Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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Biden has announced a ban on Russian oil, natural gas and coal imports to the United States. The House of Representatives has also passed a bill to suspend normal trade relations with Russia.
But what about the Russian Caviar. We can hear the cries in the Hamptons all the way down here in Texas. No Russian Caviar! How can we have our spring and social events without the Russian Caviar. :roflmao:
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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FrontSight wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 3:38 pm The only thing I was ever interested in from Russia is their small arms... Given the circumstances, I can live without Russian guns. So there's nothing I desire or need from Russia...fuck them.
If you're bad with money and want Russian hardware that already has been purchased by US buyers--decades ago--there are still plenty of new-old-stock Saigas afoot.

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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US now training Ukrainian forces in Germany, Defense Department says
From CNN's Michael Conte and Oren Liebermann

The US has begun additional training for Ukrainian armed forces at US military installations in Germany, the Defense Department announced.

“These efforts build on the initial artillery training that Ukraine’s forces already have received elsewhere, and also includes training on the radar systems and armored vehicles that have been recently announced as part of security assistance packages,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said at a news briefing with reporters.
Kirby said that Germany is one of “roughly three” sites being used by the US to train Ukrainians outside of Ukraine, but would not disclose the others.

He also said “the bulk of the training” will be conducted by the Florida National Guard who had been training Ukrainians before being repositioned out of Ukraine in February prior to the Russian invasion.

“The recent reunion now of these Florida National Guard members with their Ukrainian colleagues, we are told, was an emotional meeting, given the strong bonds that were formed as they were living and working together before temporarily parting ways in February,” Kirby said.

Meanwhile, a senior US defense official said Friday that "more than a dozen flights” carrying military assistance for Ukraine from the US are expected to arrive in the European region for transport into Ukraine “in the next 24 hours."

Those flights will include shipments of “Howitzers, more 155 rounds, some of those Phoenix Ghost UAVs and even some of the radars that we talked about,” the official said.

This security assistance is all coming from US President Joe Biden’s latest presidential drawdown authority package, the official added, saying that 155 artillery rounds “continue to flow into Ukraine even over the last 24 hours."

In the last 24 hours, “there have been almost 20 deliveries via airlift from seven different nations,” of security assistance, the official said.
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ru ... ace9322dd5

The Western artillery flooding into Ukraine will alter the war with Russia, setting off a bloody battle of wits backed by long-range weapons and forcing both sides to grow more nimble if they hope to avoid significant fatalities as fighting intensifies in the east, U.S. officials and military analysts predict.

The expanded artillery battle follows Russia’s failed effort to rapidly seize Ukraine’s major population centers, including the capital, Kyiv. It comes as the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western benefactors brace for what is expected to be a grinding campaign in the Donbas region. The conflict there is expected to showcase the long-range cannons that are a centerpiece of Russia’s arsenal, weaponry already used to devastating effect in places such as Mariupol, a southern port city that has been pulverized by unrelenting bombardment.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside his Canadian counterpart at the Pentagon on Thursday, said long-range artillery will prove “decisive” in the next phase of the war. The Biden administration, which along with Canada is training small numbers of Ukrainian troops how to operate the dozens of 155 mm howitzers that both countries have pledged to provide, is expected to approve the transfer of even more artillery to Ukraine in the coming days, Austin said.

The U.S. and Canadian howitzers bound for Ukraine are towed on trailers, while those pledged by France — systems known as self-propelled Caesar howitzers — fire the same 155 mm explosive rounds, but from the back of a truck chassis.

The United States alone already has promised Zelensky nearly 190,000 artillery rounds, plus 90 howitzers to fire them. As of Thursday, more than half had arrived in Ukraine, said a senior U.S. defense official who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration.

A new $33 billion request to Congress for additional Ukraine aid includes proposed funding for “longer-range artillery of a heavier caliber,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers on Capitol Hill, though he stopped short of identifying which specific systems are under consideration. Other allies, such as Britain and Sweden, also could send artillery, analysts said.

To date, Russia and Ukraine have traded fire using some of the same systems, including the powerful 300 mm Smerch multiple-launch rocket system, which can shoot rounds some 55 miles, and aging 122 mm howitzers first fielded in the 1960s. The introduction of various Western artillery pieces is expected to accelerate a tactical shift by both sides to employ what is known as counter-battery fire, in which military forces seek out their enemy’s artillery, determine its location and attack, analysts said.

“You’re trying to find, fix and finish,” said George Flynn, a retired three-star Marine general and former artillery officer. “You want to find the enemy howitzers. You want to fix their position. And then you want to finish them off. That’s the essence of targeting.”

After an artillery unit attacks an adversary, it needs to keep moving, Flynn said. “Once you get into a counter-battery fight, it’s shoot and scoot,” he added. “You don’t stick around and let yourself get targeted.”

