Russia(gate/bot) Russia-Ukraine War Political Discussion

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Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
facepalm
1. you are assuming this will be entirely contained instead of spreading and resulting in every nuclear power launching all their nukes.
I seriously doubt both sides will completely leave china out of it. Especially as more and more missiles go into the air.

2. Wildly optimistic predictions that the opponent is harmless is not how I want to stake my life on

3. 100 nukes is in fact 100 too many. Your blaze attitude about being hit by this many nukes is scary.

4. Did you do a calculation? Because I did. I happen to live close enough to 2 cities that would be high priority targets, actually. So I am fucked if it does go down.

5. EMP is far more dangerous than direct hits (although we will still get direct hits)

100 nukes is many times more than needed to completely wipe out every car and electrical appliance in usa thanks to the spread on a high altitude emp nuke. With infrastructure down starvation, looting, and riots will start within days. which in turn will destroy any hope of repairing the infrastructure in a timely manner.
1/2: China has no incentive to waste it's nukes by trying to muscle in on a US/Russia exchange, because India is still a nuclear power that has beef with the CCP completely separate from the US.

Unless we purposefully launch on the CCP as a 'side order' in an exchange with Russia, the CCP has a lot of reasons to save it's nukes for a potential conflict with India.

3: It's not me being blaise about nuclear conflict, it's me being realistic about how survivalable it is for the average person, which it is far more survivable than many people realize, because people like you get angry at people for even trying to make plans to survive. How many people survive in the US depends on how much warning there is that things might be going hot, how many of Russia's nukes we take out before launch, how many we can intercept after launch, what happens with the sub-fights/Status-6s, what the weather patterns are at the time, and what targets get hit by what size of warheads.

4: And that's why if you want to survive an exchange, you go for a camping trip/sick day if things look dicey and you think you can get outside the blast zones. I live in an area that likely has/had 60+ USSR/Russian warheads earmarked for it, so I know I'm in a first strike target too. I just am actually trying to figure out how to survive by not being here if things go loud, instead of resigning myself to death in nuclear fire if something happens. Don't begrudge normal people trying to figure out how to survive a nuclear war, just because you don't want to.

5: Nope, vaccuum tube eletronics, and shielded electronics will likely survive fairly well, and there are old school ways of doing things that can suffice while things are rebuilt. Learning how to do things with non-electronic tools and power transfer methods is a smart idea, and a basic survival kit in the car with a small solar panel, water purifying gear, fishing/hunting/trapping gear, a small radio, and about 4 months of iodine tabs would take care of most issues, as long as you know how to use the stuff. The US gov has put a lot of thought and work into figuring out how to survive and rebuild after a nuclear exchange, and they've squirrel'd away a lot of stores/equipment all over the nation specifically because of that.

Most people who do not like others trying to figure out how to survive nuclear war, particularly when it's other normal folks (not the mega-mansion bunker elites who would like most of the plebs dead anyway), are people who either know they can't/won't survive most levels of nuclear exchanges because they are so close to first strike targets (how dare other regular people outside the target try to survive is the general jist of this attitude) or hate it because they feel trying to figure out how to survive a nuclear war just makes them more likely.

So which are you, the spiteful 'how dare you try to survive' type or the 'don't talk about trying to survive, you make war more likely when you do' type?
 

mrttao

Well-known member
this is getting tiresome so i will only address one point before bowing out.
5: Nope, vaccuum tube eletronics, and shielded electronics will likely survive fairly well
It is possible to shield electronics, but there is no wide scale shielding of the infrastructure. Commercial trucking, which supplies food to the majority of people living in the usa, is completely unshielded. ambulances and fire trucks are unshielded. power plants and water treatment plants are unshielded.

NORAD will be just fine and dandy. so the military will be able to transmit orders... but militaries operate on logistics and you can't have logistics when everyone in the cities is starving to death

the farmlands will do better
 

ATP

Well-known member
H bombs could not end humanity,even destroy all states.If Moscov launched all their arsenal at Poland,we would die as nation - but,nobody else.
If they attack USA and NATO.USA would survive as state,when NATO countries would fall,but nations would survive.

If everybody launch their missiles,all targeted countries would fall,but their nation would survive.
Except postsoviets,where we do not have nation,but upper class living in Moscov and Petersburg which live on others.
Burn those 2 cities,and we would have 10-50 nations there.
 

DarthOne

☦️
China Is Rerouting U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas to Europe at a Big Profit


By

Sha Hua
Oct. 3, 2022 5:30 am ET


SINGAPORE—The economic slowdown in China, a Trump-era trade deal and Europe’s desperate hunt for natural gas are creating a windfall for some Chinese energy companies. The unusual alignment is helping Europe stock up for the winter.

