Russia Invades Ukraine

[Cranston]

10 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

 

What should Ukraine give up for peace?

Engaging in talks for peace is not giving in or giving up, its called pragmatism, and preventing further needless loss of life. Its going to have to happen sooner or later, sooner would be uppermost in my mind. Get on with it. 

[SectionDJambo]

1 hour ago, Mikey1874 said:

 

What should Ukraine give up for peace?

As a bare minimum, assuming the western nations expected them to give up the territory that Russia has taken by their invasion, they would, I would think, demand all POWs returned along with all the children and adults transported to Russia.
A demilitarised zone to be set up between Russia, Belarus and Ukraine?

Then they would have to be either a full member of NATO or, at the very least, be protected by NATO, including a Trump led USA, in order to live peacefully with some security against another Soviet Mark 2 aggression.

Further isolation of Russia under the current regime should continue.

Goodness knows who is going to pay for the re building of towns and cities.

[Cade]

Russia wouldn't come to the table even if Ukraine did offer a peace deal.

Russia doesn't acknowledge Ukraine as an independent nation. They see Ukraine as a rebellious Russian province. They want to completely dominate and absorb Ukraine.

They know that if they lose this war, or negotiate, then Ukraine becomes a member of the EU and NATO and therefor becomes untouchable for the rest of time.

They don't want that. They will not stop until Ukraine ceases to exist.

As I've said before, negotiations on Ukraine's border with Russia have been made before, twice, in 1994 and 2014.

These border negotiations have been breached, twice, by Russia.

They cannot be trusted. They will simply re-arm, re-organise then go again. As they have already, twice before.

 

Dismantling their war machine is the main aim at the moment. Re-taking occupied territories becomes harder as they dig in deeper. Preventing them from being able to take more is the first step. Then we can look at liberating the rest.
Russia's artillery is fecked, they've lost thousands of artillery pieces, are running out of spare barrels and ammunition is dwindling. 

They've switched to using air power as their main bombardment tool, so every aircraft that gets blown up is less ordnance hitting the front lines, which means they can't advance.

Ukraine has already taken out all but 1 of Russia's airborne command centres, so that's diminished their air power. They've forced the Russian strategic bombers to re-home many thousands of miles away, decreasing the frequency of attacks from those bombers. They're currently in the process of smashing all of Russia's shorter range ground attack craft and have destroyed tons of SU-34 jets this year, including this latest stroke on an airbase.

 

[Cranston]

1 minute ago, SectionDJambo said:

As a bare minimum, assuming the western nations expected them to give up the territory that Russia has taken by their invasion, they would, I would think, demand all POWs returned along with all the children and adults transported to Russia.
A demilitarised zone to be set up between Russia, Belarus and Ukraine?

Then they would have to be either a full member of NATO or, at the very least, be protected by NATO, including a Trump led USA, in order to live peacefully with some security against another Soviet Mark 2 aggression.

Further isolation of Russia under the current regime should continue.

Goodness knows who is going to pay for the re building of towns and cities.

All fine and dandy. Great words, and fine fire in the belly/ It aint you though, whose people are dying, and living in fear of being bombed, taken prisoner, or whose country is at risk of being entirely overrun by Russia, in the proxy war. There will have to be peace with Russia at some point in time. Time for realism and wise men to become involved not proxy warmongers sitting thousands of miles away.

[Norm]

6 minutes ago, Cranston said:

All fine and dandy. Great words, and fine fire in the belly/ It aint you though, whose people are dying, and living in fear of being bombed, taken prisoner, or whose country is at risk of being entirely overrun by Russia, in the proxy war. There will have to be peace with Russia at some point in time. Time for realism and wise men to become involved not proxy warmongers sitting thousands of miles away.

As of last year, 84% of all Ukrainians surveyed said **** Russia, no territory to be conceded. 75% in the Eastern parts that are getting attacked.

 

If the people who are getting bombed and taken prisoner are saying "No territory" conceded then we should support them.

[SectionDJambo]

5 minutes ago, Cranston said:

All fine and dandy. Great words, and fine fire in the belly/ It aint you though, whose people are dying, and living in fear of being bombed, taken prisoner, or whose country is at risk of being entirely overrun by Russia, in the proxy war. There will have to be peace with Russia at some point in time. Time for realism and wise men to become involved not proxy warmongers sitting thousands of miles away.

I fully appreciate that Ukraine will be reluctant to accept any deal other than getting all of its territory back, including Crimea and all of its people taken into Russia. Nobody could blame them, but with the current situation in Gaza, the western nations now have two conflicts to deal with.

