https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...us-crisis.html

British special forces are put on alert to be deployed to Ukraine as size of Red Army on border swells to 100,000 troops and Russian Navy tracks US warships in the Black Sea

Reminds me of the false flag operation whilst started the invasion of Poland at the start of WWII…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-reach-EU.html

EXCLUSIVE: Poland is braced for major attack by 'weaponised' migrants from Belarus TONIGHT

Poland is braced for a major assault by migrants on its frontier with Belarus tonight after receiving intelligence of a huge build up of enemy troops.

Polish Border Force guards claim their Belarusian counterparts are issuing the thousands of stranded migrants with instructions, equipment and weapons to force their way into the EU.

The attack is believed to be planned for frontier at Kuznica, one of two main crossing points from Poland to Belarus……

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...er-2021-11-14/

Putin offers help to resolve crisis at Belarus and EU border

MOSCOW, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was ready to help resolve a migrant crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland, RIA news agency reported on Sunday citing an interview on a state TV channel.

"We are ready to help it by all means if of course anything would depend on us," Putin was quoted as saying…..

Nothing to do with us. Let the EUs “shared sovereignty” deal with it.

That worked soooo well in 1938/39….

However, I feel it’s more like 1914, where no one expected a war and afterwards spent decades trying to work out the complex reasons it happened..

Not that simple. Do you think for a moment that they will all stop in Poland? Most will head for France and the Channel. Then it ceases to be the EU's problem. Suddenly it's ours.

Russia would burn many bridges to the west if they invade again. No more hard currency income for raw materials and some seriously upgraded NATO eastern flank next.

Nato warns of Russian aggression against the Ukraine

https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAQJ9CR?m=en-gb&ocid=News

Well if the Russian soldier shown in the photo is anything to go by, we have nothing to worry about, those little grey rubber pimples on his gloves are to stop his hands freezing in cold weather to objects such as the metal of his weapon etc, so he is wearing them on the wrong hands lol. the pimples should be on his palms.

https://www.theweek.in/news/world/20...sia-livid.html

Turkish drones ? Whatever next ?

Following on from cables being removed off Norway Daily Telegraph this evening:

US slams 'reckless' Kremlin for blowing up satellite forcing space station astronauts to take cover

Astronauts on the International Space Station were forced to shelter in their re-entry vehicles in case of impact
BySarah Knapton, SCIENCE EDITOR and Nick Allen WASHINGTON15 November 2021 • 5:29p There have been warnings from the US military that the Kremlin is looking at potentially attacking US satellites in future.In the Russian anti-satellite test, known as an ASAT, it blew up one of its own defunct spy satellites.

It created thousands of pieces of space debris, some of which floated toward the space station.

Ned Price, the US state department spokesman, said: "Earlier today, the Russian Federation recklessly conducted a destructive satellite test of a direct ascent anti-satellite missile against one of its own satellites.

"The test has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threaten the interests of all nations."
He added: "Russia's dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardises the long-term sustainability of outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia's (claims) to oppose the weaponisation of space are disingenuous and hypocritical." Space tracking experts confirmed that the former Soviet Cosmos-1408 intelligence satellite which was in orbit just several miles above the ISS was destroyed.

Seradata, the space intelligence experts, said that a missile had launched from the Plesetsk site in northern Russia at 6.30am on Monday.

The US is particularly reliant, compared to Russia or China, on satellites, including for military communications.

Last year Dan Coats, then the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, testified to Congress that Russia, and China, were “increasingly considering attacks against satellite systems as part of their future warfare doctrine.”

Paras and SAS on standby

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...us-crisis.html

There are now more Russian troops on the border than in the U.K. military in total.

Quantity has a quality all its own. (Someone famous said that).
For those interested:
There are some ways to look at this, and one way is: that's a lot of targets.
I hope it doesn't come to that, and I hope the hot line from Washington to Moscow is being used.

Both of these should ring alarm bells….

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...gh-2021-11-18/

Putin says West not taking Russia's warnings on 'red lines' seriously enough

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...rather-winter/

An energy crisis is coming, but I’d rather be in Brexit Britain than the EU

Europe’s energy crunch has returned with a winter vengeance. We are back to warnings of power rationing and industrial stoppage, a looming disaster for the European Commission and the British government alike.

