Ukraine Conflict - "A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny"

[Zoraptor]

I'm not sure I'd be laughing much. 'Iranian' drones (well, officially Houthi drones) have been ludicrously cost effective against Saudi Arabia and embarrassed a whole lot of western tech.

And not always western tech operated by ludicrously incompetent Saudi welfare cases either.

[pmp10]

13 hours ago, Malcador said:

I'm surprised they have equipment for 1 million.  Well or have trained them to be useful in combat.

As usual with propaganda numbers it's taken out of context.
Ukraine occasionally mentions 700k (most likely all military personel) which for some reason get's routinely rounded up to 1 milion.
Assuming simple 4:1 support personel to combat soldiers ratio that makes roughly 150k troops.

So presumably some 30% more than Russians, but chances are they are struggling much more with equipment. 

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, Malcador said:

So I wonder what the general reaction will be - laugh at their needing help from Iran or want to invade Iran.  Well or both.

I dont find Putins War funny in anyway, the killing of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and the unprovoked invasion is deadly serious 

But this highlights again the numerous training and  strategy problems with the overall Russian military. Of course they would accept Iranian help, the Ruskies were hoping for help from all there allies that includes Belarus and Kazakhstan 

I dont think anyone would argue anymore  after the invasion of Ukraine that Russia has an effective army on numerous levels 

[Mamoulian War]

23 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

A southern offensive has been ongoing for about 3 months now, with the 'real push' about to be launched every single week since then. Kherson has been a day away from liberation almost that long. In the twitterverse.

So, and I'll be charitable, you're saying the guy they rescued there was one of the rescuers? If so, you're most definitely incorrect

"Some eyewitnesses said that some of the bodies had been wearing military uniforms. But most of those living here were civilians."

You shouldn't be barracking soldiers in civilian infrastructure, because it means it's no longer civilian infrastructure. At worst that is itself a warcrime, but it pretty definitively means that it was a legitimate military target, not "another terrorist attack".

Uh yeah, RFE/RL is literally literally US government propaganda. Indeed, their report cuts precisely when the guy from the still is lifted onto the stretcher so you cannot see that he's wearing fatigues. Precisely, so you cannot see he's wearing fatigues.

I got good news for you, the rescuers found a lifeless body of 9 years old boy under the rubble of that destroyed building. Hopefully this will ease your outrage, that someone took a picture of Ukrainian soldier wounded in a civilian building in a city 20km next to the frontline Do you really expect a city that close to the front to be completely void of any defending soldiers? That's pretty ridiculous expectation TBH. Thank you for giving me an insight on how much is RFE/RL a propagandist news. Next time, I will be taking my sources from Russia Today

20 hours ago, Malcador said:

I'm surprised they have equipment for 1 million.  Well or have trained them to be useful in combat.

 

15 hours ago, Elerond said:

They don't. There maybe million that are willing to fight and there maybe some sort weapon for all of them, but they don't have million trained troops. Many of their troops that have fought in eastern line against Russian main assault have less than two weeks of training and inadequate equipment.

Ukraine does not currently have enough trained troops for effective counter offensive, at least not if Russia is able to form defensive lines. 

 

6 hours ago, pmp10 said:

As usual with propaganda numbers it's taken out of context.
Ukraine occasionally mentions 700k (most likely all military personel) which for some reason get's routinely rounded up to 1 milion.
Assuming simple 4:1 support personel to combat soldiers ratio that makes roughly 150k troops.

So presumably some 30% more than Russians, but chances are they are struggling much more with equipment. 

Here is a little bit of analysis how plausible is that 1 million soldier statement. As much as I see it as an overestimation, statistically it is possible, especially, when UK, France, Czech Republic and probably other NATO countries are already training UA soldiers on their soil. There is a fact, that a UA National Front Training Centers were training people since beginning of March as well, so some hundred thousand UA citizens have already 4 month of training behind them. The level of armament is still a big question mark though.

