Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
4 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

pretty forward CG and perhaps a payload too heavy for the engine as well.

Probably.  The center of gravity did seem a little off, and the arming mechanism was non-existent based on my recollections as a kid launching balsa wood airplanes with lit pop bottle rockets attached to the wings.  And the result was fairly close to mine, only I yelled “fuck” in English.

  • Haha 3
Posted
3 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

pretty forward CG and perhaps a payload too heavy for the engine as well.

Glide path similar to a rock. The guys lucky it cleared the window,

  • Haha 2
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
3 hours ago, KYHorn said:

Worth the click: 
What happens when an ordinary Ukrainian soldier meets a tired and desperate mongrel entangled in fiber optic drone cables?

The dog’s pain and fear turn into trust and affection as the soldier painstakingly frees him from his misery.

This is Ukraine

https://www.facebook.com/reel/869212288974626 

Had the Russians found him he would’ve been dinner

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Posted
Worth the click: 
What happens when an ordinary Ukrainian soldier meets a tired and desperate mongrel entangled in fiber optic drone cables?
The dog’s pain and fear turn into trust and affection as the soldier painstakingly frees him from his misery.
This is Ukraine
https://www.facebook.com/reel/869212288974626 

Props to the rescuer but that looks more like heavy mono netting than FO cable.
Posted

My wife was asking why they were shutting down Moscow-area airports

G71wggSWQAE0o6b?format=jpg&name=medium

 

And the reality is they are probably trying to shoot down anything and everything and at this point, they have no good way of identifying friendly airliners from Ukrainian drones. I mean, in theory they should be able to figure it out with radars and transponders since airliners would have a far bigger signature, but it's Russia, and dudes working the SAM batteries are probably not being too picky. They are probably firing at the first contact they have pop up on their radars.

  • Hook 'Em 5
  • Like 1
Posted

Meanwhile, somebody is looking to pull a Nicolae Ceaușescu

Bloomberg reports Viktor Orbán is preparing for life after the April 2026 election by planning a power grab through the presidency. Facing a real challenge from Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, Orbán is exploring how to rewrite laws to turn Hungary’s ceremonial presidential role into the most powerful office in the country. Fidesz has already passed a law making it harder to remove the president, and insiders say Orbán is considering using his supermajority to push through constitutional changes before the vote. It would allow him to stay in charge, even if Fidesz loses. The playbook resembles moves seen in Turkey and Russia.

 

  • Like 1
  • Rage+1 4
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted

 Ukraine’s gloves are off in its energy war with Russia. How much can it increase the pressure?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/11/europe/ukraine-attacks-russian-energy-intl-cmd
CNN Expansion London 04/23 Clare Sebastian
Clare Sebastian

Ukraine said Thursday its long-range drones had struck a major offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea this week, in a previously undisclosed mission that signals a new expansion of its target list in a mounting campaign to cut off the Russian energy revenues funding its war.

“This is Ukraine’s first strike on Russian infrastructure related to oil production in the Caspian Sea,” a source with the Security Service of Ukraine told CNN, calling it “another reminder to Russia that all its enterprises working for the war are legitimate targets.” The Filanovsky oil platform, owned by Lukoil, claims to be the largest oil field in the Russian sector of the Caspian. CNN has reached out to Lukoil and the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.

Ukraine’s deep strike campaign against Russian energy facilities began in earnest in early 2024, but since the beginning of August, Kyiv has escalated this effort, doubling down on what Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk calls “long-range sanctions” targeting Russia’s biggest financial lifeline. Ukraine is now hitting an increasingly broad range of targets including not just refineries but oil and gas export infrastructure, pipelines, tankers, and now offshore drilling infrastructure.

November saw the highest number of attacks yet in a single month, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, and CNN’s analysis.

It comes at a critical juncture in the war. Recent US-led peace efforts only appear to have hardened Russia’s maximalist demands, and Moscow’s forces are creeping forward in several areas of the front line. That, along with a global oil supply glut cushioning the market against potential price rises, means Ukraine’s Western allies have grown increasingly supportive of this campaign.

“I think the general strategy since summer is the idea that you cannot allow Russia to retain so much of its critical energy revenue that has been fuelling the massive manpower recruitment advantage that Moscow has over Ukraine,” said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, referring to Russia’s ability to pay high salaries and sign-on bonuses to recruit soldiers.

