Ukraine - Russia Conflict

But I thought they were Russian citizens too?

 
Italian 155-mm FH-70 howitzers appeared in Ukraine. The howitzer was put into service in 1976. The FH70 is a towed/self-propelled howitzer. Howitzer rate of fire, up to 4-6 rounds per minute. The firing range of the FH-70 howitzer with conventional ammunition is 24 km, with American active-reactive ammunition up to 30 km. In general, the howitzer was successful for its time, provided that the gunners were well trained.


Since March of this year, Russia began using Su-57 aircraft in Ukraine, TASS reported. Although the bulk of the Ukrainian air defense launchers have already been disabled, there are still a number of S-300 air defense systems, Buk air defense systems and a large number of MANPADS. Su-57s in Ukraine “operate outside the zone of active destruction by air defense systems, using long-range missile weapons of the R-37M missile, with a flight range of 200 km.


The work of the combat crew of the Russian self-propelled guns 2S7M "Malka" in Ukraine. Self-propelled guns with a caliber of 203 mm are designed to solve special tasks - suppression and elimination of especially protected command posts, artillery, mortars, and armored vehicles.


A Russian armored personnel carrier was ambushed by mercenaries in Ukraine.. In the video, you can see a shot of a mercenary from an RGW 90 MATADOR grenade launcher at a Russian BTR-80, despite 2 hits, the BTR continued the fight and retreated into the forest, where it was abandoned by the crew and blown up by the Ukrainian army. The video is incomplete, there are no shots of a grenade launcher hitting an armored personnel carrier.

 
At Popasna it is quite logical that the Russian advance has slowed down considerably given how the front line exploded between the fighting for Popasna (4x4km) and the current salient (20x20km).

Unless they brought in a lot of units to do the exploitation, the Russian lines must have become very extended. And they must partly have the dilemma of whether or not to advance their artillery to support closer but more vulnerable. The 122mm only carries 15-22km for the 2S1 and 25-30km for the 152mm of the 2S19. We can see that this 20 km distance of progression must be a problem for them, while the salient is on the contrary a good target for the Ukrainian artillery which becomes less vulnerable to the Russian counter-battery.

It remains to be seen whether we will not see a new artillery attrition battle in the next few days, with each side concentrating on the area where the configuration of the front gives it a fire superiority.
 

The cost of war: Who is paying the price?​

The Kissinger outrage did manage to hit a throbbing global nerve though and for good reason.
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Published: 29th May 2022 07:31 AM | Last Updated: 29th May 2022 10:04 AM | A+A A-
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Debris cover the room of an apartment damaged during shelling in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, May 21, 2022. (Photo | AP)
By Shankkar Aiyar
Henry Kissinger, who turned 99 on Friday, retains an uncanny knack to be on the wrong side, to hurl headlines and attract attention. On Monday Kissinger unsettled dons and divas at Davos off their righteous roost and stirred outrage as he suggested that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia, painting a scary spectre of “or else”.
Compromise or even capitulation is not inconsistent with essential Kissinger. It was the Kissinger doctrine which detailed the pivot of the oldest democracy, the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’. The US turned a blind eye to the genocide of Bengalis and hugged a dictator in Pakistan to befriend totalitarian Mao in Beijing.


That China is now the next big threat is just Karma knocking. What is surreal is that it didn’t matter to Kissinger that the fight was about sovereign aspiration and that his advice wrenched away the agency/right of a sovereign nation. What would he have advised FDR in 1941? One wonders!
The Kissinger outrage did manage to hit a throbbing global nerve though and for good reason. This week Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cross the 100 days milestone. Even as the world awaits resolution, the cost of war has come to haunt nations. What was first perceived as a blitzkrieg — takeover of Kyiv and a victory parade by Vladimir Putin — has lasted well beyond the expectations of even the most passionate supporters of Ukraine. Nobody quite knows who is winning — or indeed if there will be a winner.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy informed the World Economic Forum that it would cost over $600 billion — or three times Ukraine’s last computed GDP — to rebuild the nation.

