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8 minutes ago, RPM said:

Terrorists

 

...doing what terrorists do.

No resolution that leaves the current iteration of the Russian state standing should be acceptable.

And for that matter, Iran has chosen to FA in european affairs.  It should FO.  With many fireballs as exclamation points.  Their drone plants should be rubble within a week.

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1 hour ago, The Dog said:

I'm starting to think we end up in a place where Putin is just a warlord overseeing a country in complete ruin. 

Eventually Ukraine is going to eject all of the Russian forces from their territory (all of it - including Crimea and the Donbas). There isn't going to be much left to rule and there won't be anyone left to challenge him. 

And Putin will be just fine with that. He'll just change the subject and move on.

 

 

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

....with a giant-ass nuclear arsenal.  That's not sustainable.

I'm becoming more convinced than ever that this conflict eventually goes nuclear, because Putin doesn't fucking care and has nothing to lose.

Speculating on what it looks like

  • Worse tan 90's Cuba - no other state backing it up
  • Worse than N. Korea? - too much corruption to be effective at anything
  • Shedding satellite republics and retreating their geographic influence to a core that looks like Somalia - Yes this is likely, plus Nukes.  We can hope that the warlords focus on each other instead of external.

There could be a domino effect in Hungary and Belarus with Putin out of power those leaders will be at risk.

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3 hours ago, Rimbo said:

Yes. And that's a good, long time away. A lot can happen in a year.

Do you think Putin is still alive by then?

3 hours ago, Bevo said:

I think Russia is beginning to collapse. But, all the fighting age men are dead or gone. Still, though, Putin's days are numbered.

Ukraine will be in Crimea within the next 12 months. Shit, 6 months or less wouldn’t surprise me, since taking the Kherson forces off the board removes a lot of their better trained men and better equipment, and completely severs the land bridge to Crimea.

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3 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Russia uses its nuclear arsenal before it allows itself to be completely defeated. It probably uses them at the first sign of having its land taken away, which may or may not be crimea. 

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

....with a giant-ass nuclear arsenal.  That's not sustainable.

I'm becoming more convinced than ever that this conflict eventually goes nuclear, because Putin doesn't fucking care and has nothing to lose.

Putin sat at freakishly huge tables because he was terrified of COVID and assassination attempts, and you all think he will use nukes if he’s going to lose Crimea?  

He’s a real dumbass about a lot of things, but even he realizes that using nukes means the empty rhetoric his talking heads spout on nightly state TV shows becomes a reality and NATO actually enters the fight.  

Right now he fears being taken out by somebody around him, but bringing nukes into play opens up the possibility of Western intelligence services, if not directly trying to assassinate him, at the very least providing support and backing to anybody around him that does.

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5 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Putin sat at freakishly huge tables because he was terrified of COVID and assassination attempts, and you all think he will use nukes if he’s going to lose Crimea?  

He’s a real dumbass about a lot of things, but even he realizes that using nukes means the empty rhetoric his talking heads spout on nightly state TV shows becomes a reality and NATO actually enters the fight.  

Right now he fears being taken out by somebody around him, but bringing nukes into play opens up the possibility of Western intelligence services, if not directly trying to assassinate him, at the very least providing support and backing to anybody around him that does.

Not only that, we have several documented instances where FSB has outright stated, "nobody is informing Putin of the truth," while "Putin is making decisions on his own," with events unfolding in Ukraine.  The former, because the failures and weaknesses will fall on other individuals with responsibility under Putin, while the latter has been Putin's own desires made without consult.

There may be a point tested between Putin's nuclear football and the offensive or launch vehicle that simply doesn't work... and it's because some men in the middle have had enough or won't bear responsibilty of decisions from a man who has lost favor with everyone around him.  Seriously, even among his closest oligarchs, who is making money in that country any longer? 

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3 hours ago, The Dog said:

I'm starting to think we end up in a place where Putin is just a warlord overseeing a country in complete ruin. 

Eventually Ukraine is going to eject all of the Russian forces from their territory (all of it - including Crimea and the Donbas). There isn't going to be much left to rule and there won't be anyone left to challenge him. 

And Putin will be just fine with that. He'll just change the subject and move on.

And unlike Western leaders, he has that ability, because he 100% controls Russian media (the last true independents in Russia fled/were shutdown/taken over back in February and March).

