Ukraine

I think what we are seeing in terms of poor military equipment, obvious poor maintenance and suggestions of “creaming off the top” from the maintenance budgets is highly endemic of the Russian corrupt culture these days, something Putin himself has arguably nurtured more than anyone else.

But according to Russian Media Putin only owns a small flat in Moscow and a ‘trailer’ ;o)

French customs have impounded yacht owned by Igor Sechin who is top man at Rosneft.
Germany 1 – 1 France.

You’ll be looking at the Maxxis Occupiers or the Panaracer Invaders….

The Schwalbe Mad Vlad would be worth a look also.

Deutschland 83/86/89 series

The Same Sky is also bingable.

Schwalbe Dirty Dictator
Maxxis Crazy Ivan

Having just watched Lavrov’s latest unhinged rant about Hollywood movies and Torch waving Nazi parades

You do know the torch-waving nazi parades are real though right?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-idUSKBN1GV2TY

(For the hard of thinking, no I don’t think that justifies the invasion)

The Oligarchs are another distraction. If Putin manages to occupy half of Ukraine and denies it access to the Black Sea it will be a massive victory for him, never mind the economic factors. When he dies he wants to be remembered as the man who expanded the borders of the Russian empire, making Russia ‘great again’.

As for the human cost? What did Stalin say “one death is a tragedy….”. If he can achieve his territorial aims whilst mostly commiting conscripts to the slaughter, keeping enough of his professional units intact he’ll be a happy man.

Turns out that the Ukrainians are not living under a fascist dictator and they quite like being Ukrainian.

Despite the Pandora Papers stuff and the fact that some have taken “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” way too far and tipped over into rw nutjobbery(*), it could be worse, i.e., …. Russia!!

(*) Google Vasyl Slipak – we came across a musical memorial garden for him while we were in Kyiv – an interesting example of both how things are likely to go with keen amateurs going to fight, and what the grain of fact is that the Russians are grabbing on to for justification of their “omg they are all NAZIs I tell you” claims. TLDR He was an opera singer with a Russian girlfriend and a good job in Paris, who went to fight in Eastern Ukraine with a v v right-wing militia, got killed, was awarded Hero Of Ukraine posthumously.

OSINT Technical saying Ukrainian jets have been targeting the convoy. No confirmation yet though.

Not sure how much forest there is.

According to the mighty google, about 9 million hectares, so half the size of England. It’s a massive place for an invading army to hold.

Putin’s objectives may be shifting to the south, where the landscape is more forgiving.

Russian President Putin called French President Emmanuel Macron this morning. The conversation lasted 90 minutes. The conclusion: "the worst is to come" an Elysée source said. Putin intends to take control of the whole of Ukraine. The language is "neutralisation"…1/n

— Kim Willsher (@kimwillsher1) March 3, 2022

Putin’s objectives may be shifting to the south, where the landscape is more forgiving.

and where it allows for a nice motorway to Crimea

“Putin’s objectives may be shifting to the south, where the landscape is more forgiving.”

Or his objective was the South all along?

I think Putin’s objective is to totally occupy the whole of Ukraine and install a puppet regime.

Russia's plan A involved limiting strikes on the Ukrainian military and infrastructure to avoid angering the Ukrainian population too much, but that plan assumed little resistance and it failed. It isn't clear to me what kind of long-term solution Russia can achieve now. 2/

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 3, 2022

Schwalbe Mad Vlad

Please please please release a mud tyre with this name.

“I think Putin’s objective is to totally occupy the whole of Ukraine and install a puppet regime.”

What you want and what you get… Its fairly common knowledge that Putin sees Ukraine as ‘The Ukraine”. But consider this:

Were that convoy composed of empty vehicles it would have achieved a strategic aim for the Russian forces. We in the West have been obsessed with it for 4 days, whilst the situation in Kyiv remains stable in comparison to what has been happening elsewhere in the country.

Half of Ukraine and all of the Black Sea coastline might be the fall back position but it would still be an enormous victory for Putin.

If Russia occupies the east there could be a massive exodus of Ukranians fleeing West and Putin would find it easier to ‘Belorussify’ the eastern territory, as opposed to having to deal with a nationwide insurrection.

From an Israeli news report about broken down Russian equipment which actually went on air. I know words cant Express how shitty this whole thing is but this made me smile

Spot the issue with some of this "footage" of the fighting in #Ukraine shown on an Israeli channel pic.twitter.com/77XE4AZ8dC

— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) March 3, 2022

Or his objective was the South all along?

Whatever territorial gain he achieves he will claim as his objective all along, so we’ll never know. We don’t know if he still considers taking all of Ukraine a viable proposition, but he will be hoping for an outcome that allows him not lose face. Not sure that exists.

He may take some more Black Sea ports, but his bigger problem is that there will be f all shipping arriving there, or any other Russian port.

Sanctions will continue at the current level as long as his troops are within Ukraine’s borders.

There may be a few too many armchair military experts among us but when it comes to tyres…..

You do know the torch-waving nazi parades are real though right?

I do – but i’m pretty sure the Ukrainian security services already had a handle on them…

Half of Ukraine and all of the Black Sea coastline might be the fall back position but it would still be an enormous victory for Putin.