That is unsurprising given the pommelling of Ukraine by Russia. It is estimated that Russia is shelling out roughly $900 million a day which adds up to a total spend in 100 days to over $100 billion – that would be more than the annual GDP of Latvia and Bolivia put together.
It is challenging to compute what Ukraine is spending on its own defence. In 2021 the defence budget of Ukraine was $5.4 billion. Last fortnight the United States added $ 40 billion to its aid package for Ukraine – of which the military component is around $20 billion or roughly the equivalent of the GDP of Georgia. The war has disrupted supplies, destructed price stability and upended all forecasts and balance sheets of countries.
Almost every developed and developing nation is reporting record inflation. While it is true that post-pandemic policies have fuelled inflation there is no disputing that the war in Ukraine has aggravated both energy and food security. Crude oil prices which were around $90 per barrel are now hovering between $115 and $119 per barrel of Brent crude. Predictably countries have had to re-tool their pricing policies to provide relief — India cut duties on petrol and diesel to cool price rise and in the UK the government is offering energy bill discounts of 400 pounds per household.

The irony is that Russia, which is under sanctions, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries. New sanctions curb supplies and have resulted in higher prices. Data analysis reveals that Russia is currently earning over $700 million per day in energy exports to just Europe. Estimates suggest that Russia will earn a windfall of profits from higher prices and will garner as much as over $320 billion through energy exports – which is more than 30 per cent higher than the previous year.
Higher energy prices have a direct and second-round impact on the food economy. Increased crude/gas prices impact fertiliser production.
Lower availability of fertilisers results in lower foodgrain output and higher food prices. Pricing is critical to preserve output. India, for instance, has had to increase its allocation for fertiliser subsidies by over Rs 1 lakh crore.
The price of wheat, a commodity in contentious debate, has already shot up by over 60 per cent. Indeed the Governor of the Bank of England last week warned of ‘apocalyptic’ food price rises.
Upfront and on the dashboard of every finance minister and central banker is the looming threat of inflation and the impact on consumption, investment and growth. The debate in advanced economies is yo-yo-ing around inflation, stagflation and recession.
The IMF has downgraded the growth forecasts for every major economy and this has implications for the low-income nations.
The low-income parts of the world do not have the luxury of nuanced debates about cost of capital and recession. Theirs is an existential crisis. If things worsen the support for the cause will evaporate slowly but surely. Already there is a rising sentiment in parts of the world that this is not “their” war.

It is imperative for advanced economies to move beyond verbiage, wield their strength and act to restore the supply-demand imbalance in energy and food markets.
Confidence-building measures must start with the evacuation of grains stuck in Ukraine through a peace force and enabling higher gas/oil output to cool prices.

Logically funding of the World Bank and IMF for structural assistance must follow to enable hope in the future.
Economic distress – as witnessed in parts of Africa and Asia — is a recipe for the unravelling of the very rule-based world order the fragile coalition is trying to preserve.
Shankkar aiyar
 

Ukraine and US Generals are scratching their heads wondering why it is so important for Russia to capture Severodonetsk when it has no strategic value and at the cost of thousands of Russian soldiers and a crap load of tanks and armored vehicles. I think Ukraine will happily trade Severodonetsk for Kherson and other parts of Souther Ukraine which looks like they are doing by launching this offensive in Kherson since they know Russia won't be able to hold Severodonetsk and the held Donbas region once Ukraine starts focusing on Donbas with their new NATO offensive heavy weapons.

It's like Russian military is run by an idiot. Reminds me of Zee Fuhrer going after Stalingrad instead of listening to his Generals and go for Moscow.
 
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Picdelamirand-oil said:
At Popasna it is quite logical that the Russian advance has slowed down considerably given how the front line exploded between the fighting for Popasna (4x4km) and the current salient (20x20km).

Unless they brought in a lot of units to do the exploitation, the Russian lines must have become very extended. And they must partly have the dilemma of whether or not to advance their artillery to support closer but more vulnerable. The 122mm only carries 15-22km for the 2S1 and 25-30km for the 152mm of the 2S19. We can see that this 20 km distance of progression must be a problem for them, while the salient is on the contrary a good target for the Ukrainian artillery which becomes less vulnerable to the Russian counter-battery.

