Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[NoRagrets 1125]

He can’t leave empty handed or his power and life will be in serious jeopardy. To that end, I think he will use a tactical nuke to keep Crimea if necessary, but will otherwise continue to throw bodies at the occupied areas for years to come. 

[atomheartbevo 89538]

14 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

It informs his entire worldview.  

Short answer is yes.  And he has no one to tell him he is fucking up by doing this.  His only hint is China and India backing away, but even then he is viewing it through the lens of the US forcing them to through coercion.

The fact that Belarus wouldn't go all in on this war should have woken him up.  They'll provide armor and vehicles and tanks, but he should be asking himself why Belarus won't send a few thousand across their border into Ukraine now.

[Neonmoon 38129]

Is there any possible off ramp for Putin? I don’t think the answer is yes. Even if he orders a full withdrawal from Ukraine, including Crimea, no one is going to forget all the war crimes. He won’t be able to show up to the G7 and be like so, who wants to buy some oil and gas. 
 

His only off ramp is prison or death. Again, even if he does a withdrawal, the world won’t accept a Putin controlled Russia anymore. So sanctions and the world weening itself off Russian energy means they are fucked economically. 

So we are all just waiting for Ukraine to kick Russia out.

even then, what’s Russia’s future look like? North Korea status?

[atomheartbevo 89538]

3 minutes ago, NoRagrets said:

He can’t leave empty handed or his power and life will be in serious jeopardy. To that end, I think he will use a tactical nuke to keep Crimea if necessary, but will otherwise continue to throw bodies at the occupied areas for years to come. 

If he could have used nukes without any blowback from the Russian public, as well as his "allies" that still support him (albeit a very lukewarm support), he would have already done so - this is a guy that is pulling tanks from the early 1960s out of storage and deploying them in combat.

He still hasn't called this a war, and his propagandists still claim the Ukrainians are just confused Russians, so using nukes against people that the Russian government claims are Russians is not going to go over well with the Russian public (who are already balking/rejecting mobilization).

Using a nuke also means that China and India and the Saudis and everybody else will shut him off, because they want no part of the sanctions that are being levied against Russia right now.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

Logistically, how is the terrorist state designation applied? I understand that on the surface that means no one can do business with them, but what impact does it have on their standing/inclusion in various global organizations?

[Bateshorn 9920]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

If he could have used nukes without any blowback from the Russian public, as well as his "allies" that still support him (albeit a very lukewarm support), he would have already done so - this is a guy that is pulling tanks from the early 1960s out of storage and deploying them in combat.

He still hasn't called this a war, and his propagandists still claim the Ukrainians are just confused Russians, so using nukes against people that the Russian government claims are Russians is not going to go over well with the Russian public (who are already balking/rejecting mobilization).

Using a nuke also means that China and India and the Saudis and everybody else will shut him off, because they want no part of the sanctions that are being levied against Russia right now.

IDK about the Saudis. 

I've mentioned this before, but I don't see how the Turks allow the Russians to pass out of the Bosporus Straits if he uses a nuke. Agriculuture is a major Russian export industry, and you can't ship out of the North Sea ports for much of the year.  Putin can do it, but it'll make their already bad economic situation worse.  And that doesn't even take into account the possibility of NATO conventional missile attacks on O&G infrastructure.

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[atomheartbevo 89538]

 

Russians trying to send the Germans a message.

 

[Brisketexan 104826]

34 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

It’s absolutely insane how fucked Putin is. There is not a single “good” move for him left on the board. Not one. This war is already over, now we just wait to see what bad moves he makes before it ends.

 

30 minutes ago, immamac said:

This is where we are. It's a game on how to keep him from using nukes before the coup. 

These.  He has lost.  The only questions left are 1) what does that loss ultimately look like, and 2) what damage will he do to the world on the way down?

This is going to get a LOT uglier.  A cornered rabid dog will do some serious shit.

