Ukraine reacts to fears of Russian invasion as troops build up at the border

[Zaune]

This does seem like an ideal 'mission accomplished' moment for him. "Hey look we've liberated the Russian bits! Job done."

Maybe if the Ukrainians were willing to cooperate, but why would they? At the rate they're going it's a toss-up whether they even need to kick the Russian Army out of their territory or just wait for them to get fed up and walk off the job because the rations, ammunition and pay have stopped turning up.

[The Infidel]

While I wouldn't rule Nuclear Weapons out, I don't see that as likely.

I think tactical nukes are more likely than strategic, but I sincerely hope neither are used.

If I remember what Stuart Slade once wrote in his "Nuclear Warfare 101", there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. Once a country is willing to use it, even if they're tactical, they open Pandora's box and other nuclear nations become very worried that they might be the next to be targeted and they might get itchy trigger fingers. If Russia uses them, I bet the status of lots of nukes in other countries go from "in storage" to "ready to fire" in a relative short period.

[The Infidel]

So, there's been quite a bit of talk about the sabotage of the gas pipe Nord Stream 1. In Norwegian news, I've read that unknown drones have been too close to Norwegian oil rigs. As Norway now is the country that provides most gas to Europe, it would not be very nice if something were to happen to our oil rigs or the gas/oil pipes that go from them. The General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, who used to be prime minister in Norway among other things, have stated that an attack on oil installations or our pipe lines might be Article 5 worthy. Also, Norway is now patrolling the rigs and waters around it and has also accepted help from other NATO countries to help protect these interests.

(OK, I'm breaking one rule here: I've read it in Norwegian news, but now I can't find any sources.)

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'm seeing suggestions that China would stand to gain from sabotaging the pipeline because it would mean they had exclusive access to cheap Russian gas.

[Lord Revan]

I'm seeing suggestions that China would stand to gain from sabotaging the pipeline because it would mean they had exclusive access to cheap Russian gas.

there's the matter of access though these pipes are in the Baltic Sea after all far away from any place China could easily access. Could China have motive sure, would they have access to pipeline, doubtful.

And honestly, I suspect China wants exactly so much Russian gas that Russia is dependent on China but not so much that reverse is true.

[FireNexus]

OK, we call his bluff and it turns out the tactical nukes are in as bad (or worse) shape than the rest of the Russian equipment. What happens then? At that point, not only is Putin's army losing territory but his bluff has been exposed as just that, a bluff. Where does he go from there? (Aside from "out an upper floor window")

I suspect he hasn't thought things that far, this whole conflict has been a long series of failures due to Russia not considering any other results then "we win".

It's really up in the air since even if we assume Putin is removed from power, we have no idea what his successor will be like.

Well, based on how they beat up the Japanese consul, we can assume at least that they think some of the contenders are likely to be friendly to Japan.

[FireNexus]

If I remember what Stuart Slade once wrote in his "Nuclear Warfare 101", there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. Once a country is willing to use it, even if they're tactical, they open Pandora's box and other nuclear nations become very worried that they might be the next to be targeted and they might get itchy trigger fingers. If Russia uses them, I bet the status of lots of nukes in other countries go from "in storage" to "ready to fire" in a relative short period.

Stuart also said that even a 15% success rate on missile defense makes it less likely that a war will go nuclear because it fucks targeting up. Considering the condition of Russia’s military and their bizarre, repeated propaganda claims of having bond villian level delivery systems (that are at best prototypes which we suspect have only ever exploded in Siberia) it might not be worth going fully nuclear.

While I wouldn’t take the bet that their nuclear readiness is so degraded they can’t possibly end the world without the US overreacting it’s got to be going through the heads of military planners if they start to see Russian tactical nukes go off in Ukraine. They might want to see if there are any fizzles prior to going… well… nuclear. The Cold War, this ain’t. Just having Russia not pumping gas or selling wheat isfucking up the whole world. Needlessly obliterating them would be a big problem forever.

[PainRack]

While I wouldn't rule Nuclear Weapons out, I don't see that as likely.