 

[Mamoulian War]

There are at least some positives coming out of the current ****storm in Ukraine. Armenia and Turkey started after decades of diplomatic silence to talk to each other again, on the highest level.

https://www.rferl.org/a/turkey-armenia-pashinian-erdogan-call/31938712.html

@Darkpriest

The other good news is, that Slovakia will be after finishing the interconnection to Italian gas pipelines in October of this year 100% independent from import of Russian Gas. With today's announcement, that Slovakia has already physically available enough gas to last until the end of the March of 2023 (even in the case, that all of the gas, from all around the world stops flowing), has already stabilized the price of gas deliveries to households and industry in the country, and our biggest gas provider, has already implemented price policy, which will keep the prices of gas approximately the same as now, in the foreseeable midterm future. That means, that Putin has achieved, that another country will not need Russian gas anymore in the near future, and effectively closed the business. The funny thing is, that for Slovakia this will be pretty lucrative future, as all of the pipelines from south to north and to the west in the Eastern Europe will be on 1st of October going through our country, and we will rake in ****loads of cash on transport fees. Putin is really a strategic mastermind .

[Darkpriest]

I'm not sure how closely you've been watching eco news, but given by various metrics, including panic buying of USD, where US economy is also under inflationary pressures and has technical recession with two negative GDP prints Q to Q, the Western way of life is going to really struggle and Europeans will pay the highest price... (ZEW just printed lowest index since 2011 and not far from the lows of 2008?)

 

On another note, this seems to be own ZH editorial. While the language is not ideal, points they make are fairly accurate. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/europe-high-alert-french-minister-says-total-shutdown-russian-gas-likely

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/social-peace-great-danger-germany-quietly-shutting-down-energy-crunch-paralyzes-economy

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-yields-oil-and-gold-slide-german-confidence-plummets-2011-lows-euro-hits-parity

Edited July 12, 2022 by Darkpriest

[BruceVC]

28 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

I'm not sure how closely you've been watching eco news, but given by various metrics, including panic buying of USD, where US economy is also under inflationary pressures and has technical recession with two negative GDP prints Q to Q, the Western way of life is going to really struggle and Europeans will pay the highest price... (ZEW just printed lowest index since 2011 and not far from the lows of 2008?)

 

On another note, this seems to be own ZH editorial. While the language is not ideal, points they make are fairly accurate. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/europe-high-alert-french-minister-says-total-shutdown-russian-gas-likely

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/social-peace-great-danger-germany-quietly-shutting-down-energy-crunch-paralyzes-economy

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-yields-oil-and-gold-slide-german-confidence-plummets-2011-lows-euro-hits-parity

So is the $ still going to be worlds reserve currency and when is the US economy going to collapse, you have been saying third quarter?

[Darkpriest]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

So is the $ still going to be worlds reserve currency and when is the US economy going to collapse, you have been saying third quarter?

Reserve currency will not be affected this year or even next one. The period of 5-10ys is the time window. 

(this is the viewpoint presented by Epoch Times so scale down the drama level, but it shows what is the general direction those countries want to move into) 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-and-russia-want-replace-us-dollar-brics-currencies

 

Currently, most of investors do what they were conditioned to do and what algos were built to do, i.e. Things go bad, run for a USD (it's like pavlov syndrome) 

 

The recession and main realization is still locked in for the end of Q3/earnings reporting in October. (Unless war in Ukraine ends and oil and gas trading resumes from Russia to EU) 

 

For example, jobs are not as rosey as you would think from the last gov payrolls report

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/goldman-says-u-s--payroll-gains-overstate-job-growth-68702.html

 

And banks are starting to communicate recession as base case for 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nomura-now-forecasts-global-recession-12-months

Edited July 12, 2022 by Darkpriest

[BruceVC]

45 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Reserve currency will not be affected this year or even next one. The period of 5-10ys is the time window. 

