Russia/Ukraine conflict

[iPlug]

Standing up to bullies sometimes pays off.

Navalny's body returned to mother, spokeswoman says

Would be a challenge to get non-Putin experts in or anyone else for that matter for tissue sampling and transit abroad to run advanced forensic tests. And now that the body was released 9 days after death samples would have reduced yield potential.

All the same, Putin may not care or be more than ok with some report that confirms there was poisoning of some sort. Of course, anyone involved in collecting such tests would likely also be hunted by his mafia.

 

[Crutonius]

Would it really change anything? Does anyone seriously not assume the worst intentions when it comes to Russia?

 

[navguy12]

Would be a challenge to get non-Putin experts in or anyone else for that matter for tissue sampling and transit abroad to run advanced forensic tests. And now that the body was released 9 days after death samples would have reduced yield potential.

All the same, Putin may not care or be more than ok with some report that confirms there was poisoning of some sort. Of course, anyone involved in collecting such tests would likely also be hunted by his mafia.

IIRC, in the book Freezing Order (Bill Browder), there was an explanation on how getting tissue samples out of Russia for testing was accomplished (I can’t remember if this was specifically dealing with Sergei Magnitsky’s murder, or someone else within his orbit).

 

[navguy12]

Two in depth articles from today’s Toronto Star

Many scholars of war have come to share Demchenko’s initial perspective that this war is a pivotal conflict laden with consequences for the entire globe, teaching us all not just about Russian President Vladimir Putin, but about why it is so important to democratic nations for Ukraine to win.

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

On the defensive and critically short of ammunition and soldiers after two years of war, Ukrainian forces are increasingly resorting to an age-old tactic — intelligence gleaned from radio intercepts — in a desperate effort to preserve their most vital resources.

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[SageBrush]

Without being morbid, I hope some samples of the remains can be smuggled out of Russia to be analyzed for toxins.

I think it is a fair guess that Russia delayed releasing the body specifically to reduce the chance of detection.

 

[SageBrush]

The media is reporting that Biden slapped another list of sanctions on Russia in response to the Navalny death/murder. UKR was not enough justification ?

 

[navguy12]

https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

View attachment 1021799

https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs

This is also being reported by The Kyiv Independent:

...] Around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been recorded as killed by Russia's war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the "Ukraine. Year 2024" forum in Kyiv on Feb. 25.

"Each person is a very big loss for us. 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in this war," the president said. "It is very painful for us." [...]

He also said that 180,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war, and that along with the wounded, Russia has suffered 500,000 casualties. [My u.]

"I won't say how many wounded (Ukrainians) there are because Russia will know how many people have left the battlefield." [...

Zelensky: 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in Russia's war

Around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been recorded as killed by Russia's war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the "Ukraine. Year 2024" forum in Kyiv on Feb. 25.

kyivindependent.com

 

[Dangerous Fish]

The media is reporting that Biden slapped another list of sanctions on Russia in response to the Navalny death/murder. UKR was not enough justification ?

I think we can say by now that sanctions are a 'soft' retaliation.
They have had some effect, that's for sure but when it comes to reducing the effectiveness of the military machine, they are quite ineffective in the way they've been rolled out up to now.

Western devices are still being found in the very latest Russian, Iranian and North Korean missiles, for instance.
Engineering resources are still finding their way into Russian arms factories.
Money and property seized from Russians still isn't making it's way to Ukraine.
Russians are still buying expensive houses and partying in our back garden.

Sanctions make politicians look like they're doing something, but as usual if you scrape the surface, it's window dressing most of the time and they don't follow up to make sure the sanctions are actually making a difference.

I'm personally sick of listening to the rhetoric politicians come out with on a daily basis.
They got us into this mess but are seemingly incapable currently of getting us out of it.
Ukraine will not benefit in any meaningful way from more sanctions against Russia.
What they need are the tools to finish Russia off.
There is no other way to sort out this mess.

 

[Unclepaul]

Believe that any Doctor in Russia, publishing that the cause of death was unnatural, will suffer a similar fate.

 

[iPlug]

Regarding sanctions, would argue they have ~10% real effect compared to if one were 100% successful in executing what is sanctioned. Sanctions practically only achieve increased "friction", so it is more expensive for Russia to obtain whatever is sanctioned. They also serve notice to intermediaries that the West knows what they are facilitating, to what effect and political pressure - unclear.

