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December 12, 2022
Ukraine Open Thread 2022-224
Comments
There’s a lot of commentary about the relative size and strengths of GDPs for Russia and EU.
If you consider that every transaction indicates the use of energy, to produce and distribute goods, food etc.
The EU economy on that basis is only as strong as the energy it can extract and purchase. Ditto Russia, but Russia is by comparison an energy giant.
This war will likely result in the true cost and value of energy being made explicit leaving the EU a much poorer place with no friendly suppliers of energy (the US aren’t a friend in terms of energy supply, they will want top dollar).
Posted by: Nick | Dec 13 2022 9:23 utc | 201
Posted by: K | Dec 12 2022 20:53 utc | 31
Brave Software is based in the US. As part of their PR, they donate to some charities, including some that are involved with covid-related matters. Those charities display the Brave logo on their own advertising materials.
Posted by: Ranelagh | Dec 13 2022 9:25 utc | 202
Idiot Germans and others thinking it will be business as usual again. Idiots were happy to have their pipes blown up. They should take a look at the immortal parade each year and think about what they have supported. Europe is now very much a backwater for decades to come.
Minsk II. No different to a state in Australia or US, no different to an autonomous region in Russia or China … Ukraine replacing monuments of soviet soldiers who died fighting nazi’s with monuments to Nazi’s and Europe and the west have not only fully supported it but deliberately nurtured a nazi state. Germany also involved in US biolabs… Europe needs its century or two of humiliation.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Dec 13 2022 9:27 utc | 203
… Florence Gaub, deputy chairwomen of the Institute for Security Studies of the European Union and consultant of the European Council …
Posted by: OttoE | Dec 12 2022 22:21 utc | 70
Her projections are a sobering insight into the NATO mindset. I would like to see an investigation into Germany’s participation in the Ukrainian biowarfare laboratories, the legal basis of that participation and a list of who knew and approved of the activities conducted under that participation.
Posted by: anon2020 | Dec 13 2022 9:39 utc | 204
… Where is that useless UK aircraft carrier at the moment anyway?
Posted by: Gt Stroller | Dec 12 2022 22:48 utc | 80
Pretending to have suffered a conveniently embarrassing mechanical failure in order to hide in dry dock, away from the score-settling attentions of Mr. Zircon?
Some venerable rust-bucket will have to do the honours, in return for Moskva.
Posted by: anon2020 | Dec 13 2022 9:57 utc | 205
“>…A sudden check of combat readiness has begun among Belarusian troops – Ministry of Defense of Belarus
>”During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel, and temporarily restrict the movement of citizens (transport) along certain public roads and terrain. – Ministry of Defense of Belarus
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1602576770561089543
Posted by: Melaleuca | Dec 13 2022 10:16 utc | 206
“Pretending to have suffered a conveniently embarrassing mechanical failure in order to hide in dry dock, away from the score-settling attentions of Mr. Zircon?”
As a Brit, albeit one who detests our anti-Russian policy, I’d be happier if that was the case, and we could still build functional ships. Alas I’m not sure we can. In fairness we have a long history of getting ‘found out’, from the flammable insulation in the Falklands vessels to keeping cordite charges in the turrets at Jutland.
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Dec 13 2022 10:18 utc | 207
>The authorities have decided on the form of response to the ceiling of prices for Russian oil:
According to the draft decree, it is prohibited to sell oil on the following grounds:
If the country that joined the ceiling is specified in the contract as the recipient.
> If the ceiling appears as a condition in the contract, or reference prices equal to the ceiling are set ($60 per barrel)
There is also a clause in the document that allows circumventing any prohibitions on transactions – with the permission of the government.- Vedomosti
https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1602602380532523008
Posted by: Melaleuca | Dec 13 2022 10:19 utc | 208
Some venerable rust-bucket will have to do the honours, in return for Moskva.
Posted by: anon2020 | Dec 13 2022 9:57 utc | 205
Russia forgot to publish the proof that UK was involved in NS 1,2 attacks. Don’t wait for anything in return for Moskva, Crimea, Engels or NS and whatever is next.
