UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑26 Apr 2022, 09:44
The UN is irrelevant now. It is completely broken. The security council cannot function.
+1....
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is currently in Russia for talks, but what can do ?
Apart from maybe obtaining some concessions on the targeting of civilians...
"Anna Moskwa, Poland's climate and energy minister, confirmed it had stopped receiving supplies through the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which pumps Russian gas to Poland and Germany"
I think it is about time I said this looks like the start of WW3 again.
Current BBC news headlines:
Russia cuts off gas supplies to Europe.
Ukraine war to cause the worst food price shock for 50 years.
UK says Ukraine can use British weapons to attack Russian supply lines in Russia.
40 countries meeting at a German air base to pledge more weapons to Ukraine.
This is WW3.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
"Anna Moskwa, Poland's climate and energy minister, confirmed it had stopped receiving supplies through the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which pumps Russian gas to Poland and Germany"
Gas supplies to Bulgaria also to be stopped, according to news reports in the last few minutes.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
I'm not sure 'Russia cuts off supply' is the right take. Isn't it that Poland and Bulgaria have chosen not to pay via the Gazprombank/Ruble account the rest of the EU have chosen to do? Rest of EU have accepted the Ruble workaround, to keep the gas flowing, Poland did not so the gas stops.
UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑26 Apr 2022, 21:06
I think it is about time I said this looks like the start of WW3 again.
Current BBC news headlines:
Russia cuts off gas supplies to Europe.
Ukraine war to cause the worst food price shock for 50 years.
UK says Ukraine can use British weapons to attack Russian supply lines in Russia.
40 countries meeting at a German air base to pledge more weapons to Ukraine.
This is WW3.
Obviously this is a proxy war between the west / NATO and Russia. The Soviets and the west have fought several such proxy wars over the decades and never tipped the balance into WW3. This is different though - thanks to globalisation, the west is able to wage a fairly effective 'total economic war' and like it or not, the rest of the world feels the economic/resource implications of this proxy war unlike any previous.
The non-military impacts will be felt the world over, but that itself doesn't make it a 'world war'? What does tip the balance? If more meaningful alliances between Russia and India/China/Middle East/Africa emerge? If NATO actually starts firing weapons instead of relying on a Ukrainian finger on the trigger?
Vortex2 wrote: ↑26 Apr 2022, 22:04
I suspect that many of the Ukrainan flag waving Brits will also be at the front of the queue for iodine tablets.
Do please remember that iodine tablets ARE NOT a cure for, or a preventative against, radiation damage in general. If the incident resulted in the release of radioactive iodine 131 then iodine tablets DO give some protective against thyroid cancer. No protection is given against other fallout, nor is any protection given against damage to organs other than the thyroid.
If nuclear war seems likely I expect a great deal of hysteria around "radiation pills" and panic buying of expensive and fake products. And iodine poisonings among people who have assumed that "more is better"
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
The U.S. has been feeding the Ukrainian military with real-time intelligence on Putin's war plan, which allowed Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the invasion.
Ukraine's successful attack on the Russian IL-76 transport plane near the Kyiv airport in February was conducted after receiving info from the U.S. in an unprecedented intelligence-sharing operation with a non-NATO partner, former and current U.S. officials told NBC.
Two such planes were brought down around the same time. Details on which of the two aircraft were shot down thanks to US intelligence have not been shared. Russia hasn't disclosed how many troops died, but the planes can each carry up to 150 troops.
Although Russians eventually took the airport, Ukraine's campaign in the skies with U.S. intelligence impaired Russia's operations in the region and has helped Ukraine fight back its invaders, the officials, speaking under the condition of anonymity, added.
'From the get-go, we leaned pretty heavily forward in sharing both strategic and actionable intelligence with Ukraine,' one U.S. official briefed on the matter told NBC. 'It's been impactful both at a tactical and strategic level.
'There are examples where you could tell a pretty clear story that this made a major difference.'
The intelligence provided by the U.S. has allowed Ukrainian forces to know where to strike, what Russian units are active and which are decoys, and where the invading forces plan to bomb.
One U.S. official told NBC that the secret operations have saved Ukrainian soldiers and equipment while causing Russia to waste time and ammunition.
'The Russian military has literally been cratering empty fields where air defenses were once set up,' the official said after Ukrainian forces were moved following a U.S. tip. 'It has had an enormous impact on the Russian military's ability on the ground.'
The U.S. is likely to provide even greater forms of intelligence to help Ukraine fight back after Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence, withdrew orders earlier this month that prohibited intelligence sharing for the purposes of regaining captured territory or adding Ukrainian strikes in Crimea or Donbas, NBC reported.
America has done some really dumb things in the past, but I can't believe they would get 'officially' involved as in their own military involvement. Putin would go full on batshit crazy, the yanks must know that.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has warned that Russia's threat of a "proportional response" against Britain for backing Ukrainian strikes behind Russian lines is "unlawful."
Get ready to Duck and Cover ... or Protect and Survive.
Nobody asked me if I wanted our forces to attack Russia or provide huge amounts of weapons to a non-democratic state which hardly anyone in the UK has heard of or could find on a map.
dustiswhatweare wrote: ↑27 Apr 2022, 11:10
America has done some really dumb things in the past, but I can't believe they would get 'officially' involved as in their own military involvement. Putin would go full on batshit crazy, the yanks must know that.
I agree that America is most unlikely to get directly involved, but I do perceive some risk that indirect involvement by sharing intelligence and by supplying weapons could still result in an extreme reaction by putin.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
I take the strength of the Ukrainian resistance, and the extent of support they are receiving from their ex-soviet neighbours as a strong indication of what the democratic choice of the Ukrainian people would be if given the choice of Russian or Western 'dominion'
There has been speculation with not much evidence about Putin's health in the last few years, but a very short video is now in the media showing him walk very stiltedly and with his right hand shaking or twitching in a way that suggests parkinson's disease.
If it is an accurate diagnosis, he may only have a few years of physically mobile life left. Autocratic dictators do not tend to survive long when constrained to a wheelchair.
Still probably too long a prognosis to help much in this conflict
Let's not forget that the first time that Russia/CCCP threatened the UK with nuclear destruction was in 1956 and they have doing it regularly since then. They have also been regularly supplying intelligence to the UK enemies and killing UK citizens since then.
If I were the Russians, then upping the ante by sinking a few LNG tankers en route to the UK, might be more effective and less likely to lead to global nuclear war. Perhaps they are not because it may expose their submarine fleet to reprisals and shine a light on the effectiveness or otherwise of that part of their military service.
Russia is looking like it is being hoisted on their own petard and handing over Putin (ailing or not) may be a way out. The West should keep reminding of this. It could be an offer that a group of kleptocratic generals who like to indulge in "I've got the biggest hat and the most medals on my uniform" wearing competitions might be open to.
