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fatherboxx)
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The US lend lease expired last year without being used. Was it simply Ukraine happy with what they were getting in aid and not wanting to take on unnecessary debt?
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Mar 18, 2024 08:21
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ronya posted:A partial translation, interesting throughout: can't you burn dynamite in an open fire safely?
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Mar 18, 2024 13:19
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白左
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ChubbyChecker posted:can't you burn dynamite in an open fire safely? Nope, you need to get all the way to modern plastic explosives before you get to the ones that just give you lung cancer instead of fiery death when thrown into open flames.
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Mar 18, 2024 13:48
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Barrel Cactaur posted:Nope, you need to get all the way to modern plastic explosives before you get to the ones that just give you lung cancer instead of fiery death when thrown into open flames. Pfft, amateurs burn C4. True professionals eat it! and get such violent shits that taco bell itself stares in awe
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Mar 18, 2024 14:30
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You can also burn many forms of artillery propellant. I would not advise doing this, though.
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Mar 18, 2024 15:41
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Novaya's favourite statistician with another banger. https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/20...-vbrosheny-news quote:Vladimir Putin received at least 31.6 million votes through fraud, meaning about half of the votes for him were 'thrown in', Novaya Gazeta Europe has found out. As always, Shpilkin's method doesn't account for the massive administrative push to have all government and state-owned sector workers to vote at the same time, as well as some other shady methods that are not outright ballot stuffing and faking numbers in the final protocols, but the fact that the method indicates such a huge amount of potentially fraudulent votes is very telling. Russia is one step away from Turkmenistan-style elections.
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Mar 18, 2024 16:19
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I mean the difference is cosmetic at this point
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Mar 18, 2024 16:25
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Ynglaur posted:You can also burn many forms of artillery propellant. I would not advise doing this, though. You can burn anything once. Is there an amount of heat that will set off C4? Like, if you like it with a burning piece of magnesium?
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Mar 18, 2024 17:17
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Blue Footed Booby posted:You can burn anything once. I meant non-explosively.
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Mar 18, 2024 17:23
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Scapegoat posted:The US lend lease expired last year without being used. Was it simply Ukraine happy with what they were getting in aid and not wanting to take on unnecessary debt? The lend lease statute was passed with an expiration date of Sept 30th and Congress failed to extend it. Iirc the Ukrainians lobbied for an extension but ultimately were unable to overcome the problems in us domestic politics. As for the lack of use, there is multiple statutory means by which Ukraine aid can be provided and the Biden admin has strongly favored those. I'm not sure if it's just that there's a sense of the whole "send it over and then once the wars over they have to return it or pay for it" is problematic in a way that more permanent aid isn't, or if it has to do with complications involving procurement contracts. Or some other reason. In any event, the lend lease statute wound up being primarily a rhetorical statement of support for Ukraine than anything providing concrete support. As far as debt, lend lease probably would save Ukraine a good amount of money, based on how it worked in WW2, compared to standard means of military aid, but it's hard to say what a final settlement would look like on that.
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Mar 18, 2024 18:11
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Paladinus posted:Novaya's favourite statistician with another banger. Independent exit polls, such as they are, also show some interesting numbers. https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/03/18/nezavisimie-ekzitpoli-pokazali-nebolee-55-golosov-uputina-a124734 quote:"We conducted the poll on Saturday and Sunday on a very large sample of 4,000 people. The overall turnout was 72 per cent. <...> Vladimir Putin's rating was 55%. This is from all voters who answered the question: 'Who did you vote for'," ExtremeScan sociologist Elena Koneva told TV Rain live. It's safe to assume that people who voted against Putin would be more likely to refuse to answer, but I suspect there was also a good chunk of those who voted for Putin under pressure, or even regular Putin supporters who imagine western spies at every corner. Just like with previous elections, it looks like pre-election day(s) suppression and coercion still matter more than on-the-day(s) shenanigans.
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Mar 18, 2024 18:17
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Paladinus posted:Independent exit polls, such as they are, also show some interesting numbers. Are there any numbers on online votes?
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Mar 18, 2024 18:19
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mawarannahr posted:Are there any numbers on online votes? All I can find is that Putin performed even better there. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/17/03/2024/65f734079a79471358f4fe66 89% in Moscow with the e-turnout of 94% (Moscow, of course, like all major cities, is normally less supportive of Putin). It's a complete black box. No exit polls, no observers, nothing, while people are being routinely pressured to e-vote by their bosses at work. On the other hand, actual Putin supporters are also more likely to e-vote because they trust that black box disproportionately more than his opponents.
