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saratoga posted:Realistically just keeping what semiconductor equipment is already working supplied and maintained is going to be tricky once cut off from international suppliers (which are mostly in the US, EU and Japan). Combined with the timescale for developing and then ramping new capacity (years in ideal scenarios), essentially all semiconductors they can't already make are going to have been smuggled in from other countries. Something tells me that smuggling into the country with the world's largest land border and one of the largest (the largest?) coasts is probably solvable.
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Mar 31, 2023 21:31
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saratoga posted:Realistically just keeping what semiconductor equipment is already working supplied and maintained is going to be tricky once cut off from international suppliers (which are mostly in the US, EU and Japan). Combined with the timescale for developing and then ramping new capacity (years in ideal scenarios), essentially all semiconductors they can't already make are going to have been smuggled in from other countries. I think from what my own limited review of the breakdowns of downed Russian equipment, the Western supplied parts have generally been widely available commercial grade equipment that wouldn't be too hard to source for somebody motivated. It's stuff like mid-low end fpgas a college lab might buy hundreds of. I imagine developing new tech and solving obsolescence will be issues but I'm not counting on more than a slight squeeze.
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Mar 31, 2023 21:37
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Russia's previous efforts to develop modern semi-conductor manufacturing have ranged from failure to total failure with no working chips produced, despite massive investment. It's hard to be optimistic about their current effort, doubly so as they've been blocked from acquiring the Dutch lithography equipment it was going to be build around. Russia is throwing a lot of resources at it but modern chips are not something that you can just unilaterally spend your way into producing. Largely they've not had too much problem importing chips via intermediaries and that's not even something you can totally stop past a certain point, though that's also not a solution to getting the most modern chips in quantities that you can build industries or weapon systems around. Realistically their best bet for modern chips going forward likely is just hoping that China can produce them. as an aside, iirc Mikron is making chips with ~2005 tech. Angsterm was even further back before they went insolvent. MCST is doing 28nm ca 2010. Russia's chip manufacturing sector has failed repeatedly to get post 2010 manufacturing processes online.
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Mar 31, 2023 22:10
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Ynglaur posted:Something tells me that smuggling into the country with the world's largest land border and one of the largest (the largest?) coasts is probably solvable. The point is not that it isn't possible to circumvent sanctions or embargos (I think it has been well established that smuggling works, you can't stop it even to prisons), it's that doing so is going to be inefficient/expensive compared to purchasing directly and good luck getting support from manufacturer when you encounter undocumented issues or need warranty replacements. In the end it throws a major spanner in the works, the more so when it comes to things that require technical support from manufacturer instead of something that you just take out of the box and start using. Additionally it gives opportunity for CIA et al to run their own smuggle op where they deliver industrial goods that have been altered in interesting ways. It wouldn't be the first time. As an example of sophisticated smuggling techniques, here's 100 kg of Finnish cheese caught from a minivan by Russian customs in 2017. Cheese exports to Russia were banned in 2014.   And another 150 kg of cheese, butter and meat products.  The bosses of those Russian customs officials lived like kings for months, I believe. Anyway, when you buy smuggled goods you are paying the smugglers a premium for something that is probably not up to standards.
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Mar 31, 2023 22:17
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Nenonen posted:The point is not that it isn't possible to circumvent sanctions or embargos (I think it has been well established that smuggling works, you can't stop it even to prisons), it's that doing so is going to be inefficient/expensive compared to purchasing directly and good luck getting support from manufacturer when you encounter undocumented issues or need warranty replacements. In the end it throws a major spanner in the works, the more so when it comes to things that require technical support from manufacturer instead of something that you just take out of the box and start using. Is Finnish cheese particularly good or is this a case of Russian smugglers going with what they can get their mits on? I ask because I'm curious what the Finnish contribution to the NATO conference steam table will be, because usually it's the Dutch and the French who bring the cheese.