I think tactical nukes are more likely than strategic, but I sincerely hope neither are used.

If I remember what Stuart Slade once wrote in his "Nuclear Warfare 101", there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. Once a country is willing to use it, even if they're tactical, they open Pandora's box and other nuclear nations become very worried that they might be the next to be targeted and they might get itchy trigger fingers. If Russia uses them, I bet the status of lots of nukes in other countries go from "in storage" to "ready to fire" in a relative short period.

Both Carter, Russia Federation were exploring the concepts of limited nuclear war and the Bush administration explored how to react to tac nukes (with ABM) without responding with they all fly..


The problem is of course whether ANY of these assumptions hold true since game theory assumes rational players who will remain in power.

The whole salami tactics to avoid triggering nuclear war is one. For limited nuclear war, the idea is that a tac nukes used to destroy a armed formation is then taken as a hold it right there.

https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/why-rus ... scalation/

[Coop D'etat]

I'm seeing suggestions that China would stand to gain from sabotaging the pipeline because it would mean they had exclusive access to cheap Russian gas.

In the absence of anything really compelling, I'm going to default to it being Russia, because they're the ones doing crazy ill-considered shit right now.

[Lord Revan]

I'm seeing suggestions that China would stand to gain from sabotaging the pipeline because it would mean they had exclusive access to cheap Russian gas.

In the absence of anything really compelling, I'm going to default to it being Russia, because they're the ones doing crazy ill-considered shit right now.

They also have the best motive and access atm sure Finland, Sweden or the Baltic states have access but there really isn't a realistic motive, I mean blowing up pipelines to make Russia look bad is bit of an overkill when you can just wait a few seconds and the Russians make themselves look bad without any input from you.

[Lord Revan]

If I remember what Stuart Slade once wrote in his "Nuclear Warfare 101", there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. Once a country is willing to use it, even if they're tactical, they open Pandora's box and other nuclear nations become very worried that they might be the next to be targeted and they might get itchy trigger fingers. If Russia uses them, I bet the status of lots of nukes in other countries go from "in storage" to "ready to fire" in a relative short period.

Stuart also said that even a 15% success rate on missile defense makes it less likely that a war will go nuclear because it fucks targeting up. Considering the condition of Russia’s military and their bizarre, repeated propaganda claims of having bond villian level delivery systems (that are at best prototypes which we suspect have only ever exploded in Siberia) it might not be worth going fully nuclear.

While I wouldn’t take the bet that their nuclear readiness is so degraded they can’t possibly end the world without the US overreacting it’s got to be going through the heads of military planners if they start to see Russian tactical nukes go off in Ukraine. They might want to see if there are any fizzles prior to going… well… nuclear. The Cold War, this ain’t. Just having Russia not pumping gas or selling wheat isfucking up the whole world. Needlessly obliterating them would be a big problem forever.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if all Russia had left as far usable nukes are concerned is the long-range city buster missiles with short range tac nukes being crippled due to corruption (even if the warhead is intact the nuke is going nowhere is someone sold the rocket fuel or components from the detonator in the black market).

[bilateralrope]

If I remember what Stuart Slade once wrote in his "Nuclear Warfare 101", there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. Once a country is willing to use it, even if they're tactical, they open Pandora's box and other nuclear nations become very worried that they might be the next to be targeted and they might get itchy trigger fingers. If Russia uses them, I bet the status of lots of nukes in other countries go from "in storage" to "ready to fire" in a relative short period.

Stuart also said that even a 15% success rate on missile defense makes it less likely that a war will go nuclear because it fucks targeting up. Considering the condition of Russia’s military and their bizarre, repeated propaganda claims of having bond villian level delivery systems (that are at best prototypes which we suspect have only ever exploded in Siberia) it might not be worth going fully nuclear.

