Russia-Ukrainian War

[Pelagic]

Digging a little deeper, the timeline of events is interesting if you're blaming a sophisticated state actor. 

 

Why the delay between leaks? Something like 17 hours elapsed between the leak being detected in one of Nordstream 2's pipelines and then both pipelines of Nordstream 1 leaking. If you're sending divers or a submersible down with explosives in a targeted attack why leave anything up to chance, just set a timer and coordinate everything to blow at once.

 

And again, why would you sabotage 3 out of 4 of the pipelines, leaving the second Nordstream 2 line intact? I have to imagine if the US was involved they would have made damn sure to take out both NS 2 lines and certainly have the capabilities to take them all out simultaneously.

 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

For the US to sabotage these pipelines makes no sense. The pipeline was non-operational to begin with and there are no plans from the German side to put them into operation. So why risk a huge political rift, if US were involved into this?

 

I think it’s just a covert operation from Russia to keep us guessing. It coincides with the Baltic pipeline from Denmark to Poland becoming operational and the area where this happened is very close to this. Russia did this to make a cover threat to more important pipelines that are operational and very important with the current NG shortage.

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia

Its low risk for them because if they were to be caught red handed, they would said it’s failed repair of their own pipeline as ridiculous it may sound. Russia could have destroyed the pipeline closer to home, but that would appear less threatening.

 

Putin is a KGB guy who loves to saw doubt, discontent (guessing that someone else within the West did it) and all those little cat and mouse games. same with thr sanctioned Turbine just a few month ago that was in repair in Canada. He let Scholz run through hoops and in the end it didn’t matter at all. My guess is that next they will offer to repair the pipelines in exchange for lifting sanctions etc.

 

Maybe the only purpose is to distract from another Russian defeat in Lyman, where the Russians are for all practical purposes encircled and probably take another beating.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Spekulatius

[Viking]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

For the US to sabotage these pipelines makes no sense. The pipeline was non-operational to begin with and there are no plans from the German side to put them into operation. So why risk a huge political rift, if US were involved into this?

 

I think it’s just a covert operation from Russia to keep us guessing. It coincides with the Baltic pipeline from Denmark to Poland becoming operational and the area where this happened is very close to this. Russia did this to make a cover threat to more important pipelines that are operational and very important with the current NG shortage.

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia

Its low risk for them because if they were to be caught red handed, they would said it’s failed repair of their own pipeline as ridiculous it may sound. Russia could have destroyed the pipeline closer to home, but that would appear less threatening.

 

Putin is a KGB guy who loves to saw doubt, discontent (guessing that someone else within the West did it) and all those little cat and mouse games. same with thr sanctioned Turbine just a few month ago that was in repair in Canada. He let Scholz run through hoops and in the end it didn’t matter at all. My guess is that next they will offer to repair the pipelines in exchange for lifting sanctions etc.

 

Maybe the only purpose is to distract from another Russian defeat in Lyman, where the Russians are for all practical purposes encircled and probably take another beating.

+1. Putin is messing with everyone. Every post i see suggesting US is responsible without a shred of (demonstrable) proof is exactly what Putin was hoping for. Pretty soon it will be ‘common knowledge’ in most of the world (and a large swath of the US) that the US was responsible for blowing up the pipelines. Smart bastard.

[Xerxes]

Anybody remembers how the 2nd Chechnya’s war started 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/sept99/moscow17.htm

 

If you were to ask a Westerner back then in 1999, who done that, immediately the finger would have been pointed out to “Muslim Chechens”. The Islamic jihad. “They after everyone. US and the Russian are both targets. This is a new age !!” After all this was in the wake of the US embassy bombing in Africa. Understandable that the only thing a Westerner can see straight was Muslims. 
 

Lingering question however remains of what really happened and what role FSB had in it on a critical event that led to Putin rise to power.  But at that time the blame was clear and the rest is history. 
 

Now something happened this past week with these pipelines. The same biases are now reversed. Immediately => this must be Russia. Anything else is “conspiracy theories” 

Maybe it is. Maybe just an accident. Maybe the Poles throwing a little sand in other people’ gears in the middle of firework hoping no one notices. Who the hell knows. The one thing we know however is that we do not have any proof. 
 