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Apr 1, 2023 06:21
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Is Finnish cheese particularly good or is this a case of Russian smugglers going with what they can get their mits on? I ask because I'm curious what the Finnish contribution to the NATO conference steam table will be, because usually it's the Dutch and the French who bring the cheese. Let's just say that the fact they are smuggling Oltermanni shows how dire the cheese situation in Russia is. (it's not good) EDIT: Probably the most visible effect of the 2014 invasion was that for a while you could get really cheap cheese in Finnish supermarkets with Finnish ingredient labels slapped on top of the cyrillic ones. uncleTomOfFinland fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 06:51
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uncleTomOfFinland posted:Let's just say that the fact they are smuggling Oltermanni shows how dire the cheese situation in Russia is. (it's not good) So I've never heard of it before but Oltermanni is something like a processed cheese product version of Tilsit, I guess? Woof.
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Apr 1, 2023 07:00
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After the 2014 invasion prompted economic sanctions on Russia, Russia retaliated by banning food imports from Europe, famously including cheese from The Netherlands and other places. Russian cheese is awful so they then started to produce their own "Gouda" and other European styles to replace imports. The results were predictable. Here's a Vice piece about it: https://youtu.be/Eq1-XRfUb7o e: I was mistaken about which country sanctioned what, and corrected my post. spankmeister fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 07:28
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:So I've never heard of it before but Oltermanni is something like a processed cheese product version of Tilsit, I guess? Woof. More generally I think Finnish dairy still have some brand value in Russia as a legacy of Soviet times, when it was the only western import available (to those with the political pull to shop in import stores).
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Apr 1, 2023 09:45
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You guys are being unnecessarily lovely on Finnish cheese, and the Russians smuggling it. There's no need to shoplift when they have access to cash and can just buy it at the supermarket. I suspect the reason Russians love Oltermanni is because it's 1) cheap, 2) nearby and 3) obviously better than anything they have available domestically. Also, as far as flavor goes, Oltermanni is a creamy cheese that's a bit softer than an edam or gouda. It's nothing that anyone in Central Europe would need to fly to Finland for, but it's nearby. Here's a link I found with minimal googling. Edit: Trying to shift away from the cheese derail: Has anyone seen any reports of Ukraine using GLSDB yet? There seemed to be reports about Sweden releasing them for export to Ukraine like a month or so ago, but since then it seems to have been quiet. Probably saving them for the offensive, as the stocks were reportedly not too high? Paranoea fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 09:52
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So this one is a question from me. Despite the Putin cameo, is this expected to have any impact on the war? Second question, is this just 4 other countries basically agreeing with funding avoiding sanctions? https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1641655197595213827?t=3mx9c2HSyh4ipXwlgSzdbQ&s=19
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Apr 1, 2023 10:07
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notwithoutmyanus posted:So this one is a question from me. Despite the Putin cameo, is this expected to have any impact on the war? Be aware the root source is sputnik.
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Apr 1, 2023 10:13
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Discendo Vox posted:Be aware the root source is sputnik. Sounds like I need to be a bit more careful about sources, if this is just propaganda? Or just exceptionally Russian bias? Not that I should have expected less from Twitter not showing sources, apparently.
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Apr 1, 2023 10:34
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notwithoutmyanus posted:So this one is a question from me. Despite the Putin cameo, is this expected to have any impact on the war? That would make absolutely no sense, those countries have basically none of the factors that would make a common currency work. The EU isn't integrated enough to make a common currency work smoothly, five countries with almost nothing in common certainly don't. poor waif fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 10:44
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Storkrasch posted:That would make absolutely no sense, those countries have basically none of the factors that would make a common currency work. The EU isn't integrated enough to make a common currency work smoothly, five countries with almost nothing in common certainly don't. If it were true and not obvious bullshit, it would be an impressive comedy of errors. India and China could probably pull out when the new currency inevitably implodes. The other three would be in for interesting times. 
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Apr 1, 2023 10:55
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"Are developing" is not quite the same as "are adopting", it's a nothingburger to me. Maybe Putin will introduce the Genocoin in 2030 for arms trade but a common currency replacing the rouble, yuan and others is as likely as Xi becoming the emperor of BRICS.
