Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Moomintroll]

1 minute ago, LongTimeLurker said:

What happens to a petrostate that is largely propped up by the money EU countries have been spending on gas imports when those are phased out and the pipeline infrastructure isn't there yet to supply China instead on anything like the same scale?

Vlad needed a quick victory with the EU accepting it as a fait accompli. He didn't get it and even Germany is sending Ukraine tanks now...

Something, something CIA false flags ordered by deep state. Something, something Ukranian Nazis. He had the fucking cheek to call someone else hypocritical earlier, while his Russian pals are clearly rampaging across another Country. He will probably respond to this by pointing out some other fictional operation some other equally fuckwitted person has invented on the internet & how that makes everything the Russian Nazis are doing ok.

[Detournement]

2 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

What happens to a petrostate that is largely propped up by the money EU countries have been spending on gas imports when those are phased out and the pipeline infrastructure isn't there yet to supply China instead on anything like the same scale?

Vlad needed a quick victory with the EU accepting it as a fait accompli. He didn't get it and even Germany is sending Ukraine tanks now...

If the Chinese want the gas they will build the pipeline at the same pace they build everything they deem essential.  Either way demand for energy is not going away and if the EU stops buying Russian gas it simply leads to a less efficient system of global supply.

Is anything being sent that will stop the Russian offensive or allow Ukraine to launch an offensive? 

[Newbornbairn]

He's like a turd that won't flush.

[Salt n Vinegar]

53 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

The word 'autist' has caused this song to be stuck in my head since I read it

 

 

I am sure that in my student days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and everything was made of wood and cost a penny, there was an article about him in the NME. It referred to one of the band members asking if anyone had seen "the raspberry" in reference to Ian Dury, "raspberry" being a contraction of the rhyming slang "raspberry ripple". * You can work the rest out yourselves.. 

* that was from pal, too. 

[Jacksgranda]

6 hours ago, NorthernLights said:

Avoiding the paywall...

https://archive.ph/2022.04.27-221025/https://www.economist.com/briefing/how-deep-does-the-rot-in-the-russian-army-go/21808989

Thanks

[LongTimeLurker]

24 minutes ago, Detournement said:

If the Chinese want the gas they will build the pipeline at the same pace they build everything they deem essential....

Over permafrost and through the *****a = good luck with that. No doubt doable eventually but not quickly and China will be able to drive a very hard bargain. As long as Russia was being misguidedly viewed as a reliable partner by Germany there was no real incentive for the EU to spend on alternative pipeline infrastructure like the Nabucco scheme but those alternatives do exist and the incentive is definitely there now.

Edit: guess you can't use the Siberian forest word on here for Failed Statelet related reasons.

Edited April 28, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[beefybake]

5 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I don't get the fuss about paying Russia for gas and oil in roubles. What happens with Hungary for example is that they pay Gazprom in Euros as normal at the price agreed, who then convert them into roubles. It would obviously be better if nobody paid them anything but I don't understand the issue with what Gazprom does with their money. Obviously Gazprom buying a load of roubles will prop up their value, but that's always been a choice open to them surely? What am I missing?

Part of the intent/side effect of all the sanctions has crashed the value of the rouble  on currency markets.   ( Which causes massive price inflation of any imports getting into Russia ) The usual currency that European countries pay for Russian oil/gas is, I think Euros.  And that is written into the contracts.  If they have to pay for the oil/gas in roubles, then, as their native currency(s) is not roubles, then to be able to pay Russia in roubles, first they must buy roubles from Russia, with presumably Euros, Dollars, etc. This currency market demand for roubles will have the effect of stabilising/increasing the exchange rate of roubles against other currencies, and also brings Euros, Dollars etc into Russia, which they can use in purchases from, say, other countries which are not sanctioning Russia.

 

Think I've got it right.

[Hillonearth]

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Over permafrost and through the *****a = good luck with that. No doubt doable eventually but not quickly and China will be able to drive a very hard bargain. As long as Russia was being misguidedly viewed as a reliable partner by Germany there was no real incentive for the EU to spend on alternative pipeline infrastructure like the Nabucco scheme but those alternatives do exist and the incentive is definitely there now.

Edit: guess you can't use the Siberian forest word on here for Failed Statelet related reasons.

I was initially thinking tundra and couldn't understand what it was censoring.

Then I remembered the other name for boreal forest

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, beefybake said:

Part of the intent/side effect of all the sanctions has crashed the value of the rouble  on currency markets.   ( Which causes massive price inflation of any imports getting into Russia ) The usual currency that European countries pay for Russian oil/gas is, I think Euros.  And that is written into the contracts.  If they have to pay for the oil/gas in roubles, then, as their native currency(s) is not roubles, then to be able to pay Russia in roubles, first they must buy roubles from Russia, with presumably Euros, Dollars, etc. This currency market demand for roubles will have the effect of stabilising/increasing the exchange rate of roubles against other currencies, and also brings Euros, Dollars etc into Russia, which they can use in purchases from, say, other countries which are not sanctioning Russia.

 

Think I've got it right.

As I understand it they'll be paying Gazprom in euros as per usual, then Gazprom will exchange the euros for roubles and place them in a separate account for the buyer. The only difference between what has happened before is what Gazprom does with the Euros it receives. In other words, I still don't understand. 

[Newbornbairn]

8 hours ago, NorthernLights said:

Russia's tanks in Ukraine have a 'jack-in-the-box' design flaw. And the West has known about it since the Gulf war

Their BMD-4 infantry fighting vehicle is also described as a "mobile coffin".

