Ukraine Conflict - Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit

[Lexx]

39 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

It was noteworthy to see that when several European leaders visited Ukraine just the other day, a visitor from Germany was NOT welcomed into the country. So he didn't go.

That was not a mixed message from Ukraine.

Btw. even my mother is pissed and feels insulted about it, which is kinda a big thing. This tells me that many, many people in germany will have reacted the same way. Probably the reason why Ukraine moved back a little on it since the incident. They probably realized this wasn't a that good thing to do.

[xzar_monty]

6 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Btw. even my mother is pissed and feels insulted about it, which is kinda a big thing.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." So yes.

[Gorth]

16 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Btw. even my mother is pissed and feels insulted about it, which is kinda a big thing. This tells me that many, many people in germany will have reacted the same way. Probably the reason why Ukraine moved back a little on it since the incident. They probably realized this wasn't a that good thing to do.

Definitely not if they harbour some ambitions of joining the EU some day in the future. Won’t happen without Germany’s consent 

[xzar_monty]

21 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Definitely not if they harbour some ambitions of joining the EU some day in the future. Won’t happen without Germany’s consent 

Realistically speaking, though, Ukraine is some distance behind a couple of countries that are themselves a fair distance away from meeting the requirements.

But you did say "some day in the future", so yes.

[majestic]

Speaking of nations doing business with Russia, well, it's a fairly long list though, and one that includes the Ukraine, ironically - and not just in the times when a corrupt Russian puppet was president. They didn't say no to being able to siphon Russian gas deliveries on the by when they needed them for their own purposes, whether they were profit for a few or for the people, and the sweet, sweet transfer tariffs? Yes please.

Singling out Germany, a nation that has imported Russian energy ever since before the Soviet Union collapsed, is a little ridiculous. Almost all of Central Europe is dependent on Russian energy, whether it is oil or natural gas. The noose was always there, this isn't a recent development under Putin, although he made very sure to ever tighten Russia's grip. Diversification initiatives like the Nabucco pipeline never amounted to much either, but that was largely because Russian money was very well received everywhere, including the upper echelons of the European Union leadership.

This isn't on Germany alone, they're just in the spotlight, and for the most ridiculous reasons too, because their exit from nuclear power isn't what makes them dependent on Russian natural gas. That's a fairly minor part of their gas usage, overall - although I'm definitely with @Chilloutman in calling the exit ridiculous. That happened in the wake of Merkel waffling on her commitment after the Fukushima incident. Instead of telling her constituents that they should not worry because having a major earthquake and a tsunami hit a German nuclear power plant at the same time is going to be rather unlikely (for fun, think of this, there's the joke that German has a word for everything under the sun - and yet these sort of giant waves are called tsunami, even in German, so what does that say about how common they are?) she immediately turned towards going with what was popular - and it came from a PhD in physics to boot, let's not forget that Merkel definitely knew better than what she said and did at the time.

Merkel was the ultimate populist leader. Spineless, no ideology of her own - and I don't mean being ideologically set in stone and unmoving even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, like so many politicians seem to be, but really, void of any ideology at all - and never giving any impetus, for good or ill. 16 years of complete standstill, why thanks Mutti.

Said my piece. I'll show myself out again.

[xzar_monty]

22 minutes ago, majestic said:

Merkel was the ultimate populist leader.

Oh, come on. There is no way this is even close to being true. Trump, Orban, etc.

I am not saying she was a good leader. But calling her the ultimate populist leader is senseless.

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Oh, come on. There is no way this is even close to being true. Trump, Orban, etc.

I am not saying she was a good leader. But calling her the ultimate populist leader is senseless.

I thought she was an excellent Chancellor, the only 2 things I would really criticize her on  was her stance on open immigration that started with Syrian immigrants and she tried to appease Putin too much 

But neither of those should  change what I hope is her successful legacy around Germany, at least for me 

But I like Scholtz and I think he is definitely making some early  prudent decisions like the rearmament of Germany, its long overdue and its time for the EU to also focus on having its own effective military force outside of NATO which matters but its not exclusively EU 

[Lexx]

After all the years, people voted for her simply because she was the status quo. Not the best, certainly not the worst. At least you knew what to expect, which couldn't be said of the competition. The lack of progress in many areas was very nerve wrecking and annoying, and I do blame a resurgency of the right wing on it, but at the same time nothing really got much worse for most of the time. I guess this shows the lack of trust of the population into our politicians. Can't really trust anyone, so better to not move at all.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Lexx

[Chilloutman]

hah with you Green party you are moving more and more to the left. I think they have huge gains in last what 10? years. 

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Definitely not if they harbour some ambitions of joining the EU some day in the future. Won’t happen without Germany’s consent 

I am pretty sure that Ukraine will not able to join as long as Hungary is member

11 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

hah with you Green party you are moving more and more to the left. I think they have huge gains in last what 10? years. 