Russia may well have got their mates in Iran to encourage Hamas to cause the mayhem in Gaza, to create a huge distraction, to reduce the attention and support to Ukraine from NATO and others. It was predictable how Israel would react and that the Americans, in particular, would look away from Ukraine to support Israel.

Then there is the threat of Trump getting elected again. He is certainly no friend of Ukraine. 
 It’s a terrible situation for Ukraine, having it’s civilian population murdered by Russian air strikes and missiles.

 

[Cranston]

9 minutes ago, Norm said:

As of last year, 84% of all Ukrainians surveyed said **** Russia, no territory to be conceded. 75% in the Eastern parts that are getting attacked.

 

If the people who are getting bombed and taken prisoner are saying "No territory" conceded then we should support them.

That's a fair point that is strong in its message. However, I still think we need leaders who will take into account the reality of the situation, and begin diplomacy with Russia, instead of gung ho yahoo warmongering. We cannot win a war against Russia without air command and boots on the ground, none of which is going to happen. It's why an earlier poster was congratulating a drone strike on a somewhere airstrip. Time to talk instead of lives wasted.

[Cranston]

5 minutes ago, SectionDJambo said:

I fully appreciate that Ukraine will be reluctant to accept any deal other than getting all of its territory back, including Crimea and all of its people taken into Russia. Nobody could blame them, but with the current situation in Gaza, the western nations now have two conflicts to deal with.

Russia may well have got their mates in Iran to encourage Hamas to cause the mayhem in Gaza, to create a huge distraction, to reduce the attention and support to Ukraine from NATO and others. It was predictable how Israel would react and that the Americans, in particular, would look away from Ukraine to support Israel.

Then there is the threat of Trump getting elected again. He is certainly no friend of Ukraine. 
 It’s a terrible situation for Ukraine, having it’s civilian population murdered by Russian air strikes and missiles.

 

I agree. It is a terrible situation in Ukraine. They have done magnificently well against all odds, until recently. There will very likely have to be rreluctant concessions, all hostages released etc, tense negotiations, but, it would be worth the lives saved. I appreciate I'm in the minority, however, personally, I want peace to resume, however hostile.

[Threedoorsdown]

1 minute ago, Cranston said:

I agree. It is a terrible situation in Ukraine. They have done magnificently well against all odds, until recently. There will very likely have to be rreluctant concessions, all hostages released etc, tense negotiations, but, it would be worth the lives saved. I appreciate I'm in the minority, however, personally, I want peace to resume, however hostile.

No mate, you are in the majority 👍

[Cranston]

2 minutes ago, Threedoorsdown said:

No mate, you are in the majority 👍

Good to hear that. Thought mistakenly otherwise. Cheers 👍

 

 

[SectionDJambo]

8 minutes ago, Cranston said:

I agree. It is a terrible situation in Ukraine. They have done magnificently well against all odds, until recently. There will very likely have to be rreluctant concessions, all hostages released etc, tense negotiations, but, it would be worth the lives saved. I appreciate I'm in the minority, however, personally, I want peace to resume, however hostile.

Peace should always be the main priority, with steps taken to ensure it lasts without constantly being under threat.

It takes good, honest, brave people to achieve it. The Ukrainian people deserve to have their peaceful existence.

[Cranston]

2 minutes ago, SectionDJambo said:

Peace should always be the main priority, with steps taken to ensure it lasts without constantly being under threat.

It takes good, honest, brave people to achieve it. The Ukrainian people deserve to have their peaceful existence.

Totally agree. 👍

[henrysmithsgloves]

Radiation leak in Russia 🤔https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/russia-state-emergency-mystery-radiation-leak-khabarovsk/

Edited April 5 by henrysmithsgloves

[henrysmithsgloves]

Dam burst in Russia 🤔

 

[henrysmithsgloves]

A wee gift,no doubt the sneaky beaks will be all over this gathering intelligence 😎

 

[Tommy Brown]

16 hours ago, Cranston said:

That's a fair point that is strong in its message. However, I still think we need leaders who will take into account the reality of the situation, and begin diplomacy with Russia, instead of gung ho yahoo warmongering. We cannot win a war against Russia without air command and boots on the ground, none of which is going to happen. It's why an earlier poster was congratulating a drone strike on a somewhere airstrip. Time to talk instead of lives wasted.

Russia stop their invasion and no more war.

This must must also include retreating from the annexes. Extremely difficult.

They keep the annexes, a few more years down the line, it all starts again.

 

I hate war, but this has been caused by a maniac on one side.

[Cade]

3 hours ago, Tommy Brown said:

Russia stop their invasion and no more war.

