Ukraine Conflict - "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

No I was referring to a recent NYT op-ed in which the editors demanded that Western leaders force Ukraine to give up land for a peace deal with Russia.

I think that's the same one I'm thinking of, will have to wait until I can access a paywall dodging site to check but I didn't take the impression that they were demanding Ukraine give up land or anything but just that they may have to do that, and also the US support has limits which may or may not be explained clearly to the Ukrainians - I think it is, don't imagine either they are so dumb to labour under false impressions or the US would be so dishonest with a friendly nation.

At least some good news - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/24/ukrainian-soldiers-captured-at-azovstal-plant-in-satisfactory-conditions

 

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, pmp10 said:

So interestingly after (imo questionable) suggestions that Ukraine could win the war a number of voices have been raised urging them not to.
Kissinger just joined that group after Macron, Draghi among others.

They cannot possibly believe that Russia is willing to retreat from taken land, so what exactly are they playing at?

I suppose the objective for ending the war is because very few people want it to continue for years. So their is an idea that you let Putin have Crimea and the eastern regions will be independent 

But Russia must withdrawal from what it has occupied since Putins War started and any land taken, thats the general idea

But their is pushback from both sides and from the Ukrainian side they want to drive Russia out of Ukraine completely so at the moment we not close to finding peace 

 

 

[Mamoulian War]

Rumours says he worked for Wagners

And three Kadyrovytes less as well.

Also in Moldova, former pro-russian president was arrested and charged for corruption.

[pmp10]

Russian passports now on offer in occupied Ukrainian south-east.
Of note is that Kherson region was included and even mentioned by name.
A very strong 'here to stay' message from Putin. 

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, pmp10 said:

Russian passports now on offer in occupied Ukrainian south-east.
Of note is that Kherson region was included and even mentioned by name.
A very strong 'here to stay' message from Putin. 

They already forced in Kherson city to use Rubles.

According to official statement full Ukrainian counteroffensive will start after enough conscripts get sufficient training, which is currently rumored between end of july and start of september. Not to mention, that Ukraine is already amassing a lot of units near Kherson Oblast border for a week or two already. And that partisans are working diligently as well. Last report I've seen was a hefty bomb which injured head of regional occupation at Enerhodar city (The one with the one of the biggest nuclear power plants in Europe).

[Malcador]

Surprised they would deploy T-62s as everyone keeps saying - the video I saw was of them in Russia actually, so wrong on my part.  Russia has ~8000 T-72s in storage, no ?

 

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Surprised they would deploy T-62s as everyone keeps saying - the video I saw was of them in Russia actually, so wrong on my part.  Russia has ~8000 T-72s in storage, no ?

 

 

Allegedly. No one knows for sure how many of them were gutted and sold by Ivans on black market

[Zoraptor]

There's very limited value in stripping bits off of tanks. If they were valuable as scrap they'd have been scrapped; and most western countries actively pay other countries to 'recycle' even 'high value' electronic waste (and Russia produces a lot of the stuff you get from recycling, eg copper anyway). Half the point of Ukraine ending up with everyone's old equipment is... the donors then don't have to pay to dispose of it. Most of the stripping is done for spare parts for other tanks.

Russia has some modernised T-62s that were going to be sent to Syria a couple of years back before the war there quietened down, they'd be the ones they'd be using as they are better than a baseline T72. It would be odd for other reasons such as different ammunition and no autoloader so needs an extra crew, but not because they're rubbish. People are basing a lot on one (?) photo of a T-62 on a transporter anyway [out of date, there's more to base it on now than that it seems such as pictures actually inside Ukraine instead of Russia].

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Not to mention, that Ukraine is already amassing a lot of units near Kherson Oblast border for a week or two already.

Same thing was being said 7 weeks ago, when the Ukrainians were mere hours away from taking Nova Kharkovka and Kherson city and isolating the entire Russian force west of the Dniepr- on the internet.

