Ukraine Conflict - "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed"

[Gfted1]

Jeez, that video really drives home what a charlie foxtrot the Russian army is. Although, not gonna lie, jamming a tampon in a bullet wound sounds brilliant. I think if that was me being conscripted Id have to disappear into the ether when nobody was looking.

[Elerond]

 

Chernobyl happened in spring, during fall the wind pattern is different as polar winds are stronger, so spread would have been different

[Gorth]

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I'm still not sure how quoting the relevant rules direct from the treaty('s list of definitions) is deflecting. It's like pointing out that an 'assault' isn't an assault by citing the legal definition; you can argue that it should be an assault morally, but legally...

Fundamentally I think there's a pretty basic misunderstanding of how such treaties work at play. Treaties are written so as to get the maximum number of people to sign up, not to get maximum enforcement. Indeed, in order to get the maximum sign up enforcement is always weak, and there are always numerous loopholes. See any climate agreement, any agreement on military weapons, the UNSC etc.

Though that is not what happened with Chernobyl:

Russia wasn't uneffected, but other places were far more effected.

Europe doesn't really have prevailing winds in the sense many places do. Look at the same data for Fukushima and it's a stereotypical plume heading out over the Pacific, for example.

A detailed map of the fallout in Sweden that year...

 

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

Parents had to miss out on strawberries that year.

...and they looked so radiant that year

I'm sure night clubs everywhere would've have loved "glowberries" to put in the ****tails in those dimly lit locales

[Gorth]

The Russian ministry of defense admits they made a rounding error somewhere... instead of mobilizing another 300000 men to send to the front, they accidentally rounded up 1000000 men to send to Ukraine soon. Hence the widespread dissatisfaction

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63036985

 

Edit: The Soviet army is calling from 1942 and wants its troops back!

[pmp10]

Over the last 24 hours both Nord Stream pipelines have sprung mysterious leaks. 

 

Plenty of vulnerable gas pipelines in the area, especially the ones from Norway.
Energy war escalates.

[Darkpriest]

43 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Over the last 24 hours both Nord Stream pipelines have sprung mysterious leaks. 

 

Plenty of vulnerable gas pipelines in the area, especially the ones from Norway.
Energy war escalates.

Yeah... If someone sabotaged Russian pipelines to EU, then expect accidents soon around Norways pipelines, etc. 

[Darkpriest]

5 hours ago, Gorth said:

The Russian ministry of defense admits they made a rounding error somewhere... instead of mobilizing another 300000 men to send to the front, they accidentally rounded up 1000000 men to send to Ukraine soon. Hence the widespread dissatisfaction

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63036985

 

Edit: The Soviet army is calling from 1942 and wants its troops back!

"It's just statistics"

[Lexx]

58 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Over the last 24 hours both Nord Stream pipelines have sprung mysterious leaks. 

 

Plenty of vulnerable gas pipelines in the area, especially the ones from Norway.
Energy war escalates.

I thought those pipelines aren't in use right now.

[bugarup]

11 hours ago, Sarex said:

Parents had to miss out on strawberries that year.

Meanwhile in Sovietistan my mum had to do a business trip to Gomel (200 km away from Chornobyl) in the last days of April, quiet word-of-mouth was that it's better not to pick mushrooms that summer and fall, everyone with sons eligible for drafting were madly bribing them out of being sent there, but no official, state-sanctioned bans or even warnings whatsoever, because there literally cannot be any problems in soviet paradise, right?

...**** you, Russia.

[Mamoulian War]

The third drafting officer was shot and killed yesterday. According to explanation, which I got from Ukrainian guy, in Russia you get max 15 years for homicide and can be pardoned after 7. So for a few guys who rather go to jail than to Ukraine, it might be a way, how to get lower sentence…

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

I thought those pipelines aren't in use right now.

They're not, but the pipeline's still pressurized - with the loss in pressure, it's now impossible to resume deliveries even if Russia wanted to, or turn Nord Stream 2 on. Curious timing, right after the election in Italy. Crazy Russians, now they sabotaged the pipelines they used to exert political pressure so they can no longer claim they'd resume deliveries if the sanctions were dropped. Well, that's one way to potentially get Germany to commit more resources to the war, now that the bait's been cut.

Huh.

[xzar_monty]

1 minute ago, majestic said:

Crazy Russians, now they sabotaged the pipelines they used to exert political pressure so they can no longer claim they'd resume deliveries if the sanctions were dropped. Well, that's one way to potentially get Germany to commit more resources to the war, now that the bait's been cut.

