I think it's fair to say that a large part of the Russian losses are directly related to the arms support that Ukraine has received from the West. At some point, it is quite possible that with high losses, Russia shifts that line to NATO and not Ukraine.
They might threaten NATO. But it won’t be in the form of nukes.
NATO and the USSR/Russia have been playing a global wargame for decades, with hundreds of planners and analysts tracking moves and counter-moves 24/7. The disposition and status of aircraft, fleets, brigades, and subs all send political signals that the other side reads and responds to. That wordless dialogue is continuing through the Ukraine war. No doubt Russia is expressing its displeasure with all kinds of actions we civilians aren’t even aware of. Scripts and protocols that their counterparts in NATO understand. We have to trust that people playing the game know what they’re doing, and won’t skip ahead five moves or overturn the board.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
A lot of North Americans also have no reference point for war in our territory so its easier to just brush off. Older generations in Europe and younger people in the Middle East have lived through wars in their lands in their lifetime. Here in Canada there's been no war in anyone's lifetime (I guess outside the odd Nazi sub in the St.Laurence and some attacks on Newfoundland by Nazis).
So many Canadians are sheltered.
See and smell it once and it stays with you.
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That is pretty uncanny considering that video was made almost 1 year ago. It could have been from last week. I loved the dry and dark humour, even though it is obviously not a laughing matter.
I hope this guy doesn't get poisoned or anything.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
NYT has a piece analyzing intercepted radio transmissions by Russian rank and file troops, and in some cases generals. Paints an ugly picture of how poorly organized and supported the Russians are. They documented cases of war crimes, a huge number of units running out of food, fuel and ammo, and lack of air support when requested. This is all done of open unencrypted radio since Russia's ERA system doesn't work.
Understanding the impacts of even a medium scale nuclear war is one of the things in life that I wish I could unlearn. But that said, if someone out there is thinking it isn’t so bad, or might be ok, or doesn’t understand why people would let an entire country get wiped out just to avoid it, then it becomes a necessary education for them.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with the impacts but trusts those who say we must avoid at all costs, that’s enough. Learn no more.
We won't get a chance to watch it afterward, that's for certain.
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The issue isn't so much the debris from the bomb impacts getting into the atmosphere so much as the ash and soot from every major city in the Western Hemisphere burning to the ground. That said, there is at least some debate on how bad a nuclear winter actually would be, and whether people like Sagan made overly catastrophic predictions. But it seems to me that if you're going to tell me, "it won't be so bad, maybe only hundreds of millions will die from the after effects instead of billions", that is still waaaaay beyond the pale.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Why would you want to live your life in an irradiated wasteland with accelerated climate change and only pockets of habitable human civilization who could potential collapse at any moment.
I'd rather hope for a direct shot and be vaporized in a nanosecond.
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“ ‘We’re going back to a USSR’: long queues return for Russian shoppers as sanctions bite
After an hour and a half queuing for sugar, or worse still fighting for it in a market, Russians are feeling the effect of shortages caused by an unprecedented cutoff from the world”
Bags of sugar and buckwheat began disappearing from local markets in early March, just a week after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. And when the local mayor’s office announced that it would hold special markets for people to buy the staples last week, hundreds showed up.
“People are sharing tips about where to get sugar. This is crazy,” said Viktor Nazarov, who said that his grandmother had tasked him with visiting the special market last weekend to stock up. “It’s sad and it’s funny. It feels like a month ago was fine and now we’re talking about the 1990s again, buying products because … we’re afraid they’ll disappear.”
After an hour and a half waiting at the city’s main square, he was limited to buying one bag of five kilograms, he said.
The sudden shortages are a first taste of what is going to be a hard year for Russia, marked by a massive economic contraction, high inflation and an unprecedented cutoff from the world for a globalised economy.
“I think we are steadily going back to a USSR,” said Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist for the Institute of International Finance, indicating that the Russian government would likely continue to close off from the world economy. “I’m not seeing it as a temporary shock and then we’re going to go back to the liberal democracy and reintegration into the world, unless there is a change in government.”
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More worryingly, medicines such as insulin have begun disappearing from pharmacy shelves. Some polls have indicated that Russian doctors are facing shortages of more than 80 medicines at pharmacies, including insulin and a popular children’s anti-inflammation medicine. Once again Russian officials blamed panic buyers, noting that most western pharmaceutical companies have said that they will not limit shipments of essential medicines to Russia.
