China and India buy it at a discount because they know that Putin is desperate. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are selling them the gas at cost value.
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No, the Russians should not risk a war for Lithuania, the Lithuanians have friends who are allready there:
I see a lot of different sources and here is what I have noticed:
Ukraine is giving ground and losing the artillery war. I keep hearing of new weapons but none of them are changing the direction of battle which is high casualties and going backwards.
Russian casualties are equally high But much lf their casualties are coming from conscripts raised in the Ukraine. In other words, Russia is killing Ukrainians with Ukrainians
NATO seems to think Ukraine has lost but is still sending weapons albeit at an unhurried pace.
The EU seems to be preparing for the war To go on all year and sanctions to continue. Russia also seems sanctions continuing and have alternative energy markets. Worst case is lack of energy and tech expertise to slowly cause industry to degrade but that could take years. How long did Iran keep their F-14’s flying?
The war will go until Ukraine decides it has had enough. I expect Russia to keep everything they have at that time. The new weapons are nice but there aren’t enough and ammunition for the old weapons is running out.
I don’t know about Europe but in America, Ukraine is barely in the news. We are going to spend the next 6 months between rage over Roe and go right into midterm elections and are looking at $5 gas and a possible recession. We will probably have a republican takeover of Congress but that won’t make us pro war as awful lot of republicans are upset we wasted 50 Billion on Ukraine.
Finally, I believe NATO is on auto-pilot. If Lithuania or Poland is attacked, we go to war. Russia knows this and I think will settle for between 1/4 and 1/2 of Ukraine and call it a win.
The whole thing is a damm tragedy going to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Putin is a bloody dictator and Ukraine is corrupt as hell and people die, nothing changes. Freedom is not advanced, Nazi’s aren’t purged it’s just a land grab and a butcher’s bill.
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Everybody has an opinion on the Ukrainian war and nobody has any real idea of how it is going to turn out. Yes, Russia is making advances using WW2 tactics and Yes, Ukraine is taking a beating but still are fighting on.
The true numbers may never be known of casualties but what is known is Russia has and still is using mobile Crematoriums to burn their dead to hide the true number of casualties. Most experts agree that Russia has suffered between 22 to 31,000 deaths and around 70,000 wounded with an unknown amount of POWs and deserters from their ranks.
Around 70% of the modern equipment that Russia has in the west has been destroyed or captured in Ukraine which accounts for just over 55% total of its modern equipment. That is nothing to sneeze at because in addition to losing that equipment they have lost a huge amount of trained personnel that could operate the modern equipment and even though they have a large military it takes time and energy to train new personnel which is why most believe Russia has taken to using older outdated equipment because it is simpler to operate and more personnel know how to operate them.
Even if Russia wins they will still lose because their military has lost so much modern equipment that they would cease to be a modern fighting force and it would take up to 20 years to replenish and train new recruits and until such time would be relying heavily of China’s and even India’s help to maintain its depleted military.
Which brings me to the Sanctions. Those who don’t understand how sanctions work it takes time for sanctions to kick in. Russia has huge stockpiles of raw material but it does not have is access to western technology which it relies heavily on. So as the sanctions slowly start to kick in you will see more and more hardships in Russia begin to happen as it takes roughly 6-8 months before sanctions will really begin to hurt the Russians. The biggest thing is Russians are sadly used to hardships so it may be a year or more until the average Russian will start to waiver.
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On the Ukrainian side of things the Ukrainians have been more open with their losses but haven’t really released any numbers either. It is thought that between 7 to 10,000 soldiers have died and a further 27-31,000 are wounded. Around 4,500 soldiers are POWs and an unknown number have deserted.
Ukraine had mostly Soviet era weapons and has lost around 20% of their equipment which is a huge number but most of those losses have been made up from Western Allies suppling them with their own Soviet era equipment and more modern equipment. What sets the Ukrainians apart from the Russians is they have been and continue to be supplied western technology which has proven to be vastly superior to Russian technology. The downside is only about a third of the Ukrainian military has been trained on the use of western tech although they also have put it to good use.
Regardless of whether Ukraine compromises or wins the war they will be left with a huge debt to pay back although some countries are forgiving the debt that will be owed. Add to that it will take years to repair and rebuild damaged and destroyed infrastructure with some estimates saying it will take up to 30 years for Ukraine to rebuild. Add to that the masses of UXOs which will take untold years to find and defuse/destroy.
The advantage is Ukraine will have western backing regardless of the wars outcome and full access to western tech and innovations which will help them recover even faster.
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The biggest unknown is NATO itself. How long will it keep a united front and how long will it support Ukraine? These are all questions that have been asked already at several NATO summits and while cracks have shown in the EU over energy all NATO members have been so far been united but again for some countries being on ready alert has strained them militarily and economically.
Then the question remains will NATO actually get involved militarily in the conflict and what would that response be?
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In the end there are many variables and factors that could change the scope of the war for either country it comes down to which variables and factors they will be.
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Where is the source on the prices here? Even then, Russia has to pay a lot more to transport its resources to India and China compared to Europe.
