Ukraine Conflict - Der Weg zurück

[Lexx]

Is it time to buy MREs? Preferable not some that have run out since 8 years.

[Elerond]

Russia exports over half of its fertilizers in five countries; Brazil (21%) , China (~10%) , USA (~9%), Estonia+Finland (~9%). Exports to India have in past months surpassed exports to Estonia and Finland.

China is world biggest fertilizer producer, USA is second biggest. Russia is forth with about 9% of world fertilizer production

Considering that Russia tries to keep China, India and Brazil not joining with West, I am not sure how comprehensive their ban will be

[Malcador]

3 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Is it time to buy MREs? Preferable not some that have run out since 8 years.

I think they last for sometime past expiry.  That dude on Youtube's not dead yet and he's eaten rations from the US war in Vietnam.

[pmp10]

NATO officially rejects any idea of a no-fly zone.
Was pretty much a given after refusal to provide aircraft but now it's official.

Ukraine, like it or not, is returning to Russian SoI.
Unless they will resort to insurgency to try drag Russians with them into ruin. 

[Darkpriest]

1 hour ago, Elerond said:

Russia exports over half of its fertilizers in five countries; Brazil (21%) , China (~10%) , USA (~9%), Estonia+Finland (~9%). Exports to India have in past months surpassed exports to Estonia and Finland.

China is world biggest fertilizer producer, USA is second biggest. Russia is forth with about 9% of world fertilizer production

Considering that Russia tries to keep China, India and Brazil not joining with West, I am not sure how comprehensive their ban will be

They'll stop sending to Africa and Egypt. It will cause spike in prices, revolt andass flood of immigrants to EU at time of economic difficulties and trying to explain why food prices, energy prices and heating are super expensive. You will get more support for populists. 

[Chilloutman]

Looks like Gruzians smell their chance, don't think it will end up well for them

[Darkpriest]

Hungary... 

'' '' '

moments ago Hungary - one of Europe's most grain rich nations - has circled the wagons and realizing which way the wind is blowing, just announced that it will banning all grain exports effective immediately, in a statement .

 

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/hungary-ban-grain-exports-effective-182644540.html

 

Which net producer is next? 

Edited March 4, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Zoraptor]

18 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

They'll stop sending to Africa and Egypt. It will cause spike in prices, revolt andass flood of immigrants to EU at time of economic difficulties and trying to explain why food prices, energy prices and heating are super expensive. You will get more support for populists. 

That would far more likely be caused directly by a hike in grain prices rather than indirectly by fertilisers. Russia is the biggest grain exporter in the world and Ukraine is pretty high on the list too, and the Arab Spring kicked off in part because of the failure of the grain harvest in Russia. Indeed, I don't think any African country is sanctioning Russia so they're far more likely to embargo western purchasers to force their producers to focus there. That frees up market in places that aren't sanctioning them, raises their exports and drops their enemies'.

The irony is watching western 'experts' describe Russia as a glorified gas station because that's what they buy from her*. You can see a huge amount of concern from places like Egypt because they remember the last time the Russian harvest failed- 2010. Next year something happened there, slight disturbance known as the Arab Spring.

*the double irony, Africa etc get absolutely screwed because Europe is only food independent (more or less) because of its immense agricultural subsidies, which Africa obviously cannot afford and the surpluses of which are often dumped in their markets, suppressing their agricultural sector and compete for exports with everyone else. It's also horrendously inefficient in terms of resources, hence meat and dairy imported from New Zealand the other side of the world having less carbon footprint. Same for the US, except they'd be food independent anyway and the subsidy target is industrial producers rather than mom and pops.

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

They'll stop sending to Africa and Egypt. It will cause spike in prices, revolt andass flood of immigrants to EU at time of economic difficulties and trying to explain why food prices, energy prices and heating are super expensive. You will get more support for populists. 

But they aren't exporting significant amounts to Africa 

Edited March 4, 2022 by Elerond

[Totally not Gorgon]

I gotta say I did not expect the EU to engage in censorship.  Outright banning Russian state news from transmitting inside the EU. Censorship is not the way. 

