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

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, pmp10 said:

100kg of TNT from HIMARS would sent the whole thing sky-high.

HiMARS warheads are 91kg, but only a third of that weight is explosive. There are also some videos of demos for HiMARS' M31 series warheads available publicly, and the explosion is not huge; it's mostly designed to impel the shrapnel that makes up the bulk of its weight*. If we want to get technical only about 60% of that 30% is actual actual explosive too, an RDX derivative, so in the 18-19kg range. The rest is ~20% plastic and ~20% aluminium powder- which together make a rather nice fireball, though it's amazing how many experts manage to omit the latter when it's (in)convenient**.

It's also amazing how many people insist that there would have to be a crater because a tin roof wouldn't trigger a warhead when, like many munitions, you can fuse them to explode above ground- and that is the recommended fuse for light fortifications like a cinder block building (plus anti personnel use, iirc). While the roof is corrugated iron or equivalent the building construction is pretty solid looking otherwise, decent foot thick cinder blocks or similar. As anyone who has dealt with explosives to any degree knows, they're lazy. They'd far rather peel back a light tin roof than knock over a heavy wall, if they have the option.

The pattern of damage to the walls also seems consistent with shrapnel damage from HiMARS warheads, but not from explosives placed in the roof. That's relying on a few Russian supplied photos though, so mileage may vary appreciably in reality.

*presuming, if it were HiMARS that that is the warhead they'd have used. There are alternatives, but they don't fit the scenario.

**possibly the most silly objection anyway, since it's extremely likely that the main source of fire was secondary, from bedding and the like, and pretty much any explosive could set that off. I don't imagine the Russians are particularly careful to buy non flammable stuff, and typical cheap synthetic bedding burns ridiculously well and ridiculously hot, if briefly. Not surprising as chemically they're similar to components of napalm. The exterior pictures also clearly imply a sustained fire, not an instantaneous one, since there is soot char around the windows similar to that seen on the Moskva.

Quote

If Russians are really innocent in this they shouldn't mind returning corpses in condition fit for autopsy. 

The Russians have supposedly invited the ICRC, whether they follow through or not or have constant to permanent delays though...

Frankly even autopsies are unlikely to fully answer the question. If no bodies have shrapnel, sure, but it wouldn't be too hard for the Russians to bring in bodies that had been hit by HiMARS and claim they were there, nor for pro Ukrainians to say that is what they did even if they didn't.

[Mamoulian War]

US has assessed HIMARS were not used in Olenivka prison.

Full article on it published by Politico.

They were used against military echelon moving to Kherson though. 40 wagons full of ammunition, military vehicles and military personnel were hit.

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Lexx]

Russia lied?! Again?? This can't be!

[Malcador]

As if unnamed US officials would say different, heh.  Interesting one official stopped short of saying it definitely wasn't Ukraine, though.

[HoonDing]

I am sure you can trust the United States of Amerika

[Mamoulian War]

More about the Olenivka penal colony available at various sources. (sorry for the colour, but I am unable to remove it from the copypasta of the source material)
 

“Open-source intelligence (OSINT) analyst Oliver Alexander published an examination of satellite imagery from July 27 showing open graves at the Olenivka prison, noting that July 29 satellite imagery appears to show that the same graves have been covered. Investigative journalism group Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins stated that lower resolution satellite imagery indicates ground disturbances after July 18 and prior to July 21, suggesting that the Russians may have planned the incident in advance.”

 

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-31

[Zoraptor]

That's the definition of tenuous. (1) Images are simply too low res to tell what is shown. (2) The colour palettes don't match. (3) The time of day/ image incident angle don't match either and give a very distorted height perspective- which is extremely easy to prove. Open the images [1] [2] in separate tabs, and switch between them. Buildings appear to ~treble in height over the course of two days...

He's also got the image alignment wrong (near the south wall, not north) but that's just nitpicking and has no practical effect (and is a mistake I've personally made at times too).

Have to lol at ISW again though. It may sound like I'm slamming the the initial guy (Oliver Alexander) but he does appropriately use equivocal language "appears" "possible" etc for things that may or may not be correct- but in the ISW summary they've become plain old definite 'open graves'. Alexander may even be correct, but he'll need more images from subsequent days to correct for the biases, and higher resolutions.

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

As if unnamed US officials would say different, heh.  Interesting one official stopped short of saying it definitely wasn't Ukraine, though.

The fundamental problem with such things is that if someone isn't willing to go on the record and you're getting it from a journalist you have very little idea what was actually said and how (with the proviso/ assumption that no one is deliberately lying).

