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

[barbos]

We recently saw what Russian "stealth" ....

Went over your head, did not it?

Why should I believe anything else they say?

You should not. That was not the point.

 

[barbos]

that drone that went bonkers and was shot down

Your B2 and F22 go bonkers regularly, you don't even have to shoot them down.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nothing to see here comrades.

Nothing to smell, either.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/28/moscow_sewage_plume/

Maybe it's Ukrainians, maybe it's just Russian engineering. Either way, the shit has apparently really hit the fan...

Eeeewwww!!!

Could be incompetence too. With the Russian labor market as tight as it is right now, I suppose anyone in a non military industry needing to hire are going to have slim pickings to choose from. Basically they are going to take what they can get.
Anyways, with Russia spending so much of its budget on defense, I can’t imagine anything is going to get fixed anytime soon.
They’ll be shitting in buckets soon enough and dumping it in the streets.

This is probably a lack of maintenance, not a hiring incompetent worker problem.

 

[Elixir]

with Russia spending so much of its budget on defense its military I can’t imagine anything is going to get fixed anytime soon.

FIFY

 

[barbos]

Nothing to see here comrades.

Nothing to smell, either.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/28/moscow_sewage_plume/

Maybe it's Ukrainians, maybe it's just Russian engineering. Either way, the shit has apparently really hit the fan...

Eeeewwww!!!

Could be incompetence too. With the Russian labor market as tight as it is right now, I suppose anyone in a non military industry needing to hire are going to have slim pickings to choose from. Basically they are going to take what they can get.
Anyways, with Russia spending so much of its budget on defense, I can’t imagine anything is going to get fixed anytime soon.
They’ll be shitting in buckets soon enough and dumping it in the streets.

This is probably a lack of maintenance, not a hiring incompetent worker problem.

Do you read before you post your BS?

 

[steve_bank]

Twice as part of coalitions we easily defeated the Iraq army and air force.

Given Russian performance in Ukraine a western NATO coalition would easily defeat Russia in a full scale war.

Something way back I read Russian combat pilots get limted flight time forr training to fuel issues.

Tanks and jets run on fuel. In a full scale war one of the first things would be to destroy Russian fuel supplies.

Russia has experienced fuel shortages due to a number of factors, including:

Sanctions: Russia has been subject to over 13,000 sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These sanctions have slowed production and decreased the volume of what Russia produces.

Refinery repairs: Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries have caused technical outages and contributed to fuel shortages.
Railway bottlenecks: Bottlenecks on railways have contributed to fuel shortages.
Weak rouble: The weakness of the rouble has incentivized fuel exports.

Some other issues that have contributed to aviation shortages in Russia include:

Pilots complaining that their aircraft are being refueled to dangerously low levels

A nationwide shortage of airplane parts and higher-end foreign components

In response to the shortages, Russia has:

Partially banned gasoline exports for six months, exempting some countries

Raised the mandatory supply volumes of motor gasoline and diesel fuel to the commodity exchange
Set up daily monitoring of fuel purchases for agricultural producers
Cut its seaborne diesel and gasoil exports by nearly 30%
Sought gasoline from Kazakhstan

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Something way back I read Russian combat pilots get limted flight time forr training to fuel issues.

Can they fuel up with vodka instead? Plenty of that going around in Vodkastan. Adolph Putin even has his own brand. The czars controlled the production and sale of vodka for centuries. It made them fabulously wealthy because the Russian population lives on the stuff. When the communists took over they continued the practice and do to this day. They're not commies anymore, just gangsters. What will a bottle of Cheato's vodka look like? Probably be orange.

 

[Elixir]

What will a bottle of Cheato's vodka look like? Probably be orange.

Yes, it’s orange. And $799.00

 

[bilby]

Something way back I read Russian combat pilots get limted flight time forr training to fuel issues.

Can they fuel up with vodka instead? Plenty of that going around in Vodkastan. Adolph Putin even has his own brand. The czars controlled the production and sale of vodka for centuries. It made them fabulously wealthy because the Russian population lives on the stuff. When the communists took over they continued the practice and do to this day. They're not commies anymore, just gangsters. What will a bottle of Cheato's vodka look like? Probably be orange.

One of the reasons for the recent Ukrainian attack on Russian distilleries is that they are doing exactly that. Ethanol is a pretty good fuel, and can be mixed with gasoline to make that gasoline go further.

Of course, there are issues. Some gasoline engines can't tolerate any ethanol in their fuel, and most can only handle around 10% without at least some modifications.

With fairly minor design modifications such as the use of ethanol resistant materials for seals and fuel lines, up to 85% ethanol with 15% gasoline can be used to good effect, though that doesn't help if you are trying to fuel an existing fleet of vehicles.

If money is no object, you can build engines to run on 100% ethanol - some race cars run on pure ethanol - but there are a number of problems with that approach that makes it less suitable for for military and logistics vehicles, ranging from infrastructure and design issues, through cost of materials, to such things as the safety implications of a fuel that burns with a flame that is invisible in daylight.