Your theory, your gut feeling does not equate proof. Vladimir Putin is not interested to create division on a message board. 
 

I personally think it is either Kremlin, Poles or an accident. No way this is U.S., since they are operating from a position of strength. They don’t need this shit. These statement however reflect my uneducated “opinion”. Not facts. 

[james22]

Following up:

 

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

[Spekulatius]

 Nordstream is just a distraction. Looks like the Kesselschlacht in Lyman is over and the Russian took heavy losses and managed just a partial retreat. Another 5k strong army group that is out of the fight right now. It looks like the complete frontline along the Oskil River is now rolled back to a line around Svatove. I think there is a chance that they can roll the frontline quite a bit further.

 

Once the Russian conscripts hit the frontline, I expect it will be an incredible target rich environment for HIMARS and long range artillery strikes. As I mentioned before, I expect about a 30% casualty rate there for whoever is one the frontlines.

[boilermaker75]

https://news.yahoo.com/putin-speaks-russias-greatness-brioni-222200632.html

 

Putin must not want to be outdone by James Bond,

 

https://www.bondsuits.com/james-bonds-brioni-suit-model-names-and-more/

 

Does no one over there want to tell him Brioni looks cheap on him?

Edited October 2, 2022 by boilermaker75
posted wrong link

[wachtwoord]

On 10/1/2022 at 2:37 AM, Xerxes said:

Anybody remembers how the 2nd Chechnya’s war started 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/sept99/moscow17.htm

 

If you were to ask a Westerner back then in 1999, who done that, immediately the finger would have been pointed out to “Muslim Chechens”. The Islamic jihad. “They after everyone. US and the Russian are both targets. This is a new age !!” After all this was in the wake of the US embassy bombing in Africa. Understandable that the only thing a Westerner can see straight was Muslims. 
 

Lingering question however remains of what really happened and what role FSB had in it on a critical event that led to Putin rise to power.  But at that time the blame was clear and the rest is history. 
 

Now something happened this past week with these pipelines. The same biases are now reversed. Immediately => this must be Russia. Anything else is “conspiracy theories” 

Maybe it is. Maybe just an accident. Maybe the Poles throwing a little sand in other people’ gears in the middle of firework hoping no one notices. Who the hell knows. The one thing we know however is that we do not have any proof. 
 

Your theory, your gut feeling does not equate proof. Vladimir Putin is not interested to create division on a message board. 
 

I personally think it is either Kremlin, Poles or an accident. No way this is U.S., since they are operating from a position of strength. They don’t need this shit. These statement however reflect my uneducated “opinion”. Not facts. 

 

My personal opinion is this absolutely is the US (or an entity instructed by the US to do so). They want to make Europe even more dependant on the US and make it impossible for them to backpeddle and make a deal with Russia when times get tough.

 

The US has Europe in the bag and can force them to be the frontline vs Russia so they pay most of the cost of war. It's a double whammy for the US cause after the war their economy can sail again on rebuilding poor old Europe like after '45. This is why they forced Putin and naive Europe to be in the situation they are in: natural allies pinned on different sides by a brilliant puppet master.

[Spekulatius]

21 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

 Nordstream is just a distraction. Looks like the Kesselschlacht in Lyman is over and the Russian took heavy losses and managed just a partial retreat. Another 5k strong army group that is out of the fight right now. It looks like the complete frontline along the Oskil River is now rolled back to a line around Svatove. I think there is a chance that they can roll the frontline quite a bit further.

 

Once the Russian conscripts hit the frontline, I expect it will be an incredible target rich environment for HIMARS and long range artillery strikes. As I mentioned before, I expect about a 30% casualty rate there for whoever is one the frontlines.

Looks like the Ukraine also achieved a breakthrough in Kherson along the Dnipro river. We don't know how far, but there could be ~25K Russian troops and lots of material trapped in this pocket because it is hard if not impossible for the Russian to pull back (bridges over the Dnipro have been destroyed for the most part by HIMARS).