(Well, mostly, we did get another 'misinterpretation' of city/ oblast from the Pentagon which may not have been initially intended as a misinterpretation and supposedly attacks were launched. But if so they failed without any appreciable gains)

The Russians pretty clearly do intend to keep Kherson, so they will actually fight to keep it. Protecting the land bridge and the two crossings of the Dniepr are pretty important, though not absolutely critical. The other consideration is strategic, Ukraine doesn't benefit much militarily from taking land around, say, Kharkov because the Russian border is right there, and most of the troops taking that land have to remain to stop the Russians simply walking back in later. OTOH make gains around Kherson and those troops aren't needed for garrisoning/ border control and can immediately be used for an offensive again.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Zoraptor

[Darkpriest]

Oil going good for Russia it seems

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Russias-Oil-Export-Loophole-Runs-Through-Greece.html

Plus OPEC making sure that Russia remains part of OPEC+ and also refusing to increase production

[BruceVC]

40 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Oil going good for Russia it seems

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Russias-Oil-Export-Loophole-Runs-Through-Greece.html

Plus OPEC making sure that Russia remains part of OPEC+ and also refusing to increase production

Yeah a high oil price is great news for everyone, OPEC is a good friend of the third world who suffer the most from inflation. Im sure the invasion of Ukraine is worth it for Russia because at least they make money from oil sales ....great long-term strategy for your country 

[Elerond]

OPEC does its best to guarantee that NOPEC goes through in the US. 

OPEC says that it does not increase production because there is no increase of demand on market only panic buyers who have increased price artificially 

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, Elerond said:

OPEC does its best to guarantee that NOPEC goes through in the US. 

OPEC says that it does not increase production because there is no increase of demand on market only panic buyers who have increased price artificially 

And you believe that? Do you remember the days when Trump had influence with Saudi Arabia and he could get them to increase production because he spoke to them?

 

[Chilloutman]

that whole OPEC cartel is sooo fishy, like no-one is arguing that they are basically monopoly doing whatever they want?

[Elerond]

3 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

And you believe that? Do you remember the days when Trump had influence with Saudi Arabia and he could get them to increase production because he spoke to them?

 

NOPEC is Trump's era law which Saudi Arabia opposed (and US oil producers who have liked situation where OPEC has kept oil price artificially high and they have been able to keep their hands clean), as it removes state immunity from OPEC countries and allows suing them under US anti-trust laws for anti competitive attempts to limit world oil supply. 

Trump didn't have any meaningful impact to OPEC's production amounts during his presidency. Current OPEC production numbers are because of their agreement that they made to prevent their storage's to filling because of decrease of demand of oil because of Covid

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

that whole OPEC cartel is sooo fishy, like no-one is arguing that they are basically monopoly doing whatever they want?

As long as they've been around

[Elerond]

7 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

that whole OPEC cartel is sooo fishy, like no-one is arguing that they are basically monopoly doing whatever they want?

They have given special immunity against anti trust law suits, but currently they have in risk to lose that in US and EU

[Mamoulian War]

18 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Same thing was being said 7 weeks ago, when the Ukrainians were mere hours away from taking Nova Kharkovka and Kherson city and isolating the entire Russian force west of the Dniepr- on the internet.

And that is OK, Ukraine is thankfully not as stupid as Russia to send to offensive untrained troops... As I have said, they are training mobilised troops, and will attack only, when they train them enough to be not a cannon fodder like most of the LNR and DNR forces, which have even officially complained about the forced mobilization and very low training provided by proxies... And people are then wondering, why even the most optimistic pro-russian military bloggers are now bitching about how failed this "operation" is, due to extremely high Russian casualties...

[Mamoulian War]

23 hours ago, Malcador said:

Surprised they would deploy T-62s as everyone keeps saying - the video I saw was of them in Russia actually, so wrong on my part.  Russia has ~8000 T-72s in storage, no ?

 

 

Yesterday, there was confirmation of T-62 echelon arriving in Melitopol and there are already some T-62 tanks with custom made improvements in Polohy (both Zaporizhie Oblast)

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

that whole OPEC cartel is sooo fishy, like no-one is arguing that they are basically monopoly doing whatever they want?

Economically (and by definition) they're a Cartel, not a Monopoly. They cannot set a universal price, nor universal production quotas as a monopoly can. They don't even have a majority of production in proper OPEC, though they do with OPEC+.