We all see the Russian state TV media clips, we know the batshit stuff they push, but we also know that a major chunk of the population buys it, or is too scared to speak out against it,   Those who were truly against it and willing to risk their freedom/livelihood bailed on Russia over the last 8 months, and even the men who were…”neutral” about it, and were fine with it as long as it didn’t affect them, decided they had enough when mobilization was announced last month,

While I’ve been bullish that the Russians around Putin might not let him live over this, I’ve changed my mind a bit,  I think if Putin gave it up and pulled back to pre-2014, I think he can survive for two reasons:

  1. The oligarchs will live and let live if they can get some of their normalcy back in some way.  I don’t think they are willing to risk their lives in killing Putin or deposing him so they can get their Italian villas back, but I think if he pulls out and trade normalizes a bit and he doesn’t restrict their movement, they will, at the least, stay away from him, and try to work out how to rebuild their fortunes,   Many of these people are alive and rich or powerful because Putin didn’t see them as a threat (he already killed those people or exiled them) so their concerns will be their lives and personal fortunes.
  2. I think a sizable chunk of the Russia public will forgive him, and will be relieved if he pulls them out of Ukraine once and for all.  Absolutely relieved that they, or their sons, husbands, fathers, will not be subject to future mobilizations, or will have been brought home if mobilized, and that maybe they can get McDonalds or IKEA again.

The wildcard is the military, as there will be hundreds of thousands of pissed off men and maybe even some of their leaders, who come back pissed off, or maybe fucked up in some way (physically or mentally or both).  They will have some serious demands to be met, and they will be angry at Russian society and leadership for a lack of support and for throwing them or their buddies’ lives away.  The way Russian state media has talked about them being drunks, the media and/or society as a whole may assign them some blame for “losing” and you just know they won’t take shit from their civilian bosses or cops or whatever.

 This happened with Afghanistan, and they made things difficult with the government, only in 2022 they will have social media to get organized  on a large scale, and to make some large demands.  Imagine if tens of thousands get together in Moscow and March in the Kremlin demanding some benefits or something - what happens if Putin orders them to be beaten up and dispersed?

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1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

And unlike Western leaders, he has that ability, because he 100% controls Russian media (the last true independents in Russia fled/were shutdown/taken over back in February and March).

We all see the Russian state TV media clips, we know the batshit stuff they push, but we also know that a major chunk of the population buys it, or is too scared to speak out against it,   Those who were truly against it and willing to risk their freedom/livelihood bailed on Russia over the last 8 months, and even the men who were…”neutral” about it, and were fine with it as long as it didn’t affect them, decided they had enough when mobilization was announced last month,

While I’ve been bullish that the Russians around Putin might not let him live over this, I’ve changed my mind a bit,  I think if Putin gave it up and pulled back to pre-2014, I think he can survive for two reasons:

  1. The oligarchs will live and let live if they can get some of their normalcy back in some way.  I don’t think they are willing to risk their lives in killing Putin or deposing him so they can get their Italian villas back, but I think if he pulls out and trade normalizes a bit and he doesn’t restrict their movement, they will, at the least, stay away from him, and try to work out how to rebuild their fortunes,   Many of these people are alive and rich or powerful because Putin didn’t see them as a threat (he already killed those people or exiled them) so their concerns will be their lives and personal fortunes.
  2. I think a sizable chunk of the Russia public will forgive him, and will be relieved if he pulls them out of Ukraine once and for all.  Absolutely relieved that they, or their sons, husbands, fathers, will not be subject to future mobilizations, or will have been brought home if mobilized, and that maybe they can get McDonalds or IKEA again.

The wildcard is the military, as there will be hundreds of thousands of pissed off men and maybe even some of their leaders, who come back pissed off, or maybe fucked up in some way (physically or mentally or both).  They will have some serious demands to be met, and they will be angry at Russian society and leadership for a lack of support and for throwing them or their buddies’ lives away.  The way Russian state media has talked about them being drunks, the media and/or society as a whole may assign them some blame for “losing” and you just know they won’t take shit from their civilian bosses or cops or whatever.

 This happened with Afghanistan, and they made things difficult with the government, only in 2022 they will have social media to get organized  on a large scale, and to make some large demands.  Imagine if tens of thousands get together in Moscow and March in the Kremlin demanding some benefits or something - what happens if Putin orders them to be beaten up and dispersed?

I don't know if what you state is true, but if Russia lost half of its people, half of its oligarchs, and all of his satellites, with all of the oil and gas money still coming in, his personal profits would be much, much higher than they were before the war.

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9 minutes ago, Gravy Train said:

Not only that, we have several documented instances where FSB has outright stated, "nobody is informing Putin of the truth," while "Putin is making decisions on his own," with events unfolding in Ukraine.  The former, because the failures and weaknesses will fall on other individuals with responsibility under Putin, while the latter has been Putin's own desires made without consult.

There may be a point tested between Putin's nuclear football and the offensive or launch vehicle that simply doesn't work... and it's because some men in the middle have had enough or won't bear responsibilty of decisions from a man who has lost favor with everyone around him.  Seriously, even among his closest oligarchs, who is making money in that country any longer? 

