Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[tmccarthy]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

I doubt Putin will be overly concerned knowing the poor state of the German military currently.

After a weekend news break, I saw that story this morning, I totally missed that one.

So I'm supposed to understand that after we have busted our butts for over 75 years preparing to fight the Soviets/Russians... in a war, the Russians have seen coming right at them for over 20 years... THE DAY arrives and people are seriously talking about war... Germany the richest country in the European military alliance, who should be one the most important allies by geography, experience, and natural talent announced on the day of the invasion, "sorry we aren't ready, not much we can do to help"!

What about the rest of'em... my god!

So Germany is not ready for that damn article 5 we've been waving in the Russian's faces all these years? Wants to send heavy weapons that will escalate a war. And just now starting a big rearmament programer ??!

That's a wrap for me , seems like now it's fate and
some luck. Glad to have stopped by,
Back to the cats and stuff
-Tim

[Catfish]

Well you see already in cold war times Russians and east German military (then belonging to Russia) were always ready to fight, especially at the weekends, since they expected evil NATO to attack them at any time

After the re-unification of Germany there was a lot of talk about those bad old times, and the former east german soldiers were first completely pi$$ed off, and then had to laugh when they heard that NATO forces in Germany never thought of attacking East Germany and Russia, nor did they expect Russia to attack them.
Military staff usually stopped their service at friday at 1 p.m. and went home or in holidays to do whatever they had to in their free time over the weekend, just leaving a small crew for alert, if anything happened.

The NATO did not wave in Russia's faces, they were more interested in pursuing their own path to happiness and give a sh!t for fighting. There was no need felt intention to go back to the 19th or 20ieth century.
Some rude awakening now for sure ..

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine and Russia are building up their military forces in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas as Moscow switches the focus of its offensive.

The coming period is "crucial" for Ukraine, Western officials say.

President Zelensky says Russia is concentrating tens of thousands of soldiers as it prepares for its new assault.

In a rare public appearance, President Vladimir Putin has described the Russian military's goals in Ukraine as "noble"

The US and Britain say they are looking into reports that chemical weapons have been used by Russian forces attacking Mariupol.

Aidin Aslin, a British man fighting in Ukraine, has told friends and family his unit has been forced to surrender to Russian forces.

Some 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been displaced since the start of the war, the UN says.

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Deutsche Welle (German version) writes:

For the first time since Russia's attack on Ukraine, Russian companies have been unable to service their debts to international creditors. At the same time, Moscow announces that it will not issue any more bonds for the time being.

A failure to pay a bond issued by Russian Railways had been detected. This was announced on Monday by the committee of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) responsible for Europe, to which some of the world's largest investment banks belong.

According to the report, it is an interest payment on a 250 million Swiss franc loan maturing in 2026. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are some of the committee members that see a default.

Western sanctions against Russia following the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine have put pressure on the economy there. Since then, there has been speculation about whether companies and the government will still be able to meet their payment obligations and whether Western lenders could face large write-offs.

The railroad said it had tried to make interest payments due on March 14. But it was unable to do so because of "legal and regulatory obligations within the correspondent banking network," according to a statement released by the SIX Swiss Exchange.

The Kremlin said Russia has the necessary means to pay its debts. "There can only be a technical, man-made default," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "There are no objective reasons for such a default. Russia has everything it needs to meet all its obligations."

The Russian explanation for a missed interest payment by Russia's Alrosa Group, one of the world's largest diamond producers, is similar. The company failed to settle a payment of $11.6 million (10.6 million euros), the AFP news agency reported Monday, citing Russia's Interfax agency. The reason for the default, it said, was the sanctions imposed on the company. The Russian state holds about 33 percent of Alrosa's shares.

Great Britain had already sanctioned Alrosa on March 24, followed last week by the U.S. Treasury Department. The impact of these sanctions made repayment of the debt "technically impossible," although the financial resources were available, Alrosa told Interfax. It initially remained unclear whether the group would make the interest payment on a loan due in 2024 in rubles or make no repayment at all.

The U.S. recently increased economic pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The Treasury Department last week prevented the Russian government from making due payments of more than $600 million to its creditors from foreign exchange reserves held at U.S. banks.

The reserves held by the Russian Central Bank were frozen after the war began, but Moscow has been allowed to draw on them for payments on dollar-denominated government bonds.

The blockade is intended to force the Kremlin to make a decision: To either use the dollars it can access domestically to make payments to its creditors or to use them for other purposes, such as financing the war.

