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Russia/Ukraine conflict

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Chinese people do not see what we see. I'm not sure if everyone is aware, but they have even less access to open internet and international news sources than Russians do (this has been long running, not just recent):
Great Firewall - Wikipedia

And if you want to see their official position, look no further than them refusing to call this war an invasion:
China refuses to call Russian attack on Ukraine an ‘invasion,’ deflects blame to U.S.
A position they continue to strongly hold when asked more recently:
又被問「俄羅斯是不是入侵烏克蘭」 趙立堅崩潰:你這樣糾纏有意思嗎
They also peddle the same exact disinformation Russia is using (which the conservatives here in the US are unfortunately falling once again hook, line, and sinker for):
China amplifies unsupported Russian claim of Ukraine biolabs

China has taken steps to squash any pro-Ukraine messages:
Chinese censors delete academics' post decrying Russian invasion | Taiwan News | 2022-02-27 12:45:00
Censorship instructions have been leaked:
Chinese censorship instructions for Ukraine leaked | Taiwan News | 2022-02-23 16:49:00
This article gives a general overview of the whole situation within China as it relates to the war:
China cracks down on pro-Ukrainian voices

Although China have also started censoring posts that are overly pro-war (for fear of threatening lives of Chinese still in Ukraine), that they are still pushing pro-Russia views (and clamp down on any pro-Ukraine posts in a disproportionate fashion), and most Chinese are pro-Russia as a result.
From more on this subject, CNN did a report on this, combing through thousands of Chinese reports to get a feel. Basically China state media is parroting Russian state media, sometimes within the hour.
 
Putin’s 'Abyss': Biden Sanctions Czar On Punishing Kremlin | Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics

"What this episode speaks to is we have to speed our transition to cleaner, more sustainable, more reliable sources of energy.​
"The price of oil is always going to controlled by a cartel, that dictates the supply for half of global supply. As long as we're dependant on a cartel that controls to price of a commodity, we're going to have episodes like this.​
"So it just underscores our need to find a more sustainable source of energy, and a cleaner source for our people."​


Good to see American policy emphasizing the importance of accelerating the switch to renewable energy. Say, where have we heard that before? ;)

Cheers!
 
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I GUARANTEE that no "1-of-5" prototype Russian Stealth Fighter is flying at 5K' AGM. Back in '91, even the F-117 "Night Hawks" bombed Baghdad air defences from over 20K feet to stay above most of the 23mm flak (which is unguided, but can be deadly in enough volume).
Yup left the up close n personal low level bombing to the RAF for the most part😈
 
Like many in this thread I've been following the Russia-Ukraine conflict closely, mainly via Twitter. I've found the following Twitter accounts to be very informative, so maybe they are useful to others:

Military developments (mainly videos and reports from the field, with a lot of overlaps):

- https://mobile.twitter.com/oryxspioenkop (with constant updates of all recorded Russian and Ukrainian equipment losses)
I wanted to point out I stumbled across their website looking for picture evidence of some losses claimed. They actually have a very comprehensive list here being continually updated:
 
This is the sort of issue that could be sorted out as part of any peace deal.

There could also be some royalty split on the Gas in Crimea.

And Ukraine could allow water to flow to Crimea - for a price.

Peace is a lot cheaper than war for both parties, and allows economic development with confidence.

One the other hand the continuing war is very painful for both parties, for lots of (different) reasons.

How do you make a peace deal with someone who is unwilling to be rational? Negotiations of any kind only work when both sides are willing to make a deal. When one side is still playing games, no deal can be reached.

I wanted to point out I stumbled across their website looking for picture evidence of some losses claimed. They actually have a very comprehensive list here being continually updated:

This is interesting, I came across them earlier today, this is a good list. They have a Twitter page too
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop
 
Yup left the up close n personal low level bombing to the RAF for the most part😈
I appreciate that the folklore in the UK is that only the RAF Tornados were used at low level for runway cratering with the JP233, but the corresponding low level munition was also used by the USAF with F-15s dropping Durandal, also at low level for runway cratering. Both weapons are very similar and the aircraft fly much the same delivery profile. Personally I think that the key difference were that the RAF were operating against southern targets, which is where the main media were based; whereas the USAF were operating out of Turkey against northern targets, and the media were largely kept away from Turkey due to the political sensitvities. Also I think USAF shifted to medium level bombing faster than RAF did. That I think accounts for the folkloric origin, just imho, and not to detract from anybody's exceedingly brave efforts.

