[the broken]

There's a big difference between Russians got richer and Russia got richer. There's always people who profit from sanctions, because they have the right connections to get around them or their competition goes away. That's part of why you can get super rich elites in poverty stricken countries.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

the broken, on 18 August 2023 - 03:18 PM, said:

There's a big difference between Russians got richer and Russia got richer. There's always people who profit from sanctions, because they have the right connections to get around them or their competition goes away. That's part of why you can get super rich elites in poverty stricken countries.

Yes, but

Quote

Russia added $600 billion of total wealth

Russia Gets Richer Amid a Raging War, While the West Loses Trillions (businessinsider.com)

OTOH 'Russians got richer' could be taken to mean 'most Russians got richer', whereas the article only refers specifically to the number of millionaires and ultra-rich Russians. I'd guess that most Russians benefited very little.

However that was 2022. Werthead's response was very good; I'd forgotten about the recent collapse of the ruble.

Quote

Russia's "civilian economy will take the pain," even if the government were to "cut back on spending, including on its armed forces, to reduce imports." Higher interest rates will "weaken the purchasing power of ordinary Russians … thus the fate of Russia's economy will not be decided by the judgments of international financiers but by the depths of Putin's aggression."

How will the collapse of the ruble affect the war in Ukraine? | The Week

[Werthead]

The USA has approved transferring F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands. The two countries are willing, and Ukrainian pilot training is getting underway. There are some signs that Ukraine is already upgrading at least some runways to accommodate the plane, although as previously noted they need to really upgrade all of them so Russia is left guessing where the planes actually are. The F-16s are unlikely to see action in Ukraine until 2024.

The USA is also considering sending M26 DCIPM cluster missiles to Ukraine to augment their HIMARS systems and would dramatically improve Ukraine's already-formidable counter-battery capability. It also sounds like the ATACMs argument is back on the table and the US is marshalling it as a response to further Russian escalation.​

Red Wings airline had to cancel a slew of flights after two of their Boeing-777s were declared unflightworthy simultaneously and they cancelled a bunch of flights, stranding 400 Russian passengers in various parts of the country.  The international SITA system is also being withdrawn from all Russian carriers at the end of September, which carries information between Russian aircraft and other airports, and between other aircraft and Russian airports. This will severely limit Russian carriers' abilities to fly to other countries or have other aircraft land on Russian soil (the system is used in 90% of international flight processes, so replacing it will not be rapid). Moscow is also now closing its airports and airspace on a regular basis due to fears of drone attacks, even unfounded ones, impacting the capital's economy.

Russian military exports for 2023 appear to be heading for around one-third of pre-2022 levels. It appears that Russia's customers and potential customers are unimpressed with Russian hardware performance in the field.

The US intelligence community has reassessed its predicated outcomes for the Ukrainian counter-attack and believes that Ukraine will take Tokmak after a hard fight and press on to Melitopol, but liberating Melitopol with its remaining resources may be impossible, at least before bad weather sets in. Depending on your POV, either getting to Melitopol is excellent progress (it's far from the front at the moment, amidst some fears that counter-offensive could stall out before even Tokmak) or disappointing since they will fall short of severing the land bridge between Crimea and Russia. However, getting to Melitopol would potentially put all of the roads along the land bridge under fire control. ISW is sceptical that Ukraine needs to take Melitopol to help sever the road bridge, and believes there are other routes Ukraine could take to achieve that, with multiple routes to the Sea of Azov possible between Melitopol and Berdyansk. It depends if Ukraine can create a wide-enough sea corridor that can resist simultaneous attacks from two sides.