I mean, yes, it's propaganda. I know that, and I'm also an adult, I can make up my own mind. I don't want the "truth" handed down from up high, that's exactly what they are doing wrong in Russia, why would we want to mimic that. 

 

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, pmp10 said:

NATO officially rejects any idea of a no-fly zone.
Was pretty much a given after refusal to provide aircraft but now it's official.

Ukraine, like it or not, is returning to Russian SoI.
Unless they will resort to insurgency to try drag Russians with them into ruin. 

Being under Russian domination is the worst possible outcome for Ukrainians (and anyone else for that matter), so may as well try the insurgency path.

[ComradeYellow]

Sorry if posted earlier but RT America has been toppled by the Biden administration.  Lots of employees laid off, many of them weren't even pro war but RT America was the only major news platform that allowed left wing voices (admittedly also some idiotic far right ones as well) verboten on the other major outlets paid for by the MIC, banks, and other U.S. oligarchs.   Their Twitter comments are saddening to read.

....

You also know what would be REALLY funny?  The re-armament of Germany ultimately leading to the dissolution of NATO!  Perhaps Putin really is a master chess player.  Time will tell!  I personally can't think of a better outcome myself.  Nato going *poof* Europe rearming and the U.S. less meddling in the world but still retaining a strong global position.

[Raithe]

[Raithe]

Ukraine war: 'My city's being shelled, but mum won’t believe me' - BBC News

[majestic]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

If you guys are looking for any advice or coping mechanism around how the nuclear holocaust threat is causing anxiety let me know. I have had PTSD twice and I know thats  not what you experiencing but its symptoms can be similar 

And something else, I have never known the 3 of you to share the same reasonable concerns and anxiety. Its normal and  the fact you mentioned it is a good step, you must accept it because it is something real and dont think its silly

Uh, no, thanks, but I'm not losing sleep* over the situation, just said it was surreal.

*Not any more than my messed up sleeping cycle from the lockdowns does, anyway, or the usual sort of insomnia that's normal for me, anyway.

[Hurlshort]

I keep reading that the Russian State media is pushing the narrative that civilian deaths are the fault of the Ukrainian military and I don't understand how that argument works for anyone. If a stray missile hits an apartment building, it doesn't matter if it was Ukrainian or Russian. The missile would not be fired if Russia was not in Ukraine, so it is completely the fault of Russia. 

I mean, I get that it is propaganda, but it still boggle my mind that it works.

[Mamoulian War]

Check the Raithe's BBC link, it is really sad. It is hard to believe, but here in Slovakia, they are people who does not believe it as well. And they even do not understand, that in most heavily bombarded south cities live a lot of ethnic Russians, so Russians are killing Russians to achieve their goals... Nothing has changed in the east in last few centuries

[Azdeus]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

I think they last for sometime past expiry.  That dude on Youtube's not dead yet and he's eaten rations from the US war in Vietnam.

He ate some rations from 1906 iirc, and wasn't dead. He did eat some Chineese 2018 rations in 2019 and got real ill. A few years before that he had a highly suspect Ukrainian ration that gave him e-coli and a trip to the ER.

[bugarup]

10 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

I keep reading that the Russian State media is pushing the narrative that civilian deaths are the fault of the Ukrainian military and I don't understand how that argument works for anyone. If a stray missile hits an apartment building, it doesn't matter if it was Ukrainian or Russian. The missile would not be fired if Russia was not in Ukraine, so it is completely the fault of Russia. 

I mean, I get that it is propaganda, but it still boggle my mind that it works.

