Russia - threadbanned users in OP

After a complete cleansing

Says it all really

The Chinese ambassador to the United States says that China will not send weapons and ammunition to support Russia’s war in Ukraine and that Beijing would “do everything to de-escalate the crisis”.

Qin Gang's comments come after US President Joe Biden warned his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday that there would be "consequences" if Beijing provided material support to Moscow.

Beijing denied reports last week that it was open to providing Moscow with armaments as "disinformation", but China has been reluctant to rebuke Russia for its invasion.

Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, Gang complained that public condemnation by the West "doesn't help" and that "good diplomacy" was needed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60802572

I don't think we've seen direct evidence of Russia using large thermobaric warheads yet. They have definitely used their TOS-1 thermobaric rockets. Many of their smaller man-portable devices also have thermobaric versions which have been documented in Ukraine to varying degrees; but in the grand scheme of things they wouldn't be particularly powerful individually.

Russia does however have thermobaric versions of many of their other weapon types such as their cruise and ballistic missiles; I'm not sure if any of those have been used or how many they might have. Russia has in the past claimed to have tested the largest thermobaric weapon in the world which is more powerful than the smallest nuclear warheads; but presumably even if it did exist it probably wouldn't exist in significant quantities. I also believe it can only be dropped from its strategic bombers which are unlikely to be allowed close enough to drop any as things currently stand; although it might be a possibility in Mariupol or in the East.

One thing they haven't used (certainly not extensively at least) is incendiary munitions; particularly white phosphorous munitions. There were some captured on video but it was suggested they were conventional incendiary munitions. Obviously using these over large suburban and city areas could cause significant destruction due to fire.

As far as I can tell Russia have used effectively every type of conventional munition at their disposal in Ukraine at least once. Cluster bombs, thermobaric weapons, incendiaries, "suicide drones", sea and land mines, etc. There have even been documented prototypes in Ukraine which are believed to be the only ones of their kind.

They have also used what appeared to be civilian grade tear gas against protesters; which is technically a chemical weapon.

So what's left for them to use? In order of likelihood maybe something like large thermobaric warheads, larger-scale or military-grade chemical, nuclear, and biological.

I mean operating from Polish air fields only adds lots of new challenges and makes others even more difficult; and doesn't really address any of the other problems with NATO operating over Ukraine.

And the thing about the Russian military stockpile is that most of it works at least for a little while; or for at least one use. Would you like to take a chance that 0 out of ~6000 nuclear warheads aren't in good enough working order to fly in the general direction of something important and go boom? For all their failures in Ukraine they have managed to cause quite a bit of damage; in case you hadn't noticed.

Speaking of chemical weapons:

And naturally enough two days ago Russia were talking about this very chemical plant being a target for Ukrainian "nationalists":

I've read that Finland and Poland together have the biggest field artillery in the whole of Europe, also Finland is an arms supplier and is so well prepared if russia were to attack.

There is , technically , a way that NATO can GET DIRECTLY INVOLVED in the Ukr.. and is as follows :- NATO updates it’s requirements re entry into NATO and would go like this . It would create a special category for new applications and call it Temporary/ Guest / Provisional - or whatever- members and such membership is sanctioned once the application form hits the NATO Deak. NATO would then make available ALL of its services to the Guest /Temporary member. NATO would not require the new member to fulfill all the requirements of a full member from the outset. ‘An exchange of letters’ might be required - within a very confidential environment might be required beforehand Re NATO agreeing to ‘immediately ‘ accept a new guest member

The above arrangement might be in place for- say- 5 years and during this period NATO would access the new member re FULL membership. The 5 year period could be extended if required.

if above strategy is now in place NATO could immediately put in place a no fly zone , etc. Putin is now confronted with a very changed situation

APART FROM THE SPEED OF TH E ABOVE the BEAUTY of it is that RUSSIA CANNOT VETO IT.

I know that it does not get rid of the nuke issue but Putin clearly understands that NATO will protect every inch of NATO SPACE.

Mariupol obviously hasn't surrendered ..

I think Israel is trending on Twitter for the 5th time in this war. Literally a war in Europe, and Europeans are obsessed about the minutia of response from a state the size of Wales in the Middle East.

Europe: Boycott Israel! BDS! From the river to the sea! Israel is illegitimate! we are all Hamas! Muh Israel lobby!

Also Europe: Why won't Israel jump to Europe's aid when Europe demands it.?!?!?

If Israel sent weapons in, the same dastardly crew who're just now claiming that Israel is doing nothing about a war in Europe would be saying "typical of Israel trying to profit from war sending in weapons to cause more bloodshed"

Interesting that there's been no mention of Turkey's very muted response. No Jews, no news.