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Political impacts of Ukraine war

Are we already at war with Russia?

Kinda...

Putin’s Drones and NATO’s Fightback: Are We At War?​



A wave of drones targeting airports, threatening critical infrastructure and potentially endangering the lives of civilians brought a number of Nato countries briefly to a standstill this past month. The presumed gift of President Putin, this deniable activity was straight out of the Kremlin playbook. But was the primary purpose to disrupt for disruption's sake, to probe the weaknesses in Nato's defensive lines or - ultimately - to sow the seeds of a split within the Alliance? As Nato ponders its response, Tom and Patrick explain the 'vertical' and 'horizontal' options available to it, debate whether the West should deter or punish Russia, and ask whether we are now effectively at war?

 
Be really tragic if some shadow vessel caught fire while discharging its cargo in one of the Chinese ports…
You’d think that whole “shouldn’t smoke in ammo dumps or oil refineries” lesson was one of the first ones Mother Russia shared with them, no?
 
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Are we already at war with Russia?

Kinda...

Putin’s Drones and NATO’s Fightback: Are We At War?​



A wave of drones targeting airports, threatening critical infrastructure and potentially endangering the lives of civilians brought a number of Nato countries briefly to a standstill this past month. The presumed gift of President Putin, this deniable activity was straight out of the Kremlin playbook. But was the primary purpose to disrupt for disruption's sake, to probe the weaknesses in Nato's defensive lines or - ultimately - to sow the seeds of a split within the Alliance? As Nato ponders its response, Tom and Patrick explain the 'vertical' and 'horizontal' options available to it, debate whether the West should deter or punish Russia, and ask whether we are now effectively at war?


The question is, as the Israelis found out, who is going to be the first to launch conventional major combat operations.

They will be the bad guys.
 
So at the beginning of the year the pipe supplying gas to Transnistria via Ukraine was shut down, and now the funding that was being provided by Russia to subsidize the purchase of gas (from Romania) has but cut off following the election loss for the pro-RU in the Moldovan election.

If Russia is redirecting money away from the handful of puppet regions they have, the war is really starting to be felt financially.

Sounds like more refinery strikes are in order.

 
There’s a lot of hopium regarding Trump’s so-called “pivot” on Ukraine…just more of the same.


Has Trump’s Rhetorical Change Meant Anything Concrete?

Last big question of the week, and while I do not have an answer, regular readers will know my suspicions. It has now been almost two weeks since Trump made his verbal pivot about the war. The pivot was based on Trump’s hurt feelings about Putin not loving him in the morning and the fact that Russia was not doing as well as he expected.

At that time, people let their imaginations run away into fantasies. There was talk about the US handing over Tomahawk missiles, or even JASSMs to Ukraine, of the US and Ukraine signing a $90 billion arms deal, of the US helping Ukraine win the war.

And guess what—Trump has now gone silent on the issue for a week. The stories are now leaking that the Tomahawks are not on their way, and no new arms deal has been announced. And even if a deal is announced soon—it would take many months before the first weapons started to appear.

The one report (which people have drastically overrated) was that the Administration had authorized some intelligence sharing to aid Ukrainian ranged strike. It was the typical story that the Trump administration leaks when they want to seem to be supportive of Ukraine. No specifics were mentioned, it seems that actually the process for sharing the intelligence is has not been specified, and, of course, no new weapons were part of the deal.

In other words, at best this seems to be the Trump administration taking the position of the Biden administration. But actually it means nothing, as the DOD still seems to have veto over what Ukraine gets—which was de facto the position before this supposed change.

Moreover—its hard to see how much value US intelligence would bring here. The Ukrainians have already shown that they have a strong grasp of the Russian energy sector and started disassembling it themselves.

This whole thing smells like an attempt of the Trump administration to put itself in line to claim credit for Ukrainian success, without actually helping Ukraine.

So far, it is hard to find one concrete policy change that has emerged from the pivot. And guess who understands that? Vladimir Putin does. It was fascinating to see how the Russian dictator openly stated that the US would not send Tomahawks to Ukraine; as if he knew. This is how the New York Times, reported Putin’s remarks.

Mr. Putin, in an annual appearance at a Russian foreign-policy conference on Thursday, sought to project confidence that, in the end, Mr. Trump would decide against providing the missiles to Ukraine. He described the American president as someone who “loves to shock a little” but who also “knows how to listen.”

If the United States did send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Mr. Putin said, the move would bring about “a qualitatively new stage of escalation.” But he went on to predict that Mr. Trump would eventually reject Ukraine’s request in part because of the United States’ inward turn under the Trump administration.


People need to face reality. Trump does not want to help Ukraine and he does not want to break with Putin. He desperately wants to work with Putin, he just also wants Putin’s love and respect (and Putin was careful to lather Trump with praise this week). That is where we are.

Hoping Trump will fundamentally change that policy is a massive risk and wastes time. Stop it.
 
A prime example of shooting yourself in the foot, see the article following this tweet.


 
A prime example of shooting yourself in the foot, see the article following this tweet.


Thats Nice GIF
 
Bit of a development on drones being in places they shouldn't. German police have been given the green light to shoot them down, and more drones have been showing up over a very sensitive area of a 70mm rocket factory.


“We are seeing more drones than what was the case a few months ago,” said Alain Quevrin, country director for Thales Belgium. He highlighted sightings over the company’s Évegnée Fort site in the eastern Liège region, the only Belgian facility where it is licensed to assemble and store explosives for its 70 mm rockets.

 
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