Ukraine Watch...

[PS_RalphW]

Video evidence that the barge bridge was damaged, not clear how long to repair.

All wars result in war crimes on all sides, it is inevitable in the heat of battle, and all too common for tactics to ignore the rules higher up the command structure. That said, Russia still has a total war mind set, and a basic racism that values non white and non Russian blood as cheap, and a military command that is happy to damage enemy civilian morale any way they can,

All sides will reflect the enemy as evil, and accuse them of the very crimes they themselves commit. It is basic propaganda. We will only get some measure of the true level of crime years after the shooting xstops

[Vortex2]

and a basic racism that values non white and non Russian blood as cheap

.. thought you were talking about the US for a moment there ..

[PS_RalphW]

Russia is accusing Ukraine of preparing to us a nuclear dirty bomb in the war. This is a ludicrous accusation because who would deliberately contaminate their own land and make it uninhabitable in the middle of a bloody war to reclaim it from an illegal invasion?

Clearly this it is Russia that is considering using such a bomb and is trying to deflect blame in advance, or more likely testing the diplomatic waters to see if they could get away with using one without triggering the wrath of NATO into more effective support for Ukraine. The obvious target for such a bomb would be Kherson City.

[BritDownUnder]

Russia is accusing Ukraine of preparing to us a nuclear dirty bomb in the war. This is a ludicrous accusation because who would deliberately contaminate their own land and make it uninhabitable in the middle of a bloody war to reclaim it from an illegal invasion?

Hey that's my idea dammit!

Why can't they go out and get their own idea? Like a new supervirus or energy blockade or something a bit more original.

[PS_RalphW]

Russia is now making vielled threats against US satellites which are being used to aid Ukraine. Apart from the US considering such an attack an act of war against itself, this could be catastrophic to global communications and navigation, not to mention scientific earth monitoring. If us and Russia start destroying each others satellites, the quantity of space junk could quickly trigger a cascade of destruction. Even if only low altitude satellites were involved, it would take years or decades for the resulting shrapnel to fall back to earth.

[Vortex2]

Germany : Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier's speech to the nation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPxRmad9yZQ

If you speak German, take a look at this long video.
(I'm sure a translation will appear soon enough).

Steinmeier seems to say:

* Germany needs to rearm.
* Germany will never return to the pre-crisis status quo.
* The current issues will last years.
* Germans will need to be prepared to suffer for 2 years or more.
* Strong German firms will survive the crisis.
* Financial support for firms and families isw needed now.
* He suggests that Russia will never be in a postion to be agressive ever again.
* He suggests that Russia is also fighting Germany (and thus I assume NATO).
* The unity of the anti-Russia grouping is more important than Germany or individuals.
* The German rich will need to pay their fair share of the crisis costs.
* Germany need to build its own effective cyber warfare systems.
* Germany need to come together : young & old, East & West, established with recent immigrants
* Even in this time of crisis, Germany is the most powerful country in Europe, and will remain/become a self-sufficnet bastion in the middle of Europe.
* Despite its coming self-sufficiency, Germany will build connections to many other lands.
* After this crisis is past, Germany will cast off gas & oil and will become a renewable powerhouse.

My thoughts & opinions:

* The West has decided to crush Russia, whatever it takes.
* The undamaged Nordstream 2 pipeline was deliberately left unharmed (by the US) so that it can provide some gas to Germanyy when Russin has been defeated.
* Europe/the US are looking forward to 'administering' the Ukrainian and Russian oil and gas resources once Russia has been defeated.
* Russia will never allow itself to be dismantled or defeated - even after Putin goes .. so we should expect a major NATO/Russis clash .. possibly nuclear.

[UndercoverElephant]

* The West has decided to crush Russia, whatever it takes.

The west decided very early on that it would back Ukraine to the conclusion of this war. And you can't really do that by half measures - there is no point, and no moral justification, in just providing Ukraine with enough support to slow down the Russian advance. So the west has been committed to decisive intervention in this war, and that has been very clear ever since Russia was cut off from the main international banking system.

* Russia will never allow itself to be dismantled or defeated - even after Putin goes .. so we should expect a major NATO/Russis clash .. possibly nuclear.

Nobody is trying to dismantle Russia. But it will be defeated, just as it has been before. I personally still don't think Putin will use nuclear weapons, or that if he tries to then somebody will stop him. Just look at the way this war has gone from the start, with Russia always over-estimating its power, badly overplaying its hand, and relying on third-rate equipment, hoping quantity will make up for lack of quality. The same will happen if Russia uses a nuclear weapon, and if it goes to a full-blown nuclear exchange then the biggest loser will be Russia. Most of its missiles will not reach their targets, and the response from NATO will be total devastation. I do not believe it is going to happen.

As for what happens next - after Putin - I personally wouldn't even want to guess. But I agree that Russia is unlikely to be in a position to be aggressive again, especially if it loses Crimea. But it may also never sell gas to Europe again.

[Vortex2]

Most of its missiles will not reach their targets,

Not so sure about that. The reliability of the weapons they are using in Ukraine has been good.

Also, Russian nuclear warheads are HUGE to compensate for poor accuracy, so a 'miss' will still be noticed!
A single 5MT going off anywhere in the UK would be a major disaster.
100+ would ruin our entire day.

