After all, they went there with her blessing.

I believe they were both in the Ukrainian army, not UK volunteers that went over during the current phase of the war.

they both hold duel citizenship I believe.

Father’s day coming up. I’ve asked my kids to donate any money they were going to spend on presents to Ukraine charities.

The genius Russian navy has mined the black sea.

Actually it’s Ukraine that has mined all their ports, to prevent a Russian amphibious assault via an easy route. They are understandably very hesitant to de-mine them for this reason. This is what is currently preventing export via bulk carriers.

Really it needs a Western naval escort mission but talk about getting close to the action there. I don’t think it will happen.

No wonder Sweden are rushing towards NATO membership…

Wow, Putin basically just stopped pretending: "During the war with Sweden, Peter the Great didn't conquer anything, he took back what had always belonged to us, even though all of Europe recognised it as Sweden's. It seems now it's our turn to get our lands back [smiling]". pic.twitter.com/vgk60hT5ea

— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) June 9, 2022

…mixed picture with their membership application recently. USA senate voted in support, Turkey still looking to block.

Sweden (and Finland) will probably have to stop any support they give to the Kurds, but Turkey will relent I reckon.  The US, the EU and other NATO members will put huge pressure on them to do so. Erdogan is milking Turkey’s leverage here, but some face saving concessions from Sweden and Finland over the Kurds will swing it.  The Kurds unfortunately will be the losers.

Turkey is broke so I’m sure they will back down on the NATO front.
Also they changed it’s name.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61671913

The genius Russian navy has mined the black sea.

Actually it’s Ukraine that has mined all their ports

They’re blaming one another.
Ukraine says that the mines were seized during the 2014 invasion of Crimea by Russia and 372 were laid by Russia in 2022.
Russia says that the mines are obsolete, 400 were laid by Ukraine and some have broken free from their cables.
The things that can be agreed upon (probably):
372-400 mines have been laid
It’ll take months to find them all and get rid (they’re tethered below the surface so Arnie/Sly/007 can’t take them with a single pistol shot)
Global grain production is due to fall short this harvest season
Russia will want concessions on sanctions to allow removal of the mines that it didn’t lay

Family with us update: all continues well. Our village, nearby town, government agencies we’ve dealt with, all have been great!

Youngest in village school. Class learning Ukranian, she (and 2 others) learning English. Looks forward to school each day.

Yoga teacher in village giving free yoga classes to Ukrainians, hosted (once made clear to vicar that was neither spiritual nor sexual brand of yoga) at the village church. Plenty of other events also on.

Mom attending English classes in nearby town 3 mornings a week. A local initiative, and nicely run (in as much as I can judge!). Separately, doctors office so helpful and supportive. Made everything very easy.

Jobcentre were also so helpful and good. Patient, supportive, looking for solutions. A hard experience – the change in their situation was laid so bare – but handled with delicacy and kindness.

Nice story from mom I know – her sister hosting Ukranian family, lives in a posh village in Oxfordshire. Asked on village WhatsApp group if anyone had a car they could borrow. One of the local squires said certainly, he had one in one of his barns. That family now bumping round in a huge early 90s v12 jaguar! Apparently so far they’ve only hit the car port with it, but it oak framed so holding up fine!

Situation in Ukraine? Looks utterly grim without end to me. Russia seems willing to trade lives for time and I’m not sure how long western support will continue. Miserable. And with that it mind, I have have no idea as to how our family are really bearing up. They’re building lives here, are outwardly positive, but at the same time are dealing with so much.

@Markie, thanks for posting that. An uplifting and positive post in the sea of gloom that is the war in Ukraine.  It’s a wonderful thing you are doing. It’s great to hear that the community and agencies are doing their best to welcome and accommodate the needs of your guests and others. I’m sure the family are dealing with a great deal and not all of it obvious, but imagine how much worse it would be if they didn’t have somewhere safe and welcoming to stay! You have my huge respect 👍

You guys hosting families are a real inspiration. That’s a massive thing to do.

❤️💔❤️

Well done Markie on taking in a family!

My sister’s family have taken in a Ukrainian mother & her 10 year old daughter. They are Russian speaking Ukrainians & their English is not great. They are learning English & my Sister’s family is learning Russian.
I think the daughter is now attending the local school, and there were a couple of job prospects for the mum. Not sure if she is now working though, or not.
Their Mum/Gran also came over with them & is living with a different family 5mins down the road, so it’s good that they have managed to stay together.

