Russia-Ukrainian War

[cubsfan]

9 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Well worth a view.

 

 

 

Stand out slide.

 

Cant remember here who was trying to categorize the Russian’s as some 3rd world country that had lost its access to resources and was somehow incompetent and impotent from a military industrial standpoint. Review the slide above and realize that on the left you’re looking at the ‘West’ emptying out its lockers to supply Ukraine shells etc……then on the right it’s Russia with a little help from its friends.

 

You take the above , add in the simple population advantage Russia has plus their GDP advantage.
 

Then layer on the fact that the Russian’s are their own masters here in terms of funding the war….plus their own captive military industrial complex to produce what they need (artillery, tanks, drones, missiles)

 

Ukraine by contrast is running the war on shaky welfare payments from the USA/UK/EU……and the consumables (artillery, tanks) are coming not from their own captive industrial base….but the combined industrial bases of the West which has been shown during Covid and during this conflict to be quite limited relative to the past and relative to China/Russia who never de-industrialized as we clearly have.

 

Ukraine is in a terrible situation……and without a decisive step change in the quantum and scope of our support, they are doomed….perhaps Putin sits tight till Nov 2024 to see who takes the WH….but I suspect not…..at a certain point I think he drives to take more territory bordering the Black Sea all the way to Odessa if possible. Time is on his side - this could be a 2025 or 2026 project for all he cares….time is not the friend of Ukraine or the West’s flagging support. 

Right - unfortunately, Ukraine is going to run out of manpower. Already hearing about forced conscription of any able bodied males on the streets. With the media controlled by the government, and martial law in place , getting the real story is tough.

 

Nobody wants to see Ukraine fail, but recovering the Crimea & Donbas is a pipe dream.

[ValueArb]

12 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Well worth a view.

 

 

 

Stand out slide.

 

Cant remember here who was trying to categorize the Russian’s as some 3rd world country that had lost its access to resources and was somehow incompetent and impotent from a military industrial standpoint. Review the slide above and realize that on the left you’re looking at the ‘West’ emptying out its lockers to supply Ukraine shells etc……then on the right it’s Russia with a little help from its friends.

 

You take the above , add in the simple population advantage Russia has plus their GDP advantage.
 

Then layer on the fact that the Russian’s are their own masters here in terms of funding the war….plus their own captive military industrial complex to produce what they need (artillery, tanks, drones, missiles)

 

Ukraine by contrast is running the war on shaky welfare payments from the USA/UK/EU……and the consumables (artillery, tanks) are coming not from their own captive industrial base….but the combined industrial bases of the West which has been shown during Covid and during this conflict to be quite limited relative to the past and relative to China/Russia who never de-industrialized as we clearly have.

 

Ukraine is in a terrible situation……and without a decisive step change in the quantum and scope of our support, they are doomed….perhaps Putin sits tight till Nov 2024 to see who takes the WH….but I suspect not…..at a certain point I think he drives to take more territory bordering the Black Sea all the way to Odessa if possible. Time is on his side - this could be a 2025 or 2026 project for all he cares….time is not the friend of Ukraine or the West’s flagging support. 

 

Emptying out our lockers? We have nearly 4,000 Abrams M1A1 and over 2,800 Bradleys in storage that the US isn't supplying. I don't know how many older leopards, challengers, are in European and UK storage, but I'd bet at least a thousand.

 

And its not as simple as saying 100 tanks > 28 tanks. Sure the Russians still have more equipment and more men but on the left side of the graphic and you see significantly more lethal and valuable weapons. On the right side you see mostly death traps like T-72s, T-80s, T-90s and BMPs, while the Ukrainians are getting far more survivable armor. And while the chart lists far less accurate Russian MLRS, it doesn't acknowledge the existence of HIMARS. Or Javelins. Or GLSDB (when it finally gets there).

 

What the chart tells us is that we can help Ukraine very inexpensively by actually digging into our massive stores of equipment that is obsolete for our military requirements, but significantly better than anything the Russians have. Will we do it? Hard for me to be optimistic about it given the Biden administration has consistently only given Ukraine enough help to survive, not to win. They appear to be terrified by the prospect of Russia actually losing. And Republicans are knee jerk anti-Biden on every topic, so unless we get a Republican president who is a strong supporter of Ukraine, there is no clear path to giving Ukraine the support they need.