(this is the viewpoint presented by Epoch Times so scale down the drama level, but it shows what is the general direction those countries want to move into) 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-and-russia-want-replace-us-dollar-brics-currencies

 

Currently, most of investors do what they were conditioned to do and what algos were built to do, i.e. Things go bad, run for a USD (it's like pavlov syndrome) 

 

The recession and main realization is still locked in for the end of Q3/earnings reporting in October. (Unless war in Ukraine ends and oil and gas trading resumes from Russia to EU) 

 

For example, jobs are not as rosey as you would think from the last gov payrolls report

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/goldman-says-u-s--payroll-gains-overstate-job-growth-68702.html

Do you know that Russia and China wanted to replace the $ as the worlds reserve currency from the creation of BRIC in 2006  and they have always claimed they want this yet the $ is still the worlds reserve currency 

https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/09/currency-reserve-bric-intelligent-investing-dollar.html?sh=343ef7403c09

Also a recession is not the same as  a collapse, SA has been through several recessions based on the technical definition which is 2 quarters of negative GDP growth and our economy has still not collapsed because its very easy to immediately come out of technical recession  the moment you have growth in the next quarter

So I guess the real question is " what do you and ZH define as a collapse of an economy " ? 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by BruceVC

[Darkpriest]

15 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Do you know that Russia and China wanted to replace the $ as the worlds reserve currency from the creation of BRIC in 2006  and they have always claimed they want this yet the $ is still the worlds reserve currency 

https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/09/currency-reserve-bric-intelligent-investing-dollar.html?sh=343ef7403c09

Also a recession is not the same as  a collapse, SA has been through several recessions based on the technical definition which is 2 quarters of negative GDP growth and our economy has still not collapsed because its very easy to immediately come out of technical recession  the moment you have growth in the next quarter

So I guess the real question is " what do you and ZH define as a collapse of an economy " ? 

 

If Russia will not resume gas deliveries in 10 days to Germany, then you will experience it. 

 

Meanwhile, some soft data from US. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-small-business-optimism-outlook-crashes-record-low-yield-curve-inverts-most

[Gorth]

16 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-small-business-optimism-outlook-crashes-record-low-yield-curve-inverts-most

The yield curve sort of corroborates my claim from a few years ago, that the global economy was headed towards the abyss in 2020 with the speed of the GFC from 2008. Covid masking both the cause and the effect, because everybody were busy pointing fingers at lock downs and blaming that for the tumbling economies. Now the world has to face it, the economic systems in their current form just doesn't work... blaming the war in Ukraine as a cause for prolonging the downturn is just insulting peoples intelligence.

[Elerond]

Germany's gas storages are in half capacity currently, so even if they lose all gas imports now they still have gas until November (when they start to need gas for heating). And during summer month they get more gas from Norway than they use (as they import from Norway 75 TWh worth of gas in month and use 45 TWh).

EDIT: Germany's energy crisis is mainly caused by fact that Germany refuses to declare energy emergency that would allow energy companies to break their long time contracts, which currently forces them to sell gas in massive loss, which has caused that they try avoid selling gas as much as they can.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Elerond

[Darkpriest]

12 minutes ago, Gorth said:

The yield curve sort of corroborates my claim from a few years ago, that the global economy was headed towards the abyss in 2020 with the speed of the GFC from 2008. Covid masking both the cause and the effect, because everybody were busy pointing fingers at lock downs and blaming that for the tumbling economies. Now the world has to face it, the economic systems in their current form just doesn't work... blaming the war in Ukraine as a cause for prolonging the downturn is just insulting peoples intelligence.

Yes, and the botched respons of too long lockdowns and too much money tossed as stimmies etc, just created a situation, where there is little room to act, as the standard opus moderandi of lowering rates and printing money is hardly doable with high inlation on board. 

[Mamoulian War]

3 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

I'm not sure how closely you've been watching eco news, but given by various metrics, including panic buying of USD, where US economy is also under inflationary pressures and has technical recession with two negative GDP prints Q to Q, the Western way of life is going to really struggle and Europeans will pay the highest price... (ZEW just printed lowest index since 2011 and not far from the lows of 2008?)

 

On another note, this seems to be own ZH editorial. While the language is not ideal, points they make are fairly accurate. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/europe-high-alert-french-minister-says-total-shutdown-russian-gas-likely

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/social-peace-great-danger-germany-quietly-shutting-down-energy-crunch-paralyzes-economy

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-yields-oil-and-gold-slide-german-confidence-plummets-2011-lows-euro-hits-parity

All I need to know, is that if it is needed to spent two to five years struggling and not having a western way of life as fruitful as until now, I am willing to pay that price, if that means, that Russia will bleed dry and some of the guys at the top, will get a bonus lead treatment. My family already lived under Russian occupation, and I do not want to relive that period of time again...

