Russian invasion of Ukraine

[ICTChris]

Saw this footage yesterday, Ukrainian Air Force jets on bombing runs in Kherson in support of the offensive there.

I think most observers would have thought you mad if you had predicted that more than six months into the war Ukraine would retain capability to carry out close air support as part of an offensive. Certainly everything I had read pre-war predicted that Ukrainian air power would be effectively negated very early in the fighting.

[LongTimeLurker]

Meanwhile further east:

 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[jagfox]

Also talking of re-branding the Special Mitary Operation to a Counter-terrorism campaign. 

[ICTChris]

https://ig.ft.com/ukraine-counteroffensive/
 

FT digital presentation on the Kharkiv offensive.

[Alert Mongoose]

Maybe a fish bumped into it?

[jagfox]

 

[Todd_is_God]

4 hours ago, Detournement said:

There had been protests in Germany, Czechia and Austria in recent weeks demanding Nord Stream 2 is opened. I guess that won't be happening any more. 

I'm sure all the Germans about to lose their jobs will take it on the chin and there definitely won't be any political consequences from economic assisted suicide this winter. 

With Russia looking like they are on the verge of defeat and Europe in the midst of an energy crisis, the country with the most to lose in the re-opening of NS1 and opening of NS2 at the end of the war is the USA. Halting the gravy train of EU money flowing to US energy companies is something they will be keen to avoid. They'd be high on my list of culprits tbh.

Post war Russia will need any and all revenue streams they can find, so it makes little sense for them to blow something up that they control the tap to anyway.

It couldn't be any cleared that, far from being allies, Europe is being used a pawn; viewed as both expendable and acceptable colateral damage in the US's proxy war vs Russia.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Todd_is_God

[jagfox]

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by jagfox

[Hedgecutter]

This whole "who blew up Nord Stream?" thing sounds like the opening of a decent Bond film.   

M to get James spying on Felix Leiter as he refuses to rule out the Americans.  Gunbarrel sequence ends with a view of the Reichstag...

[jagfox]

1 minute ago, Hedgecutter said:

This whole "who blew up Nord Stream?" thing sounds like the opening of a decent Bond film.   

M to get James spying on Felix Leiter as he refuses to rule out the Americans.  Gunbarrel sequence ends with a view of the Reichstag...

Yeah, I have no idea and you could script a viable narrative for quite a few protagonists.

Super baddy or Climate Change extremists in a cheap spy novel is a contender...

[Dev]

Reading posts on this thread about the Nordstream pipelines. It seems as though two pipelines which were not currently pumping gas to the West have been taken out of use temporarily - if Welshbairn is correct they can be fixed. The Russians have the power to control the flow of gas through them in any case so there's nothing new there at all.

These or other pipelines can be turned off, flow simply reduced or halted. However, that can be done by any nation which has a pipeline passing through it or even one which isn't directly taking the gas. It isn't solely down to Russia.

The long term message to Russia is that their other pipelines are vulnerable to dis-connection, in the normal course of change, in the coming years as alternatives are created, including huge scale renewables and sources of gas from elsewhere as well as maybe Hydrogen fuel, more nuclear (God forbid), etc. If they propose to sell gas to China and India both countries will be in an extremely strong bargaining position over prices and supply and have Russia lined up in their sights as an easy commercial target. China and its' puppet North Korea also have borders with Russia which are comparatively   close to the sources of Russia's mineral wealth. Russia's chief centres of population and long term stored wealth are in the west e.g. Moscow, St Peterburg, etc etc and away from the sources of mineral wealth. Cut that off (the minerals) and Russia's viability looks extremely potentially vulnerable in every way in the medium and long term.

That is sad for ordinary Russians as they are the ones who pay the price for Government gross "mis-management" over so many years. Whatever transpires in Ukraine and beyond Russia's current form of Government is at a   cross-roads. 

[TxRover]

49 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

With Russia looking like they are on the verge of defeat and Europe in the midst of an energy crisis, the country with the most to lose in the re-opening of NS1 and opening of NS2 at the end of the war is the USA. Halting the gravy train of EU money flowing to US energy companies is something they will be keen to avoid. They'd be high on my list of culprits tbh.