Macaron published a strange message today that all heavy and light weapons from ZNPP territory will be withdrawn. Not a single commentator I could find understands what he’s talking about but we may see another Baldie trademark retreat, there are no Ukr weapons in ZNPP, only Russian
Posted by: rk | Dec 13 2022 10:24 utc | 209
Posted by: Ranelagh | Dec 13 2022 9:25 utc | 202
Thanks for the info on Brave.
Posted by: K | Dec 13 2022 10:24 utc | 210
TASS – 2,000 civilians have been killed in the surrounding area of the Severodonetsk (Rubezhnoye, Lisichansk and Kremennaya) since the conflict started escalating in February
That is only one area. Great strategy from the general staff? Winning? Right…
Posted by: rk | Dec 13 2022 10:34 utc | 211
It seems Macaron invented a problem and then invented a solution. He claims weapons were removed, Peskov replied now there were no weapons at all. It can be that Macaron snorted Zely’s stash, which is much stronger than his wife’s stash. We’ll see.
Posted by: rk | Dec 13 2022 10:43 utc | 212
Posted by: Nick | Dec 13 2022 9:23 utc | 201
Since Y = C+I+G+(X-M) it seems strange to base so much on GDP calculations especially when the calculation is so flawed. Measurement by Expenditure Method inflates the calculation as there are more Money Transactions in a Western Service Economy than in a Manufacturing Economy.
The more Lawyers and the higher the Education and Health Costs are the higher is GDP. In USA 19.7% GDP is accounted for by Health Expenditure; Legal Fees were $245 billion which is 50% bigger than GDP degenerated by Oil & Gas extraction; Education is around 7% GDP
So Education + Health = 26% GDP
Not many countries come close to that figure and it shows up in a poorly education unhealthy population with high infant mortality and patchy coverage. Quite how this figure boosts US defence credibility is not evident
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Dec 13 2022 10:56 utc | 213
@ krypton | Dec 12 2022 21:09 utc | 36
The Russians got a good long hard look at the future intended by Browser and his kind in the ’90s.
Posted by: John Kennard | Dec 13 2022 11:00 utc | 214
GDP indeed is flawed measurement. It includes alsou rentier profits say on prioperty. USA have one of the most expensive healthcare in the world. Alsou education loans include payments for collage basketball teams and similar.
There is one thing not mentioned about Ukraine. In 2014 Poroshenko offered “croatian scenario”, spend a time to buil a massive military and crush the Donbass. Well, but also croatian scenario (as everything in Balkan wars) includes genocide. First non-serbs “disapeared” in Serb Kraina of Croatia and then the serbs “dissapeared”.
Zelensky never mentioned how he would achieve piece. He newer sayd he is against “Croatian scenario”. I guess he just made good cut contradictory promises to get votes.
In Ukraine some commentators sayd that those who sogned Minsk agreement are criminals. Not shure what he meant.
I guess EU (and USA) needs racists so to damage foreign relations with asian countries.
Posted by: Alef | Dec 13 2022 11:10 utc | 216
Posted by: SpanIt | Dec 12 2022 23:50 utc | 110
Ah! A man of the proletariat. Welcome to the bar, my blue collar comrade.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 13 2022 11:13 utc | 217
Posted by: Outraged | Dec 13 2022 2:10 utc | 156 “Briefing Book #613 ‘NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard’,”
What treaty was “What Gorbachev Heard” written down in?
Posted by: Bill Smith | Dec 13 2022 11:51 utc | 218
John Helmer on the reasons for the current war in Europe….
https://crystalcoasthomerealty-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/ginger_cchomerealty_com/ET6uoGe0zaRPq16hLZCNA94BJ_gMEN_mXf8DPRcn19X0Ig
“This war which Russia is fighting is a continuation of its defence against the war aim of Germany, the United States, and the British since 1939. That aim has been the destruction of Russia as a European power on a parity with the others, with regime change in the Kremlin and liquidation of the country’s military and economic resources as the methods. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s objectives are not different from Chancellor Adolph Hitler’s, but she has not made Hitler’s mistakes of fighting the British and Americans at the same time, nor of launching her military operation against Russia too soon. The race hatred against Russians which Merkel has stoked, along with the US and the NATO allies, is the substitute today, motivating and propagandizing the war in Europe, as race hatred for the Jews was in Hitler’s ideology.