While I wouldn’t take the bet that their nuclear readiness is so degraded they can’t possibly end the world without the US overreacting it’s got to be going through the heads of military planners if they start to see Russian tactical nukes go off in Ukraine. They might want to see if there are any fizzles prior to going… well… nuclear. The Cold War, this ain’t. Just having Russia not pumping gas or selling wheat isfucking up the whole world. Needlessly obliterating them would be a big problem forever.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if all Russia had left as far usable nukes are concerned is the long-range city buster missiles with short range tac nukes being crippled due to corruption (even if the warhead is intact the nuke is going nowhere is someone sold the rocket fuel or components from the detonator in the black market).

Question is, will Russia figure that out before firing them ?

[Lord Revan]

Stuart also said that even a 15% success rate on missile defense makes it less likely that a war will go nuclear because it fucks targeting up. Considering the condition of Russia’s military and their bizarre, repeated propaganda claims of having bond villian level delivery systems (that are at best prototypes which we suspect have only ever exploded in Siberia) it might not be worth going fully nuclear.

While I wouldn’t take the bet that their nuclear readiness is so degraded they can’t possibly end the world without the US overreacting it’s got to be going through the heads of military planners if they start to see Russian tactical nukes go off in Ukraine. They might want to see if there are any fizzles prior to going… well… nuclear. The Cold War, this ain’t. Just having Russia not pumping gas or selling wheat isfucking up the whole world. Needlessly obliterating them would be a big problem forever.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if all Russia had left as far usable nukes are concerned is the long-range city buster missiles with short range tac nukes being crippled due to corruption (even if the warhead is intact the nuke is going nowhere is someone sold the rocket fuel or components from the detonator in the black market).

Question is, will Russia figure that out before firing them ?

Lack of fuel can probably be noticed before firing, broken/cannibalized detonator can probably not be noticed until they launch, and the warhead won't go boom, same for missing nuclear material.

[Solauren]

I can see Putin doing the meat grinder routine through winter, and then demanding a ceasefire

What makes you think the Russian army is capable of this? They were turfed out of Kharkiv a couple of weeks ago, the Lyman position has collapsed, they might be about to suffer another Kharkiv-scale boot up the arse, and they're resorting to the age-old Russian doctrine of "throw (completely untrained) people at the problem in the hope it goes away". Even if the Ukrainians just sit around doing nothing after the autumn rasputitsa ends and everything freezes (not something I consider likely), there might not be a Russian army come spring.

Since he's last 'speech' (for lack of a better word) he sounds like an unhinged and deranged fundamentalist lunatic.

So Putin is still Putin, then?

Sorry, I should have clarified.

I think the draft/call-up is Putin planning to try to do the Meat grinder routine during the winter, and then demanding a ceasefire in the spring.

I have serious doubts the Russian army, even with a shitload of more manpower, is capable of doing it.

More then likely, has been mentioned, the new Russian soldiers will wait until they get a chance, and just desert/surrender to the Ukraine.

[LadyTevar]

Sorry, I should have clarified.

I think the draft/call-up is Putin planning to try to do the Meat grinder routine during the winter, and then demanding a ceasefire in the spring.

I have serious doubts the Russian army, even with a shitload of more manpower, is capable of doing it.

More then likely, has been mentioned, the new Russian soldiers will wait until they get a chance, and just desert/surrender to the Ukraine.

Zelansky had called for the Russian Troops in Lyman to surrender, where they'd be "treated better than in Russia's army". Within hours Russia was withdrawing all the troops. "Strategic Withdrawal", or "Get them where they won't try to desert"?

Ukraine has a lot of POWs who are claiming they had no training, and were just shipped to the front within a week.

OH... and yesterday someone on FB who does a "Daily Report" on the Ukrainian War stated that 1.5million Russian Uniforms were "missing" from Russian Army Stores.
"Missing". More like only purchased on paper, while someone pocketed the funds?

[Lord Revan]

Sorry, I should have clarified.

I think the draft/call-up is Putin planning to try to do the Meat grinder routine during the winter, and then demanding a ceasefire in the spring.

I have serious doubts the Russian army, even with a shitload of more manpower, is capable of doing it.

More then likely, has been mentioned, the new Russian soldiers will wait until they get a chance, and just desert/surrender to the Ukraine.

