[jato0072]

Good points Tanada. Also assuming a survivor emerges from their hidey hole unscathed, the grocery stores will be empty and most "survivors" will not be able to replenish their food stores.

[Newfie]

Tanada,
You make a great argument for my live aboard in the Caribbean life style.

Now I need a justification for my summers in Newfoundland!

[Newfie]

I have been quiet for a while and will likely remain that way for a good bit.

I have begun to believe that there is something new developing within our political system, a new axis of alignment that is not Left/Right. As a place holder for a name I am calling it a Up/Down alignment. And my hunch is it is as influential as the Left/Right alignment. I don't want to get into details because I have to few to make a good argument.

At this point I want to just observe how things develop, to see if my hunch shows merit. And if it does then tosee the form of this alignment more clearly. I find these discussions a distraction to my effort to observe. Less talk, more listening is my order of the day for now.

It is likely to all come to naught. But we will see.

[Plantagenet]

The Ukrianian long distance drones have so far hit 12 different Russian refineries, knocking out about 600,000 barrels per day of gasoline production from the damaged Russian refineries.

ukraine-drones-shut-down-600000-barrels-daily

Thats in about two weeks of attacks.


Ukriane is now manufacturing about 60 long distance drones per day, each one capable of blowing a hole in a Russian oil refinery.

If Ukraine can keep this up and successfully attack more and more Russian oil refineries there will be significant shortages of Russian gasoline happening very soon.

Supposedly Russians turned against the war in Afghanistan and forced its end in 1989 because there were so many Russian casualties. But now Russians don't seem to care very much about the hundreds of thousands of Russian military casualties they've sustained in Ukraine. Perhaps they will be more concerned when they can't buy heating oil or gasoline anymore and planes, trains and commercial trucks in western Russia begin to run out of fuel.

Cheers!

[mousepad]

Ukriane is now manufacturing about 60 long distance drones per day, each one capable of blowing a hole in a Russian oil refinery.

If Ukraine can keep this up and successfully attack more and more Russian oil refineries there will be significant shortages of Russian gasoline happening very soon.
Cheers!

you would think that the russians would also crank out them drones a plenty. Seems cheaper than losing expensive jets. What's holding them back to send wave after wave of drones into kiev?

To think about all the beautiful cities and towns that go to hell in this war. Just crazy. A shorter supply line the russians could not have, yet they are incapable of a swift and overwhelming victory against a nation of farmers. They are as incompetent as it gets. Grinding up their whole army and soldiers for a few 100 miles of land. Truly pathetic.

[Plantagenet]

you would think that the russians would also crank out them drones a plenty. Seems cheaper than losing expensive jets. What's holding them back to send wave after wave of drones into kiev?

The Russians don't have the technology to make a good drone, so they copied the Iranian Shaheed drone and they are cranking them out and sending wave after wave of them into Ukriane. The Russian version of the Iranian Shaheed drone is a lot more primitive then what the Ukrianians are sending back into Russia, but some are getting through nonetheless.

To think about all the beautiful cities and towns that go to hell in this war. Just crazy. A shorter supply line the russians could not have, yet they are incapable of a swift and overwhelming victory against a nation of farmers. They are as incompetent as it gets. Grinding up their whole army and soldiers for a few 100 miles of land. Truly pathetic.

I totally agree with you, mousepad.

Putin's plan that he could quickly conquer Ukraine has turned out to be a stupid fools dream. Now Russia and Ukraine are stuck in a long, bloody war that is hurting both countries.


Putin is a dimwitted fool

Cheers!

[jato0072]

I have begun to believe that there is something new developing within our political system, a new axis of alignment that is not Left/Right.

I am increasingly convinced the Elite have no ideology and are simply exacerbating the political left/right struggle to gain more power. The attacks of October 7 and the aftermath is really showing the true colors of the ruling Elite.




Bringing this back to project Ukraine, I am reading France will be sending 2000 troops to Ukraine to free up Ukrainian rear guard positions so Ukrainian soldiers can be sent to the front line. Fake news? Who knows? We'll soon find out.

[theluckycountry]

...I am reading France will be sending 2000 troops to Ukraine ...Fake news? Who knows? We'll soon find out.

The french economy, like a lot of the EU, in not doing well with the higher energy prices, the high inflation and the civil unrest over immigration. Any distraction would be welcome for the ruling elites so embroiling france in a war with Russia would take the heat off Macron, or is it Macaron? He's a real political lapdog, one minute grovelling to Xi Jinping and the next hi-fiving zellinskee.

[ralfy]

https://twitter.com/_Aaron_448/status/1 ... 7332391946

"Ana and Cenk explaining how the CIA doesn’t do bad stuff anymore."

[Plantagenet]

Ukraine has had a lot of success attacking Russian warships and tanks with drones---now they've come up a new technology to attack Russian soldiers with drones.

The Ukrainians are now using drones armed with claymore mines---these new drones are designed to blast shrapnel down on groups of Russian soldiers

ukraines-flying-claymore-mines-cut-down-russian-infantry



Cheers!

[mousepad]

The Russians don't have the technology to make a good drone,

Are you sure? Seems to me a nation that can develop fighter jets, build nukes, send rockets to space, should be able to figure out how to strap a bomb to a drone. Or am I missing something?

I mean, you can even download open source drone control software to get you started:
https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot

Supported airframes (portfolio):
Multicopters
Fixed wing
VTOL
Autogyro
Rover
many more experimental types (Blimps, Boats, Submarines, High altitude balloons, etc)

[AgentR11]

Well... Ukraine made energy infrastructure fair game... Thus, Russia destroys Ukraine's Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station (Ukraine's largest). Completely. It'll never produce another watt of power, the dam itself seems more or less intact so it may hold and not flood, but the generators are just gone. Hard to claim you shot down all the incoming missiles when video pops up and the lights go out. Energy facilities were a step UA should never have taken, they are far more vulnerable than Russia is on that score.