When Merkel told the Germans a few days ago that she intended Germany’s agreement to the Minsk accords of 2015, in order to give time for the military preparation of the Ukraine, she was repeating the time-buying pieces of paper which Hitler agreed with Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain in 1938. The piece of paper Neville Chamberlain told British voters he had signed with Hitler to assure “peace in our time” proved to be false within a year. Merkel’s Minsk agreement she now acknowledges was false from the start on her side; she has admitted this only now, seven years later.
But Merkel has been following Hitler’s lead for longer. His Austrian Aschluss of March 1938 and takeover of Sudetenland six months later were shadowed by Merkel when she agreed to the February 21, 2014, agreement with Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich – at the same time as Merkel also agreed to the US plan for the Maidan coup d’état replacing Yanukovich in Kiev and starting the plan to turn the Ukraine into a gun platform aimed squarely at Moscow. The Maidan coup turned the Ukraine into Merkel’s lebensraum – membership of the European Union and of the NATO alliance is the contemporary name for it.
Merkel wasn’t as impatient as Hitler for an invasion like Operation Barbarossa of 1941. She refused to agree to the Dutch plan for military intervention in Donetsk after the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines MH17 in July 2014. Merkel thought that plan was premature and would trigger a Russian counter-attack risking the total destruction of the Ukrainian forces. She and US leaders weren’t as impulsive as the Dutch; they had all been surprised by the swift effectiveness of the Russian takeover of Crimea. So they began to plan for the longer run. Merkel also didn’t agree to break off the lucrative economic ties with Russia on which German business and trade unions depended – and also the votes she required for her re-election in 2017; she won that despite an 8% swing against her. So Berlin didn’t stop the Nord Stream gas project; instead Merkel delayed its implementation and bought more time.
Merkel then paid a visit to the bedside in Berlin of Alexei Navalny in September 2020, revealing thereby the full engagement of the chancellery and the German secret services in the Novichok story. That’s an example of the fabrication of the good versus evil ideology you identify in your question, and at its centre, the epitome of the Russian evil, the demonization of President Vladimir Putin whom Merkel was as sworn to destroy as Navalny declared himself.
The clock for this war plan against Russia didn’t stop for Germany when Merkel was replaced in the Berlin chancellery by Olaf Scholz in December 2021. It ended on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces began the special military operation.
What is special about this operation is that it was not quite the war for Europe which the Germans, the Americans, and the British have been planning. It is special because it is aimed by Russia to dismantle the Ukrainian gun platform and prevent it threatening to attack. However, if the Germans, Americans and their allies in Europe aim to fight to the last Ukrainian, and continue to run this war against Russia from the Ukrainian borderlands — from Galicia on both sides of the Polish border, from Transcarpathia on both sides of the Hungarian border, and from across the Romanian and Moldovan lines, then the special operation will have become a general operation. That’s to say, the resumption of war in Europe against Russia.”
Meanwhile, critical needs are left un-attended….
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Dec 13 2022 11:57 utc | 219
PIECES FROM SPACE
And the main trouble comes not even from the M-777 howitzers themselves, but from the modern Excalibur high-precision GPS-guided projectiles supplied by the Americans to them. That is, with guidance through space satellites!
At first it seemed that there was no antidote for them. And yet, our scientists, designers have already groped for it. It turned out that it is possible to deal with high-precision projectiles using electronic warfare equipment that jams GPS signals and knocks down the Excalibur adjustment.
But the surest way to overcome the American attack remains the same – the destruction of M777 howitzers, from which Excalibur shells are fired. What our troops are doing.