“So, I do think it’s a more systematic effort to sort of close that energy ATM.”
Repeated attacks, bigger targets

Between the beginning of August and the end of November, Ukraine struck at least 77 Russian energy facilities, almost twice the total for the first seven months of the year, according to the ACLED. In November at least 14 refinery hits and four attacks on Russian export terminals were recorded.

Striking the same facilities multiple times is now a key part of the strategy. The Rosneft-owned Saratov refinery, for example, has been hit at least eight times since the beginning of August, with four of those strikes in November.

“What used to be occasional strikes meant to cause damage has become a sustained effort to keep refineries from ever fully stabilising,” wrote Nikhil Dubey, senior refining analyst at data and analytics firm Kpler, in early December.

Dubey’s research shows that repeated strikes on Russian refineries like Saratov have knocked a significant amount of capacity offline and are “slowing the pace of every repair.” He also assesses that since August, Kyiv has been trying to maximize the impact of its refinery strikes, by targeting not just “the visible parts of the refinery but the important clogs in the refining system that produce the final fuels.”

Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, who spent 25 years in the Russian oil and gas industry, told CNN he believes the up- front damage Ukraine has inflicted has been manageable for Moscow so far, but that does not account for the long-term damage from the large-scale fires these attacks tend to cause.

“Metals are not particularly fond of that kind of treatment, and nobody really knows how many of these cycles of heating by fire and cooling down these columns could survive,” he told CNN.

The pattern of attacks also suggests Ukraine is no longer trying to limit the impact to just Russia’s domestic energy market. Since August, it has markedly increased strikes on Russian oil export facilities.

The ports of Novorossiysk and Tuapse on the Black Sea and Ust-Luga on the Baltic have each been hit several times. And pipelines are also in play. The Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to the few remaining EU countries that rely on it has now been hit five times since August, triggering protests from Hungary, which remains on good terms with Moscow.

In late November, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which ferries 80% of all Kazakh oil supplies from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea, said it had been attacked twice in four days.

The pipeline company, jointly owned by Russia, Kazakhstan and international oil companies including Exxon (XOM), Chevron (CVX) and Eni, said the second strike had knocked out one of its three mooring points for tankers. Ukraine never officially claimed responsibility for the strike.

The entire terminal shut down for two days, according to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler. The Kazakh foreign minister called it “an action harming the bilateral relations of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ukraine.”

Vakulenko believes this shows the risks of this expanding campaign. “I guess Ukraine wants to instil fear and wants to make it expensive for any oil tankers going into the Black Sea,” he said, but added: “I think with this, Ukraine doesn’t earn any sympathies and might incur some costs.”
A Ukrainian sea drone shows the Dashan, a sanctioned oil tanker, being struck by another sea drone in the Black Sea on Tuesday, in a still from a video shared by Ukraine's Security Service.

Ukraine is undeterred. On Wednesday it carried out its third attack on another critical link in Russia’s oil supply chain – the ships that carry it to global markets. A source in Ukraine’s security service claimed sea drones had been used to attack a sanctioned oil tanker in the Black Sea, heading for Novorossiysk.

The first two attacks on tankers in late November triggered a rare response from Putin, who called it “piracy,” and Turkey summoned both Ukrainian and Russian ambassadors in protest.

“We have no other tool than to cut money flow to Russia to prevent this war for existence,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Centre in Kyiv. The fact these sanctioned vessels were there in the first place, he argued, clearly demonstrates Western sanctions are inadequate. “So guys, if you can’t deliver your sanctions, maybe someone (can) help you,” he said.
Western support

Two external factors have allowed Ukraine to ramp up its energy attacks in recent months. First, a dramatic about-turn by the United States.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country,” wrote US President Trump on Truth Social in late August. In October, two sources told CNN the US had increased intelligence sharing with Ukraine after the abortive Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, with a focus on energy-related targets inside Russia, hoping to force Russia back to the negotiating table.

Europe was also on board. “By the end of summer no one in the room would even mention that Ukraine should restrain from hitting any target,” noted Dovilė Šakalienė, a Lithuanian parliamentarian who served as the country’s defense minister until October this year, in written comments to CNN. “Growing realization in the minds of Europeans that failure of Ukraine will directly affect our security within the span of one standard parliamentary term also helped,” she added.

“The US remains an active partner when it comes to Ukraine’s deep strikes on Russian energy targets, while European allies have stepped up their involvement,” a source with Ukraine’s drone program told CNN.

The second big tailwind for Ukraine has been falling oil prices driven by a global oversupply.

Croft, from RBC Capital Markets, said she “just couldn’t envision that the Trump administration, which has been so focused on lower retail gasoline prices” would be “so supportive” of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy if oil prices were high.

