Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[bickster]

The story is the story but the sidelining of Prigozhin, is a bigger story than Bakhmut, the internal politics of the key players is crucial. If gerasimov is now getting the upper hand in the battle to take over, if Putin is to go it will be at the hand of the military

And to back up what Prigozhin is saying, Ukraine appears to be on the counter offensive in Bakhmut

 

[UpTheVilla26]

5 hours ago, PussEKatt said:

I dont think Putin is the type of person to just walk away if Russia lose,he is also unlike Hitler in that he will not commit suside.IMHO he is the sort of person that if he is going to lose then he wants everyone to lose with him,eg start a nuclear war.

If Nato and probably China, even got a sniff that he was going to go down that route for certain, Putin would be taken out. 

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

If Nato and probably China, even got a sniff that he was going to go down that route for certain, Putin would be taken out. 

China, that's his bestest pal.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, foreveryoung said:

China, that's his bestest pal.

It isn't. China is only the bestest pal to China

China are also believeed to have told Putin that nukes are completely off the table

China is only doing what is best for China, buying cheap fuel and selling stuff to Russia

When Lavrov went to China cap in hand last summer, thought to be to plead for assistance, he got nothing, nowt, no sausges. That is why Russia is using drones from Iran and munitions from North Korea

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

If Nato and probably China, even got a sniff that he was going to go down that route for certain, Putin would be taken out. 

There is little chance of Putin being taken out by another external power. If Putin is taken out it will be by Russia's military

[tonyh29]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

There is little chance of Putin being taken out by another external power. If Putin is taken out it will be by Russia's military

or badly manufactured windows in Russian hospitals    

[limpid]

2 hours ago, Nigel said:

.....but we are not funding a war

We are, but an ideological one.

[magnkarl]

5 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Any thoughts on Seymour Hersh's revelation?

He's been right in the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh

 

Hersh got it right once in Vietnam, since then he's the master of 'anonymous sources'. Like most of his recent work this reeks of hearsay. 

[magnkarl]

9 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I think there’s a good case to argue that ‘we’ aren’t after a quick win.

A quick win could destabilise Russia and lead to people walking across the border in their tens of thousands. It wouldn’t suit the arms manufacturers. It wouldn’t suit the politicians that need those action photos next to a guy in khaki.

Lots of the West have a happy distraction with regular TikTok’s of tank columns being blown up by TMMA’s (this month’s must have military acronym).

Certainly the energy suppliers would be sad to see normality return.

I think our plan is to give just enough to stop this drawing to a conclusion. 

Ah, the good ol’ defence lobby card, it’s being used at a time when the UK is spending less on military than it has in 5 decades.

Up until now the main kit that has been destroyed and expended in Ukraine was made in a union that no longer exists.

The US still hasn’t spent 2% of what it did in Afghanistan on helping Ukraine. The thought that this war is somehow being kept going because it’s lucrative for the West is a dud. It’s been taken apart when people like Chomsky, Kissinger and various ‘lefties’ like Galloway tried it.

The data doesn’t support it at all.

Edited February 14, 2023 by magnkarl

[chrisp65]

27 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Ah, the good ol’ defence lobby card, it’s being used at a time when the UK is spending less on military than it has in 5 decades.

Up until now the main kit that has been destroyed and expended in Ukraine was made in a union that no longer exists.

The US still hasn’t spent 2% of what it did in Afghanistan on helping Ukraine. The thought that this war is somehow being kept going because it’s lucrative for the West is a dud. It’s been taken apart when people like Chomsky, Kissinger and various ‘lefties’ like Galloway tried it.

The data doesn’t support it at all.

The data doesn’t support it?

Show me that data. Go for it, rubbish my argument that arms companies, energy generators, banks, financiers and lobbyists have had a good year.

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by chrisp65

[Mandy Lifeboats]

25 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

The data doesn’t support it?

Show me that data. Go for it, rubbish my argument that arms companies, energy generators, banks, financiers and lobbyists have had a good year.

 

 

Here you go.  

"Uk Defence Expenditure"

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/defence-departmental-resources-2022/mod-departmental-resources-2022#defence-expenditure-outturn-over-time

Figure 3 is the key graph.  Adjusted for inflation our defence spending isn't particularly high. 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

Like most of his recent work this reeks of hearsay. 

Pure and Simple. 

[sidcow]

The economic damage wreaked by this war would absolutely dwarf any benefit to the defence industry. 

Not just the economic damage but the political damage being suffered from the incumbent Governments due to the huge hit on cost of living means there is zero chance they're trying to keep this going. 

They just don't think that long term. They'll all be doing whatever they can to look good for the next elections in 2 years. 

 

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Show me that data. Go for it, rubbish my argument that arms companies, energy generators, banks, financiers and lobbyists have had a good year.

There's been an awful lot of money lost through the pull out of companies from Russia, which has adversely impacted companies from BP, to banks. The impact of Russian money on the tories, and all the donations and the like from oligarchs is another thing that's been hit (good!). The share prices (as I understand it) of some defence contractors have (unsurprisingly) risen on the expectation by the markets of better (than previously predicted) profits on the back of arms contracts due to the war. It isn't yet clear (is it? genuine question) whether the stocks of weapons sent to Ukraine will be back filled in the UK. We assume they might be, but then again we might also ask whether that replenishment might take away from other arms programmes, because the Country's finances are not in a good place - in other words will spending be moved from (say) a programme for upgrading UK transport aircraft to (say) replenishing stocks of Javelin anti-tank weapons? for want of a better hypothetical example.