This must must also include retreating from the annexes. Extremely difficult.

They keep the annexes, a few more years down the line, it all starts again.

 

I hate war, but this has been caused by a maniac on one side.

 

Problem there is the under the Russian constitution, there is no way of handing back the illegally annexed territories.

So they'll not compromise on that.

They just held ludicrous wee "referendums" on joining Russia, and that was that as far as they're concerned.

They don't even have full control over any of the 4 newly annexed oblasts, but claim they are an integral part of Russia.

 

So any "peace deal" will include Russia keeping ALL of those oblasts, in their entirety.

[Cruyff]

The Allies need to start stepping up soon. NATO are probably going to put soldiers into Ukraine at some point in logistical roles, maybe some security roles or whatever to allow the Ukrainians to move more numbers to the contact line.

 

The Russians are taking ground despite their losses. They've committed spending 30% of their GDP on the production of weapons and equipment. They are amassing huge numbers of ammunition and they're creating 2 additional armies. They have learnt from their mistakes and they have now adapted. NATO have allowed them too much time to develop a new philosophy and now they are an experienced battle hardened force. 

 

Make no mistake. These ***** are going to be extremely difficult for Ukraine to defeat alone now because many Republicans, thanks to that idiot Trump & right wing media, have eaten up Russian propaganda. Not only that. Biden is weak as a kitten but also the only one that can save Europe from all out war. 

 

Europe needs to send everything and unite to produce new equipment. All these companies, BAE systems, Leonardo, SAAB, Rheinmetall etc... they need to come together and we need to build a massive European army with integrated systems. 

[Cade]

24 minutes ago, Cruyff said:

The Allies need to start stepping up soon. NATO are probably going to put soldiers into Ukraine at some point in logistical roles, maybe some security roles or whatever to allow the Ukrainians to move more numbers to the contact line.

 

The Russians are taking ground despite their losses. They've committed spending 30% of their GDP on the production of weapons and equipment. They are amassing huge numbers of ammunition and they're creating 2 additional armies. They have learnt from their mistakes and they have now adapted. NATO have allowed them too much time to develop a new philosophy and now they are an experienced battle hardened force. 

 

Make no mistake. These ***** are going to be extremely difficult for Ukraine to defeat alone now because many Republicans, thanks to that idiot Trump & right wing media, have eaten up Russian propaganda. Not only that. Biden is weak as a kitten but also the only one that can save Europe from all out war. 

 

Europe needs to send everything and unite to produce new equipment. All these companies, BAE systems, Leonardo, SAAB, Rheinmetall etc... they need to come together and we need to build a massive European army with integrated systems. 

 

The increase in Russian military spending is also on compensation payments to the families of dead and maimed soldiers, which is already running at several billion dollars.

 

I'd not say they're an experienced battle-hardened force. Most of their soldiers that have been in a battle never came back, or came back with bits missing. They didn't gain any experience.
The commanders may have learned some lessons, but seeing as they keep doing headlong charges into the teeth of the Ukraine defensive lines, perhaps not.

Russia has replaced quality with quantity.

All their best troopers are dead. They're an army made up of press ganged conscripts now.

All their best equipment is gone. They've resorted to digging out ancient armour out of deep storage.

At the current rate of advance and losses, they'd run out of human beings to throw at Ukraine within another two years.

[By The Light..]

It is terribly sad that in 2024 developed nations are spending billions on war.

 

Whilst we were wasting time dealing with the independence referendum (which Putin would've been influencing as it weakens the UK) he annexed Crimea. The West should have started the process of cutting off Russian funding then. Likewise if we support the invaded ground now on Donesk etc then we are setting the scene for continued aggression from the axis of Putin, Iran, Nth Korea and finally China.

 

The future is not bright!

[manaliveits105]

Russia were 100% all over the snp and we've still got a couple of bots on here who have no interest in Hearts 

[Cruyff]

12 hours ago, Cade said:

 

The increase in Russian military spending is also on compensation payments to the families of dead and maimed soldiers, which is already running at several billion dollars.

 

I'd not say they're an experienced battle-hardened force. Most of their soldiers that have been in a battle never came back, or came back with bits missing. They didn't gain any experience.
The commanders may have learned some lessons, but seeing as they keep doing headlong charges into the teeth of the Ukraine defensive lines, perhaps not.

Russia has replaced quality with quantity.

All their best troopers are dead. They're an army made up of press ganged conscripts now.

All their best equipment is gone. They've resorted to digging out ancient armour out of deep storage.

At the current rate of advance and losses, they'd run out of human beings to throw at Ukraine within another two years.

 

The reality. 