Zelansky had called for the Russian Troops in Lyman to surrender, where they'd be "treated better than in Russia's army". Within hours Russia was withdrawing all the troops. "Strategic Withdrawal", or "Get them where they won't try to desert"?

Ukraine has a lot of POWs who are claiming they had no training, and were just shipped to the front within a week.

OH... and yesterday someone on FB who does a "Daily Report" on the Ukrainian War stated that 1.5million Russian Uniforms were "missing" from Russian Army Stores.
"Missing". More like only purchased on paper, while someone pocketed the funds?

When I was at the store today one of the headlines said "experts say the war might last for 10 more years" referring to this conflict, considering the mess the Russian army seems to be I have my doubts about 10 months, let alone 10 years.

I wonder if these experts are either basing this on the "on paper" strength and ignoring the news or they're just very pro-Russian (either because they're on the Russian payroll or simply useful idiots as Lenin called people like that). That would explain their estimates that seem totally at odds with the situation on the field and since these are Finnish experts they have access to all the information of I have.

Well I suppose it could also be a case of the experts saying one thing and the reporters hearing another.

[His Divine Shadow]

I don't think the war will last for 10 years. But I think we're looking at 10 years of energy crisis, we're at the start of our centurys 70s oil crisis.

It took Sweden 15 years from the start of the crisis to get out of it and in the process build the best grid in the world with massive nuclear buildout, resulting in cheap as shit electricity so everyone could heat their house on direct electric for pennies. Now they've spent 20 years destroying that though.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

It takes 8-10 years to build and commission a new nuclear power plant, which does nothing in the short term. The expansion of the North Sea gas fields will produce (slightly) more immediate results but again, will be years away. And as I predicted, we're looking at fracking again. That one is more difficult to judge.

[His Divine Shadow]

That's why I say it's gonna be a proble for another decade. I don't think natural gas will be able to cover this even if they will try and bring that online. Fracking in the UK is apparently completely different than in the US too because of geological differences and there's unlikely to be much of a nat gas boom from that.

This is not just a short term problem though, over the next 7 years we're gonna loose another 19GW of nuclear capacity in europe. And 80GW until 2050. It's a long term issue that we need to start addressing right now with a large scale nuclear buildout or this energy crisis is not going to go ver, it will in fact get worse year by year. In 2023 Germany shuts down the last nuclear power and will become a net importer of electricity.

Renewables are completely unable to make up this baseload and energy storage technoloyg on that scale is a pipe dream further out than nuclear fusion. And renewable buildout is stalling out as well in europe.

Europe's in dire straits for the 2020s. But it was all self-afflicted through a combination of hubris and irrational fearmongering.

https://twitter.com/BurggrabenH/status/ ... 0737863680

[madd0c0t0r2]

I note that a good bit of the current squeeze is due to unplanned shut downs (repair and maintenance) of the French nuclear reactors. It's not the super reliable tech it sometimes is painted as.

I also note that most of the gas energy imported is for heating, not electricy generation. If we want to nukelify the grid and electrify heat, we really should be looking to get effeciency gains and roll out insulation and heat pump schemes in parallel.

[His Divine Shadow]

That analysis is ignoring that the French government where on a path to shut down nuclear and reduce their nuclear capacity by 50% by 2025 and instead replace it with renewables and natrual gas like Germany. Something Macron did a U-turn on in 2020 when the insanity of the plan became obvious.

By which time a lot of maintenance had been ignored / deffered, one of their better plants had been shut down. Now they're scrambling to undo earlier policy...

Furthermore the french nuclear fleet is old because hardly any more where built post chernobyl so they where not all meant to be so reliant on older plants as they now are. Finally they have provided decades of reliable power during which france has been a net exporter of power to europe. Renewables, heck not even coal, comes near their capacity factor even with the disaster year of 2022 factored in.

Again it's a combination of self inflicted damage and hubris.

[madd0c0t0r2]

That analysis is ignoring that the French government where on a path to shut down nuclear and reduce their nuclear capacity by 50% by 2025 and instead replace it with renewables and natrual gas like Germany. Something Macron did a U-turn on in 2020 when the insanity of the plan became obvious.

