Is Ukraine about to have a war?

[WB627]

Originally Posted by Expatrick

Livng rather close to the Ukraine border I need a bit of humour, sometimes.

I'm with you Exp so in that vein.........

[WideScreen]

Originally Posted by ORAC

Ominous, what powers does that put in Orban’s hands?

”Hungary declares state of emergency due to war in Ukraine.

Pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a video message that the war posed a threat to Hungary's security, the financial sector and energy supplies.”

Originally Posted by Timmy Tomkins

My thoughts exactly and have been frustrated for some while that the EU won't grow some backbone to stand up to Orban. If NATO were to have Article 5 triggered, I am not at all confident that Hungary would join in and no boubt Putrid will be counting on that

The problem is, neither EU nor NATO does have a kind of "sin-bin". The EU was wringing itself into bendy reasoning to at least punish Orban financially, when Covid came around.

Let alone, when the NATO would decide to action, Orban will be on the emergency brake.

[WideScreen]

Originally Posted by NutLoose

......
Sadly though the peacekeeping force should have went in when Russia announced its intentions to do the same. that would have stopped the war on day one.
.......

Yep, this would have made the difference, even when it would have been small battle groups. Unfortunately, it did not happen.

[WideScreen]

Originally Posted by ORAC

US Defence Intelligence agency assess that less than 40% of Russian missiles fired during the war in Ukraine have hit their intended targets. 20-30% fail to launch or crash in flight and many miss aiming points.

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-r...a-show-1709388

Which emphasizes why the Russians want their mobile nukes at the Finnish border. For the reach distance, it doesn't matter, for the failure fall-out it does.

At the military level, failures are calculated, so just have enough extra capacity. Though, this amount of failures is high.

[WideScreen]

Originally Posted by SASless

How does US Intelligence "know" what the aiming points were?

Are these the same Intelligence Analysts that did not see this War coming and said it would only last three days...that did not see the Taliban taking over Afghanistan...that "knew" there were WMD's in Iraq?

That the Russians are mucking it up big time is easy to see.....but to know with certainty requires a lot of confirmed inside information....which I do not believe for a second that we have.

Aiming points: Just practical items: When you see the rocket ignition flash, but no rocket departure, etc. When the rockets land in Russia itself. When the rockets land in farmland, etc.

Regarding the war prediction: The Biden government did have pretty accurate predictions when and what was going to happen. The performance time-line did surprise everybody, the whole world, including Putin.

And the WMD/Iraq: That was upfront clear, the whole WMD was complete nonsense. The Second Iraq war only happened because Bush senior told Bush junior, he did regret, he did not finish off Saddam Hussain. And then, subsequently, further encouraged by Cheney and his war industry. Sorry for the thread-drift.

[WideScreen]

Originally Posted by fdr

They get to own the outcome if they do that. Putin has no intent to stop in the East of Ukraine, so these guys get the fallout in their own back yards and with their own citizens.

Yep, Orban is more and more becoming a Putin slave, just like Lukashenko.

Originally Posted by fdr

Myopic view if true. Separately, as much as Russia will be hated for the next century, so to will the quisling governments that appease Putin.

Yep, that is an important one. And that includes China, implying the financing of the China military (large scale export of consumer/industrial thingies to Western countries) will be scrutinized.

[AndySmith]

Originally Posted by WideScreen

Yep, Orban is more and more becoming a Putin slave, just like Lukashenko.

As someone who resides in said country, that happened a long time ago and there are too many sweet deals to lose with Putin if the latter is removed - hence the current Hungarian stance. If you listen to the "Kremlin File" podcasts - there is a whole show about how the Russians corrupt governments with infrastructure deals - hmmm, just like the Paks II deal for the new nuclear power station that is being financed and built by the Russians. It's so sensitive that the whole deal is a state secret and nobody but the ruling party here know what is going on.

[skua]

Originally Posted by AndySmith

As someone who resides in said country, that happened a long time ago and there are too many sweet deals to lose with Putin if the latter is removed - hence the current Hungarian stance. If you listen to the "Kremlin File" podcasts - there is a whole show about how the Russians corrupt governments with infrastructure deals - hmmm, just like the Paks II deal for the new nuclear power station that is being financed and built by the Russians. It's so sensitive that the whole deal is a state secret and nobody but the ruling party here know what is going on.

And the Chinese with e.g. Sri Lanka.

[tdracer]

Originally Posted by SASless

How does US Intelligence "know" what the aiming points were?

Are these the same Intelligence Analysts that did not see this War coming and said it would only last three days...that did not see the Taliban taking over Afghanistan...that "knew" there were WMD's in Iraq?

That the Russians are mucking it up big time is easy to see.....but to know with certainty requires a lot of confirmed inside information....which I do not believe for a second that we have.

