Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[ClearedHot]

With reports of attacks and loss of control in the Crimea I think we are far closer to a doomsday (Tac Nuke), scenario.  We are becoming ever more bold in providing help and equipment to the Ukrainians which has helped them build momentum.  Putin needs an off ramp and his options are decreasing.  

While I am in favor of killing and crushing the Russian invaders it has become apparent the rank and file (mostly conscripts), of the Russian Army was unaware they were invading another country.  The losses are staggering and the desperation in some of the intercepted phone calls and messages relates a generation of young Russian men being chewed up in a meat-grinder that has produced upwards of 80,000 casualties and a stalemate at best.

In many cases numerous Russian units have become combat ineffective.  Russian weapons inventory is low (over 50% of all attack missiles consumed, a similar story on artillery stocks), older equipment is being pressed into service and Putin has called for another round of conscription.  The ending is not yet determined but it will not be pretty for either side.

Ukrainian pensioner 'shoots down £74million Russian Su-34 jet with a RIFLE and is awarded a medal for his heroism'

 

 

[TreeA10]

The proverbial golden BB?

[Lawman]

That's because it's not a homeless problem, it's a drug problem. There is a ton of money being spent on it, but it will do nothing because no one wants to admit that we need forcibly imprison the homeless and subject them to compulsory rehab, and reestablish the insane asylums for those who are too far gone to treat.
 
We can work on that problem and support Ukraine at the same time.
 

Watching Seattle politics on the homeless was insane.

You have an entire spectrum of people who refuse to even acknowledge a connection between addiction and the homelessness up there, and some of them will consider it a form of bigotry to even suggest it.


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[pawnman]

21 minutes ago, Lawman said:

Watching Seattle politics on the homeless was insane.

You have an entire spectrum of people who refuse to even acknowledge a connection between addiction and the homelessness up there, and some of them will consider it a form of bigotry to even suggest it.


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Not to mention "homeless advocacy" seems to amount to "let them stay on the streets, putting them into shelters is harmful".

[brabus]

2 hours ago, pawnman said:

Not to mention "homeless advocacy" seems to amount to "let them stay on the streets, putting them into shelters is harmful".

I like Gov Abbott’s gameplan applied to this problem; OK “homeless advocates” guess you guys are right, we’ll just make sure the homeless have comfortable places to set up surrounding your backyard and sidewalk out front.  “BUT, BUT, NIMBY!!!!!!!” Hypocritical dumbasses, all of them.

[ecugringo]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

I like Gov Abbott’s gameplan applied to this problem; OK “homeless advocates” guess you guys are right, we’ll just make sure the homeless have comfortable places to set up surrounding your backyard and sidewalk out front.  “BUT, BUT, NIMBY!!!!!!!” Hypocritical dumbasses, all of them.

When I lived in Denver I could tell Denver would be the new LA/SEA.  Nobody wanted to admit what the issue was, just be nice and cave to their poor plight.  My burb but in a light rail to Denver.  A billion over budget but once it opened our nice little old town was filled with bums.  Quickly became a place you didn't want to take the family.  Although some loved hte diversity.  But if you brought it up you were a bigot.

Ironically I think it was the mayor from Aurora who was a self described liberal.  He spent a week on the street with them.  His thesis was they were down on their luck good Americans victims of the system....He reported it was mostly a lifestyle choice that were abusing drugs and alcohol.  

Where I live now there are signs in our urban center that specifically say no panhandling and if you want to help donate to this site.

[brabus]

23 minutes ago, ecugringo said:

He reported it was mostly a lifestyle choice that were abusing drugs and alcohol.

At least he went and did that, and actually was able to pull his head out of his ass and see reality for what it was. Now if all these other upper middle-class shitheads could do the same, we’d be able to actually gain meaningful strides towards solving problems like this.

[gearhog]

8 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Ukrainian pensioner 'shoots down £74million Russian Su-34 jet with a RIFLE and is awarded a medal for his heroism'

Another angle of the rifle bullet impacting the Su-34

[uhhello]

31 minutes ago, torqued said:

Another angle of the rifle bullet impacting the Su-34

Orange is a bold color choice for a fighter 

[gearhog]

Interesting read from 2003:

https://archive.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm

Quote

In 1999, Iraq, with the world's second largest oil reserves, switched to trading its oil in euros. American analysts fell about laughing; Iraq had just made a mistake that was going to beggar the nation. But two years on, alarm bells were sounding; the euro was rising against the dollar, Iraq had given itself a huge economic free kick by switching.

Interesting read from today:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/China-to-start-paying-for-Russian-gas-in-rubles-yuan-Gazprom

Quote

Reuters -- Russia's Gazprom said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement to start switching payments for gas supplies to China to yuan and rubles instead of dollars.

The shift is part of a push by Russia to reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar, euro and other hard currencies in its banking system and for trade -- a drive that Moscow has accelerated since it was hit with Western sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by torqued

[Sim]

12 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Ukrainian pensioner 'shoots down £74million Russian Su-34 jet with a RIFLE and is awarded a medal for his heroism'

Story from the Vietnam War by Soviet "advisers" (google translated). 