 

And as far as Russia mounting new offensives, they've tried a couple this year and mostly failed. As they grind through their few remaining experienced troops its going to get tougher and tougher to mount any sophisticated campaigns. Especially when they need to keep blocking battalions to ensure the front line doesn't flee. Where Russia is still strong is in their generalship, you can see this in their brilliant defensive operations this year where they flooded massive areas before the Ukraine offensive, and built strong defensive barriers in depth across the entire front. They know they don't have offensive capable troops anymore, all their paratroops and other elite units have been annihilated.

 

Over the winter both sides will use it to rebuild forces as much as possible and both will attempt new offensives and then we'll find out who can get it done.

[ValueArb]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Right - unfortunately, Ukraine is going to run out of manpower. Already hearing about forced conscription of any able bodied males on the streets. With the media controlled by the government, and martial law in place , getting the real story is tough.

 

Nobody wants to see Ukraine fail, but recovering the Crimea & Donbas is a pipe dream.

 

France called up nearly 8M men in WW1 (not including colonials), despite having a population smaller than Ukraine. Ukraine has about 800,000 active personnel and 900,000 reserves, out of a pool of at least 11M men aged 16-49, more if we include women.

 

So the question is, is Ukraine really struggling to get conscripts or is this just anecdotal or disinformation? And if they are struggling, why was it easier for the French to conscript troops? It's hard to imagine the French "esprit de corp" was higher than it is in the Ukraine, as the first year of WW1 was a complete disaster for them. They lost half of France, had Germans camped within artillery range of Paris, and took well over 1M casualties. They even had widespread mutinies in 1917 after losing faith in their generals after yet another failed offensive.

 

And Crimea is hanging by a thread. Russia couldn't hold it if we provided enough HIMARS/ATACMS to suppress their rail lines or if Ukraine gets another 20 miles or so to put them under artillery bombardment. Donbas is a really tough nut, even post Crimea collapse there is no easy way to roll that back up against Russia's superior manpower and ability to quickly build defensive fortifications and massive minefields. Personally I'd attack through Russia itself at that point, but if its in the second Biden term they'll never allow that to happen.

 

But everyone misses that Russia is suffering just as badly. Its already suffered through its first troop rebellion and it was a doozy. Traditionally Russian armies pour massive amounts of untrained troops at the enemy to overwhelm with numbers, and use blocking battalions to keep the front line troops fighting despite terrible morale. Also traditionally eventually some rebel leading to massive retreats, even regime change. I predict more are coming.

[cubsfan]

^^^ I think you make excellent points, we really just don’t know. How many Ukrainians have left the country? 20 or 25%??   The scandal with conscripts this year where deferments were being sold right and left for those choosing not to fight - is a sure sign of stress. Broadening the military age to able bodied men from 18 to 60 looks like manpower stress. Now including women looks like stress. So this years crackdown is indicative of a manpower shortage. We’ll know soon enough. The issue won’t be weapons, but enough people to man and train those weapons, and then fight.

[changegonnacome]

12 hours ago, ValueArb said:

So the question is, is Ukraine really struggling to get conscripts or is this just anecdotal or disinformation? And if they are struggling, why was it easier for the French to conscript troops?

 

Their inability to replenish the frontlines with troops is very real......via straight up fleeing of Ukraine by fighting age men at the beginning of the war and the various deferment bribery scandals reaching a crescendo in August.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66478422

"Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that more than 30 people face criminal charges, with all regional officials in charge of military conscription removed."

 

Complete removal of all regional officials speaks to a serious lack of internal buy-in for the conflict not to mention widespread corruption in the civil & army service.

 

12 hours ago, ValueArb said:

And if they are struggling, why was it easier for the French to conscript troops?

 

 

Anecdotally from speaking to Ukrainians that work in my company - there is a not so minority view in Ukraine that Zelensky but especially the Ukrainian right (using Zelensky) whistled to the graveyard with this war by pivoting so strongly to the West in the 2010's (NATO/EU) culminating in Zelensky becoming Trumps lap-dog in the infamous 2018 phone call.......while simultaneously running an overly aggressive & belligerent foreign policy with their big neighbour to the East- Russia. The Ukrainian right in short was too idealistic, some would say naive in their drive to 'join' the West.

 

Pre-invasion some 30% of the Ukrainian population did not want to join NATO chiefly due to its antagonizing nature between Ukrainain-Russian relations. Which is to say that one third of Ukranians knew that poking the Russian bear is not a clever strategy.

