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[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: War News Thread: Round 6
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Analysis of Ukrainian attempted offensive near Orekhov couple of weeks ago.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Russia to offer food for North Korean weapons - US
Russia is sending a delegation to North Korea to offer food in exchange for weapons, US national security spokesperson John Kirby has said.Mr Kirby said any arms deal between North Korea and Russia would violate UN Security Council resolutions.
The US has previously accused North Korea of supplying arms to the Russian military in Ukraine and the Wagner group of Russia mercenaries.
Pyongyang has previously denied the claims.
Mr Kirby told a news conference the US had new information about a deal.
"We also understand that Russia is seeking to send a delegation in North Korea and that Russia is offering North Korea food in exchange for munitions," he said.
Mr Kirby said the US was monitoring the situation, and the alleged deal, closely.
Earlier on Thursday, the US Treasury blacklisted a Slovakian man for acting as a broker between Russia and North Korea.
The treasury said Ashot Mkrtychev, 56, had arranged sales and organise deals that would enable North Korea to ship weapons to Russia in late 2022 and early 2023.
In return Pyongyang received cash, commercial aircraft, commodities and raw materials, they said.
Featuring on the sanctions blacklist means American businesses cannot have dealings with Mr Mkrtychev, and it freezes his US assets.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65131117
FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
The Conflict Intelligence Team (a Russian opposition investigative reporting group) is reporting T-54 and T-55 tanks being shipped west from a tank storage facility near Vladivostok. Meanwhile, the U.S. is sending Ukraine M60 tanks, which originated around the same time period - but they're bridge-laying tanks.
It's difficult to track tank deliveries, but Britain and Germany have combined for 32 confirmed deliveries of Challengers/Leopards, with Norway and Poland also having made deliveries, and Canada, France, and Spain either having done so or about to do so. If the 20-new-Russian-tanks-per-month figure is accurate, it might be possible for arrivals of new tanks in Ukraine to keep pace or exceed that. I'm sure that was discussed when the CEO of Rhinemetall visited Kiev this week. The faster Rheinmetall and other companies can refurbish or build new tanks to reassure Europe's armies that they'll have enough in reserve, the faster tanks can be supplied to Ukraine.
Meanwhile France is announcing a doubling of artillery supply, but only to 2000 shells per month, whereas Slovakia is announcing they'll increase annual production from 30,000 to 150,000 shells. I'm impressed with Slovakia lately, Slovakian jets are defending Kharkiv and soon they'll be making quite a lot of artillery shells for a country of their size; even as-is they're already outpacing France. Also props to North Macedonia on supplying Ukraine with Ukrainian helicopters, and Bulgaria for their 2022 scheme to supply diesel refined from Russian oil at a Lukoil plant to Ukraine, as well as to supply significant (and continuing) amounts of Soviet-compatible ammunition.
At this point I don't think Russia can capture all of Bakhmut, or Vuhledar, or Adviika. They've gained what, 15% of Bakhmut in a month with heavy losses and very few Ukrainian counter-offensives? They might get another 10% in April (my guess is Ukraine waits another month to two months for more supplies to arrive and less mud before launching a large counter-attack). But it was a month and a half ago that they got to "Bakhmut is surrounded on 3 sides, they may well have it by the 1-year anniversary." Not much ground has changed sides since then, and reports are that Russian attacks have diminished recently.
Slovakia aside I still have concerns about the Western artillery shell production rates and tank refurbishment rates, as well as the disappointing news that NATO military spending as a percent of GDP did not increase in 2022 (source; page 159). Credit to Lithuania and Poland on significant increases. But I am cautiously optimistic that Ukraine will find the right place to launch a spring offensive that liberates another sizeable chunk of land.
It's difficult to track tank deliveries, but Britain and Germany have combined for 32 confirmed deliveries of Challengers/Leopards, with Norway and Poland also having made deliveries, and Canada, France, and Spain either having done so or about to do so. If the 20-new-Russian-tanks-per-month figure is accurate, it might be possible for arrivals of new tanks in Ukraine to keep pace or exceed that. I'm sure that was discussed when the CEO of Rhinemetall visited Kiev this week. The faster Rheinmetall and other companies can refurbish or build new tanks to reassure Europe's armies that they'll have enough in reserve, the faster tanks can be supplied to Ukraine.
Meanwhile France is announcing a doubling of artillery supply, but only to 2000 shells per month, whereas Slovakia is announcing they'll increase annual production from 30,000 to 150,000 shells. I'm impressed with Slovakia lately, Slovakian jets are defending Kharkiv and soon they'll be making quite a lot of artillery shells for a country of their size; even as-is they're already outpacing France. Also props to North Macedonia on supplying Ukraine with Ukrainian helicopters, and Bulgaria for their 2022 scheme to supply diesel refined from Russian oil at a Lukoil plant to Ukraine, as well as to supply significant (and continuing) amounts of Soviet-compatible ammunition.
At this point I don't think Russia can capture all of Bakhmut, or Vuhledar, or Adviika. They've gained what, 15% of Bakhmut in a month with heavy losses and very few Ukrainian counter-offensives? They might get another 10% in April (my guess is Ukraine waits another month to two months for more supplies to arrive and less mud before launching a large counter-attack). But it was a month and a half ago that they got to "Bakhmut is surrounded on 3 sides, they may well have it by the 1-year anniversary." Not much ground has changed sides since then, and reports are that Russian attacks have diminished recently.
