At the UNSC:

https://www.voanews.com/a/accusations-divisions-overshadow-russian-led-security-council-meeting/7064265.html

8 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

At the UNSC:

https://www.voanews.com/a/accusations-divisions-overshadow-russian-led-security-council-meeting/7064265.html

The ultimate irony "  Moscow’s chosen theme of “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the U.N. Charter” 

Lets create own borders not recognized by anyone and invade Ukraine but we support the principles of the UN charter

 

Not sure too much of the UNSC cares for the principles of the UN.  Although I guess international relations is mostly BS said publicly.

14 hours ago, Malcador said:

Not sure too much of the UNSC cares for the principles of the UN.  Although I guess international relations is mostly BS said publicly.

Maaaaaaalc....that sounds like cynicism creeping back into your posts, remember you said you were going to try not to be cynical?

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Maaaaaaalc....that sounds like cynicism creeping back into your posts, remember you said you were going to try not to be cynical?

Awww.... he pulled a "government" on you and told you what you wanted to hear 😂

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Maaaaaaalc....that sounds like cynicism creeping back into your posts, remember you said you were going to try not to be cynical?

Don't recall ever saying I'd do that.  Isn't really cynicism, seeing the French talk about how a rule run by might helps no one, the US bemoaning a small nation being invaded or whatever Lavrov went on about is clearly BS.

https://puck.news/the-milley-doctrine/

Milley's thoughts on things.  Bypassed the paywall with Reader View in a private Firefox window, if that helps

Wow. Apparently there are very few depths to which Russia won't sink:

 

On 4/26/2023 at 8:34 AM, Gorth said:

Awww.... he pulled a "government" on you and told you what you wanted to hear 😂

Gorthfuscious do you mind if I use this joke\statement on other forums? I have to ask you because its your words and I really like it to make certain points? I wont mention its your words, I just want to plagiarize it 

3 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Gorthfuscious do you mind if I use this joke\statement on other forums? I have to ask you because its your words and I really like it to make certain points? I wont mention its your words, I just want to plagiarize it 

😂

Feel free to (re)use 👍

https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/winde-says-putin-will-be-arrested-if-he-visits-western-cape/ 

The head of the political party  the DA has said they will arrest Putin if he arrives in the Western Cape

Good to see some political parties in SA understand there ICC responsibilities 

Another interesting assessment from the leaked documents:
Russia can withstand sanctions for at least another year.

Which would mean that even at a minimum they have the potential to drag it out until US elections.

More evidence of Russian vessels carrying small scale submarine near place of nordstream explosion provided by Danish military.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/04/27/7399763/

in the article is a direct link to the Danish newspaper as well.

lol

Well I guess the 'enthusiastic amateurs on sail boat' approach had fallen apart rather spectacularly, so something else was needed. I particularly like the hedging at the bottom of the article still mentioning that story as if it were credible. Not quite as much as people still trying to insist the Kerch Bridge was blown up by a maritime drone with 65kg of explosives, but I do love a bit of informational interference running with my morning coffee and you take what you can get.

Anyway, good guy Denmark wanting to protect Russia from repercussions for- checks calendar- 7 months. Some might say that Denmark has been more stridently anti Russian than anyone bar the Balts and Poles, but clearly this was an incorrect assumption and things like all those Leopards they pledged were actually...

It's truly, truly unfortunate that their reluctance to embarrass Russia has dragged the story out for- checks calendar- 8 days instead of announcing they had the evidence a week ago and they had to bow to public pressure and make a statement. I do hope they won't be forced- forced I say!- to release some images of a russian ship somewhere in the Baltic in a weeks time, however much they want to prevent knowledge of their, uh, ability to take photos at sea being public knowledge as a matter of National Security. Why, next they'll be admitting they have small remote controlled air vehicles with cameras on them on something.

No doubt they are also looking extremely hard for whoever leaked the information that they had the photos in the first place. They must be literally livid about that flagrant breach of security. I expect arrests and trials at exactly the same time as whichever Swedish official leaked all the information about Assange.

The question remains, why would Russia blow up their own pipeline? Sure, you could do some mental gymnastics to make it work, but Occam's Razor says it's HIGHLY unlikely that Russia would blow up their own pipeline.

3 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

More evidence of Russian vessels carrying small scale submarine near place of nordstream explosion provided by Danish military.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/04/27/7399763/

in the article is a direct link to the Danish newspaper as well.

Quoting the original Danish newspaper and then translated by me...

"Det tyske medie T-Online og open source intelligence-analytikeren Oliver Alexander har tidligere beskrevet, at specialfartøjet SS-750 var et af i alt seks russiske flådefartøjer, der kan have været i området i dagene op til sprængningen af rørledningerne. Det baserede de blandt andet på oplysninger fra anonyme kilder og satellitbilleder, der viste, at SS-750 havde forladt havnen i Kaliningrad samtidig med blandt andre fartøjerne Aleksandr Frolov og SB-123."