It would be doable to build an ethanol fuelled jet aircraft, but a much bigger ask to build a competitive military jet that ran on the stuff. Certainly that is beyond the abilities of a nation that can't even build a sewage system that doesn't spray shit all over its citizens; Or of a government whose most effective weapon is the spraying of bullshit all over the Internet.

 

[ZiprHead]

Russia seized Crimea then invaded Ukraine, foolishly it has turned out

And US is to blame for this, according National Interest.

That article about the bomber looked very, very biased. Why should I believe anything else they say?

The author is a very biased Trump supporter.

 

[barbos]

Russia seized Crimea then invaded Ukraine, foolishly it has turned out

And US is to blame for this, according National Interest.

That article about the bomber looked very, very biased. Why should I believe anything else they say?

The author is a very biased Trump supporter.

And Jeffrey Sachs is ......

 

[ZiprHead]

I don't know. Who is Jeffrey Sachs?

Is he one of your Russo Nazi supporters? Does he suck Putin the way you do? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[barbos]

Twice as part of coalitions we easily defeated the Iraq army and air force.

Given Russian performance in Ukraine a western NATO coalition would easily defeat Russia in a full scale war.

Something way back I read Russian combat pilots get limted flight time forr training to fuel issues.

Tanks and jets run on fuel. In a full scale war one of the first things would be to destroy Russian fuel supplies.

Russia has experienced fuel shortages due to a number of factors, including:

Sanctions: Russia has been subject to over 13,000 sanctions since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These sanctions have slowed production and decreased the volume of what Russia produces.

Refinery repairs: Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries have caused technical outages and contributed to fuel shortages.
Railway bottlenecks: Bottlenecks on railways have contributed to fuel shortages.
Weak rouble: The weakness of the rouble has incentivized fuel exports.

Some other issues that have contributed to aviation shortages in Russia include:

Pilots complaining that their aircraft are being refueled to dangerously low levels

A nationwide shortage of airplane parts and higher-end foreign components

In response to the shortages, Russia has:

Partially banned gasoline exports for six months, exempting some countries

Raised the mandatory supply volumes of motor gasoline and diesel fuel to the commodity exchange
Set up daily monitoring of fuel purchases for agricultural producers
Cut its seaborne diesel and gasoil exports by nearly 30%
Sought gasoline from Kazakhstan

This never ending trash talk can only make the defeat of "Ukraine" worse.

 

[TV and credit cards]

South Korea will send military observers to Ukraine to assess North Korea's military capabilities and to question captured North Koreans. This ought to be interesting. If you thought Russia was dicked up, wait until you see what the hermit kingdom can produce.

In other news:
Russia and North Korea will cooperate in the sphere of digital communications putting more authoritarian tools in each other's tool bag.

Also, the Vladimir Putin We Heart our Veterans program is moving right along with seriously wounded personnel being committed to highly attritional infantry-led “meat” assaults in the Donstsk region.

 

[steve_bank]

Maybe we should be a little sensitive with Barbos.

He puts up a brave front of Russian optimism yet he may be crying in his beer as reality sets in.

The reality of a a 'special military operation' that was supposed to take weeks turning into years with no end in sight.

The misery and suffering of the Russian soldiers and their families dealing with dead and cropped sons.

Moscow and infrastructure hit by drones.

Ships hit and sunk.

Resorting to NK mercenaries in Ukraine.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Maybe we should be a little sensitive with Barbos.

We certainly should. I claimed he suffers from Stockholm Syndrome as do many of his fellow Russians. There's Babbles and also barbos.

 

[Elixir]

Does Stockholm Syndrome apply to those who are born and raised in captivity? Or is it just a ‘normal’ condition if they’ve never known anything else?

 

[TomC]

Maybe we should be a little sensitive with Barbos.

We certainly should. I claimed he suffers from Stockholm Syndrome as do many of his fellow Russians. There's Babbles and also barbos.

I don't see barbos as particularly different from the millions of Americans who supported Bush II and his Bush Wars and destruction of the US economy back in the early 2000's.
It's not a Russian thing.
Tom

ETA ~And in case nobody noticed, Trump is currently favored to win a victory in the USA.
We have not changed much since 2002.~

 

[Harry Bosch]

Maybe we should be a little sensitive with Barbos.

We certainly should. I claimed he suffers from Stockholm Syndrome as do many of his fellow Russians. There's Babbles and also barbos.

I don't see barbos as particularly different from the millions of Americans who supported Bush II and his Bush Wars and destruction of the US economy back in the early 2000's.
It's not a Russian thing.
Tom

ETA ~And in case nobody noticed, Trump is currently favored to win a victory in the USA.
We have not changed much since 2002.~

The difference is that Barbos wants Russia to conquer Ukraine. Kill its leaders. Control its government. Eliminate its military. Steal its resources. Permanently steal its land. Denazify it. We all know what that means.

 

[TomC]

The difference is that Barbos wants Russia to conquer Ukraine. Kill its leaders. Control its government. Eliminate its military. Steal its resources. Permanently steal its land. Denazify it. We all know what that means.

How is that different from what the US government was doing in Iraq in 2003?
Tom