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[RD] War in Ukraine: Other topics

Because I know basic scholl in Portugal is in a disgraceful condition now, tell me - can you actually read past the misleading headline?
Did . . . you? The entire article is provided in the post.
 
I posted that article in the other thread.

I have also been posting the satellite photos of Soviet Srtockpike depletion.

They've basically run out of certain categories and everything else is 6 months to a year left at current rates of consumption.

Also assuming what's left can be restored in a reasonable time frame.

2 months ago.

 
Considering last Trump's last threat (or peace) proposal - US can declare Russia as terrorists sponsore state. This will made huge impact on Russian economic. But. Then oligarchs will nothing to lose. So using nuclear weapon in Ukraine - well, they can't hurt as much more, as they did.
 
Considering last Trump's last threat (or peace) proposal - US can declare Russia as terrorists sponsore state. This will made huge impact on Russian economic. But. Then oligarchs will nothing to lose. So using nuclear weapon in Ukraine - well, they can't hurt as much more, as they did.
that's what Russian pundit have been saying for 3 years, and not just in Ukraine, haven't they ?

and I think I've seen some pool saying Russians were ok with the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine at 40%, but did not post it here at the time because I didn't believe it.

has that changed ? for example do you personally see the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a solution for Russia ?
 
Considering last Trump's last threat (or peace) proposal - US can declare Russia as terrorists sponsore state. This will made huge impact on Russian economic. But. Then oligarchs will nothing to lose. So using nuclear weapon in Ukraine - well, they can't hurt as much more, as they did.
Considering they are already cut-off from activity outside the Russian political and economic sphere, and not going to be allowed in anytime soon anyway, by that logic they should already have nuked something. And then they would be in real trouble.

The Russian oligarchs have already been recalled to Russia by Putin, and have had to align themselves behind the government's political project in Ukraine. However, if they want an out from that, and a way back towards they old haunts in the west, then the solution is not to nuke something – that would just confirm how they will never return – but they could simply remove Putin, and work from there.

All nukes might do is confirm a complete lack of any kind of future.

But then that assumes a kind of agency and importance on the part of said oligarchs they lack. Not that matters, because the point of Russian threat of nukes is just to threaten, not to actually use them. Since that would create a completely new, much worse, situation.
 
Soviet Srtockpike depletion.

>phone rings late at night
>"this is President Kennedy, what is going on?"
>mr. President, you need to come to the secure briefing room under the Pentagon immediately"
>kennedy in the briefing room
>title of briefing: "The Srtockpike Gap"
 
that's what Russian pundit have been saying for 3 years, and not just in Ukraine, haven't they ?

and I think I've seen some pool saying Russians were ok with the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine at 40%, but did not post it here at the time because I didn't believe it.

has that changed ? for example do you personally see the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a solution for Russia ?
I don't know how many people support nuclear strikes, but there are definitely people who do. Their motivation in this matter is exactly the same as the US had for striking Japan in WW2. To stop the war (understandably on Russia's terms), to save the lives of their soldiers.
If we take military significance, there are not many military targets for such strikes with tactical nuclear weapons. 2-3 airports (like Starokonstantinovsk), a tunnel on the border to Poland, maybe one or two military ranges, such as the Yarovsky range.
 
but that means it would be fine for Ukraine to do the same.
 
Yes, nuclear proliferation is the logical consequence, would not surprise me if they are already in Poland precisely to deter such an attack.


Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Polish policy leaders publicly called for their country to be included in NATO’s nuclear-sharing program. This article explores why Warsaw decided to break with its long-standing tradition of not raising the issue because of the controversy that the potential deployment of nuclear weapons in Poland would cause among allies and the risk of increased tensions with Russia. Drawing on John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach, we demonstrate that a simultaneous occurrence of external and internal factors has driven the shift in Poland’s policy.

If a tactical nuclear weapon had looked like a good idea to to the Putin regime, it would already be done.