Two big misunderstandings about of European green parties are that they are left wing and that they support green energy.

As members of Greens are mostly urban capitalists, and their membership has higher percentage of private entrepreneurs than your typical economic conservative right wing parties. They also usually don't oppose fossil fuels even though they say that prefer renewable energy, but they are anti nuclear energy in their core, as protesting against nuclear energy was the thing that created 'green' movement .

As urban citizen they understandably are more interested of mass transits than private motoring. 

Liberal societal views and refugee issues have made green parties become closer with modern left wing parties, even though their views of economy don't match, because their traditional right wing allies have started to take much more conservative stances.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Elerond

[BruceVC]

19 minutes ago, Lexx said:

After all the years, people voted for her simply because she was the status quo. Not the best, certainly not the worst. At least you knew what to expect, which couldn't be said of the competition. The lack of progress in many areas was very nerve wrecking and annoying, and I do blame a resurgency of the right wing on it, but at the same time nothing really got much worse for most of the time. I guess this shows the lack of trust of the population into our politicians. Can't really trust anyone, so better to not move at all.

Do you personally think overall she was a good leader for Germany? In other word will you reflect on her leadership in a positive or negative way ?

[Mamoulian War]

The official Kherson Airport report by Arestovych from three hours ago. Apparently, the Ukraine wiped the floor with Russian forces for 15th time at the same spot Google translated from Ukrainian:

"- You will laugh, but ... Chernobaevka-15.
Warehouses with ammunition of the 22nd Army Corps (Crimea) were destroyed.
Plus - the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, the cruiser "Moskva" made a negative ascent in the area of the island where it was sent to yuh.
Gestalt is closed.
Where is Moscow? "She drowned."
The sinking of the Moskva is a colossal military event and the largest defeat of the Russian fleet since WWII, and the largest warship sunk in the world since 1945.
A very ringing slap in the face, all the more symbolic in name.
You wouldn't go, damn it, to Ukraine.)"

[Mamoulian War]

More information about what happened at Black Sea, armament of the ship, and the strategic implications of the loss for Russia. Said by one of our retired generals, who knows a lot about how Russian military works. Google translate from his official Facebook page.

"The destruction of the Moscow cruiser is a severe blow to Russia
All indications are that the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the missile cruiser Moscow is over. This was to happen after being hit by two Neptune missiles of Ukrainian production. This is extremely bad news for the Black Sea Fleet. In addition to the command, this ship was also to provide missile defense for the fleet. The cruiser became known for the incident on Serpent Island, and it appears to have ended up where it was sent by the island's defenders, who refused to surrender.
The Moscow cruiser was 46 years old. It was originally called Glory. It was built in 1976 and was included in the armament in 1979. The cruiser was decommissioned in 1990. Subsequently, it was modernized and re-assigned to the Navy in 2000 under the new name Moscow.
It is an important ship and its loss will hurt the Russians very much. The Russians have already announced that after the ship's fire and the explosion of its ammunition, they had to evacuate the ship. It was a 186.4 m long ship, literally packed with weapons of all kinds. The Russians have not yet officially admitted that they lost the ship as a result of the Ukrainian attack. They obscure the fire, but did not specify its cause.
The ship's armament included 16 fixed launchers for anti-ship missiles P-1000, 64 vertical containers for air defense system missiles S-300 and launchers for 40 missiles Axis for air protection of the ship itself and a variety of weapons. The equipment was supplemented by torpedo chambers and a helicopter.
It was this rocket-laden ship that was supposed to be the best protection for the entire fleet against Ukrainian attacks. Without this ship, the fleet will be significantly more vulnerable. The possibility of a naval landing at Odessa is thus significantly reduced. The Russian navy has so far been more or less intact, but it has kept its distance. A number of caliber flat-caliber missiles were fired from the ships, destroying targets throughout Ukraine.
The Ukrainians originally wanted to get a total of 6 Neptune fire batteries in the spring of this year, but according to published reports, they have only one battery. The Neptune rocket is a missile with a flat flight path. It is derived and redesigned from the original S-125 (Neva) anti-aircraft missile, which was also in the arsenal of the Slovak Armed Forces in the second half of the 1990s.
Rating:
After the heavy losses of the ground forces and air force, the loss of the anti-missile cruiser, which was supposed to protect the entire fleet, is another shameful message for the Russian armed forces. It does not fit into the concept of a special military operation. The Russians will deny the destruction of the attack. But they will have to stay away from the shore. To make matters worse, the Ukrainians said they were seizing ten merchant ships from the Russians. They were in Odessa for repairs."