By which time a lot of maintenance had been ignored / deffered, one of their better plants had been shut down. Now they're scrambling to undo earlier policy...

Furthermore the french nuclear fleet is old because hardly any more where built post chernobyl so they where not all meant to be so reliant on older plants as they now are. Finally they have provided decades of reliable power during which france has been a net exporter of power to europe. Renewables, heck not even coal, comes near their capacity factor even with the disaster year of 2022 factored in.

Again it's a combination of self inflicted damage and hubris.

1) Mate, you cannot blame corrosion cracking in the welds on Renewables being built somewhere else. That's either showing you've not really looked into it, or a stunning degree of wilful reframing.
2) How much of that is EDF being broke and unable to afford to do the work? You talk about the french goverment, but while EDF is state controlled in August it still wasn't fully nationalised, and was kinda crippled in the ability to take on (yet more) debt to do more works. I don't think power plants should be profit making, but in the case of nuclear, I don't think we should completely ignore the sheer cost to get stuff done or repaired. It's a major risk factor in their profile.
3) No shit the French fleet is old. They built it out to 70% of the grid demand really quickly, now that batch of plants are all aging out at the same time. Should they have been doing a staggered replacement, replacing some plants early? Maybe, but given the staggering costs (2) it's also hard to justify.

[His Divine Shadow]

1) This is a strawman and not what I said. I blame it on the french government, who pretty much signalled to the EDF that their nuclear plants where the last place they should put any money. You are conflating building renewables with shutting down the nuclear fleet.

2) Nuclear is cheaper than renewables. It's still staggeringly expensive but what did you expect at such levels, but there are no cheap solutions. The Energiewende failure has cost 600 billion over 20 years to date and it has not even made Germany fully fossil fuel independent, it's so far from it that it's a joke, on the climate. How many reactors could you get from that? A hundred at 6 billion per reactor, 200 at 3 billion. And then we're ignoring the efficiencies of scale. At 200 reactors of OL3 size, Germany could have produced 10% of the world energy needs, an absurd amount and far more than it needed. So Germany could've met all it's goals by now for less money.

So do not try and pretend renewables are a cheaper solution. Renewables alone cannot and will not solve our problem. Zip zero nada chance.

[His Divine Shadow]

Also the french plants for their current problems, have been a far better producer of clean power than anything Germany has done and has saved our atmosphere gigantic amount of CO2 being released into it. And the french problems are by comparison quickly resolvable compared to Germanys. In the long run France is way better off for having their nuclear fleet while Germany goes back to being the sick man of europe again.

[madd0c0t0r2]

you are still conflating heating energy with grid. AND ignoring why a bunch of those nuclear plants in france are currently down. It's not some magic maintenance thing that could have been resolved if only France had thought to spend money five years ago - it's corrosion induced stress cracking in some welds that was only found this year, and most of them had to be closed to be checked if it was present there to. YOU are the one conflating building renewables with shutting down the fleet. Don't waste everyone here's time.

Nuclear is cheaper than renewables? Really? Got a source for that? lets pick current solar or offshore wind* rollout costs vs the current nuclear rollout costs on a current generation French EPR plant (15 years to construct and counting (5 yr estimate), euro10.9 billion and counting (3 billion estimate) ) - it appears your cost estimates are woefully optimistic, or that you haven't done your research. Nuclear's value was NEVER being cheap. It was being reliable, concentrated and therefore controllable, and only needing occasional fuel imports.

Would you mind providing a source and breakdown for the "Energiewende failure has cost 600 billion over 20 years" claim?
Would you mind seperating heating and grid energy when you do so? It's very important to understand German dependence on gas.

*Push back on the offshore wind if you like - it's relevant to both of us, but less so to Germany, which is where you are focused on discussing. Solar is a much weaker argument for me to push (and tbh, no, not an all solar grid for germany), but it's still in an exponential cost decrease phase, and has a weird efficiency benefit in the cool.