decomposing bodies outside your place. Rather than defy logic, I think any logical response would be to cover the dead up. Your theory would be ok if the Russians just breezed through town and left, but they were there occupying for a long time. We all know what it smells like driving past a wild pig roadkill on the side of the road, so multiply that many times over and there's a lot of incentive to bury them. I'd say the bodies found in the streets were only from the last days of occupation, left there as the Russians were pushed back.

[willedoo]

Looking at this photo of a Ukrainian sunflower field, it makes you think scenes like this were the inspiration for the Ukrainian national flag. Or is it just coincidence?

 

[willedoo]

This photo is another example where lazy journalism can distort the truth. When I first saw the photo, in the news article it was reported to be Ukrainian servicemen killed in action. The next time I saw it in another news outlet it was correctly captioned as Ukrainian soldiers under fire and sheltering behind a wall.

 

As far as I know, the AK rifles can handle a fair bit of rough and tumble and being dropped in the dirt, as seen in the photo. Bigger tolerances giving more reliability, less accuracy. I think our Owen gun had a similar reputation. It's been said that the WW2 Diggers liked the Owen for that reason, that it could handle a fair bit of dirt and mud without jamming.