With demand down, Chinese companies that signed long-term contracts to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas are selling the excess and making hundreds of millions of dollars per cargo. Buyers include Europe, Japan and South Korea. Just 19 LNG vessels from the U.S. docked in China in the first eight months of the year, compared with 133 for the same period last year.

China is getting nearly 30% more gas from Russia so far this year, Chinese customs data show. The boost is due to a scheduled delivery increase from the Power of Siberia pipeline and from purchases of Russian LNG, typically at a steep discount, shipping data shows.

Chinese sales to Europe are too small to help the continent avoid potential shortages this winter. But they provide a possible preview of Moscow’s increased reliance on Beijing. Russia turned to China for economic and political support following the invasion of Ukraine, yet Chinese companies are undercutting its effort to sow divisions in Europe by stopping gas exports.

The U.S. and China negotiated a number of long-term LNG deals amid pressure on Beijing from the Trump administration’s trade deal to boost imports from the U.S. Unlike LNG contracts from other countries, U.S. LNG long-term contracts typically offer destination flexibility and their prices are indexed to the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub, which is currently a fraction of the spot market prices for LNG in Europe and Asia.

“This has been a win-win relationship for China and the U.S.,” said Wei Xiong, a Beijing-based senior analyst at the consulting firm Rystad Energy. The contracts, which run up to 25 years, gave U.S. suppliers the confidence to build more multibillion-dollar LNG terminals along the Gulf Coast, boosting the country’s capacity to export more gas.

China’s ENN Natural Gas Co. Ltd. is expected to profit from this trade when it sends the LNG tanker Diamond Gas Victoria to pick up a cargo of gas from Cheniere Energy Inc.’s plant at Sabine Pass, La., on the Gulf Coast on Oct. 18, according to three industry sources.

Instead of dispatching the tanker to China’s east coast, the vessel is scheduled to deliver LNG to Europe, they said. ENN is estimated to make a profit of between $110 million and $130 million on this one cargo shipment, analysts said, basing their calculations on market pricing data.

The deals that Cheniere signed with ENN and Sinochem International Corp. for 0.9 million metric tons of LNG a year each came into effect in July. This year, all available cargo was resold, according to a person familiar with the deals. A LNG cargo usually ranges between 60,000 and 80,000 metric tons.

“We’ve resold U.S. cargo. It’s allowed and the prices are favorable,” said Wu Qiunan, chief economist at PetroChina International, the trading arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation.

In 2018, Cheniere and CNPC signed a deal for LNG that would gradually increase to 1.2 million metric tons a year within five years.

Nippon Yusen Kaisha, which owns the Diamond Gas Victoria, ENN and Sinochem didn’t respond to requests for comment. Cheniere said it was “pleased that we can be a reliable supplier of flexible LNG to customers at such a pivotal time.”

Since 2021, U.S. suppliers and Chinese buyers have announced 16 deals for a total of around 19 million metric tons of LNG a year that are gradually coming into effect over the next five years.

785803dc674c017270175bfefa4ac85bcf5e1c23.png


In August, China received three cargoes out of Sakhalin-2, an oil and gas project that includes LNG production in Russia’s Far East, according to shipping data from S&P Global. People in the market say they were bought at a steep discount from the spot market price by Chinese state-owned energy companies.

Sakhalin Energy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Chinese imports of U.S. LNG fell 84% since the war in Ukraine began, as Chinese demand slumped due to Covid lockdowns while European demand sent spot-market prices upward.

Estimating the profit Chinese companies are currently making is difficult. Deals are private, companies could be reselling both long-term cargoes as well as spot cargoes bought in advance and cargo can pass through the many hands during the trading process, even while the vessels are at sea.

Still, there is data that offers a glimpse into the scope. For 2022, China has 72 million tons of long-term contracted LNG but is predicted to only need 66 million tons, according to data firm ICIS.

This leaves China with a few million tons it can resell on the global spot market. Customs data shows that for the first eight months of the year, China exported around a quarter million metric tons of LNG worth $449 million to Europe and Asia, up from $7.3 million last year.

The data is likely incomplete because LNG prices are higher this year and the trading entities aren’t necessarily based in the countries where LNG is loaded or received.

Whether Chinese players can continue to profit from the current situation is unclear. Projections for China’s LNG demand this winter are muted amid uncertainty over whether Beijing will loosen its Covid policies and China’s own increased domestic gas production.