Russia announced it would stop issuing government bonds for the time being in light of the sanctions. In an interview with the daily Izvestia published Monday night, Russian Economy Minister Anton Siluanov announced that no bonds will be placed for the rest of the year.

According to the minister, revenues from the sale of oil and gas, among other things, are sufficient to cover the state's current expenses. The minister referred to the high costs that would currently be associated with further borrowing for the Russian state. They "would be astronomical," so such a measure makes no sense. Siluanov was presumably referring to the high interest rates that the Russian state would currently have to offer. In addition, Russia is excluded from much of the financial world due to Western sanctions, which severely limits the pool of buyers.

Over the weekend, the U.S. rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgraded Russia's credit rating yet again, lowering its rating to "selective default." This marks a partial default. Previously, Russia, whose foreign exchange reserves are largely blocked due to Western sanctions, settled the repayment of two bonds in rubles and not in dollars as planned.


With the downgrade, S&P has also discontinued its rating of Russia's creditworthiness. The other two leading rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch, had already discontinued their ratings of the country. The background to this is sanctions imposed by the European Union, which prohibit the agencies from rating Russia's creditworthiness in the future.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)


I only hope the frozen assets of several hundred billion never find their way back into Russia, but get used to pay reparations to Ukraine.

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

NATO forces in Germany never thought of attacking East Germany and Russia, nor did they expect Russia to attack them.
Military staff usually stopped their service at friday at 1 p.m. and went home or in holidays to do whatever they had to in their free time over the weekend, just leaving a small crew for alert, if anything happened.

The first part is true but back when I was stationed there we had practice alerts about once every other week so we weren't all that sure the Soviets wouldn't try something.

[August]

BTW Ther have been reports of the Ukrainian defenders beginning to surrender in Marpol. Has anyone ever heard of what is becoming of Ukrainian POW's? I wonder if the Swiss or Red Cross has been given access to them or if the Russians are shooting them ala the Katyn Forest.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Deutsche Welle (German version) writes:

For the first time since Russia's attack on Ukraine, Russian companies have been unable to service their debts to international creditors. At the same time, Moscow announces that it will not issue any more bonds for the time being.

well as the Russians say it is a "technical" default. Russia has the cash both inside and outside Russia to make the interest payments on the Bonds, but the U.S. Treasury Department has been putting up more and more roadblocks to make it impossible for Russia to pay in USD.

The US wants Russia to default so they can say, see sanctions are working!

What Russia has been doing is offering to pay in Rubles which is almost back up to pre-war levels or offering to transfer the "frozen" cash assets in the West as payment. That way, they will have western investors on their side arguing that the assets be un-forzen so they can be paid.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

Russia removed from UN Human Rights Council after Ukraine atrocities



https://www.foxnews.com/world/un-sus...il-ukraine-war

well that is a Pyrrhic victory of dubious propaganda value.

First, the UN Human Rights council has always been a bit of a joke. Its members include some of the worst human rights abuser of the world and the Council spends most of its time investigating and condemning Israel.

Second, they had to game the rules to get a victory. From the rules, it was not clear if you needed 2/3 of all members or 2/3 of all members voting. Since they only got a bare majority of all members, they had to rule that it was 2/3 of members voting without counting abstentions so they could declare victory.

Third, depite enormous US pressure and the fact that this was a symbolic gesture, you have a lot of major economic players and US allies who either voted no or abstained:

-Bahrain
-Brazil
-China
-Egypt
-India
-Indonesia
-Iraq
-Kuwait
-Mexico
-Nigeria
-Pakistan
-Qatar
-Saudi Arabia
-South Africa
-United Arab Emirates

Not sure why they went through with this. It makes for a good one day headline, but underlines more that the so-called "international coalition" against Russia is already falling apart.

[mapuc]

Was I totally wrong !?

Yesterday a FB friend posted an article about Putins new general in Ukraine.

"Putin has recruited a notorious Russian general, and is now going after all of Europe.

Putin has recruited a feared Russian general to lead Russia's invasion. He has stated that his goal now is the "whole Europe project". "

As a comment I wrote

"Conquer Europe -Haha allow me to laugh..They have shown that their army is incompetent and their equipment does not work- The soldiers seem to be poorly trained, so how are they going to take Europe ?? I am just asking."

The reply I got was "You watch to much mainstream tv. Another wrote
"It truly show how easy it is to brainwash people."

So all these short videoclip some of you have posted are nothing but propaganda and the Russian military is in perfect shape.

Markus

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Dargo

For the first time in the history of modern European warfare, Russia may run out of soldiers.

well no, not really. The issue is that Russia is trying to fight on the cheap.

