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Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Thread starter feedmpenzaandhewillscore
- Start date
TinFoilHat
Well-Known Member
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- Manchester City
Putin News Channel is hilarious.
Their main headline is Biden owns a company in Ukraine funding terrorist attacks on Russian soil.
Their main headline is Biden owns a company in Ukraine funding terrorist attacks on Russian soil.
Scottyboi
Well-Known Member
From "The Analyst":
BAD NEWS FOR RUSSIA
Due to flooding in Orsk, the Voronezh-M strategic missile attack warning system station has ceased operations, according to a public page "VChK-OGPU."
The station, located near the village of Kumak, 20 km from the old city, is facing a high risk of flooding due to breaches in the dams.
Why should this matter?
As a result of the shutdown, tracking launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the southern direction has become problematic. This is one of the few effective early warning systems the Russians have, principally designed to detect SLBM launches from the Indian Ocean area. Their space based satellites are notoriously unreliable and their ability to correctly ascertain if a nuclear attack is under way has long been limited and less than ideal.
Russia has a terrible history of false alarms and bearing in mind that both the US and Russia sit on world ending stockpiles of weapons and both use launch on warning of attack, knowing with confidence that an attacks is real is something of a big deal.
If the radar station is permanently flooded, it will be challenging to quickly restore the radars capabilities, with estimates suggesting it could take several years to rectify the situation.
The United States redirected thousands of weapons to Ukraine earlier this month, that it seized from an Iranian group attempting to smuggle the munitions to Yemen’s Houthi militants.
More than 5,000 AK-47 rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers, as well as more than 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, were transferred to the Ukrainian armed forces on April 4, according to CENTCOM.
What a delicious irony that these weapons, largely supplied to Iran by Russia have found their way home. After everything the Iranians have been responsible for against Ukraine and their lies over their alliance with Russia, it’s just a small but poetic piece of justice.
In another even more shocking diplomatic and political twist to how Russian aggression has affected European nations, the Swiss Federal President announced in her speech yesterday that, in the event of any attack on Switzerland which has just joined the wartime air defence alliance with neutral Austria, that Switzerland would work with and assist NATO. ‘An attack on us would mean we were no longer neutral and would act accordingly’ were the gist of her words.
For Switzerland this is an earthquake in its public stance on neutrality. And yet extraordinary as it may seem, inside Switzerland where once such pronouncements would have been seen as sacrilege, it’s caused hardly a stir. Yes the country would have to be attacked, but even so it’s the fact that they know who the enemy is and that they’re willing to cooperate with NATO, that’s a huge change in public perception. Austria has been neutral since the end of the post WW2 occupation in 1955. It was part of the deal when the Russian forces withdrew from Vienna. Yet it’s long been understood in the event of a war it would fight with the West if attacked. After Sweden and Finland joined NATO many thought Austria would too, but Vienna has held on to its neutral status - many international organisations are based there that require a neutral state to feel safe in. And it has an extremely right wing tilt to its politics in recent years that has less of a problem with certain governments that is perhaps ideal.
BAD NEWS FOR RUSSIA
Due to flooding in Orsk, the Voronezh-M strategic missile attack warning system station has ceased operations, according to a public page "VChK-OGPU."
The station, located near the village of Kumak, 20 km from the old city, is facing a high risk of flooding due to breaches in the dams.
Why should this matter?
As a result of the shutdown, tracking launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the southern direction has become problematic. This is one of the few effective early warning systems the Russians have, principally designed to detect SLBM launches from the Indian Ocean area. Their space based satellites are notoriously unreliable and their ability to correctly ascertain if a nuclear attack is under way has long been limited and less than ideal.
Russia has a terrible history of false alarms and bearing in mind that both the US and Russia sit on world ending stockpiles of weapons and both use launch on warning of attack, knowing with confidence that an attacks is real is something of a big deal.
If the radar station is permanently flooded, it will be challenging to quickly restore the radars capabilities, with estimates suggesting it could take several years to rectify the situation.
The United States redirected thousands of weapons to Ukraine earlier this month, that it seized from an Iranian group attempting to smuggle the munitions to Yemen’s Houthi militants.
More than 5,000 AK-47 rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers, as well as more than 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, were transferred to the Ukrainian armed forces on April 4, according to CENTCOM.
What a delicious irony that these weapons, largely supplied to Iran by Russia have found their way home. After everything the Iranians have been responsible for against Ukraine and their lies over their alliance with Russia, it’s just a small but poetic piece of justice.
In another even more shocking diplomatic and political twist to how Russian aggression has affected European nations, the Swiss Federal President announced in her speech yesterday that, in the event of any attack on Switzerland which has just joined the wartime air defence alliance with neutral Austria, that Switzerland would work with and assist NATO. ‘An attack on us would mean we were no longer neutral and would act accordingly’ were the gist of her words.