Ukraine’s ability to target Russian artillery units is especially important, analysts say, because of the Kremlin’s demonstrated willingness to lob round after round into cities and towns, destroying civilian homes and infrastructure. “Just the existence” of more Ukrainian artillery units performing counter-battery fire will degrade Russia’s ability to “sit there, pile up ammo and go to town,” said Scott Boston, a former U.S. Army field artillery officer who studies the Russian military for the Rand Corp.

“The problem” that Ukraine and its Western allies would “like to impose on the Russians,” he said, “is for them to never have confidence that a headquarters, or a key ammunition dump, or an important cluster of firing platforms, can ever be stationary for very long.”

The Pentagon on Friday assessed that Russia has not been as effective as it would like at using long-range artillery. A senior defense official noted that, as the West continues to send so much artillery to Ukraine, “this could become a bit of a gun battle.”

Artillery units often disguise themselves with camouflage or other forms of cover, and it can require a mixture of intelligence, unmanned aircraft and radar to spot them. The West is providing Ukraine with drones and counter-battery radar to do just that.
While the West has promised tens of thousands of artillery rounds to Ukraine, they may be depleted quickly, Cranny-Evans said, requiring defense contractors to ramp up production. Russia also has a significant advantage in the number of artillery pieces it possesses, and it’s unclear how many of Ukraine’s legacy systems are still operational or how much ammunition is available for them, he added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... artillery/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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Sweden and Finland have agreed to submit simultaneous membership applications to the US-led Nato alliance as early as the middle of next month, Nordic media have reported.

The Finnish daily Iltalehti said on Monday that Stockholm had “suggested the two countries indicate their willingness to join” on the same day, and that Helsinki had agreed “as long as the Swedish government has made its decision”.

The Swedish newspaper Expressen cited government sources as confirming the report. The two countries’ prime ministers said this month they were deliberating the question, arguing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had changed Europe’s “whole security landscape” and “dramatically shaped mindsets” in the Nordic region.

Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said then that her country, which shares a 1,300km (810 mile) border with Russia, would decide whether to apply to join the alliance “quite fast, in weeks not months”, despite the risk of infuriating Moscow.

Her Swedish counterpart, Magdalena Andersson, said Sweden had to be “prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia” and that “everything had changed” when Moscow attacked Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly warned both countries against the move.

The Kremlin said it would be forced to “restore military balance” by strengthening its defences in the Baltic, including by deploying nuclear weapons, if the two countries decided to abandon decades of military nonalignment by joining Nato.

Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, said last week a wide-ranging security policy review would be concluded by 13 rather than 31 May as originally planned, adding that with Finland’s analysis already published “there is now a lot of pressure”.

Expressen said the simultaneous applications could be submitted in the week of 16 May, coinciding with a state visit to Stockholm by the Finnish president Sauli Niinistö. The Guardian could not independently confirm the reports.

Recent opinion polls have shown as many as 68% of Finns are in favour of joining the alliance, more than double the figure before the invasion, with only 12% against. Polling in Sweden suggests a slim majority of Swedes also back membership.

Both countries are officially nonaligned militarily, but became Nato partners – taking part in exercises and exchanging intelligence – after abandoning their previous stance of strict neutrality when they joined the EU in 1995 after the end of the cold war.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... plications

Finland and Sweden will be able to join NATO quickly should they decide to ask for membership in the Western military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.

"If they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed and I expect the process to go quickly," Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, adding he planned to speak with the Finnish president later in the day.

He said he was sure arrangements could be found for the interim period between an application by the two Scandinavian countries and the formal ratification in the parliaments of all 30 NATO members.

"I am confident that there are ways to bridge that interim period in a way which is good enough and works for both Finland and Sweden," Stoltenberg said.

Russia, with which Finland shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border, has said it will deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden decide to join NATO.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fi ... 022-04-28/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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Members of NATO's Partnerships for Peace program:
Armenia - 1994 Ireland - 1999 Sweden - 1994
Austria - 1995 Kazakhstan - 1994 Switzerland - 1994
Azerbaijan - 1994 Kyrgyzstan - 1994 Tajikistan - 2002
Belarus - 1995 Malta - 2008 Turkmenistan - 1994
Bosnia and Herzegovnia - 2006 Moldova - 1994 Ukraine - 1994
Finland - 1994 Russia - 1994 Uzbekistan - 1994
Georgia - 1994 Serbia - 2006
Sweden and Finland have been members of Partnerships for Peace since 1994, but Article 5 doesn't apply to non-members. Even Russia is a member of PfP.