This is of course relevant to Ukraine. The MANPAD threat is such that near identifiable targets (i.e. ones where Ukraine can reasonably deploy MANPADs to in advance) the Russians are very vulnerable at low altitude. Although the theoretical altitude limits for Stinger and Starstreak are 25,000' and 16,000' respectively the effective engagement altititudes against such targets are much less. Most hits seem to be 5,000' or lower. There is public domain anecdotal evidence that Starstreak may be more effective against fast movers due to its higher velocity, but that is slightly theoretical at present as the UK has not actually sent any into Ukraine, only talked about doing so. (That may be in part due to technology control concerns).

At low level, against a fast mover, in claggy weather in Ukraine, it must be very difficut to go through a succesful engagement with either of these (or the other MANPADs the Ukraine has). By the time you've acquired the target aircraft and launched the aircraft has normally gone overhead, and the speed advantage of the missile is not that great and the target is soon out of range in a stern chase with a low P(K). Predictable aircraft routings are to be avoided for this reason. Reading accounts of what appear to be processions of singleton Russian aircraft bombing the encircled Maritpol is does rather sound as if the defenders have simply run out of MANPAD weapons and the encirclement means more cannot enter for resupply. That has to be a real risk for the other Ukraine cities, or in the case of those Russian columns linking up. It would also mean resupply of ATGMs would be impracticable.


 
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This is the 4th letter from March 10 translated from a supposed FSB agent, the first 3 can be found on the same Twitter account:

And just today we have a raid on the FSB:
One does have to question the veracity of these letter, however interesting they are. What do people think ?

Nonetheless someone, or something, has been leaking high level mil-intel to (at least) USA/UK for quite some time. So even if they are fakes, they may have a grain of truth in them.
 
One does have to question the veracity of these letter, however interesting they are. What do people think ?

Nonetheless someone, or something, has been leaking high level mil-intel to (at least) USA/UK for quite some time. So even if they are fakes, they may have a grain of truth in them.

My partner has a Masters in Psych and is a lawyer. One of the things her agency does is interview and write evaluations to the court for people arrested for domestic violence and some other charges. She is a human lie detector. Her agency does a phone interview with each person, as well as a background investigation and runs a battery of tests. When she does an interview and has a feeling the guy is lying, the deeper dive always turns up what they were lying about. I'm not in her league, but I'm decent at sniffing out when someone is lying.

She's either read the translations herself or I read them to her. We've discussed this very question and both of us had come to the same conclusion. If these are fake, they are written by someone who could write fiction professionally.

This person's analysis of what's going to happen to Russian society is pretty close to my own theories.

A few months ago I saw an interview with a woman who wrote a book on autocrats from Mussolini to the present. She made the point that all autocrat's governments are a hot mess internally. Germany was able to manage around Hitler because the rest of the government was so organized. She also made the point that the longer an autocrat is in power, the less functional the government becomes. Telling the dictator what he wants to hear takes priority over the truth and that is a rot that ends up permeating the government over time.

These letters made a lot of references, in some cases as an aside, how Russia has progressed into this dysfunction over time. Which is congruent with the book on autocrats.

Another thing we've seen in modern culture is that when you have an autocrat (or wanna be autocrat) in a tech savvy country and the autocrat is going off the rails doing things that violate the norms, people high up start leaks. Russian policy for the last 70+ years has been to push the envelope with the west, but don't cross any lines that will start a shooting war with the west. When the USSR realized they went a bit too far putting missiles in Cuba, they backed off.

Most of the people who do the work in the FSB and the military knew that was a massive mistake. Russia's military is just not strong enough to take on a country 1/3 its size (by population).

There are three leaks that I know of. The first was before the war started. Somebody gave the US the entire Putin playbook, probably with the hope that Biden could make Putin back down.

The second is somebody has few the Ukrainians with information about the assassins sent to kill Zelensky. This is probably because they know if Zelensky is killed, he becomes a martyr and the Ukrainians will double their efforts to take out the Russians.

The third is this leaker who appears to be writing a Russian dissident living in exile in France.

Lastly it came out yesterday evening (US time) that the agency of Putin's legal arm swept through the FSB looking for leakers. The head and deputy were arrested. It's unlikely the information claimed to be from within the FSB was fake. Something that became public was traced back to the FSB and it was accurate. It could be about the first two leaks, but it could also be about this person. All three of the leaks could be from the same person too.

I wouldn't say it's beyond reasonable doubt true, but there is enough evidence to have me leaning towards true.
 