I think that at least a part of it can be explained by choice between accepting the truth and realizing you suddenly are a citizen of twenty-first century's nazi Germany, and nobody wants to one day wake up as a nazi German, least of all a russian. A very, VERY big part of soviet identity that's been inherited by post-soviet russia is its victory over the third reich. So big in fact, that soviets appropriated a large chunk of Second World War, called it Great Patriotic War and they did it not only because they wanted to avoid the uncomfortable truth of stalin's russia and hitler's germany being bosom buddies before hitler backstabbed his mustachioed comrade by attacking Sovietistan mere months before its own planned attack on Germany, or because they wanted to minimize the role of Western Allies, but because nazi germany left a truly abysmal trail of atrocities as it went in and then got pushed back, much crueler than what it did on its Western front, and victory over such a monstrosity naturally made people feel accomplished and proud.  Also, that's exactly the reason why russian propaganda keep throwing nazi and fascism terms like confetti right now - to trigger those decades of conditioning. Also2 that's why I keep my fingers crossed that cognitive dissonance keeps at least part of russian soldiers unmotivated, because nazi crimes did not differentiate between russia, Ukraine and belarus, and now when russian soldiers go to Ukraine and receive orders to bomb civilian objects...well, for anyone half-decent and with half-a-brain it should cause certain parallels.

 

[Raithe]

[Malcador]

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/03/03/transfer-three-a-10-aircraft-squadrons-to-ukraine-now/

This when you take memes too far.

[Darkpriest]

Summary of the Putin week. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/putin-panic-goes-global-stocks-puke-bonds-commodities-soar

The ripple effect will now start its path to a destruction of much of wealth as liquidity is drained. 

I do hope talks over weekend will happen and will ease the outlook for the markets, as the alternative of a much longer conflict is not something I'd like to experience. 

 

And for the folks in US

'' '' '' 

On Thursday, for the first time ever, a U.S. city breached the $5/gal per gallon average - this is San Francisco

'' '' '' 

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Zoraptor]

Looks like the Russians have captured Sumy, which would be the second 'oblast city' taken after Kherson (or fifth, if you count Simferopol (not technically an oblast city, but there is no Crimea city)/ Lugansk/ Donetsk). No official confirmation from anyone yet though. Ukrainians had better hope that their talk about coups and the like has a basis, or there's likely to be a lot more bad news for them over the next week.

Probably an idea to put down some of the observations from the Russians tactics in Syria too- they're hardly revolutionary, and I wouldn't imply they are. But I have seen some vague attempts in the media to extrapolate tactics from Syria to Ukraine, but they all devolved into 'they just bombed the last bakery in Aleppo! and won completely incidentally to the baby killing and fluffy bunny eating' type stuff. This is post any 'try rushing the city centre to see if everyone surrenders' tactics. It's also more or less what happened in Kherson prior to it being taken.

First step is to isolate the city. Done for all of Mariupol, Kharkov and Sumy (if not taken already). Pretty close to if not done for Chernigov/ Kiev/ Mykolaev. Once that's done you've capped the enemies' resources.

Second step is to bring up artillery. If there's one thing Russia has massive amounts of it's artillery. They've also lost pretty much none of it so far.

Third, provoke a response from the defenders

That response is crucial, you want the enemy to counter attack and expose themselves. Because all their lovely dug in troops come out into the open and run straight into massed pre-sighted artillery. And in just about every conventional modern war the thing that kills the most soldiers is... artillery. 

You can repeat that as many times as you need, if the enemy is isolated they won't be getting resupplied, and won't get more men. It's a great way to reverse the tactical advantages of being on the defence. If they don't respond then, well, they've lost ground anyway and since they're isolated they can't keep losing it.

Air power is mostly used for hard points and to defeat forces trying to break into the urban areas to relieve them.

Move on to the next place you've isolated, and repeat.

That's why I kind of cringe when I see Ukrainians celebrating their last successful counterattack and then counterattacking the same place again the next day after it's retaken for multiple days. That's exactly the pattern you got in Aleppo, and it was a losing pattern, not a winning one. Certainly got a lot of pro rebel twitter users excited then disappointed in 2016 though.

[Azdeus]

58 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/03/03/transfer-three-a-10-aircraft-squadrons-to-ukraine-now/

This when you take memes too far.

I don't see that helping very much, wouldn't they need basically complete air superiority to use those effectively?

[Malcador]

4 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

I don't see that helping very much, wouldn't they need basically complete air superiority to use those effectively?

Pretty much, yeah. This guy is far from some rando online though, so was expecting better.  Then again maybe this is some scheme to show the A-10 as obsolete and more F-35s need to be bought