 

In the same way that Vietnam, for many, became "not my war".....the War between Ukraine & Russia for descent slug of fighting age men in Ukraine is 'not their war'......they saw it coming and the pivot to the West was strongly opposed by many in Ukraine because they understood the realpoltik of being small country in the shadow of a much larger one.

 

Two thought experiments - 

 

Many consider Joe Biden an idiot when it comes to foreign policy......if Uncle Joe landed the US in the dumb and completely avoidable conflict with Mexico......how quick would republican leaning fighting age men be to go fight 'Joe's war'

 

Secondly - just ask yourself I guess what Charlie Munger's hero in Singapore would have done - Lee Kuan Yew -given the Ukrainian set of cards heading into the 2000's......the answer of course would be obvious to Lee Kuan Yew > play both sides > the only answer is to have good relations with both the West AND Russia recognizing the reality that Ukraine will always remain via geography sandwiched between these two 800ilbs gorillas .....so your fiduciary responsibility to your people as their leader is to skillfully align and diverge on policies such that Ukrainian prosperity, security & survival might be maximized inside this reality. Hell I bet Lee Kuan Yew would figure out a way to get US dollars AND Russian rubles in various aid & financing packages from both. The idealogue Ukrainian right did the opposite......politics is the art of pragmatism, not idealism.....the foolish forget the former and execute the latter.

 

The reality is Ukraine has been led by second rate political operators for more than a decade (perhaps longer). Zelensky is an actor playing the role of a politician........a 1st rate politician or political party would never have gotten themselves into the situation the Ukrainian right has gotten Ukraine into.*

 

*Of course if you want to believe the conventional wisdom re: Putin the Imperialist.....then whats happening in Ukraine was simply inevitable.....and I get that argument if your happy always to have your foreign leaders/countries distilled down to mere caricatures...James Bond villains.....but I don't think it stacks up.....the world is much more complicated than the goods guys ('us') and the bad guys (anybody that isnt 'us'). I find the nuance constantly gets lost in the foreign policy realm via mixture of natural tribalism that afflicts us all and the medias need for villains & heroes........multi-segment 22 minute news programs aren't designed to explore complicated issues of sovereignty, security and power politics between states.

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by changegonnacome

[ValueArb]

I don’t think you have to reduce Puyin to a caricature to know he was always seeking to rebuild the Russian empire, regardless of what politicians in Ukraine did.

[Spekulatius]

Interesting post on the destruction of a couple of Russian SU-34 fighter jets who thought they were safe (over Russia) but I guess not. They were downed by Patriot missiles deep over Russia.

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Spekulatius

[ValueArb]

21 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Interesting post on the destruction of a couple of Russian SU-34 fighter jets who thought they were safe (over Russia) but I guess not. They were downed by Patriot missiles deep over Russia.

 

They just added another SU-34 and a SU-30 in last 24 hours. That’s now five of Russia’s best shot down this week. Those crews and jets are going to be very hard to replace.

[Spekulatius]

I am currently in Pukhet / Thailand and you would think it’s a Russian colony now. My wife is from Thailand and knows some friends with extensive travel experience and they told her to be careful with Taxis as the Russian Mafia has taken hold in the transportation business, so we got our driver through local connections here. Anyways, I hear a Russian spoken everywhere and there are Cyrillic signage everywhere as well as some stores that seem to cater to Russian exclusively. Looks like the Russian are using the Thai long term Visa programs to stay here for the long run.  I guess you could say there is some leakage from Putin’s regime.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

Tass [ December 26^th 2023] : The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has put the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleshchuk on the wanted list [translated from Russian to English].

 

Message text translated to English :

 

Quote

He is accused in absentia of a terrorist act after a drone attack on Russian territory

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. 

 

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has put on the criminal wanted list the commander of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Nikolai Oleshchuk, who is accused in absentia of a terrorist act after a drone attack on Russian territory. This follows from the department's search database.

 

“Oleschuk Nikolai Nikolaevich is wanted under an article of the Criminal Code,” the database says. It is not indicated under what article the search is being conducted.

 

At the beginning of October, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation filed charges in absentia for committing crimes under Part 2 of Art. 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (terrorist act), to the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kirill Budanov, the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Nikolai Oleshchuk and several other Ukrainian military leaders. 

