Ukraine Conflict - Continues

[xzar_monty]

44 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

But do you accept that a Putin double could have made the Mariupol trip?

My answer will probably sound pedantic, but yes, of course I accept that, because clearly it is possible. However, for me to consider that something like that has actually happened, I would have to see some pretty convincing evidence for it. I am not willing to entertain the idea simply on the basis that it is possible, which it undeniably is.

[Gfted1]

The middle one is a body double. Just look at that weak chin!

[BruceVC]

https://www.ex2.com.au/news/avalon-2023-sypaq-to-supply-corvo-drones-to-ukraine/

@Gorth

Nice to see Oz companies playing there part, and making money, assisting the Ukrainian war effort 

[Gorth]

7 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.ex2.com.au/news/avalon-2023-sypaq-to-supply-corvo-drones-to-ukraine/

@Gorth

Nice to see Oz companies playing there part, and making money, assisting the Ukrainian war effort 

The RC model plane I had as a young man looked more sophisticated

 

(But then, Graupner made some awesome scale model planes. I think they even exists today, 30-40 years later)

 

[BruceVC]

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5887911?from=glavnoe_1

There is a Russian Codex member who provides these  links, he is not a Putin fan or supports the invasion but basically its the financial results of all large listed private sector Russian companies. He  has posted about 4-5 and they reveal the same dire results for these companies due to Western sanctions and the reality of the Russian economy

The Ruskies are now classifying economic data about the country but private sector listed companies have to post there results by law. Companies can obviously lie about end of year results but its highly unethical and illegal 

Anyway these are the results from Rosbank and shows a 75% decrease is profit from 2021 but they only went under US and EU sanctions in December 2022 so I hate to think what 2023 results could be  but they are trying to diversify from Western markets and sanctions 

[Malcador]

Has he ever been confirmed to use body doubles ?  Reminds me of the tea leaf reading on his health, or Shoigu's death and such, heh.

 

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, Malcador said:

Has he ever been confirmed to use body doubles ?  Reminds me of the tea leaf reading on his health, or Shoigu's death and such, heh.

 

People on Codex claim its absolutely true but its Codex so thats no guarantee its true 

I will make some inquiries about links and what is out there

 

[Mamoulian War]

13 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Has he ever been confirmed to use body doubles ?  Reminds me of the tea leaf reading on his health, or Shoigu's death and such, heh.

 

It is in same speculation areas, as all you’ve mentioned, but to me it seems little bit more plausible than that. But we’ll never know unless Putin shows up in Hague

[BruceVC]

6 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

It is in same speculation areas, as all you’ve mentioned, but to me it seems little bit more plausible than that. But we’ll never know unless Putin shows up in Hague

There is more  of chance of me going on a hot date with Meghan Thee Stallion than Putin ending up in the ICC...especially while he is president

But its the principle of the warrant that matters to me. Thats what is important. But this warrant puts SA in a terrible position for August. I hope they move the BRICS meeting to India or China 

[Mamoulian War]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

There is more  of chance of me going on a hot date with Meghan Thee Stallion than Putin ending up in the ICC...especially while he is president

But its the principle of the warrant that matters to me. Thats what is important. But this warrant puts SA in a terrible position for August. I hope they move the BRICS meeting to India or China 

Then I wish you best luck with your date with Meghan 

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

There is more  of chance of me going on a hot date with Meghan Thee Stallion than Putin ending up in the ICC...especially while he is president

But its the principle of the warrant that matters to me. Thats what is important. But this warrant puts SA in a terrible position for August. I hope they move the BRICS meeting to India or China 

Pretty much, the hope is that he'll end up there once there is regime change (at least that's Canada goal here) and presumably the new guy in charge wants to make nice with the West.  Do wonder what things will be like with Russia going forward, as Massicot (I think) had wrote, Russia's too big and important to try to treat like the DPRK.

US trying to get Abrams to Ukraine sooner :

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-21/us-will-speed-up-the-delivery-of-abrams-tanks-to-ukraine?srnd=politics-vp

"Less complex German tanks" seems a bit backhanded, heh

 

[xzar_monty]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

There is more  of chance of me going on a hot date with Meghan Thee Stallion than Putin ending up in the ICC...especially while he is president

Now, it is obviously impossible to be certain about any of this stuff, but if I had to bet, I would place my money on the idea that for Putin to be alive at all, he has to be president, so there's approximately a 0% chance of him ending up in the ICC after his presidency. (And, yes, I agree, an approximately 0% chance of him ending up in there while he's president.)

[Zoraptor]

It's against the Russian Constitution to extradite someone in those circumstances- and not due to Putin, the law was drafted in 1996 under that idiotic, but very much pro western, sot Yeltsin. Would be suitably typical if the first thing the west asked a new broom Russian President to do was to violate their constitution for their benefit. Even worse, it would instantly establish him as a stooge of the west.