It remains to be seen whether we will not see a new artillery attrition battle in the next few days, with each side concentrating on the area where the configuration of the front gives it a fire superiority.
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I wonder if Russia has drawn troops out of Lyman to concentrate on Severodonetsk?
 
Bad day for Russian artillery. I think that's a record for 24 hour Russian artillery losses in Ukraine. It's almost like positions that were safe have suddenly become unsafe, given how far back artillery operates from the front. 12 howitzers and 2 MLRS.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1531159219956764672

https://twitter.com/x/status/1531164223417593857

 
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12 howitzers and 2 MLRS. 18 transport/supply trucks too - that will hurt logistics. 55 tanks/APCs/artillery/MLRS/trucks in total.
 

Cardinal Richelieu foresees Russia’s victory in Ukraine​

As Kissinger once said, to be an enemy of America is dangerous – but to be a friend is fatal

NEW YORK – The custom-built Oculus headset delivered to my door by a hooded monk seemed to malfunction. The palace on the Place de Vosges appeared once again in the Metaverse but in black and white rather than bright cartoon colors, with less furniture and fewer objects d’art, with drab walls unadorned by the paintings I had admired at our last meeting.

A bit uncertain on my feet I wandered about the virtual-reality residence until I nearly stumbled on, or rather walked through, the translucent ghost of Cardinal Richelieu, the evil genius of 17th century France and master strategist of the Thirty Years’ War.

“Please accept my pardon for my reduced circumstances,” the Cardinal said after we exchanged the usual pleasantries. The budget has been under strain since Meta’s stock price collapsed.

That didn’t bother me; in truth, I preferred the damp ossuary of the Carthusian monks, numberless levels below the sewers of Paris, where I had first materialized the Cardinal’s spirit with the help of a magnum of Chateau Petrus and a spittoon. Virtual reality gave me headaches.

“Your time as always is gratefully appreciated, Eminence,” I offered. “And since your time is constrained,” I added quickly, “please tell me what will happen in Ukraine, and then what will happen elsewhere in consequence.”

Said the Cardinal:

That is an utterly moronic question, for everything of importance that might happen to that miserable country has already happened. Did I not tell you at our last meeting that Putin’s object was not to do this or that with Ukraine, or to rule Ukraine or to compel Ukraine to adopt one policy or the other, but to be done with Ukraine once and for all – to ruin it utterly, depopulate it and eliminate the possibility that Ukraine might become a venue for Western weapons pointed at Russia?

One hears from self-deluding Western pundits that Putin wants to be a new czar presiding over a new Russian empire, and that his attack on Ukraine was motivated by national pride and territorial ambition. If that were true, mon ami, he would not scorch the earth and drive out the people! The damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure alone exceeds $1 trillion, in a country whose national output did not reach $160 billion a year before the war started! Simply repairing the country would require six times the country’s national product, which of course is impossible.

Even if the money could be found, who would make the repairs? Before the war Ukraine had 45 million people on paper but only 33 million actually in the country, because half the adult population had left to work elsewhere. At least 14 million of those have been driven from their homes, and most of them will not return. After all, the Poles, Hungarians and Germans are short of people and will gladly accept immigrants from Ukraine rather than from the Middle East or Africa.

“But what of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men who returned to the country to fight the Russians?” I objected.

“They will find out that it is unpleasant to fight the Russians, as their grandfathers did during the Second World War. A few tens of thousands of them will be killed, and others will rot for some time in Russian prison camps as the Russians encircle and annihilate the main body of the Ukrainian army in the Donbass. Then they will join their families in Poland or Germany.”

“But surely the Americans won’t stand for this!,” I protested.

“About the Americans do not worry so much. They are becoming accustomed to humiliation. Does no one remember their unseemly departure from Afghanistan last year? They thought they were clever in cultivating Ukraine as a de facto member of NATO, perhaps with anti-missile systems that could be converted into short-range missiles with nuclear warheads if the need were to arise.

Putin believed that he had an agreement with the Europeans under Minsk II to keep Ukraine neutral and to guarantee autonomy to Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine in the East, and he believed – with some justification – that Washington sabotaged this agreement. So he attacked.”