 

The investigation has collected sufficient evidence of the involvement of the top military leadership of Ukraine in organizing and carrying out from April 2022 to September 2023 more than 100 air strikes using aircraft-type drones in the territories of Moscow and the Moscow region, Crimea and Sevastopol, Rostov, Belgorod, Bryansk regions and other regions RF. 

 

Earlier, Budanov was already put on the wanted list in the Russian Federation under a criminal article. 

 

 

In short, Russian war logic, based on what is going on in Ukraine is not a war.

 

Now isen't that just something very special. Anyway, I'm impressed.

 

Merry Christmas.

[ValueArb]

Looks like a Ukrainian strike all the way down in Feodosia hit the Novocherkassk while it was loaded with munitions. The ship basically disintegrated and large pieces landed all over town, including nearly taking out the rail station.

[John Hjorth]

War is indeed ugly and meaningless from a humanitarian point from view. Very hard to belive that only one human being lost the life in this brutal Novocherkassk event.

 

Morbid humor may be needed to survive :

 

 

If what is seen at this photo seems look like a submarine conversion of Novocherkassk, I tend to disagree. 

[ValueArb]

I wonder how many Russian troops really know what is going on as they just get fed into the meat-grinder. Was reading a news story about a small town that was held hostage in a basement for months at the beginning of the war.  When the hiding civilians were first discovered by Russians the soldiers told them "we are here to liberate you from the Nazis!" and couldn't believe the civilians when they said there were no Nazis.

[Xerxes]

On 12/26/2023 at 1:25 PM, ValueArb said:

When the hiding civilians were first discovered by Russians the soldiers told them "we are here to liberate you from the Nazis!" and couldn't believe the civilians when they said there were no Nazis.

How many of U.S. military personal were surprised after the fact, that almost everything coming out of Colin Powell mouth at the U.N. circa 2003, was mostly all made up stuff and lies. It was so bad that even Colin Powell didn’t know as he was being thrown under the bus by his “colleagues”. 
 

Soldiers follow orders. Just as the top brass does. It is that or treason.
 

Only when one side has overwhelming won, can the other side setup courts to determine if the other side’ military top brass was following illegal orders. And it will all matter of interpretation, politics and the usual bullshit. 

 

Had Japan won the Second World War, there would be tribunal of the war criminals, and on top of the list would be: General Lemay

[Xerxes]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/putin-companies-economy-boycott-elites-benefit-ukraine-war.html
 

Looks like that as major stock market indices took a plunge in 2022, as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine to confiscate Nazi WMDs, it was in fact Putin and his pals that truly “bought the dip”.

 

[ValueArb]

Their foreign currency reserves will pay for all of that, and much much more. Owning all the Starbucks in the larger of the hermit kingdoms isn't going to make up for costs of losing trade.

[cubsfan]

22 hours ago, Xerxes said:

 

Had Japan won the Second World War, there would be tribunal of the war criminals, and on top of the list would be: General Lemay

 

So true. To the victor go the spoils. At least Curtis saved millions of lives. A dirty, nasty job that someone had to do to end the war.

 

[Xerxes]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

 

So true. To the victor go the spoils. At least Curtis saved millions of lives. A dirty, nasty job that someone had to do to end the war.

 

For clarity, I was not referring to the nuclear attacks against the unlucky twin cities. That was a presidential call. And that made sense. I was referring to the insane firebombing of Tokyo in May 1945 which Lemay planned. War or not. That (using napalm in a city made of papers) was just the too much. 
 

Patton, Marshall, Nimitz, Halesay and even the unhinged Mcarthur were real soldiers.
 

Lemay was just the American version of Yamashita. In turn a Japanese could argue that Yamashita’ act in the Philippines were also needed to end the war quickly. 
 

Anyways don’t mean to debate on this. Was just clarifying what I meant. We should be thinking about better things so close to the new year. 
 

All the best in 2024 

[cubsfan]

16 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

 

For clarity, I was not referring to the nuclear attacks against the unlucky twin cities. That was a presidential call. And that made sense. I was referring to the insane firebombing of Tokyo in May 1945 which Lemay planned. War or not. That (using napalm in a city made of papers) was just the too much. 
 

Patton, Marshall, Nimitz, Halesay and even the unhinged Mcarthur were real soldiers.
 