 

Multiple breakthroughs on the frontline are an indication that the Russian army is disintegrating. Will be fun to watch the mental gymnastics here of the Russians. (the channel below is obviously pro Ukraine but they are not the only ones reporting this)

 

[Xerxes]

1 hour ago, wachtwoord said:

 

My personal opinion is this absolutely is the US (or an entity instructed by the US to do so). They want to make Europe even more dependant on the US and make it impossible for them to backpeddle and make a deal with Russia when times get tough.

 

The US has Europe in the bag and can force them to be the frontline vs Russia so they pay most of the cost of war. It's a double whammy for the US cause after the war their economy can sail again on rebuilding poor old Europe like after '45. This is why they forced Putin and naive Europe to be in the situation they are in: natural allies pinned on different sides by a brilliant puppet master.

 

 

In my view, you are giving too much credit to the U.S. State Department and the White House. They could not even withdraw in an orderly fashion from Afghanistan. And beside U.S. politics is more partisan than ever.

This is not the days of Nixon and Kissinger, when foreign policy was truely being excerised with a long term view. The country has been run by jokers since the second Bush took over.

 

In the current conflict, U.S. has a high ground, needs only to feed the beast with weapons and it only needs to react should the war goes off rail into a potential nuclear. Moscow is well isolated and Europe is already paying for its past mistakes. I would say U.S. planners are probably spending more time in looking at those "potential" left-tail what-if catastorphic scenarios than anything else.

 

If I were to give you a set of data and then a second set of data that is completely not related, it is high chances that there is a non-zero correlation between those two completely unrelated sets of data. My point being, we can build a correlation between anything we like, and depending on our personal biases lean toward the ones that we associate with.

 

 

 

 

[UK]

The ministry was responding to a comment on Oct. 1 by the Russian Defense Ministry that Russian troops had successfully redeployed to “more favorable lines of defense.”

The Ukrainian armed forces responded with a mocking post on Twitter.

“We thank the ‘Ministry of Defense’ of Russia for successful cooperation in organizing the ‘Izyum 2.0’ exercise,”

“Almost all russian troops deployed to Lyman were successfully redeployed either into body bags or into Ukrainian captivity. We have one question for you: Would you like a repeat?”

[wachtwoord]

31 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

 

 

In my view, you are giving too much credit to the U.S. State Department and the White House. They could not even withdraw in an orderly fashion from Afghanistan. And beside U.S. politics is more partisan than ever.

This is not the days of Nixon and Kissinger, when foreign policy was truely being excerised with a long term view. The country has been run by jokers since the second Bush took over.

 

In the current conflict, U.S. has a high ground, needs only to feed the beast with weapons and it only needs to react should the war goes off rail into a potential nuclear. Moscow is well isolated and Europe is already paying for its past mistakes. I would say U.S. planners are probably spending more time in looking at those "potential" left-tail what-if catastorphic scenarios than anything else.

 

If I were to give you a set of data and then a second set of data that is completely not related, it is high chances that there is a non-zero correlation between those two completely unrelated sets of data. My point being, we can build a correlation between anything we like, and depending on our personal biases lean toward the ones that we associate with.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh it's not the White house or either of the 2 puppet parties, it one or several of the actors (partially) in control of all of the former. That's what I summarize as state actor US. Likely that is also too simplified and the high up actors have their finger in the pie in several or even most of the jurisdictions that decide matters in our world.

 

Us mere mortals don't have access to the Intel who's really in charge as they rather enjoy their personal safety (anonimity).

[wachtwoord]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

Looks like the Ukraine also achieved a breakthrough in Kherson along the Dnipro river. We don't know how far, but there could be ~25K Russian troops and lots of material trapped in this pocket because it is hard if not impossible for the Russian to pull back (bridges over the Dnipro have been destroyed for the most part by HIMARS).

 

Multiple breakthroughs on the frontline are an indication that the Russian army is disintegrating. Will be fun to watch the mental gymnastics here of the Russians. (the channel below is obviously pro Ukraine but they are not the only ones reporting this)

 

 

I think you're giving in to your geographical, societal and ideological bias way too much in lauding this analysis.

 

I rather enjoyed reading this ZH article instead as it seems far closer to the truth than the propaganda we get bombarded with on a daily basis: 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/war-has-just-begun

[Pelagic]

14 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

 

I think you're giving in to your geographical, societal and ideological bias way too much in lauding this analysis.