Russia has a hybrid system. They have a peactime force which they keep more or less fully staffed of around 125-150 BTGs. It looks like most of them have been fed in, but based on their tactics of using company size battle groups, it looks like the BTGs may not even be fully staffed, so not equivalent to 125-150 BTGs.

It also seems now that the Ukranians have fully mobilized, that the Ukrainians may/probably outnumber the Russians inside Ukraine which would explain why the Russians are increasingly using heavy artillery systems to compensate.

Now Russia does have a large manpower reserve composed of reservists who have done their military service. Russsia coud launch a full mobilization which would allow them to field another 150 or more BTGs. So far Putin has resisted that step but we are rapidly reaching a point where Russia will have to either go all in or negotiate some sort of peace deal.

[Catfish]

^ I fear you are right..
I wonder if the Ukrainian military could transfer forces to Mariupol, but this may be too late, if possible at all.
For this they would need air superiority, and while Russia may not have it, Ukraine is far from that as well.

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Ukraine has disinvited German President Steinmeier and declared him an undesirable person because of his role in making Germany's foreign policy Russia-friendly and his closeness to Lavrov and his role in pushing through Nordstream 2. Steinmeier's angry preceptor ego was unmistakable when he commented on this during a visit to Poland today. But the diplomatic affront to both Steinmeier and Germany is not undeserved.

The Greens, meanwhile, are increasingly making a front against Scholz because he refuses to allow any heavy weapons to be delivered, either German or Soviet-made, and does not want other NATO countries doing this either. The stupid thing is that more and more of these other countries do not ask the German masters for their permission. By the way, a relative majority of the German population is clearly in favor of such deliveries.


And the Neue Zürcher Zeitung comments on the plan that chancellor Bubble-Olf Scholz travels to Kyiv:


The question of how Steinmeier's party colleague Olaf Scholz will now react is exciting. In Berlin, voices have been raised in recent days calling for the chancellor to travel to Kiev, as the heads of government of Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Austria have done. He would welcome a visit by the chancellor to Kiev, said Bijan Djir-Sarai, secretary general of the FDP, for example. The message to Ukraine would be, "We haven't forgotten you."

That's one way to look at it - if you believe that the Ukrainian people are still concerned with Western symbolic politics now, shortly before the feared large-scale Russian offensive. In truth, the interest in German weapons is probably greater.

The Düsseldorf-based arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has just announced the prospect of supplying dozens of old battle tanks, but only after a general technical overhaul and political export approval. The whole thing is to take six weeks, i.e. once again as long as this war has already lasted. Will Ukraine be recognizable by then?

If the German government could make a contribution to speeding up or at least not slowing down such arms deliveries, it would certainly be a more relevant "sign of solidarity" from the Ukrainian point of view than pictures of the German chancellor in Kiev.

Symbolic politics is not per se wrong. On the contrary, many historical landmarks have remained in the collective memory with their help, from Willy Brandt's genuflection in Warsaw to the handshake between François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl over the graves of Verdun. But symbolic politics loses its value if someone merely imitates what others have done faster and more decisively before him. And without real political content, it remains PR theater. Steinmeier sends his regards.

Boris Johnson, undoubtedly a gifted political packaging artist, was able to credibly pose as Volodimir Selensky's ally during his walk through Kiev alongside him, because the kingdom had already supplied Ukraine with anti-tank missiles and intelligence information at a time when Berlin and elsewhere did not want to know anything about military support for the country. The prime minister, of whom public opinion in Germany likes to paint a distorted picture of a dubious airhead, had already delivered in the literal sense of the word at the time of his visit.

Chancellor Scholz, on the other hand, may have aroused the greatest expectations with his speech about a "turning point in the history of the Federal Republic," but he has since disappointed them time and again - above all through his overtaxed defense minister, who is not familiar with the subject. Germany will be "on the right side of history," he proclaimed. Under his leadership, the country would give a "clear answer" to the "new reality."

What Europe's new reality looks like is shown by the images of Russian war crimes in Butscha and Mariupol. And what the German response looks like is illustrated, among other things, by the dispute over the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine. While the FDP and the Greens have long been in favor, the chancellor is putting on the brakes and warning against Germany "going it alone" - as if any European government would have a problem with Berlin sending tanks to Ukraine.

It is this discrepancy between pathetic talk and dithering action that would make a visit by Scholz to Kiev superfluous. As long as he has nothing in his luggage that will help Ukraine on the battlefield, he can forget about the trip just as much as his comrade in Bellevue Palace.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)