I happen to know that the Government put out a notice to various companies last year, saying (paraphrase) "what could you do to support or supply Ukraine with stuff in the [following areas]"? There was a budget (at that time) and it's probably grown - but some of the areas of "support" weren't really money earners for big lobbying defence contractors, more small SME type businesses who might be able to quickly supply (say) drones. Big companies might have been able to provide expertise in certain areas - e.g. more advanced planning systems for drone operations, or knowledge on how to make them less prone to jamming and so on, but not really a money spinner.

So I think that the picture isn't quite as black and white as people might paint it. Annual accounts aren't even filed yet for the financial year including the war in Ukraine, so I don't see how evidence can be provided either way. Yes, we know Shell and BP are absolutely raking it in, to the extent that they've even been ahead of the Government in sort of saying "Tax us on our windfall" but aside from those complete freak Russia cutting off the gas circumstances, I don't think (yet) that the evidence supports either argument (yours or Karl's). One or other might turn out to be right, or it might be somewhere in between.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

NATO has spent about 5% of its peacetime budget to support Ukraine.  That 5% has ruined Russian armed forces and put them in a position where they will not be a major military power for the next 10 -15 years.  Many people think Russia has lost 50% of its ability to wage war.  

That's money well spent in my opinion.  

 

 

 

 

[chrisp65]

11 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

 

Here you go.  

"Uk Defence Expenditure"

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/defence-departmental-resources-2022/mod-departmental-resources-2022#defence-expenditure-outturn-over-time

Figure 3 is the key graph.  Adjusted for inflation our defence spending isn't particularly high. 

I’m not sure it shows what you appear to be saying it shows?

It fits my claim we’re spending more on equipment and less on personnel (I used the word boots). It says personnel costs down 3%, equipment costs up 12% used to be 6th biggest spending department, now its the 5th. Overall spending up 8.9% when other departments are being told there’s no money.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

There's been an awful lot of money lost through the pull out of companies from Russia, which has adversely impacted companies from BP, to banks.

8 days ago BP reported a doubling of profits.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

8 days ago BP reported a doubling of profits.

 

Yeah they did. Do you know how they account for the write off of the joint venture with Gazprom? (I think it was). I'm not arguing by the way, that BP and Shell haven't benefited hugely from the way Europe and the UK (to a much lesser extent) have switched from reliance on Russian gas, to LNG and so on, which has led to market prices soaring. They most obviously have, and the Gov't should be snaffling a larger chunk of that windfall and using it to help people with their heating bills. I'm saying that the Western companies that were invested in Russia have largely left, with big hits to their bottom lines as a consequence. I'm saying that (as of yet) we don't know what the profits of Arms companies have risen or fallen by, because they're not yet published, and we don't know the sectors in which they operate where their income is up or down. I mean if (say) an order comes in from Qatar for fighter jets, that boosts profits, doesn't that count? or do we need to look at Ukraine specific contacts? I'd guess, but it's just a guess, and that's my point, that profits might rise, but whether it's significantly and whether it's due to inflation, due to wages, due to unrelated or related contracts and so on, we don't know.

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yeah they did. Do you know how they account for the write off of the joint venture with Gazprom? (I think it was). I'm not arguing by the way, that BP and Shell haven't benefited hugely from the way Europe and the UK (to a much lesser extent) have switched from reliance on Russian gas, to LNG and so on, which has led to market prices soaring. They most obviously have, and the Gov't should be snaffling a larger chunk of that windfall and using it to help people with their heating bills. I'm saying that the Western companies that were invested in Russia have largely left, with big hits to their bottom lines as a consequence. I'm saying that (as of yet) we don't know what the profits of Arms companies have risen or fallen by, because they're not yet published, and we don't know the sectors in which they operate where their income is up or down. I mean if (say) an order comes in from Qatar for fighter jets, that boosts profits, doesn't that count? or do we need to look at Ukraine specific contacts? I'd guess, but it's just a guess, and that's my point, that profits might rise, but whether it's significantly and whether it's due to inflation, due to wages, due to unrelated or related contracts and so on, we don't know.

From the govt stats that Mandy posted, overall MoD spending when adjusted for inflation is significantly up, whilst staff / personnel costs are down. Now granted we don’t have the detail and suppliers may have been selling to the MoD at a loss and they may not witness an uptick in orders from countries bordering Russia. We don’t have this year’s data yet. But if I was a betting man…

 

[blandy]

25 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

From the govt stats that Mandy posted, overall MoD spending when adjusted for inflation is significantly up, whilst staff / personnel costs are down. Now granted we don’t have the detail and suppliers may have been selling to the MoD at a loss and they may not witness an uptick in orders from countries bordering Russia. We don’t have this year’s data yet. But if I was a betting man…

Doesn't UK support to Ukraine come from other budgets? Not the defence budget, but Special Reserves or International disaster or whatever? (Again, I don't know, but I'm not sure that looking at the defence budget and whether it's increased a bit or not actually tells us what we might think it does. What's inflation at. What are wage increases at? Would that say why equipment costs have gone up more than soldier's wages?

edit, sorry quoted the wrong post of yours.