The current opportunities for Chinese companies may decline in the next few years with new LNG supply coming from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, says Alex Siow, lead analyst for LNG at ICIS. “We should always be wary of the boom-and-bust cycle.”

Write to Sha Hua at sha.hua@wsj.com

Former Pentagon Advisor Says US Likely Attacked Nord Stream Pipelines to Isolate Germany



A former Pentagon advisor says the most likely culprits behind the Nord Stream pipeline blasts are the United States and Britain, and that the attack was carried out to prevent Germany from bailing on the war in Ukraine.

Retired US Army colonel Douglas Macgregor made the comments during an appearance on the Judging Freedom podcast.

Macgregor said a process of elimination rules out Germany, because they are dependent on Nord Stream for their energy security, while it also served no benefit for Russia to have sabotaged its own infrastructure.

“Would the Russians destroy their own pipeline? 40 percent of Russian gross national product or gross domestic product consists of foreign currency that comes into the country to purchase natural gas, oil, coal and so forth. So the Russians did not do this. The notion that they did I think is absurd,” Macgregor said.

Referring to Polish MEP Radoslaw Sikorski’s infamous deleted tweet in which he wrote, “Thank you, USA,” Macgregor noted, “Who else might be involved? Well the Poles apparently seem to be very enthusiastic about it.”



However, citing reports that more than 500 kg of TNT had been detected in both explosions, the former Pentagon advisor suggested only the United States and British Royal Navy had the capability to pull off the attack.

“Then you have to look at who are the state actors that have the capability to do this. And that means the Royal Navy, the United States Navy Special Operations,” said Macgregor.

“I think that’s pretty clear. We know that thousands of pounds of TNT were used because these pipelines are enormously robust. You have several inches of concrete around various metal alloys to move the natural gas. So it’s not something that you could simply drop a grenade down at the end of a fish line and disrupt. That means it takes a certain amount of sophistication,” he added.

Macgregor suggested that the motive behind the attacks was to prevent Germany from bailing on the Ukraine war after Berlin began “to give the impression that they were no longer going to go along with this proxy war in Ukraine.”

“I’m hesitant to say ‘we know it must have been Washington’. I can’t say that because we just don’t know. But it’s very clear that we have foreclosed Berlin’s options. Berlin was drifting away from this alliance. [Chancellor] Olaf Scholz said ‘I’m not sending any more equipment, I won’t send any tanks’. Now he’s in a bind because the United States has simply robbed him of the option of bailing out. Who’s going to supply him gas and oil and coal and everything else if he bails out? Where does he turn now? And remember, the Germans, who are facing terrible consequences at home refuse to restart nuclear power plants,” the former official said.

As we previously reported, the CIA warned Germany of potential attacks on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea weeks before Nord Stream 1 and 2 were targeted.


Both Joe Biden and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland asserted that Nord Stream 2 wouldn’t be allowed to operate if Russia attacked Ukraine.


BREAKING: Zelensky attacks Elon Musk for proposing peaceful solution for Ukraine conflict


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that Elon Musk was supporting Russia by providing a hypothetical peace scenario in the conflict between the two eastern European nations.

The tweet from Zelensky comes after Ukraine's ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnik lashed out at Musk, telling him to "f*ck off."


Zelensky tweeted a poll with the question, "which Elon Musk do you like better?" with the options being "One who supports Ukraine" and "One who supports Russia."

Musk's proposal involved a re-do referendum election of the annexed regions which recently voted to join Russia in what's been called a "sham" by observers, including British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

The Russia-installed election officials declared a landslide victory with 93 percent of the ballots cast in the Zaporizhzhia region in support of annexation, along with 87 percent in Kherson, 98 in Luhansk, and 99 in Donetsk.

Musk suggested that the elections be redone under UN supervision. "Russia leaves if that is [the] will of the people," he said in a tweet.

"Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev's mistake.)" The hypothetical also includes water supply being assured in Crimea, and that Ukraine remains neutral throughout the process.

"This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end, just a question of how many die before then," Musk said.



Russia has executed stunt referendums in the past. In 2014, Russian authorities held a referendum on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Russia would later annex Crimea based on those voting results.

"Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war," Musk noted in a follow-up tweet. "Russia is doing partial mobilization. They go to full war mobilization if Crimea is at risk. Death on both sides will be devastating.

"Russia has >3 times population of Ukraine, so victory for Ukraine is unlikely in total war. If you care about the people of Ukraine, seek peace."