Watching the growing concern about the humanitarian impact of nuclear-weapons use in Western Europe, Polish experts also considered the feasibility of transferring US nuclear weapons from some of their current locations in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium (and relieving these countries’ air forces of the nuclear role) to Central Europe. According to that logic, “Instead of dealing with the anti-nuclear public critical of these countries’ nuclear role, the U.S. weapons could reportedly count on a much warmer reception in the nuclear-weapon-friendly eastern NATO states.”Footnote29
 
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they also asked France at some point IIRC.
 
Such things are usually done discretely.

All confirm nor deny territory.

Also, they argue that the ongoing nuclear adaptation in NATO, with the introduction of F-35 aircraft by the United States and the current DCA countries (the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy), and of the new variant of the B61 nuclear bomb (B61-12), is creating a modernized, fit-for-purpose force. Therefore, there is no operational need to increase the number of states participating in nuclear sharing or the number of bases hosting US nuclear weapons. It was instead suggested by officials from other NATO countries that Poland could engage further in shaping NATO’s nuclear policy and participating in the non-nuclear-delivery part of the mission.Footnote92
 

Russian ‘Crutch Battalions’ Full Of Limping Soldiers Are Easy Targets For Ukrainian Drones​

Despite losing more than 800,000 troops killed and wounded in the first three years of its wider war on Ukraine, the Russian military has still managed to sustain a front-line force of no fewer than 600,000 troops in Ukraine and western Russia. That’s enough people to give Russian field armies a manpower edge over Ukrainian forces in all of the most important sectors of the wider war.

But that doesn’t mean the Kremlin isn’t struggling to generate fresh troops. At least one desperate Russian command, the 20th Combined Arms Army, has formed assault groups made up of walking wounded—including injured men walking with the aid of crutches—and sent them into battle with predictably tragic results.

There were rumors several months ago that some Russian commanders were ordering wounded men back into action. Perhaps the first clear evidence of the “crutch battalions” appeared on social media last week. A Ukrainian drone spotted a Russian assault group largely made up of men on crutches limping into position to attack Ukrainian positions around Pokrovsk, a fortress city in eastern Ukraine that’s the current locus of the Russian war effort in the east.

Bomb-dropping drones made quick work of the attackers, ruthlessly slaughtering them despite their injuries and their obviously limited offensive potential.

What may at first have seemed like an anomaly—a bizarre waste of lives potentially ordered by one cruel Russian commander—now seems more systemic. On or just before Tuesday, a Russian soldier from the 20th CAA recorded a video of walking wounded assembling for an assault in the forests apparently outside Pokrovsk. “Man is using crutches for a mission,” the soldier mused in the video, helpfully translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated. “What the fudge?”

The proliferation of crutch battalions across at least one front of Russia’s war on Ukraine belies the huge size of the Russian force in Ukraine. Yes, there are 600,000 Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine as well as around the small salient Ukrainian troops occupy in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast. No, not all of those 600,000 troops are truly fit for combat.

The stress on the Kremlin’s manpower system is only growing as the expansion of the Ukrainian drone corps, and Russia’s loss of 15,000 combat vehicles, compels Russian commanders to hold back their few surviving modern tanks and fighting vehicles and send in the infantry, instead—on foot and often without a lot of support.

Infantry-first assaults work. Individual soldiers spread out on rough terrain are harder targets for Ukraine’s ever-present drones than mechanized groups with big, easy-to-spot tanks and fighting vehicles.

“Every single time” Russian regiments attempt a vehicle assault, “the result is zero,” one Russian blogger lamented recently in a missive translated by WarTranslated. But “infantry, with the support of artillery and drones, slowly but surely take tree line after tree line.”

The cost to the infantry is staggering, however. Daily Russian casualties have spiked as Russian doctrine has evolved to favor infantry over vehicles. According to Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the top Ukrainian commander, Russia suffered 434,000 casualties including 150,000 dead in 2024. That’s more killed and injured Russian troops than in the previous two years combined.

Ukrainian losses are much lower: 43,000 killed and 370,000 injured in total since February 2022, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky said in December.

Attacking with infantry rather than vehicles leverages a Russian asset—sheer manpower—but risks squandering that asset for the relatively modest territorial gains the Russians have registered in the last year.

People are a renewable resource, but not quickly or easily renewable. That more Russians are limping into battle on crutches is a clear sign the Kremlin is expending its human resources faster than it’s renewing them.
I really hope Ukraine isn't forcing wounded soldiers back to the front line!
 