Lemay was just the American version of Yamashita. In turn a Japanese could argue that Yamashita’ act in the Philippines were also needed to end the war quickly. 
 

Anyways don’t mean to debate on this. Was just clarifying what I meant. We should be thinking about better things so close to the new year. 
 

All the best in 2024 

 

I knew exactly what you meant. And I know that you know your history. 100,000 Japanese civilians died in the firebombing (??).

 

And it's a terrible moral dilemma when you are faced with the issue of how to stop a brutal, sadistic regime like the Japanese empire. The Japanese armed forces killed 16,000,000 Asian CIVILIANS - mostly through mass executions, forced conscription and starvation starting in 1931 Manchuria.  Japan lost 2,000,000 soldiers and 1,000,000 civilians - yet for EACH soldier Japan lost they killed EIGHT civilians.  So you can debate the morals of Curtis Lemay, who started the bombing campaign in March 1945 and helped to accelerate an end to the Japanese civilian killing machine.

 

Like I said - Someone had to help save millions of civilian lives. And that would be Lemay's contribution to the war effort.

 

Happy Holidays to you as well.

[ValueArb]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

 

I knew exactly what you meant. And I know that you know your history. 100,000 Japanese civilians died in the firebombing (??).

 

And it's a terrible moral dilemma when you are faced with the issue of how to stop a brutal, sadistic regime like the Japanese empire. The Japanese armed forces killed 16,000,000 Asian CIVILIANS - mostly through mass executions, forced conscription and starvation starting in 1931 Manchuria.  Japan lost 2,000,000 soldiers and 1,000,000 civilians - yet for EACH soldier Japan lost they killed EIGHT civilians.  So you can debate the morals of Curtis Lemay, who started the bombing campaign in March 1945 and helped to accelerate an end to the Japanese civilian killing machine.

 

Like I said - Someone had to help save millions of civilian lives. And that would be Lemay's contribution to the war effort.

 

Happy Holidays to you as well.

 

Its a sad fact but sometimes to end a war you have to bring the consequences to the home front.

[Pelagic]

An interesting article on the Ukrainian drone boat attacks on Novorossiysk in August. Following the attacks on a Russian amphibious ship and tanker, western partners almost immediately responded warning Ukraine to knock it off, fearing it would jeopardize oil exports from Novorossiysk. However, the article makes the point that it seems to have had the intended effect in letting the Russians know that two can play at blockading commerce on the Black Sea and allowed Ukraine to establish its own export corridor.

 

https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2024/01/1/7435418/ 

[ValueArb]

Someone keeps pushing the narrative that explosives for the Nordstream blasts were planted nearly 300 feet deep in the frigid baltic by a Ukrainian dive team using amateur scuba equipment from a "yacht" that could fit in a backyard pool. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-probe-faces-resistance-from-poland-962aa5f9?mod=hp_lead_pos6

 

No one ever investigates the idea that pipelines frequently explode from poor maintenance, that the Russians are terrible at pipeline maintenance without western expert help, and that the pressure/temperature conditions that trigger dissolution of one methane hydrate block can frequently trigger others in nearby pipelines.

 

https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/10/nordstream-ii-electric-instapundit.html

 

[Pelagic]

2 hours ago, ValueArb said:

Someone keeps pushing the narrative that explosives for the Nordstream blasts were planted nearly 300 feet deep in the frigid baltic by a Ukrainian dive team using amateur scuba equipment from a "yacht" that could fit in a backyard pool. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-probe-faces-resistance-from-poland-962aa5f9?mod=hp_lead_pos6

 

No one ever investigates the idea that pipelines frequently explode from poor maintenance, that the Russians are terrible at pipeline maintenance without western expert help, and that the pressure/temperature conditions that trigger dissolution of one methane hydrate block can frequently trigger others in nearby pipelines.

 

https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/10/nordstream-ii-electric-instapundit.html

 

 

While I wouldn't discount the ability of Ukrainian divers to pull off an operation to destroy the pipelines, a lot of people forget about the actual issues the Nord Stream line was having during the summer of 2022 before the explosions. Only one of the two Nord Stream lines was in use because there was only one functional compressor, and even that line was taken offline for maintenance a few times leading to some wild spikes in Euro gas futures in August. There was an available replacement that had been sent to Canada for maintenance but it was held up due to sanctions and was unlikely to ever be released given the war in Ukraine.