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Apr 1, 2023 11:13
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This is another version of the same "African countries are going to adopt the African dinar and overthrow western imperialism", "russian and iran are going to stop using the dollar thus destroying America forever", "Russia and China are going to become allies destroying NATO finally", etc. It's been in the russian political folklore for decades and is wishful thinking with no understanding of economics
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Apr 1, 2023 11:23
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Paranoea posted:Edit: Trying to shift away from the cheese derail: Has anyone seen any reports of Ukraine using GLSDB yet? There seemed to be reports about Sweden releasing them for export to Ukraine like a month or so ago, but since then it seems to have been quiet. Probably saving them for the offensive, as the stocks were reportedly not too high? There have been disjoint rumours, e.g., from Meltipol' area, but I haven't personally seen solid visual evidence of it. To be honest, I'm not even sure if there's a good way to discern a GLSDB strike visually, unless it, you know, fails to detonate and we get the money shot.
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Apr 1, 2023 12:26
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Brazil is working with other South American countries on a potential new currency of their own, something they confirmed earlier this year, so it makes extra no sense that they would join this random assemblage of countries in some stupid monetary project. E: the source is pretty funny, it amounts to one guy going "wouldn't it be cool if there was like a digital currency or something?" steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 12:38
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notwithoutmyanus posted:Sounds like I need to be a bit more careful about sources, if this is just propaganda? Or just exceptionally Russian bias? Not that I should have expected less from Twitter not showing sources, apparently. Sputnik (online) and RT (TV) are the official arms of Russian state propaganda abroad. The piece doesn't seem to be carrying much more informational “value” than “we're strong, and we'll defeat the U.S. dollar”.
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Apr 1, 2023 12:42
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I thought GLSDB probably wouldn't be available until late 2023? Like Sept, Oct or Nov or something. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/03/ukriane-aid-includes-longer-range-bombs-00081112 Interest in getting production ready only began to pop up late last year from what I remember. I don't think it got approved to be paid for until not too long ago.
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Apr 1, 2023 12:49
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:I thought GLSDB probably wouldn't be available until late 2023? Like Sept, Oct or Nov or something. You're correct in that back in February the understanding was about 9 months until the 1st delivery. However, there's been a string of behind-the-frontline explosions with fairly open-ended interpretations, and Russia claims to have intercepted a GLSDB recently. I can't say that I know what was the Swedish export thing Paranoea refers to is, but it's definitely not an unfair topic to be pondering about, even with all the due reservations for the veracity of claims made by the Russian government.
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Apr 1, 2023 13:16
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Yeah I saw that. I'm assuming they made a mistake ID'ing what they shot down. I think the US gave the Ukrainians some other glide in bombs (JDAM-ER) and I'm guessing that might be what got shot down instead. Supposedly GLSDB can't even be fired from the launchers Ukraine has yet since they need updates to work.
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Apr 1, 2023 13:36
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Yeah I saw that. I'm assuming they made a mistake ID'ing what they shot down. JDAM-ER are officially in use in Ukraine already, so that would be a sensible middle-groundw explanation indeed. There's a pickle of them requiring decent altitude for decent distance, but it's difficult to guess whether if that would've been a meaningful obstacle in the situation, since we don't know any much about the details of the situation. That said, it could've simply not happened, like Russia being 70 or whatever destroyed HIMARS launchers deep into the 20-something launcher arsenal of Ukraine. On the note of HLSDB launchers, they require HIMARS with a different software package than what the Ukrainian models have already, if I understand correctly, and then the question is if this is a Very Important Flash Drive kind of situation, or if the U.S. is providing designated “GLSDB HIMARS” for the GLSDB munitions.