But as Russia’s economy contracts, inflation is expected to skyrocket as high as 20% this year, said Ribakova. For ordinary Russians, she said, that would mean “poverty. Poverty and desperation.”
“People were so busy with just surviving,” she said. “Getting basic drugs, basic foods, surviving on minimal pensions … people are coming very skinny to this crisis. They don’t have savings, they were barely surviving before, and now they’ll be spending days in queues and lacking access to basic healthcare and drugs.”
I’m not sure some people realize how interconnected and interdependent the modern world is. Most countries can’t even feed themselves. And those that can rely on fertilizers and pesticides shipped halfway around the world. If our modern financial and logistics systems go down (as they surely would if every major city in Europe and N America were nuked), most of the world would revert to early 20th century tech levels, and undergo a massive die-off.
The shock of the global catastrophe, along with dread of the remaining nuclear powers making a power grab in the chaos, would leave even untouched countries in the grip of dictators and ultra-nationalists ruling under martial law. It wouldn’t be a world worth living in.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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With the new Iron Curtain 2.0 established around Russia and the whole restrictions on airspace, we are going to see a lot of increases in travel times especially for trans-pacific flights, freight, across the board increases in costs and travel times for those since no one can cross Russian airspace now and will need to fly around Russia. Wendover has a very interesting summary video on some of the more immediate impacts. An interesting thing I didn't realize was how much Russia's domestic airline fleet was going to be impacted, how there won't be any cross booking with Russian airlines now, how Russian carriers had half their fleet leased, and how Putin just authorized the huge theft of foreign property.
Last edited by FlameOn; 03-23-2022 at 07:54 PM.
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With the new Iron Curtain 2.0 established around Russia and the whole restrictions on airspace, we are going to see a lot of increases in travel times especially for trans-pacific flights, freight, across the board increases in costs and travel times for those since no one can cross Russian airspace now and will need to fly around Russia. Wendover has a very interesting summary video on some of the more immediate impacts. An interesting thing I didn't realize was how much Russia's domestic airline fleet was going to be impacted, how there won't be any cross booking with Russian airlines now, how Russian carriers had half their fleet leased, and how Putin just authorized the huge theft of foreign property.
It's a huge issue for the lessors. Even if they get the planes back nobody will trust the Russian maintenance records after this. And if they don't get them back soon enough will their insurers pay? The aviation war risk insurers have all already served notice they're cancelling policies. If the planes are just re-registered during a war and not actually expropriated the insurers probably won't pay even though the effect is exactly the same as an insured peril.
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Amid all the posted evidence on social media of Russian troops raping, pillaging, shelling hospitals, firing on ambulances, and murdering civilians, US State Department formally declares they have enough public and intelligence obtained evidence to formally declare Russian troops have committed large scale war crimes.
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The US government has formally declared that members of the Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday.
The official US declaration that Moscow's troops had violated the laws of conflict comes after Blinken, President Joe Biden and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman all said it was their personal opinion that war crimes have taken place.
"Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the US government assesses that members of Russia's forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine," Blinken said in a statement.
"Our assessment is based on a careful review of available information from public and intelligence sources," he said.
The decision to issue a formal accusation marks a significant step by the US government after weeks of declining to officially say that the attacks committed against civilians in Ukraine were war crimes. It remains to be seen, however, whether there will be any accountability for those accused of carrying out the alleged crimes, and whether Russian President Vladimir Putin himself will be forced to bear any responsibility.
Amid all the posted evidence on social media of Russian troops raping, pillaging, shelling hospitals, firing on ambulances, and murdering civilians, US State Department formally declares they have enough public and intelligence obtained evidence to formally declare Russian troops have committed large scale war crimes.
The ever more agressive postering by US, the scarier it is for an average Russian. At this point for us it's not about whether Russians committed war crimes (they did) or whether the war made any sense to begin with (it didn't). It's about whether US would retaliate with some kind of a strike on Moscow. US embassy in Moscow says "Do not travel (to Russia) and leave immediately" as a travel advice. I'm back to thinking I should send my family to some distant town. Also some people at my work, particularly younger males, fled Russia for nearby countries such as Turkey or Armenia.
