Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Pintu said:


The vice president of the EU Comission saying “this will be won on the battlefield”. If we needed anymore signs that the ongoing “peace negotiations” were just some lame Kremlin tactics there it is.
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Has Macron shown up unshaven in his black hoody yet ?
 
stefan92 said:
Possibly yes. Energy is already comparatively expensive in Germany and a lot of our industries that need a lot of energy are already at the brink of shutting down because of that, and that's despite already getting heavy tax benefits.

And simply the amount of gas we need as a basic ingredient for our huge chemical industry means getting not enough gas would directly and heavily influence its output. It's not like just a few houses can't be heated, it is a cornerstone of our basic industries, and everything else depends on it. 25% look quite high, but I wouldn't rule it out due to chain effects.
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Guardian has a very good article about the dependence of Germany on Russian gas imports. It is not about heating homes or the energy price so that is for sure a problem. A lot of industries for basic goods rely on it - and with it a lot of German and European manufacturers that work with them - and there actually is no chance to substitute that on short notice.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...any-prepares-for-a-future-without-russian-gas
 
"We will provide support so that Ukraine is never invaded again" - Johnson
British prime minister Boris Johnson is making further pledges, on his surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Johnson signalled that the UK is ready to continue to intensify sanctions on warmonger Russia “week by week”.

And that Britain will strive to move away from Russian hydrocarbons - ie coal, gas and oil.

He has also indicated that we - and it’s unclear yet if Johnson means specifically the UK or Britain and its European and NATO allies - “will provide support so that Ukraine will never be invaded again”.

That’s a very front-footed statement, it’s not every day a political leader will venture to use the word “never” in the context of international security and conflict. These details are dribbling out via Reuters and we’ll have more for you on this shortly.

The Prime Minister has agreed that the UK will send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems to support Ukraine following talks between Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Saturday.
It is because of President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that (Vladimir) Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted,” Boris Johnson said via a statement from Downing Street.
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Anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry, as well as so-called “suicide drones”, are also among the equipment the UK has pledged to provide Ukraine in the £100m financial and military aid package announced by the PM on Friday.
 
Pintu said:


The vice president of the EU Comission saying “this will be won on the battlefield”. If we needed anymore signs that the ongoing “peace negotiations” were just some lame Kremlin tactics there it is.
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Interesting statement. I was actually wondering today if peace talks were still ongoing, it seemed rather quiet last week or so.
 
Rob Lee on twitter has been posting Russian VDV deaths for days now, including photos of those who died. So many young men. Also a lot of ethnic minorities by the way.

What would those Russian parents be thinking...
 
VorZakone said:
Rob Lee on twitter has been posting Russian VDV deaths for days now, including photos of those who died. So many young men. Also a lot of ethnic minorities by the way.

What would those Russian parents be thinking...
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Need a few million babushkas all angry in Red Square. Vlad would shit himself
 
matherto said:
Need a few million babushkas all angry in Red Square. Vlad would shit himself
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Have protests completely died down in Russia? First 1-2 weeks we'd see protests but in recent weeks pretty much...nothing?
 
There is no going back from this rhetoric , they went in full fashtard. This is also helping untie West's hands even greater when they said the quiet part so loud.
 
There are intercepted phone calls of Russian soldiers saying they ate dogs because they got 'sick' of ration packs. The depravity knows no bounds.
 
VorZakone said:
There are intercepted phone calls of Russian soldiers saying they ate dogs because they got 'sick' of ration packs. The depravity knows no bounds.
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They are basically barbarians with nukes.
 
Raoul said:
They are basically barbarians with nukes.
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It's really hard to believe how barbaric this Russian military is under Putin's leadership. One would have thought they learned from the Chechen wars and changed things up, but it's still all kinds of fecked up.
 
VorZakone said:
It's really hard to believe how barbaric this Russian military is under Putin's leadership. One would have thought they learned from the Chechen wars and changed things up, but it's still all kinds of fecked up.
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I haven't seen any significant change among how the Russians operate under Putin since the beginning of his regime. One of the silver linings in all of this has been that it exposed the Russian military as a paper tiger. It was the Ukrainian military who fought like everyone thought the Russians would.
 