Also, warheads can be 'salvage fused' ... if hit or damaged they go off immediately.
Again, 5 MT as a high airburst could be quite damaging.

[BritDownUnder]

I doubt it will go nuclear but it is best to be prepared, even for a counter strike. A poorly targeted 5MT in Australia will hardly be noticed 100 km away. I drove across South Eastern Australia recently and the distances between towns is 50 to 100km in most parts of the country. You could certainly destroy Sydney with a 5MT but it would not damage the mining and agricultural resources here one bit.

I see Russia as getting its just desserts for a century of meddling and sabotage against the West. I see no need to escalate or end this war quickly just to nibble away at Russia's manpower and resources and weaken them gradually as happened on the Eastern front in WW1. The future for Russia I see it splitting into three general parts. The part East of Baikal has only 5 million people there anyway and South is China with its billions. China will become a defacto ruler there even if the Russians kid themselves they are still in control. The Chinese can probably already name their ever decreasing price on resources from there and get first choice of them. Central Russia will go the Turkic and Mongolic people who are mainly Muslims and growing in population rapidly. Western Russia will stay firmly ethnic Russian which is probably why Putin is trying his best to keep control in Ukraine. It's one of the few regions where profits can be gotten from and kept by the kleptocracy.

As for the satellites I think it will take one launch/one missile to destroy each satellite and the Russians can hardly manage more than a hundred of them a year. China is the one to worry about in this area I think.

[clv101]

Most of its missiles will not reach their targets,

Not so sure about that. The reliability of the weapons they are using in Ukraine has been good.

Also, Russian nuclear warheads are HUGE to compensate for poor accuracy, so a 'miss' will still be noticed!
A single 5MT going off anywhere in the UK would be a major disaster.
100+ would ruin our entire day.

Also, warheads can be 'salvage fused' ... if hit or damaged they go off immediately.
Again, 5 MT as a high airburst could be quite damaging.

Don't think Russia has anything bigger than 800kT any more. The multi-megatonne bombs are all decommissioned now, which makes the 'Threads' / 'On the Beach' stories a little unrealistic these days.

[clv101]

As for the satellites I think it will take one launch/one missile to destroy each satellite and the Russians can hardly manage more than a hundred of them a year. China is the one to worry about in this area I think.

The Starfish Prime test showed how a high altitude thermonuclear detonation can take out satellites. One interesting point wrt to WW3 is that the west gets far greater *relative* advantage from things like satellites, under sea fibre optics, international trade in energy and minerals etc.

In a 'last man standing' conflict it would be rational for Russia to nuke *all* the satellites, cut the cables, blow the pipelines, sink the ships etc. The west has more to lose, 'we' won't be able to cope with revisiting the 'stone age' as well as the Russians.

[UndercoverElephant]

Most of its missiles will not reach their targets,

Not so sure about that. The reliability of the weapons they are using in Ukraine has been good.

Also, Russian nuclear warheads are HUGE to compensate for poor accuracy, so a 'miss' will still be noticed!
A single 5MT going off anywhere in the UK would be a major disaster.
100+ would ruin our entire day.

Also, warheads can be 'salvage fused' ... if hit or damaged they go off immediately.
Again, 5 MT as a high airburst could be quite damaging.

My point still stands: Not enough Russian missiles can get through to wipe out the Western world, and the response from NATO would be utterly devastating, therefore it is highly unlikely to happen. The situation is no longer "mutually assured destruction". It is unbalanced, in favour of NATO.

[clv101]

I wouldn't be so sure of that, see Table 1 here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 21.1885869
Russia has, the ability to loft hundreds warheads, each of several hundred kT in 'our' direction. The ability to intercept incoming ballistic missiles is likely poor. That's more than enough the wipe out the Western world as we know it. We're fragile, don't need to flatten every city to trigger collapse. The resulting power, water, transport, food etc failures kill far more people in the first year than than the dozen bombs the UK might expect to receive do directly.

[PS_RalphW]

Back to more tactical discussion, it is interesting comparing bbc and aljazera reports on Kherson. BBC shows a map of Kherson where significant areas around the city are depicted as "reduced Russian control" due to troop pullback in those areas. Al jazera, on the other hand quotes Ukrainian sources as saying Kherson has been heavily fortified and resupplied, with many of Russians best troops digging in for a long defence, and Russian talk of major withdrawal is propaganda to force a rapid Ukrainian attack which would suffer heavy losses. The fight is one of attrition and probing attacks, the Russian front line has been bolstered by many thousands of poorly trained conscripts, and Ukraine is concentrating on precision artillery and drone attacks to take out control posts and supply lines, and even drone dropped grenades directly on individual soldiers, to keep these forces demoralised and ineffective. Russia is taking out Ukrainian electricity supply and bridges to disrupt resupply logistics for their front lines both sides are hoping winter will be hard for the opposing troops, lots of Western reports of poorly equipped Russian conscripts.

This war is far from over and many more people will die.

[Vortex2]

the dozen bombs the UK might expect

In the Soviet era we reckoned that the UK would be wiped out by 8 hits.
Russia revealed later that 200 were aimed at us.