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Mar 18, 2024 18:30
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Do people in Russia actually believe the elections aren't rigged? or is it just accepted there is some level of manipulation but meh what can you do.
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Mar 18, 2024 18:35
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Paladinus posted:All I can find is that Putin performed even better there. Interesting, thanks. I wonder if the reported increase in turnout is partly because of the added convenience.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:18
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Article about Russian espionage in Europe, which has apparently become more bold, better-resourced and overall more competent recently: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/volkov-attack-russia-return-to-cold-war-era-spying Spy stuff is interesting but I also feel it's pretty difficult to actually know anything about it, due to the obvious secrecy of everything. Anyway I wonder what the various European countries are doing to try to thwart Putin's spy surge. Some places like Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary etc are probably a lost cause, but how about everywhere else
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Mar 18, 2024 20:07
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Popete posted:Do people in Russia actually believe the elections aren't rigged? or is it just accepted there is some level of manipulation but meh what can you do. It seems to be largely the latter, with a side of "everyone else's elections are just as rigged, but at least we know ours are rigged, so they're dumber than us."
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Mar 18, 2024 21:35
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jaete posted:
This is a great overview and I liked how he got into Russian History. It's just been constantly brutal. Over and over. I don't think Putin is going to stop unless forced and even when he leaves office I suspect the same goals will continue.
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Mar 19, 2024 03:22
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New War on the Rocks with Mike Kofman. https://warontherocks.com/2024/03/fortifications-manpower-and-munitions-in-ukraines-daunting-year-ahead/ In regards to manpower issues, they discuss the problems with changing the laws to help facilitate mobilization and how the Ukrainian general staff needs to come up with a plan to implement that. What was the Ukrainian plan for mobilization/draft before the war started? They were conscripting men in February 2022, what is the different from then and now? I am struggling to think how a proper mobilization/draft plan was not in place considering Russia has been breathing down their necks in earnest since 2014. Towards the end they bring up the motivation for Russian soldiers, and money being the primary factor. How is Ukraine paying their soldiers in comparison, and what is stopping the US and EU from helping subsidize their pay?
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Mar 19, 2024 13:30
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Germany has announced a 500 million package for Ukraine. I don't know if this is a new package or something that is just announced again. A very simplistic calculation is that with the war having gone on for about 750 days, and Ukraine having received about 250 billion worth of aid, we should be seeing new 500 million packages announced every couple of days to maintain the flow of money.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:53
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d64 posted:Germany has announced a 500 million package for Ukraine. I don't know if this is a new package or something that is just announced again. Its kinda fascinating how expensive modern wars are. But this was also only like a fraction of the US's military budget yearly.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:58
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d64 posted:Germany has announced a 500 million package for Ukraine. I don't know if this is a new package or something that is just announced again. 250 billion Euro is the total financial and military aid committed. Some 50 billion Euro or so of the financial aid is committed, but not disbursed yet, as it consists of some multi-year commitments. Ukraine has received some 110 billion Euro in military aid in total. This 500 million Euro package is completely military aid. In addition, Germany will finance 180k rounds of artillery shells via the Czech initiative to procure 800k shells on the world market. That brings up the total military aid newly committed in 2024 by Germany to some 7.6 billion Euro. This is more than the combined 6.6 billion Euro provided in 2022 and 2023. In total Germany has provided or committed so far to more than 28 billion Euro in military aid. Also, just yesterday the EU foreign ministers agreed to provide an additional 5 billion Euro in military aid via the EU. DTurtle fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Mar 19, 2024 17:30
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Russian Intelligence Says France Preparing to Deploy 2,000 Troops to Ukraine https://www.kyivpost.com/post/29792 quote:Naryshkin (Direction of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR) said the information Russia has received indicates that France is preparing an initial force of 2,000 troops for the operation and that such a large military unit cannot be transferred and stationed in Ukraine unnoticed. SOooooo... I see Russia is still ready to take on the entire world. Certainly aren't backing down in terms of their rhetoric, I wonder when/if French troops reach Ukraine what the actual response will be.
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Mar 20, 2024 19:31
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Dull Fork posted:Russian Intelligence Says France Preparing to Deploy 2,000 Troops to Ukraine So I guess that just kind of ignores the results of the Crimean War then, in terms of French soldiers and their swords.
