Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 115

The Commission is proposing to phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.

The Commission had already signaled to EU countries there would be some form of transitional measures for Hungary and Slovakia, given how much these two countries rely on Russian oil and the difficulties they face in finding alternative supplies. In recent weeks, Hungary has emerged as one of the biggest roadblocks to going further with sanctions on the Russian energy sector.

According to the document, "the competent authorities of Hungary and Slovakia may authorise the execution until 31 December 2023 of contracts" concluded before the new sanctions package enters into force, "or ancillary contracts necessary for the execution of such contracts."

Source

On May 04 2022 19:08 mahrgell wrote:


And thats the most nonsensical spin I have heard around this story. And there were quite a few candidates for this title.
The BKA (Federal crime agency) 'strongly advised him not to go' (original quote), because the preparation time they were given was too short and they could not guarantee his security. So surely this was long planned.

On May 04 2022 22:05 Sermokala wrote:
A compromise is still a deal. Hungry and Slovakia's consumption won't save the Russians and getting through a deal at all is impressive.

For russia to sell any oil to someone outside of these two countries from their euro-facing deposits they'll have to ship something around Scandinavia or out of st Petersburg all the way to asia.

the Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol on March 16 stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date. An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that the attack was in fact far deadlier than estimated, killing closer to 600 people inside and outside the building. That’s almost double the death toll cited so far, and many survivors put the number even higher.

The AP investigation recreated what happened inside the theater on that day from the accounts of 23 survivors, rescuers, and people intimately familiar with its new life as a bomb shelter. The AP also drew on two sets of floor plans of the theater, photos and video taken inside before, during and after that day and feedback from experts who reviewed the methodology.

...

“I wasn’t killed in the theater, but I’m going to die in the philharmonic,” Maria Kutnyakova told herself bitterly. “God, this is my cultural program for the day.”

...

Yurin left soon after. He numbly pulled on a neoprene suit he used for fishing on cold winter days and wrapped his feet in plastic bags. Then he plunged into the Azov Sea and swam for nearly a kilometer (half-mile) “like a dog” before emerging outside Mariupol. It took days, but he eventually made his way to safety in western Ukraine.

...

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has declared the attack on the Mariupol drama theater an “egregious violation” of international humanitarian law. The organization’s mid-April report found that “those who ordered or executed it committed a war crime.” It also found no dispute that the destruction of the theater was deliberate.

This finding was echoed by two munitions experts interviewed by the AP, who said the scope of the destruction points to a 500-kilogram bomb from a Russian warplane.

On May 04 2022 23:30 Ghanburighan wrote:
I'm assuming the heavy weapons bill was brought to the floor by the opposition not the govt. Is this correct? Might explain the abstentions. Govt.'s generally don't want to support opposition bills. Any chance the bill will return with slight modifications proposed by the govt.?

On May 04 2022 23:30 Ghanburighan wrote:
I'm assuming the heavy weapons bill was brought to the floor by the opposition not the govt. Is this correct? Might explain the abstentions. Govt.'s generally don't want to support opposition bills. Any chance the bill will return with slight modifications proposed by the govt.?

On May 05 2022 02:03 Ghanburighan wrote:
Anders Östlund with another great thread summarizing what security and defense people think about Germany's approach to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/1521868004765622273

Edit: Cepa is very influential. They were briefing at NATO HQ last Monday.

On May 05 2022 02:03 Ghanburighan wrote:
Anders Östlund with another great thread summarizing what security and defense people think about Germany's approach to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/1521868004765622273

Edit: Cepa is very influential. They were briefing at NATO HQ last Monday.

On May 05 2022 04:34 Artesimo wrote:


To me it seems a constant disingenuous framing. Germany has been looking out for its interests, but tweets like this frame it in a way that makes it sound like we are actively doing russias bidding. Which by now seems like clearly not the case. The reluctance with weapons shipment, to me the explanation of it taking capabilities away from the bundeswehr do makes sense for example. So far, to my understanding, no country has pulled weapons from active service and sacrificed capability in the long run to support ukraine.

They either send weapons from storage, or had something in exchange (polish sends some of their cold war tanks, they get Abrahams tanks in return. The AA systems from some eastern european country that got replaced by some NATO systems that had previously been deployed to germany and the netherlands. slovenia sends t72s, and will get more modern german stuff in return later down the line - not to mention that it very much made sense to get them, since it is weapon systems that are easy to use and integrate for the ukrainian army).