[Dirty Deeds]

3 hours ago, manaliveits105 said:

Russia were 100% all over the snp and we've still got a couple of bots on here who have no interest in Hearts 

There's certainly questions to be asked of Alba, at best, Salmond was a useful idiot for Russia.

[Cade]

4 hours ago, Cruyff said:

 

The reality. 

 

 

Both things are true.

The Russians have been reduced to meat wave tactics with poorly armed infantry and ancient tanks.

The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition to destroy said infantry and tanks.

 

 

[manaliveits105]

Russian held nuclear plant alledgedly  drone bombed - but safe.

No danger would Ukraine have done this as it would reduce or delay chances of more Western aid 

Russian scum "bombing" themselves 

[Cade]

And in a stunning development that absolutely nobody saw coming....

After almost a month of being tortured by the FSB, the perpetrators of the Crocus hall terror attack are changing their stories to claim that Ukraine put them up to it.

 

 

[Cruyff]

The upcoming battle of Chasiv Yar will be pivotal. 

[Mikey1874]

Russia not exactly encouraging Ukraine to negotiate. Part 23.

 

 

[Cruyff]

25 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

Russia not exactly encouraging Ukraine to negotiate. Part 23.

 

 

They'll have executed a hell of lot more than that. I'm sure Ukraines hands aren't clean either tbf. It's a very dirty war. 

[Cade]

Seems that Ukrainian special forces/saboteurs managed to set fire to two ships of the Russian Northern Fleet in the Kaliningrad exclave.

Fires were started on board the ships, with both of them sustaining severe damage.

One was a Buyan-M class missile corvette, capable of firing Kalibr cruise missiles.

The other was a supply ship.

 

In Russia, two dams have burst in the Orenburg oblast, destroying thousands of homes and causing billions in damage.

Lack of maintenance has been blamed for the breaches, as the dams could not cope with the spring meltwater from the Ural mountains.
The two dams were on the same river, with the weight of released water from the first dam breaching the second one.

Russia has attempted to divert the waters to Kazakhstan, without consulting Kazakhstan first.

 

And a road bridge has collapsed onto the main Moscow/Minsk railway line, killing at least one person and blocking the train tracks.

Again, lack of maintenance is to blame with sources saying that the bridge had been in a poor state of repair for ages.

 

Russia's infrastructure is falling apart as they spend untold billions on a stupid war being fought for one man's vanity and delusions of Empire.

 

Edited April 9 by Cade

[Mikey1874]

In a war where people still say certain things can't or shouldn't be done. One that has happened.

 

 

[Lovecraft]

13 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

In a war where people still say certain things can't or shouldn't be done. One that has happened.

 

 

Yeah, but what about gas exports from Russia via other countries?

 

😉

 

I'm guessing it will look suspiciously like a mirror image of that chart.

 

 

[Threedoorsdown]

27 minutes ago, Lovecraft said:

Yeah, but what about gas exports from Russia via other countries?

 

😉

 

I'm guessing it will look suspiciously like a mirror image of that chart.

 

 

Perhaps. It’s still a pain in the arse for Russia and will cost them a lot of money. Middle men want profit.

 

I have absolutely nothing to base this on apart from what I see in the news and read online but my gut tells me cosmopolitan Russians are starting to feel the war now. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Putin starts recruiting from the Moscow suburbs rather than the peasants of the northern lands.

 

 

Edited April 11 by Threedoorsdown

[Cade]

Russian gas exports to China and India have risen; they have to sell that gas to someone. Anyone they can find to buy it.

But due to them being desperate to sell it, the price is lower and both China and India are insisting on paying with Yuan and Rupees instead of Rubles.

The Russian economy remains very fragile. Interest rates are at 16%. Companies are being forced to using the Ruble and are not allowed to move capital out of the country.

 

[Sawdust Caesar]

The Russians are also having to sell petroleum unrefined rather than refined to India and China as they now do their own refining, which they then sell on for a profit. So exports of Russian oil may have risen but they aren't making as much out of as they are selling it cheaper.

 

Meanwhile in Orsk.

 

 

[Cade]

EU Parliament refuses to approve the EU Commission budget until Ukraine is given 7 more Patriot systems and hundreds of extra missiles for it.

Ukraine has constantly requested 7 more Patriots and ammo so they can protect their largest cities.

 

 

[Cade]

Germany is sending 1 more Patriot system and a large supply of Patriot missiles to Ukraine immediately.

Bit late but better late than never. Several power stations have been destroyed during the time it took to organise this.

Looks more and more like Ukraine used the last of its Patriot missiles in an offensive role, when they shot down nearly a dozen Russian aircraft a few weeks ago.