Gonna be oddly fitting if Kyiv ends up dark while the lights are on in Donetsk and Mariupol; where Poroshenko once infamously talked about kids having to hide in basement shelters.

[jato0072]

The Special Military Operation State of War is still in the bottom of the first inning. The slow escalation by NATO will continue. Hopefully, this will be contained in the European Theater and not go nuclear.

[theluckycountry]

Well... Ukraine made energy infrastructure fair game... Thus, Russia destroys Ukraine's Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station (Ukraine's largest). Completely. It'll never produce another watt of power, the dam itself seems more or less intact so it may hold and not flood, but the generators are just gone..

I woke up to that story AR, totally expected of course, and totally justified. Russia in the 'special operations' stage was very cautious not to disrupt the civilian facilities, hell you could even get cell service right up by the active zones. But the stupid little puppet in Keievvv and his cabinet of Nazis have decided the best way to utterly destroy their nation is to go after Russian civilian infrastructure. Now a million ukrainian serfs are sitting in the dark. I hope they realize who put them there.

[Plantagenet]

Ukraine made energy infrastructure fair game... ..

Don't be silly.

The Russians have repeatedly attacked Ukrainain energy infrastructure for the last two years. Its no surprise they continue to attack Ukrainian infrastrure now.

What is surprising is that little tiny Ukraine has somehow developed the ability to return the attacks and hit Russian oil refineries and other energy infrastructure inside Russia.

Cheers!

--------------------------



PS: My sympathies to the Russian people after the ISIS terror attack in Moscow. The US government warned Putin and the Russian government TWO WEEKS AGO that terrorists were going to attack a large public event in Moscow, but Putin didn't do enough to protect the Russian people from the terrorists, and so the Russian people have my deepest sympathies as they suffer yet again for another one of Putin's failures.

[AgentR11]

Don't be silly..

scale my friend. its about scale. I expect a full spring, summer, and autumn full of Russian attacks on large scale electrical generation and grid tie-ins. Something they have NOT done up until now. Kiev could very well ride out December 2024 in the dark.

Hope I'm wrong. UA is a sucky place to be with no power in the winter.

As to the terrorism of a few hours ago... talk about an own-goal, lots of flash, no strategic significance, copious galvanization of the Russian public, coming right after killing that woman walking her dog, on video, in Belgorod with an artillery shell.... Someone wants Putin to stay in power bad.

Or is criminally stupid.

[theluckycountry]

Don't be silly..

scale my friend. its about scale. I expect a full spring, summer, and autumn full of Russian attacks on large scale electrical generation and grid tie-ins. Something they have NOT done up until now. Kiev could very well ride out December 2024 in the dark.

Swathes Of Ukraine Go Dark After Russia Pummels Electrical Power Facilities In Huge Retaliation
The MoD confirmed that it has hit "energy and military industry facilities, railway junctions and arsenals."

They are giving it the Berlin treatment

The West is happy about this too. Less mouths to fees in the ukraine means more wheat exports to them. Lets face it, the ukraine had to go, it was the pedophile capital of the world, exploiting their own vulnerable children to provide sex services to rich westerners.

[Plantagenet]

I expect a full spring, summer, and autumn full of Russian attacks on large scale electrical generation and grid tie-ins. Something they have NOT done up until now. Kiev could very well ride out December 2024 in the dark.

I hope you are wrong, but Putin seems to be a crazy man.

You'd think Russians would be outraged that Putin did nothing after being warned two weeks in advance, essentially opening the door to let ISIS terrorists conduct a mass murder attack as a concert in Russia.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Last night Ukraine hit two more Russian refineries with long distance drone attacks.

drone-attacks-hit-another-russia-refinery-swing-producers-refining-capacity-drops

The fires reportedly lasted for hours, so mark down two more Russian refineries taken off-line by the Ukrainian attacks.


Another day, another 1-2 Russian refineries set on fire by Ukrianian drone attacks

The damage to the Russian refineries will apparently take months to repair.

You have to wonder why Putin doesnt shift some kind of air defense to the refineries to knock down the slow, primitive Ukrainian drones........even he can't be stupid enough not to know the Ukrainians are going to attack his remaining refineries. But maybe, just as he did when he was warned about the terror attack and ignored the warning, Putin is ignoring the obvious threat that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries pose to the Russian economy.

Cheers!

[AgentR11]

You'd think Russians would be outraged that Putin did nothing after being warned two weeks in advance, essentially opening the door to let ISIS terrorists conduct a mass murder attack as a concert in Russia.

Its having a very 9/11 solidarity effect, he'll get huge numbers of contract volunteers out of this, and carte blanch to do any security changes he wants to domestically.

And as much as we're pushing the "ISIS did it storyline", the Russian's aren't buying it. Don't blame them either, the captured suspects don't smell like ISIS fanatics, more like Central Asian mercs, did it for money and vague promises of cushy lives in the EU. No idea if the captured dudes are actually the one's who did something, the Russian public is buying it though, and giving the objectors a "9/11 Truther" kind of vibe.

[AgentR11]

Refineries... could be something pretty simple from Putin's rationale. Right now Russians have a *lot* of freedom of movement internally; Putin is KGB, maybe that bugs him in some fundamental way. What better way to restrict movement than to put limits on individual purchase amounts of gas/diesel fuel. And limits like that could best be accepted if there's a reason for it. Maybe they'll introduce ration coupons or something that give each family an allocated amount of fuel each month.

just a thought.