 

[SageBrush]

Regarding sanctions, would argue they have ~10% real effect compared to if one were 100% successful in executing what is sanctioned. Sanctions practically only achieve increased "friction", so it is more expensive for Russia to obtain whatever is sanctioned. They also serve notice to intermediaries that the West knows what they are facilitating, to what effect and political pressure - unclear.

Westerners, and I suspect the US in particular, oppose sanctions that would make their daily lives more expensive. This is rationalized as 'not harming Western economic ability to aid UKR.' Maybe so, but then these same people see the effect on prices in Russia and minimize its utility.

M'thinks one cannot have it both ways

 

[iPlug]

Westerners, and I suspect the US in particular, oppose sanctions that would make their daily lives more expensive. This is rationalized as 'not harming Western economic ability to aid UKR.' Maybe so, but then these same people see the effect on prices in Russia and minimize its utility.

M'thinks one cannot have it both ways

Would argue such concerned U.S./Western citizens have some logic when it comes to a several countries like China where we have deep bilateral trade relations. But when is the last time anyone in the States found a label "Made in Russia"? I'm not sure I've ever seen one.

Russia is heavily dependent on numerous things from the West. Russian, OTOH, produces and exports mostly low value added products/commodities. But at least here in the U.S., we need nearly none of these things from them. So US vs. Russia sanctions would hurt U.S. exporters but not necessarily U.S. consumers. And when pressure on Russia causes them to export less oil and NG, the U.S. largely fills in the world deficit.

For some of the low value added minerals and such we buy from them, that is because we figured long ago the economics favored sourcing them from Russia as they remain less concerned with local environmental damage, so we let them pocket the damage instead.

 

[navguy12]

Would argue such concerned U.S./Western citizens have some logic when it comes to a several countries like China where we have deep bilateral trade relations. But when is the last time anyone in the States found a label "Made in Russia"? I'm not sure I've ever seen one.

Russia is heavily dependent on numerous things from the West. Russian, OTH, produces and exports mostly low value added products/commodities. But at least here in the U.S., we need nearly none of these things from them. So US vs. Russia sanctions would hurt U.S. exporters but not necessarily U.S. consumers.

For some of the low value end minerals and such we buy from them, that is because we figured long ago the economics favored sourcing them from Russia as they remain less concerned with local environmental damage, so we let them pocket the damage instead.

This box is over three years old, part of a cache of boxes I bought off Amazon some years ago…

20 years ago, when my brother was still involved in the oil pipeline business, he would tell me stories about the Russian solution to leakage.

They would simply increase the pressure/flow rate to overcome the leakage as it was cheaper and simpler than to trace the problem and rectify it.

 

[iPlug]

Bluster, diversion and/or near future foreshadowing?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1761727239144493155

 

[wdolson]

This is also being reported by The Kyiv Independent:

...] Around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been recorded as killed by Russia's war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the "Ukraine. Year 2024" forum in Kyiv on Feb. 25.

"Each person is a very big loss for us. 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in this war," the president said. "It is very painful for us." [...]

He also said that 180,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war, and that along with the wounded, Russia has suffered 500,000 casualties. [My u.]

"I won't say how many wounded (Ukrainians) there are because Russia will know how many people have left the battlefield." [...

Zelensky: 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in Russia's war

Around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been recorded as killed by Russia's war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the "Ukraine. Year 2024" forum in Kyiv on Feb. 25.

kyivindependent.com

Odd that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is claiming that over 400K+ Russians have died.
Casualties of Russia in Ukraine - official data

I think we can say by now that sanctions are a 'soft' retaliation.
They have had some effect, that's for sure but when it comes to reducing the effectiveness of the military machine, they are quite ineffective in the way they've been rolled out up to now.

Western devices are still being found in the very latest Russian, Iranian and North Korean missiles, for instance.
Engineering resources are still finding their way into Russian arms factories.
Money and property seized from Russians still isn't making it's way to Ukraine.
Russians are still buying expensive houses and partying in our back garden.

Sanctions make politicians look like they're doing something, but as usual if you scrape the surface, it's window dressing most of the time and they don't follow up to make sure the sanctions are actually making a difference.

