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Russian invasion of Ukraine


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52 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Going to tricky to buff that out.

Lots of different suggestions as to what was used. Loitering munitions, cruise missiles, HIMARs, sabotage. The honest answer is that no-one knows.

Only thing that really matters right now is that the Ukrainians have shown they have the capability to strike accurately in the 80-250 km range. That means the Russians can't assume that they are safe if they keep their ammunition depots out of HIMARS range.

In addition to the Neptune system Ukraine apparently had a cruise missile called Hrim-2 with a range of 280 km that was almost ready to go into production for export to the Saudis when the war started. There's some speculation that the Poles might be helping Ukraine to keep its weapons industry functional in that sort of context.

Edited by LongTimeLurker
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5 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

Talking of Poland, did anyone notice them buying 1000 tanks, 48 4th gen fighters and nearly 700 howitzers from South Korea the other day?  

Notice, I was in the queue behind them!

Edited by Sergeant Wilson
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3 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

Talking of Poland, did anyone notice them buying 1000 tanks, 48 4th gen fighters and nearly 700 howitzers from South Korea the other day?  

Yep, upgrading their force structure by donating the older Soviet residue to Ukraine and buying some nice, shiny new stuff from LG and Samsung. The actual reviews of the stuff they are buying are pretty nice, and will no doubt given Belarus and Russia some headaches just thinking about them.

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18 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

Talking of Poland, did anyone notice them buying 1000 tanks, 48 4th gen fighters and nearly 700 howitzers from South Korea the other day?  

Yeah, it's a huge armoured force they are building. They already have 250 US Abrams tanks and some German Leopards... I think they were originally to have been buying more German stuff, but Germany's overall reaction to the Ukraine war seems to have put them off.

They are also buying Brimstone missiles from us, some Frigate designs and I think some Sky Sabre SAM systems.

Edited by renton
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56 minutes ago, renton said:

Yeah, it's a huge armoured force they are building. They already have 250 US Abrams tanks and some German Leopards... I think they were originally to have been buying more German stuff, but Germany's overall reaction to the Ukraine war seems to have put them off.

They are also buying Brimstone missiles from us, some Frigate designs and I think some Sky Sabre SAM systems.

The Korean tanks are, usefully, lighter than the Abrams and Leopards, plus have autoloaders (debatable if good or bad) and nicer/newer aiming equipment. It is indeed the basis of a nice little armored corp.

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15 hours ago, Billy Jean King said:
19 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:
I mean, pretty much everything I said about Covid restrictions ended up being correct so I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make here.
Massive Bigger Picture ≠ What looks good.
Ending the war in Ukraine ASAP is clearly what the preferred outcome for everyone is, so again I'm not sure what point you are making.
To use your analogy, though, Ukraine winning this war, and, in doing so, claiming back the territory it has lost is the new "Zero Covid".

Ah another one advocating Ukraine just roll over and let Russia take what it wants all because.... my gas is going up.

Everyone's gas (and electricity) is going up. 1 in 3 UK households will be in fuel poverty by October

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-21/a-third-of-uk-homes-seen-falling-into-energy-poverty-by-october

It is undeniable that sanctions placed on Russia, which are a political choice, have had a significant contribution to the spiralling in prices. Russia has unsurprisingly responded with actions/sanctions of its own and has in essence throttled the supply of gas to the EU. Several EU countries are having to reduce gas usage now so that the taps won't run dry in winter - a very real and present danger. Whilst it seemed that the UK would not be in this position, as it receives only a small amount of its gas from Russia, plans have been drawn up in preparation for it. 

And at any rate, The EU's problems are also our own. The EU needs to get a significant amount of its gas from elsewhere and this drives the prices up in the market, meaning UK consumers pay more. 

The sanctions, as they stand, are intended to punish Russia. However, they are also punishing the UK domestic population by trebling their energy bills. No amount of "this is necessary because Russia shouldn't have invaded Ukraine" is going to  comfort those that are freezing cold in winter and can't pay their bills, is it? Again, one in three UK households will be in fuel poverty, with this being being a side effect of punishing Russia. 

Now, as I said, sanctions are a political choice. Having everyone suffer with energy record bills, owing to the actions you've taken, is also a political choice. The level of support people are given, equally, is a political choice. I don't think detracts from the fundamental point of issue - responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused energy bills to accelerate and is dumping a large section of the UK population into fuel poverty. The cost of energy, moreover, is driving inflation (estimated to hit 13%). For those avoiding the fuel poverty trap, the inflation trap is the next big danger. 