Post war Russia will need any and all revenue streams they can find, so it makes little sense for them to blow something up that they control the tap to anyway.

It couldn't be any cleared that, far from being allies, Europe is being used a pawn; viewed as both expendable and acceptable colateral damage in the US's proxy war vs Russia.

Not sold on that. It’s to Putin’s advantage to inhibit Nordstream, to prevent any opponents from having an easy out should they oust him. Location suggests Russian “attack”, as getting U.S. assets into the area undiscovered would be extremely difficult. Certainly the Danish and Swedes would be aware of U.S. activity in the area due to the impossibility of submerged transit through the Skaggerak and the radar coverage in the air/surface.

[welshbairn]

5 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Not sold on that. It’s to Putin’s advantage to inhibit Nordstream, to prevent any opponents from having an easy out should they oust him. Location suggests Russian “attack”, as getting U.S. assets into the area undiscovered would be extremely difficult. Certainly the Danish and Swedes would be aware of U.S. activity in the area due to the impossibility of submerged transit through the Skaggerak and the radar coverage in the air/surface.

You wouldn't need subs, an innocuous merchant ship with temporary engine trouble, and a couple of divers with mines would be enough. Any state actor could have done it

[LongTimeLurker]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

...Any state actor could have done it

...including small Baltic ones like Latvia who NATO has no plans to actively defend if invaded only to recapture later which falls into aye that will be right sort of territory. Not saying it was the Latvians my money would actually be on the Poles if it wasn't the Russians or Americans. The key point is that it doesn't just have to be the two post-WWII superpowers.

There are several states in that part of the world who believe they are facing an existential threat right now similar to the late 1930s and may not be willing to disappear off the world map so meekly this time around or make another broadcast like this and wait 50 years to be free again after major powers with treaty obligations failed to come to their rescue:

 

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

With Russia looking like they are on the verge of defeat

How?

Reddit warriors and the MoD declaring they are losing doesn't make it true.  

The war will go on for years. Neither Russia nor the USA have any incentive to stop it.

[Sergeant Wilson]

50 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

You wouldn't need subs, an innocuous merchant ship with temporary engine trouble, and a couple of divers with mines would be enough. Any state actor could have done it

Your what?

[welshbairn]

The EU seem to be taking it as a direct threat from Russia, probably partly due to it happening on the same day the Norway-Poland pipeline was opened. It didn't look like Russia intended to supply any gas through Nord 1 at least till after the winter anyway, so no big loss to them. 

[DiegoDiego]

Not sold on that. It’s to Putin’s advantage to inhibit Nordstream, to prevent any opponents from having an easy out should they oust him. Location suggests Russian “attack”, as getting U.S. assets into the area undiscovered would be extremely difficult. Certainly the Danish and Swedes would be aware of U.S. activity in the area due to the impossibility of submerged transit through the Skaggerak and the radar coverage in the air/surface.

Putin could inhibit Nordstream quite easily by simply not pumping anything through it. No need to put a hole in it.

There's the possibility that the pipeline was attacked simply to send a message saying critical infrastructure is now a legitimate target.

[Bairnardo]

Putin could inhibit Nordstream quite easily by simply not pumping anything through it. No need to put a hole in it.

There's the possibility that the pipeline was attacked simply to send a message saying critical infrastructure is now a legitimate target.

Surely any assault on critical infrastructure belonging to any NATO country would be getting right close to a declaration of war?

[LongTimeLurker]

21 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The EU seem to be taking it as a direct threat from Russia, probably partly due to it happening on the same day the Norway-Poland pipeline was opened. It didn't look like Russia intended to supply any gas through Nord 1 at least till after the winter anyway, so no big loss to them. 

Except it takes the wind out of the sails of populist demonstrations in Central Europe to have governments negotiate with Vlad to get it flowing again... 

...the first bit of this tweet is the main reason Russia can't be discounted.