War in Ukraine

We are in day 726 of the war. A war everyone thought would be over in a matter of days or maybe weeks. There were literally zero people predicting Ukraines defense would be so fierce or effective for so long or that they would so badly bloody the Russian military in a conventional war. And they’ve lasted now for months even without continued us support. Just think what they could do to the Russians with the continued full support of the west. The us has benefited so much from the current state of affairs. The weakening of one of their global geopolitical rivals, the analysis of so many modern combat capabilities that have never been tested in the field against a peer adversary, the chance to review and ideally improve us and western defense production, the strengthening of NATO, the European move away from Russian energy independent, etc. I really hope the us can find a way to turn the funding back on.

 

India exemption is apparently making Russia cash rich with rupes. Massive volumes of oil flowing through India with over $1B in processed fuels sent to the USA. The net needs to be tightened, and it will surely increase oil prices. The only light on the horizon is that India and Moscow are at odds on what forms of payment are acceptable.

The Kremlin has never been richer – thanks to a US strategic partner | CNN.

Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.

This flow of payments, ultimately to Moscow’s benefit, comes from India increasing its purchases of Russian crude by over 13 times its pre-war amounts, according to the analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), exclusively shared with CNN. It amounts to US strategic partner New Delhi stepping in to replace crude purchases by Western buyers, reduced by sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the analysis said.

While Russian crude sales to India are not subject to sanctions and are entirely legitimate, an examination of shipping routes by experts suggests this huge volume of shipments might involve the so-called “shadow fleet” of crude tankers, specially created by Moscow to try to disguise who it is trading with and how, and maximize the Kremlin’s profits.
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Earlier in February, the US Treasury rolled out a new package of sanctions against ships and companies suspected of helping move Russian crude in violation of US sanctions, in a bid to impede the functioning of Russia’s shadow fleet.



Russian oil tankers bound for India are turning around amid scuffle over payments to Moscow (yahoo.com)

According to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, five oil tankers carrying Sokol oil, which have been idling close to India and Sri Lanka for about a month, are now headed eastward toward the Malacca Straight.

Another Russian ship — the NS Century — is still drifting near the shores of Sri Lanka. The tanker has been idling for over a month as Indian officials mull over whether to let the ship unload its cargo, Bloomberg previously reported.

The turnaround comes as Indian refiners are paying for oil with Russia in dirhams, the currency of the United Arab Emirates, people familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. But a unit of Rosneft, one of Russia's state-run oil giants, hasn't been able to open a bank account in the UAE, meaning it's unable to accept payment, sources added.

As of October, India had at least seven oil shipments from Russia that hadn't been paid, Reuters originally reported.

 

^ The Ukraine in three days trope just won’t die.

 

wow. Russia has lost 6 jets now within a week. what changed? new command ordering them to engage in closer proximity? more patriot batteries moved forward? other GTA systems deployed?

Ukraine's Air Force shoots down two more Russian warplanes (msn.com)

Ukraine’s Air Force destroyed two more Russian aircraft on the morning of Monday, 19 February: a Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber and a Su-35 fighter jet.

Ukraine's Air Force destroyed two Russian aircraft that were dropping guided bombs on the positions of our troops this morning. [The warplanes in question were] one Su-34 fighter-bomber and one Su-35S fighter jet."

 

acoustic sensors being deployed to detect drones. the evolution of war continues

Ukraine employs innovative network: Acoustic sensors for drone defense (msn.com)

Reported by The War Zone and quoted by Gen. Hecker, an extensive array of acoustic sensors, created from several thousand stations and utilizing smartphones and directional microphones, operates to aid Ukrainian drone hunters.

Thanks to this vast array of dispersed sensors, it's possible to identify and track numerous objects, including those flying extremely low, to evade radar detection.

A dense network of outposts equipped with acoustic sensors is an effective method for countering such threats as it can detect - even at night - low-flying Russian drones. This is possible because even small drones with weak engines, such as the Shahid-136, generate significant noise.