[atomheartbevo 89538]

 

[dimyh 1874]

3 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Russia has claimed and Ukraine agreed that a primary target of the strikes was energy infrastructure.  Here’s a map of what the Russians claim to hit.  It shows different large power generating facilities and the type.  This fits with being unable to hit vital military targets and a goal of maximum suffering. Other targets appear to just be civilian areas.  Zaporizhia has seen a lot of apartments bombed. 
 

 

I keep tabs on another msg board and one of the quality posters there is a Ukrainian guy living in Kyiv. He has been talking about the attacks on civilian infrastructure as one of his biggest concerns for several months now. That and just the overall economic damage suffered on the Ukrainian side so far. That is the one advantage Russia has...no moral qualms for going total war on someone.

Dude had 4 to 5 missiles intercepted around his home. While he is grateful for that he's also disappointed with the overall defense. He's expecting an 80% intercept rate and last night's attacks had just a little over 50%. Getting some air defense support is going to be big as Putin fails away.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

Aren’t consulates considered sovereign land for whatever country works from the consulate? Are we not in article 5 territory?

[MNLonghornFUKM 8815]

Is there any possible off ramp for Putin? I don’t think the answer is yes. Even if he orders a full withdrawal from Ukraine, including Crimea, no one is going to forget all the war crimes. He won’t be able to show up to the G7 and be like so, who wants to buy some oil and gas. 
 
His only off ramp is prison or death. Again, even if he does a withdrawal, the world won’t accept a Putin controlled Russia anymore. So sanctions and the world weening itself off Russian energy means they are fucked economically. 
So we are all just waiting for Ukraine to kick Russia out.
even then, what’s Russia’s future look like? North Korea status?

Probably. Unless there’s a coup and the next guy isn’t a shithead, then perhaps the sanctions would lighten up. But I dunno. I would’ve thought the assassination attempts would’ve ramped up 6 months ago so maybe many Russians are secretly for this

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[atomheartbevo 89538]

4 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Aren’t consulates considered sovereign land for whatever country works from the consulate? Are we not in article 5 territory?

No, otherwise we would have invoked Article 5 a shitload of times when we had American embassies/consulates attacked in the Middle East/Africa over the last 35 years.

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[WhatTheBuck 28738]

28 minutes ago, NoRagrets said:

He can’t leave empty handed or his power and life will be in serious jeopardy. To that end, I think he will use a tactical nuke to keep Crimea if necessary, but will otherwise continue to throw bodies at the occupied areas for years to come. 

Suppose you were a Russian general. Where would you target your tactical nuke in order to keep Crimea?

[MagicSoccerSpray 1732]

1 minute ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

I would’ve thought the assassination attempts would’ve ramped up 6 months ago so maybe many Russians are secretly for this

 

There's been nothing secret about it, most Russians have made it clear they are fine with it.

 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

wow. won't even condemn missile cruise attacks on civilians. it's time for China to find out, IMO.

[MagicSoccerSpray 1732]

1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Suppose you were a Russian general. Where would you target your tactical nuke in order to keep Crimea?

 

The narrow entrance to the peninsula if/when Ukrainian forces start to come across.

 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8815]

 
There's been nothing secret about it, most Russians have made it clear they are fine with it.
 

Ok, well then carry on.

[WhatTheBuck 28738]

7 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

 

That’s a shame. 

[WhatTheBuck 28738]

11 minutes ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

 

The narrow entrance to the peninsula if/when Ukrainian forces start to come across.

 

So...Crimea or right on its doorstep. And that would hold it? For how long?

I should probably add that the Russians currently occupy that space so you’re assuming Ukrainian forces will retake all of that land. That’s still a long way away.

Edited October 10, 2022 by WhatTheBuck

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[atomheartbevo 89538]

15 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

I would’ve thought the assassination attempts would’ve ramped up 6 months ago so maybe many Russians are secretly for this

He's former KGB - Putin purged everybody around him that would have presented any kind of threat, and is left with his buddies from Saint Petersburg and others who are not the best and brightest, but that can be trusted to support him.