Now you have germany saying it wants to train ukrainian soldiers with the panzerhaubitze2000, a system which the netherlands want to deliver. A move that some argued would be enough to classify us as participating in the war, as well as being crucial to the deal. The netherlands do not have the capability to train people on that system, they themselves send their soldiers over here to train on that system. So all it would have taken for this deal to fall through is us saying no. But it seems like that is not what we will do.


But yeah, despite taking on key roles in deals to get ukraine more weapons, deals that would either not be possible without germany, or very unlikely to happen, apparently germany is still not to be trusted and doing russias bidding... Frankly, I was pretty disappointed initially with the stances and actions of my goverment, but the longer this goes on, the more I understand their stances and even believe some of their explanations. Could we do more? sure. Should we have taken more decisive action sooner? definitely. But at this point, I do not think one can reasonable claim that we are not supporting ukraine, or that we are doing russias bidding, or that we are 'untrustworthy'.


People just need to accept that weapon shipments are problematic for germany for various reasons, and let us just simply pump money and humanitarian aid into ukraine and take whatever military aid happens to come with that. That might not be as flashy, but it is also very important. The ukrainian economy is taking a heavy hit from the war, the sea blockade is massively hurting their exports, even with the planned corridor to polish ports. If we really want to save ukraine rather than just making russia bleed, than this is also of vital importance.

Or you can keep up acting like we are to blame for the sky falling, and then get questionable results like the gepard tanks that now might get delivered, which are very questionable in effectiveness - but we might actually be able to deliver them without losing any capability. maybe.

To me, the whole gepard thing just reeks of the german goverment being pressured by public opinion to send *any* heavy weapons, that somewhat fits the bill and might shut up all the clueless people that keep screeching. And then you end up with this, which I assume is the best we can do.

Not to mention that the majority of people talking about heavy weapons do not understand how they get integrated into the military, training(which is more than just being able to drive the thing, you gotta operate it, operate its weapon systems, be able to maintain it...), logistics, maintenance(do you have spare parts? where do you get them from? are any special tools needed for maintenance? special facilities?), having ammunition, integration(a lot of the capability of nato hardware comes from the integration into natos electronic command and control systems. does ukraine have that? maybe some due to the extensive training with UK and US forces, but I doubt how far that reaches)... Sending unfamiliar systems without any of the required support structures and integration set up seems like a very inefficient way of spending those resources - and we are only now starting to possibly see a transition to nato-tier hardware for the ukrainian army, with the possibility of training on panzerhaubitze2000.

Given our above mentioned involvement in deals to get ukraine weapons, I do not see much credibility in the accusation of us trying to save german russian relations for our own sake... Might as well start blaming the US for doing russias bidding when they declared last year they would not put boots on the ground for ukraine...

That thread is just a poor appeal to emotion, nothing of substance in there, its incredibly reductive... That spiegel article is a great gotcha when you look at it with the hindsight of today and also ignore everything that was going on around that time... Just preaching to the choir... It hurts seeing this cited as a 'great thread', but I am not surprised...

Too bad the cepa site is down atm so I can't hop on there to see if he is just some random guy in cepa alongside 50 others there, or if he is actually someone that should be better than this. I guess he lives in kiev atm, so I guess he falls under my rule of 'yeah I excuse him having some dumb takes on this' but good lord, this is a facebook mom equivalent and not a great thread...

On May 05 2022 04:58 Ghanburighan wrote:
Cepa.org isn't down.

Look, one of the first mistakes of politics is mistaking the world you'd want to live in for the world you live in.

Allies have sent plenty of material that's in active use. Nobody else (except for the usual culprits like HU, and FR exclusively inside NATO) is making these excuses or raising a political fuss.

In fact, in Estonia, we had people working weekends and around the clock to have everything shipped to UA in 2-3 days (previously, it would take a week for each step of such a process, such as getting permits to move military equipment across a state border). This is matched by larger allies like the US who go from political decisions to shipments in less than a week.

On May 05 2022 04:32 Mohdoo wrote:


Can someone summarize what exactly Scholz is doing? I thought they recently agreed on the embargo?

On May 05 2022 05:01 Simberto wrote:


Decision - stuff happens in less than a week is simply not something German bureaucracy does, basically ever.