 

EDIT: Just for the sake of it, Russian official stance on the incident by MoD:

Russian Ministry of Defense says fire at cruiser Moskva has been contained, explosions ceased, crew evacuated and the vessel is being tugged to the port.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Lexx]

25 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Do you personally think overall she was a good leader for Germany? In other word will you reflect on her leadership in a positive or negative way ?

Eh, I really don't know. There's many what-if's if you go back the years. Fact is, personally I think the other parties surely would have been worse. Also keep in mind that nobody would have changed the gas deal with russia anyways (to get partly back on topic).

I just wish certain policies would have been handled better, such as same-sex marriage etc. There was absolutely no reason to stall on this, except that they were scared of losing their 60+ years old voters. Also there was always hypocrisis about arms deals. Stopping the delivery of tanks now and 1 month later, once everything has cooled down, secretly start exporting again, etc. This is nothing new, always happened.

[Zoraptor]

Germany's biggest problem is, perhaps unsurprisingly, von der Leyen. Offloading her onto the EU may yet prove to be their biggest mistake in years. Her being German and constantly shooting her mouth off pointlessly- particularly amusing her threatening to deinvite India from guesting at the G7 for not being hard enough on Russia and getting the "you spend more on Russian stuff in a day than we spend in a month" response- continually highlight Germany's continuing purchases.

3 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

More news on Moskva, keep in mind, part of it is unconfirmed: Cost of the ship in todays money vould be 1-2billions USD. It is said, it was loaded with S300s to support occupied territories with AA defense. Ergo, if this is true, depending of number of S300s loaded, Ukraine just sunk minimum of 3 billions USD with two rockets...

Cost is pretty irrelevant since it was built literally in the 70s. Indeed, it's ~10yrs older than a Ticonderoga, and that class is just about completely phased out. It's like updating the cost of a 70s Ford Escort if you crash it- it only costs something if you plan on replacing it, and you've well and truly got your value already. Russia hasn't built a warship (better clarify, surface warship) that size in decades. Now, in terms of prestige etc the cost is significant...

The big Russian ships are all loaded up with S-300; they're an intrinsic part of its armament and included in the cost. Kirov's like Pyotr Veliky have a really ludicrous amount, like 96 or something (albeit they're ~twice as large).

Edited April 14, 2022 by Zoraptor

[Mamoulian War]

5 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Germany's biggest problem is, perhaps unsurprisingly, von der Leyen. Offloading her onto the EU may yet prove to be their biggest mistake in years. Her being German and constantly shooting her mouth off pointlessly- particularly amusing her threatening to deinvite India from guesting at the G7 for not being hard enough on Russia and getting the "you spend more on Russian stuff in a day than we spend in a month" response- continually highlight Germany's continuing purchases.

Cost is pretty irrelevant since it was built literally in the 70s. Indeed, it's ~10yrs older than a Ticonderoga, and that class is just about completely phased out. It's like updating the cost of a 70s Ford Escort if you crash it- it only costs something if you plan on replacing it, and you've well and truly got your value already. Russia hasn't built a warship (better clarify, surface warship) that size in decades. Now, in terms of prestige etc the cost is significant...

The big Russian ships are all loaded up with S-300; they're an intrinsic part of its armament and included in the cost. Kirov's like Pyotr Veliky have a really ludicrous amount, like 96 or something (albeit they're ~twice as large).

As mentioned little bit above it was completely retrofitted in 2000, so it can be considered newer than Ticonderoga. I have not knew before, they are armed with S300 rockets by default, so thank you for the correction. I have see it more or less as a pretty big hit to their prestige as well, but the monetary value for me was pretty interested, as they will be unable to replace it with anything else for a very long time. Also it was the main defense ship in Black Sea (I think also the biggest) So it pretty much crippled Russian naval attack and defense potential in whole Black Sea.

Also one more article about Moskva, with more details. And yes, I know the reputation of Daily Mail, but so far, one of the most detailed info on the incident available now, which I've found, which is citing both sides.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10717065/Go-f-Russian-warship-BLOWN-Cruiser-Moskva-hit-Ukrainian-missile.html

[Lexx]

14 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Germany's biggest problem is, perhaps unsurprisingly, von der Leyen.

We call her Flinten-Uschi, because she was defense minister for no god damn reason (was family minister before that, maybe they thought it's pretty much the same thing?). Guess they pushed her to the EU just to get rid of her.

I have no idea why germany can't appoint a defense minister who knows what s/he is doing.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Lexx

[Chilloutman]

52 minutes ago, Elerond said:

I am pretty sure that Ukraine will not able to join as long as Hungary is member

Two big misunderstandings about of European green parties are that they are left wing and that they support green energy.

As members of Greens are mostly urban capitalists, and their membership has higher percentage of private entrepreneurs than your typical economic conservative right wing parties. They also usually don't oppose fossil fuels even though they say that prefer renewable energy, but they are anti nuclear energy in their core, as protesting against nuclear energy was the thing that created 'green' movement .