 

I rather enjoyed reading this ZH article instead as it seems far closer to the truth than the propaganda we get bombarded with on a daily basis: 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/war-has-just-begun

 

This article is absolute nonsense. There's zero indication the original push into Kherson was anything more than a strategic feint to tie up Russian forces and enable Ukrainian operations around Kharkiv. And as of today Ukraine is making significant progress in the Kherson region.

 

The article is ironically more pro-Russian than most Russian military telegram accounts in the way it hand waves away losses by saying the line was only held by LNR/DPR forces, and discounts the strategic importance of Ukrainian success in places like Izium. Not to mention the significant captures of Russian materiel which help enable further Ukrainian operations.

 

There's also no indication Ukrainian offensives will stop during the winter, especially in the south. I'd imagine a well equipped Ukrainian military will be all to eager to press their advantage against freezing underequipped conscripts. Or that NATO is running out of supplies to send to Ukraine - the opposite is more likely as Ukrainian success has NATO member's which have provided relatively little support (France) trying to jump on the bandwagon and send more. 

 

What happens when the below paragraph doesn't happen? Will anyone stop reading ZH and call it out as pro-Russian nonsense?

 

Quote

I am fully cognizant that my views will be spun as “coping” after Ukraine’s gains in Kharkov oblast, but time will tell out. Ukraine is on its last legs - they drained everything usable out of NATO stockpiles to build up a first tier force over the summer, and that force has been mauled and degraded beyond repair just as Russia’s force generation is set to massively increase. Winter will bring not only the eclipse of the Ukrainian army, the destruction of vital infrastructure, and the loss of new territory and population centers, but also a severe economic crisis in Europe.

 

[Xerxes]

For what it is worth:

U.S. Accuses Zero Hedge of Spreading Russian Propaganda - Bloomberg 

 

For me, it is simple, I wait for the books to come in some years later, telling me what happened or what should i think it happened ... lol

 

At least with financial news, it is number driven, less mumbo jumbo

 

[wachtwoord]

41 minutes ago, Pelagic said:

 

This article is absolute nonsense. There's zero indication the original push into Kherson was anything more than a strategic feint to tie up Russian forces and enable Ukrainian operations around Kharkiv. And as of today Ukraine is making significant progress in the Kherson region.

 

The article is ironically more pro-Russian than most Russian military telegram accounts in the way it hand waves away losses by saying the line was only held by LNR/DPR forces, and discounts the strategic importance of Ukrainian success in places like Izium. Not to mention the significant captures of Russian materiel which help enable further Ukrainian operations.

 

There's also no indication Ukrainian offensives will stop during the winter, especially in the south. I'd imagine a well equipped Ukrainian military will be all to eager to press their advantage against freezing underequipped conscripts. Or that NATO is running out of supplies to send to Ukraine - the opposite is more likely as Ukrainian success has NATO member's which have provided relatively little support (France) trying to jump on the bandwagon and send more. 

 

What happens when the below paragraph doesn't happen? Will anyone stop reading ZH and call it out as pro-Russian nonsense?

 

 

 

Again: seems more believable to me then what western state media that you reference write. With time we will know more (but never all unfortunately). Just posted now because of the giant anti-Russia hugfest this thread had become in my opinion.

 

Also you can't "stop believing ZH forever" as much as you'll refuse to do that with western main stream media (as I'm sure you won't, as I can show you many proven false news articles from the west) as ZH articles are written by many people. Many easily identifiable (because of cross-publicing) many more anonymous for their own protection.

[Pelagic]

20 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

 

Again: seems more believable to me then what western state media that you reference write. With time we will know more (but never all unfortunately). Just posted now because of the giant anti-Russia hugfest this thread had become in my opinion.

 

Also you can't "stop believing ZH forever" as much as you'll refuse to do that with western main stream media (as I'm sure you won't, as I can show you many proven false news articles from the west) as ZH articles are written by many people. Many easily identifiable (because of cross-publicing) many more anonymous for their own protection.