It's astonishing that the Russians are still facing resistance in Mariupol ...

 
The BBC reports:

"The UK is to send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems to support Ukraine, Downing Street has said following talks between PM Boris Johnson and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv."

The news of anti-ship missiles will hopefully sent those Russians ships near the Ukrainian coast scuttling over the horizon, beyond the range of their naval gun bombardment of Odessa.
 
The BBC reports:

"Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor has downgraded its assessment of Russia's ability to pay its foreign debt.

Analysts say this makes a default, which would be a first for the nation since the 1917 revolution, extremely likely.

On Saturday, the agency lowered its assessment to “selective default”, after Russia made arrangements to pay one of its debts in roubles instead of dollars.

The agency said further sanctions were likely and would hamper "Russia's willingness and technical abilities to honour the terms and conditions of its obligations to foreign debtholders".

The lower rating means the chance of not getting repaid is considered to be high, so an investor will charge more to lend to that country."
 
Raoul said:
I haven't seen any significant change among how the Russians operate under Putin since the beginning of his regime. One of the silver linings in all of this has been that it exposed the Russian military as a paper tiger. It was the Ukrainian military who fought like everyone thought the Russians would.
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Well, they are battle-hardened since 2014 for one. And two, this is a defensive fight for their nation and nationalism is exceptionally strong in Europe. So you’d bet on them fighting for it.

There was no chance of them folding like the Afghan army at the site of the Taliban advance.
 
MadMike said:
Well, they are battle-hardened since 2014 for one. And two, this is a defensive fight for their nation and nationalism is exceptionally strong in Europe. So you’d bet on them fighting for it.

There was no chance of them folding like the Afghan army at the site of the Taliban advance.
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You could argue they have folded much easier in 6 weeks of Ukraine than 6 years of Afghanistan.
 
VorZakone said:
It's really hard to believe how barbaric this Russian military is under Putin's leadership. One would have thought they learned from the Chechen wars and changed things up, but it's still all kinds of fecked up.
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The Russian military has, notionally at least, a huge busget. “Notionally” is the key word however as a large chunk of it is siphoned off into luxury properties and yachts.
 
MoskvaRed said:
The Russian military has, notionally at least, a huge busget. “Notionally” is the key word however as a large chunk of it is siphoned off into luxury properties and yachts.
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Well, "huge" is a relative term. It's less than that of the UK or India, only about a quarter of China's defence spending, and tiny in comparison with what the U.S. spends.

And when, as you say, a large chunk is corruptly siphoned off, and when (due to sanctions) the Russian economy will shrink dramatically over the next year or so, and also when much of any future spending will now have to go on simply replacing hardware they're losing in Ukraine (not to mention replenishing ammo and missile stocks) ... the outlook for Russian military strength going forward will thankfully be on a sharply downward path.
 
Raoul said:
You could argue they have folded much easier in 6 weeks of Ukraine than 6 years of Afghanistan.
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I don’t think you could, to be honest. USSR had just under 15k deaths in 10 years in Afghanistan. They are somewhere between 10k-15k dead in a month here.

This isn’t the same war. They are folding cause they are taking much higher casualties than they did in Afghanistan.
 
MadMike said:
I don’t think you could, to be honest. USSR had just under 15k deaths in 10 years in Afghanistan. They are somewhere between 10k-15k dead in a month here.

This isn’t the same war. They are folding cause they are taking much higher casualties than they did in Afghanistan.
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That’s precisely my point. The fact that they have taken so many casualties so quickly is indicative of their incompetence. At least in Afghanistan they last most of a decade.
 
Frosty said:
I just hope we are better at giving equipment than we are at taking refugees.
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I don’t think there’s that much awareness of the difficulties for Ukrainians to come to the UK, unless people are actually trying to get here. People will generally go down the path of least resistance or where they have existing contacts.
 
Raoul said:
That’s precisely my point. The fact that they have taken so many casualties so quickly is indicative of their incompetence. At least in Afghanistan they last most of a decade.
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But I don’t think it’s their competence that has changed significantly between the 70s and now. The difference is in the opponent. Ukraine is better armed, trained and seemingly united in the fight against Russia.
 
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