 

"Less complex German tanks" seems a bit backhanded, heh

In this case, probably fair enough though as they're meant to be making the Abrams from scratch, hence the long wait time.

Leo1s are, ultimately, a design only 4 years newer than the T-62s people derided Russia for reactivating. Most of the Leo2s are 2A4s, which are 30 years old. They will definitely be less complex.

[Malcador]

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-politics/us-speeds-up-abrams-tank-delivery-to-ukraine-war-zone/

The M1A1s they have in storage make sense to give. About the same age of design as the 2A4s, no ?

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Malcador

[Chilloutman]

problem with abrams is that stupid turbine. Not many armors use tham as they are notoriously hard to maintain - thats the reason for complexity. Otherwise even 30 years old tanks usually undergo some sort of upgrades after those years

[Zoraptor]

51 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-politics/us-speeds-up-abrams-tank-delivery-to-ukraine-war-zone/

The M1A1s they have in storage make sense to give. About the same age of design as the 2A4s, no ?

 

Funny, I was sure they initially said they couldn't just take them from army stocks as they'd take nearly as long to prep as to build new (and would have to have a lot of stuff stripped back to export model standard too). Guess it depends what medium to long term means.

But yeah, as chilloutman says, still considerably more complicated than the 2A4 for maintenance at least. Ironic that that is one case where more complexity is a big negative.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

It's against the Russian Constitution t

 

 

" against the Russian Constitution " 

Good one Zora, it almost makes you think that Putin is bound by it and believes in the rule of law and order. I dont give your sense of humor enough credit 

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Good one Zora, it almost makes you think that Putin is bound by it and believes in the rule of law and order. I dont give your sense of humor enough credit 

The issue was the time after Putin, but I'm inclined to think your point might still hold: even after Putin, the Russian law may well be whatever the leader wants it to be. However, I would also agree with Zoraptor in the sense that while the law is malleable, it won't be changed or disregarded to the Russians' obvious detriment.

[BruceVC]

11 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

The issue was the time after Putin, but I'm inclined to think your point might still hold: even after Putin, the Russian law may well be whatever the leader wants it to be. However, I would also agree with Zoraptor in the sense that while the law is malleable, it won't be changed or disregarded to the Russians' obvious detriment.

Yes I agree, for  any government to be bound by its Constitution it requires judicial independence 

And that doesnt exist in Russia under Putin and even when he is gone its difficult to imagine how this will change. It can of course but Judicial independence takes time to be restored 

[xzar_monty]

10 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Even worse, it would instantly establish him as a stooge of the west.

One funny thing about this is that Putin appears to be establishing himself as a stooge of the east, at least to an extent, right now, these very days.

It is true, though, that "east = China" but "west" is a more general term.

[Zoraptor]

I don't think alliances automatically mean someone is a stooge- it has to be someone willing to do something which is primarily in the interests of the other party with either bad consequence or no benefit for their own. So it would be hard to define France as being a stooge of the US since they've had notably different positions in the fairly recent past; otoh Britain frequently puts its own interests behind those of the US while they're both US allies.

The thing that would make handing Putin over the act of a stooge is that it would be illegal and thus a terrible way to start for Russia, and under Complementarity a new broom President ought to result in Putin being tried in Russia*. Handing him over at that point would just be to curry favour with the west, it would be actively against Russian interests.

*ICC is only meant to step in when the authorities in the country aren't able/ willing to investigate themselves. Which is, of course, why it has such a bad reputation outside the west- it allows western countries to investigate themselves and find themselves innocent because they have 'reliable' judicial systems while African nations, obviously, have unreliable ones if they do the same. And then they tend to look at situations like the Australian SAS murdering civilians in Afghanistan for fun, initiation rites etc which their government knew about for ages and actively tried to suppress information about on grounds of, lol, "national security". But hey, competent and reliable legal system (and to be fair, one person has been arrested, as of yesterday. But he only got arrested after the attempts to suppress everything failed. If they hadn't he'd still be walking around regarded as a hero... and I think the chances of Scott Morrison being arrested for trying to suppress that information aren't exactly high)

Edited March 22, 2023 by Zoraptor

[HoonDing]

Let's hope Drump is re-elected so this madness can end asap.

[xzar_monty]

50 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

I don't think alliances automatically mean someone is a stooge- it has to be someone willing to do something which is primarily in the interests of the other party with either bad consequence or no benefit for their own.

Oh, absolutely. It would seem to me that with China, Putin is getting closer to an arrangement that is primarily in the interests of China and has little benefit[*] for Russia. We'd have to know the specifics of their dealings, of course, which we don't and won't, but there's no question about who's the stronger party there.

 

[*] Benefit is a tricky term, though. I'm not sure if there's a legal definition, but the ordinary definition can be quibbled about forever.

[Mamoulian War]

All is going according to plan

 

[Lexx]

Wake me when they are bringing back the KV-1.