The mayor of Moscow has said that Muscovites must stand ready to make sacrifices for the motherland, a message that they will not be spared in the next round of mobilisation. Also some Kremlin insider rumours that Putin has decided to carry out a further round of mobilisation at the end of September which will publicly call for 300,000 new recruits but will actually seek to recruit closer to 500,000. There is considerable dissent over this within the Russian military and intelligence communities, who believe the strain of the last round of mobilisation at the end of last year is what led to the attempted coup and has damaged the Russian economy, and a further round could be disastrous. Some prominent Russian milbloggers have instead urged to freeze the lines as they are now (possibly even shortening them in some places) and make them impenetrable with all new recruits (of a smaller number) assigned to defence rather than offensive actions, and to make sure they are trained properly, and use Russia's newly-built Shahed factory to cajole Ukraine to negotiations or be hit with 6,000 drone attacks next year.

Kazakhstan's trolling game remains excellent.


​

This post has been edited by Werthead: 19 August 2023 - 10:46 AM

[Mentalist]

Realistically, if you look at the fortifications map, if you get to and around Tokmak, the 90km- drive SE towards Berdyansk (or Prymors'k, if you aren't ready for that fight) is probably a safe option than trying to grind through multiple layers of trenches and fortifications in the 50 km of roads between Tokmak and Melitopol'

Though I'm still ambivalent about this thrust. Reaching Staromlynivka and pushing SW to break the line and push at Rozivka and then to try to reach the coast b/w Mariupol and Berdyans'k is what I would like to see happen. If UAF can keep momentum and reach Starommlynivka by the end of the month (give or take), then I'd be very curiios which road they take next.

[Werthead]

Some rumours circulating that Robotyne has mostly fallen to Ukraine and Russian forces are pulling out. Unconfirmed, and there have been some similar claims a few days ago that were not correct. However, Ukraine has definitely achieved widespread control over the northern half of the town, allowing civilians to evacuate to Ukrainian territory for the first time.

Russian Telegram channels having a blow-up over Kherson. Several are claiming that the Russian military's claims to have removed the Ukrainian bridgehead last week were lies and Ukraine is now preparing to break out of the bridgehead, having secured solid river resupply routes. They feel there are not enough Russian forces in Kherson Oblast to stop them, and fear that Crimea could be cut off in weeks or even days. What's really going on there is unclear.

[Mentalist]

Frontline is unclear.

There's been several successful airbase hits. Should be about 4 Tu strategic bombers destroyed/out of commission.

Notably, one of the struck airbases is in Novgorod Oblast, which is basically next to St Petersburg- some 600-odd km from the border.

2 days until Independence Day. Most likely there'll be something interesting.

[Mentalist]

LAWL

a pilot of a transport Mi-8 heli defected along with it, once Ukrainian Intel got his family out of the country.

Also took with him a full cargo of parts for Su27 and Su31 jets.

An S400 Anti-air complex got taken out on Cape Tarkhankut, the westernmost point of the Crimean peninsula.

Last time something like this happened, somethign really big exploded at the Saki airbase, blowing up almost a dozen orc planes.

Seems that preparations for Independence Day fireworks are coming along swimmingly.

EDIT: and now Putler went and offed Prigozhin's plane. With Prigozhin on board. *supposedly*

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 23 August 2023 - 05:46 PM

[champ]

Prigozhin's private jet just fell out a high story window!

[HoosierDaddy]

What Nostradamus could have predicted Prigozhin's demise in an accident?

Truly surprising.

Why do people work with Vladimir Putin? It's a 1 way trip to an early death.

[Chance]

Ye it is really surprising I would never have thought it would take months, my bet would have been on hours or days after failing in his chicken race.

This post has been edited by Chance: 23 August 2023 - 06:52 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Who had "psycho who turned on Putin dies in mysterious circumstances" cos everyone should have done...

[Mentalist]

Chance, on 23 August 2023 - 06:52 PM, said:

Ye it is really surprising I would never have thought it would take months, my bet would have been on hours or days after failing in his chicken race.

They didn't have the resources to confront him immediately in the aftermath of the "putsch"
They spent 2 months undermining him in public opinion and trying to recruit away his troops.

Executing him when the memory was still fresh would require to basically purge all of the 20-odd thousands at once which is hard when they are massed and armed.