A Western intelligence source told CNN that Ukraine is getting extra support in this campaign “as needed” and “the goal is for these attacks to have consequences.” The global oil markets can “take it,” the source added.
How long can Russia withstand this?

While Russia remains intransigent in peace talks, its oil sector – the single biggest financial pillar of its war – is looking much shakier than a year ago.

Russia’s oil refineries are processing about 6% less oil than they were this time last year, according to Kpler analyst Dubey. While that number may look small, it is disruptive for the Russians because “they usually run with only a small gasoline surplus,” Dubey said.

In September and October this year, videos of cars lining up outside gas stations surfaced online and Russia’s government, facing shortages in some regions, moved to ban gasoline exports until the end of the year. At the end of November, Putin signed a law allowing Russian companies to receive a subsidy if they refine oil at Belarusian refineries and then import it back to Russia, state media reported, a measure designed to stabilize the domestic market.

Ukraine’s escalating attacks have also coincided with the first new sanctions imposed on Russia since Trump returned to office in January. In October, Trump announced full blocking sanctions on Russia’s biggest oil companies – Rosneft and Lukoil.

Prices for Russian Urals crude have gradually fallen since then to around their lowest point in the war so far, according to data from Argus Media, helping fuel a drop in Russian oil export revenues to their lowest point since February 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. In November, state media reported Russia’s oil and natural gas revenues fell almost 34% compared with the same month last year.

Vakulenko believes the attacks on Russian energy facilities are just “one of the elements of the puzzle” of how to pressure Putin to seek peace.

“I think the amount of economic damage one has to inflict on Russia is probably more than Ukraine could create at the moment,” he said. “I believe that if push comes to shove, Russia could probably survive with half of its oil and gas exports.”

For Croft, it’s a question of whether Ukraine and its allies can stay the course.

“The combination of infrastructure attacks focused on export targets, and the staying power of blocking sanctions, I think that could potentially drive Russia back to the table, but it has to be a longer duration event,” she said.

With Trump now pressuring Ukraine to accept concessions, this may be a test of his appetite to do both. 

  • Hook 'Em 5
Posted

https://www.threads.com/@mishkoala/post/DSKg3LcjB5H?xmt=AQF07Ic9p3MKGC2kjGZwG1dzKLve3dPpCUUX7wFxW4V-Ug

🤯 Zelensky is currently in Kupiansk. There are explosions going on in the background, and he is just there to prove that putin is talking utter b.s. The city is back under Ukrainian control. This man has some serious ostrich eggs.

 

https://www.threads.com/@segifella/post/DSJfM46F3ql?xmt=AQF07Ic9p3MKGC2kjGZwG1dzKLve3dPpCUUX7wFxW4V-Ug

The commander of nazi/russian battalion "Espanola" with a callsign "Ispanets" (eng: "Spanish") was eliminated.
He was also a leader of a nazi movement in ruzzia.
Good job.

  • Hook 'Em 5
  • Like 2
Posted

https://www.threads.com/@nucleus_new/post/DSKwZUQk7Pl?xmt=AQF0YTDI8z4-HooMnNV5dvRtAsv8djgnMbjxFblZX7yd-Q

Ukraine's Prymary special forces unit hit a Russian An-26 aircraft at Sevastopol's Kacha airfield on December 10-11, damaging its left wing and engine. The operation also destroyed two critical radar systems, likely killing or injuring personnel, further weakening Russia's air defense and logistics capabilities in occupied Crimea.

 

https://www.threads.com/@newsradars/post/DSKg_XZjOqN?xmt=AQF0qBA0OKwCJyzrOrgeMYrMC9is943-y7g7GXzXjRsR_g

The pace of the Russian offensive in Ukraine is the slowest for any war in the last 100 years, — The Wall Street Journal

 

  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted
On 12/9/2025 at 8:39 PM, atomheartbevo said:

80s Me if I knew Ukrainians would be using F-16s to kill Russians: confused GIF

 

Germany continues to build up, buying European-made weapons. I'd be willing to bet a lot more weapons purchases by NATO going forward will be European or Korean and not American.

G7wh9kRWMAA4csz?format=jpg&name=medium

We may be entering a really very dangerous time that mirrors the beginnings of World War I.

