Will Russia invade the Ukraine?

[irie]

At the Valdai Discussion Club today it's clear that Putin has finally gone full bunker*.

Question is, in the event of another major Russian defeat in Ukraine, will he be 'removed before he resorts to nuclear stuff?

* noun. Britannica Dictionary definition of BUNKER MENTALITY. [singular] disapproving. : a very defensive way of thinking by the members of a group who believe that they are being wrongly attacked or criticized by others.

PS - I suspect Ukraine is planning a surprise "Spectacular"

[KungFooBob]

The trouble with being a CAS pilot is getting in the cockpit with your huge balls. (not my quote).

I think Ukraine has given Winnie the Po cause to rethink a "special unification operation". I've no doubt they could unleash a fearsome missile bombardment but the invasion force have 60-70 miles of water to cross rather than just rolling across a border.

The Russian story is it hit a powerline, this kind of backs that up...

[Mussels]

So the UK are masterminding all the best attacks on Russia. The bridge, the pipeline, the airbase.
I'm impressed.

[irie]

So the UK are masterminding all the best attacks on Russia. The bridge, the pipeline, the airbase.
I'm impressed.

Yeah, me too.

[Mussels]

So the UK are masterminding all the best attacks on Russia. The bridge, the pipeline, the airbase.
I'm impressed.

I forgot to mention the navy base, it looks like it was hit much harder than Russia admits.

[irie]

So the UK are masterminding all the best attacks on Russia. The bridge, the pipeline, the airbase.
I'm impressed.

I forgot to mention the navy base, it looks like it was hit much harder than Russia admits.

What Ukraine is doing, of course, is trying to force the Russian navy currently stationed in Sevastopol to relocate somewhere else in Russia.

[Hoonercat]

So the UK are masterminding all the best attacks on Russia. The bridge, the pipeline, the airbase.
I'm impressed.

I forgot to mention the navy base, it looks like it was hit much harder than Russia admits.

What Ukraine is doing, of course, is trying to force the Russian navy currently stationed in Sevastopol to relocate to Russia.

ftfy

[irie]

After visiting Kyiv German President Frank-Walter Steimeier on Friday made a televised address on the main German television channel. It was an explicit admission that decades of German foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia based on Wandel durch Handel (Progress through Trade) had been a complete mistake. Nothing less than a 'mea culpa'.

German president Steinmeier admits ‘bitter failure’ of policy on Russia Ceremonial head of state’s mea culpa reflects the shock Putin’s war on Ukraine has had on the ‘old ways of thinking’ Frank-Walter Steinmeier: ‘In the face of evil, goodwill is not enough’

© REUTERS, Berlin OCTOBER 28 2022 ‐ Broadcast live on Germany's main television channel

There must be no peace with Russia as long as Russian troops remain within Ukraine’s borders, Germany’s president said on Friday, in an impassioned state of the nation speech about Berlin’s foreign policy. “In the face of evil, goodwill is not enough,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s ceremonial head of state, said in a public address outlining his country’s place in the world.

Germany was facing its “deepest crisis” since reunification, he said: “Russia’s brutal war of aggression in Ukraine has reduced the European security order to ashes.” Steinmeier spoke shortly after returning from Kyiv — his first visit to Ukraine since the war began in February. At one point during the trip he was forced to shelter because of a Russian air raid. The speech underlines the shock Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has inflicted on decades of German foreign policy.

Twice German foreign minister — including during Russia’s 2013 invasion of Crimea — Steinmeier was for years one of Europe’s most vocal proponents of compromise with Moscow. “When we look at today’s Russia, there is no place for old dreams,” he said, speaking from his official residence, the Bellevue Palace. The invasion “marked the definitive, bitter failure of years of political efforts, including my efforts”, he added. Russia’s war was “despicable and cynical, lacking regard for human life”, he told an audience of dignitaries and young Germans that included Ukraine’s ambassador.