Richelieu’s biretta began to flicker and for a moment I thought I saw a straw boater instead. It occurred to me that he was about to break into “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”

“But Eminence,” I protested, “surely the Americans must have known that the Russian army might destroy Ukraine!”

The Cardinal sneered, his Metaverse mustache twitching violently, as he replied:

The Americans! They are as stupid as the Spanish whom I ruined during the Thirty Years’ War! Actually, Mazarin ruined them, but I had it sewn up well in advance.
The Americans thought Putin’s economy would collapse! It did not. They thought the Russian people would revolt! They did not. They thought their expensive toys, Javelins and Switchblades and Stingers, would stop the Russian army. They did not. They simply killed a lot of Russians. But as Hitler’s best general von Manstein said of the Russians, just when you think you’ve killed them all, another bunch of them comes over the hill.
The Americans understand nothing about the Russians. The Russias gripe, they get drunk and they follow orders. They do not need America’s high-tech toys. They simply send drones to scout the location of the enemy, feed in the coordinates and fire vast numbers of artillery shells and rockets. They are unimaginative, stolid and unrelenting. If you want to know about the Russians, I will introduce you to von Manstein, Charles XII and Napoleon. But the ghost whom you really should conjure is Bismarck. He said: ‘Kämpfe nicht mit Russen. Auf jede List reagieren sie mit einer unvoraussehbarer Dummheit.”
Click to expand...
“Don’t fight with Russians,” I translated. “To every stratagem of war they react with some unforeseeable brutishness.”

“Bingueaux!” said the Cardinal.

“What will happen if the Russians succeed?” I demanded.

He was prepared for that question and answered immediately:

Every country in the world will call to mind Kissinger’s bon mot that it is dangerous to be an enemy of the United States – but to be its friend is fatal. America is generous with other people’s blood: Hungarians in 1956, Czechs in 1968, the Kurds in Syria and today the Ukrainians. American pundits say that from Ukraine, Taiwan should draw the lesson that it must prepare to defend itself now, like a porcupine. But it is quite a different lesson that the Taiwanese have learned – namely that it doesn’t pay to fight as an American proxy.
The Germans will have the choice of rearming, and in particular restoring conscription, or accommodating Putin. Which do you think they will do? The Hungarians will congratulate themselves for refusing to join the sanctions against Moscow. The French will remember that Marine Le Pen came within a cannon-shot of beating Macron in the last elections by proposing to remove France from NATO command, and Macron will carefully distance himself from Washington. The Poles will make a terrible noise, but to no avail; the difference between the Hungarians and the Poles is that the Hungarians do not make the mistake of thinking that they matter. And India will continue to buy Russian oil and sell consumer goods to the Russian market.
Click to expand...

“And China, Eminence? What will China do?” I asked.

“China will eat melons, to use their idiom; they will stand on the sidelines, watch and do nothing at all except enjoy the misery of the United States. They will show the instruments of torture to Taiwan in the expectation that their actual application will not be necessary. They will build more hypersonic weapons and other nasty devices that make the American navy rather unwelcome in their part of the world. And they will quietly tell countries of interest to them that the United States failed once again in Ukraine as it failed in Afghanistan, and that China will have to be reckoned with as a new pole of global power.

“But surely,” I protested, “there is something that Washington can do to avoid sliding down this slippery slope!”

Richelieu’s face settled into a ghastly smirk. “Of course, there is something Washington can do! If I commanded a country with the power of the United States, rather than a mere France, I would …”

Sparks sprang from my Oculus headset, and I tried to remove it, but it seemed glued to my face. The Cardinal’s avatar began to disintegrate into random pixels and the three dimensions of the palace on the Place des Vosges collapsed into a flat plane. Nothing was visible of Richelieu except his mustache, which vibrated like the wings of a dragonfly, sending out a horrendous racket that drowned out his voice.

I awoke next to an empty bottle of Russian Standard vodka and a half-eaten blini wrapped in the editorial section of the Wall Street Journal.
 
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Another drone kill - aka dronage.

 
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