For Switzerland this is an earthquake in its public stance on neutrality. And yet extraordinary as it may seem, inside Switzerland where once such pronouncements would have been seen as sacrilege, it’s caused hardly a stir. Yes the country would have to be attacked, but even so it’s the fact that they know who the enemy is and that they’re willing to cooperate with NATO, that’s a huge change in public perception. Austria has been neutral since the end of the post WW2 occupation in 1955. It was part of the deal when the Russian forces withdrew from Vienna. Yet it’s long been understood in the event of a war it would fight with the West if attacked. After Sweden and Finland joined NATO many thought Austria would too, but Vienna has held on to its neutral status - many international organisations are based there that require a neutral state to feel safe in. And it has an extremely right wing tilt to its politics in recent years that has less of a problem with certain governments that is perhaps ideal.
He does, his son is the company director.Putin News Channel is hilarious.
Their main headline is Biden owns a company in Ukraine funding terrorist attacks on Russian soil.
I was hoping Tokmak was under Ukranian control.Tokmak,Zaporizhzhia Region is under a huge HIMARS attack.
Not sure on target.....but Ukraine after summat special??
Slava Ukraini.
Scottyboi
Well-Known Member
From "The Analyst":
RUSSIA’S INTERNAL CRISIS
A medium sized dam collapses, not from anything other than neglect. There is no money to maintain such structures.
The level of water is horrendous - Orsk and Orenburg are flooded. Some 250km of land as much as 5km or more has been flooded. It’s the worst humanitarian disaster inside Russia since Chernobyl in 1986.
On the border with Belarus another bridge collapsed - it’s been needing repair for over a decade but has been ignored. Such tales of woe in Russia emerge almost every other day. There is no money to pay for basic maintenance- the war against Ukraine is sucking the country dry.
The attacks on refineries by Ukraine have started to pay dividends. Russia has been forced to buy a staggering 100,000 tons of refined petroleum and diesel from Kazakhstan because its own refineries have no capacity to sustain domestic demand. Prices are starting to rise.
Russia has been one of those countries that produces so much oil it has never had to think about a strategic reserve of fuel or oil.
America has the SPR - millions of barrels stored in old wells around Texas and elsewhere that acts as an emergency reserve in case of war or crisis. It was mostly established during the days after the oil embargo’s of the 1960-70’s.
Even though the US is now a net exporter of oil the strategic reserves are a vital part of the national security strategy of the US. They often get used to balance prices if they rise too high.
Russia has no such thing. It pumps it out of the ground, exports it as crude or refines it as finished products for domestic use and export. There’s so much in the ground nobody ever thought to be bothered about saving any. In practice if it was needed you simply drilled for it and produced it.
It never crossed anyone’s mind that the refineries would be so badly damaged that they would in effect cease to function - and with it much of Russian refining capacity would be gone. One more of those unexpected things that happens in war nobody planned for. Russian petroleum is basically a just in time product - it’s produced as fast as it’s needed and arrives just in time. There is no back up. Ukraine truly found a weak spot in Russia’s oil industry. And the worst part is it’s not easy to fix any of these systems - even with Iranian help.
And even worse news - the revenue from Russian oil and gas is continuing to fall.
The first quarter of this year shows a 41% reduction in revenue - more than 50% if priced in dollars.
Even more annoying for the Russians is that the US is focused on making sure that no matter the price of oil, Russia gets no more than $60pb under the sanctions regime.
The rest of Russia’s economic outlook is deceptive. Charts show what appears to be sharp increases in domestic non-oil & gas revenue, making up 66% of the total (the reverse of the position in 2021). Bit there are two realities to that. If oil income falls then domestic revenue automatically looks better on a chart as the percentage grows.
The revenue being generated internally is higher, but so is inflation, and as we discussed before, the ‘printing’ of money to supply cash to pay the governments debts has its own dangerous alchemy. And that is still playing out in high hidden and official inflation and interest rates, as well as chronic currency devaluations.
What is happening is that war is inflating state paid for production of weapons. The state pays - to make, to operate and maintain what it buys. What it is producing is war - it’s not making anything that brings any return. It’s a total cost, there is no longevity in this type of economy.
Once this war ends, Russia faces a catastrophic industrial collapse as the state stops pouring billions into weapons. Russia is spending almost 35% of its GDP on the war and it’s still not winning.
Russia is not making a profit. Its 2021 revenue was a profit of nearly 10 trillion roubles. By the time of the end of 2023 the country is in the negative - almost 3.5 trillion roubles in
losses. CONTINUES…CONTINUES …
Russia is selling less oil, far less gas, exports little else and has become deeply dependent on China for more than should be considered healthy.
Its oil industry is in trouble, its economy is driven only by military requirements and its losses financially show it cannot afford the war - despite the billions being spent.
Russia is in a bubble. Eventually bubbles burst and Russia will have to face that day when it happens - and when it does it’s going to be a national disaster. Short term gain for long term pain. War is expensive. Surviving it is even more so.