Vladimir Putin has tightened his stranglehold on gas, driving up futures contracts for January by 40pc in barely a week. Prices are nearing the levels of September’s panic. The difference this time is that the underlying geopolitical crisis is an order of magnitude more serious…..

Mr Putin has already prepared the ground for the perfect energy squeeze. He took advantage of the world’s post-pandemic gas shortage over the late summer to withhold the top-up flows needed to replenish Europe’s depleted storage.

Other than short bursts of extra supply, almost as a tease, Gazprom has been delivering minimum contract volumes. Inventories are currently 52pc in Austria, 61pc in Holland, 69pc in Germany at a time of year when they should be near 100pc.

The Kremlin is now closing the trap. Energy analysts ICIS says Gazprom booked “nothing” for December through the Mallnow metering point on the Polish-Belarus pipeline. Europe is facing a supply-deficit of 32m cubic meters a day……

Whatever Mr Putin’s plans for Ukraine, possibly seizure of the Donbass and the Black Sea coast as far as Odessa, a parallel showdown with Brussels over the Baltic Nord Stream 2 pipeline looks certain to escalate.

German regulators have suspended the certification process because Gazprom was trying to get around EU monopoly laws. They had no choice: a stitch-up had become impossible. “Poland would have issued an immediate injunction to stop it at the European Court,” said Prof Riley…..

Mr Putin will not back down lightly since Nord Stream 2 is central to his drive to alter the strategic balance of power in Europe, and overturn the post-Cold War settlement. The chances are that he will keep stoking the gas crisis until a frozen Europe begs for mercy, or tears itself apart.

Thierry Bros, a former energy security planner for the French government, said Brussels has stumbled blindly into a Kremlin ambush. “Putin set his master plan in motion last July and August. I didn’t believe it at first but now there can be no doubt. He told us we’d be getting more gas in October but it never came, and November has been worse, and now there’s going to be nothing through Mallnow,” he said……

The Government made a bet that the UK could always, and easily, obtain liquefied natural gas on the global market. But this country now finds itself in a bidding war for scarce LNG supplies with China, which is armed with $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange reserves and has ordered officials to secure energy as a matter of regime survival. The Asia spot price has just hit the once unthinkable level of $32 per MBBtu, if you can get it.

If the Government has not already created an “energy war room” with emergency powers, it should do so forthwith……

The UK could follow Japan and switch some gas plants to oil, currently trading at half the price of spot LNG ($180 equivalent). It could in extremis book LNG cargoes and hold the tankers at anchor as emergency storage. The Government could extend the life of the Hunterston B nuclear plant for a few months until we got through the worst.

Clive Moffatt, an expert on energy security, said it is already too late. “There’s no short-term fix to this. The grid is going to have to shut down industrial gas users. That is the only way to keep hospitals open and homes heated,” he said……

I think the Russian annexation of Crimea and its direct involvement in the Donbas conflict caught NATO off-guard and served to remind Europe that the Russians are somewhat insane and not the cuddly creatures we all hoped for post-1991. Lines are being drawn in the sands of various beaches, war is never very far away, and Putin has no fear of the west.

I’d stock up on toilet paper, you can never be too sure.

Whether NATO was caught off guard is certainly open for debate, what however would have differed had they been laser focused?

I’m sure the EU Army will be all over this. Nothing to see - move along.

...
Judging by the amount of elint related activity, someone's got the wind up.

LFH
...

Coincidentally, Poland is willing to increase their military budget.

breakingdefense.com/2021/11/poland-pledges-major-new-defense-spending-is-it-real-or-political-hype

NATO will make life harder for Russia. That's for sure. They've asked for it.

Lived Ukraine, Odessa and Nikolaev for a few years (2008-2010) can say with certainty that if the Russians invade, there will be country wide civil war, and it will flare up immediately and be more costly than the invasion itself.

The antipathy between Ukrainians and ethnic Russians is palpable, resulting for instance in the Odessa fires a few years back or so, viewing the YT videos of young Ukrainian women throwing petrol bombs into a building with holed up folk was eye opening even to me (and living in Eastern Europe/Russia for two decades I've seen a bit).