I think there is a local network and they have taken in about 8 families in total, so they have a support group – always nice to have familiar people available I think. They had a large communal lunch recently, where I think there was some likes/dislikes with each others traditional cuisine.
All good stuff & they seem to be settling-in well.

Both sides seem to be using a lot of drones both for spotting and dropping munitions. Drones vary in size from DJI Mavic to TB2. Some seem to being defeated using jammers, some are being shot down using manpads. Given the relative cost of cheap drones to manpads that doesn’t seem sustainable.

Does anyone know if there’s anything better being developed? Slow moving drones at fairly low altitude seem to me to be vulnerable to old fashioned anti aircraft guns especially if radar targeted.

Well done Markie top family effort 👍👍

Brilliant Markie and family!

Situation in Ukraine? Looks utterly grim without end to me. Russia seems willing to trade lives for time and I’m not sure how long western support will continue.

“Zelenskiy tells Germany to give Ukraine support, worry less about Russia” https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-govt-declines-confirm-scholz-will-go-kyiv-thursday-2022-06-13/
Scholz and Macron are finally going to Kyiv for the first time along with Draghi of Italy, although Germany hasn’t publicly confirmed it yet.
The visit by the leaders of the three largest economies in the EU, who all have links to Russia, will hopefully send a signal of continued western support for Ukraine ahead of the G7 hosted by Germany later this month.
Ukraine is running short of ammunition while Germany hasn’t sent promised artillery yet. Hopefully this will change too, it doesn’t take four months to train artillery crews!

Thanks all.

Father’s day coming up. I’ve asked my kids to donate any money they were going to spend on presents to Ukraine charities.

Good idea, I’m going to ask my two to do the same but for Yemen. They desperately need the support. Unfortunately, whilst it seems very fashionable to support Ukraine at the moment, Yemen receives very little international attention, media coverage or support, despite a far greater loss of life and poverty than Ukraine. You can donate to Yemen via Save the Children of Unicef. Or maybe you could split your donation between both?

Our company intranet reporting a 40% reduction in gas deliveries down the Nordstream 1 pipe to Germany from yesterday. Although the official reason given by Gazprom is due to reliability issues with the gas compressors used to push it down the pipe, the real reason seems to be that a couple of large units were sent to Canada for service and now won’t be returned due to sanctions.

This could develop into a significant problem for central Europe supplies if this is the first instance of similar failures. Self inflicted sanctions, love it. 🤣

@tthew, interesting. I wonder how easy it is to turn off and turn on wells – I’m guessing not easy.

I’d also expect production to start to drop as western equipment fails and can’t be replaced – it may be possible to buy replacements from China but it won’t be interchangeable so not quick. I’m guessing that the indigenous Russian equipment manufacturers use parts sourced from around the world so even they won’t be imune.

This could develop into a significant problem for central Europe supplies if this is the first instance of similar failures. Self inflicted sanctions, love it.

It also means prices could skyrocket here, come the cap review in the autumn (what gas the Russians do sell could well be enough to offset the volume if the price rises enough)
With millions in UK being unable to afford heating their homes, it could be a grim winter

The non return of the Siemens Gas Compressors for repair as tthew said above is in the business pages of the Guardian

From the pages…

Gas prices rise on Gazprom problems

On the commodity markets, gas prices are rising while crude oil prices are little changed.

British wholesale gas for day-ahead delivery has risen more than 8% to 180p per therm.

Yesterday, Russia’s state monopoly Gazprom said it was cutting natural gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40%, according to Interfax. It said its capacity to supply gas was constrained by the delayed return of equipment that had been sent for repair by Siemens Energy.

Gazprom said:

Due to the delayed return of gas pumping units by Siemens from repair, testing of the service life of the GPUs [gas pumping units] and identified technical malfunctions of the engines, only three GPUs can now be used at the ‘Portova’ compressor station.

This has prompted Gazprom to reduce gas supplies to up to 100m cubic metres instead of the usual 167m cm.