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Mar 20, 2024 19:46
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:So I guess that just kind of ignores the results of the Crimean War then, in terms of French soldiers and their swords. I don't think you can say that the French intervention force in Ukraine and southern Russia was militarily defeated, either. They landed there, eventually realized that the local population didn't support them or the white generals (nor did French soldiers in general and colonial troops in particular want to be there), and when hostile forces started gathering they got on boats and sailed away. Not glorious, but not exactly ominous. "You will come here, you will spend some time here... and then you will go back!"
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Mar 20, 2024 19:58
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Dull Fork posted:Russian Intelligence Says France Preparing to Deploy 2,000 Troops to Ukraine If Russia is the only source saying this, it means nothing.
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Mar 20, 2024 20:05
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steinrokkan posted:If Russia is the only source saying this, it means nothing. Oh yeah, for sure. I think that this messaging combined with what France has recently said, gives us a peek at potential avenues for future responses. At the start of the war it seemed like most of the west was on a 'woah woah calm down lets talk this out' kick. Now it seems they're a bit more willing to (at least) talk publicly about committing their own troops. That is certainly not something anyone would have expected back in 2022. Could be that France's rhetoric is about building the consent of the French people into getting more involved militarily, and Russia is attempting to do the opposite, nothing more concrete than discourse shaping. That discourse shaping can have some significant effects for western countries and their abilities to assist Ukraine.
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Mar 20, 2024 20:35
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I'm gonna say that if Russia is threatening merely to strike Western forces in Ukraine with priority, rather than nukes / full on war on NATO, it seems like a sign of weakness and moving the window closer to possible deployment. But it's still just posturing
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Mar 20, 2024 20:41
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steinrokkan posted:If Russia is the only source saying this, it means nothing. It's based entirely on some retired French colonel theorising on TV about how many troops France could send to Ukraine, if needed, and what they could do there. It's even less notable than Medvedev's regular nuclear threats.
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Mar 20, 2024 22:26
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I'm receiving news that the 2000 french troops were already destroyed today by Russian precision strikes, first in the morning, then early in the afternoon, and for the third time around dinner.
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Mar 20, 2024 22:31
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The Czech Republic has "found" and purchased 800,000 artillery shells from around the world. It's also located another 700,000 shells. Total cost is about 3.3 billion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBixox2YDAQ
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Mar 20, 2024 23:44
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Mr. Apollo posted:The Czech Republic has "found" and purchased 800,000 artillery shells from around the world. It's also located another 700,000 shells. Total cost is about 3.3 billion. This is interesting. They don't break down the cost per type of shell, but 1,5 million shells at 3,3 billion would come to 2200 per shell on average. Obviously this is pretty badly wrong since the calibers differ (e.g. only 500 k of this 800 k are 155 mm), but still. The cost seems roughly similar to the figure of 3300 per 155 mm shell I saw somewhere earlier. But even this amount of shells won't last for very long if you do the math, hopefully EU can increase domestic ammo production to proper numbers, finally.
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Mar 21, 2024 00:15
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5000 shells/day, about a year
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Mar 21, 2024 00:16
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That'll make Ukrainian artillery peeps happy, for sure. I'd rather have 800,000 shells than not.
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Mar 21, 2024 03:31
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Mr. Apollo posted:The Czech Republic has "found" and purchased 800,000 artillery shells from around the world. It's also located another 700,000 shells. Total cost is about €3.3 billion.
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Mar 21, 2024 05:28
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BabyFur Denny posted:Isn't it supposed to be Czechia now, instead of Czech Republic? Yes, it's a crime to use the other name now. Stay vigilant!
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Mar 21, 2024 05:32
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Nenonen posted:Yes, it's a crime to use the other name now. Stay vigilant! I don't think it's a crime? Just that Czechia made their preference clear?
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Mar 21, 2024 06:30
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BabyFur Denny posted:I don't think it's a crime? Just that Czechia made their preference clear? Umm, actually its The Czechia now get it right 
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Mar 21, 2024 07:14
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BabyFur Denny posted:Isn't it supposed to be Czechia now, instead of Czech Republic? no BabyFur Denny posted:I don't think it's a crime? Just that Czechia made their preference clear? Whose preference exactly
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Mar 21, 2024 07:47
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 09:36 |
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The Czech Republican Rhapsody
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Mar 21, 2024 07:59
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