The Ukrainians have been retreating in battles of attrition in Mariupol and Severodonetsk, but those were not places they have to keep. As some other military experts have pointed out (I’ll look up which, given the time) the Ukrainians fought for Severodonetsk, because they could afford to fight over it. Russian advances are limited to this small area and halted elsewhere. For the Ukrainians to not launch counteroffensives can mean a bunch of things, but there may be a very real prospect that they’re planning a counteroffensive. Lulls in the fighting happen, also when we look at the ww2 fighting coverage of the past weeks. We know big offensives are about to be launched there, but for the public of that time, this was rather boring with not much happening.
But is it taking anymore time than expected? This was said upfront right? And we’re still supplying them, because the Ukrainians have time on their side.
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Thanks for the reply and great point. Yes Putin has to sell at a discount but I think a 30 dollar discount probably still means a great profit for him. I do not know what is true because I can’t check. However.
The Ruble has ben appreciating massively. Our news here was quit happy to report the crash but is completely quiet right now, apart from some of the Financial Newspapers and defense analyses.
russian rouble to dollar - Google Zoeken
Ak
Also the commodities market is very different from discrete products and tracing the end product is more tricky. For example lots of people who think they buy “fair pay chocolate” by something else because it is all on the same boat.
So India refines the only to gasoline and exports it to Europe, also the are some commodity rules (any traded volume of oil which is max 49,99% percent Russian oil is not Russian oil).
I largely agree with the view that the West (meaning not Russia ) wants gasoline prices not to run up to high and more or less accepts this weird Commodity logic. The Western politicians and news are not very willing to admit that the sanctions work not as good as hoped. Also that the military production capacity takes lots of time, also with with the European purchasing rules in place which have not been softened for this emergency to my knowledge. Brings some memories of the 2014 grandstanding and Von der Leyen claiming to build up the military which was her responsibility (and not much happend).
PS obiwanbul I am not happy with this situation, I would have liked the sanction to work, Russia backing down and this idiot war to end fast. A lot of Ukranians and Russians (people) were/are friends.
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I don’t necessarily think the sanctions don’t work, but they indeed don’t work on the short term. Sanctions are doing their work and we can see that by the effort the Russians are taking to bypass them. It may take a lot longer though to bring Russia to its knees. This was mentioned when we were initially talking about sanctions, but people tend to forget and were still hoping for short term effects.
Russia has to spend significant resources though on maintaining its status and mitigating the impacts of the sanctions. Take the case of the ruble. Sure, it collapsed initially and then made a spectacular recovery, but that recovery is mostly due to the mandate to trade foreign currency into rubles, artificially inflating demand. The Russian government has also been buying up rubles at a rapid rate, but both work together towards depleting the reserve of foreign currency. When policies such as these can’t be sustained anymore, the ruble will likely start falling again.
Other measures include a very heavy regulation of the stock market. Russia has essentially gone back to state capitalism, they just don’t pretend it is equitable anymore.
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Sanctions may work just fine in inflicting pain. The question is are they a deterrence of a course of action. I would argue generally they do not deter it they punish.
What would it take to make sanctions deter? Not sure but they would have to be clearly demonstrated that at a minimum they would have to hurt more than what can be gained. The west doesn’t have a good history of this.
This you tube channels sounds hokey but imho delivers some of the most thorough and well explained data out there.
Highly recommend
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Can I ask a question from western participants, which is most of you, I presume:
-How much do you hear about changes happening in the rest of the world?
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BRICS summit, their expansion (Argentina, Indonesia, Iran, etc.), agenda for reforms of UNSC and other UN bodies - accepting realities of different multi-polar world.
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Socioeconomic changes - replacing $US dollar as reserve currency, re-evaluating debt economy and real production economies, emphasizing sustainable development through collaboration and respect of differences, rather than competition. Do you believe that world is ever going to be back as it used to be - dominated by West/US
-Do you care, find it relevant - given that it is quite fundamental and is about future of most of human population, not just rich elite?
Talking about sanctions and isolation - who has isolated whom?
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Inflation highly depends to unit of measurement and what you measure - Russians earn less but they earn in currency that has appreciated 30% compared to $US.
More importantly, industrial output is not as relevant in times of crisis - food, energy, home-ownership, social care - ability to provide for basic needs of population is. In other words try eating your GDP, or heating your home with it.
Besides, comparing countries with different value systems really doesn’t make much sense. However, if it all helps you cope - go for it.
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They can never be a deterrence, as long as the Tsar in charge feels safe in his position. They will definitely hinder technological developments and especially logistics tho, which is the most important.
Think about this, let’s say you stop importing a certain brand of cars. If you have 1000 cars functioning in a small town, and 100 cars in storage, will they feel the immediate impact? No. But how many cars will need to be replaced by wear-and-tear, or get into accidents? The more something is lacking, the more expensive the parts are going to be. And if the amount of available parts runs out? Doesn’t matter if you’re a rich businessman or some bloke on the street, you still don’t have a car if the engine needs repairs.
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I know. I should have learned history from “Top Gun”.