The German media T-Online and open source intelligence analyst mentioned previously, that special vessel SS-750 was one of six Russian naval units in the area in the days preceding the blowing up of the pipeline. It's based on anonymous sources and satellite pictures show SS-750 having left its berth in Kaliningrad together with the vessels Aleksandr Frolov and SB-123

--

"Som Information tidligere har beskrevet, var det tydeligt på reaktionen fra flere landes militære enheder, at der skete noget mistænkeligt omkring den 21.-22. september 2022 i området øst for Bornholm. Inden for få timer sendte både dansk, svensk og tysk forsvar fartøjer til området, der også blev patruljeret af overvågningsfly fra både Sverige og Polen. Yderligere befandt der sig også amerikanske fartøjer i nærheden, ligesom en amerikansk overvågningshelikopter var i luften over Østersøen."

As Information (the Danish newspaper) mentioned earlier, it was obvious from the response of several countries naval units, that something was going down (pun unintended) during the 21-22 September 2022 in the area east of Bornholm. Within hours, Danish, Swedish and German naval units were in the area, as well as surveillance planes from Sweden and Poland. In addition, US Navy vessels and helicopters were in the area.

/edit: The Danish military did not release any information about the the specific US Navy vessels/helicopters spotted operating in that area on 21-22 September. The article doesn't mention if they refused or simply weren't asked

Provided as a courtesy for our Danish challenged forumites.

Ah, so it's not just good guy Denmark that didn't want to embarrass the Russians, it's good guys Sweden, Germany, Poland and the US as well. I'm sure they've sat on that critical information for 7 months because... to be honest I can't even come up with a sarcastic reason, let alone an actual one. One thing's for sure, it's certainly not 'national security'. Are we really meant to believe that NATO monitoring Russian warships, in the Baltic, after February 2022, is a major revelation that will critically endanger intelligence gathering? That would be nothing less than an insult to anyone's intelligence.

The funny thing is that this is exactly the tactic everyone accuses the Russians of whenever they do something bad: coming up with multiple implausible scenarios about how it wasn't them in the hope that one sticks. Funnily enough The Shaggy Defence gets a lot more media/ twitter analyst examination when it's the Russians using it and even the most blatant inconsistencies get papered over when they're from western sources. Can anyone come up with an actual, plausible, explanation for why they'd have sat on this information if they had it?

(Bet Mr Texeira wishes he was the 'anonymous source, ie leak, for this one, eh? Pretty sure whoever 'leaked' this isn't getting Danish SWAT rolling up with assault rifles and MRAPs anytime soon)

Edited April 28, 20232 yr by Zoraptor

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/reframing-us-policy-debate-‘long-war’-ukraine

Good read on REFRAMING THE US POLICY DEBATE ON A ‘LONG WAR’ IN UKRAINE

@kanisatha

You  should appreciate this 

 

Edited April 28, 20232 yr by BruceVC

6 hours ago, Keyrock said:

The question remains, why would Russia blow up their own pipeline? Sure, you could do some mental gymnastics to make it work, but Occam's Razor says it's HIGHLY unlikely that Russia would blow up their own pipeline.

There is a reason, the initial Vatnik propaganda for at least the first 6  months of the war was full of " Western sanctions are going to lead to the collapse of Western economies and people in Europe are going to freeze and starve to death because Russia energy sources cant be replaced"  and similar rhetoric.  Even on this forum members like @Darkpriest spent about 3 months posting ZeroHedge Russian funded links about the " inevitable " collapse of the EU\US economy  due to high energy prices amongst other things 

And the EU did go through a time of rebalancing and recalibrating  its economies for  the first 6 months of the war but that was mostly due to the imprudent Corona lockdowns and their impact on global supply chains and this is mostly resolved compared to the first 6 months of problems

So going  back to the pipeline and Russia being responsible, Russia did it because they believed it would put massive  additional energy  pressure on the likes of Germany which in turn would put  massive internal pressure on the German government to end the Western sanctions

So Russia could have done it  and the US could have also done it to  make the EU less dependant on Russia  energy and or other pro-Ukrainian groups  could have done it for the same reason

 

Edited April 28, 20232 yr by BruceVC

6 hours ago, Keyrock said:

The question remains, why would Russia blow up their own pipeline? Sure, you could do some mental gymnastics to make it work, but Occam's Razor says it's HIGHLY unlikely that Russia would blow up their own pipeline.

To easier blackmail EU of course.
 

Here is a theory which I posted few months ago, by one of Danish military analysts. Emphasis on theory. (Although few weeks ago I have posted some swedish newspaper here as well, which was talking about the same observation of unusually high RU activity near the place of “accident”.