And something I left out - we’ve already made it clear that if things go nuclear, that anybody still backing him with trade, particularly China and India, will join Russia and Belarus with the same sanctions,

China cannot afford those kinds of sanctions - it’s COVID lockdowns provided a glimpse of things that could come.   It would suck for us, but it would quickly bring Xi to his knees if we put tens or hundreds of millions of Chinese out of work and in the streets.  He’s building a military to threaten Taiwan, and it can’t control tens or hundreds of millions who are out-of- work across China.

And he can’t risk the G7 reducing their dependence on China even a little bit,

Russia runs out of most allies the moment the nukes pop off.  Iran and North Korea and Belarus cannot keep them afloat.

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8 minutes ago, Bevo said:

I don't know if what you state is true, but if Russia lost half of its people, half of its oligarchs, and all of his satellites, with all of the oil and gas money still coming in, his personal profits would be much, much higher than they were before the war.

The oligarchs and government leaders still left were carefully picked by Putin, a KGB-trained paranoid, as being unlikely to present a threat to him.  He created a “national guard” that is a paramilitary group that protects the government/him, and reports directly to him.

He controls the media 100%.  If Russians were against the war in large enough numbers, we would have seen shit going down, but instead those types fled the country or hid out.

I think many would be relieved and willing to let him slide if he declared Russian troops were coming home because Ukraine was deNazified, and its ability to attack was degraded.  The two main cities wanted none of this shit, and were mostly untouched up until a few weeks ago with mobilization, and the rural areas either support him or are too much out of the loop to know and care.

It’s almost scarier than him being removed, because it leaves the door open for him to try something in Georgia, or to try and bring some of the other countries in Asia back into the mix,

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4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

....with a giant-ass nuclear arsenal.  That's not sustainable.

I'm becoming more convinced than ever that this conflict eventually goes nuclear, because Putin doesn't fucking care and has nothing to lose.

Step away from the ledge a little.

As has been discussed Putin is a rational actor.  Now his definition of rational is different than yours and mine, but from the perspective of Russia/Organized Crime Boss/Thuggery he and Russia are consistent.

Putin is a survivor.  If something does not work he blames others, escalates, or changes the narrative (lies) so that his "truth" fits what he wants to do.  He has to know from both US/West, and even China and India that Nuclear/Chemical will change everything and that it will no longer be a conflict whose narrative he can control.  

I CAN see him doing something with the Nuclear power plant and blaming the Ukrainians or West, so there are bad/horrible options.   But actually using a military Nuke is his big and final trump card to threaten...but once played he is out of options.   As a survivor he will do a lot of bad shit, but he won't cut his own throat.  

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6 minutes ago, ABSR said:

actually using a military Nuke is his big and final trump card to threaten...but once played he is out of options.   As a survivor he will do a lot of bad shit, but he won't cut his own throat.  

Exactly, you can only shoot the hostage once. If he shoots the hostage and uses a nuke, everything turns on him, and his odds of even short-term survival are zero. As @atomheartbevo pointed out, Putin very obviously doesn't want to die.  

 

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4 hours ago, PTINS said:

In my opinion ...

I would agree that the Nordstream explosion appears to be internal rather than external. Explosion as in man made detonation and not a "natural" leak/rupture followed by detonation.  I have seen "normal' pipeline failures and explosions but am not familiar with the details of a pipeline intentionally blown up. 

The "missing piece" of pipe on Norstream is more indicative of an explosion that cut the pipe in a circumferential direction rather than a longitudinal direction, maybe in two different places.  With easy access, this could be done from the outside. The deep water location is not easy access and would require time and equipment, first to expose the buried pipelines lines just to gain access, and then to place the explosive charges.  That type of activity would have been noticed.  If there was a valve assembly of sorts above the sea floor, an external explosion becomes more probable.

Nordstream 2 is huge, two pipelines with a total capacity of 5.3 BCF (Billion Cubic Feet) of gas per day, roughly half of the US LNG capacity. Each pipeline is made of 100,000, 12m-long individual steel pipe joints, with 24t (tons?)in concrete weight. The internal diameter of the pipeline is 1,153mm (45 in) and the wall thickness is 41mm (1.6 in).  Not quite a "gun barrel" pipe, but that's a big ass piece of iron. 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_r6Pt9wA2O67oAHZdtEwimages?q=tbn:ANd9GcSyGXAFU6Hv0W0tj8pwqPjimages?q=tbn:ANd9GcQfkuhW-guEoM-r_cUWr6M

Pipeline leaks/ruptures look similar, with the initial cause of the leak affecting the appearance. A corrosion related leak starts with a pinhole; once the integrity of the pipe is compromised, the leak propagates until eventually there is a catastrophic rupture.   Whether or not there is an explosion will determine what the site looks like.  Without an explosion, the pipeline still has continuity, there is just a big gap in it.