We are almost certainly stuck with high prices until the war is over and sanctions are removed. It is clear more support is going to be needed. In the meantime, people are well within  their rights 1) to be angry with the government for insufficient support and 2) the underlying causes of these price rises. Being angry at 2) does not equate to approving Russia's actions or selling out Ukraine. 

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Don't forget the refusal of the UK government to provide 'handouts' to cover the costs of their disastrous economic war on their own civilians, while providing an unlimited blank cheque to the oligarchs of Kiev and pledging to build up its own conventional defence budgets.

Western European governments have to pick either one stance or the other: they cannot have both and see out the winter without public support being completely destroyed. 

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On 08/08/2022 at 15:21, oaksoft said:

Reading your posts, you seem to be significantly more outraged that Ukraine simply won't lie down the the Russians so that you can get your energy and petrol bills down a bit than the fact that the Russians have invaded an independent country without provocation.

It's an odd read TBH.

Try reading for the sake of comprehension then. 

Ukraine is absolutely entitled to fight to defend itself against an unwarranted invasion by another power. 

Western Europe was not however obliged to set its entire economy on fire on the specious grounds that this would somehow 'stop Putin'. A 5-10 year plan to steadily reduce Russian gas imports would have been a sensible decision; instead, European governments lolloped into a full-blown economic war that its citizens did not sign up to and will ultimately pay the full price for. On a strategic level, Europe has simply replaced one form of great power energy dependence with another (the US) at a much higher mark-up.

It is complete and utter folly that will see a dozen or more European governments fall like a house of cards. If you think that policy is going to make the region more stable geopolitically, then you're a fool. 

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Meanwhile oil and gas prices have been coming down in recent weeks because production capacity is slowly being ramped up elsewhere along with the capacity of western Europe (mainly Germany) to import the LNG that will be exported from the US after the LNG export terminal that mysteriously blew up is operational again from October. Thanks to taking back Snake Island after HIMARS arrived Ukraine is also exporting grain again. Those two factors will take the edge off inflation in the months ahead.

The level of dependence on Vlad was always mainly a political choice to appease the Green lobby. If Germany keeps its remaining nuclear power plants open and reopens the ones it recently mothballed, the Dutch ramp up production of their Groningen gas field, and the rest of Europe starts using coal for electricity generation to the extent they still have the ability to, the coming winter doesn't have to be anything like as challenging as it otherwise would be.

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17 minutes ago, virginton said:

European governments lolloped into a full-blown economic war that its citizens did not sign up to and will ultimately pay the full price for

But seem to largely support, especially at the time in March and April, although I suspect support will wean once winter hits but at which time will be too late to reverse the gas shortages.

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45 minutes ago, 101 said:

But seem to largely support, especially at the time in March and April, although I suspect support will wean once winter hits but at which time will be too late to reverse the gas shortages.

Of course they did. Because putting a Ukraine flag on your social media like everybody else looks great, and had zero impact on their lives.

However, just like with Covid restrictions before it, the general public seem to be particularly inept at looking beyond the end of their nose to anticipate the consequences of what the policies they are supporting may bring.

When the impact then hits them, they are up in arms and blame the Tories.

Edited by Todd_is_God
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17 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Of course they did. Because putting a Ukraine flag on your social media like everybody else looks great, and had zero impact on their lives.

However, just like with Covid restrictions before it, the general public seem to be particularly inept at looking beyond the end of their nose to anticipate the consequences of what the policies they are supporting may bring.

When the impact then hits them, they are up in arms and blame the Tories.

You can of course blame the Tories and the Lib Dems who didn't want to build new nuclear power stations during the coalition years because they wouldn't be online until 2021/22.

Long term domestic policy could have given us greater energy independence however austerity has crippled it.

Also is it unreasonable to expect governments to act in a way that voters agree with but also without knee jerk reaction? I'd say that's the key point of good governance whereas the PM was back and forward to Ukraine because his position was weak domestically. The government wrote and continue to write blank cheques to stay in power they should also be flexing their muscles for domestic consumers as well.

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Think fracking of shale gas is more likely than coal and that should have been developed in the UK by now along with a new generation of nuclear plants but politicians appeased a shrill irrational minority by not doing so. Green hydrogen and other solutions to provide energy storage for renewables is the long term solution but the technology isn't where it needs to be yet.

The combination of wind turbines and solar panels backed up by Russian natural gas with both coal and nuclear being deliberately sidelined to keep the Green lobby happy before there were viable solutions implemented to the storage issue with renewables was the recipe for the current crisis.

What's happening now in decisively steering away from that recipe for blackmail by Vlad has some pain to it but it's a bit like ripping off an elastoplast. Something that needs to be done before the issue at hand becomes the Suwalki Gap triggering NATO's Article 5 rather than a proxy conflict waged through backing Ukraine.

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