Russia suffering 'environmental catastrophe' after oil spill in Kerch Strait​

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify have shown a major oil slick spreading across the Kerch Strait that separates Russia from annexed Crimea, a month after two oil tankers were badly damaged in the Black Sea.

Oil has leaked into the strait from two ships which ran into trouble during bad weather on 15 December. Volgoneft-239 ran aground following the storm, while Volgoneft-212 sank.

Up to 5,000 tonnes of oil has now leaked, and media reports and official statements analysed by BBC Verify suggest the spill has spread across the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

A senior Russian scientist called the spill the country's worst "environmental catastrophe" of the 21st Century.

"This is the first time fuel oil has been spilled in such quantities," Viktor Danilov-Danilyan - the head of science at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) - said in a 17 January interview with a Russian newspaper.

Russian scientists said in December that this spill could be more than twice the size of a similar disaster in the strait in 2007, which saw up to 1,600 tonnes of heavy oil leak into the sea. Ukraine's ministry of ecology has estimated that the clear up from the latest spill could cost the Russian state up to $14bn (£11.4bn).

Paul Johnston, a scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories, said "there's always an element of uncertainty around oil spills", but a lack of timely information has heightened this uncertainty further.

"I'm not entirely optimistic we'll ever know the full extent of the problem," he added.

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify on 10 January - the most recent available high-resolution photos - showed a massive oil slick running through the strait, measuring at least 25km (15 miles) long. A second, smaller slick measuring around 5.7km (3.5 miles) long is also visible.

Mr Danilov-Danilyan said that oil could "by late January reach Odesa" in southern Ukraine and "one cannot rule out" it travelling as far as the coasts of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

In a statement to BBC Verify, a spokesperson for Greenpeace said the group estimated that oil from the spill now covered an area totalling up to 400 sq km.

The spill appears to have moved quickly after the initial incident. On 24 December, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify showed oil accumulating on a beach in Anapa - some 40 miles from the strait.

BBC Verify has analysed reports in Russian media, statements from officials and Greenpeace releases from this month that talk about oil being found or cleared up on various beaches.

The reports suggest that the oil has now spread as far north as the occupied city of Berdyansk in Ukraine and as far south-west as Lake Donuzlav on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russian illegally annexed in 2014.

The leak involves heavy M100-grade fuel oil that solidifies at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.

A Greenpeace spokesperson told the BBC that M100 doesn't stay on the water's surface for long. Once underwater, it is "technically impossible to neutralise", and can take decades to be biodegraded by marine micro-organisms.

Footage recorded by the Russian NGO The Earth Touches Everyone and included below appeared to show large amounts of heavy oil accumulating on the seabed.

Some experts have warned that the leak has heavily impacted marine life in the region. Footage authenticated by BBC Verify has shown birds covered in oil.

It is not known exactly how many animals have been harmed by the spill.

Overall, Russian officials say about 6,000 birds have been delivered to "rehabilitation centres" on the Russian mainland, but it is unclear how many of them will survive. A local bird sanctuary in Stavropol territory said of 1,051 birds affected by the oil spill that have been delivered to them only about 17% have survived.

Greenpeace told BBC Verify that the final number of dead birds could be far higher, citing the 12,000-13,000 killed by the 2007 spill in the strait.

A dolphin rehabilitation centre in Russia's Krasnodar Territory told Interfax news agency that around 70 dead dolphins have been discovered on the shores following the latest oil spill.

"This is a horrific blow to the ecosystem," Mr Danilov-Danilyan told Russia media. He predicted the death of "tens of thousands of birds, many dolphins, [and] big losses in the coastal flora and fauna".

"Practically nothing, other than microorganisms that feed on fuel oil and break it up, can live in that sort of environment, even in salt water. The removal of 200,000–500,000 tonnes, at least, of contaminated soil too will not go without consequences, and will certainly lead to a reshaping of the coast," he said.

Dmitry Lisitsyn, Executive Fellow at Yale University's School of the Environment, told BBC Verify that under Russian safety regulations these types of tankers are barred from leaving rivers in winter.