As urban citizen they understandably are more interested of mass transits than private motoring. 

Liberal societal views and refugee issues have made green parties become closer with modern left wing parties, even though their views of economy don't match, because their traditional right wing allies have started to take much more conservative stances.

I very much agree, 'Greens' are just charade for dumb millennials to feel 'eco friendly'. Its just capitalists and lobbyists banking on dumb people in terms of economical policies BUT to go with the flow they also are very left leaning in social sphere which is not helping either

[Zoraptor]

2 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Also it was the main defense ship in Black Sea (I think also the biggest) So it pretty much crippled Russian naval attack and defense potential in whole Black Sea.

The Russians never really had much in the way of naval attack and defence potential in the Black Sea. Apart from subs their only really significant warships anywhere are the Kirovs, and only because they're so big that they have so much stuff on them- and they're both decades old, and down to two in number. Their dominance in the Black Sea is predicated almost entirely by Montreux limiting what can be sent through the Dardanelles/ Bosporus and them having a lot of land based weaponry and planes in the area. Militarily their navy is pretty much irrelevant in the present conflict, since Ukraine has basically no navy to be sunk. Only thing they're doing is firing cruise missiles and enforcing a blockade.

In terms of air defence, naval S-300 are short range, at least relatively- about 80km, unlike the ~250km for land based TELs/ missiles. At a pinch the entire Ukrainian coastline can actually be covered by S-400 in Crimea, and more marginally by S-300. S-300 are also only really meant to be used against manned aircraft, drones would be targeted by shorter range systems which other ships do have.

[Chilloutman]

aren't S-300 supposed to be anti-missile as well? 

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

The sinking of the Moskva is a colossal military event and the largest defeat of the Russian fleet since WWII, and the largest warship sunk in the world since 1945.

Does that include the Argentinian 'General Belgrano' (which was a WWII cruiser)? No idea what size the Moskva was...

 

Edit: Nevermind, I found the wiki pages for both, the Moskva was slightly larger by around 2000 tonnes

[Mamoulian War]

50 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

The Russians never really had much in the way of naval attack and defence potential in the Black Sea. Apart from subs their only really significant warships anywhere are the Kirovs, and only because they're so big that they have so much stuff on them- and they're both decades old, and down to two in number. Their dominance in the Black Sea is predicated almost entirely by Montreux limiting what can be sent through the Dardanelles/ Bosporus and them having a lot of land based weaponry and planes in the area. Militarily their navy is pretty much irrelevant in the present conflict, since Ukraine has basically no navy to be sunk. Only thing they're doing is firing cruise missiles and enforcing a blockade.

In terms of air defence, naval S-300 are short range, at least relatively- about 80km, unlike the ~250km for land based TELs/ missiles. At a pinch the entire Ukrainian coastline can actually be covered by S-400 in Crimea, and more marginally by S-300. S-300 are also only really meant to be used against manned aircraft, drones would be targeted by shorter range systems which other ships do have.

From what I understood, now that the Mykolaiv is unreachable to Russia, the Black Sea Fleet is considered the only way how to start/stage the attack on Odessa, a city which is pretty high in the hierarchy of cities to defeat for Russian propaganda. And Moskva was also the primary defense system against attacks on supply ships in the area.

43 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

aren't S-300 supposed to be anti-missile as well? 

Yes, from the reports I've read (not sure how true they are) they made the air defense of Moskva busy with couples of Bayraktars, so they probably did not noticed the Neptunes, until it was to late.

 

 

 

EDIT: The situation about the Kherson Airport was so ridiculous already week or two ago, that the official Ukrainian Army Media Officer did compare it to the famous scene from Far Cry 3 in one of his speeches

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

EDIT: Just for the sake of it, Russian official stance on the incident by MoD:

Russian Ministry of Defense says fire at cruiser Moskva has been contained, explosions ceased, crew evacuated and the vessel is being tugged to the port.

I don't know about the weather or surveillance conditions over there right now, but shouldn't this be something that's rather easy to check? The tugging part especially.

In Legalese, of course, a couple of guys rowing towards the shore with a piece of iron from the ship might qualify as "being tugged to the port".

[Mamoulian War]

1 minute ago, xzar_monty said:

I don't know about the weather or surveillance conditions over there right now, but shouldn't this be something that's rather easy to check? The tugging part especially.

In Legalese, of course, a couple of guys rowing towards the shore with a piece of iron from the ship might qualify as "being tugged to the port".

It should, we'll hopefully see in few days. Also from what I understood, the weather before/during/after the incident was not good, so the weather might be the real reason, why there is still lack of pictures available...

[Malcador]

NYT quoting Kirby as saying the Pentagon believes she's still afloat. Lithuanian defense minister says she sunk.

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Malcador