Sanctions against Russia

[facthunter]

By Gum, you may be right, so let's progress to the Putins Face toilet paper. There's money to be made there.   Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I would treat the russians who surrendered to a wonderful experience of life as an oligarch. This would be achieved with confiscated oligarch's mansions, food and chefs. Yep, Ukrainian oligarchs too.

Then they would be repatriated after a few weeks of this. The aim would be to encourage them to surrender instead of fighting.

[onetrack]

The writer of the article below summarises Russia's huge problems in trying to gain a successful outcome to the "Special Ukrainian Military Operation".

 

It is facing unparalleled world-wide condemnation - it is suffering from declining income as gas sales reduce - it is being burdened with massively increasing military costs of running the Ukrainian Operation - it has underestimated the other European countries ability and willingness to divest themselves of reliance on Russian energy sources - and its propaganda effectiveness within Russia is being undermined by returning soldiers, who tell of Russian military disasters, massive losses, and incompetence.

 

The bottom line is Putin is now banking on a "long war", calculating that they can wear down the Ukraine with attrition and war-weariness - when the opposite is more likely to be the case, with Russia being the first to suffer from attrition and war-weariness, aided by a decaying economy, which will only make life tougher for the average Russian.

 

https://blogs.prio.org/2022/08/putins-next-miscalculation-russias-readiness-for-a-long-war/

[facthunter]

The Ukranians will be motivated and improvise while the Paid soldiers of the Putin Brigade will continue to suffer low morale, leadership issues and supply problems.. People will fight for their own territory and way of life when it's threatened. externally. .Putin's stuffed this one up and that will become more obvious. .   Nev

[willedoo]

[willedoo]

Looks like Russia's commander in chief really means business now. They've given Putler his own camo jacket to wear.

https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/1567091333986140161

 

For all his faults, at least he knows how to hold the binoculars the right way up. Not so for his clown mate Dmitry Medvedev, former president, pm, and now deputy chief of the security council. Note the expression on the out of focus soldier in the background. Obviously thinking "what's this f-wit doing".

Edited September 7, 2022 by willedoo

[Jerry_Atrick]

Had a drink with a Rouski from work last night and, although he lefr Rouski-land in aboou 2010, his take on Ukraine was very different to ours. He has never forgiven them for apparently burning alive 50 odd Russian speaking football supports in the Odessa region. He was in Russia at the time, but I am going to spend some time looking up the details...

At some stage

[willedoo]

21 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Had a drink with a Rouski from work last night and, although he lefr Rouski-land in aboou 2010, his take on Ukraine was very different to ours. He has never forgiven them for apparently burning alive 50 odd Russian speaking football supports in the Odessa region. He was in Russia at the time, but I am going to spend some time looking up the details...

At some stage

I wonder if he's getting it confused with the trouble in Odessa in 2014 when the Trade Union House fire killed near that number of anti-Maidan protesters. That was a nasty affair. I was under the impression the mob that did it were bused in from Kiev.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I am not sure.. he said it was Ukranian football supporters that did it, but the Ukrainan police apparently stood by and watched it all happen without taking any action.

[willedoo]

Might be a different incident, but the number killed is about the same. With the Trade Union House incident, the police couldn't really do anything as they were greatly outnumbered. At the time I saw videos of police and ambos pleading with the neos to stop attacking the wounded lying on stretchers. They were beating up badly burned and injured people as the paramedics were trying to put them in the ambulances. It was a bloodthirsty mob and the cops couldn't stop them, although they tried. Not the sort of footage the MSM ever runs, particularly if it goes opposite to their narrative.

[willedoo]

Just has a look and it seems to be the same incident. Leading up to the massacre, there was a big rally made up of football supporters, right sector goons and ordinary citizens.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I don't think football thugs should pass for representatives of a country, but that would depend a bit on what happened to them eventually.

[willedoo]

Here's a recent photo of the Antonov 225, still in the original hangar. Although the government was keen to rebuild it using the second unfinished airframe, I have my doubts we'll ever see it. They'll have a lot higher priorities in post war re-construction. Originally, Ukraine claimed it was destroyed by a Russian air strike, which doesn't make sense with the photos and videos of the battle, unless it was friendly fire with Russian aircraft striking Russian forces on the ground. My best bet would be that it was hit by the heavy Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the airport later in the day when the Ukrainians were retaking the airport.

 

Russian paratrooper body cam footage shows the 225 intact when the Russians first took the airport, so it wasn't hit by the Russians in the initial assault. As the day wore on, the Ukrainians launched a counter attack with heavy artillery bombardment of the airport. Just recently, a lot more video footage has hit the public domain, which fits a few pieces into the puzzle. One video taken by a Russian soldier shows the 225 on fire in the hangar after being hit. In the courtyard in front of the 225, Russian trucks are also hit and burning. I can only see three options: it was hit by Ukrainian artillery, a Ukrainian airstrike, or mistakenly hit by Russian aircraft in a friendly fire incident. It doesn't matter which side destroyed it, the Russians are to blame by being there and putting it in harm's way.

[willedoo]

As an edit to the above post, the 225 wasn't directly hit as far as I know. The fire came from a shrapnel blast. Artillery might not have caused it, as I don't think there were any close by artillery craters. The Russian trucks that were damaged and on fire were more consistent with a rocket attack, as an artillery hit would have obliterated them. Another photo from the time of the attack showed damage to the end wall of the main building in front of the 225 hangar. It looked very much like rocket damage from an airstrike. Always possible it happened in the same strike that burned the 225.

[nomadpete]

Sanctions against Russia.....

 

[willedoo]

Naturally enough, the Yanks have had a vested interest in trying to steer Europe towards expensive American shale LNG. But putting that aside, for once they were right in saying dependence on Russian energy is a big security concern. This war has proven them right.

[facthunter]

Merkel tried to do the decent thing but Putin will use everything no matter what. With all that  oil and gas and other exports the Russians would do pretty well for all Russians IF the corruption didn't exist. There was PLENTY of BAD guys in Ukraine too. That would have to be sorted if Ukraine was to be let into the EU. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

Yes Nev, If I was a ukrainian oligarch, I would be busy trying to transfer my money out. There is no way that those who have risked their lives are going to return to being serfs. Personally, I would confiscate their wealth but I do understand the argument that taking on the Russians is a full workload without making Ukrainian oligarchs into enemies too.

The lack of desire to return to the bad old days was the same thing that got rid of Churchill, but the poms are so civilized that they seem to have forgiven the aristocrats. Jerry will know.

[willedoo]

The Russians are retreating. It must be true; I saw it on the internet.

[facthunter]

How does a Pallett float on water with 3 guys on it?  Nev

[willedoo]

It's hard to get up to date information lately. The Ukraine government and military have been trying to tighten up the flow of information, particularly in areas that might assist the enemy, like troop numbers and movements etc.. It looks like Ukrainian forces are having a good push south east of Kharkiv in the last couple of days. They've pushed a deep salient into the Russian lines north of Izyum and are heading south. They are reported to have taken 2,5000 sq.klm. of territory in the last day or so, and are only 20 klm from joining up with Ukrainian forces south of Izyum. If they do that, Russian forces at Izyum would be encircled.

 

Izyum is an important city to the Russians and is critical to their supply lines from the north. The orcs in Izyum would be getting a bit nervous about now.

[willedoo]

It looks like history repeating. Eighty years ago, a Red Army salient was encircled and destroyed by counter attacking German forces in the Second Battle of Kharkov. It's the exact same place and movement. The blue arrows on the map are identical to what the Ukrainians are doing right now.

[facthunter]

Proof they are acting like Nazi's???  Nev

[willedoo]