Makes sense.
If you know you're going to run out of missiles, it's better to try shooting down the planes firing the bombs and missiles than shooting down the bombs and missiles. This did put the launchers at risk, having to be deployed further forwards but the plan worked as they were only deployed forwards for a couple of days before being moved.

Hopefully more nations will pull the finger out, stop sitting about waiting for the Yanks to sort their shit out (because that's not going to happen before November) and start acting independently. Europe is going to have to take a leading role here because the Yanks cannot be trusted.

 

The number of pledged F-16s continues to rise, with even non air-worthy airframes being donated so they can be stripped for parts.

Handing over complete planes is one thing but then you also need the spare parts and ammo to keep them operating.

That's where the Western tank deliveries went wrong; once damaged or in need of maintenance they had to be taken to Poland where NATO technicians could do the work, instead of being maintained in situ by the Ukrainians.

 

[Libertarian]

Can't say I disagree with any of the above 

[manaliveits105]

Seville calculator in use again 

[Pap]

1 hour ago, Libertarian said:

Can't say I disagree with any of the above 

 

Quoting your own Tweet

[Libertarian]

40 minutes ago, Pap said:

 

Quoting your own Tweet

No it's a tweet from Roddy who runs the Through A Scottish Prism podcast on YouTube 

[Cruyff]

The issue for Ukraine is air defense. The Ukrainians use their Patriot batteries to protect populated areas  Each Patriot missile costs $4million and the Americans simply can't produce enough for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, not including meeting their own needs. 

 

This is a great danger for all of us. Yeah, they are the best systems and their success rate is probably close to 100% but the cost is too high and that is a massive glaring weakness.

[Cade]

Patriot is only really needed against the larger ballistic missiles and hypersonic cruise missiles.

Smaller, cheaper systems like Gepard can easily take care of drones.

The recent switch to gliding bombs complicates things a bit, they're kind of in that overlap between Patriot and other systems. A 500kg bomb with a pair of wings and a rudimentary GPS bolted on makes for a cheap pseudo cruise missile able to be produced and used in large numbers.

The extended range on them also means that the aircraft that drop/launch them can be deep inside Russia and beyond the range of most Ukrainian air defence.

Air power has been Russia's only true advantage since the start of the war (well, they had the Black Sea Fleet too but Ukraine took care of that).

F-16s when they eventually arrive should be a game changer, able to engage Russian bombers from a safe distance and leaving the air defence systems to stay in place and defend strategic cities, power plants and important military installations.

 

Russia's switched to air based attacks recently as they know that Ukraine is running out of air defence AND because Russia itself is running out of artillery due to losses and their inability to repair and maintain their traditional artillery pieces.

 

Meanwhile, on the ground, there seems to have been a change in Russian infantry transport. More and more Chinese golf buggy/quad bike things are being used to deliver infantry (with predictable results) and more and more utility trucks are being used as infantry carriers too.

Are the Russians almost out of actual APCs? They've been blown up in their thousands, so possibly! Not enough intact/operational ones left to go around, hence the go-karts and trucks being used to cross minefields. Bonkers.

[Cruyff]

 

 

[Mikey1874]

US and Western defensive support is in Israel.

 

 

[Cruyff]

5 hours ago, Mikey1874 said:

US and Western defensive support is in Israel.

 

 

It's a ****ing joke. The situation for Ukraine is becoming very desperate. 

 

 

 

[Mikey1874]

People might also be surprised to learn that its possible to impose a no fly zone.

 

When the Western ally is important enough..

[SectionDJambo]

This looks, to me, like Putin has asked his mates in Iran to tell Hamas to provoke Netanyahu into a predictable response which would distract the nations supporting Ukraine, knowing full well that the US and UK, in particular, would go all in for Israel. 

Those meetings that Putin had with Iran, before 7th October, weren't just for a wee jolly. If they made a plan, it's working perfectly.

Less predictably,  the Israeli border was easily breached, despite intelligence warnings, to Israel, from other nations, and their own border observers.

[Mikey1874]

And there's more (RAF patrols the area).

 

 

[Cade]

It's all too easy to try to second guess what's going on with the new Axis (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea)

If NK moves on SK and if China moves against Taiwan, you'll know it's all part of a wider plan.

 

This is the result of The West and the rest of the world sitting about wringing their hands and dithering instead of taking decisive action.

I'm really not sure why all the dithering was allowed to happen, considering that we had binding security guarantees for Ukraine.

 

It make us look weak and others are taking note of that and pushing the limits to see how far we'll go (or not).