But once they are disarmed, dispersed, and about half of them were sent off for home leave, you can just take out the moneyman, and the Nazi frontman, and then tell the rest "deal with it, we're paying you now"

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

pro-Russian Telegram channels warned [...] although Prigozhin's name was on the list of passengers on the plane, it is possible that he wasn't on it. Prigozhin has long been suspicious of his personal security, and would register for flights but board others to be sure he wasn't being targeted.

[...] many Ukraine supporters took to social media to mock him with his own words, sharing a clip of him yelling, "Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where's the fucking ammo?" [they sent the ammo... to his plane]

[...] "it will be a miracle if [Prigozhin] is on another plane," adding that "[Wagner's] entire command staff " [...] was with Prigozhin at the time of the crash.

[...] "just spoken to some prominent 'musicians'" who confirmed [...] Prigozhin [...] died [...] Wagner fighters are frequently referred to as "musicians" [...] "May the recently departed Yevgeny and Dmitry rest in peace with God," [lol, Saint Prigozhin]

Wagner Group Founder Yevgeny Prigozhin Reported Dead After Plane Crash in Russia (thedailybeast.com)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 23 August 2023 - 07:32 PM

[Chance]

Mentalist, on 23 August 2023 - 07:07 PM, said:

Chance, on 23 August 2023 - 06:52 PM, said:

Ye it is really surprising I would never have thought it would take months, my bet would have been on hours or days after failing in his chicken race.

They didn't have the resources to confront him immediately in the aftermath of the "putsch"
They spent 2 months undermining him in public opinion and trying to recruit away his troops.

Executing him when the memory was still fresh would require to basically purge all of the 20-odd thousands at once which is hard when they are massed and armed.

But once they are disarmed, dispersed, and about half of them were sent off for home leave, you can just take out the moneyman, and the Nazi frontman, and then tell the rest "deal with it, we're paying you now"

Doing so also made the Russian regime seem weak. This might have been the cheapest way to do it but it certainly doesn't project confidence and strength.

People with enough troops will be wondering Prigozhin nearly did it can I?

This post has been edited by Chance: 23 August 2023 - 07:51 PM

[Werthead]

Looks like Robotyne has fallen. The Ukrainian flag is flying over a school in the centre of town.

Wagner members, milbloggers, and some professional Russian troops on Telegram are all very angry over this event, blaming Shoigu and Putin. There's death threats to Putin himself, which I've not seen before made so publicly.

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 23 August 2023 - 10:26 PM, said:

Looks like Robotyne has fallen. The Ukrainian flag is flying over a school in the centre of town.

Wagner members, milbloggers, and some professional Russian troops on Telegram are all very angry over this event, blaming Shoigu and Putin. There's death threats to Putin himself, which I've not seen before made so publicly.

If Prigozhin is actually dead, there's gonna be A LOT of drunk, angry posts tonight

[Macros]

Damn I had my money on an ironic food based assassination

[Mezla PigDog]

HoosierDaddy, on 23 August 2023 - 05:41 PM, said:

What Nostradamus could have predicted Prigozhin's demise in an accident?

Truly surprising.

Why do people work with Vladimir Putin? It's a 1 way trip to an early death.

You get mind bendingly rich in the process.

[HoosierDaddy]

Mezla PigDog, on 24 August 2023 - 08:11 AM, said:

HoosierDaddy, on 23 August 2023 - 05:41 PM, said:

What Nostradamus could have predicted Prigozhin's demise in an accident?

Truly surprising.

Why do people work with Vladimir Putin? It's a 1 way trip to an early death.

You get mind bendingly rich in the process.

True.

But can you really even enjoy that money knowing that death is right around the corner if you say the wrong thing or look at your master wrong? All encompassing paranoia is no way to live, even with money.

[Werthead]

Ukraine celebrated Independence Day by invading Crimea, destroying the Nebo-M radar complex and then withdrawing in good order with no losses. Apparently the Russians were taken completely by surprise and their defence was lethargic, at best. That radar system covered western Crimea and a large swathe of occupied and free Kherson, and was used to detect stealth aircraft and cruise missiles.