No, because…

Sanctions will continue at the current level as long as his troops are within Ukraine’s borders.

“Sanctions will continue at the current level as long as his troops are within Ukraine’s borders.”

And Putin won’t care.

That’s the problem with sanctions, asset-freezing, sports bans etc – at some point we either tear them down or we just cause further isolationism.

What do you mean ‘armchair military experts’?
I’ve read Biggles books.
Just call me Air Vice-Marshall.

Thought this was a good thread. Putin and the oligarchs have turned Russia into a shell that doesn’t produce anything, doesn’t export anything but fossil fuels, and is going to collapse under the sanctions:

This video showing a Russian father hammering an iPad to pieces in company of his son to protest apple's boycott of Russia and @ThreshedThought's comment point to an important source of Putin's territorial expansionism. At the end of the Cold War Russia did not just lose an/1 https://t.co/sJ9dw3laEw

— VinzenzHediger (@VinzenzHediger) March 3, 2022

“Sanctions will continue at the current level as long as his troops are within Ukraine’s borders.”

And Putin won’t care.

Second, sanctions were an inevitable result of this invasion. Putin knew that, and in this case, we don’t have to read his mind: he talked about it in his speeches leading up to the war. Russia, with its vaunted $640 billion in reserves, was prepared, Putin said. He was wrong.

— Sam Greene (@samagreene) March 3, 2022

The real problem for Putin is that the people who are out on the streets protesting against the war are the usual suspects. It will get worse if — when — the people queueing at the ATM turn the (metaphorical) corner and join the protests.

— Sam Greene (@samagreene) March 3, 2022

The best the West can hope for is to hang the curtain rails for the new iron curtain down the length of the Dnipro river. In order to do that Ukraine needs to either hold on to Odessa, or somehow wrench it back in peace negotiations.

It could be Putin’s biggest bargaining chip, as I suggested earlier, he could trade it for all the land east of the Dnipro and in ceding it he would claim to show how he is able to ‘compromise’ in order to find a peacefull solution.

Sorry to be so cynical bit ultimately, a lot of the supply the Ukranians with arms to fight an underground resistance narrative sounds like a Star Wars script. Is this David and Goliath or Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader?

Wouldn’t be hard for Putin to turn the supply of aid, arms, and support to Ukraine as another reason to stick it out and great evidence of NATO aggression and expansion to sell it back home.

I sent a message to a friend of mine in Moscow this morning, his reply was “Yeah, things are getting worse. Our government is going crazy”

People in Moscow know what’s going on and they don’t all agree with it.

You do know the torch-waving nazi parades are real though right?

That link is 4 years old. A lot has happened since then. Although to be fair I have no idea if the nazis are more active or less now.

@doris5000 – thanks for posting that up, its a really interesting analysis.

So basically, Russia was in terminal decline anyway, due to its financially illiterate, clueless, corrupt government, but the sanctions have just turbo-charged that economic decline to a huge degree

Stuff you don’t really think about like Boeing and Airbus pulling out of maintenance contracts means that all commercial airliners will be grounded within 2 weeks. In a country the size of Russia, I’m sure no more internal flights will have a huge impact, and they can’t fly anywhere but internally anyway

There may be a few too many armchair military experts among us but when it comes to tyres…..

The one area I am, possibly ironically, a lot more qualified than most on here to talk about… 😂 Although not directly military tyres… But still.

Schwalbe Mad Vlad

Has provided a few laughs already… 😂😉👍🏻

The imperial stormtroopers in that short “footage” up there though… 😂

Maybe that’s how Mad Vlad sees his troops? 🤷🏻‍♂️

The view from the EU. I bet they’re really shocked at the complete inaction of this Russian-funded government to do anything to really sanction the oligarchs that pay for their election campaigns

The yachts of oligarchs have been seized in France and Germany.

London is paved with the bloody gold of Russian billionaires close to Putin's regime. When will Johnson act? #StandWithUkraine️ https://t.co/AfqI2DGWMy

— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) March 3, 2022

“apocryphal”

Yes I know what it means. I was just stating the reason.

“People in Moscow know what’s going on and they don’t all agree with it.”

I watched that documentary about the independent Russian tv station last night. It was a portrait of diminishing hope as their world closed in on them incrementally an inexorably.

Whilst things might change with the Russian public, apathy is so firmly entrenched that it isn’t going to happen overnight and when it does, the crackdown could be utterly ferocious.

Ask ypurself: Would Putin be prepared to inflict the same type of pain on his own citizens as he does to those of Ukraine?

Sadly it isn’t surprising that Boris won’t sanction his paymasters. Spineless load of shits

An Apache swarm from the Polish border would be a sight to see.

What? You think that would actually happen if the Russian airforce wasn’t in the West?

So basically, Russia was in terminal decline anyway, due to its financially illiterate, clueless, corrupt government, but the sanctions have just turbo-charged that economic decline to a huge degree

I noticed that the rubble has been in steady decline against the dollar for the last 15 years or so. Even before the war it was worth around 1/3 of what it was in 2008, now it is worth 1/4. That series of posts above helps explain why it is so.

So, Russia are closing in on a couple of nuclear power plants in the south of the country. Theoretically, what would happen if they were targeted by missiles, would they go up or are they fairly safe from that sort of bombardment..? I’ve no clue.