 

Plenty of translated pro-Russian sources on telegram and twitter if you want to go down the rabbit hole. They're a heck of a lot more sober about Russia's capabilities and realistic about its losses in the last few weeks than ZH.

[wachtwoord]

12 minutes ago, Pelagic said:

 

Plenty of translated pro-Russian sources on telegram and twitter if you want to go down the rabbit hole. They're a heck of a lot more sober about Russia's capabilities and realistic about its losses in the last few weeks than ZH.

 

The ZH article is a lot better though. Why would I prefer an auto translated Telegram post?

[Spekulatius]

ZH has been garbage for many years. It's a rabbit hole that is not worth going down , imo.

As for the war in Ukraine, you can stitch together a pretty good picture by following some bloggers and main stream media sources and occasionally look at reddit. Lot's of propaganda out there, but if you follow several sources a bit, you know what tends to be reliable and credible and what not. Using the Occam's razor approach helps as well cutting through the BS.

[Pelagic]

25 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

 

The ZH article is a lot better though. Why would I prefer an auto translated Telegram post?

 

Because if I'm reading Russian sources I might as well read first and second hand accounts to get a sense of their perspective of how things are going rather than a guy in the West writing Russian fan faction.

[shhughes1116]

20 hours ago, wachtwoord said:

 

I think you're giving in to your geographical, societal and ideological bias way too much in lauding this analysis.

 

I rather enjoyed reading this ZH article instead as it seems far closer to the truth than the propaganda we get bombarded with on a daily basis: 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/war-has-just-begun

 

There is not enough room on this thread to debunk the garbage in that Zero Hedge article.  This forum is filled with people that can see clearly see through the bullshit on balance sheets and cash flow statements, and yet seem to lack any corresponding ability for critical thinking about this conflict.  

 

Go back to my original post in the early Summer about how force generation would play out in Ukraine versus Russia, and the expected Fourth Battle of Krakiv.   

 

 

[shhughes1116]

It appears that the Ukrainians are still holding back about 10k-15k fresh troops, more if you include the 10k troops finishing up training in the UK.  This likely explains Ukraine's recent decision to cancel their upcoming autumn conscription.  

 

Reading between the lines, I think they are looking at the map and expecting that by Winter, they will only be fighting on the Donbas / Zaporizhzhia front.  

[Xerxes]

2 hours ago, shhughes1116 said:

 

There is not enough room on this thread to debunk the garbage in that Zero Hedge article.  This forum is filled with people that can see clearly see through the bullshit on balance sheets and cash flow statements, and yet seem to lack any corresponding ability for critical thinking about this conflict.  

 

Go back to my original post in the early Summer about how force generation would play out in Ukraine versus Russia, and the expected Fourth Battle of Krakiv.   

 

 

 

While the Collective Mind in this thread is correct about ZH, your second statement is probably incorrect.

 

The ability to read cash flow statement and being a good investor/financial analyst etc has nothing to with being able to keep an independent view. In the 1930s, you had an entire generation of people from all walks of life in Germany (a modern & educated Western country) that decided to wrap themselves in the flag and swear alligence to a madman. I am sure they had great doctors, great scientists, great strategists, great lawyers, all of whom were great in what they did, and yet clearly did NOT see through bullshit and lacked corresponding ability for critical thinking when it came to the concept of patrotism.

 

Intelligent people think it never happens to them. They think of themselves as too august and too good, to fall for such crap. Yet that very pride can seal their downfall. 

 

I would say that none of you (including me) here have really been tested.

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by Xerxes

[Castanza]

No offense but you guys saying Russia blew up its own 20 billion dollar asset to “cause a diversion” or something are crazy. 
 

The overwhelming evidence is that the US did it. Plenty of Washington insiders and even the President said they would. 
 

Either that or a pipe failure dude to something like James was saying. 
 

If you want to know who committed a crime/act then look to see who benefits. There are no longterm benefits for Russia to blow up that pipeline. But for the US they are immense. 
 

Truth will never come out. 

[james22]

1 hour ago, Castanza said:

If you want to know who committed a crime/act then look to see who benefits.

 

If only actors were rational.

 

Who benefits from the West's suicidal energy policy (beside "the worse, the better" types)?