Posted by: Oblomovka daydream | Dec 13 2022 12:18 utc | 220
Mike Sheldon on TIght Oil…
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/the-big-lie
“Two weeks ago US shale oil exports reached an all time of 7.1 MM BOPD. American refinery absorption of tight oil is maximum, 4.8MM BOPD. All the rest of tight oil production in the US gets exported, below other world postings. The quality of tight oil exported around the world, to the countries it IS exported to, is believed to benefit the American consumer only by a few cents per gallon of gasoline. We can’t use the shit here in the US and it does us no good to export it. We need to be saving it. We will wish we had every barrel of that oil back someday.
What is un-American is allowing these crude oil exports to continue. What borders on treason is the fact that the Biden administration allows that…and has drained our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, our nation’s oil savings account, down to a 40 year low. Our country could not fuel a defense effort against aggressors right now if we had to. Biden is putting out country at great risk.
There is so much lying go on now it is remarkable. The biggest lie is that producing more tight oil from the Permian Basin helps the American consumer. It does not. “
The Neo-Cons believe the US can resurrect the “Arsenal of Democracy” which provided the fuel and equipment that defeated the Axis in WWII. Unfortunately, the US has gone from energy surplus, to energy deficit, with in-sufficient petroleum for the project.
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Dec 13 2022 12:21 utc | 221
aborogard@181….pock marked fields, so while the entire Ukie army was on RnR in Moldavia, those pesky Russians decided to litter the place with teeny tinny ground holes. They know when the Ukrainians return to the pitch they’ll break an ankle should they trip over one of those little pock mark pin pricks. As for the few Ukrainian soldiers that stayed behind to help the Russians correct their Counter Battery fire, they have the gall to complain about supply chain issues, hmm, no am Tylenol delivery apparently. The gall.
Cheers M
Any flat foots that think those little holes are inconsequential y’all get your ass out there……check it out in real time….cue Gonzalo Lira’s laugh track.
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Dec 13 2022 12:41 utc | 222
I haven’t read all the comments. Maybe this has been discussed. I’m guessing not.
Going back to the source material for post #1 on this thread. Watch the video. I count 28 men in frame. That is what is left of a company. As self-reported 70% of the company is dead or wounded. So the original company was three short platoons to a total headcount of 90 to 100 men. No precision here, there should be HQ staff, all sorts of components not showing in the video or in the mind of the speaker. Proceeding as if it were a smallish company and is now a quite small platoon, still a company on paper.
The sergeant, that scoundrel, is said to have absconded. No reference is made to any other officer. There may have been other sergeants who are now dead or wounded. We don’t know. The men here talk about the bad sergeant. No lieutenant or captain in sight. The speech is addressed to the General Staff of the army, and to the world via intertubes. My guess is this came over cellphone. What I have read these past months is that the few junior officers who existed died or skipped town early in the war. What I have read is the junior officer function has been fulfilled by Americans via Starlink. Which seemed fanciful to me each time I read it, this video would support that.
It would make sense to believe this group of men, or company, or platoon, is basically abandoned and they are still too fearful of the Kraken and SBU and punishment battalions to just desert and disperse. Seems doubtful they still have a Starlink terminal or the ability to operate it, but they might. Is there a truck coming with rations? Do they have ammunition? Do they have guns? Do they have comms other than this video? None of this is known. What we are looking at is an artifact on the intenet. If real, and I think it is, this is what is left of a phantom army.
I have not seen anything this pat 10 months to make me think there ever was anything but a phantom army. There were and are mercs and there were and are Azov/Pravy Sektor/Kraken nazis who are much favored by the Americans. I’ve just not seen anything to make me see an army. It is a rabble and a media delusion.
Posted by: oldhippie | Dec 13 2022 12:46 utc | 223
I’m beginning to think that with all those nihilists in DC the line in a few good men should be rewritten as, deep down in places you can’t talk about at parties you want a nuclear war, you need a nuclear war. I’m no longer entirely convinced that those folks value their own lives – let alone ours.
Posted by: Guy L’Estrange | Dec 13 2022 12:50 utc | 224
Posted by: Moaobserver | Dec 12 2022 22:38 utc | 75
Posted by: abrogard | Dec 13 2022 4:51 utc | 181
Agreement is agreeable, agreed?
=)
Posted by: anon2020 | Dec 13 2022 12:50 utc | 225
anything but a phantom army.