Mobile drone hunters
This enables effective identification of passing objects, determination of their routes, and providing alerts to drone hunters' smartphones. Gen. James Hecker does not specify the exact solutions used by Ukrainians.

 

Denmark to send its 'entire artillery' to Ukraine, the country's prime minister says (msn.com)

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Mette Frederiksen appealed to other European nations to do more to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invading forces.

"They are asking us for ammunition now. Artillery now. From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery," she said.

"I'm sorry to say, friends, there are still ammunition in stock in Europe," she continued. "This is not only a question about production, because we have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defense that we don't have to use ourself at the moment, that we should deliver to Ukraine."

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/en...rgoes-begin-move-china-india-data-2024-02-19/
MOSCOW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Three tankers with Russian Sokol oil that had been stranded at sea due to payment problems and Western sanctions have started to move towards China and India, data from Kpler and LSEG showed on Monday.
The backlog of Sokol tankers has become the biggest disruptions to Russia's oil trade since the West imposed sanctions on Moscow over its military actions in Ukraine.
More than 10 million barrels of Sokol have been floating in seaborne storage over the past three months due to payment difficulties and Western sanctions on shipping firms and vessels carrying the crude

 

Don’t know why anyone would have underestimated Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. You can bet Russia didn’t.

 

It makes no sense to me how the Kremlin could be rich off of lower priced oil sales to India. I assume with more competition they'd be getting a higher price than they are currently. Seems fishy.

 

exported higher volumes that they agreed to under their deal with OPEC. lower prices overwhelmed by higher volumes and I don't think they were limited to $60 with India and China

 

Sometimes the truth just lingers on and on, no matter how much the deranged propagandists beat the hell out of it with lies. But keep flogging away at it if it makes you feel better.

 

I suspect that Putin is thinking that a breakthrough is imminent, and he needs to make the most out of it while he can, before Ukraine gets more ammunition from Europe, or before the U.S. Cowards of Congress(TM) come to their senses.

 

Putin has been in charge for 25 years. I think you are giving the Russians too much credit. They have a breaking point the question is how close are we to it.

 

The problem with this analogy is that those predictions were made pre-war, before all the cards were laid out on the table face up, before people understood Kyiv had been arming for years in preparation for this with the help of NATO, before people knew the U.S. would be sending nearly $150 billion in aid to Ukraine, etc etc. Now that we have all the cards face up on the table, prognostication is obviously much easier and will be more accurate. Observers are more dialed in on the metrics and can make better educated guesses based on two years of war.

You're acting as if prognostications are just as useless now as they were before the war started and that's a fool's errand if there ever was one. I think most reasonable people understand that.

 

A few days ago Zelensky said there were 7 dead Russians for every dead Ukrainian in Aveyevka. The reality is closer to the opposite. Ukrainian soldiers disobeying orders. A chaotic retreat. Thousands of Ukrainians captured?

The Duran podcast on this tragic debacle:

Fani Willis DEBACLE; Engoron's OUTRAGEOUS Trump Ruling; Navalny & MORE! Viva & Barnes Ep. 198

 

This is The Duran video I meant to post above on the disastrous retreat from Aveyevka

 

One more Russian troll to block

 

They are beyond annoying.

 

laughable. Pro Russian anti western people make bad predictions about Ukraine every day. Our own administration has continuously been overly cautious about Ukraines potential for victory which has caused us to slow play support at critical points over and over and over. And every single time ukraine has endured just a little bit longer. Just a few months ago no one would have predicted Russia would make advances on the back of guide bombs as Ukraine ran out of surface to air missiles due to a Republican blockage of Ukraine aid. Before prigozhin revolted no one ever thought he would actually do it everyone said it was bluster. Hell 2 years ago you blowhards all said there was no chance of invasion lol. 2 years in we can still barely predict anything. So don’t roll that crap out that suddenly we know the future.