 

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

Quoting the original Danish newspaper and then translated by me...

"Det tyske medie T-Online og open source intelligence-analytikeren Oliver Alexander har tidligere beskrevet, at specialfartøjet SS-750 var et af i alt seks russiske flådefartøjer, der kan have været i området i dagene op til sprængningen af rørledningerne. Det baserede de blandt andet på oplysninger fra anonyme kilder og satellitbilleder, der viste, at SS-750 havde forladt havnen i Kaliningrad samtidig med blandt andre fartøjerne Aleksandr Frolov og SB-123."

The German media T-Online and open source intelligence analyst mentioned previously, that special vessel SS-750 was one of six Russian naval units in the area in the days preceding the blowing up of the pipeline. It's based on anonymous sources and satellite pictures show SS-750 having left its berth in Kaliningrad together with the vessels Aleksandr Frolov and SB-123

--

"Som Information tidligere har beskrevet, var det tydeligt på reaktionen fra flere landes militære enheder, at der skete noget mistænkeligt omkring den 21.-22. september 2022 i området øst for Bornholm. Inden for få timer sendte både dansk, svensk og tysk forsvar fartøjer til området, der også blev patruljeret af overvågningsfly fra både Sverige og Polen. Yderligere befandt der sig også amerikanske fartøjer i nærheden, ligesom en amerikansk overvågningshelikopter var i luften over Østersøen."

As Information (the Danish newspaper) mentioned earlier, it was obvious from the response of several countries naval units, that something was going down (pun unintended) during the 21-22 September 2022 in the area east of Bornholm. Within hours, Danish, Swedish and German naval units were in the area, as well as surveillance planes from Sweden and Poland. In addition, US Navy vessels and helicopters were in the area.

/edit: The Danish military did not release any information about the the specific US Navy vessels/helicopters spotted operating in that area on 21-22 September. The article doesn't mention if they refused or simply weren't asked

Provided as a courtesy for our Danish challenged forumites.

I am always fascinated by other languages and how they written but why is Danish such a complicated language? Why cant it be easy to understand like English, we all understand English ?

 

I could put on my tinfoil hat and suggest it was a renegade Russian commander blowing it up (whatshisname leader/owner of Wagner?), in order to escalate the confrontation?

As said, entering  tinfoil area. It could end up like the JFK assassination with an official version and 117 alternative versions of various degrees of plausibility.

Prigozhin isn't renegade. His whole point is doing things Russia can disclaim and for that you need a level of (apparent) conflict. Mercenary companies are illegal in Russia, if there was any actual and serious disagreement he wouldn't be where he is and never would have got there in the first place.

Worst day for Ukrainian air defence in a while, with 4 S-300 destroyed. At least they weren't all parked together close enough to be hit by a single cluster munition though, unlike the last time they lost 4 in a day in February. Also a Gepard claimed, but no actual evidence yet. Yeah, there's footage now. Looks like it may have had a mechanical issue beforehand as it was immobile half way off a road.

Edited April 28, 20232 yr by Zoraptor

1 minute ago, Gorth said:

I could put on my tinfoil hat and suggest it was a renegade Russian commander blowing it up (whatshisname leader/owner of Wagner?), in order to escalate the confrontation?

As said, entering  tinfoil area. It could end up like the JFK assassination with an official version and 117 alternative versions of various degrees of plausibility.

Yes there are several groups and people who could have been responsible and like I was saying earlier we tend to unintentionally forget the reality and instability of global energy the first 6 months. Remember oil price got to  $124 

Think about if you were a Russian strategist, you know that the Western sanctions are not going to end on their own. But if you destroy the Nord pipeline yes it does impact that energy source and revenue for Russia  but you still have other energy revenue sources like oil sales 

But it directly impacts Germany and  that leads to massive internal anger at the government and a call to "end sanctions " because understandably German citizens are suffering

Here is an old link from that time period about how that  dependency use to be tied to Russia, there was real and valid concerns

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/07/18/a-german-gas-crisis-will-cause-jitters-across-europe/#:~:text=Nord Stream 1 supplies 58% of Germany’s annual,24%2C to more than €170 per megawatt hour.

And then it would take 6-8 months to end EU\German energy sanctions in one form or another because you cant expect any EU  country to suffer because of sanctions

And thats better for Russia in a long term perspective. Blow up the pipeline now but it leads to a lessening of EU sanctions and thats  a reasonable objective and you can mitigate the temporary loss of revenue from this for that time period 

All Im saying is the point  that says " it makes no sense that Russia would blow up the pipeline " is not accurate. There are strategic reasons for the Ruskies to do it 

how come 200 billion dollars later the guys with shovels have still not been beaten