The reason why they behave as they do is... pretty obvious really. If the countries they exported to set the prices and production quotas they'd do so to benefit themselves, not the exporters- and historically that's exactly what they did in many cases. Places like Iran had decades of their production and prices being dictated to them from London (and later Washington). So there's also the ancillary question to "why won't they help us out when we need them?" which is, of course, "why don't they want to help us out when we need them?". Most people and most countries only ever ask the 1st one though, as the 2nd has some uncomfortable answers.

More generally, I'm decidedly unsure if it's in the best interests of the west to try and do away with Sovereign Immunity in any form, as it opens a very big can of worms in terms of, say, suing for the damage of colonialism, or invasions, or drone strikes, or agricultural policy, or intellectual property or... It's exactly the sort of thing which the west does as Special Cases with Unique Circumstances which don't effect the Rules Based Order, then find out that others aren't really convinced about the Specialness and Uniqueness of the cases and think the Rules Based Order should be applied even handedly.

[Darkpriest]

34 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Economically (and by definition) they're a Cartel, not a Monopoly. They cannot set a universal price, nor universal production quotas as a monopoly can. They don't even have a majority of production in proper OPEC, though they do with OPEC+.

The reason why they behave as they do is... pretty obvious really. If the countries they exported to set the prices and production quotas they'd do so to benefit themselves, not the exporters- and historically that's exactly what they did in many cases. Places like Iran had decades of their production and prices being dictated to them from London (and later Washington). So there's also the ancillary question to "why won't they help us out when we need them?" which is, of course, "why don't they want to help us out when we need them?". Most people and most countries only ever ask the 1st one though, as the 2nd has some uncomfortable answers.

More generally, I'm decidedly unsure if it's in the best interests of the west to try and do away with Sovereign Immunity in any form, as it opens a very big can of worms in terms of, say, suing for the damage of colonialism, or invasions, or drone strikes, or agricultural policy, or intellectual property or... It's exactly the sort of thing which the west does as Special Cases with Unique Circumstances which don't effect the Rules Based Order, then find out that others aren't really convinced about the Specialness and Uniqueness of the cases and think the Rules Based Order should be applied even handedly.

The latter is why a strong lobby in US exists exactly to oppose the NOPEC. Mid to Long term it might do much more damage to the US companies than the US could gain from it. 

[Malcador]

What's the next wunderwaffen ?

 

[rjshae]

 ^ Considering the way Ukrainians like to dig trenches, perhaps some of these beauties? 

 

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, Malcador said:

What's the next wunderwaffen ?

 

I have been very impressed with the massive support both financially and militarily that the US has been giving Ukraine, this has been one of those many examples why I support the US in most of its geopolitical and foreign policy decisions.

Ironically if Trump was president I doubt the US would be as committed. Trumps bizarre bromance with autocratic leaders I am sure would have influenced the US aid to Ukraine

But then you could argue Putin might not have made the biggest miscalculation of his life and initiated Putins War?

[Mamoulian War]

10 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I have been very impressed with the massive support both financially and militarily that the US has been giving Ukraine, this has been one of those many examples why I support the US in most of its geopolitical and foreign policy decisions.

Ironically if Trump was president I doubt the US would be as committed. Trumps bizarre bromance with autocratic leaders I am sure would have influenced the US aid to Ukraine

But then you could argue Putin might not have made the biggest miscalculation of his life and initiated Putins War?

Sooner or later he would, and then another and then another... he considered West weak, due to how they **** up their "mission" in Afghanistan, and how much Eastern and Western block in EU was quarreling all of the time before the war... He did not expect the unity he got in the end... And I think with Trump up, there would be no way to establish such a unity as we have now...

Edited May 27, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Gorth]

11 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I have been very impressed with the massive support both financially and militarily that the US has been giving Ukraine, this has been one of those many examples why I support the US in most of its geopolitical and foreign policy decisions.

Ironically if Trump was president I doubt the US would be as committed. Trumps bizarre bromance with autocratic leaders I am sure would have influenced the US aid to Ukraine

But then you could argue Putin might not have made the biggest miscalculation of his life and initiated Putins War?

Trump would probably have sent Stingers and Javelins to Putin, to help him in his war against the "evil Ukrainians". After all, the Biden family are all in cahoots with the "regime" in Kiev, doing shady business deals.