I'm really struggling to understand the significance or motive here
Wagner is trying to take credit for the military successes and pin the blame for failures on the Russian Army. I think their is a subtle undermining of Putin. That a Wagner milblogger and supporter is killed is a message to Wagner to stay in their lane.
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I don't think his assassination in particular makes a big difference, but he was well known. It could spark more resistance activity because of the attention it gets.
I'd be interested to see if any videos of this come out. There must have been people recording him at the time.
why?
don't tell me you actually want to watch him get blown up.
Not particularly surprising, but it sounds like the 50 ft yacht theory about the Nord Stream explosion is falling apart under scrutiny:
Quote:
U.S. and European officials said they still don’t know for sure who is behind the underwater attack. But several said they shared German skepticism that a crew of six people on one sailboat laid the hundreds of pounds of explosives that disabled Nord Stream 1 and part of Nord Stream 2, a newer set of pipelines that wasn’t yet delivering gas to customers.
Experts noted that while it was theoretically possible to place the explosives on the pipeline by hand, even skilled divers would be challenged submerging more than 200 feet to the seabed and slowly rising to the surface to allow time for their bodies to decompress.
Such an operation would have taken multiple dives, exposing the Andromeda to detection from nearby ships. The mission would have been easier to hide and pull off using remotely piloted underwater vehicles or small submarines, said diving and salvage experts who have worked in the area of the explosion, which features rough seas and heavy shipping traffic.
Also interesting:
Quote:
For all the intrigue around who bombed the pipeline, some Western officials are not so eager to find out.
At gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm, said one senior European diplomat: “Don’t talk about Nord Stream.” Leaders see little benefit from digging too deeply and finding an uncomfortable answer, the diplomat said, echoing sentiments of several peers in other countries who said they would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or allies were involved.
Undersea drones? Well, that probably limits the amount of capable powers to those sitting around the UNSC table, using the might of their official military/ black ops arms.
Russia has detained a suspect in the Tatarsky blast. The suspect is a young woman who was previously detained at an ant-war protest. She was apparently the one who delivered the statuette that exploded, although she denies knowing it would blow up. It seems odd that an anti-war activist would deliver something to that party without having some ulterior motive. Her husband believes she was duped into delivering it. I wouldn't be surprised if she was set up by a pro-Russian group that wanted to give Wagner a slap for criticizing the Russia military. Hard to believe anything really and doubtful she gets a fair trial.
Russia has detained a suspect in the Tatarsky blast. The suspect is a young woman who was previously detained at an ant-war protest. She was apparently the one who delivered the statuette that exploded, although she denies knowing it would blow up. It seems odd that an anti-war activist would deliver something to that party without having some ulterior motive. Her husband believes she was duped into delivering it. I wouldn't be surprised if she was set up by a pro-Russian group that wanted to give Wagner a slap for criticizing the Russia military. Hard to believe anything really and doubtful she gets a fair trial.
Hard to believe she knew what was inside. She stayed and sat down near the target.
Unless she wasn’t afraid to die.
According to an eye witness that was interviewed, she was originally sitting closer to the stage, then moved to the back near the windows after the statuette was given to Tatarsky.
That is of course according to Russia media, so skepticism can be reasonably applied.
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According to an eye witness that was interviewed, she was originally sitting closer to the stage, then moved to the back near the windows after the statuette was given to Tatarsky.
That is of course according to Russia media, so skepticism can be reasonably applied.
There are two really clear videos on Twitter.
Looks like she tries to leave, then accepts invitation to sit.
She moves to the side, much closer than I’d be comfortable if I knew.
One video she puts her hands out toward bomb just before explosion.
Who knows?
There are two really clear videos on Twitter.
Looks like she tries to leave, then accepts invitation to sit.
She moves to the side, much closer than I’d be comfortable if I knew.
One video she puts her hands out toward bomb just before explosion.
Who knows?
For America, yeah, but she should be comfortable with calling her own shots, instead of doing what's best for the US.
The so called leader of the EU had itself over a barrel barely a year ago. When calling your own shots means trading eastern euros security for cheap gas, exactly who's interests are we talking about?
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Great little video, and it glances by something that, IMO, may prove to be useful to further investigation of the Nordstream affair. There were people from both "sides" of the war potentially working together to kill this guy. What if we have a Cardinal in the Kremlin situation at hand?
Moving this here as the American Politics thread is all Trump
Quote:
Originally Posted by dobbles
But even at the reduced price, is it really impacting Russia's ability to make war? It seems like lack of competence and outdated gear has been the problem for them. Do we know if reduced revenue has impacted their strategy or plans at all?
I think this a misinterpretation of what any of the sanctions are really for. First off, Russia stockpiled money specifically for this "special military operation". The knew sanctions were coming, though clearly did not expect to see them at this level. Secondly, wars are not won and lost by military force alone, especially when one side is invading another for territory. Wars are lost when the invaded side cannot militarily support it's resistance or there's sufficient political motive to cut it's losses and give up land that the invaders deem sufficient. On the invaders side, the war ends with either regime change or when it cannot sell the sacrifice to the populace and either regime change or the specter of regime change forces leadership to give up the invasion.
In this case, Putin can go on like this for years if you're not worried about political blowback. He could continue to march soldiers to their deaths and spend all of the economies money on financing it. So far the sanctions haven't hit the populace much because Russia has relatively low production costs for oil and even with the massive discounts China and India were paying there was still buckets of money coming in. With suppressed prices this is going to bite, and hard. We're also starting to see India try to force Russia into longer term discounts which will make the medium term look even worse:
