Sanctions against Russia

[facthunter]

Bad management of "situational awareness' factors that should have been anticipated and covered by suitable procedures.    Wasteful and demoralising.  Nev

[willedoo]

On 16/01/2024 at 9:49 PM, onetrack said:

Friendly fire is simply sheer unadulterated and undisciplined panic on the part of troops, unable to recognise friend from foe, and shooting at anything that moves. The Yanks did a lot of it in Vietnam.

There was no shortage of it in WW2 as well. My dad's mob was strafed by an American fighter on the first day of the Balikpapan landings. I'd have to drag out the book on the battalion history to check, but from memory there was at least one bloke wounded.

[willedoo]

There must be a lot of legal and logistical reasons why some countries are so slow to ban imports of Russian energy. Maybe it's the price they've paid for being energy dependent on Russia. After almost two years of war, Poland and the Baltic states have proposed a ban on Russian LNG and aluminium imports be included in the 13th package of sanctions being discussed in the EU. The only reason they need a 13th. round of sanctions is that the previous 12 were too weak. Same old shite, pretending they are arming Ukraine while providing Russia with money to fund the war.

[willedoo]

The Russians are saying that their Ilyushin 76 transport plane that was shot down was carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs who were to be swapped in a prisoner exchange at the border yesterday. The Ukrainian government has confirmed that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place, but at this stage not many facts are known about the incident.

[onetrack]

I'll wager the Russians planned on sending the Ukrainian POW's to their deaths, knowing full well that Russian transport aircraft are highly likely to be shot down by the Ukrainians. What reason would POW's need to be repatriated by air?

[willedoo]

A lot of things coming out on social media point to the whole thing being a bit suspect. First, the Il-76 flew in to Belgorod from either Iran or the Russian air base in Syria. It was reportedly shot down after taking off from Belgorod in a north east direction away from Ukraine. The exchange was to take place at the border which has no facilities for landing a transport plane, so prisoners could not be flown to the exchange area.

 

The Russians claim sixty five Ukrainian prisoners were on board along with seven crew members and three guards. As was pointed out, three guards for sixty five prisoners breaks all normal protocol. Previous swaps of that size would be accompanied by about twenty guards. Photos and footage of the crash site are showing no sign of seventy five bodies on the ground. The Russians are saying that the bodies were found 1.5 to 2 kilometers away. The problem with that story is that phone video footage of the plane going down shows the fuselage intact until impact.

 

The Russians have released a list of what they claim to be the names of the Ukrainian POWs on board. At least 17 on that list have been confirmed as having already been exchanged earlier this month. If there were no POWs on board, the Russians will obviously hold back any that were to be exchanged in order to try and back their story.

Edited January 25 by willedoo

[kgwilson]

Russia seems to do this all the time. Make up a story that has absolutely no basis in fact and is easily debunked but the Russian public are fed their official line and anything to the contrary is banned from publication.

[onetrack]

It'll be too easy for Russia to produce a list of Ukrainian POW's that were actually previously killed in captivity, either on purpose, or via extreme torture - then tell the world they were all on that aircraft.

[willedoo]

Igor Girkin got a sentence of four years in prison for extremism (criticising the authorities). At least it's better than the life sentence awaiting him for the MH17 shootdown should he ever leave Russia's borders.

[willedoo]

It looks like Ukraine might be getting America's new Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) fairly soon. It's a 250lb. bomb with a range of 150klm..

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/30/new-us-made-longer-range-bomb-expected-to-arrive-as-soon-wednesday-in-ukraine-00138566

[red750]

Ukraine turned down our offer of Classic Mirages as "flying scrap".

[willedoo]

2 hours ago, red750 said:

Ukraine turned down our offer of Classic Mirages as "flying scrap".

Hornets, not Mirages.

[red750]

Oops...my bad. Thanks willie.

[willedoo]

1 minute ago, red750 said:

Oops...my bad. Thanks willie.

I thought you'd made a typo. The term Classic is often made as the distinction between the original Hornets and the Super Hornets. Legacy Hornets is another term used for the old ones.

[willedoo]

We've got a Mirage at the local air museum. From memory, I think it came from a museum in South Australia that closed down. A very pointy looking aeroplane.

[willedoo]

I can't say that I blame the Ukrainians for not wanting our old Hornets. There would be a huge amount of work, expense and logistics setting up a couple of Hornet squadrons when they are converting to F-16's anyway. By the time pilots and ground crew were trained and logistic supply and maintenance facilities set up, it would probably be more of a burden than a help given the timeline of things with the F-16. It's always difficult to operate two different platforms.

[kgwilson]

They would have been happy with the Taipans but we won't give them those. The MH90 is a good helicopter but our military got hold of it and made a pigs ear out of it

[red750]

I heard that the reason they didn't get the Taipans was that they didn't complete the paperwork.

[willedoo]

The age of the Hornets might have been a factor as well. They were upgraded in the late 90's to extend their life to planned retirement in 2015. When the F-35 was a no-show, a lot of them were refitted to push on to 2020. They arrived here from 1984 to 1990, so it makes you wonder how much life the airframes would have left in them if they went to Ukraine. Their carrier strength landing gear would have been good for Ukraine's rough Soviet era strips.

[kgwilson]

They could have filled them with high explosive and used them once as a super high speed drone. Just an initial setup and course programmed in to them. No maintenance required. The Kremlin would be a worthy target or even one of Putins mansions.

Edited February 1 by kgwilson

[willedoo]

It makes you wonder about the Russian air defences when Ukrainian drones can travel hundreds of kilometres into Russian territory and hit the target. It's not good advertising for the Russian arms export industry. They might keep their third world customers due to easy finance and no questions asked, but the high end of the market is getting a bit skittish about ordering any more Russian gear after the Ukraine war experience. The Russians were probably hoping to showcase some of their equipment, but now the world can see it's vulnerabilities.

 

 

[willedoo]

The Ukrainians have sunk the missile carrying corvette 'Ivanovets'. To date, they've sunk around 20% of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

 

[willedoo]

It looks like the kill on the Ivanovets was fairly dramatic. It was attacked by a group of naval drones with at least four scoring hits. The first two hit the port and starboard sides of the stern, taking out the propellers. The third drone ripped a tear in the port side of the hull. The fourth drone directed into the hole made by the third drone, with the resulting explosion setting off the ship's four missiles and blowing the ship up. It would be unlikely there were any survivors. It's no wonder the Russian press is still not reporting it. The spin doctors will be up for a second night in a row.

 

Edited February 2 by willedoo

[onetrack]

Bit of a shame it wasn't a much larger Russian vessel.

[willedoo]

17 hours ago, onetrack said:

Bit of a shame it wasn't a much larger Russian vessel.

The guided missile frigates would be a good target. They've still got three frigates operating in the Black Sea, plus another being refitted after an earlier drone attack. The other two Black Sea Fleet frigates are on duty in the Mediterranean.