Once Sweden and Finland became EU members it seemed inevitable that they'd eventually join, Putin made their decision easier. Norway and Denmark are original members and later Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania join so most of the Baltic states already belong. If Sweden and Finland join NATO, then the remaining European countries outside the alliance would be:
Andorra
Austria
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Cyprus
Ireland
Kosovo
Malta
Moldova
Monaco
San Marino
Serbia
Switzerland
and of course Ukraine
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/15 ... vasion-evg

Image
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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More high Russian leaders have died from Stomach Issues than just about any other cause.
The Parkinson's disease diagnoses explains a lot about his mental state. he has Parkinson's Dementia.

https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia ... e-dementia
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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Russia to Rent Tech-Savvy Prisoners to Corporate IT?

Faced with a brain drain of smart people fleeing the country following its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is floating a new strategy to address a worsening shortage of qualified information technology experts: Forcing tech-savvy people within the nation’s prison population to perform low-cost IT work for domestic companies.

Multiple Russian news outlets published stories on April 27 saying the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service had announced a plan to recruit IT specialists from Russian prisons to work remotely for domestic commercial companies.

Russians sentenced to forced labor will serve out their time at one of many correctional centers across dozens of Russian regions, usually at the center that is closest to their hometown. Alexander Khabarov, deputy head of Russia’s penitentiary service, said his agency had received proposals from businessmen in different regions to involve IT specialists serving sentences in correctional centers to work remotely for commercial companies.

Khabarov told Russian media outlets that under the proposal people with IT skills at these facilities would labor only in IT-related roles, but would not be limited to working with companies in their own region.

“We are approached with this initiative in a number of territories, in a number of subjects by entrepreneurs who work in this area,” Khabarov told Russian state media organization TASS. “We are only at the initial stage. If this is in demand, and this is most likely in demand, we think that we will not force specialists in this field to work in some other industries.”

According to Russian media site Lenta.ru, since March 21 nearly 95,000 vacancies in IT have remained unfilled in Russia. Lenta says the number unfilled job slots actually shrank 25 percent from the previous month, officially because “many Russian companies are currently reviewing their plans and budgets, and some projects have been postponed.” The story fails to even mention the recent economic sanctions that are currently affecting many Russian companies thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February.

The Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC) estimated recently that between 70,000 and 100,000 people will leave Russia as part of the second wave of emigration of IT specialists from Russia. “The study also notes that the number of IT people who want to leave Russia is growing. Experts consider the USA, Germany, Georgia, Cyprus and Canada to be the most attractive countries for moving,” Lenta reported of the RAEC survey.

It’s not clear how many “IT specialists” are currently serving prison time in Russia, or precisely what that might mean in terms of an inmate’s IT skills and knowledge. According to the BBC, about half of the world’s prison population is held in the United States, Russia or China. The BBC says Russia currently houses nearly 875,000 inmates, or about 615 inmates for every 100,000 citizens. The United States has an even higher incarceration rate (737/100,000), but also a far larger total prison population of nearly 2.2 million.

Sergei Boyarsky, deputy chairman of the Russian Duma’s Committee on Information Policy, said the idea was worth pursuing if indeed there are a significant number of IT specialists who are already incarcerated in Russia.

“I know that we have a need in general for IT specialists, this is a growing market,” said Boyarsky, who was among the Russian leaders sanctioned by the United States Treasury on Marc. 24, 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Boyarsky is head of the St. Petersburg branch of United Russia, a strongly pro-Putin political party that holds more than 70 percent of the seats in the Russian State Duma.

“Since they still work there, it would probably be right to give people with a profession that allows them to work remotely not to lose their qualifications,” Boyarsky was quoted as saying of potentially qualified inmates. “At a minimum, this proposal is worth attention and discussion if there are a lot of such specialists.”

According to Russia’s penitentiary service, the average salary of those sentenced to forced labor is about 20,000 rubles per month, or approximately USD $281. Russian news outlet RBC reports that businesses started using prison labor after the possibility of creating correctional centers in organizations appeared in 2020. RBC notes that Russia now has 117 such centers across 76 Russian regions.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/05/rus ... porate-it/

Prison labor to do your IT work, just what could go wrong with this job opportunities for those poor prisoners. :o
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

869
Air defense radar doesn't work when it isn't on.
The crew of RTS Moskva (121) was blind to and not ready for the Ukrainian missile attack that sank Russia’s Black Sea flagship, according to a new analysis of the April 13 strike reviewed by USNI News.

The review of images following the strike of the two Neptune anti-ship missiles from open-source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News that the guided-missile cruiser did not have its radars activated and could not see the threat from the two weapons.

