Sanctions against Russia

[willedoo]

The Ukrainian civilian population have been putting a huge effort into supporting the war effort. Everything from filling sandbags, making steel tank traps, sewing up home made flak jackets and home cooked meals to be sent to the front. Then there's the volunteers evacuating civilians from hot areas and those who organise and distribute food and medicines to the elderly. A lot of elderly people have not evacuated due to various reasons. Some have no family and nowhere to go, others have no money to relocate, and some just don't want to leave their homes no matter how bad it gets.

 

There's been a lot of crowdfunding and donations to feed the needy. One pizza outlet in Kharkiv was delivering fresh hot pizzas to the stranded elderly in Kharkiv, all payed for by a foreign donor with the money transfer done via the internet. More well off Ukrainians have been buying aid food out of their own pocket, and some food stores were donating their stock free to the needy. It's been a big effort by a lot of people.

 

Admittedly, Ukrainian society is used to a certain degree of hardship and struggle, and not as soft as us. I do suspect though that if we were put in the same situation, we would give it a good shot. When push came to shove, I think Australians in general would step up to the plate. You see a lot of that community spirit in disaster times like fires and floods. A disaster is when people really come together. It would be good if we could do it more often in normal times.

[facthunter]

If you are doing charity drives don't go into the richer suburbs. In my experience they poor give more generously  especially when their own circumstances are taken into account.   Nev

[willedoo]

Ukraine is expecting another big missile attack any time soon. Russian missile carriers have put to sea, and they say twenty Tu-95 bombers have been prepared, compared to about eleven used in previous attacks. It's a pity they couldn't sink those ships while they are out of port.

[facthunter]

What a hero Putin is?  Would anyone in Ukraine ever vote for him. Would any sensible country ever believe in his word being kept?  Nev

[willedoo]

Something in Red Square is on fire. The photo shows the western side of the State Museum; Red Square is on the other side of the museum. The Kremlin is on the right.  There's smoke covering the tops of the museum spires, so it could be the museum or St. Basil's Cathedral on the other side of Red Square. There seems to be big fires every couple of days now in Russia.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Probably nothing to worry about Wille. Maybe the Kremlin's paper shredder has broken down and they are using backup secure document disposal

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by nomadpete
spell

[willedoo]

There's some confronting drone footage showing up on social media showing big numbers of expired Russian troops. Bodies everywhere, no survivors, with them laying on the ground and in groups in trenches and dugouts. There's too many to have all died of hypothermia, so my guess is the Ukrainians have been hitting them with the HIMARS launched M30A1 rockets. These are the anti personnel rounds that air burst 182,000 tungsten carbide balls, a bit like a shotgun. The fact that the trees are broken off halfway up the trunk would support that theory.

 

The war has entered a difficult period for ground troops. Most are fighting in country that is black soil paddocks with tree lines on the boundary. The tree lines have been used for cover, but have now lost their leaves for the winter and there's nowhere to hide from the drones. Added to that is the early winter rain turning the soil to sticky black mud. The Russians are the worst off by far, as they are in wet trenches without decent winter gear and malnourished. Some have been only given biscuits once per day. They've been lighting fires to stay warm, and as soon as the Ukrainians see smoke they hit them with artillery fire. With the M301A rockets, it's mass extermination not unlike the gas in WW1. Surely it's only a matter of time before the Russian forces collapse completely.

 

It's a complete turnaround from a few months ago when Russian artillery on the Donbass front was out-firing Ukrainian artillery by 10:1. Now even the Russians are admitting the Ukrainian artillery has the upper hand. It looks like the Ukrainians are continuously softening up the Russian line while waiting for the ground to freeze over. Once that happens, I'd bet they'll go on the offensive and try to overrun any Russian weak points.

[onetrack]

The Rooskies are trying to boost their image by showing their repair and reconditioning operations. But this is a far cry from the poor buggers in the front line, and I'll wager the whole deal was staged.

 

The tank appears to have very little battle damage and the truck engine repair is just everyday stuff. I bet the Ukrainians are doing a lot more with a lot less.

 

That Mi-26 has some staggering lifting/carrying ability. But at the end of the day, this still shows the Russians repairing tanks - which have been proven to be worthless in the War against Ukraine.

 

 

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

That Mi-26 has some staggering lifting/carrying ability.

They are a beast alright, and make the Chinook look like a toy. Even lifting the Su-27 wouldn't be easy; they're roughly the size of an F-111.

 

[willedoo]

I was watching an interview with a member of the Russian parliament. She was saying that some younger Russians see a border with Ukraine, but older Russians of her generation see no border and that all Ukraine is Russia. She went on to say that they thought it would be a short police type action, and were shocked when fifty countries supported Ukraine and that heavy weapons were supplied.

