Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

Interesting that the only other country exempted was Egypt, and that was specifically to keep Egypt on side while the genocide continues. It shows how precarious Israel has made its own future that it's chief protector must also buy off Cairo.

This only affirms two things, the US is no longer the anchor of NATO, and that it has no right to criticise China and the EU for investments in the developing world.

I don't think right , or morality comes into it , nations tend do what they can get away with , in their own interests - until it all goes wrong and they can't ..

Russia doesn't have a right to a sphere of influence ( sorry Mr Meerschaumer ) , but if its widely assumed that they do have that right , Russia (and others ) will take it and use it .. and then bleat about the unfairness of being called out on it ..

china and the US the same ,, they don't have a right, but they'll take it ..

There were very obvious similarities. in Afghanistan, the US supplied weapons that gave the Mujhadeed the edge on the battlefield, mainly handheld weapons capable of destroying Russian helicopters and tanks, but the straw that broke the camel's back was the cost of keeping their army fighting there. Russia was facing bankruptcy, pretty much the same situation that they are now facing with Ukraine,

Yes, even with the far greater resources of the USSR available, something Putin doesn't have. So, no matter what way Putin spins his battlefield "Victorys", he is losing on the Economic front. Time isn't on his side.

@Markcheese "I don't think right , or morality comes into it , nations tend do what they can get away with , in their own interests - until it all goes wrong and they can't .."

Realpolitik - Wikipedia

so basically since Juicy Joe has left the office Ukraine no longer has to play nice with russias oil refineries ?

Nah. That'd be nothing more than tit-for-tat revenge and a waste of drones/missiles for a short-lived effect - just look at how resilient the Ukrainian grid is despite constant strikes.

Hitting refineries and storage depots is much more disruptive. It looks like Ukraine lately are making a point of revisiting several sites to put them out of commission completely.

That's really bad news for Russia. Crude oil is great for export, but you can't use it in your T62 or your Chinese quad bike. Refined oil products were already in short supply (hence ban on exports, and a brief period where Russia had to import fuel). Taking yet another "local" site out of production will put even more strain on supply chains that are already shaky.

Those newly arrived NK howitzers aren't going to be much use if there's not enough diesel to drive them from the rail depot to the front line.

how are the Korean weapons transported? Russia hasn’t a very long border with North Korea. And it’s a long way round. They’re hardly going through china.

Yeah, but the difference is that Ukraine seem to have a good supply of electrical replacement parts for when their grids are hit….but Russia not so much. Their whole logistical setup is crumbling.

No , not tit for tat , crippling industry - crippling rail transport, ruining morale, making the Russians move air defense, . A properly co-ordinated and timed attack,with the right type of munition, could / knock the grid out , possibly for weeks ..

I assume the Americans were blocking such an attack

Not a hope of being able to attack enough of the Russian grid with enough of the right type of munition in a short enough time to be able to achieve any meaningful results. All electrical grids have measures in place to guard against violent swings in voltage, and even when those measures work less effectively than they're supposed to (plenty of examples of "accidental" collapse from Europe and America in recent decades) the collaspe is always contained to a relatively local area.

Then, within that area, you'll have dozens if not hundreds of back-up systems that kick in while the affected areas are progressively re-connected to the rest-of-Russia network, and you can be damn sure it'll be the war-critical industries that are prioritised (if they're even affected in the first place).

As for ruining morale? In Russia? Your regular Russian will just rob his neighbour's furniture to fuel his stove and be happy to struggle on till he gets his call-up papers.

The rail network is crippling itself through lack of personnel, lack of maintenance and random (or not-so-random) acts of sabotage. But if the power went out, Russia still has diesel locos that can haul wagons on the same lines.

No: the amount of resources needed to cause any significant and lasting disruption to the electrical grid across Russia would be immense. For the same input, Ukraine could impose a 500/1000km no-diesel-no-petrol-no-jet-fuel zone on the Russian side of the border and dramatically cut the number of attacks on its own territory. And maintain the moral high-ground of not targetting civilian populations.

I suspect quite a few transfers are made over that bridge. It’s heavily monitored to prevent people escaping North Korea via it. Would be very interesting if the AFU managed to time an explosion just when a munitions shipment went over it. The whole thing would be a write off.

Interesting trivia about the area that I brought up before. The little marshy triangle of land on the most southern part of the Russian side of the border is actually disputed territory with South Korea, but not with North Korea. North Korea ceeded it years ago to their Soviet overlords, but historically that land there was on the western side of the Tumen before one end of it silted up. (You can still see the remains of the river in the map, marking the original border). Apparently was the site of an important battle in Korean folklore. South Korea never relinquished their claim, and naturally don’t recognise Pyongyang ceeding it away.

Report that Ukraine continues to make progress in disarming putin's terrorists:

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-ukraine-strikes-drone-storage-facility-in-russias-oryol-oblast-and-destroys-200-shaheds-general-staff-reports/

Good news for Ukraine especially as their refinaries are burning too.

https://ubn.news/trump-seeks-to-collapse-oil-prices-and-deprive-putin-of-resources-to-fund-his-war-saudi-arabia-and-russia-have-responded/

Apparently two more of the Ukrainian fortresses have fallen in quick succession, Toretsk and Velyka Novosilka. The Ukrainian soldiers at the latter suffered particularly badly. As they have done repeatedly during the war, the Ukrainian high command abandoned their defending troops to fight to the end rather than take any of the opportunities to withdraw them and preserve their lives. They seemingly never learn, hence the widespread manpower issues they have now despite countless conscription waves.

So as before the Russians were able to envelop the town, trapping the defenders - seemingly the 110th brigade was trapped in the town, but it was likely severely undermanned so likely not a brigade in reality. There is multiple rivers around the town and while this helped defensively, it also meant the Ukrainians were largely trapped by those same rivers when inevitably they broke and were routed. So those trying to somehow escape without orders suffered even worse than the troops who were routed from Avdeyevka or Ugledar. The Russians made repeated offers for them to surrender so hopefully the majority were smart enough to take that option, but reportedly the number of dead the Ukrainians suffered there is very high.

Trump made a claim a week ago that the Ukrainians had suffered 700,000 dead. It's a shocking number, the Russians a few months ago estimated a million dead and wounded, but Trump - as US president - must be getting his figures from US intelligence and by extension from the Ukrainians themselves. 700K would be the optimistic number if its sourced from the Ukrainians. You would expect the dead to be outnumbered by the wounded, but is it viable for the Ukrainians to evacuate their wounded when Russian drones are so prevalent? Are poorly trained, poorly motivated Ukrainian conscripts able to render effective medical aid to stabilise badly wounded soldiers? Survival rates could be much lower than expected from scenarios where there is trained medics and the ability to quickly evacuate wounded to proper medical care.

The loss of life on the Ukrainian side does seem to be reflected in the recent exchanges of dead bodies. In the most recent exchange last week, the Ukrainians received 757 dead. Russia received 49. That implies a casualty ratio of 15 dead Ukrainians for every dead Russian. Earlier exchanges from late last year had ratios of 5 to 1, rising to 10 to 1 and now 15 to 1. The solution is not throwing 18 year old kids into that.

Trump has at least been talking about seeking peace, but its increasingly clear he has no real ideas on what to do. Ukraine - in its own interests - desperately needs to seek peace with Russia.