 

My personal theory has always been that Russia blew up 3 out of the 4 pipes in an attempt to force Germany to approve transit on the undamaged and entirely functional Nord Stream 2 line. Russia figured the parts they had available for both Nord Stream 1 lines were failing or had failed and the line would be unviable soon anyways. Why not try to force Germany's hand by making one of the functional but unused Nord Stream 2 lines the only available option, with all the parts from the other, damaged, NS 2 line available as spares. Then sow as much disinfo as possible to confuse who did it. Volumes would be roughly equal or even a little more through NS2-B than what they were supplying in summer '22 through the single NS1 line and Russia expected prices to remain elevated a lot more so than they did.

 

Reuters article from August 22 regarding compressor issues https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gazprom-says-nord-stream-1-pipeline-shut-three-days-end-aug-2022-08-19/

 

And then less than two weeks after the Nord Stream explosions, here's Putin saying oh by the way we can still send you guys gas through the one pipe that's left https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-moots-major-gas-hub-turkey-with-nord-stream-supplies-2022-10-12/

 

 

 

 

[ValueArb]

17 minutes ago, Pelagic said:

 

While I wouldn't discount the ability of Ukrainian divers to pull off an operation to destroy the pipelines, a lot of people forget about the actual issues the Nord Stream line was having during the summer of 2022 before the explosions. Only one of the two Nord Stream lines was in use because there was only one functional compressor, and even that line was taken offline for maintenance a few times leading to some wild spikes in Euro gas futures in August. There was an available replacement that had been sent to Canada for maintenance but it was held up due to sanctions and was unlikely to ever be released given the war in Ukraine.

 

My personal theory has always been that Russia blew up 3 out of the 4 pipes in an attempt to force Germany to approve transit on the undamaged and entirely functional Nord Stream 2 line. Russia figured the parts they had available for both Nord Stream 1 lines were failing or had failed and the line would be unviable soon anyways. Why not try to force Germany's hand by making one of the functional but unused Nord Stream 2 lines the only available option, with all the parts from the other, damaged, NS 2 line available as spares. Then sow as much disinfo as possible to confuse who did it. Volumes would be roughly equal or even a little more through NS2-B than what they were supplying in summer '22 through the single NS1 line and Russia expected prices to remain elevated a lot more so than they did.

 

Reuters article from August 22 regarding compressor issues https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gazprom-says-nord-stream-1-pipeline-shut-three-days-end-aug-2022-08-19/

 

And then less than two weeks after the Nord Stream explosions, here's Putin saying oh by the way we can still send you guys gas through the one pipe that's left https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-moots-major-gas-hub-turkey-with-nord-stream-supplies-2022-10-12/

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not a scuba diver but I'm pretty sure the amount of equipment needed to safely work at the depths the pipelines were at wouldn't fit on that little boat. I've been told they would need trimix, dry suits, and a lot of extra tanks mixed with the correct breathing mixes for the lowest depths as well as on way up and down.  And it would be a crazy bad decision by Ukraine to do this, given how the pipeline had already been shut down and how desperately they needed western aid at the time (and now). 

 

I might be a little nuts about the maintenance theory (check my post history, I might be a lot nuts about it) but my frustration is it's never been addressed, let alone debunked. Every article I read the assumption is that it could only have been intentional sabotage. My theory is that Putin and Gazprom thought Europe's unity would crack during the winter when gas prices skyrocketed and they come crawling back begging for Russian gas, so Gazprom attempted to clear the methane hydrates from the pipelines to prep them for use and thats hella difficult to do from a single end for even the most skilled operators.   

Edited January 8 by ValueArb
my theory

[changegonnacome]

Zelenskys former ex-spokesperson - seen on Ukrainian TV during the war - a true insider - laying out the history and situation in realistic terms.

 

Worth a look

 

 

Paraphrasing some points - 

 

 - "Russia does not feel secure - it began the war because of NATO expansion....and we in Europe/Ukraine can laugh at that....but they REALLY feel this way"

 

 - Donbas is lost - but we in Ukrane shouldn't be focused on it - Donbas was never really part of Ukraine - it's like Northern Ireland in the UK.... a place that was neither truly Ukranian nor truly Russian...but is now Russian.

 

- he was part of Istanbul peace talks - deal on the table then was advantogous for Ukraine - but deal collapsed (he doesn't know why)

Edited January 16 by changegonnacome