War in Ukraine

#23,155
#23,155
MontyPython said:
Cut off one's nose to spite one's face maxim seems appropriate.

Who needs Rubles when you can just steal what you need from Ukraine, right?

One a side note, if the current Russian gas contracts do specify the currency that is to be used (as claimed by several European countries), Russia would be in breach of contract for cutting off supplies by demanding Ruble-based trade. In turn, this would likely end up in World Court where, undoubtedly, a financial judgment would be made against Russia. How or whether this would be enforced, who knows.

Putin Says Gas Exports to Be Halted If Payments Not Made in Rubles

Russia will halt gas supplies to buyers from ‘unfriendly’ states unless they switch to payments in rubles from April 1, President Vladimir Putin said, the latest strike in a struggle with Europe over energy sales.

“To buy Russian gas, they need to open ruble accounts in Russian banks,” Putin told officials in a televised speech Thursday. “It is from those accounts that gas will be paid for starting April 1. If such payments aren’t made, we will consider this a failure by the client to comply with its obligations.”
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. you think anything is going to happen if Russia cuts off their supply? You guys support foreign oil here, you don't want it drilled here. This is what you get.
 
#23,158
#23,158
I was at one point afraid Russia would continue to invade old satellites and annex what he wanted. But after watching this play out it is obvious to me Russia has serious command, logistical, and military personnel issues. It looks like he's shot his wad so to speak.

It really looks like a colossal blunder, he must find a way to sell this war as a win at home (I know, not hard considering he controls the narrative they see) and get his troops back home and retool and bolster them.
 
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#23,159
#23,159
Russia's War Lacks a Battlefield Commander, U.S. Officials Say

WASHINGTON — Russia is running its military campaign against Ukraine out of Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground to call the shots, according to U.S. officials who have studied the five-week-old war.

That centralized approach may go a long way to explain why the Russian war effort has struggled in the face of stiffer-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, the officials said.

The lack of a unifying military leader in Ukraine has meant that Russian air, ground and sea units are not in sync. Their disjointed battlefield campaigns have been plagued by poor logistics, flagging morale and between 7,000 and 15,000 military deaths, senior U.S. officials and independent analysts say.

It has also contributed to the deaths of at least seven Russian generals as high-ranking officers are pushed to the front lines to untangle tactical problems that Western militaries would leave to more junior officers or senior enlisted personnel.

A senior U.S. official said that NATO officials and the intelligence community had spent weeks waiting for a Russian war commander to emerge. No one has, leaving Western officials to conclude that the men making decisions are far from the fight...
 
#23,160
#23,160
hog88 said:
Have you read Masters of the Air?
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Don't remember that title but I've read so many books on WW II aviation, I may have read that. My favorite is a 4 Vol set titled "Airwar" by Edward Jablonski.

There is an excellent book about the 8th Air Force named "Wild Blue Yonder" that's very good. Most people don't know that the 8th Air Force had more casualties in WW II than the entire Marine Corps in the Pacific. They were the first unit who did daylight precision bombing and they did it before there was long range fighter cover. It was a bloodbath.

My father was in B-24's flying over Europe in '44 and '45. Shot down in his first mission over Yugoslavia and was smuggled through to the Russian lines by the Yugoslav partisans. After recuperating in a Russian field hospital (he got shot a 2nd time in the hospital by some Russian cleaning his gun) he evaded through Romania to the Middle East. AAF gave him 30 days recuperative leave and then reminded him that he owed them 19 more missions.

I even have the debriefing report from his air wing where they have aircrew from other planes describing his plane going down and its location and the notice sent to my mother that he was MIA.

Needless to say I have read a lot about the air war over Europe.
 
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#23,162
#23,162
MontyPython said:
Russia's War Lacks a Battlefield Commander, U.S. Officials Say

WASHINGTON — Russia is running its military campaign against Ukraine out of Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground to call the shots, according to U.S. officials who have studied the five-week-old war. That centralized approach may go a long way to explain why the Russian war effort has struggled in the face of stiffer-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, the officials said. The lack of a unifying military leader in Ukraine has meant that Russian air, ground and sea units are not in sync. Their disjointed battlefield campaigns have been plagued by poor logistics, flagging morale and between 7,000 and 15,000 military deaths, senior U.S. officials and independent analysts say. It has also contributed to the deaths of at least seven Russian generals as high-ranking officers are pushed to the front lines to untangle tactical problems that Western militaries would leave to more junior officers or senior enlisted personnel.

A senior U.S. official said that NATO officials and the intelligence community had spent weeks waiting for a Russian war commander to emerge. No one has, leaving Western officials to conclude that the men making decisions are far from the fight...
Click to expand...

Maybe Puddin has jailed all his commanders. Then he can just conscript one of this oligarch tycoon buddies as a de facto commandeer. Get them killed off by Ukraine and confiscate money to further enrich himself. Now, that is commandering Putin style. :cool:
 
#23,165
#23,165
Russia steadies rouble with harsh capital controls and investment curbs

Still, sanctions have actually bolstered one of the traditional strong points of Russia’s economy: its trade surplus. Soaring energy prices coupled with a sharp drop in imports has created a “very strong balance of trade, and a huge excess of currency on the trade balance”, Vyugin said.

Oil sales make up about 30 per cent of Russia’s fiscal revenues and current global price rises are “giving Russia the strongest terms of trade since ‘peak oil’ in 2008”, said Elina Ribakova and Robin Brooks, economists at the Institute of International Finance. “So even if Russia ships less oil now due to western sanctions, Putin still gets lots of hard currency inflows.”

Ribakova forecast that Russia’s current account could probably reach $200bn to $250bn in 2022, from about $120bn in 2021, due to a collapse in imports combined with strong commodity exports. These revenues mean Russia could rebuild the central bank reserves that were frozen under sanctions in the space of just over a year, she said.

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#23,167
#23,167
luthervol said:
It's appropriately inevitable....given that, the focus should be on how to set that up while still leaving as much autonomy to individual nations as possible.
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I'd like my State to secede from the corrupt bankrupt Fed Govt, much less join an even more corrupt bankrupt World Govt. It's only inevitable because uneducated rubes such as yourself dont understand the immense danger of such a system.
 
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#23,168
#23,168
volgr said:
I'd like my State to secede from the corrupt bankrupt Fed Govt, much less join an even more corrupt bankrupt World Govt. It's only inevitable because uneducated rubes such as yourself dont understand the immense danger of such a system.
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You are simply clueless.....good luck.
 
#23,171
#23,171
KB5252 said:
It's a horrible idea, multiple ideas in an open market is exactly why the US prospered and Russia withered after WW2.
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Who said there couldn't be multiple ideas in an open market????? I'm all for that, unless your idea is to invade another country and commit war crimes.
 
#23,172
#23,172
luthervol said:
Who said there couldn't be multiple ideas in an open market????? I'm all for that, unless your idea is to invade another country and commit war crimes.
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When a world order and centralized power is inevitably consolidated the market of ideas becomes dangerous. You have to know this.
 
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