10:28
Dunderhonung posted this article yesterday. Hate coincidence, right?
There are rational explanations for everything of course but it is interesting that France this year produces the least nuclear power ever.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/samsta-aret-nagonsin-for-fransk-karnkraft
Then I think the whole discussion about nuclear power is obsolete, France is going to build 14 new reactors according to the article and Poland has probably also understood this and wants to build more and Finland’s reactor is underway. The UK is also working on and wants to build new nuclear power but had budget problems.
So it does not matter at all if we shut down nuclear power or not in Sweden when the rest of Europe is building like crazy so we might as well build new nuclear power, put a couple of reactors in SE3 and SE4?
14:30
The tolerance builds up quickly, at the time of Irpin the thread was in tears and now someone gets triggered from time to time when it’s really bad. I find it hard to let go of all the torture because it serves no other purpose than for the torturer and his sexual sadistic inclination and that it is on an extreme scale.
Every little hole that is liberated they find about ten torture centers and hundreds or thousands of corpses, if this is not ethnic cleansing one wonders what the definition of it is. But apparently it is not because the leadership has not yet been charged with crimes against humanity.
The hope is many frozen to death Russian soldiers this winter, preferably all of them.
15:50
Again later today but a reflection on the comments. A bunch have written that it probably has to do with Ukraine’s inability to repair tanks and fighter jets and therefore they are not delivered.
They have received more advanced systems than that for air defense and artillery and 777 is repaired in Poland.
Does that argument really hold up?
As said, I’m dropping this point because there is nothing solid to go on 😃
16:42
That thing about the sexual violence and the parents – now they are often murdered after something like this but in cases where they think it’s fun to let go of the family, the family is traumatized beyond rescue. We remember the five-year-old girl who was raped, tortured and finally murdered in front of her tied-up mother who was forced to watch and then released, and immediately tried to commit suicide.
As a human being, one has broken through incredibly many barriers here and after that one can probably do pretty much anything, what is worse than raping, torturing and then murdering a five-year-old, I can’t think of much that beats that.
There are probably many who have dismissed that as a tall tale but a wild guess is that when history is written there were incredibly many such incidents, almost on an industrial scale.
16:44
Since I always nag about the West needing to give more support I dilute it with another who also wants more support from the West, Kuleba.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1597613703071137793?s=20&t=uvTr4A9xpcFFvryda6YzDQ
19:14
The five musketeers who saved the world – rolls off the tongue nicely 👍
10:13
Did not keep an eye on the comments yesterday and saw that there was quite a big discussion about whether China had any involvement with the absence of offensive weapons or not.
I understand that there is no hard evidence for this and that it is not something I can push as a truth, so I just want to convey my logic, right or wrong, and then I guess I will let it go (until it becomes established truth…).
It was written a bit carelessly yesterday as an absolute truth, apologies and improvement promised. Then I used the word agreement when what we are really talking about is a silent understanding, double-strike.
What we know –
-The Troika (Macron, Scholz, the Italian) had close contact with Putin and either believed in no war or that it would be over quickly with a Ukrainian loss. They really did not turn around until it became clear that Ukraine could fight back.
-Iran has supplied Russia with weapons and there are rumors that North Korea has also done so, trains in North Korea.
-Turkey is playing a very clever double game and Hungary is all in with Putin.
China is absolutely not on the West’s side in this, they have military exercises with Iran and Russia and their rhetoric was for quite a while quite hard/pro-Russian. Their state TV has broadcast the pro-Russian narrative.
The war started the day after the Olympics ended (I think).
Someone in the thread could show a string of transport flights to China yesterday so they do not care about the sanctions at all. There are also pictures of Chinese combat gear, harness, bulletproof vest, helmet, on Russian soldiers so at least soft deliveries are happening.
We know that Shoigu traveled to China, that Putin met Xi (I think?), that there have been meetings with countries in that sphere of interest in various contexts and that Belarus has just applied as a prospect to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization SCO. China leads it and all the rogue states are represented, not a single Western state. The organization also includes security.
The West has not sent advanced aircraft or modern tanks/armored vehicles. There is a total absence of that but they have sent artillery and air defense in large quantities. Poland wanted to send their Mig29s but probably was not allowed, other countries wanted to send Leo2 but were not allowed and so on.
What we have guessed –
We have speculated that it was fear of Russian nuclear weapons that made tanks off limits. Then the discussion went that a decision was made early in the war that armor and advanced aircraft were too much escalation, the reason given then was Russian nuclear weapons.
The first months we saw the usual logical diplomatic steps – you did Irpin, then we deliver artillery, you bombed Kiev, then we deliver Nlaw and so on up to HIMARS.
We are far beyond unlocking advanced aircraft and tanks here – castrations, torture centers, NS1 and NS2, bombed-out power supply etc. They could have sent heavy offensive weapons several months ago and Russia would have had to accept it.
(Russia’s narrative is anyway that NATO has gone all-in in Ukraine so it changes nothing in practice, pro-Russian sites are making a very big deal out of all weapon deliveries anyway. There is no shortage of Western soldiers in the international legion either that they can spin as NATO soldiers, and they do).
Then HIMARS have really torn the Russians apart but no one discusses that it is too much escalation to take out Russian generals, to strike Crimea or the Kerch Bridge or Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don. Or to enter with troops on Russian territory just to mess around for that matter which they did up in Kharkiv.
My belief on the subject –
For me this does not add up – for the Russians HIMARS is probably worse than CV-90 every day all week. Crimea was their red line and then the Kerch Bridge was blown up. The Russians’ red lines are meant to be crossed every day it seems.
It is precisely advanced aircraft and Western armor that are not allowed to be delivered – but you can deliver Eastern bloc armor as much as you want and all the artillery you can shake out that causes infinitely more damage than what tanks would have done (if they had been delivered instead of artillery). Apparently, you can also deliver ATGMs.
My thought is therefore that there is something else behind this, there are several thousand serviceable armored vehicles and tanks in Europe and quite a few countries have zero need for them, Eastern Europe is their protection.
The war has been going on for almost a year and there are very strong reasons to end this as soon as practically possible.
China is a big enough player to be able to force a balance and precisely the absence of advanced aircraft and Western armor but deliveries of Eastern bloc armor and Western artillery makes me believe that there is a (poorly thought-out) agreement behind it.
-It might have been – if you send advanced aircraft and armor to Ukraine, we will do it too?
-Or – if you enter with troops we will do it too, in peacekeeping purposes.
Now this agreement (which I believe came about) was established quite early so I guess China was probably satisfied with not getting offensive weapons to Ukraine but that artillery and air defense would be okay – they probably regret that today.
Then I think the reason for the Troika’s negative attitude towards Ukraine was not because of Russia, it was because China stands behind Russia. They were prepared to sacrifice Ukraine not for Russia but to stay in good terms with China.
I absolutely believe there is truth in the article and Spectator is not just anyone. That China would remain completely passive I see as impossible.
I also believe that it was quite a big chain of events that would be set in motion with Ukraine’s fall and that they are now trying to make the best of it. Ukraine is not a proxy war per se (yet) but there are two distinct blocks trying to find a balance now that the Ukraine war has disturbed it.
It is a geopolitical atomic bomb that has been fired.
Other explanatory models such as Ukraine not knowing what they want or that everything on their list has been sent I consider worse.
Anyway, my view on how things have gone and since nothing can be proven I let it go, I understand this borders on conspiracy so don’t go out too hard 😃