@oldhippie | Dec 13 2022 12:46 utc | 224
—
The 93rd separate mechanized brigade seems real enough.
https://t.me/infantmilitario/89305
Posted by: too scents | Dec 13 2022 12:54 utc | 226
Posted by: Bill Smith | Dec 13 2022 11:51 utc | 217
does it matter, when the US violates treaties regularly and with impunity? but US negotiators heard it too.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 13 2022 12:54 utc | 227
Rather relevant re existing belligerants status … in Ukraine …
Tokyo’s policy makes resumption of peace treaty talks impossible — Russian senior diplomat
Commenting on Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s plans to promote the anti-Russian sanctions within Japan’s presidency in the Group of Seven, Rudenko described the role Tokyo has opted for as “profoundly regrettable”
ST. PETERSBURG, December 13. The policy of Japan’s current authorities makes it impossible to resume peace treaty talks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said on Tuesday.
“The policy of Japan’s current government makes it impossible to resume not only peace treaty talks but also many other projects and agreements we had in mind, so to speak. So, we will wait until the situation changes and then we will think about what to do next,” he said on the sidelines of the 13th Asian Conference of the Valdai international discussion club…
That’s right folks, Russia & Japan are still De Jure, at War. Same with China(PRC) & Japan re WWII.
Same with China/DPRK vs US/Sth Korea & the UN nations under US UN UNSC authorized ‘Unified Command’ during the Korean War. Such as UK, Canada, Australia, etc.
🙁
@ Bill Smith | Dec 13 2022 11:51 utc | 217
YOU KNOW YOUR IMPLIED TREATY IS A FALLACY
You were provided with the links to the multiple incontestable declassified records more than once disproving your repeated ludicrous propaganda re Baker/NYT Lies, including an extensive incontestable abstract, yet you repeat the same inane question, again & yet again, for over a week now.
You actually stated in your last post ‘NSA’, but did not even read your own proffered ‘invalid’ NPR reference, T’was ‘CIA’. Serial conduct, intentionally fallaciously obtuse & autistic. How’s your other sock doing ?
Henceforth, one word only: Troll.
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Dec 13 2022 8:52 utc | 197
It is really hard to imagine to which of these buffoons currently running German politics the likes of Putin, Lawrow or zakharowa would talk to. Not least after the Merkel debacle.
The current crop burnt so many bridges, in word and deed, it is just unimaginable that real diplomats would sit with them on a table talking about future Europe / Germany. The “greenness” by which they dragged Germany into this situation really rivals any political witlessness since Nature decided to hand brains to human beings.
Posted by: CM of Berlin | Dec 13 2022 13:03 utc | 229
@ pretzelattack | Dec 13 2022 12:54 utc | 228
See: Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner.
Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”
National Security Archives
Published: Dec 12, 2017
Briefing Book #
613
Posted by: Tbx | Dec 13 2022 0:11 utc | 123
Not only u look weak THEY ARE WEAK!
Pls look at the craters all over ukraine soil….!?
What is this? Artillery biathlon?
I was my whole life serving for yugoslava later serbian army.
Never seen so many missguided shells.
I mean nowdays with all the technical possibilities (satelites, laser,…) ……i am speachless
We didnt have drones, satelites …..but we managed to hit the trenches of our enemies.
Same story with the russian air defense.
It is a shameful indictment of the so called russian AD
The serbian poor old grap museum AD managed to shoot down a F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft of the United States Air Force but the russian “high tech” equipment doesnt sees the missles or drones flying deep into Russian territory?
Come on…..
The only explanation is sabotage, drugs or alcohol.
Anyhow the whole SMO is big bloody kabuki theater.
Putin is 100% responsible for this disaster.
He is far away being a 5D chess player.
HE HAS HANDCUFFED the russian army with NOT CLEAR braindead GUIDELINES!
SLOW APPROACH IS BETTER THAN FAST???
Sorry what…..?
Saving lifes of the enemy but spending lifes of young russian soldiers?
This is royal vladimir!
The results we can all see every day since nine month SMO.
With his slow strategy he will lose his last allies.