The West used to (still does) use the M113 "battlefield taxi" which is basically just that - a vehicle for getting troops to where they're needed safe from rifle fire and shrapnel, but they were never intended as vehicles to fight from. When the Soviets brought out their BMP series we had an outbreak of "me too" which led to the Bradley and the Warrior - vehicles meant for carrying troops but with delusions of being tanks. Hopefully seeing all these mobile crematoria has reminded Western Armies that they're taxis, not tanks. 

[101]

4 hours ago, jagfox said:

After dinner speeches are famously the best way for the foreign secretary to progress the country against Russian aggression.

Rather than actually working at her day job.

 

[dorlomin]

7 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

 When the Soviets brought out their BMP series we had an outbreak of "me too" which led to the Bradley and the Warrior - vehicles meant for carrying troops but with delusions of being tanks. Hopefully seeing all these mobile crematoria has reminded Western Armies that they're taxis, not tanks. 

The "armoured boxes" are called APCs. The ones with 20mm or bigger guns get called IFVs or infantry fighting vehicles. The idea was developed by everyone about the same time for a good reason, the big cannon provides heavy supressing fire as the infantry assaults the position. I think the Germans had theirs out before the Soviets. 

No body confuses them with tanks. Mechanised infantry is the backbone of modern land war.  In western doctrine the squaddies get dropped by the IFV which then pulls back a bit to draw the heavy fire while the soldiers assault the position. 

Ideally the armour will be sitting further back in hull down, driving up, snapping off a couple of round then pulling back while others in the squadron do the same. The whole thing takes a shit tonne of training and mixing in with co-ordinating artillery, helicopters and if your having a good day some A-10s. 

The idea is that you are raining down a tightly co-ordinated multifacetted world of utter hell on the people holding the position. You are throwing so much shit on their heads they are trying to hit tanks IFVs and all that while avoiding getting hit and the infantry can dislodge theirs and start rolling over the position. 

You cannot really stick kids with little training into that kind of shit storm and expect them to pull it off, that and the lack of meaningful NCOs to be able to think of their feet and change plans on the spot are given by most of the ex senior military people as why Russia is so bad at this. Mark Hertling and Mick Ryan on Twitter have been very good on that. 

All the billion dollar kit on the battle field is really just to support the squaddies doing what their Tommy grandparents were doing 100 years ago. 

[Zetterlund]

2 hours ago, beefybake said:

Part of the intent/side effect of all the sanctions has crashed the value of the rouble  on currency markets.   ( Which causes massive price inflation of any imports getting into Russia ) The usual currency that European countries pay for Russian oil/gas is, I think Euros.  And that is written into the contracts.  If they have to pay for the oil/gas in roubles, then, as their native currency(s) is not roubles, then to be able to pay Russia in roubles, first they must buy roubles from Russia, with presumably Euros, Dollars, etc. This currency market demand for roubles will have the effect of stabilising/increasing the exchange rate of roubles against other currencies, and also brings Euros, Dollars etc into Russia, which they can use in purchases from, say, other countries which are not sanctioning Russia.

 

Think I've got it right.

While sanctions did initially crash the value of the ruble, since Russia responded by demanding it for oil & gas it has now risen to above pre-war levels in US dollars. In fact the ruble is about the only major currency rising against the USD recently. Turns out it isn't so easy to crash the economy of a country which produces so much of what the world needs.

7 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I don't get the fuss about paying Russia for gas and oil in roubles. What happens with Hungary for example is that they pay Gazprom in Euros as normal at the price agreed, who then convert them into roubles. It would obviously be better if nobody paid them anything but I don't understand the issue with what Gazprom does with their money. Obviously Gazprom buying a load of roubles will prop up their value, but that's always been a choice open to them surely? What am I missing?

Certain parties are upset that Gazprom is allowed to hold Euro accounts at all. As you say, they could have exchanged their oil & gas income to rubles at any time, but until recently the benefits of earning euros/dollars outweighed the benefits of propping up their own currency. This all changed when a huge wad of their foreign reserves were seized.

[jagfox]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[welshbairn]

Sounds like Russian TV is getting a bit fraught.

 

[Elixir]

After his stellar performance in the Covid thread, could Detournement save us all the bother and tell us how this one pans out?

[Bairnardo]

Dunno if it's.just the amount of clickbait shite I am exposed to each time I open a new tab at work (a considerable number of times let me tell you), or if its just my perception, but there seems to be quite an emboldening/calling of Russias bluffs in the Western rhetoric atm. It seems to have slowly built up and there's now a notable amount of "nuclear" chat coming back from the Russian side.

Have the West decided that they can pretty much do what they want short of boots on the ground? It seems that way to me.

[ICTChris]

16 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Sounds like Russian TV is getting a bit fraught.

 

I think that exchange is from a couple of months ago. It does show what Russian television is like though.

[dorlomin]

18 minutes ago, jagfox said:

 

 

Many analysts were saying Putin could not win. Now Biden is letting the Siloviki know he will not allow them to win. Ukraines soldiers have been much better trained and far more motivated. They bought their countries survival in the first scrambled 3 weeks of the war. They fought themselves into a position the US feels it can back them to the hilt from. 

I think that the reactions in Eastern and Northern Europe also played a role. This is not the US being left hanging to do the heavy lifting by its allies. Rather its allies like Poland, Czechia and Slovakia have been pushing harder than the US. 

I think this is calling the bluffs of escalation by either mass mobilisation or use of nuclear weapons. 

American artillery is already being loaded onto planes. When that starts arriving the Russian casualties start rising fast. 

This is a clear flag that there are no exist strategies or off ramps without massive concessions on the Russian side. Time is on Ukraine's side. The power brokers in Moscow now know they have to prepare for what comes after that.