"Those ships are not intended for high waves, they are very long with a shallow draught," he said.

Questions have also been raised about the seaworthiness of the vessels, which are both over 50 years old, according to Marine Traffic.

Footage released by Russian authorities showed the bow of one tanker completely broken off during the incident, with streaks of oil visible in the water. The captains of both vessels have been arrested and criminal investigations have been opened into the incident.

Ukrainian activists have accused the ships of being part of Russia's so-called shadow oil fleet. Moscow has been accused of using the so-called ghost fleet of tankers, which are often poorly maintained and lack proper insurance, to move oil and circumvent sanctions, though analysts the BBC has spoken to could not confirm the claims.

Experts say the long-term fallout from the spill may not be limited to just Russia.

"In general, Russia has suffered more than any other country so far from the Kerch Strait accident," Dmitry Markin of Greenpeace said.

"However, the majority of the leaked fuel oil is still in the sea. Therefore, the long-term consequences for the occupied territories of Ukraine may be no less severe."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23ngk5vgmpo
 
You cannot simultaneously credit Trump with the ceasefire and also say that it happened because Israel was militarily exhausted/defeated. And if Trump forced Israel to recognize reality as you claim, then the ceasefire has only saved the IDF from an inevitable collapse.

What I said is that it accelerated it.

The US can't materially sustain a war with a real adversary, like China or Russia. Or even Iran. It can sustain a genocide againsta a people who have only small arms for a long, long time. NEvertheless irt was getting too damanging. Biden's gang, for whatever reasons (I'm not going to speculate) was all in with supporting the genicide and could support it for months more until things predictabely heated up the whole region and the US had to f.lee the Middle East. Trump pulled the rug under the israeli government.

Now the action in teh region is the rise of Turkey anyway. What are they cooking with the kurds?
 

Russian ‘Crutch Battalions’ Full Of Limping Soldiers Are Easy Targets For Ukrainian Drones​


I really hope Ukraine isn't forcing wounded soldiers back to the front line!
According to Zelelenski Ukraine is currently fielding 880,000 soldiers in the whole front vs an average of 600,000 for Russia. Problem is having the attacking initiative, the Russians can concentrate troops at some points to get punctual numerical superiority while Ukrainians must be more evenly distributed to defend all the frontline.
 
Based off of what? The military budget of the US alone (not including NATO or any other US allies) is far more than that of China, Russia, and Iran combined.
 
Based off of what? The military budget of the US alone (not including NATO or any other US allies) is far more than that of China, Russia, and Iran combined.

Irrelevant. The weapons industry can just, say, hike the price of each artillery shell to absorb increases in the budget... look up shell prices during the current ongoing war. It's a racket, as that old general pointed out.

In theory corruption can be cleaned up during wartime. But it isn't wartime, not really. It's all games with other people's lives and far away. Profit rules.
 
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I agree corruption matters, but disagree as to who is more disadvtanged. US has freedom of the press and genuine democracy, even if it has it's flaws. Blunders or scandals in the US military would get covered in the news, with the general population being outraged and demanding those responsible be held accountable. In Russia there is no free press so people ar much less likely to find out about said corruption in the first place, and the few who know are powerless to do anything about it. Much of Russia's military turning out to be a "paper army" which shocked everyone who didn't have insider information being a good example of many.
 
The US can't materially sustain a war with a real adversary, like China or Russia.
Russia cannot sustain its war against Ukraine without NK troops and African based mercenaries. It requires munitions from China and Iran. Whatever Russian army there was in Feb 2022 is now gone and replaced with a shell that can only stand pat against a shattered Ukrainian army. If nukes are off the table, then a Nato war against Russia would likely end with Russia's defeat.

China? Never fight a land war in Asia. Could China sustain a war where it invaded the US? Could Russia? When separated by oceans, the home turf has many advantages.
 
Russia is struggling against Ukraine alone. The U.S. military and economy by itself, is vastly superior to Russia’s not including the rest of nato and other U.S. Allie’s. The defenders (Ukrainians) in a war don’t need decisive victories against the invaders, only to outlast them until the attackers lose the will to fight and go home.
 
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