I can't help but notice that our political class has the attention span of a gnat.
I can't help but notice that our political class has the attention span of a gnat.
VolvoHeretic said:I can't help but notice that our political class has the attention span of a gnat.
If that's so, it's only because they represent the rest of the population.
As for Russian fossil fuels- Recall back at the start of all of this that Ural crude was trading at a significant discount to Brent crude- something like $25/barrel cheaper. Today, it's trading only a few dollars a barrel cheaper. Oil in general is cheaper now than in 2022 (I can recall driving back from our family vacation in February of that year and fuel prices increasing dramatically along the way), but still, the gap between the two is pretty small. Russia is clearly finding a buyer for all it can produce.
Mr_Asa said:NOHOME said:Never heard of the other dude.
Grant? You've never heard of Ulysses S Grant? Commander of the Union Army against Lee and the Confederates? Eventual president of the United States?
He's Canadian.
Stampie said:Mr_Asa said:NOHOME said:Never heard of the other dude.
Grant? You've never heard of Ulysses S Grant? Commander of the Union Army against Lee and the Confederates? Eventual president of the United States?
He's Canadian.
Pretty sure Ulysses S. Grant wasn't Canadian.
In reply to Stampie :
Ok, fair.
In reply to 02Pilot :
Yeah, I'm not even a good armchair military strategist so my views are going to be oversimplified at best. Your mention of potential waning domestic support is a good reminder of that. At the same time though, I think if "the moral is to the physical as three is to one" then russia has been operating at a bigger deficit than I thought (and for quite some time now).
If I look at my position I think I suffer the same faults as you say Ukraine does. I do not consider the strategic or economic points of view as in my mind I see this from an "invader vs invaded" standpoint where the invader needs to completely conquer, while the invaded needs to hold out. From that perspective the war looks unwinnable to me for russia. So when I see the US saying they are "looking for something more" before releasing aid that could potentially end this sooner, I tend to see it more as "apathetic" on their part.
The few times I DID let my mind venture off into the economic warfare side of the house I generally ended up in a North Korea scenario, and I think we've already decided that that's not likely to happen.
And so it goes...
In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :
Putting machine guns behind your own troops, maintaining an active secret police, and prosecuting for even minor acts of dissent tends to keep up morale, right up until it doesn't.
The reason the strategic and economic perspectives matter is that, no matter what the resolution, for it to be acceptable to the West, it has to be sustainable without Ukraine turning into a dependent client of the US or EU. That huge amounts of money have already been expended is only a minor miracle, but given the circumstances, one that managed to maintain a fair degree of support. But once the fighting stops, dumping billions into Ukraine is going to become a political liability, and fast. Ukraine will have to be able to stand on its own; this is why I suggest that the settlement must include for the provision of large quantities of defensive military equipment, because getting support for it later will be nigh unto impossible. First and foremost, conditions have to be established for a Ukraine that is defensible and economically self-sustaining - territorial integrity is secondary, and has been since the Industrial Revolution disconnected the causal linkage between land, wealth, and power. Again, think about South Korea: would they have liked to hold the whole peninsula? Of course, but they don't, and after 1951's stalemate, it took two years, a change in US administration, and the death of Stalin to finally make an imperfect settlement even possible, but it's held (more or less) for 71 years, and look at South Korea today. They didn't get where they are because of the amount of land they hold or where the borders are.
The Russian have finally taken Vuhledar (south east front), after many, many tries (lower right of map, just as the front turns). It seems like it might be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory (as much of this thing as been):
The Russian seizure of Vuhledar follows a series of costly, failed Russian assaults near the settlement over the past two and a half years. A prominent Russian milblogger celebrated reports of Vuhledar’s seizure by recalling an alleged conversation he had with a Russian high-ranking officer, who told him that the Russian decision to attack in the Vuhledar direction in March 2022 was ill-advised because Russian forces would get “stuck” on the settlement.[6] The milblogger implied that the officer was wrong given that Russian forces eventually seized Vuhledar, although the milblogger failed to acknowledge that Russian forces struggled to advance in the Vuhledar area for over two years. Russia attempted at least two major offensive efforts to seize Vuhledar in October-November 2022 and January-February 2023, both of which resulted in heavy personnel and military equipment losses.[7] Russia's previous defeats around Vuhledar notably resulted in the attrition of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet, EMD).[8]
As can also bee seen on the map, the advance towards the crossroads at Pokrovsk continues... slowly, and almost certainly at great cost.
The Russians have also been doing lots of work adding defenses to the Kerch bridge. E.g. putting Pantsir SAM system (which are truck based) on tall structures (kind of like scaffolding) near the bridge and adding lots of floating barriers. Clearly they are still very concerned.
A Russian TU-95 was doing the typical, lets see how close we can get to the US in Alaska recently. The US intercepted (F-16?) and the Eszcort plane did this. This is VERY close and looks similar to what they were doing with US drones, trying to destabilize them.
A map to show all the Russian gains (red) and Ukrainian gains (blue) as the result of the years fighting. Not super impressive. As noted previously. The Ukrainians primary issues, equipment wise, are the Russian gliding bombs and artillery. Both or which are essentially impossible to see or hear coming or to counter acts. The Russians just throw enough out, eventually they will hit/kill something. They have also been dropping gliding bombs into the city of Zaporishia recently for some reason.
In (other) news. Expect the Israelis to punch back at Iran (after getting actual missile hits in cities in the recent attack). They recently took out a couple of ports in Yemen in response to an attack from there. After the last missile attack they reportedly dropped a missile right next to a nuclear test site in Iran, that Iran never saw coming....
Also an interesting story/rumor: Apparently the Iranians setup a special unit to detect Israeli spies in Iran (which Israel is very good at). The head of that unit....
...an Israeli operative.
In reply to aircooled :
I was reading that they dropped the air-launched ballistic missle right on top of an S300 site in Iran with minimal collateral damage. If true, that's pretty damn impressive!
I've been watching History of Everything on YouTube
Today he premiered this and I felt compelled to share it here.
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