 

That just about sums up Putin's massive blunder. He thought the western nations were too weak politically to stand up for Ukraine. He's always played on any weakness of the west and has tried to exploit it wherever possible. Did Biden sucker Putin with his talk of limited support before the war broke out? Who knows, it might have been an intentional rope a dope to force Putin into a war he couldn't win. Or maybe it just happened the way it did.

 

Putin and Russia are weak at the moment, but not totally weak. The worry is that Putin plays the long game. He couldn't care less about damage to his own country, as long as he gets some result. Western aid is not unlimited and the time will come when stocks run too low to keep supplying Ukraine to the level they need for total victory. Putin is gambling that Russia can keep coming up with enough ammunition and cannon fodder to outlast the west. If that happens, they still hold ground and the problem doesn't go away. I think by any reasoning, for Ukraine to have total liberation, Putin has to go. Otherwise, he'll stay there till the last bullet. They need to give him one of those special cups of tea.

[willedoo]

And speaking of tea - the rumour mill is in gear over the sudden death of the Belarusian foreign minister shortly after his return from the security meeting with Putin and Co. in Armenia. Not unexpectedly, there are rumours he was poisoned as he was in good health with no known medical issues up until he died suddenly.

 

Now there's talk that Belarusian president Lukaschenko has replaced all his chefs and domestic support staff, as well as presidential security guards. There might be no truth in it, but I'm sure Lukashenko wouldn't feel comfortable having tea with his so called mate Putler. It might pay him to board his windows up as well. If the FM was poisoned, the most popular theory is that it would have been intended as a message to Lukaschenko.

[willedoo]

The real estate industry in Crimea might be about to take another dive. It was already down 50% since the attacks on Crimea started, but now Ukraine has announced they will expel all non Ukrainian citizens who came to Crimea after the 2014 annexation.

[willedoo]

I think we could almost start a separate thread on the daily infrastructure fires in Russia. This photo is the thermal power plant in Perm going up in flames today. Other major fires today are a big oil storage fire near the Ukrainian border, and a power facility in the Kursk region, also close to Ukraine. There could be more, but that's all I could find in five minutes of searching. Haven't found any more news about the fire near Red Square yesterday. The Russians need to learn to use ashtrays.

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by willedoo

[willedoo]

I see that the Ukrainians at Bakhmut are receiving 7.62x51 FN FAL rifles. I think they're not much different to the SLR.

[red750]

Moscow has once again laid out its conditions for peace negotiations with Ukraine. Russia wants to see genuine political will on Kyiv's part to engage in dialogue. Moscow wants legal guarantees that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO, the Western military alliance, and wants Ukraine to change its constitution to cement this. In the past few months, Vladimir Putin has called for talks with Ukraine several times. Even the United States privately urged Volodymyr Zelensky to be open to talks. But the Ukrainian President has ruled out the possibility of negotiations, as he sees talks with Russia as a compromise and a surrender in front of Moscow.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yeah.. Let me see.. Foreign power invades (after illegally already taking some territory).. Foreign power is getting arse whipped and reality is that they are a lot weaker than they portrayed themselves (and the gullible believed them to be). Yes, the invaded country is able to whip ass thanks to the "generosity" of those other power that.. guaranteed their security in order for them to disarm themselves of nuclear weapons... and now the whipped perpetrator of this whole sorry affair is saying a) let's talk peace taks but, b) only if we can have a bit more than we had already taken illegally... 

 

If the west tries to force this, that's it.. I am officially becoming a hermit...

[kgwilson]

After the fall of Mariopol and the stall of the front line, most pundits were prediction a long and drawn out war that would likely see no clear victor. These predictions are largely coming to fruition but no-one really saw the ability of the Ukrainian counter attack to make such inroads and the abject failure of the Russian military except perhaps the mercenary Wagner group.

 

Russia is running out of missiles even using empty cold war era nuclear delivery missiles and is desperately trying to procure more. Their armaments industry will now be working overtime to replace their massive losses and gifts to Ukraine. As gas and oil receipts decline the cost which is already massive will likely become unsustainable so Putin is still trying to get talks underway while declaring parts of Ukraine he does not control, his. That'll work - Not.

 

Ukraine on the other hand is fighting for its existence, has a professional military and has been getting aid from NATO and the West as Putins guarantee of security was always a lie from day 1. The western arms industry is quite happy as orders will be coming in thick & fast to replace the stuff governments have given to Ukraine. A lot of the stuff was getting old anyway so it is a good option for the West to update its inventory. The conflict is also a fantastic proving ground for Western weaponry.

 

One major thing this war has shown is that having a large fast jet air force has been of little use for Russia. Western anti aircraft short and long range defence systems have made this pretty impotent except for the bombers being delivery platforms for missiles & then high tailing it home. This is a good lesson for future manned fighter jet production.

