How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[barbos]

Which proves nothing, because these missiles were all manufactured in the USSR and delivered all over the Soviet Union.

Apparently it did prove something, because western propaganda immediately stopped talking about it.

Russia does not need to bomb civilians and blame it on Ukrainians, simply because western propaganda will not buy it.
Ukro-regime, on the other hand, can and does that because western propaganda is on their side and will always lie for them.

 

[barbos]

In this case the object appears even originally in just one frame. As a faint glitch. That's exactly the kind of lossy information that compression algorithms are designed to get rid of.

Dude, I have been doing some homemade audio-compression and have been following video compressions algorithms for 20+ years.
Just general interest. Stuff can not disappear. You have to show something.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Pentagon starts doling out that $6.2 billion accounting error to Ukraine with an initial $200 million weapons shipment.
This ought to keep them going for awhile.

So this accounting error occurred when previous weapons shipments were valued at replacement cost instead of depreciated value.
Replacement cost. Silly Millie.

Next request is for $24 billion which is expected to sustain Ukraine for about 100 days. This still has strong bipartisan support. The populist right has yet to stop or even reduce funding for Ukraine.

 

[Copernicus]

I thought this was a bit of good news:

Russia's central bank makes huge interest rate hike to try to prop up falling ruble

It's standard monetary policy and doesn't mean Russia is in crisis, but it does mean waging Russian Hitler's invasion has its costs.

The Russian central bank has been rather competent in saving the ruble from crashing already in 2022. But eventually, real economy will start to bite back. My hope is that this will really start to impact the elites in Moscow, and they start questioning if the war is worth it. I doubt their opinions matter much though.

Ruble drops because oil is dropping. And oil is dropping because The western economies are dropping.

Oil price is not actually dropping, it's going up.

Urals Oil - Price - Chart - Historical Data - News

Urals Oil increased 14.97 USD/Bbl or 25.08% since the beginning of 2024, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. This page includes a chart with historical data for Urals Crude.

tradingeconomics.com

That's actually true if you focus on recent weeks and ignore the loss of market share, but it obscures the fact that Russia's overall energy revenues have actually plunged by almost half since 2022. Russia actually manages to evade the $60 price cap by inflating its shipping costs, especially in its sales to India:

High shipping costs have created a $1 billion loophole for Russia to evade oil price cap, report says​

Observers have criticized the price cap mechanism for its ineffectiveness at curbing Moscow's energy revenue. Russia pulled in its highest oil revenue in eight months during the month of July, according to data from the International Energy Agency, selling its crude for the average price of $64.41 a barrel – above the $60 price cap set by G7 nations.

Still, Moscow's energy revenue has fallen dramatically since western nations banned purchases of Russian oil at the end of 2022, which has made it hard for the nation to find alternative fuel customers. Russia made just 3.38 trillion roubles or $37.4 billion in the first half of the year from oil and gas sales, according to the nation's finance ministry, a plunge of 47% compared to the first-half of 2022.

Lower energy revenue is one of the main headwinds bearing down on Russia's economy. The nation's current account surplus plunged 85% from the start of the year. Meanwhile, the nation's budget deficit expanded to 2.82 trillion rubles in July, equal to about $29.3 billion.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Ukraine Counteroffensive Achieves Breakthrough Zelensky Desperately Needed

It ain't much but it's something.

... if Russian troops retreated from the area, they would have to move positions to the second line of defense farther south, towards Staromlynivka. This would put Kyiv's forces only 50 miles from Berdyansk and Mariupol on the Azov Sea coast, indicating that Ukraine is continuing its offensive drive south towards the sea.

"It's a further step into the Russian defensive lines," Fasola told Newsweek, "so that's an indicator that Ukraine has been able to successfully carry out the testing of the Russian frontline and defenses and has been able to identify a weak spot in those defenses."

"That weakness can be also further exploited to thrust deeper towards Mariupol, cutting in half the southeastern Ukrainian territory that Russia has conquered over the last year."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Or it could have been lost due to frame rate conversion,

Can't happen either. Stuff never disappears, it gets distorted, blurred, etc, but it never disappears.

Sure it does. There have been some nasty artifacts of this nature with copy machines.

The basic problem is the nature of lossy compression routines. The compressor looks for things which are very similar and says they're the same thing--thus only needing to store one copy rather than two.

The copy machines were doing this with material written in small fonts--and declaring two symbols to be the same when they weren't. The result was changing all instances of the second symbol into the first symbol.