Everybody is already fat up with the SMO.
Last 14 days more and more serbian volunteers are showing up in ukraine forces!
With his slow approach he is giving the empire of lies to manipulate the serbian public opinion.
Moreover after Merkels statement about Minsk nobody of russians allies believes anymore in Putins as a capable politician nor be able to manage a war.
Nobody wants to get dragged away by putins kamikaze kabuki theater.
I think it will go down in history as the most unlogic and expensive war ever performed by military forces of a nation.
Expensive because 5d chessmaster started SMO and didnt transfer first back 300 billion usd from abroud
He is such a naive
Posted by: ratkomladic | Dec 13 2022 13:27 utc | 231
Posted by: Outraged | Dec 13 2022 13:12 utc | 231
that guy is just another NATO shill. His fake concern with legality is highly annoying.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 13 2022 13:34 utc | 232
Many thanks to “b”‘s commenters for the references, transcripts and links provided. Also the sitreps. A mine of information.
Karlof1 – those Merkel interviews you homed in on seem not to have been noticed much in the West. But they’ve cooked Europe’s goose elsewhere, seems. If there was ever a remote chance of them taking such as Scholz or Macron seriously before they certainly don’t now.
Fanto – For me Hegel’s a pig to grasp in either English or German. I find all I can do with him is read how the academics explain him.
Trouble is, they all explain him different ways!
Compare that with the Wittgenstein of the Investigations – a model of lucidity that explains itself as it goes along. Hegel almost seems to despise clarity.
I sometimes wonder if the profound influence Hegel has is because he’s a sort of Rorschach apparatus for subsequent thinkers. They can put into him more or less what they please and bolster their argument with the authoritative name. Or am I missing the big picture? Probably, but life’s too short to spend much time worrying about it.
On more mundane affairs, what’s Heinrich XIII doing getting caught up in today’s version of the Reichstag fire? If he had even a trace of superstition about numbers he’d have known he was on a loser. Fall guy or Mr Big?
Posted by: English Outsider | Dec 13 2022 13:39 utc | 233
Kiev is starting to feel the shortage of anti-air capabilities with no adequate restocking in sight, a senior Ukrainian official told the outlet
Ukraine running out of vital weapons – Financial Times
Ukraine is exhausting its supplies of munitions and spare parts for the Soviet-era S-300 and Buk air defense systems used to counter Russian strikes on the nation’s energy infrastructure, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing a senior Ukrainian military official.
The Ukrainian Air Force’s chief spokesperson, Colonel Yury Ignat, told the outlet that his air defense units usually fire two S-300 or Buk missiles at every Russian projectile to raise the chances of interception . This poses certain challenges, however, since it is impossible for Ukraine to procure additional missiles for these systems, which are produced in Russia. Meanwhile, finding the available stocks elsewhere has proven difficult, the report says.
Ignat went on to state that while Kiev is receiving modern air defense systems from its Western backers, Ukraine would need “hundreds” of such weapons to replace its aging arsenal.
“We have no other choice but to switch to these types of weapons since the Soviet weapons of the [19]70s and [19]80s are both… obsolete and the enemy is exhausting them every day,” he said.
…
Kiev is starting to feel the shortage of anti-air capabilities with no adequate restocking in sight, a senior Ukrainian official told the outlet
Ukraine running out of vital weapons – Financial Times
Ukraine is exhausting its supplies of munitions and spare parts for the Soviet-era S-300 and Buk air defense systems used to counter Russian strikes on the nation’s energy infrastructure, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing a senior Ukrainian military official.
Is this not the right moment to step up destruction of energy infrastructure?
I think this is the most effective thing Russia can do.
Posted by: kerensky | Dec 13 2022 13:49 utc | 235
Posted by: ratkomladic | Dec 13 2022 13:27 utc | 232
Just to see if you understand:
Pusi ga picko ustaska!
Suck it, you ustasa kunt!