Many of my Ukrainian friends, civilised professional folk, had some deep seated hatred lurking in their brains that spilt out on occasion and it wasn't pretty. The Russians invading will snap some of them instantly into ugly people with some nasty intents.

Not a military genius but expect Transnistria will play some role in this as some sort of Russian flank.

Genuinely hope this rumour has no foundation.

I’d have thought it would turn rapidly to dog poo, the west cannot really back down and would honour its commitments to the Ukraine, because if they do not it will send signals to Russia it could act carte blanche as it did in The Crimea and Georgia.

One gets the feeling this is Putin’s one chance, the country has grown rich and turned itself around from bankruptcy using those riches from his gas reserves to modernise his military, threatening to put the squeeze on the wests energy supplies is once only threat, as the west once bitten will shift away from reliance on his gas reserves and become more independent resulting in a reduction in his countries earning potential.

If the price of natural gas goes up in response to all of this, I think a few folks with capped wells in the Eagleford Shale region may get back into the game.

Looks like Bosnia might beat them to it. http://www.politico.eu/article/dayto...milorad-dodik/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...ise-kyiv-will/

Russia will attack Ukraine if it joins Nato, warns Kremlin adviser

Russia will attack Ukraine unless Nato gives cast-iron guarantees that Kyiv will never be allowed to join the alliance, a Kremlin-linked foreign policy expert has said.

The suggestion by Fyodor Lukyanov is the clearest explanation yet as to why Russia has been amassing troops near the Ukrainian border, leading to a rise in East-West tensions and fears of an imminent invasion.

Mr Lukyanov - chairman of the board of the Russian Foreign Affairs Council, which advises the Kremlin - made it clear in an article published on Wednesday that Moscow would be seeking more than just verbal reassurances from Nato.

“This recent round of escalation in Eastern Europe showed that the old principles of security on the continent are no longer working,” he wrote. He warned of a “new conflict” if Nato expanded further east.

“Russia will have to change the system and draw new ‘red lines,” he said, mentioning a post-war deal between the Soviet Union and Finland, under which Moscow recognised Finland’s independence in return for Helsinki’s neutrality in the Cold War.

He added that the “gambit that led to the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia”, when Moscow invaded after claiming to have been provoked, “could well be replicated” in Ukraine.……

The EU military would be challenged in a conflict. It will be interesting to see how many are fence sitters.
All Russian bluster? Or will Russia will wait till China is ready to invade Taiwan. A two front war will be harder for the US.

People in East Ukraine are busy applying for and receiving Russian passports. It is a controlled process which can take several months, but it is happening. Only a matter of time before the majority are Russian citizens.

Which, even if true, would not give Russia any rights too, or in, the territory.

The same reasoning used by Germany for invading the Sudetenland in 1938 - and equally an excuse which could be used to reoccupy the Baltic States….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...Czechoslovakia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia..._Baltic_states

Doesn't Russia need the hard currency income from selling huge quantities of raw materials to the West? Wouldn't this all be terminated then, starting with not opening the new north stream 2 pipeline? What income would Russia be left with?

That strategy has not worked with China - money talks..

IG

Main export is gas and they’ve been throttling back supplies during the summer so that the reserves in most European countries are below 50% with winter approaching - the strategy being that their customers need gas and won’t be able to impose sanctions….

So to put it bluntly:
We would rather consider directly going to 3rd Worldwar before seriously thinking about sanctions?!

i've seen some jumps to conclusions but this really hits the top three of all time.

Might be good for the UK and Norway to be in even higher demand with oil and gas? Maybe it is too early to abandon coal just now?

How would such a war work without leading to WW3 and total elimination of all human life?

So what would be the strategy?

The cold war ended well after tens of years of tensions like this. No need for desperation but more need for credible military power and strategy in the West. The US and the EU need to stand together instead of going separate. This is why some EU army totally doesn't make sense from my point of view.

so you are saying that if sanctions can't be placed due to gas availability everyone will start throwing missiles at each other? Quite a knee jerk I'd say. That would definately lead to shortage on multitude of goods, so thinking it through a shortage on gas is quite irrelevant if those are the options.
To be more precise: I believe that sanctions are gazillion times more probable than WW3.