Which is why it concerns a lot of analysts in terms of what comes after Putin - I've got my problems with Peter Zeihan, but he's right about there not being many people who could actually run Russia, unlike say the US where there are thousands of business leaders, state officials, politicians, etc. who have a lot of executive or government experience that could step in and run things.  Zeihan thinks there's maybe 200 people in Russia who could actually take over, simply because Putin drove the smart/most ambitious types either out of the country or into prison or put them completely under his thumb in some way.

And Putin's purges/etc. are also why the Russian military has been so incompetently managed prior to last February, and incompetently led and supplied after.

Putin was fine with his buddies skimming from the military when they weren't needed.

[Ghost of LL 15515]

4 hours ago, Scheiss Meister said:

Give Ukraine ATACMS now, and declare Russia a terrorist state.

Declaring Russia state sponsor of terrorism would be an accurate description of the state of affairs.  But it is a threat you can only make good on once.  And that is one of our big remaining non-military threats against Russia.

We have the state-sponsor designation.  And then we have the secondary-sanctions threat.  But after that, we start getting into military steps to dissuade any further bad behavior.  

This is maybe bad enough that you want to make good on that threat.  After all, at some point you have to make good on that threat, else it is no longer a threat at all.  But we need to give real serious consideration as to what that leaves us left on the table.

And the other thing is that we shouldn't go first on that.  We've done a real good job on this entire thing of coordinating with our allies.  We need to make sure that they're not blindsided by any declaration that we make.  And ideally we would convince the Germans or French to make that designation first.

3 hours ago, Rimbo said:

 

This has the strong whiff of the V2 attacks.  We dismiss those attacks as not having an impact on the outcome of the war.  But in the meantime, they did manage to kill 9,000 Britons.

29 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Logistically, how is the terrorist state designation applied? I understand that on the surface that means no one can do business with them, but what impact does it have on their standing/inclusion in various global organizations?

It doesn't necessarily mean that no one can do business with them, but secondary sanctions do usually follow.  It means that no American can do business with them.  But there are few Americans who are doing so right now, anyway.

The biggest thing is that it is a waiver of sovereign immunity.  And that means that the victims of Russian terrorism can sue Russia in federal court.  And since Russia has hundreds of billions of dollars in assets in the United States that are currently frozen, there is a huge pot of money that victims could collect on.

That would be a huge problem for the Russian economy and the Russian government's finances.  And the Russian government knows that and has been trying to avoid that designation.  It really is a huge piece of leverage that we shouldn't pull the trigger on lightly.

[atomheartbevo 89538]

Missed this video from Julia Davis last night.

 

[strangulation! 1711]

On 10/8/2022 at 9:53 AM, Pato del Muerto said:

Anyone who has watched forged in fire could tell you that. 

is it better than the book?

[atomheartbevo 89538]

3 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

That would be a huge problem for the Russian economy and the Russian government's finances.  And the Russian government knows that and has been trying to avoid that designation.  It really is a huge piece of leverage that we shouldn't pull the trigger on lightly.

Wonder what impact it will have if other countries start making that designation (Estonia and Georgia are going to vote on it today) - none hold the kind of Russian assets that we and a few other countries do.

[atomheartbevo 89538]

Something kind of humorous to brighten the mood

Edited October 10, 2022 by atomheartbevo

[Parliament 14173]

34 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Suppose you were a Russian general. Where would you target your tactical nuke in order to keep Crimea?

 

32 minutes ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

 

The narrow entrance to the peninsula if/when Ukrainian forces start to come across.

 

That's where he SHOULD, but the question is where "would" you target your tactical nuke?  Going off of past behavior, the Russians would target Kiev.  Or some random wheat field out in the country.  Take out some tactical tractors or something.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13441]

Random missile attacks against civilians was always the inevitable result unless Ukraine surrendered.

I understand the horror of the toll on Ukraine but this only opens up the West supplying weapons to knock down more and more of their missiles. It might take a while but Ukraine will eventually bleed Russia out of people and weapons. The only part I fear is that Ukraine begins to run out of available front line soldiers. They're the most important resource. And based on the absurd, modern warfare rules, other countries will not supply troops.