The speech was broadcast live on Germany’s main television channel. “A supposed peace that rewards acts like this, a peace that seals Putin’s land grabs, is no peace,” he continued, urging his fellow Germans — many of whom are deeply pacifist as a result of their country’s own bloody history — to face up to an “epochal shift” under way in Europe. Recommended News in-depthGerman politics Ukraine invasion nudges Germany towards new security mindset.

Settling with Putin “would mean a rule of terror for many people in Ukraine [and] would leave them at the mercy of their Russian occupiers’ arbitrary violence”, he said. “Worse yet — a sham peace like this would only increase Putin’s hunger. Moldova and Georgia, as well as our Nato partners in the Baltic, live in fear . . . An unjust peace is no peace — it carries the seed of new wars within it.”

The 66-year-old president has been criticised by the Ukrainian government for his equivocation towards Moscow. In April he pulled out of a trip to Ukraine with fellow European presidents after Kyiv made clear he was not welcome — a snub that temporarily soured relations between Kyiv and Berlin and led to chancellor Olaf Scholz cancelling his own trip. Scholz eventually went to Kyiv in June.

“We must cast off old ways of thinking and our old hopes,” Steinmeier said on Friday. “We are not living in an ideal world. We are living in conflict.”

He also addressed the thorny issue of Germany’s military contribution towards Kyiv — which he described as “life-saving” — and said Germans needed to become more comfortable with being a military power in the future. “For a long time we were able to rely on others . . . but now others must also be able to rely on us,” he said. “This society needs strong armed forces. And the armed forces need a society that supports them."

[Mussels]

That's quite a speech, I wonder how it would have gone if they were still short of gas.

[Hoonercat]

That's quite a speech, I wonder how it would have gone if they were still short of gas.

No doubt Irie has the answer? I mean, he was so right about how Germany was going to be plunged into darkness over winter due to their reliance on Russian gas..

[demographic]

That's quite a speech, I wonder how it would have gone if they were still short of gas.

No doubt Irie has the answer? I mean, he was so right about how Germany was going to be plunged into darkness over winter due to their reliance on Russian gas..

Don't forget the sunlit uplands we'd be living in post brexit, he was right about that as well.
Can't move for unicorns round here, right bloody noise clip clopping about the place and whinnying loudly.

They're shit hot at picking old style hay bales though, quick run up and fire their horn in. Quick hoik up and they launch it wherever its needed.

Obviously thats helped anyone with an alotment as well and all that unicorn shit has grown some smashing strawberries.

I even found one of the cheeky buggers lounging about in the back of my van a while ago and was a bit surprised at how small they were close up. I guess their increase in size being linked to average pay instead of inflation has diminished them somewhat?

[irie]

That's quite a speech, I wonder how it would have gone if they were still short of gas.

No doubt Irie has the answer? I mean, he was so right about how Germany was going to be plunged into darkness over winter due to their reliance on Russian gas..

Don't forget the sunlit uplands we'd be living in post brexit, he was right about that as well.
Can't move for unicorns round here, right bloody noise clip clopping about the place and whinnying loudly.

They're shit hot at picking old style hay bales though, quick run up and fire their horn in. Quick hoik up and they launch it wherever its needed.

Obviously thats helped anyone with an alotment as well and all that unicorn shit has grown some smashing strawberries.

I even found one of the cheeky buggers lounging about in the back of my van a while ago and was a bit surprised at how small they were close up. I guess their increase in size being linked to average pay instead of inflation has diminished them somewhat?

It's not yet winter. Patience grasshoppers.

[mangocrazy]

Sunlit uplands are generally in short supply in winter.

[Hoonercat]

Bulgaria's new pipeline delivering gas from Azerbaijan seems to be paying off. October saw a 34% reduction in the cost of gas, today a further 47% reduction for November was announced. One of the reports pointed out that gas was now cheaper than it would have been had Russia not turned off the taps earlier in the year when Bulgaria refused to pay with Rubles. I'm sure that'll please Putin

The Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) said on November 1 that the price cut was the result of “the very competitive price conditions for the long-term contract for delivery of natural gas from Azerbaijan,”

[Hoonercat]

It's reported that 4.5million people in Ukraine are without power as winter approaches, due to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. In the south, a Russian official has said it is 'likely' that Russia will withdraw from Kherson, while western sources have indicated that the withdrawal has already started, with Russian troops setting up defensive positions on the other side of the Dnipro river.

