Sanctions against Russia

[willedoo]

The Russian parliament has passed what they call 'Special Economic Measures' for their 'Special Military Operation'. They must think everything's very special.

 

The new laws enable the government to buy from one supplier without letting tenders. It also can compel companies to sell to the Ministry of Defence, and to force workers to work overtime.

[willedoo]

There are reports that in the last few days, the Russians have lost ten major ammunition dumps to Ukrainian missiles, as well as several oil depots and a dozen command centres. Photo is of the ammunition storage at Nova Khakova going off with a bang. It's in the south on the Dnieper River upstream from Kherson.

[onetrack]

Surely it must be about time a massive explosion hit a Russian armaments factory, or a Russian gas pipeline, or a Russian oil refinery??

[facthunter]

 

It MAY be Potassium Nitrate (fertiliser) as has been stated.  Nev

[Yenn]

That is saltpetre used for making gunpowder. I don't know if it is anywhere near as dangerous as ammonium nitrate, which is used for mining blasting and also can cool beer. Add water to ammonium nitrate and it is a super cooler. Add oil fuel and it is a super explosive.

[spacesailor]

Most things are ' explosive ' in the right environment,  sugar, sawdust, bleach, metal filings. 

SO

Be careful & clean your workbench, ( a utube vid shows a vice being moved by the muck exploding ) .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Wheat dust also. Steel wool is ok for starting a fire with a car battery supply.   Did all my rock blasting with gelignite and detonators Fuse and electric. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I'd like willedoos opinion on whether the fuel depot explosion was caused by ukranian sympathisers or by the generals who had stolen all the fuel and wanted a fire to cover up their theft.

[willedoo]

23 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I'd like willedoos opinion on whether the fuel depot explosion was caused by ukranian sympathisers or by the generals who had stolen all the fuel and wanted a fire to cover up their theft.

Bruce, I guess it would depend on which explosion you're referring to. There's been a lot of them in the past week and they're still happening almost daily. With the explosion (pictured in an above post) at Nova Khakova, most sources are saying it was hit with Ukrainian HIMARS missiles. It appears to have been a fertilizer warehouse complex from some reports. I've seen the aftermath photos and the buildings had an agricultural company name on them, so the fertilizer story might be right.

 

I think it was a mix of both - Russian ammunition stored at a fertilizer plant, with the whole lot going up. There's video footage of it all going up, and there was definitely a lot of varied munitions among it. Normally you would think nobody would be stupid enough to make an ammo dump at a fertilizer warehouse, but the Russians are. One of the theories I read about why the Russians are not dispersing their ammo dumps into smaller, more spread out facilities, is that they have a big shortage of intermediate ranked officers and senior NCO's. In other words, a big gap between the higher up brass and the lowly grunts. They just don't have the people to organise and administer smaller, more numerous dumps, so they have to store it all in one place making it vulnerable to  Ukrainian missile attacks.

 

The Russians are going to have a hard time with the level of partisan activity in the south, for sure. I recon out of all the fires and explosions, the theory of the generals covering up theft would fit in somewhere. It might explain some of the warehouse fires in Russia as well. A lot of it in Russia has been put down to either Ukrainian agents or Russian dissidents working against the government. But it makes sense that corrupt senior officers would preempt getting found out by torching the evidence.

[willedoo]

What a bunch of suckers.

 

Photo is typical of the Z Shirt wearing morons that make up Putin's public support base. On the evolutionary scale, they are on a par with Trump's Proud Boys. All you need is a low IQ, poor, uneducated demographic, add a bit of good old war to appeal to their tribalism, and you've got them hook, line and sinker dancing around the patriotic pole. What a sad and sorry pile of F#wits.

[willedoo]

In the time ahead, it will be interesting to see how Russia keeps up the amount of gear they will need. They have a big drone shortage, but there's reports that Iran is about to supply them with several hundred military grade drones. It's a significant amount considering that drones are one of the primary weapons in this war.

 

I forget their name, but the mob who do the annual global force structure report said Russia started the war with about 3,300 operational main battle tanks as their inventory for the entire country's army. So far, they've lost around a third of them. They have many thousands more in storage, but it's debatable how many they will be able to re-activate. One reason given for the amount of older T-62 tanks being shipped to the Ukraine front, is that their technology is simple, meaning less parts have been stolen from them. The T-72 and T-80 variants in storage have reportedly had a lot of electronics and valuable components stolen, making it difficult to rebuild them.

 

In the long run it might not matter how many tanks Putin sends, as it's not really a tank war. Most of them will be scrap metal before long. It's more predominantly an artillery and drone war. The tanks are useless against drone corrected long range artillery. Tanks are more suited to WW2. They've even lost their street fighting advantage with all the man portable anti tank weapons available today.

[spacesailor]

IF !.

Putins war goes awry, they will have to go " cap in hand " , for ' welfare payments from the west. LoL

I wouldn,t give them a cent.

Imagine the red cross knocking on Your door collecting for those starving  sods. 

Why is it, our ex allies are now our enemies. 

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

The Enemy of MY enemy is my friend.  (Briefly). Nev

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

The Enemy of MY enemy is my friend.  (Briefly). Nev

I think that basically sums up the WW2 relationship with them.

[Old Koreelah]

 

Over the centuries, Britain has switched alliances with European powers in order to prevent one nation becoming too powerful. She sided with the Germans agains the French, then with the French against the Germans. She has allied with Turkey against the Russians and with Russia against the Turks.  

Britain has also fought wars against the USA. Japan has been allied to Britain for most of the time since it opened to the world.

 

Few alliances last even a century; Perhaps the most enduring is between Britain and Portugal. (https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/articles/country-britains-oldest-ally-heres/)

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

In the great patriotic war ( ww2) the Soviet Union was a recipient of lend-lease US weapons. I wonder how much difference this made.