Gazprom no longer exports gas westwards through Poland via the Yamal-Europe pipeline following Russian sanctions against EuRoPol Gaz, which owns the Polish section. Flows via Yamal-Europe continue eastwards from Germany to Poland.

There are also fears of liquefied natural gas shortages, after Freeport LNG, operator of one of the largest US export plants producing LNG, said it would shut for at least three weeks after an explosion at its Texas Gulf coast facility last week.

If this is accurate, it suggests Russia is really struggling to replace losses.

These developments are far more important than which side holds SDonestsk in a week or two. The important results of this engagement won’t be who controls specific territory, it’s the relative damage taken and whether the losses can be made up.

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) June 15, 2022

Anyone expecting anything from todays visit by Macron/Scholz/Draghi?

interesting. I wonder how easy it is to turn off and turn on wells – I’m guessing not easy.

For safety reasons, it’s a quick and simple process to shut in or open up a well. Restarting the production plant for onward processing is the more complicated part.

I’m expecting France and Germany to make promises they fail to deliver on 🙁

Looks like another accident

I’m expecting France and Germany to make promises they fail to deliver on

Really? The French Ceasar artillery are apparently working really well for Ukrainians and I believe they’ve just delivered more

https://twitter.com/walter_report/status/1535732598730903553?t=8MWGdbW5u8E0CxohnTXsGg&s=19

Really? The French Ceasar artillery are apparently working really well for Ukrainians and I believe they’ve just delivered more

A grand total of… 12

That’s not necessarily a criticism, could just be linked to availability. Im not really that familiar with any military hardware beyond they are usually green, and usually have a tube out of which a thing that goes bang comes out of. But aren’t ‘most’ western armies reliant on air power to mitigate an opponent with overwhelming artillery capabilities? Which is what Ukraine is facing, and they definitely dont have the air force for that.

All of which could mean, most of the western countries in Europe are limited on whats available to send?

Thats all questions, no statements from me just there.

To an extent , yes, but we also have lots of manoeuvre units on the ground as we won’t always be fighting with air superiority. Plus you might not always have a jet available the minute you need it.

You also need to physically hold and defend terrain. That requires boots on the ground, armour and artillery.

12 pieces of artillery aren’t going to change the battle space.

The French have been supplying Ukraine with a variety of materiel, you don’t read much about Italy and the German effort has been worthy of a Python sketch
My opinion is that Germany doesn’t have the kit to send; they’ve consistently under-delivered to NATO over many years and they’re still flying around 90 Tornadoes. We binned ours in 2019 (sources Wikipedia)
The other side of the argument are the clear links to Russia that France, Germany and Italy have. Germany and Italy have a dependency on Russian energy supplies (1 and 2 in the European supply charts) and have been very slow in making their visit to Kyiv while buying from Russia. By contrast Ursula von der Leyen, on behalf of the EU, has visited twice

A grand total of… 12

A lot of this linked to supply. The French have 70-80 CAESAR (I’m not shouting, it’s an acronym 🙂 )
They deployed 8 to Afghanistan and 4 to Mali and 4 to Iraq to support their own troops, so 12 is a decent number. Now, if everyone in Europe could do the same…

Ukraine has received 30/40 pieces of artillery, so far. That’s a fraction of what they need.

What does it mean with the EC approving Ukraine as a member state in principal? Any military implications, like now other member states have justification to wade in?

America marking a big deal about supplying HIMARS rocket system, then giving 4 ? WTF!

Here we go again

Will wait for verrification

Reportedly this is the video of tonight’s successful hit of Russian military transport “Vasily Bekh” by Ukrainian anti-naval missiles. “Vasily Bekh” was bringing anti-air system “Tor” and ammunition to Russia-occupied Snake island (Zmeiiny), Ukrainian Navy said. pic.twitter.com/Qd1Gc9FfkV

— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) June 17, 2022

The key is to recognise the 2 breakaway states..and then declare war on them.
Any russian troops killed will be called mercenaries fighting for a foreign power.

Or we declare war on Ukraine to oust the nazi threat on the EU border. They capitulate immediately and our troops progress rapidly through ukranian held territory.
The Nazi threat eliminated , we can call it a victory and the Russians can **** off back home.
A temporary puppet regime is installed ,elections called and zelensky gets voted back in.
If Russia wanted to continue it’s expansion they would have to think very carefully.