[pmp10]

1 hour ago, Elerond said:

Germany's gas storages are in half capacity currently, so even if they lose all gas imports now they still have gas until November (when they start to need gas for heating). And during summer month they get more gas from Norway than they use (as they import from Norway 75 TWh worth of gas in month and use 45 TWh).

EDIT: Germany's energy crisis is mainly caused by fact that Germany refuses to declare energy emergency that would allow energy companies to break their long time contracts, which currently forces them to sell gas in massive loss, which has caused that they try avoid selling gas as much as they can.

There is a good write-up about this including projections.
Russia may not be willing to completely cut gas deliveries for financial reasons, but I would expect sudden reductions in attempt to sow panic in the market and drive-up prices. 

[Malcador]

13 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

My family already lived under Russian occupation, and I do not want to relive that period of time again...

Well, given the performance against people being donated NATO weaponry, doubt that's going to happen against actual NATO members.

[Mamoulian War]

Back to interesting war data.

Since Sunday evening to now, there have been HIMARSed 6 more ammunition depot in Luhansk, Donetsk, Tokmak (Zaporizhia Oblast), Nova Kakhovka (this one was bombed in middle of the night and still burning in the morning), Charivne and Chornobaivka (27th time, man would assume, that after saturday liquidation of command post, there would be nothing to destroy anymore) [all in Kherson Oblast]. Another command post responsible for Russian Air Defense in Kherson Oblast was destroyed in Tavryisk (including a lot of Air Defense systems around the post). And one vehicle warehouse was obliterated in Kadiivka/Stakhanov (Luhansk Oblast).

During the weekend, in between blowing up many other warehouses, the HIMARS found it's way into command posts at Chornobaivka Airport (on Saturday - hit nr 26) and Shakhtarsk (on Sunday - Doneck Oblast). At the airport, allegedly 5 highranking officers of Russian Army has been liquidated including another General. Three already confirmed by RU army or their families, one of them allegedly based on DNA testing, from the "bag of meat", which was left behind. In Shakhtarsk, allegedly all acting deputy commanders of 106th Airborne Division were deruZified. Only one have survived, but is in very bad condition at hospital.

From the various reports from battlefield, It looks like S300 is completely useless against HIMARS, and S400 is allegedly pretty inefficient against HIMARS threat as well.

The Russian losses during the last week and half, since when UA Army started to use this weapon, have to be very significant, as Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have issued Nuclear Attack threats to USA this morning.

[Mamoulian War]

22 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well, given the performance against people being donated NATO weaponry, doubt that's going to happen against actual NATO members.

If Ukraine falls because of West stopping to care, and remove the sanctions, Russia will reinforce themselves and loads of current military officers will be shot for corruption and bad performance. They will learn from all their mistakes in UA, and from the gas and oil money, they will rebuild again. Next time, they will definitely not hesitate to attack eastern NATO members, maybe not directly, but through hybrid warfare. As an example, currently second most powerful political party in Slovakia is extremely Pro-Russian, and is sowing hatred against Ukrainian refugees. If they win the next election, Russia will have after Orban, one more white horse in NATO, and they will definitely use them during the recovery time to the maximum, to destabilize EU. And now imagine people like Salvini, Le Pen, Shroeder and Trump in the West as a leaders of their countries as well... There will not be many politicians in the West, who would be very eager to honor Article 5. Probably Poland and Nordic countries would be among the few, who would honor it in any case.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

The yield curve sort of corroborates my claim from a few years ago, that the global economy was headed towards the abyss in 2020 with the speed of the GFC from 2008. Covid masking both the cause and the effect, because everybody were busy pointing fingers at lock downs and blaming that for the tumbling economies. Now the world has to face it, the economic systems in their current form just doesn't work... blaming the war in Ukraine as a cause for prolonging the downturn is just insulting peoples intelligence.

What  do you think is the cause of the global  inflation that only happened when the lockdowns ended and economies started opening up again?

