Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 637

On December 27 2023 08:34 Gorsameth wrote:
Depending on how quickly after getting hit the ship exploded they might have had a chance to evacuate.

The damage to a Russian warship appears much worse than the Kremlin is willing to acknowledge.

The Russian navy's landing vessel Novocherkassk — part of its Black Sea Fleet — was hit in a Ukrainian attack on a port in Russian-held Crimea, officials said Tuesday.

While the Kremlin-appointed governor there has said the ship was damaged and one person was killed, video and media reports paint a much-darker picture.

Images of a massive explosion at a dock in Feodosia spread on social media. Reporters and open-source intelligence channels posted photos showing smoldering wreckage at the pier, backing up Ukraine's claim that long-range missiles triggered a massive explosion that blew up the ship.

Independent Russian media is also questioning the stated death toll.

Astra, a Telegram channel sharing Russian news from independent journalists, reported there were 77 sailors aboard the Novocherkassk at the time of the Ukrainian attack; this class of ship typically has a crew size of about 100.

While one person is confirmed dead, 33 more are missing and another 23 were wounded, a report on the Astra channel said, citing anonymous sources.

Russia's apparent downplaying of the attack calls to mind the cruiser Moskva's sinking in 2022, after which some families of the ship's 500 crew members said officials were keeping them in the dark.

The attack on the Novocherkassk is most likely not a serious blow to the Russian war machine, analysts including Mark Galeotti at The Spectator have said. The loss of the ship would reduce the Black Sea Fleet's capacity to move troops and tanks by sea.

But the strike is just the latest to target Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which Ukrainian forces have hammered since Russia's invasion began. Business Insider previously reported that Russian naval assets in occupied Crimea were being moved to safer ports.

Feodosia — the eastern Crimean dock where the Novocherkassk was hit — was one of those ports.

On December 29 2023 18:42 Excludos wrote:
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/12/29/7435024/

Seems like Russia weren't fans of what happened in Crimea, and decided to hit back on Ukrainian cities. It's apparantly one of the largest single attacks in a year. About 110 missiles + unknown number of drones

As far as I can tell, at least from these reports, most missiles were shot down, but the wreckages are still landing on stuff and doing damage and causing fires. Preferable to large explosions on impact for sure, but people are still dying.

As of now, 12 people reported dead and over 75 wounded by the missile attack - Internal Affairs ministry. Numbers likely to rise

On a personal note, it's impressive to me that Russia decided to waste so much of their arsenal on attacking cities, rather than actual valuable targets. Pure vendetta, with no regard to actual progress to the war effort. Any ridiculous notion that they are just there as liberators are completely tossed out the window with attacks like these, although most of us here already knew that of course. That idea was scratches as soon as we saw civilian mass graves in occupied territories

On December 29 2023 20:09 zatic wrote:
"Wreckage landing on stuff and exploding" is language for air defense was overwhelmed and some missiles could not be intercepted.12 dead from wreckage would be very unlucky.

The target, as usual, were Ukrainians.

On December 30 2023 00:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Round 2... apparently a Russian missile entered Polish airspace. Emergency security meeting is taking place now.

On December 30 2023 00:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Round 2... apparently a Russian missile entered Polish airspace. Emergency security meeting is taking place now.

https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1740733309892849814

On January 02 2024 22:32 Manit0u wrote:
Yale School of Management has released an analysis of Russian economy and they think it's in shambles due to various inter-connected reasons relating to the war and sanctions.

Recent article: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/no-the-business-exodus-from-russia-was-not-bonanza-for-putin
Previous article published by Yale SOM in 2022 regarding the state of Russian finances: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4167193
Slides for the 2022 article (nice visual aid): https://yale.app.box.com/s/7f6agg5ezscj234kahx35lil04udqgeo

[*]Despite Putin’s delusions of self-sufficiency and import substitution, Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill with no capacity to replace lost businesses, products and talent; the hollowing out of Russia’s domestic innovation and production base has led to soaring prices and consumer angst

[*]Despite some lingering leakiness, Russian imports have largely collapsed, and the country faces stark challenges securing crucial inputs, parts, and technology from hesitant trade partners, leading to widespread supply shortages within its domestic economy

[*]Putin is resorting to patently unsustainable, dramatic fiscal and monetary intervention to smooth over these structural economic weaknesses, which has already sent his government budget into deficit for the first time in years and drained his foreign reserves even with high energy prices – and Kremlin finances are in much, much more dire straits than conventionally understood

[*]Russian domestic financial markets, as an indicator of both present conditions and future outlook, are the worst performing markets in the entire world this year despite strict capital controls, and have priced in sustained, persistent weakness within the economy with liquidity and credit contracting – in addition to Russia being substantively cut off from international financial markets, limiting its ability to tap into pools of capital needed for the revitalization of its crippled economy

On January 03 2024 02:58 KwarK wrote:
The Moscow exchange isn’t the best example, given it appears to be denominated in rubles, a currency experiencing extremely high inflation (16% interest as of Dec 23). A company that made nothing and simply sat on a pile of gold would show dramatic returns on investment under that metric.

The imports metric likely has the same issue. Rubles up doesn’t mean imports up or spending up.

Extremely high inflation also drives demand as people seek to liquidate any cash they have on hand at the earliest possible opportunity.

Overall the picture is likely a lot more complicated than any of us are able to unpack here and is probably best left to professional economists. However I am quite skeptical of any evidence that attempts to paint a positive picture because it simply doesn’t pass the smell test. We know that Russia is engaged in an expensive and destructive war and that it has seen an exodus of both workers and foreign capital. We know that it is under sanctions and that it has lost access to key export markets. We know that the central bank has hiked interest rates to 16% in an attempt to prevent domestic capital flight. The idea that Russia is richer than ever simply doesn’t reconcile with the increasing share of the national output being used as target practice by Ukraine. Every shell fired and mine laid is stolen from the productive labour of the Russian people.