[Potter]

It's reported that 4.5million people in Ukraine are without power as winter approaches, due to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. In the south, a Russian official has said it is 'likely' that Russia will withdraw from Kherson, while western sources have indicated that the withdrawal has already started, with Russian troops setting up defensive positions on the other side of the Dnipro river.

Whilst horrendous for the people on the end of that, it's a war, that's what happens.
I remember John Pilger reporting that western sanctions before the invasion and occupation of Iraq were the cause of a few thousand children a month dying through being deprived of medicines that the west could freely supply if it chose to do so, and it only got worse after the invasion. It pales into insignificance if you consider how many millions died during the twenty year western crusade on the whole Middle East that Trump called a halt to, but it still made me think, that's a lot of dead kids.

And even that pales into insignificance when you see how many are dying in Africa based on western legacy and policy.

I wouldn't want to be one of the affected, but if you expand your horizons to take a global view on things then Ukraine is a fairly low grade event if you take the geopolitical chest beating away and just consider human tragedy.

[Hoonercat]

Igor Girkin, former Russian veteran officer, yesterday posted a letter on his Twitter account from the 155th Marine Brigade which was scathing about the tactics being used and accused the generals of throwing them into unwinnable battles purely to outdo each other for their own 'glory'. They lost 300 men and 50% of their vehicles in a 4 day attempt to break through Ukraine lines in the east and accuse their commanders of hiding the losses and their failures. They say their commanders are protected by those above them and have called for an independent commision to be sent to assess the situation.
Watching a video report from a BBC war correspondent a couple of days ago in which he admitted that he's having to make educated guesses as to the situation in the region due to Ukraine being so secretive about the offensive. Reporters aren't allowed near the front lines or given any info that could help the Russians. He suggests that the offensive has stalled as he is not seeing much military movement to and from the front lines, while western intelligence has suggested that Russia is withdrawing troops from Kherson to set up defensive lines across the river, with reports that most of its commanders have left the city. No idea how this will play out if Russia are indeed withdrawing. While recapturing the city would have huge symbolic importance, it would also be an invite for the Russian artillery to level a city that has been fairly unscathed so far (compared to others).
Girkin has posted that 'looting and anarchy' are widespread in the city due to the 'power vacuum'. He doesn't elaborate as to whether it's Russian troops or civilians, but the situation sounds horrendous.

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[Horse]

report from a BBC war correspondent a couple of days ago in which he admitted that he's having to make educated guesses as to the situation in the region due to Ukraine being so secretive about the offensive. Reporters aren't allowed near the front lines or given any info that could help the Russians.

Learning from the Falklands, when an expert on UK tv explained that Argentinian bombs were failing because they weren't setting fuses correctly?

[Supermofo]

report from a BBC war correspondent a couple of days ago in which he admitted that he's having to make educated guesses as to the situation in the region due to Ukraine being so secretive about the offensive. Reporters aren't allowed near the front lines or given any info that could help the Russians.

Learning from the Falklands, when an expert on UK tv explained that Argentinian bombs were failing because they weren't setting fuses correctly?

My old boss was in the Navy for that, can't recall the ship think it was a sister ship to the Sheffield though. Anyway he was an artificer and they were given SLRs and told to go on deck to shoot at the Hawks coming in for what that was worth. He said until the above leak the biggest risk was dodging the bouncing bombs as they typically weren't going off and lots bounced when they hit the sea. Good old press gave the game away and it got a whole lot more dangerous.

[Hoonercat]

A Russian TV presenter reporting on the withdrawal from Kherson highlighted why Russian laws don't allow him to give an opinion either way. I watched the video this morning, but someone kindly took screenshots and created a meme to sum it up.

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