“If Ukraine agrees to any of Russia's terms to end the pain short term, Russia will be back in a few years and it will be worse. If Zelensky holds out, this threat may be gone for good or severely diminished. Ukraine is going to have billions poured into the country to rebuild after the war both from other governments and private sources. Ukraine was sort of bottom of the European pecking order going into this war, but their esteem has risen dramatically, they can cash in on this and become one of the stronger EU nations.”


This is the classical scenario, but I don’t believe it factors in the massive decline of Russian economic and ground capabilities post-Ukraine, or the likelihood of Putin being replaced. RussGov has almost nothing but missiles, but that’s a huge factor. With a strengthened Ukraine along ^^ lines, post-Putin how can Crimea/Donbas not eventually fall to Ukraine?
 
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Zero chance Putin is going to attack anything outside of Ukraine, NATO wise. Bomb a convoy in Poland and you have NATO to deal with. It'll be interesting to see what happens if he tests this.
Pretty sure it's fair game once arm enters the boarders of Ukraine. Looks like these weapons need to travel thousands of miles before reaching the east without airfields. I don't take that warning as they are targeting convoy beyond Ukraine boarders.
 
Pretty sure it's fair game once arm enters the boarders of Ukraine. Looks like these weapons need to travel thousands of miles before reaching the east without airfields. I don't take that warning as they are targeting convoy beyond Ukraine boarders.
I just assumed he was referring to outside Ukraine since he's already shown he's willing to destroy any inch of Ukraine.
 
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I GUARANTEE that no "1-of-5" prototype Russian Stealth Fighter is flying at 5K' AGM. Back in '91, even the F-117 "Night Hawks" bombed Baghdad air defences from over 20K feet to stay above most of the 23mm flak (which is unguided, but can be deadly in enough volume).

My Army roommate back in those years was a Troop Commander for an ADATS battery at the Air Defence Artillery School in Chatham, NB. I just called him up to hear what he thinks. He said yeah, a MANPADS might have a chance if the fighter was at 5K alt, but he wouldn't expect them to operate a high-value a/c like that. Their purpose is to penetrate air defence zones and to attack sensors and command elements. Even then, you would prefer to use drones and/or cruise missiles to soften up the defences first, to lower the risk to high-value equipment and irreplaceable human pilots.

Propaganda is the cheapest form of munition.

Cheers!

Then your guarantee is wrong. Look at the video, a few seconds after the plane passes the far left of the screen, there were explosions. This was a low-altitude bombing run. Additionall, the Su-57 has a VERY unique profile. It's wider than an Su-34 (although both are twin-engine craft), and pretty easy to distinguish. Lot like the F-22, not many planes resemble it.

I have an employee who is a former US F-16 instructor (so, much higher up the food chain than a typical pilot). Per him, flying that low would be for one of a few reasons:
1) to avoid radar and mid-range SAM defenses. Less likely in this case because of the moderate stealth profile of the Su-57, but still a consideration.
2) to deliver more precisely "dumb" bombs. The lower you get when you drop these kinds of munitions, the more precisely you hit the target. It is well reported and we know that Russia has a very limited number of smart bombs, and has likely depleted the bulk of their stocks earlier in the past 2 weeks. This is one reason that their planes are flying lower (along with #1 above for non-stealth aircraft). EDIT - trade off of course: if Russia controls the skys in the particular area in Ukraine, they would fly higher to avoid MANPADS.
3) to hit more sensitive and higher-priority targets (along with #2 above).

Furthermore, these are NOT prototype planes as you purport. The prototypes were done and completed years ago. These are "field test" aircraft. The kinds you build for further validation and refinement of your manufacturing process. This is an important distinction, but it is well-reported in the military literature for the Su-57. Even the manufacturer has admitted that they are not prototypes, because they were showing them off to China and trying to sell them there as "production" (but China went with their home-grown J-20 instead).
 
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Naw they are giving a courtesy heads up that they are going to bomb the hell out of any convoys coming in, regardless of origin or stated intent or humanitarian reasons. My take.
Reading much more into it, I'm inclined to agree. My mistake was reading a CNBC headline and accepting it as factual.

I took "arms shipments to Ukraine" to mean they would not be in Ukraine.

 
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Saw this - wondered if others here have seen anything to suggest this is the case or just encouragement from Ukraine, i.e., PR. I saw this tactic referenced in posts providing historical context upthread. I am incredibly appreciative for the insights of the posters on this thread. This thread is a large contributor to helping me stay on an even keel around the Ukraine war.

Russia may be using Commissar 'execution squads' again - report
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-701071