The fundamental reason for World War I was that the key players--Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Russia--all adjudged 1914 to be a more favorable time for the war that they viewed as inevitable than would be 1915 or 1916.  Russia believed that its designs in the Balkans would be frustrated by Austria-Hungry's infrastructure improvements in eastern Hungry and its political liberalization (largely supported by the heir presumptive, Franz Ferdinand).  Austria-Hungry and Germany believed that Russia's demographics would make it unstoppable in the coming years.  They all were probably wrong.  But that didn't matter--1914 it was to be.

It may be rational for Russia to believe that if it wants to retake the Baltics, 2026 is going to be its last chance.  After that, Europe's rearmament may make that impossible.

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
3 hours ago, Bevo said:

 Ukraine’s gloves are off in its energy war with Russia. How much can it increase the pressure?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/11/europe/ukraine-attacks-russian-energy-intl-cmd
CNN Expansion London 04/23 Clare Sebastian
Clare Sebastian

Ukraine said Thursday its long-range drones had struck a major offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea this week, in a previously undisclosed mission that signals a new expansion of its target list in a mounting campaign to cut off the Russian energy revenues funding its war.

“This is Ukraine’s first strike on Russian infrastructure related to oil production in the Caspian Sea,” a source with the Security Service of Ukraine told CNN, calling it “another reminder to Russia that all its enterprises working for the war are legitimate targets.” The Filanovsky oil platform, owned by Lukoil, claims to be the largest oil field in the Russian sector of the Caspian. CNN has reached out to Lukoil and the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.

Ukraine’s deep strike campaign against Russian energy facilities began in earnest in early 2024, but since the beginning of August, Kyiv has escalated this effort, doubling down on what Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk calls “long-range sanctions” targeting Russia’s biggest financial lifeline. Ukraine is now hitting an increasingly broad range of targets including not just refineries but oil and gas export infrastructure, pipelines, tankers, and now offshore drilling infrastructure.

November saw the highest number of attacks yet in a single month, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, and CNN’s analysis.

It comes at a critical juncture in the war. Recent US-led peace efforts only appear to have hardened Russia’s maximalist demands, and Moscow’s forces are creeping forward in several areas of the front line. That, along with a global oil supply glut cushioning the market against potential price rises, means Ukraine’s Western allies have grown increasingly supportive of this campaign.

“I think the general strategy since summer is the idea that you cannot allow Russia to retain so much of its critical energy revenue that has been fuelling the massive manpower recruitment advantage that Moscow has over Ukraine,” said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, referring to Russia’s ability to pay high salaries and sign-on bonuses to recruit soldiers.

“So, I do think it’s a more systematic effort to sort of close that energy ATM.”
Repeated attacks, bigger targets

Between the beginning of August and the end of November, Ukraine struck at least 77 Russian energy facilities, almost twice the total for the first seven months of the year, according to the ACLED. In November at least 14 refinery hits and four attacks on Russian export terminals were recorded.

Striking the same facilities multiple times is now a key part of the strategy. The Rosneft-owned Saratov refinery, for example, has been hit at least eight times since the beginning of August, with four of those strikes in November.

“What used to be occasional strikes meant to cause damage has become a sustained effort to keep refineries from ever fully stabilising,” wrote Nikhil Dubey, senior refining analyst at data and analytics firm Kpler, in early December.

Dubey’s research shows that repeated strikes on Russian refineries like Saratov have knocked a significant amount of capacity offline and are “slowing the pace of every repair.” He also assesses that since August, Kyiv has been trying to maximize the impact of its refinery strikes, by targeting not just “the visible parts of the refinery but the important clogs in the refining system that produce the final fuels.”

Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, who spent 25 years in the Russian oil and gas industry, told CNN he believes the up- front damage Ukraine has inflicted has been manageable for Moscow so far, but that does not account for the long-term damage from the large-scale fires these attacks tend to cause.

“Metals are not particularly fond of that kind of treatment, and nobody really knows how many of these cycles of heating by fire and cooling down these columns could survive,” he told CNN.

The pattern of attacks also suggests Ukraine is no longer trying to limit the impact to just Russia’s domestic energy market. Since August, it has markedly increased strikes on Russian oil export facilities.

The ports of Novorossiysk and Tuapse on the Black Sea and Ust-Luga on the Baltic have each been hit several times. And pipelines are also in play. The Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to the few remaining EU countries that rely on it has now been hit five times since August, triggering protests from Hungary, which remains on good terms with Moscow.

In late November, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which ferries 80% of all Kazakh oil supplies from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea, said it had been attacked twice in four days.

