Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[magnkarl]

18 minutes ago, ender4 said:

The thing is that Russia has a $650 Billion foreign reserves warchest and is adding another few billion to it every month from selling gas & oil. 

They'll be buying Chinese military equipment as fast as it gets blown up. And the new stuff will be better than all the current old rubbish stuck on a highway north of Kyiv.

Almost all of those assets are frozen. The few billion that come in needs to be used to pay state employees (army anyone?) or society will simply break down.

Putin's waded into a quagmire with a toothpick as his only tool to get out. The toothpick broke on day one when his special forces got annihilated in Kharkiv and Hostomel. Now he's stuck with a slow moving southerly stretched combat group that keeps losing most of what they gain, and two bogged down combat groups around Kharkiv and north of Kiev. If this is what Russia can muster NATO can essentially win a conventional war against Russia with its European allies alone.

[avfc1982am]

14 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

quagmire.  

 

4 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

quagmire 

You word thief  

[sidcow]

Are the people who have intimate knowledge about how much money the highly secretive Russians have squirreled away the same people who were certain the highly secretive Russians had a top quality Hi Tech modernised military? 

Edited March 8, 2022 by sidcow

[tonyh29]

7 minutes ago, bickster said:

That has been cleared up now, the 82 included the people on a ship that had been sent to investigate that was also captured.

if only there was a word for a chain of events that weren't clear   

[Genie]

16 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Are the people who have intimate knowledge about how much money the highly secretive Russians have squirreled away the same people who were certain the highly secretive Russians had a top quality Hi Tech modernised military? 

They’re holding the good stuff back (people and kit) apparently.

[Cizzler]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

They’re holding the good stuff back (people and kit) apparently.

To what end? It's illogical to do that. 

It would only lengthen the damage the Western sanctions are doing to the economy.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

Uncomfortable parallels with the Brexit PM's response to Covid.

Not half, I said similar back in January

On 21/01/2022 at 19:02, blandy said:

The thing I wonder though, is if they do (and they already are, tbh) is will it cause Europe to accelerate a move away from Gas, and thus leave Russia in a (longer term) much weaker position. The other thing is a very large chunk of Putin's stolen wealth is via, like the tories have done here for PPE, setting up (some years ago) a shell company, which then got awarded contracts to handle the export and sale of oil and gas, and then the shell company syphons off chunks of the income and sends it to Swiss bank accounts controlled by Putin and his acolytes.

[avfc1982am]

7 minutes ago, Genie said:

They’re holding the good stuff back (people and kit) apparently.

To defend Russia. Out of 771,000 troops nearly 200,000 have been deployed into Ukraine. No way can Russia throw everything they have without leaving defensive forces stretched. I don't buy it that they have basically only used up the crap they have. Many reports are of veteran Russians and elite forces been battered. More importantly, a significant loss of pilots and aircraft during this conflict. No way does anyone trash their army unless they a have seriously underestimated the opposing forces.

Edited March 8, 2022 by avfc1982am

[bickster]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Not half, I said similar back in January

You've changed

[sidcow]

11 minutes ago, Genie said:

They’re holding the good stuff back (people and kit) apparently.

Apparently is doing a lot of heavy lifting there 

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, Cizzler said:

To what end? It's illogical to do that. 

It would only lengthen the damage the Western sanctions are doing to the economy.

 

2 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

To defend Russia. Out of 771,000 troops nearly 200,000 have been deployed into Ukraine. No way can Russia throw everything they have without leaving defensive forces stretched. I don't buy it that they have basically only used up the crap they have. Many reports are of veteran Russians and elite forces been battered. More importantly, a significant loss of pilots and aircraft during this conflict. No way does anyone trash their army unless they a have seriously underestimated the opposing forces.

I was being sarcastic but disguised it better than a Russian convoy.

Its just one of the theories doing the rounds but I don’t personally buy it. 

I think Russia attempted a USA style 48 hours of shock and awe but it didn’t really work as intended. Now they are literally stuck in the mud.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

You've changed

I'll reply in full later once I've tested my eyesight by driving to Barnard Castle and retrospectively edited my blog to make it look like I knew stuff all along.

[Delphinho123]

45 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Almost all of those assets are frozen. The few billion that come in needs to be used to pay state employees (army anyone?) or society will simply break down.

Putin's waded into a quagmire with a toothpick as his only tool to get out. The toothpick broke on day one when his special forces got annihilated in Kharkiv and Hostomel. Now he's stuck with a slow moving southerly stretched combat group that keeps losing most of what they gain, and two bogged down combat groups around Kharkiv and north of Kiev. If this is what Russia can muster NATO can essentially win a conventional war against Russia with its European allies alone.

The European arm of NATO would absolutely obliterate the Russian army, Nukes aside. 

[hippo]

12 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

The European arm of NATO would absolutely obliterate the Russian army, Nukes aside. 

China as well.?

[Xann]

33 minutes ago, blandy said:

Not half, I said similar back in January

 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, hippo said:

China as well.?

Who knows really? Genuine question, aside from the current India / China border disputes where neither side seems to actually gain or lose anything when was the last time the PRC were involved in any sort of major warfare against another country? Is it Vietnam in the late 70s and 80s?

[bickster]

 

[sidcow]

30 minutes ago, bickster said:

 

Christ alive. Have they been taking too much Checkpoint Charlie? 

[The Fun Factory]

This has now lasted longer than the Russian-Georgian war.  It could settle down to a very nasty and bitter long running war. Which isn't good news for anyone obviously. 

[bickster]

Quote

March 8 (Reuters) - Russia and the United States should return to the principle of "peaceful co-existence" like during the Cold War, the Interfax news agency cited the Russian foreign ministry as saying on Tuesday.

The foreign ministry added that it was open to honest and mutually respectful dialogue with the United States and that hope remained that normalcy in relations between the two countries could be restored, Interfax reported.

Reuters