 

The big question is "How long can this go on"? The condemnation of Russia is virtually universal with 143 countries supporting this and only 4 countries siding with Russia and a number not wanting to take sides due to their previous economic or military ties with Russia. I don't have a crystal ball but I still think (so long as the West does not blink) a Winter or Spring Ukrainian offensive will be the decisive action to get the Russians out and some sort of peace deal being brokered.

[pmccarthy]

It is likely to grow into a "proper" war now, with Ukraine hitting more targets inside Russia. They have no choice when Russia is launching from their own territory.

[nomadpete]

So far, Ukraine has been careful to avoid attacking Russian territory.

[facthunter]

Yes it's totally onesided if you look at it from Putins perspective. WE can kill and smash any where you are but don't you dare to sink our ships or knock out bridges or land anything on Muttha Russia. Russia WAS supposed to be a vastly superior force. OVER in 3 days and don't talk about a war. Nev

[willedoo]

26 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

So far, Ukraine has been careful to avoid attacking Russian territory.

By some reports they have attacked Russian soil, but not in a big enough way to rock the boat. Belgorod has often had to fire their air defences at night. Missile attacks have not been able to be proven, and the drone attacks on Russia are probably too embarrassing for the Kremlin to highlight. Russian authorities have blamed yesterday's oil storage fire on munitions dropped from an 'unknown drone'. And there's the rub, with small drone attacks like that, it could have been either Ukrainians or Russian opposition partisans. Very hard to prove if nobody owns up to it.

 

One other possible reason behind the Kremlin's lack of response to the odd Ukrainian missile and artillery barrage striking over the border in the Belgorod region could be the illusion of claimed territory and the narrative delivered to the Russian public. Russia has declared Crimea and the other four Oblasts as legally part of Russia, and they are regularly attacked. If Russia suddenly overreacted to a strike on the internationally accepted territory of Russia, then it's sending a message to the public that they put a higher status on those boundaries than they do on the annexed territories. In that case, the public would start to think that if the authorities aren't that serious about the new territories, then why should we support the war.

 

It puts the Kremlin in an awkward position. Earlier, they said any attack on Russia would be met with a massive response (hinting at nukes). Now what they claim as Russia is attacked non stop every day.

Edited December 1, 2022 by willedoo

[willedoo]

A lot of anecdotal reports shed a bit of light on why Russia's military is so f'd up. A long term entrenched system of lying is a lot of the problem. Commanders and officers on almost all levels have relied on false reporting, particularly photo reports. Wind the clock back before the war and not much real training was been done. Troops would pose for photos, then falsified photo reports would be sent back up the chain to depict everything being done by the book. In reality, nothing was happening,  and resources earmarked for training, maintenance etc. were simply stolen and sold for profit.

 

Aside from theft, false reporting of unit strength, resources and troop numbers, was and still is rampant. Commanders in the field in Ukraine are sending in false reports of their positions and strength, as well as false reporting of battle success. Some units commanders are reporting a regiment strength of 80%, when the reality might be more like 10 to 20%. This has endangered the rank and file troops as orders to attack coming from above are based on flse reports about their numbers and strength. Commanders further up the chain think they are ordering 1,000 men to take a position, but in reality there's only 200 of them. It could explain a lot of the suicidal assaults the Russians are continually attempting.

 

It's no wonder Putler and his lackeys in the Kremlin don't have a clue what's happening. Their war planning is based on reports. Remember Hitler's non existent divisions near the end of the war. Nobody had the courage to tell him he didn't have an army any more. I think we're seeing history repeating. Fast forward to the war's end in Ukraine, and it's hard to see the Russian military being a capable force for a long, long time. Even if they could restore their economic situation, the military is rotten to the core with entrenched corruption. It would take a generation to get rid of that culture in their military, even if they started working on it now.

 

The part that I find interesting is that the Kremlin lives a life of continuous and intentional lies and deception. Are they really dumb enough to think they are the only ones lying? You would think logic would tell them that if they are doing it, then everyone down the chain would be as well.

[nomadpete]

All the above makes me wonder.

After all, Mr Putin made his way through the rotten, corrupt system. I assume he is well aware of the extent of the entrenched corruption. And how the system is manipulated. No doubt he used similar tactics as well as cunning in his own rise to the top.

The question is, given that Putin must be aware of the unreliability of his most senior leaders, I don't believe he is so naieve that the military stuffups should surprise him.

 

Unless he really has become totally self deluded.

 

It all seems like something is missing from the puzzle.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by nomadpete

[Jerry_Atrick]

26 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Unless he really has become totally self deluded.

I would say this. How many pollies have succumbed to this? Why would anyone, let alone Putin, be any different?

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[willedoo]

I've studied the bloke fairly regularly for the last twenty years or so, and I recon he's been very out of character for the last couple of years. It seemed to coincide with his health going downhill. My bet is self delusion. He's definitely been losing some parts of his reasoning.