While I share some of your skepticism of the US Intelligence systems, there is no question that all those AWACS, P-8, and similar aircraft flying around near the Ukraine are gathering massive amounts of information regarding the performance (or lack thereof) of the various Russian weapons systems.

[Expatrick]

Originally Posted by AndySmith

It's so sensitive that the whole deal is a state secret and nobody but the ruling party here know what is going on.

Really? I'd expand but not in the scope of this thread.

[uxb99]

So what's the purpose of these munitions?

Harri_EST🇪🇪🇺🇦 on Twitter: "🇷🇺🤬🤬🤬 Video sent by a friend from National Guard unit in Donbas who we are helping with protective gear. No words really! #StandWithUkraine https://t.co/a8Jq45kQy1" / Twitter

[ORAC]

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-r...a-show-1709388

Exclusive: Russia's Air War in Ukraine is a Total Failure, New Data Show

[ORAC]

Russian media pundits threatening nuclear war again…

https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/s...hLn8jRuQ04nfCA

[Less Hair]

They cannot escape the retaliation strike and they know it.
This might fire back in unexpected ways: A launch order might be the very moment the -more rational- russian military starts to oppose the government.

[NutLoose]

Originally Posted by uxb99

So what's the purpose of these munitions?

Harri_EST🇪🇪🇺🇦 on Twitter: "🇷🇺🤬🤬🤬 Video sent by a friend from National Guard unit in Donbas who we are helping with protective gear. No words really! #StandWithUkraine https://t.co/a8Jq45kQy1" / Twitter

I think you will find it is white phosphorus, to burn people and everything else on the ground.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/180455...-warfare-fears

..

[NutLoose]

Do you think he has figured out how sh*te they are yet?

Twitter

[Lonewolf_50]

Originally Posted by NutLoose

Do you think he has figured out how sh*te they are yet?
https://twitter.com/PekkaLooking/sta...10794934280197

Interesting comment by the lady before the video ends: "It's a scary experiment"

[tdracer]

Originally Posted by Less Hair

They cannot escape the retaliation strike and they know it.
This might fire back in unexpected ways: A launch order might be the very moment the -more rational- russian military starts to oppose the government.

What scares me is that Putin could be getting to the point that he doesn't care about retaliation. Hitler like, if he thinks he's going down, taking the rest of the world with him may actually be appealing.

[Lonewolf_50]

Originally Posted by tdracer

What scares me is that Putin could be getting to the point that he doesn't care about retaliation. Hitler like, if he thinks he's going down, taking the rest of the world with him may actually be appealing.

if it will help you sleep at night, some one is reporting that they are loading cruise missiles onto the Kilo class submarines that are based in the Black Sea.
While I hope that those have conventional tips, I think that those missiles are roughly the same class of cruise missile as Tomahawk (USN and RN).
If they have a special tip then you can have more sleepless nights.
I'll see what open sources have on that.
FWIW, the wiki entry indicates that some can have a special warhead

The 3M-54 Kalibr, (Калибр, caliber), also referred to it as 3M54-1 Kalibr, 3M14 Biryuza (Бирюза, turquoise), (NATO reporting nameSS-N-27 Sizzler and SS-N-30A), 91R1, and 91RT2, is a family of Russian cruise missiles developed by the Novator Design Bureau (OKB-8). There are ship-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched versions of the missile, and variants for anti-ship, anti-submarine and land attack use. Some versions have a second propulsion stage that initiates a supersonic sprint in the terminal approach to the target, reducing the time that target's defense systems have to react, while subsonic versions have greater range than the supersonic variants. The missile can carry a warhead weighing up to 500 kg of explosive or a thermonuclear warhead.

As I don't have a Jane's subscription, I may have to be satisfied with that.

[etudiant]

Originally Posted by tdracer

What scares me is that Putin could be getting to the point that he doesn't care about retaliation. Hitler like, if he thinks he's going down, taking the rest of the world with him may actually be appealing.

It may be that Putin is not the only one with misapprehensions regarding the Ukraine situation.
A rather different perspective is in some of the financial websites, such as this one here: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022...ng-russia.html
The short form here is that the West has shot itself in the foot with the various embargoes. These have had very limited near term effect on Russia, which received all time record energy export revenues in April ,but are hugely damaging to the global.economy. The victims will blame the West for imposing these sanctions.
The other element is that warts and all, Russia is gradually absorbing eastern Ukraine, the source of the conflict, installing civil administrations and offering expedited Russian citizenship.
Changing those facts on the ground will be problematical for the Ukraine, even with an influx of NATO gear.
Kissinger at Davos stated his view that the Ukraine will not be able to emerge unscathed from this war. He is admittedly old, but his judgement still seems sound.