Posted by: Skandi | Dec 13 2022 14:20 utc | 236
For me Hegel’s a pig to grasp
Posted by: English Outsider | Dec 13 2022 13:39 utc | 234
This won’t help much, except by explaining why it doesn’t help much.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/312
Posted by: Gt Stroller | Dec 13 2022 14:23 utc | 237
Yesterday’s RFs taking of Marinka hamlet and Dnipro river’s Potiomkin islet spell disaster for Kiev as, according to baghdad-bob McGreggor, the Ukrop army doesn’t exist anymore.
I want to see Elensky and ilk Nuremberg’d pronto.
Posted by: CommiesGOFY | Dec 13 2022 14:31 utc | 238
“The Neo-Cons believe the US can resurrect the “Arsenal of Democracy” which provided the fuel and equipment that defeated the Axis in WWII…”
Dr. George W Oprisko | Dec 13 2022 12:21 utc | 222
____
Funny, the “Neo-Cons” also believe that it was the US that “defeated the Axis in WWII”. It was in fact the very people they are now at war with, the Russians, who defeated the Axis in WW2. The US played a lesser supporting role.
Posted by: Doug Hillman | Dec 13 2022 15:17 utc | 239
Paul Greenwood @199–
Thanks for your reply. I confess to taking RT’s reporting as it was and didn’t dig any deeper, although I did see Scholtz was doing damage control. There’s a whole lot about the construction of post-war Germany that I’m admittedly ignorant of; but my in-box is overflowing, and I doubt I’ll cure that shortcoming before I pass.
135 ReinhardVonSiegfried wrote:
At the end of the day, Russia is simply not moving the frontline westward. After 10 months of war against a smaller, weaker neighbor right on their border, this is simply embarrassing, regardless as to what support and provisions Kiev is receiving from NATO.
RF has been busy destroying the Ukrainian army and their Nazi special forces, which was their stated goal of the SMO. Up to 75% of Ukrainian core forces have been eliminated, when that number reaches closer to 90% than Russia will move be the line where ever they want. A bunch of commenters in the US will still say “it wasn’t fast enough for me” but that’s meaningless to Russia.
Posted by: James c | Dec 13 2022 16:37 utc | 241
Posted by: ratkomladic | Dec 13 2022 13:27 utc | 231
It has been my strong opinion for already a decade, not a very popular one, that Vladimir Putin is an idiot, probably the worst war chief Russians could dream of, in a nightmare of course, and that this idiot could well provoke a nuclear war with NATO. That I concluded already when the Syrian “civil war” started and every time I come to think I could have been wrong he has proven me right. The worst thing of all is that we are approaching the moment when the moron will make ww3 practicable inevitable.
Even Scott Ritter was jumping on his seat the other day, and not of excitement, when talking about the attacks on those bombers in that air base near Moscow. Because those are the ones that would take off loaded with nukes in case ww3 starts so an attack on them is an extremely serious and dangerous business, specially coming from NATO. Ritter said that if he had been in Biden’s shoes at this moment he would have immediately demanded the heads of those in the US military who helped the UkroNazis in that attack. Of course Biden didn’t do a thing. But most important, what did Putin do in response to this blatant provocation and practically a NATO casus belli..? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just shrugged it off as he has done in response to every single provocation from the West, as he did even when Russian consulates in the U.S. were being assaulted and turned upside down by heavily armed FBI agents and taken over by the U.S. government.
Putin already bears responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of Russians, something he could have prevented many times, first in 2014 if he had only sent the military hardware Yanukovych needed to crush the Maidan coup. Then later by not issuing a stern warning to Kiev “from now on, for every single artillery shell or missile landing on the Donets I will flatten an entire city block in the capital’. And then by taking special care of not hurting Ukrainians in his SMO and in turn making thousands of Russian soldiers die for them in this endeavor.
Posted by: gatobart | Dec 13 2022 19:33 utc | 242
Great job ignoring trolls barfies. Looks like the trolls are replying to themselves, hilarious.
🙂
Posted by: Klaatu | Dec 13 2022 21:26 utc | 243
No one should expect any proof or evidence or justification or press releases or anything remotely similar from anyone before retribution hits or remuneration is taken.
Afterwards? Perhaps, depending on circumstance and details, scope, severity, deniability, utility, but it is not a given.