Edited July 12, 2022 by BruceVC

[Malcador]

28 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

If Ukraine falls because of West stopping to care, and remove the sanctions, Russia will reinforce themselves and loads of current military officers will be shot for corruption and bad performance. They will learn from all their mistakes in UA, and from the gas and oil money, they will rebuild again. Next time, they will definitely not hesitate to attack eastern NATO members, maybe not directly, but through hybrid warfare. As an example, currently second most powerful political party in Slovakia is extremely Pro-Russian, and is sowing hatred against Ukrainian refugees. If they win the next election, Russia will have after Orban, one more white horse in NATO, and they will definitely use them during the recovery time to the maximum, to destabilize EU. And now imagine people like Salvini, Le Pen, Shroeder and Trump in the West as a leaders of their countries as well... There will not be many politicians in the West, who would be very eager to honor Article 5. Probably Poland and Nordic countries would be among the few, who would honor it in any case.

Very unlikely. Sanctions aren't going away anytime soon - I think the condition from the West is pre-2014 borders ? So that's out, Russia's ability to reinforce and conduct military operations is probably set back by a decade or so now after all of this.  Trying hybrid warfare and getting friendly politicians in NATO might work, will be very unfertile soil for quite some time to come, at least in most of Europe.

I doubt Russian tanks sweeping in through Vilnius or something is going to yield no response from NATO members, definitely can count on the US to go blow stuff up with a clear moral reason - and a practical one as what point is NATO other than to defend it's members. 

Then again, if suddenly you see this guy in the Kremlin, we must be afraid.

[Darkpriest]

3 hours ago, Elerond said:

Germany's gas storages are in half capacity currently, so even if they lose all gas imports now they still have gas until November (when they start to need gas for heating). And during summer month they get more gas from Norway than they use (as they import from Norway 75 TWh worth of gas in month and use 45 TWh).

EDIT: Germany's energy crisis is mainly caused by fact that Germany refuses to declare energy emergency that would allow energy companies to break their long time contracts, which currently forces them to sell gas in massive loss, which has caused that they try avoid selling gas as much as they can.

I guess you know something they dont

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-russia-energy-gas-crunch-nord-stream-shutoff-ukraine-war/

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-12/worst-of-global-energy-crisis-may-be-ahead-iea-s-birol-warns

Edited July 12, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Darkpriest]

@BruceVC

Seems someone had read your mind at ZH and created an article of exactly what they think will happen based on various opinions and analytics from funds and banks, should gas not be back online after July 22

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/world-braces-europes-july-22-doomsday

[BruceVC]

29 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

@BruceVC

Seems someone had read your mind at ZH and created an article of exactly what they think will happen based on various opinions and analytics from funds and banks, should gas not be back online after July 22

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/world-braces-europes-july-22-doomsday

The sooner the EU is not dependent on any energy from Russia the better. And it will happen, it just takes time  

[Zoraptor]

9 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I got good news for you, the rescuers found a lifeless body of 9 years old boy under the rubble of that destroyed building. Hopefully this will ease your outrage, that someone took a picture of Ukrainian soldier wounded in a civilian building in a city 20km next to the frontline Do you really expect a city that close to the front to be completely void of any defending soldiers? That's pretty ridiculous expectation TBH. Thank you for giving me an insight on how much is RFE/RL a propagandist news. Next time, I will be taking my sources from Russia Today

Sheesh, it's pretty simple. Don't barrack your soldiers in amongst civilians. That's what Ukraine did. And yes, it wasn't just the Russians saying it, which was the point of quoting the BBC article. Going to say that they're the equivalent of RT? Going to say that the locals were lying and the picture faked? No? Then just accept the fact that that is what Ukraine did.

In this case there was actual proof of that happening, which may be uncomfortable if you're of the opinion that Ukraine can do no wrong, but there's a reason you're not supposed to do it under the Geneva Conventions and why it constitutes a potential war crime- so you get as few dead 9 year olds as possible.

[bugarup]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

In this case there was actual proof of that happening, which may be uncomfortable if you're of the opinion that Ukraine can do no wrong, but there's a reason you're not supposed to do it under the Geneva Conventions and why it constitutes a potential war crime- so you get as few dead 9 year olds as possible.

You know what is even better way not to get dead nine year olds? Not to attack your neighbouring country.