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LMAO, this is truly a good comment my friend.
I don’t like the idea of bombing a random country which happens to have (spoiler) ancient Tomcats and an enrichment program. Then again it was a flick. I can see why people object.
By the Way while Tom Cruise is lauded as he kept his Taiwan Jacket alienating Chinese funding (I totally agree here) he also owns and flies a Czechoslovakian jet, which fan documentaries ignored so far. The L-39 Albatross is a fantastic plane by the way but Warsaw Pact nevertheless. 
. I guess you can’t really have the great American hero flying the reds ;-).
PS I flew the L-39 and L-29 as well as part of a training, I highly recommend, especially the L-39 as it is the improved version…
As a movie I highly recommend Topgun as well as even if you are a non-jet-loving weirdo 
the character development and emotion provoking scenes. It totally surpassed my expectations. With a great role for cancer survivor Val Kilmer.
OK this is how one looks. Tom painted his one black but trained at the same place :-). A great place to fly historic jets. (note: Pilots license and current medical class 3 required). The also have a Mig-15 UTI but that plane is a really tricky one to fly and hates slow speed.
Aero Vodochody L-39 Flight at Jet Warbird Training Center Santa Fe, NM - YouTube
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Probably a better source than whatever you tend to watch
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This is more of a map depicting the countries actually showing some backbone to aggression and oppression.
Also, it is very dishonest of you to just assume we don’t know shit about the world. It is also wholely off topic. There isn’t anything in the BRICS summit relating to Ukraine and the reform of the UNSC is not a revolutionary idea. I dont know if you read your sources, but there isn’t even anything concrete in there. Neither is the shift in reserve currency relevant to the war in Uraine.
I am also wholely in favor of more equitable trade relations and sustainable development with the global south. That also means I oppose a world with relations dominated by a few Eastern powers.
I find it completely irrelevant to the idea that the Russian aggression against Ukraine is somehow justified. My opinion on the elite is that we should tax them a lot more, but that is off topic.
Again, you are shifting away from the original topic that Russia’s war against Ukraine is bad. You call out facts that seem vaguely related, but really don’t have anything to do with it to make it sound like you are right, but you are not. This is not a forum to indoctrinate others with your bullshit conspiracies. Go away.
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Did you try any of Yugoslav jets - G-2, G-4 (Super Seagull) or Eagle J22?
Eagle also has dual use as a lawnmower.
As for movies, I didn’t see Maverick yet, but enjoyed original movie.
For those who enjoy other cinematographies and since WAH has just covered two of major 1943 German operations in Balkans - “Weiß” and “Schwarz”, those who do have hours to waste, can see:
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Operation “Weiß” - “Battle of Neretva” (with Yul Brynner, Sergei Bondarchuk, Orson Walles, Franco Nero, Curt Jurgens, Hardy Kruger, etc.)
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Operation “Schwarz” - “Sutjeska” (with Richard Burton as Tito, Irene Papas, this time Sergei Bondarchuk as screenplay assistant and music by Mikis Theodorakis)
Oscar-winning Sergei Bondarchuk was born in Kherson Region with mixed Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian background (talking about complexities of the region) and participant of WWII.
His son, Fyodor, directed and starred (as Khokhol) in “The 9th Company”, Afghan War epic.
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Finally, something we agree on. Worldwide, nations are standing up to liberal hegemony, aggression and oppression.
I didn’t assume any such thing - I asked the question.
Well, Mike Pompeo would very much disagree with you - https://www.hudson.org/research/17914-transcript-of-pompeo-speech-on-ukraine-and-a-global-alliance-for-freedom
Do I sense that not all is going well for your own conspiracy?
Explain to me how so, the words “BRIC”, “BRICS”, “UNSC” or “Security Council” did not appear once in his speech
Here we go again. I see you prefer fascism.
Some more news out of Ukraine
Various agencies, captured Russian servicemen and radio intercepts between Russian Commanders have provided an insight to how effective the medium range precision weapons that the US and Britain have provided Ukraine have been.
Over the past week no less than 12 major Russian supply and ammunition depots have been hit some 40 to 60kms behind their lines which has had a crippling effect on both their artillery bombardments and resupply of front line troops. In several regions of the Donbas artillery strikes by Russian forces have been greatly diminished due to the loss of large supplies of artillery shells forcing them to ration remaining stores or ship shells elsewhere that are more needed.
Now nobody is sure how much ammunition the Russians have left or available but it has been noticed that there is lack of shelling in several areas that have been under continuous bombardment for several weeks now. It either indicates they are rationing shells or moving elsewhere.
Add to that is again several frontline Russian units have little in the way of food and clothing due to the supply depots being hit and it is affecting Russian morale. Three captured soldiers reported having only water and no food for the last three days and reported that three of their heavy machine guns had run out of ammunition. Again nobody is really sure but the Russian soldiers were more than happy to divulge information.
Also it has been verified by independent sources that in several areas the Russians are struggling to keep their armoured vehicles running as they are running out of spare parts and fuel. They have advanced but at great cost it seems.
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