Everyone may just decide to keep silent. There could be nothing to explain to those who would know and nothing one could explain to those who wouldn’t; I mean look at the current world.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Dec 13 2022 22:10 utc | 244
Posted by: Klaatu | Dec 13 2022 21:26 utc | 243
Sorry, is that an argument…? Do you really think this is a game, a child’s game when at the end everyone goes home and start thinking about the next…? Do you know anything about the situation we are in now, the entire world…? Do you know anything about the Cold War…? Do you know that the only reason why the US and the USSR didn’t go in an all out nuclear exchange in October 1962 was because of an officer in a Soviet sub that was being attacked with deep charges by a US Navy destroyer, who against all rules refused to give the needed unanimity to launch a counterattack and sink the US ship, which would have triggered ww3 in question of minutes…? Were you even alive at the time…? If not, you should better keep your immature comments to yourself and listen to people who really were then and educate you in the situation we are living now. I just was reading some comments in YT channels and there was this man who wrote that his father was in Cuba during that crisis in October 1962 and he, his father, was saying that the situation we are living now is even more dangerous than then. And it shows, at the time it was John Kennedy in the White House, a man who saw himself as a humanist who was terrified at the idea of all the life around him being destroyed. What we have now instead is a senile fart controlled by a bunch of warmongering lunatics. That is what Paul Craig Roberts has been for an entire decade trying to get inside Putin’s thick skull: “these are not rational people, these are criminally insane lunatics and you should see them as that”. That is why we are in this jam now, because for a decade Putin had fooled himself into the stupid fantasy that these are normal people and that they may even come to like and appreciate him. And consequently he had failed to make clear to this bunch of mad men he really means business and that they should watch it.
Posted by: gatobart | Dec 13 2022 23:14 utc | 245
Posted by: gatobart | Dec 13 2022 23:14 utc | 245
Good comment. This is not a game and somewhere like MoA thanks to b might just be where info can be exchanged completely outside of normal channels. This is not a game. Guess people won’t get it until they walk outside and see the missile trails going up(if they even look at the sky anymore). Even then they will go back to playing video games. Anyway understand your frustration. Probably should have just said the last sentence, but sometimes good for the system to rant a bit. Appreciated your comment.
Posted by: dust | Dec 13 2022 23:35 utc | 246
Posted by: dust | Dec 13 2022 23:35 utc | 246
Exactly.
We are right now, as we speak, in the edge of the cliff. I would even dare to say that all it could take is just another incident like this drone bombing of those bombers and another meeting of Putin with his national security counsel and that will be it. In that meeting he generals will confront him for the first time, like the US admirals and generals did to JFK in October 1962, and will say to him: Mr. president, this time WE HAVE TO STRIKE NATO. AND WE’LL DO IT WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR ORDERS. That is how close we are. We were so lucky the first time, pray we are also now.
Posted by: gatobart | Dec 14 2022 0:24 utc | 247
Dec 13:
The British grid operator is paying £6,000 per megawatt-hour to Vitol for keeping its Rye House power station running right now
That’s 100 times the normal price pre-crisis, a record for a gas plant, and at the (no longer so) sacred “Value of Lost Load”
https://twitter.com/_ToddGillespie/status/1602354793699282944
>… £6,000 per MWh
I believe that’s both a UK record for a gas-fired power plant and an absolute record for the UK balancing market. Emergency actions via interconnectors have cleared at higher prices.
Vitol is selling power equal to VoLL — quite a move!!!!
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1602351260254048263
>@javierblas: ^ Eyewatering prices in the UK power balancing market (where National Grid ESO buys electricity at short notice to fine-tune supply and demand)
Commodity trader Vitol is selling power from one of its gas-fired plants at >£5,000 per MWh — among the highest prices I have ever seen……
Posted by: Melaleuca | Dec 14 2022 6:19 utc | 248
@Melaleuca | Dec 14 2022 6:19 utc | 248
Gas storage in Germany: From now on, it goes down ==> https://twitter.com/HannesZipfel/status/1602600938799304704
Posted by: too scents | Dec 14 2022 10:38 utc | 249