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Apr 1, 2023 13:49
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cinci zoo sniper posted:There have been disjoint rumours, e.g., from Meltipol' area, but I haven't personally seen solid visual evidence of it. To be honest, I'm not even sure if there's a good way to discern a GLSDB strike visually, unless it, you know, fails to detonate and we get the money shot. shrapnel/fragments/any unexploded parts (eg motors, control surfaces, etc.) are usually more than enough to identify what hit somewhere. occasionally you get a really good camera getting footage of something on the way in, too. so far no evidence of glsdbs (despite Russia claiming to have already shot one down). several things have blown up recently deep behind russian lines, but that's been attributed to https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-is-using-guided-rockets-with-more-range-than-himars-launched-ones
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Apr 1, 2023 14:09
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Any time you see "countries are going to make a new joint currency" you need to remember that having a sovereign currency is such a huge advantage, especially if you are a big country with a decent domestic market, that you need absolutely ridiculous economic incentives to give it up. For reference, the South American plan is a terrible one, the Euro isn't really that great for countries that aren't Germany, and anyone proposing something along these lines is usually an idiot.
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Apr 1, 2023 14:30
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Sputnik (online) and RT (TV) are the official arms of Russian state propaganda abroad. The piece doesn't seem to be carrying much more informational “value” than “we're strong, and we'll defeat the U.S. dollar”. This is explicitly the narrative everywhere right now that I'm seeing. Echoed everywhere ftom American politics to crypto Twitter, so clearly all of the Russian propaganda is on force.
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Apr 1, 2023 14:31
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Thanks for the GLSDB analysis, everyone. I went and checked, and I probably misremembered some wishcasting from Defmon a few months back. Also, the Sweden thing was because of the Saab in Saab-Boeing, while I completely forgot Boeing was involved. *cough* So, I guess it's still several months away until we see these kinds of booms.
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Apr 1, 2023 14:47
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Paranoea posted:Thanks for the GLSDB analysis, everyone. I went and checked, and I probably misremembered some wishcasting from Defmon a few months back. Also, the Sweden thing was because of the Saab in Saab-Boeing, while I completely forgot Boeing was involved. *cough* So, I guess it's still several months away until we see these kinds of booms. There was some speculation that small amounts could be delivered in April, but the details were pretty vague...
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Apr 1, 2023 14:56
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Herstory Begins Now posted:shrapnel/fragments/any unexploded parts (eg motors, control surfaces, etc.) are usually more than enough to identify what hit somewhere. SDBs have a fairly distinctive "switchblade" style wings. JDAM-ER have mildly similar ones. I think it's an easy mistake to make.
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Apr 1, 2023 15:13
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The Canada Usa Mexico dollar is right around the corner!
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Apr 1, 2023 15:16
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Russia can't even get Belarus to switch to a common currency. And that project was in the works for almost 25 years now. In other news, there's an ongoing controversy surrounding one of the most recognised Orthodox monasteries/museums in Eastern Europe. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65117269 The Kyiv Monastery of the Caves is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and as such can't belong to any religious organisation. Ukrainian state for the past 30 years was renting the museum to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They've split from the Moscow patriarchate after the invasion and voiced support to Ukrainian army, but due to obvious reasons and scandals with pro-Russian clergy and religious, for the past year there was a lot of talk about either banning the UOC outright or requiring it by law that they mention that they are governed from Moscow in all official church documents. In the end, it was decided not to renew the lease with the UOC, and all monks and priests are supposed to vacate the premises. They've declined and filed an appeal, but the court decided that they still should leave while the appeal is being considered. The latest development is that the vicegerent of the monastery, Metropolit Pavel, has been arrested on the suspicion of religious hate speech and denial or support of Russia's aggression. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65148386 Throughout the year, there were some cases of UOC parishes and clergy switching to OCU, sometimes under suspicious circumstances, but despite UOC's waning popularity and controversial status, a considerable crowd of people gathered at the monastery to support monks and priests. There hasn't been any violence, thankfully, but the rhetoric on both sides is getting more and more pointed, especially now with Pavel's arrest. When Zelenskyy was just elected, he made a choice not to interfere with religious matters in contrast with Poroshenko who successfully lobbied for the creation of OCU in the first place. It seemed like the conflict was pretty much over. The leaders of both OCU and UOC would meet at official events, they met with Zelenskyy, recorded addresses together with other religious leaders and so on. There obviously was a lot of bad blood between the two churches, but they were at least willing to coexist. Now Zelenskyy says recent government actions against UOC are part of 'protecting nation's spiritual independence', which I think is a much riskier and ethically dubious strategy. Especially considering that the UOC higher-ups already understood full well what position they were in and were happy to call on their faithful to join the army, expel priests who still tried to preach about the ideology of the 'Russian world', etc.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:05