 images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRhHMmKzCYVRm611mDZWtuimages?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHLW2igE1Kfdo4uwFh9N8

A mechanical failure, like a bad weld at a pipe joint, looks different, like the pipe was simply cut in half. Similar action; a pin hole leak at the weakest point, with the leak/crack propagating circumferentially along the weld, until it separates and ruptures. 

 image.thumb.png.9ab79789f83c797dbe788e55515fec07.png 

This is a really cool picture! Bernoulli's fluid principle: PV=nRT. A rapid drop in pressure has a proportional rapid decrease in temperature.  I remember a similar pipeline rupture w/o an explosion on a natural gas liquid pipeline; I could feel the temperature dropping as we got closer to the pipeline, and we didn't get very close!!!  Same principle as a thermobaric weapon.

Explosions are ...  the most exciting thing to make the evening news. Big orange fireballs. Gas will leak until the leak is stopped, disperses, or until it finds an ignition source.  The explosion itself will rip the pipe wide open, so you have a full diameter pipeline leak at pressure, ~ 1,OOO PSI (lbs/square inch), burning with enough heat to melt steel and turn dirt into glass. 

Ruptured%20Pipeline.png

Nordsteam appears to have had an explosion that ripped the pipe in pieces, but didn't have a fire that would have melted the steel.  Hard to imagine an explosion that could rip apart a 1.6" thick, concrete coated, pipeline. 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQq-gBq8dZ2eIvbaoxWzu

Pipeline "pigs" were used initially just to clean out pipelines, commission new pipelines (use a pig in a pipe to separate the fluid in front of the pig (water or nitrogen) from the fluid behind the pig, the fluid paying the bills (oil, gas, gasoline, diesel, etc.), or to just separate two different fluids .  Over time smart pigs were developed in the 70's-80's with instrumentation to measure metal thickness, corrosion, etc. (I have no idea how far technology has progressed since my training program.)  Suffice it to say that it would be relatively easy to rig a very complicated bomb, place it in/on a pig, move it where you want it,  and blow it up.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSstJzM6Pwhmn17HIuM5c1

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTbPxah0PEP7GJDuUtoLiWimage.png.c24f2af4be54b99280a0eae4f8529f7e.png

image.png

image.png

So…..Peppa Pig after all?

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we're going to end up with two different worlds.  we are going to do sanctions against russia, secondary sanctions against their trading partners.  the rest of the west will be on board.  enough will be willing to be secondary sanctioned because of the need to have business somewhere: mozambiques of the world will be selling arms to russia, not caring they aren't a part of western trade.  we end up with two different circles.  ours will be the big powerful one with boardwalk and park place, of course, but theirs which will be a motley crew of countries and war lords sitting on the light blue properties that are just excited to have a source of business.  it'll work a little bit.

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1 minute ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

we're going to end up with two different worlds.  we are going to do sanctions against russia, secondary sanctions against their trading partners.  the rest of the west will be on board.  enough will be willing to be secondary sanctioned because of the need to have business somewhere: mozambiques of the world will be selling arms to russia, not caring they aren't a part of western trade.  we end up with two different circles.  ours will be the big powerful one with boardwalk and park place, of course, but theirs which will be a motley crew of countries and war lords sitting on the light blue properties that are just excited to have a source of business.  it'll work a little bit.

where does China sit in this game?

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1 minute ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

where does China sit in this game?

probably one of the very few exceptions that could sort of straddle the line.  they are too important to us to boss around, we are too important to them for them to tell us to go fuck ourselves.  they'll dabble in both worlds indefinitely.

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2 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

where does China sit in this game?

I would expect the BRICS to stay unified.  They are already working to develop an alternative global reserve currency.  Also, Saudi Arabia (among others) is interested in joining them ( the BRICS, not necessarily the currency initiative).

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28 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

where does China sit in this game?

I feel like if shit gets really bad in Russia (warlord republics), China just becomes the de facto ruler of most of Siberia. No invasion, no actual claim...they just sort of start building settlements, roads, mining and logging industries, etc. And no one really says anything about it. Russia can't defend it, but doesn't want to confront them and have the world KNOW they can't defend it...so it ends up this de facto Chinese province that the world largely ignores. 

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5 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

I feel like if shit gets really bad in Russia (warlord republics), China just becomes the de facto ruler of most of Siberia. No invasion, no actual claim...they just sort of start building settlements, roads, mining and logging industries, etc. And no one really says anything about it. Russia can't defend it, but doesn't want to confront them and have the world KNOW they can't defend it...so it ends up this de facto Chinese province that the world largely ignores. 

yeah, i think china ends up a big winner here.  their huge resource rich neighbor is showing its ass, and china has a billion people to feed.

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