The pipeline company, jointly owned by Russia, Kazakhstan and international oil companies including Exxon (XOM), Chevron (CVX) and Eni, said the second strike had knocked out one of its three mooring points for tankers. Ukraine never officially claimed responsibility for the strike.

The entire terminal shut down for two days, according to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler. The Kazakh foreign minister called it “an action harming the bilateral relations of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ukraine.”

Vakulenko believes this shows the risks of this expanding campaign. “I guess Ukraine wants to instil fear and wants to make it expensive for any oil tankers going into the Black Sea,” he said, but added: “I think with this, Ukraine doesn’t earn any sympathies and might incur some costs.”
A Ukrainian sea drone shows the Dashan, a sanctioned oil tanker, being struck by another sea drone in the Black Sea on Tuesday, in a still from a video shared by Ukraine's Security Service.

Ukraine is undeterred. On Wednesday it carried out its third attack on another critical link in Russia’s oil supply chain – the ships that carry it to global markets. A source in Ukraine’s security service claimed sea drones had been used to attack a sanctioned oil tanker in the Black Sea, heading for Novorossiysk.

The first two attacks on tankers in late November triggered a rare response from Putin, who called it “piracy,” and Turkey summoned both Ukrainian and Russian ambassadors in protest.

“We have no other tool than to cut money flow to Russia to prevent this war for existence,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Centre in Kyiv. The fact these sanctioned vessels were there in the first place, he argued, clearly demonstrates Western sanctions are inadequate. “So guys, if you can’t deliver your sanctions, maybe someone (can) help you,” he said.
Western support

Two external factors have allowed Ukraine to ramp up its energy attacks in recent months. First, a dramatic about-turn by the United States.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country,” wrote US President Trump on Truth Social in late August. In October, two sources told CNN the US had increased intelligence sharing with Ukraine after the abortive Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, with a focus on energy-related targets inside Russia, hoping to force Russia back to the negotiating table.

Europe was also on board. “By the end of summer no one in the room would even mention that Ukraine should restrain from hitting any target,” noted Dovilė Šakalienė, a Lithuanian parliamentarian who served as the country’s defense minister until October this year, in written comments to CNN. “Growing realization in the minds of Europeans that failure of Ukraine will directly affect our security within the span of one standard parliamentary term also helped,” she added.

“The US remains an active partner when it comes to Ukraine’s deep strikes on Russian energy targets, while European allies have stepped up their involvement,” a source with Ukraine’s drone program told CNN.

The second big tailwind for Ukraine has been falling oil prices driven by a global oversupply.

Croft, from RBC Capital Markets, said she “just couldn’t envision that the Trump administration, which has been so focused on lower retail gasoline prices” would be “so supportive” of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy if oil prices were high.

A Western intelligence source told CNN that Ukraine is getting extra support in this campaign “as needed” and “the goal is for these attacks to have consequences.” The global oil markets can “take it,” the source added.
How long can Russia withstand this?

While Russia remains intransigent in peace talks, its oil sector – the single biggest financial pillar of its war – is looking much shakier than a year ago.

Russia’s oil refineries are processing about 6% less oil than they were this time last year, according to Kpler analyst Dubey. While that number may look small, it is disruptive for the Russians because “they usually run with only a small gasoline surplus,” Dubey said.

In September and October this year, videos of cars lining up outside gas stations surfaced online and Russia’s government, facing shortages in some regions, moved to ban gasoline exports until the end of the year. At the end of November, Putin signed a law allowing Russian companies to receive a subsidy if they refine oil at Belarusian refineries and then import it back to Russia, state media reported, a measure designed to stabilize the domestic market.

Ukraine’s escalating attacks have also coincided with the first new sanctions imposed on Russia since Trump returned to office in January. In October, Trump announced full blocking sanctions on Russia’s biggest oil companies – Rosneft and Lukoil.

Prices for Russian Urals crude have gradually fallen since then to around their lowest point in the war so far, according to data from Argus Media, helping fuel a drop in Russian oil export revenues to their lowest point since February 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. In November, state media reported Russia’s oil and natural gas revenues fell almost 34% compared with the same month last year.

Vakulenko believes the attacks on Russian energy facilities are just “one of the elements of the puzzle” of how to pressure Putin to seek peace.

“I think the amount of economic damage one has to inflict on Russia is probably more than Ukraine could create at the moment,” he said. “I believe that if push comes to shove, Russia could probably survive with half of its oil and gas exports.”

For Croft, it’s a question of whether Ukraine and its allies can stay the course.

“The combination of infrastructure attacks focused on export targets, and the staying power of blocking sanctions, I think that could potentially drive Russia back to the table, but it has to be a longer duration event,” she said.