I'm personally sick of listening to the rhetoric politicians come out with on a daily basis.
They got us into this mess but are seemingly incapable currently of getting us out of it.
Ukraine will not benefit in any meaningful way from more sanctions against Russia.
What they need are the tools to finish Russia off.
There is no other way to sort out this mess.

What's the alternative to sanctions? A hot war is the only other solution and I don't think anyone in the west wants that.

Sanctions are the best solution available short of bullets and missiles flying. Now what the west needs to do better is police the sanctions and close off routes where the Russians are getting western tech that is on the list. An alternative in the electronics realm would be to flood the black market with counterfeit devices. That will cause Russia to pay through the nose for parts that don't work right.

Anders Puck Neilsen's latest video discusses the best and worse case scenarios for 2024.

In the best case scenario he points out that Russian production is pretty close to the peak of what they can do now and it's likely going to decline soon. The Russian economy is under a lot of stress due to the sanctions. Russia has held it together by dipping into their savings and some fancy footwork from the Ministry of Finance, but they are ultimately trying to keep a leaking boat from sinking.

This box is over three years old, part of a cache of boxes I bought off Amazon some years ago…

View attachment 1021898

20 years ago, when my brother was still involved in the oil pipeline business, he would tell me stories about the Russian solution to leakage.

They would simply increase the pressure/flow rate to overcome the leakage as it was cheaper and simpler than to trace the problem and rectify it.

The Russians "make do" in a lot of areas. My sister is a Petroleum Geologist and her company had a contract to digitize data from Russian oil wells when western oil companies were helping the Russians to get their oil business up and running again after the fall of the USSR. Her expertise is in analyzing the data collected when wells are drilled and determining how things are laid out down there. Using that data can determine the best place to put the next well.

She said the Russian oil fields were a mess. Thanks to the command economy, instead of using science to determine the best place to drill wells, when Moscow said to drill, they would just pick a spot in the middle of the existing field and drill there.

The Russians had collected data on the wells using some of the same tech the west uses (though more primitive). The western oil business has standard scales for the logs, but the Russians printed their logs to a scale that fit the paper they had. Many of the logs appears to be printed on poor quality paper towels from a public restroom. When they rolled up the logs and stored them, they had rubber bands made from bicycle inner tubes.

She had digitized a lot of old logs that had been paper only when she worked for Getty Oil, but she said this project was going slowly because they had to rescale every single log.

 

[madodel]

Blow to Putin as Europe breaks free of Russian oil for good

Analysts found that the UK and much of Europe have reversed a years-long rise in reliance on Russian oil and gas before the Ukraine conflict, shifting instead to other suppliers such as the US and Canada.

 

[DanCar]

A Russian minority speaking the truth:

 

[iPlug]

A Russian minority speaking the truth:

Words of wisdom from an intellectual, many younger of whom have likely already left, and few nascent to be nurtured in such a stifling country.

 

[navguy12]

I have one “gifted” story left for this month from The Globe and Mail.

The gifted link may just go to the G&M home page (based on past experience), so I included a screenshot of the title to aid in searching for the correct story:

From the Globe and Mail: Foreign correspondent Mark MacKinnon answers readers’ questions on the second anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war - Foreign correspondent Mark MacKinnon answers readers’ questions on the second anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war

One of the discussion points:

(…) How do you see the war ending?​

MM: This is the biggest question of them all. There are three endings that I can see. One is a total Russian victory. Russian President Vladimir Putin gets what he wants. That now seems a remote probability. Even if Russian troops took Kyiv and Kharkiv, it’s clear the resistance would continue. Two is Ukraine driving all Russian troops out of the country. A year ago, this suddenly seemed possible. I have a colleague who strongly believed the war would be over by (last) Christmas, with Russia in full retreat. After the failed counteroffensive of 2023, this also seems unlikely now.

That leaves us with something neither side seems genuinely interested in: some kind of negotiated solution. I won’t speculate what that might look like, but it won’t be the complete liberation of Ukrainian territory. And how long would such a peace last?

So that leaves me fearing that we’re nowhere near the end of this, meaning at least several more years of war – unless something truly dramatic happens (like a sudden death in Moscow).