Russian special military operation in Ukraine #39

Sometimes - call me dumb - I really don't get the lenient behavior of the Russian leadership.

What you call lenient I call reasonable.

- Providing security guarantees for Biden's visit to Ukraine.

We don't even know if they provided security guarantees in the first place.

And then they discuss the use of long range missiles to target Russian cities. Russian special military operation in Ukraine #39 1f632 You are basically aiding your enemy.

They could discuss such things on the phone if they wanted to.

Imagine if Ukrainian factions took a shot at the guy who created this situation for them... hilarious... even if Russia would be blamed of course...

- No (kinetic) response on the NS1 or NS2 pipelines. Not everything is traceable, and accidents happen. But no response basically confirms the other side "we get away with it every time, let's find our next target".

No response yet because it is Germany that suffers from their destruction... Russia still sells gas to them but through the Ukraine Kiev gets a cut of all they buy which adds to their energy costs and limits volumes that can be delivered.

This was a US attack on Germany, not Russia.

- Not taking out accumulation of armor but letting it reach frontlines; you have the satellite imagery; take it out. You have the standoff weaponry capable of doing so. The moment you see the ship or the train appear with undesirable cargo; have one or multiple UCAVs in the air at all times. And it's not that you need to cover large regions; you know the ports, storage hubs and rail tracks. They are not moving the material on a trailer towed by a Lada.

You assume they will be transporting tanks and artillery and ammo exposed on the back of trucks and trains visible for anyone to see... I rather suspect they don't do that.

The non-action just extends and lengthens the conflict and a weak response just invites US/NATO/Western into taking the next step.

The west and the Ukraine are suffering more than Russia is... and the longer it takes the more sanctions the west imposes on Russia which actually forces Russia to become even more independent of the west, which is good for Russia.

The drones on other hand, Chinese are leaders in the field and I would trust even untested drone from them.

Well you shouldn't... untested items almost always fail for some reason or another... testing is the most important part of product development and the point where the ugly duckling turns into a swan... or a pile of shit.

Russia has lots of things at final prototype stage they could test in the Ukraine just as these things would actually benefit from being used in a real war too.

China should be donating items for real world testing, but Russias priority should be to test their own stuff first, which will take time... Russian prototypes are more likely to already contain Russian components that are easy to access or produce locally.

Chinese products should not be ignored or discounted but Russia has been looking at Iranian drones for years and likely fully tested them already... don't expect Chinese drones to suddenly enter Russian service.

China can best help Russia by dropping every and all sanction by all Chinese companies and opening up trade... Russia already sells energy to them much cheaper than market price used to be when cheap Russian gas was heading to Europe.

Only reliable thing China can supply - communication equipment, drones and medium range strike systems.

It would take too long to integrate comms equipment and localise production with local parts, with regard to drones there will be some that might be interesting, but China will have a range of artillery and weapons in the 500km to 4,000km range bracket that Russia was previously not allowed under the INF treaty that might be of interest.

Would be stupid not to purchase it from them as these are never enough

The west fully arms Kiev so there is no reason for Russia to refuse sourcing ammo and weapons from other countries too, but I suspect they have most of their needs covered.

The risk would be buying 122mm ammo and 152mm ammo to find it is old Soviet period stocks they are getting rid of too which might not be safe.

Biden walks around while sirens are on in Kiev, but in Poland he’s in a protected capsule?
-> He trusts Putin more than Duda? … LMAO

Hilarious...

Shortening 9 months to 2 weeks, huh, go figure.

To be fair the US does have miracle workers working for them... they said the AEGIS Ashore missile system could not take ground launched Tomahawk cruise missiles as that would violate the INF treaty, but of course when they ripped that treaty up it was a whole 14 days before they tested a Tomahawk cruise missile launch from those missile tubes...

Mass HIMARS (assumed) strikes tonight in Donetsk, Makeyevka, Khartsyzsk, Mariupol and some other places.

US trying to stop potential offensive is my guess.

They expect to stop a Russian offensive... by shelling Russian civilians?

That is what started this conflict in the first place... idiots.

This 'oh hey we're intercepting them so far' reaction isn't an appropriate F'ing response. They just want to scar up Mariupols newly built apartments and then make memes about it.

Shows the character of Kiev though... we need longer range missiles and new tanks and aircraft to reach Russian military forces... and when they get longer range missiles they fire them at civilian regions...

Ukrainian BS in Moldova would simply make it in Russias interests to move the front line to a place where they could give direct help on the matter...

The Chinese only started expanding their nuclear arsenal when the US ripped up the INF treaty and started talking about basing cruise missiles for now and ballistic missiles in the future around China... to contain them.

Britain and France have more nukes that China had and the Soviets didn't complain they weren't included in the deal... but now clearly Putin is going to demand they be included... and Israeli nukes as well I suspect... why not...

India and Pakistan should also be included

Why would they join... why would they want Americans and Russians inspecting their warheads and a limit on their number.

They wont even admit to how many they have let alone want to share information... why agree to let others in to look... they know their rivals will use it as a chance to spy...

Israeli nuclear programme benefitted from the influx of Russian and Ukrainian scientists, engineers throughout the 90s.

Doesn't matter where they came from, it matters which side they will fire in support of in the case of a nuclear conflict.

China probably already has more nuclear weapons than France and England. They will soon reach parity with the US and Russia.

They are expensive and not that easy to create in large numbers very quickly, but the core problem is that China will say France and England are US vassals so they count as US weapons, while China and Russia are independent states so China and Russia should each be allowed the same number of warheads as the US and France and the UK combined....

This was a US attack on Germany, not Russia.

Not really true Garry. Whilst the German economy/population suffered so did the rest of Europe/World with the high gas prices. Also the pipelines themselves are owned at least 50% by Russia.

This was an 'equal opportunity' attack by the US on all the World, ramming home their current dominance. But ironically undermining it as an unintended consequence.

You are right, but I would add that Russia benefits from the higher energy prices by not having to deliver as much for the same or better return.

Actual extraction costs have not changed so really it is just profit for them and at a time when Russia was deliberately reducing the amount of gas they were delivering the US being the bad guy is a perfect way to reduce the flow even further with someone to blame.

The billions needed to fix it only matter if they actually fix it and the shift to the east suggests to me there is less and less need to fix it.

Ironically the attack took place in the section of pipe that Denmark was humming hand haaing over whether to give permission for and at the time I said spend extra money and built around their waters so they don't get any money for transit fees... if they had built more pipes to bypass the area they would not have needed to stop for so long and could have finished faster and any attempt by the US or anyone at sabotage would have had to either be in Russian or international or German waters and I can't see them convincing the Germans to let them do it.