RUSSIA’S INTERNAL CRISIS
A medium sized dam collapses, not from anything other than neglect. There is no money to maintain such structures.
The level of water is horrendous - Orsk and Orenburg are flooded. Some 250km of land as much as 5km or more has been flooded. It’s the worst humanitarian disaster inside Russia since Chernobyl in 1986.
On the border with Belarus another bridge collapsed - it’s been needing repair for over a decade but has been ignored. Such tales of woe in Russia emerge almost every other day. There is no money to pay for basic maintenance- the war against Ukraine is sucking the country dry.
The attacks on refineries by Ukraine have started to pay dividends. Russia has been forced to buy a staggering 100,000 tons of refined petroleum and diesel from Kazakhstan because its own refineries have no capacity to sustain domestic demand. Prices are starting to rise.
Russia has been one of those countries that produces so much oil it has never had to think about a strategic reserve of fuel or oil.
America has the SPR - millions of barrels stored in old wells around Texas and elsewhere that acts as an emergency reserve in case of war or crisis. It was mostly established during the days after the oil embargo’s of the 1960-70’s.
Even though the US is now a net exporter of oil the strategic reserves are a vital part of the national security strategy of the US. They often get used to balance prices if they rise too high.
Russia has no such thing. It pumps it out of the ground, exports it as crude or refines it as finished products for domestic use and export. There’s so much in the ground nobody ever thought to be bothered about saving any. In practice if it was needed you simply drilled for it and produced it.
It never crossed anyone’s mind that the refineries would be so badly damaged that they would in effect cease to function - and with it much of Russian refining capacity would be gone. One more of those unexpected things that happens in war nobody planned for. Russian petroleum is basically a just in time product - it’s produced as fast as it’s needed and arrives just in time. There is no back up. Ukraine truly found a weak spot in Russia’s oil industry. And the worst part is it’s not easy to fix any of these systems - even with Iranian help.
And even worse news - the revenue from Russian oil and gas is continuing to fall.
The first quarter of this year shows a 41% reduction in revenue - more than 50% if priced in dollars.
Even more annoying for the Russians is that the US is focused on making sure that no matter the price of oil, Russia gets no more than $60pb under the sanctions regime.
The rest of Russia’s economic outlook is deceptive. Charts show what appears to be sharp increases in domestic non-oil & gas revenue, making up 66% of the total (the reverse of the position in 2021). Bit there are two realities to that. If oil income falls then domestic revenue automatically looks better on a chart as the percentage grows.
The revenue being generated internally is higher, but so is inflation, and as we discussed before, the ‘printing’ of money to supply cash to pay the governments debts has its own dangerous alchemy. And that is still playing out in high hidden and official inflation and interest rates, as well as chronic currency devaluations.
What is happening is that war is inflating state paid for production of weapons. The state pays - to make, to operate and maintain what it buys. What it is producing is war - it’s not making anything that brings any return. It’s a total cost, there is no longevity in this type of economy.
Once this war ends, Russia faces a catastrophic industrial collapse as the state stops pouring billions into weapons. Russia is spending almost 35% of its GDP on the war and it’s still not winning.
Russia is not making a profit. Its 2021 revenue was a profit of nearly 10 trillion roubles. By the time of the end of 2023 the country is in the negative - almost 3.5 trillion roubles in
losses. CONTINUES…CONTINUES …
Russia is selling less oil, far less gas, exports little else and has become deeply dependent on China for more than should be considered healthy.
Its oil industry is in trouble, its economy is driven only by military requirements and its losses financially show it cannot afford the war - despite the billions being spent.
Russia is in a bubble. Eventually bubbles burst and Russia will have to face that day when it happens - and when it does it’s going to be a national disaster. Short term gain for long term pain. War is expensive. Surviving it is even more so.
cleavers
Moderator
The funny thing is, the dam collapse and flooding, has shut down another refinery (orsk I think), without any Ukraine involvement.A medium sized dam collapses, not from anything other than neglect. There is no money to maintain such structures.
The level of water is horrendous - Orsk and Orenburg are flooded. Some 250km of land as much as 5km or more has been flooded. It’s the worst humanitarian disaster inside Russia since Chernobyl in 1986.
On the border with Belarus another bridge collapsed - it’s been needing repair for over a decade but has been ignored. Such tales of woe in Russia emerge almost every other day. There is no money to pay for basic maintenance- the war against Ukraine is sucking the country dry.
The attacks on refineries by Ukraine have started to pay dividends. Russia has been forced to buy a staggering 100,000 tons of refined petroleum and diesel from Kazakhstan because its own refineries have no capacity to sustain domestic demand.
I just hope no Russians perished,How would i be able to sleep..The funny thing is, the dam collapse and flooding, has shut down another refinery (orsk I think), without any Ukraine involvement.