You can't say that it isn't entirely in line with a host of other decisions Russia's made this year, though.

[majestic]

29 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

You can't say that it isn't entirely in line with a host of other decisions Russia's made this year, though.

I would not put it past a Russian 'navigational error' causing them to drill holes in the wrong pipelines, given the location of the leaks. Nord Stream AG is already complaining about sanctions making it impossible to determine the full extent of the pressure loss and repairing the damage, so that is going to be the new spin going forward, but it certainly is a downgrade in exertable pressure (edit: no pun intended, oh dear).

One cannot dangle a carrot in front of a horse when it was cut off your stick, after all.

Edited September 27, 2022 by majestic

[Elerond]

4 hours ago, Lexx said:

I thought those pipelines aren't in use right now.

Yup they aren't in use, they only have minimum amount gas to keep needed pressure up.

Because there is no steady stream of gas there is constant risk of leaks that will cause pressure drop in the pipes. But because both pipes started to suffer pressure loss quite same time, there is reason to believe that in was not a coincidence

EDIT: Gazprom still needs excuse why it can't hold it end of agreement, in order to avoid sanctions in future in case that relationship between EU and Russia warms up. So far they have constantly found turbines that have suddenly broken.

EDIT2: Russia also claims that pipes can't repaired because of sanctions. Germany say that such claim is bull****.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Elerond

[Lexx]

I've heard two versions about it now:

1. It was America, because they don't want Germany to drop the sanctions in the future, and

2. It was Russia, because Germany wanted to re-purpose the pipelines for gas trade with the nordic countries (Norway etc).

 

My personal opinion on the matter is ... I have no idea.

[pmp10]

37 minutes ago, Lexx said:

I've heard two versions about it now:

1. It was America, because they don't want Germany to drop the sanctions in the future, and

2. It was Russia, because Germany wanted to re-purpose the pipelines for gas trade with the nordic countries (Norway etc).

 

My personal opinion on the matter is ... I have no idea.

We will almost certainly find out in time.
If it's Russia it won't be an isolated case, incidentally Baltic pipe is set to open soon.
If it isn't Russia the news will leak sooner or later. 

[xzar_monty]

At least here in the Nordics, a well-known professor of Russian resource and energy policy has come out and said that "Everybody knows it's Russia". He regards it as one additional sign of escalation and further evidence of how Russia has weaponized all infrastructure it has at its disposal.

[Lexx]

But why would Russia do it in this case? Aren't those exact pipes for the transport between Germany and Russia? How would sabotaging benefit them here? Or are we still on the "Gazprom pretends there are real issues for not delivering gas"-stage?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

12 hours ago, Gorth said:

A detailed map of the fallout in Sweden that year...

[Elerond]

34 minutes ago, Lexx said:

But why would Russia do it in this case? Aren't those exact pipes for the transport between Germany and Russia? How would sabotaging benefit them here? Or are we still on the "Gazprom pretends there are real issues for not delivering gas"-stage?

It is not easiest thing to tie new energy delivery contracts if you break your previous ones without reason. Even China's and India's energy companies has to think over multiple times their willingness to invest billions to build infrastructure to get Russian gas if their partner company in Russia may not fulfill their contractual obligation when it feels like it. 

[pmp10]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

But why would Russia do it in this case? Aren't those exact pipes for the transport between Germany and Russia? How would sabotaging benefit them here? Or are we still on the "Gazprom pretends there are real issues for not delivering gas"-stage?

They could have multiple reasons:

• warn the west about things to come if they don't force Ukraine to the negotiating table
• pretend to be the first victim of the upcoming pipeline ripper (definitely not the perpetrator, no sir) 
• divide NATO with accusations and conspiracy theories (was it US? was it Poland?)
• panic the EU markets to rally the slowly dropping gas prices
• punish Germany for taking over Russian energy assets 

And it's not like the pipelines were looking to be of much use in the short term anyway.

Doesn't mean they did it of course, but the benefits are there. 

Edited September 27, 2022 by pmp10

[Gorgon]

Probably Poland I should think, or Ukraine. 

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

But why would Russia do it in this case?

In order to be able to forcefully blame others for it. This is in line with old KGB of strategy of doing yourself what you accuse your enemy of doing.

[Gorgon]

But Russia has no credibility left, so why even bother when they can just turn off the tap with another "accident" 

[Gorgon]

If the Gasprom strategy was ever going to pay off it would have been soon. Energy prices are approaching 600% of what they were last year, with more rises to come.