Russia - threadbanned users in OP

That’s also good to know.

The Russians must be bleeding money (and soldiers+equipment).

So hopefully if Germany makes it through this winter (hopefully it’s mild) Russia will be running out of money at that stage.

This energy war could be Russias last card to play?

They would have at least 80 days for the whole country at 100%. Germany’s new storage targets were set at 75% for Sept. 1 and 85% for Oct. 1. Their final target is 95% by Nov 1st. That will largely see them through the winter.

Dyr, your anti-eu rhetoric is tiresome, if anything shows it just shows you that you bought part of the propaganda over the last number of years from the Kremlin.

Brexit was designed bought and paid for by Russia. So was Trumps election. Those 2 events were the prelude to the Ukrainian invasion and the date was set as a "now or never" by Putin, because he had judged that Brexit and Trump (and his failure to get re-elected) had by the point of the invasion reached a highpoint and that was as far as his efforts to damage western institutions would go.

Russian Navy TU-154 enroute to Kaliningrad...

Just now, on FR24, I count almost 100 Western Aircraft, operated by Russian carriers such as Aeroflot, Ural, S7, Siberian, both in Russian airspace around Moscow and on that circuitous route through the Baltic down to Kaliningrad.

So what, I hear you say. Well, Aircraft maintenance is extremely stringent, even in small Aircraft. This was beaten into me by Capt. Darby Kennedy during weekend work at Weston when I was a young buck. You can imagine the frequency of maintenance and parts replacement on commercial jets like Boeing and Airbus.

Both companies stopped sending parts to Russia in March. Now, Russian aircraft greasers are pretty inventive, but that only goes so far. Take tyres, for example. These wear out fast. 3 to 4 landings per day takes its toll and you've all smelled and seen the rubber left behind on the tarmac after each landing. Only Boeing or Airbus can supply these tyres ( not directly from manufacturer), and most tyres get replaced every 2 to 3 months.

That's just tyres. Its going to be an interesting few months when the over 800 Western aircraft operated by Russia start failing their NCT's, so to speak....

They are probably preparing a report critizing the Ukrainian's of building residential buildings beside potential Russian artillery sites.

lol amnesty have consistently called out Russians for war crimes - that they tried to hold ukraine to same standard and published one report against them and now people are throwing their toys out of the pram and decrying them as Russian propagandists (despite amnesty being all but banned in russia)

But even if they were to 'buckle', it's unlikely to have much influence on the anti-Russia coalition. All that would happen is that you would hear more voices in Germany calling for a peace settlement, but the likes of the US would not pay much attention to this - the Russian energy situation hardly impacts on them at all.

Russia doesn't want the west's support, but it wants to erode the support for Ukraine. And this is precisely how they are doing it, by getting an otherwise respected organization to give them a hand once in a while. It is not the first time Russia gives support to people and causes that are usually against them because they are not looking for sympathy, they are looking for division and discontent.