Faint missile shadow--looks an awful lot like no missile shadow, replace it with the no-shadow version. (Or, given that video is generally encoded by putting in only a small percent of the total frames and then only encoding the deltas between the current frame and the previous one it might be it simply didn't encode anything at all for the missile in that frame.)

 

[barbos]

Sure it does. There have been some nasty artifacts of this nature with copy machines.

No, it does not.

 

[barbos]

Faint missile shadow--looks an awful lot like no missile shadow, replace it with the no-shadow version.

Nope, there are frames where there is absolutely nothing. Shadowy (blurry) image is a result of taking video of a screen or the frame rate conversion. And it is fine and expected. What is not fine is a complete absence of any sign of large object.

 

[barbos]

There have been some nasty artifacts of this nature with copy machines

Video compression algorithms are not Copy machines . They are specifically designed not to do that.

 

[barbos]

The copy machines were doing this with material written in small fonts--and declaring two symbols to be the same when they weren't. The result was changing all instances of the second symbol into the first symbol.

Where do you even get this? Copy machine don't do any of that.

 

[barbos]

Sarkozi admitted that Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are and should stay Russia.
Which in itself makes NATO an aggressor here, which they are.

 

[barbos]

 

[zorq]

Sarkozi admitted that Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are and should stay Russia.
Which in itself makes NATO an aggressor here, which they are.

Lol, you are referring to a speech in which Sarkozi literally says "Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine."

 

[barbos]

Lol, you are referring to a speech in which Sarkozi literally says "Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine."

Tes, I referring to that speech. And I do that because Sarkozi calls Crimea Russia.
And Russia was right to invade Ukraine.

 

[Copernicus]

Lol, you are referring to a speech in which Sarkozi literally says "Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine."

Tes, I referring to that speech. And I do that because Sarkozi calls Crimea Russia.
And Russia was right to invade Ukraine.

That isn't what Sarkozy said. What he said was that the West should allow Russia to keep Crimea as part of a compromise deal. That was his idea of realpolitik, not an endorsement of Russia's claim on Crimea. In fact, Russia had previously agreed to respect Crimea as Ukrainian territory, which it had been for 60 years before Putin's invasion and annexation in 2014. Sarkozy was disagreeing with France's and the international rejection of Russia's claim on Crimea. It is for Ukraine to decide whether it wants to concede Crimea. Right now, it looks like Ukraine is nowhere near conceding that territory. Sarkozy is basically a disgraced former president of France, but barbos will obviously take anything he can get.

 

[zorq]

Lol, you are referring to a speech in which Sarkozi literally says "Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine."

Tes, I referring to that speech. And I do that because Sarkozi calls Crimea Russia.
And Russia was right to invade Ukraine.

Ah, I was interrupted earlier and I meant to add to my post what Copernicus just wrote (I think you ,barbos, may have him on ignore)

That isn't what Sarkozy said. What he said was that the West should allow Russia to keep Crimea as part of a compromise deal. That was his idea of realpolitik, not an endorsement of Russia's claim on Crimea. In fact, Russia had previously agreed to respect Crimea as Ukrainian territory, which it had been for 60 years before Putin's invasion and annexation in 2014. Sarkozy was disagreeing with France's and the international rejection of Russia's claim on Crimea. It is for Ukraine to decide whether it wants to concede Crimea. Right now, it looks like Ukraine is nowhere near conceding that territory. Sarkozy is basically a disgraced former president of France, but barbos will obviously take anything he can get.

Correct. Sarkozy didn't say that Crimea belongs to Russia at all. I think barbos's sources are lying to him again and he is too lazy and bigoted against the west to check for himself.

Not that Sarkozy's opinions are very highly valued by anyone anymore, seeing as he is a humiliated former president sentenced to three years in prison for corruption. It's no wonder barbos likes him.

 

[barbos]

seeing as he is a humiliated former president sentenced to three years in prison for corruption

As if Biden and his gang are not corrupted.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Lol, you are referring to a speech in which Sarkozi literally says "Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine."

Tes, I referring to that speech. And I do that because Sarkozi calls Crimea Russia.
And Russia was right to invade Ukraine.

Well, then don't bitch and whine when Ukraine joins NATO someday. Ukraine was once about 50-50 about wanting western or eastern ties. Their elections were close. But the Russian invasion completely pushed Ukraine westward. You've created a country that hates Russia. And your invasion has consolidated and expanded NATO.

 

[barbos]

But the Russian invasion completely pushed Ukraine westward.

Says who?
Ukraine will never be in NATO.

 

[barbos]

You've created a country that hates Russia.

Nope, you have created a region of Russia which hates US.