You could very easily have one source saying "it wasn't HiMARS, so it wasn't Ukraine" and another saying "it wasn't HiMARS but we can't rule Ukraine out" [as it could have been a M31 class rocket fired from a M270 instead of HiMARS, since I know that both systems can fire the same rockets].

There are also pictures of physical evidence despite what the sources claim- though nothing that couldn't have been planted.

[Gfted1]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

(sorry for the colour, but I am unable to remove it from the copypasta of the source material)

R-click "paste as plain text" takes care of a lot of the wonkyness.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

R-click "paste as plain text" takes care of a lot of the wonkyness.

I don't think this forum software is *that* sophisticated. My work around is to paste it into notepad first, then cut and paste it from there into a forum post. Notepad has very little formatting options supported

 

[Elerond]

you can also use ctrl+shift+v for plain text paste

[Mamoulian War]

7 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

R-click "paste as plain text" takes care of a lot of the wonkyness.

I’ll tried it, and for some reason, It did not worked for me. Maybe issue with forum software as Gorth said

[Lexx]

I usually always have notepad open, so I'll just paste it in there first as well. : >

If it's short text, I'll just paste it into the url input box without pressing enter.

[pmp10]

Russia labels Azov a terrorist organization.
Changes of them being exchanged or released are now next to nil.

That's also a 3rd POW related stunt within a week.
They can clearly feel the west's interest waning.

[Elerond]

At least Russia has find useful purpose for all that natural gas they don't deliver Germany via Nord stream 1.

Picture shows about 30 m high flame from Nord stream 1's compressor station in Russian Karelia, picture is taken from Finland about 20 km away of the compressor station. 30 m flame means about 100 MW power, so they have burn about 10k euros worth gas per hour for past week

[HoonDing]

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surprised this was allowed to be broadcasted

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, HoonDing said:

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surprised this was allowed to be broadcasted

Not seeing what you linked.

[Zoraptor]

Seems like it wasn't allowed to be broadcast after all.

[Gorth]

On 8/3/2022 at 1:38 AM, Elerond said:

At least Russia has find useful purpose for all that natural gas they don't deliver Germany via Nord stream 1.

Picture shows about 30 m high flame from Nord stream 1's compressor station in Russian Karelia, picture is taken from Finland about 20 km away of the compressor station. 30 m flame means about 100 MW power, so they have burn about 10k euros worth gas per hour for past week

Bastard Russians are adding to the global warming!
 

 

[Malcador]

Also that oil rig in the Black Sea is still burning, no ?

[majestic]

Good news everyone, Isreal about to unleash their most fearsome weapon on Russia.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, majestic said:

Good news everyone, Isreal about to unleash their most fearsome weapon on Russia.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Well, at least we're in RA2 reality now.

[BruceVC]

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/economy/monthly-jobs-report-preview-july/index.html

The US has added 530k jobs in July, double what analysts were predicting. It really doesnt look like the Western sanctions on Russia is going to destroy the US economy 

[Gorth]

46 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/economy/monthly-jobs-report-preview-july/index.html

The US has added 530k jobs in July, double what analysts were predicting. It really doesnt look like the Western sanctions on Russia is going to destroy the US economy 

Which is one of those "technicalities" some countries use to deny having gone into recession (despite two quarters of negative GDP growth)... A paint job isn't going to gloss over structural problems with the debt, "actual" recession and inflation

https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/0802

https://nrf.com/research/monthly-economic-review-august-2022

US inflation rate is currently 9.1%... hard to sell as a positive

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

 

It's going to be a game of chicken, see whose economy collapses first, The US or China. Russia didn't have much of an economy to begin with, so they started at the bottom level, beating the other two easily (you could actually argue, they were the ones with the least to lose if looking at it cynically)

 

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, Gorth said:

Which is one of those "technicalities" some countries use to deny having gone into recession (despite two quarters of negative GDP growth)... A paint job isn't going to gloss over structural problems with the debt, "actual" recession and inflation

https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/0802

https://nrf.com/research/monthly-economic-review-august-2022

US inflation rate is currently 9.1%... hard to sell as a positive

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

 

It's going to be a game of chicken, see whose economy collapses first, The US or China. Russia didn't have much of an economy to begin with, so they started at the bottom level, beating the other two easily (you could actually argue, they were the ones with the least to lose if looking at it cynically)

 

What do you personally define as a collapsed economy? And its well known and accepted by most that the global inflation experienced by all countries is extremely concerning. Thats not something unique to the US

[Gorth]

31 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

What do you personally define as a collapsed economy?

One where I offer you 3 chickens and a goat to fix my broken water pipes