 
All Musk has proven is that suggesting that Ukraine be forced to give a part of itself off that Russia just annexed really pisses their leadership off. Which to me is pretty understandable.

Yeah, Elon has done some great things for technological advancement, and watching him troll Twitter was amazing. But much like with (The Majority of) Hollywood actors he's proving he really needs to keep his mouth shut on political and social issues.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
All Musk has proven is that suggesting that Ukraine be forced to give a part of itself off that Russia just annexed really pisses their leadership off. Which to me is pretty understandable.
Yeah, Elon has done some great things for technological advancement, and watching him troll Twitter was amazing. But much like with (The Majority of) Hollywood actors he's proving he really needs to keep his mouth shut on political and social issues.
I think Elon likely doesn't relize the majority of the pre-war population of the areas in question no longer exists, due to the Russians kidnapping and deporting to Russia children from the areas they've been running through, and due to Russia specifically using LPR/DPR troops as cannon fodder.

In other news, turns out even Iran isn't going to recognize the 'annexation' as legal.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
All Musk has proven is that suggesting that Ukraine be forced to give a part of itself off that Russia just annexed really pisses their leadership off. Which to me is pretty understandable.
>forced
TBH Musk himself didn't include that part. So yeah, his proposal could have been stupider than it is.
Secondly, his plan is impossible due to requiring UN forces to take control of the territories occupied by Russia to have proper referendums there. Yeah, right, Russians would just withdraw if the UN asked them to...
 

ATP

Well-known member


The Czechs have decided they will reclaim Kaliningrad. I expected Poland to try for that claim first, not the Czech's.



Well,Czech King captured it on prussian tribes who are extinct for hundrets of years,so....
 

DarthOne

☦️
All Musk has proven is that suggesting that Ukraine be forced to give a part of itself off that Russia just annexed really pisses their leadership off. Which to me is pretty understandable.

Your sure it’s that and not, say, the fact that Zelensky wouldn’t be getting any more money from the West if there was peace? Never mind that there’s a fair chance that Russia is going to keep what it annexed anyway.
 

Tiamat

I've seen the future...
I’m not saying it isn’t happening,just that it’s overstated IMO.

Considering how much territory the Russians have been losing in the past month or so, along with lost equipment, manpower, etc I wouldn’t call it overstated. Neither would the Russians who are openly rather distressed, if not panicking now.

And I would hesitate to dismiss it as jsut another high tech version of WW1 with the use of drones, high mobility recon units, ELINT and SIGINT, etc…
 

Tiamat

I've seen the future...
Your sure it’s that and not, say, the fact that Zelensky wouldn’t be getting any more money from the West if there was peace? Never mind that there’s a fair chance that Russia is going to keep what it annexed anyway.

The problem with Putins terms of “peace” s he basically annexes the Crimea along with Luhansk, Donbass, etc. after that supposed “referendum” (hard to call it an honest referendum when gunmen show up at your doorstep.) territories he annexed by force. And meanwhile during the “peace” he rearms the Russian military so he can try for the rest of Ukraine, or somewhere else at a later date.

We tried this “cessation of territory for peace in our time” BS before. Munich, 1938. We all know how that ended.

 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
I’m not saying it isn’t happening,just that it’s overstated IMO.
Maybe you should swing by the War College thread where the updates about the frontline end up, to see what is actually happening on the ground.

Russian forces are doing their best 'paper towel' impression and a third salient has been punch into Russian lines by Ukraine northeast of Kherson. Russian army morale is also effectively at rock bottom, and we are seeing multiple instances of what amounts to Russian units collapsing/breaking whole sale in the field.

Even the interior Russian social media networks can barely filter out and put good spin on the news the Russians have been getting out of Ukraine for the past few weeks.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
Yes, the offensive that seems to channeling a high-tech reenactment of WW1. Much like the rest of the war after the first week or two.

what’s the price of a mile?

When the Russians were advancing, it looked like a high-tech reenactment of WW1. They used massed artillery bombardments to gradually advance trench by trench, building by building, with grinding attritional losses along the way. (Their initial surprise attack went better at first, but was ultimately crushed in the West and North.)

When the Ukrainians have been advancing, it's looked like the opening stages of WWII, with rapid blitzes of armored and mechanized units punching through enemy lines, cutting off the supply train, and forcing large masses of enemy forces to either rout, get encircled, or surrender, while leaving enormous amounts of war material behind.


The difference here is important. The difference means something. When Russia spends a month fighting to take a city (like Izyum) and the Ukrainians take it back in a single day, along with huge amounts of captured war material, that tells you something about what kind of course the war is taking.
 
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