Slovakia aside I still have concerns about the Western artillery shell production rates and tank refurbishment rates, as well as the disappointing news that NATO military spending as a percent of GDP did not increase in 2022 (source; page 159). Credit to Lithuania and Poland on significant increases. But I am cautiously optimistic that Ukraine will find the right place to launch a spring offensive that liberates another sizeable chunk of land.
Akka
Moody old mage.
Ditto with Poland, Latvia or most states that actually endured being subject to USSR, which have put a LOT of means compared to their size. They seem VERY intent to make Russia lose the war. Guess first-hand experience of living under its yoke does that to most people.
That and being high up on the list of Russia's list of next targets.
Snowygerry
Deity
Maybe opening the prison doors is not such a bright idea after all,
theins.ru
Convicted murderer recruited by Wagner PMC returns to Russia from front line and becomes suspect in another killing
A resident of the village of Novy Burets in Russia’s Kirov region, convicted to 14 years in prison for murder in 2020, has become a suspect in another killing. The man, Ivan Rossomakhin, was recruited from prison by the Wagner PMC and pardoned after returning from the front line in Ukraine.
theins.ru
And thus it is even more surreal that Hungary is sucking on Putin's.
It was just in the local news that the extra gas Hungary bought during autumn (when gas prices were sky high 200-300 EUR) by making a private deal with Russia for additional supplies on top of the long-term gas contract, circumventing the EU and other allies, has currently accrued an unrealized loss of -2bn EUR (as gas prices dropped to 40). Even worse, part of the gas purchase is financed by the Russians. So Hungary has to pay a huge sum with interest to Russia over the next period. Hungarian politicians were effectively betting against the West and now they pay the price. I guess they wanted to flip the fingers to a gasless EU during the winter period. They ate up Kremlin propaganda.
Fortunately Russia can only attract nations and people of failure to its orbit whose actions barely matter.
(Source in Hungarian: https://www.portfolio.hu/gazdasag/2...ontott-most-a-gazkeszlet-megtartasarol-606266 )
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Zardnaar
Deity
Translation they have fixed price contracts but the market price has now fallen lower than the Russian price?
Akka
Moody old mage.
Another amusing fact about this : Hungary put on the "unfriendly countries" list of the Kremlin.
All this sucking for naught
Like other Central/Eastern European countries used to have, Hungary's main source of Russian gas is through the long-term gas contract between the two countries. These are 10-15 year contracts which regulate gas flows between Russia and Hungary. The pricing is usually some kind of TTF (Dutch gas exchange) pricing with a few months delay. So kinda competitive. If we are lucky we can even get some discount here and there compared to TTF.
Now in September the Hungarian govt decided that they want to source more gas on top of the long-term gas contract. They decided to buy a lot from Russia for basically around the spot price. You can see below that the TTF price in September was around 200 EUR.
To make this deal the Hungarian govt had to sweeten up to the Russians, even when everyone else in Europe tried to distance themselves.
Szijjártó (Minister of Foreign Affairs) met with Lavrov despite the EU's explicit request not to
Szijjártó met with Lavrov despite the EU's explicit request not to
The EU's request to not hold bilateral talks with Russia during the UNGA this week was understood and accepted by all member states – except Hungary.
telex.hu
Now buying such amount of additional gas at the worst prices indicate that the Hungarian govt didn't believe that the EU would be able to properly solve its gas crisis for the winter and wanted to generate political leverage against the West with the help of Russia. The gas storage facilities also had an okay amount of gas in them at this point, so it was not a critical deal to make.
By now gas price has fallen to around 40-50 and due to lowered consumption, more LNG supplies and a mild winter Hungarian gas storage is still in a pretty good shape and this extra gas has not been used. So effectively this amount was bought for 200 EUR or even higher and compared to the current prices Hungary paid an extra 2bn EUR for them (which is a lot of money for such a small state).
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Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Since 1/3rd is neutral, the opposite is also true.
Akka
Moody old mage.
I want to see this graph with just India and China counted separately.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Important also to remember the quality of the few supporters Russia has.
Verbose
Deity
Putin has made Russia the enemy of Europe. Wealth distribution in that graph is just an indirect function of that.Can't resize this image :<
Of course, large parts of the world might just dislike Europe.
Graphics like that are as useless as it gets. You cannot project the political leaning of a nation's government onto the entire population of the nation. That's not how any of this works. Portraying it as such just paints a wrong picture, even when you include the line about what it is supposed to mean.Can't resize this image :<
There are also some oddities in there. Kazakhstan, for example, is listed as Russian leaning on this matter. It is in fact anything but. For a nation that is actually politically linked to Russia, it has been very critical of Russia's behaviour and enacted quite a few decisions that undermine Russian interests. That's not "leaning towards Russia". Considering their situation, they are obviously not standing against Russia, but they are also not in favour of Russia's actions.
I don't remember A-10 being discussed by any serious sources, but whatever... How do those guys explain the two previous successful Ukrainian offensives ?
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