In the photo of Moskva after the strike, the radars “are in their normal stowed position,” Carlson told USNI News on Monday.
https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warshi ... ysis-shows

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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A darker perspective on the Russian strategy moving forward - total warfare. Think Berlin 1945. You know, if they can ever get moving again.
My sense is that the Russians are fully aware of their tactical shortfalls. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry Callahan, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Furthermore, rather than a crushing defeat, the Russian’s failure to take Kyiv and decision to change course may not be what it seems. It is certainly not unprecedented. Perhaps the Russians attempted, as they did in Czechoslovakia (1968), Afghanistan (1979), Chechnya (1996,) and Crimea (2014) to execute a rapid coup de main operation with the expectation that the sudden appearance of the Red Army would cause resistance to collapse.

This is what happened in Czechoslovakia, the initial conquest of Afghanistan, and Crimea; it did not work out that way in Chechnya or Ukraine this go. In this current war, as in its past conflicts, Plan B is to revert to what the Russians have always done when faced with a resolute adversary. They turn to fires delivered by cannons, rockets, missiles, and bombs.

The Russian Army has, in my view, been correctly described as an artillery army with tanks. They adhere to the maxim that artillery conquers and infantry occupies. My sense is that the Russians also understand their own Army better than we do and use it in a way that compensates for the deficiencies noted by western observers.

In short, the Russians rely on firepower.

What We Should Expect From the Plodding Bear

If I am correct, then we should expect things to get only worse in Eastern Ukraine as the war continues. This is now a war of attrition, to which the traditional Russian approach of persistent brute force is highly suited.
https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2022/05/ ... ssians-do/

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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wings wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 5:57 pm Air defense radar doesn't work when it isn't on.
The crew of RTS Moskva (121) was blind to and not ready for the Ukrainian missile attack that sank Russia’s Black Sea flagship, according to a new analysis of the April 13 strike reviewed by USNI News.

The review of images following the strike of the two Neptune anti-ship missiles from open-source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News that the guided-missile cruiser did not have its radars activated and could not see the threat from the two weapons.

In the photo of Moskva after the strike, the radars “are in their normal stowed position,” Carlson told USNI News on Monday.
https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warshi ... ysis-shows
It may have been stowed because it didn't work even when on.
To be vintage it must be older than me!
The next gun I buy will be the next to last gun I ever buy. PROMISE!
jim

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

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President Joe Biden spoke with top U.S. intelligence and defense officials on Friday to stress the importance of their work but also said that recent news reports about U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine have been counterproductive, according to two administration officials.

On the phone with CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Biden's message was that such disclosures “distract from our objective,” one official said. The other official said Biden conveyed that the leaks should stop.

The CIA and the Office of the DNI declined to comment. The Pentagon and the National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Biden spoke to the officials amid concern in his administration about news reports, including by NBC News, about U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

NBC News reported Thursday that U.S. intelligence helped Ukraine sink the Russian flagship Moskva last month. That story followed one in the New York Times on Wednesday about the U.S. providing Ukraine with intelligence that helped the Ukrainian military kill Russian generals.

NBC News also reported last week how U.S. intelligence helped Ukraine protect its air defense systems and shoot down a Russian plane.

The Biden administration has denied providing targeting information for Ukraine to use to sink the Russian ship, and officials have said the U.S. had no advance knowledge of the attack and wasn’t involved in it. Officials have also said the U.S. did not provide Ukraine with intelligence intended to be used to kill Russian generals.

Some administration officials have expressed concern that the public disclosures could escalate the conflict by provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin and might hinder the effectiveness of the U.S. sharing intelligence with Ukraine.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... -rcna27738
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

873
Un-plausible Denial is a bitch.

Events leave evidence. Ten high ranking officers dead says somebody dropped a dime. A Russian Chief of Staff gets hit hours after coming into Indian Territory? Somebody with very good eyes was watching.

You might think that but I would never say that.
To be vintage it must be older than me!
The next gun I buy will be the next to last gun I ever buy. PROMISE!
jim

Re: Biden says Russia will invade Ukraine.

875
sig230 wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 6:06 pm
wings wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 5:57 pm Air defense radar doesn't work when it isn't on.
The crew of RTS Moskva (121) was blind to and not ready for the Ukrainian missile attack that sank Russia’s Black Sea flagship, according to a new analysis of the April 13 strike reviewed by USNI News.

The review of images following the strike of the two Neptune anti-ship missiles from open-source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News that the guided-missile cruiser did not have its radars activated and could not see the threat from the two weapons.

In the photo of Moskva after the strike, the radars “are in their normal stowed position,” Carlson told USNI News on Monday.
https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warshi ... ysis-shows
It may have been stowed because it didn't work even when on.
You are correct, sir! Here is the list of documented operational problems with Moskva 14 days before the special operation began. Among the highlights -
Granger wrote: Another thing that was notable was interference between the MR-800 Flag primary air search radar and the SATCOM systems.

Turning the radar to active scan mode (Ch. 3) would make the SATCOM system unstable and unusable.
https://twitter.com/GrangerE04117/statu ... 32288?s=19

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