[RDCanecutter 26351]

2 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

time for Russian politicians to get moved into the FO phase of the war. 

fixed because the civilians are expendable already. 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

14 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Random missile attacks against civilians was always the inevitable result unless Ukraine surrendered.

I understand the horror of the toll on Ukraine but this only opens up the West supplying weapons to knock down more and more of their missiles. It might take a while but Ukraine will eventually bleed Russia out of people and weapons. The only part I fear is that Ukraine begins to run out of available front line soldiers. They're the most important resource. And based on the absurd, modern warfare rules, other countries will not supply troops.

On the flip side, NATO could end this war within 48 hours. 

[Macanudo 12955]

35 minutes ago, strangulation! said:

is it better than the book?

One thing is for sure, Bob and the Russians both suck at logistics.

[Brisketexan 104826]

2 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

One thing is for sure, Bob and the Russians both suck at logistics.

 

 

[RDCanecutter 26351]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

The fact that Belarus wouldn't go all in on this war should have woken him up.  They'll provide armor and vehicles and tanks, but he should be asking himself why Belarus won't send a few thousand across their border into Ukraine now.

Lukashenko doesn't want to be a Slavic Mussolini, sending troops into France on a backstab while those guys were getting more than they could handle from the Germans.

(The French in 1940 still made the Italians look silly, and I am sure that even third-string Ukrainian units would use Belarussians for target practice.)

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[atomheartbevo 89538]

5 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

One thing is for sure, Bob and the Russians both suck at logistics.

There’s money to be made in promising something, collecting money for it, and then not delivering.

[RDCanecutter 26351]

2 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

“I demand an explanation!”

History buffs, what did diplomacy look like with Germany during WW2? 

For small neutral countries? About 1-6 in the first year or so. Switzerland laundered some money and did some other things behind the baseball dugout, everybody else got rolled.

The Danes, even after losing, managed to use the German race-myths to manipulate them for better treatment. But still not a win.

[ABSR 5299]

2 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

Am I the only one thinking we are about to see a much uglier side of this war over the winter?

So far Ukraine has done a solid job of sticking to targets of military value and those have been all on the Ukrainian side of the border. With this round of attacks, I am not sure how much longer they will be willing to stick  to targets in the Ukraine. Though they may not use cruise missiles that Russia is lobbing right now, they have been extremely effective with SOF raids and there are a ton of targets that are both close to the Ukraine and would cause an immense headache for them to target.

 

I understand that Putin is lashing out this way in an attempt to save face with his ground forces being impotent, but the interesting question will be how does Ukraine respond.

To answer the Ukraine question first, I think they continue to do the same, which is act professionally and logically to fight and win a war.  If you saw the video of the Russian whose leg was trapped between a building and his BMP that crashed, he asked the Ukrainian to finish him.  Which the Ukrainian responded to by slapping the Russians forehead and saying "We are not like you!"   So I don't worry about this type of actions changing the Ukrainian response...which has generally been great.

For how the Russians little will change, and I expect more of this....but the issue is they have to use missiles which they have already used up in large numbers and which they can't manufacture any more (due to sanctions).   So they will continue to expend stocks of high value, and almost irreplaceable, missiles on infrastructure and civilian targets thinking this will weaken Ukrainian resolve and make themselves feel good about "doing something".  But it will have almost no military value and will only make the Ukrainians and free world see more of Russia as the horrible entity they are and also how impotent they are as a military because they are not good enough to use these resources to strike military targets to ... you know... try and win the war.

In Syria they had air superiority and could drop cheap and easy to get dumb bombs on any civilian targets they wanted.  So in effect they could destroy towns, cities, infrastructure all over the country at-will, and they did so to break the opposition.   The difference is that in Syria they could and did kill/destroy everything, so the option was defeat/death or defeat/life (albeit a shitty one under Russian/Assad oppression).