With Trump now pressuring Ukraine to accept concessions, this may be a test of his appetite to do both. 

Every hit on Russian energy production drives up demand for American oil just a little bit.  Call it Machevelian, but that seems like a good thing for America.  If I'm the Halliburton CEO, I'm donating to the cause. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
56 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

We may be entering a really very dangerous time that mirrors the beginnings of World War I.

The fundamental reason for World War I was that the key players--Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Russia--all adjudged 1914 to be a more favorable time for the war that they viewed as inevitable than would be 1915 or 1916.  Russia believed that its designs in the Balkans would be frustrated by Austria-Hungry's infrastructure improvements in eastern Hungry and its political liberalization (largely supported by the heir presumptive, Franz Ferdinand).  Austria-Hungry and Germany believed that Russia's demographics would make it unstoppable in the coming years.  They all were probably wrong.  But that didn't matter--1914 it was to be.

It may be rational for Russia to believe that if it wants to retake the Baltics, 2026 is going to be its last chance.  After that, Europe's rearmament may make that impossible.


Hopefully that is true: It would be a pretty lopsided world war - Russia can’t even take Ukraine. Unless there is a total collapse of Russiawithin the year, this is the weakest it will be - given that Trump wants to reopen Russia for business and end its Ukraine problem. Russia will use that opportunity to rebuild its oil and gas infrastructure and rearm its military. 

Edited by Bevo
  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
3 hours ago, Bevo said:

the end of November, Putin signed a law allowing Russian companies to receive a subsidy if they refine oil at Belarusian refineries and then import it back to Russia, state media reported, a measure designed to stabilize the domestic market.

if Ukraine struck Belarusian refineries that refine Russian oil and send it back to Russia, that would seem to be a legitimate military target, albeit certainly an attack viewed as aggression and a violation of Belarusian sovereignty.

I remember reading years ago that Belarusian troops might not want to participate in a war versus Ukraine, and that scenario might be used by Belarusian military to overthrow the big idiot in charge - and also lead to a potential revolting population in some areas.   Does anyone have an idea what military resources Belarus would bring to the war that hasn’t been given to the Russians already?

Or is it a simple fact that Ukraine doesn’t have enough troops and defensive capability to protect yet another front from Belarusan meat waves?  Or will the very idea of Belarusian meat waves in Ukraine topple their government? Or would Belarus be scared shitless of Poland Lithuania and Latvia and just strenuously protest?  

Somebody please edumacate me… 

Posted
13 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Or is it a simple fact that Ukraine doesn’t have enough troops and defensive capability to protect yet another front from Belarusan meat waves?  Or will the very idea of Belarusian meat waves in Ukraine topple their government? Or would Belarus be scared shitless of Poland Lithuania and Latvia and just strenuously protest?  


Ukraine most definitely doesn’t have the resources to open another front.


Belarus’ army is terrible btw.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, Bevo said:


Ukraine most definitely doesn’t have the resources to open another front.


Belarus’ army is terrible btw.

it seems like every third YouTube video is somebody describing how Russia’s economy won’t last much longer.   I haven’t seen many describing the impact of the Russian economy’s implosion on Belarus.  

Put another way, is it safe to say that when Russia goes down that Belarus will be in that same situation sooner than later?  

Posted
2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

It may be rational for Russia to believe that if it wants to retake the Baltics, 2026 is going to be its last chance.  After that, Europe's rearmament may make that impossible.

I get the parallels with WWI, but the problem for Putin is that he's running out of manpower fast - put aside that the soldiers we've seen in Ukraine seem to be getting nothing for body armor and helmets (other than what they can strip off of the dead) or it's inconsistent and that they are getting little training. As the video I posted above mentioned, he's reached the limit on paying civilians to voluntarily join up. The regional governments can't afford it, and a lot of outlying areas are pretty tapped out anyways.

When that draft notice came out last week about calling up reservists, I think there was a very good reason they mentioned calling up reservists to join the National Guard - that organization exists to protect the government itself.  It's not a part-time gig or anything, it's literally the guys who would be putting down demonstrations.

He is going to have to mobilize young men in Moscow and St. Petersburg at some point, and that is not going to go over well.

The population as a whole already knows that Ukraine was too much - we are about to hit the 4th year after the 3-day excursion to Kyiv and the people of Moscow have heard air raid sirens and outlying suburbs have lost power and heard the explosions.  Going after NATO countries would be far worse.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...