Quote

Soviet specialists extremely scrupulously kept records of enemy aircraft shot down by our divisions. For example, it is known for sure: over the past week, anti-aircraft missile battalions shot down 12 American aircraft. And suddenly, at a joint Soviet-Vietnamese meeting, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnamese Army stands up and, summing up the results of the week, declares: “Yes, the rocket men fought well, shooting down two American aircraft with twenty missiles.” The Soviets are somewhat puzzled: why two! After all, twelve were shot down. And the speaker pauses and continues: “But truly outstanding successes were achieved by the girls’ self-defense units, who, having adopted the combat experience of the old men’s self-defense units, shot down 10 American aircraft from carbines, spending only twenty rounds on them ...” Our military specialists were amazed. One of our generals could not stand it and threw a caustic remark into the hall: “Why do we send train full of rocket echelons every month?! Let's bring one cart of cartridges to Vietnam - you will have enough of it for the entire American aviation!
The Deputy Chief of the Vietnamese General Staff pretended not to understand the translation. But after the meeting, he approached the general and began to inspire him: “You don’t understand, general. After all, we have a people's war going on. And we need to raise the enthusiasm of the people with such examples. These are the subtleties of politics, General.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Sim

[FLEA]

I don't believe ICC had jurisdiction though so not sure if this will actually go anywhere. 

[ClearedHot]

Russian SU-25 shotdown air to air kill.

 

 

[Clayton Bigsby]

[brwwg&b]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Russian SU-25 shotdown air to air kill.

Some wild airmchair punditing there. Not many missiles start on a straight downward trajectory, burn out, reignite on a corkscrew while changing direction from down to up then smoke your flight lead.

Still, a plus for the result either way: one less ruski Frogfoot in the world 

 

[Best-22]

With the Russian lines rapidly collapsing what's everyones predictions for the outcome of this conflict? Clearly the predictions that Russia will never give up what they already have were way off. It looks like Ukraines offensive capabilities are adequate so I would be surprised if they're motivated to make territorial concessions at this point. 

[ClearedHot]

18 hours ago, brwwg&b said:

Some wild airmchair punditing there. Not many missiles start on a straight downward trajectory, burn out, reignite on a corkscrew while changing direction from down to up then smoke your flight lead.

Still, a plus for the result either way: one less ruski Frogfoot in the world 

 

You might watch the video a bit more closely.

[DirkDiggler]

7 hours ago, Best-22 said:

With the Russian lines rapidly collapsing what's everyones predictions for the outcome of this conflict? Clearly the predictions that Russia will never give up what they already have were way off. It looks like Ukraines offensive capabilities are adequate so I would be surprised if they're motivated to make territorial concessions at this point. 

  Don’t know that I have an overall prediction at this point but the Ukrainians definitely seem to have the initiative/operational momentum.  If you look at Oryx on Twitter the amount of equipment Russia has lost up north over just the last 3-4 days is pretty significant.  Russia still has pretty large reserves but their manpower and morale problems, as well as logistical limitations, are starting to really show.

  Maybe the Russians might decide it’s time for a change in who’s in charge after this absolute abortion of a military operation.  It’s going to get increasingly difficult to hide the scale of this disaster, even if the Russian military is able to stem the current Ukrainian advance.

  In any case I’m happy to continue to watch the Ukrainians kick the shit out of the Russian bear with the help of my tax dollars.

[arg]

[McJay Pilot]

whuuups. One less Russkie jet.

Extra link in case video dies again since mine initially went TU and now it’s back but CH’s is TU…

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/191339/VIDEO-Russia-Su-25-crashes-after-taking-off-in-Crimea

Edited September 13, 2022 by McJay Pilot
Video mippling

[ClearedHot]

17 hours ago, McJay Pilot said:

whuuups. One less Russkie jet.

Here is a working video.  Looks like a big correction and a touch of lead's wake?  Either that or he lost #1?  I did not see an attempt to eject.

 

[gearhog]

Making the rounds in German media: an Interesting read from a leaked RAND report from JANUARY 2022.

Germany is getting too big for its breeches. They may abandon NATO and the EU in favor of an Old Europe alliance.

Solution: Plunge Europe into a financial crisis, crash the Euro, and cause massive outflows of skilled labor and finance as people sell the euro to buy dollars and yuan.

This would pull the USA out of a looming recession.

https://t.co/Ox9qckkjEV

 

 

[BFM this]

Peter Zeihan suggested several days ago that the energy crunch in Europe is going to have substantial knock-on effects in German industry, leading to an economic contraction over the coming year(s) while they redo their grid.  Added to @torqued 's citation, a possible outcome is that the Germans find themselves unprepared (unwilling?) to foot the bill for the next round of austerity.

[gearhog]

How likely is it we created a Ukrainian conflict to harm both Russia and Europe to position ourselves as #1 or #2 into the future?

I'm just reading these RAND reports. Were the authors just good guessers? Luck? It seems like more of a script than research.

Good read all the way through, but this page and the page after are significant.

From 2019:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by torqued

[Biff_T]

On 9/6/2022 at 6:10 AM, TreeA10 said:

The proverbial golden BB?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/politics/fbi-investigating-air-force-helicopter-shooting/index.html.    
 

A Huey cruising at 90 Knots is probably a little easier to hit than a fast mover lol.