[RDCanecutter 26351]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Suppose you were a Russian general. Where would you target your tactical nuke in order to keep Crimea?

Someplace stupid that doesn't accomplish anything positive.

Hey, you said I was a Russian general.

[Gravy Train 974]

If we're not deploying assets that have the capability of striking within Russia's borders, then where are we with allowing the Black Sea Fleet to roam about, unabated?  The Bosphorous and Dardanelles are closed, anything posing a threat from there should be ripe for target practice.

[956 Worldwide 34586]

54 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Declaring Russia state sponsor of terrorism would be an accurate description of the state of affairs.  But it is a threat you can only make good on once.  And that is one of our big remaining non-military threats against Russia.

We have the state-sponsor designation.  And then we have the secondary-sanctions threat.  But after that, we start getting into military steps to dissuade any further bad behavior.  

This is maybe bad enough that you want to make good on that threat.  After all, at some point you have to make good on that threat, else it is no longer a threat at all.  But we need to give real serious consideration as to what that leaves us left on the table.

And the other thing is that we shouldn't go first on that.  We've done a real good job on this entire thing of coordinating with our allies.  We need to make sure that they're not blindsided by any declaration that we make.  And ideally we would convince the Germans or French to make that designation first.

This has the strong whiff of the V2 attacks.  We dismiss those attacks as not having an impact on the outcome of the war.  But in the meantime, they did manage to kill 9,000 Britons.

It doesn't necessarily mean that no one can do business with them, but secondary sanctions do usually follow.  It means that no American can do business with them.  But there are few Americans who are doing so right now, anyway.

The biggest thing is that it is a waiver of sovereign immunity.  And that means that the victims of Russian terrorism can sue Russia in federal court.  And since Russia has hundreds of billions of dollars in assets in the United States that are currently frozen, there is a huge pot of money that victims could collect on.

That would be a huge problem for the Russian economy and the Russian government's finances.  And the Russian government knows that and has been trying to avoid that designation.  It really is a huge piece of leverage that we shouldn't pull the trigger on lightly.

The waiver of sovereign immunity is important, but the requirement that the U.S. oppose debt relief or financing at the World Bank and other international institutions is an equally big, if not more important issue. The secondary sanctions slap means that most U.S. firms and people will give a wide, wide berth.

[956 Worldwide 34586]

1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Aren’t consulates considered sovereign land for whatever country works from the consulate? Are we not in article 5 territory?

No, and as this shows— an office building that contains a consulate can’t really be “sovereign territory.” The facilities are inviolable but that’s governed by treaty and not because it’s another nation’s land. And the host government can, under treaty, come and tell the diplomats to GTFO. 
 

You may or may not remember that we shot a cruise missile into the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by accident. There was a shitstorm but not war.   A deliberate attack on a diplomatic facility with the facility as the target would generally be treated as an act of war, but that’s not what we have here. We have a shitty Russian cruise missile. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21811]

Ukraine's Bayraktar TB2 drones have the capability to reach Moscow.  They might have to be sent under autonomous mode unless they could be controlled by covert operatives, but Russia's air defenses have been so inept I bet a swarm of them could get at least a few through.  

[pantone159 719]

4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You may or may not remember that we shot a cruise missile into the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on purpose by accident. There was a shitstorm but not war.   A deliberate attack on a diplomatic facility with the facility as the target would generally be treated as an act of war, but that’s not what we have here.

I think that the remains of the shot-down F-117 were there, and the attack (by B-2 iirc) was intentional, though we denied this.

[MillerEP 30390]

 

[morehornsepower 887]

24 minutes ago, Gravy Train said:

If we're not deploying assets that have the capability of striking within Russia's borders, then where are we with allowing the Black Sea Fleet to roam about, unabated?  The Bosphorous and Dardanelles are closed, anything posing a threat from there should be ripe for target practice.

Some of the missile launches are coming from the Black Sea Fleet.  I'd sure love to see a few more of them follow the path of the Moscow and get "go-fuck-yourself"-ed.