Well they are on the other side now, and I think they are finding out it made quite a big difference.

 

[facthunter]

Including Bell Aircobra's and Indian741's. Nev

[Old Koreelah]

29 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

In the great patriotic war ( ww2) the Soviet Union was a recipient of lend-lease US weapons. I wonder how much difference this made.

Well they are on the other side now, and I think they are finding out it made quite a big difference.

 

There is no doubt that aid from the western allies greatly helped USSR’s war effort, but let’s not forget their enormous local production.

I can’t find it now, but I’ve read a source which claimed the Soviets produced more trucks than were provided by Canada and the US. Their output of steel, munitions, etc. was stupendous, especially given they had to relocate most of their factories. 

[facthunter]

Scorched earth policy, the fierce winter and a lot of TOUGH tanks helped. They lost 20 million people.

[onetrack]

This is an interesting (and very recent) interview with the Russian refugee oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He says the West and NATO countries need to be very aware, that in dealing with Putin, they're dealing with a criminal, and criminals operate differently to the rest of us. 

Mikhail Khodorkovsky is convinced that if the Western countries and NATO countries do not stand up to Putin with a vengeance that only a criminal understands, then Putin will almost certainly launch an attack on a NATO country.

I trust the Western and NATO leaders have a concrete plan in place with some major retribution planned for Putin and Russia, if Putin does carry out such an attack. But I fear the Western and NATO leaders are too scared to stand up to the Russian school bully.

 

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Khodorkovsky is no saint, either.. And I urge everyone to read Kelptopia, where he is featured quite a bit. By the way, there were a couple of Ukranians who were in there, as well..

 

From the moment that this war started, after many were mocking Biden's warnings (and his accurate portrayal that iff Russia did invade, the US wouldn't come after them), I have personally been of the opinion that NATO should have established a no-fly zone over the western part of Ukraine to protect "unintential" friendly fire to NATO members.

 

Europe has again shown its lack of a spine.. Yes, winter this year, and now what looks liek next year would require people to don a jumper in their home.. boo hoo.. In the mean time, Putin is emboldened.

 

It would be easy to go after Putin and his cronies.. except... there is a slight curve ball in all this.. China.. The problem is, if NATO decides to go all hawkish with Russia, this will give a window of opportunity for China to strike - and well beyond Taiwan. And to be fair, I am not sure the US, with Australia as a satellite state, would be able to divert enough resources to beat China at the moment, if the US (and the rest of the NATO countries) is engaged in a battle with Russia.

 

And even then, we are forgetting three other nuclear powers.. North Korea (who knows what the f-bomb they will do),  Pakistan, and, sadly, India, which in the Ukraine conflict has shown it will take whatever opportunities it can, regardless of the issues and causes at stake. It has opted to purchase "cheap" Russian oil.. At the same time, we have expatriated millions of western tech jobs there.. thanks, fellas!

 

A few years ago, the Skipols were poisoned with Novachok (sp?). They survived. The UK's most useless PM, Theresa May, went down to Salisbury to high-5 the locals in holding those to account, but despite finding those who should have been held to account, nothing was done. Like the rest of Europe, "let's not poke the mad bear." 

 

Personally, I have been hawkish since Feb 23.. I agree with Khodorkovsky - if you don't show Putin strength, you invite more problems. Where I come from, if you have a mad animal, you shoot it. Yes, invading Russia would be as problematic as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Personally, I don't believe Putin believed it would be a walk in the park and Ukrainians would be throwing themselves at the feet of Russian invaders.. But I think he didn't expect the response, as tepid as it is, from the west.

 

In short, unless we stand up to Russia, and to be honest, stop buying Chinese products (or buying other countries products that stuff their products with Chinese parts), we are as much to blame as anyone else.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Some of us don't like being the US's best friend. Personally, I would make thousands of nukes from our abundant uranium and put one each  into Jabiru-engined drones guided by old-fashioned gyro stuff which didn't need GPS.

These drones would skim the wave-tops till they got to wherever. They wouldn't need return fuel.

Dirty bombs would fill in till we got the real ones.

 

[willedoo]

7 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Khodorkovsky is no saint, either..

Truer words have never been spoken.

[facthunter]

Takes BAD guys to know bad guys.  Probably only the TOUGH survive in some places. When's it been easy for the average Russian? Nev

[Old Koreelah]

7 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Khodorkovsky is no saint, either.. And I urge everyone to read Kelptopia, where he is featured quite a bit. By the way, there were a couple of Ukranians who were in there, as well..

No doubt true, Jerry. Thoughout history, we have seen rapid changes in alliances; villains suddenly become besties. After Pearl Harbour America transformed the mass murderer Stalin into our friend “Uncle Joe”.  

 

7 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

…if NATO decides to go all hawkish with Russia, this will give a window of opportunity for China to strike - and well beyond Taiwan. And to be fair, I am not sure the US, with Australia as a satellite state, would be able to divert enough resources to beat China at the moment, if the US (and the rest of the NATO countries) is engaged in a battle with Russia.

China has already warned Australia off it’s patch; the recent very aggressive action by one of their warplanes came close to disabling our surveillance aircraft. Even more worrying, this appears to have happened much closer to the Philippines than to the islands that China claims.

I fear China will not risk downing an American aircraft, but ships and aircraft of a small nation like Australia will be specifically targeted. How would our American allies respond?

 

7 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

In short, unless we stand up to Russia, and to be honest, stop buying Chinese products (or buying other countries products that stuff their products with Chinese parts), we are as much to blame as anyone else.

I totally agree, but we have already lost that battle; most western democracies have transferred their manufacturing base to China.