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notwithoutmyanus posted:so clearly all of the Russian propaganda is on force. They've unquestionably redoubled their efforts in recent months, roughly coinciding with the command switch from Surovikin to Gerasimov, and have been swinging quite hard, and with reasonable success, at some fences.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:12
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Tigey posted:And beyond this, all Dictators say this kind of thing on a regular basis, promising that this is their last term, and they really will stand down at the end of it. Maybe I missed something in the tail end of the last thread. Did cinci say this new one was going to be the last Ukraine thread he'll moderate? drat the sixers,  ahead!https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1641892557591400456?s=20 Content: Patrushev seems to have gone off the deep end even more than usual. At this point, I'm wondering if Russia has some sort of concerted Inverse Madman Theory, calibrated to make Putin look like he's the sanest one left in the room.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:13
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Hannibal Rex posted:Maybe I missed something in the tail end of the last thread. Did cinci say this new one was going to be the last Ukraine thread he'll moderate? idgi, but hopefully Russia stops giving me reasons to keep one of these open.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:19
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notwithoutmyanus posted:This is explicitly the narrative everywhere right now that I'm seeing. Echoed everywhere ftom American politics to crypto Twitter, so clearly all of the Russian propaganda is on force. You should probably not be using "crypto twitter" as a news source generally. For example, the WatcherGuru site does zero original reporting, its twitter rarely cites its sources, and it's primarily uncritically repeating whatever source it finds.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:55
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https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1642165686788038656?cxt=HHwWgICx9bq_ksotAAAA Michael Kofman tweet on Russian tactics in Bakhmut - where Russian forces have been pressing more in central Bakhmut rather than the north and south to complete the pincer. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1641924449946554368?cxt=HHwWgMC-sdDlpMktAAAA I'm not necessarily sure how pushing into the center of the city avoids those problems though?
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Apr 1, 2023 17:17
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cinci zoo sniper posted:idgi, but hopefully Russia stops giving me reasons to keep one of these open. It was a joke about Lukashenko's recent "Totally not going to stay in power by changing the constitution" soundbite + the new thread.
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Apr 1, 2023 17:20
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Hannibal Rex posted:Maybe I missed something in the tail end of the last thread. Did cinci say this new one was going to be the last Ukraine thread he'll moderate? To me, stuff like this is more likely a symptom of what I call Loss Reason Theory: Whenever a nation historically is badly loving up, there's a reason for them losing so hard. And then when you go looking, you often find that one of those reasons is always too many idiots at the steering wheel. Like, if you look at the revolutionary war in America for example, the British had some real mediocre politicians at the time, compounded with clinging to some real weird ideas of what was going on in the colonies, like thinking the uprising in the 13 colonies was started by a tiny cabal of radicals, and then later completely forgetting what it is they wanted to do and reducing General Clinton's army to send troops all over the place. Now, while you could argue that thinking that there are just tiny numbers of radicals and colossal numbers of loyalists after fighting multiple battles against actual armies worth of rebels is loving nuts, it's not like the war made those politicians lose their mind. They were stupid long before that, they were in fact one of the reasons the independence war went so badly for the British. Likewise, this guy was stupid/insane all along, guys like him are the reason Russia is currently losing so hard in Ukraine. It's just that now we're looking and taking notice. Essentially, before the invasion of Ukraine, this guy was quietly being dumb about stuff we didn't care about.
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Apr 1, 2023 17:21
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https://twitter.com/CalibreObscura/status/1642068031491678208
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Apr 1, 2023 17:22
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