What is happening with Russia and Ukraine now?

I still think a perfectly reliable news source is the daily mail, I wonder what they have to say about ukraine

 

Ha! :laugh:

 

Sort of, but not entirely. The article I linked to actually points out that British military was already present in Ukraine as part of wider NATO support, however we can now expect to see much more. Also, despite of what Cameron says, this is bringing them one step closer to arming Ukraine.

Ha! x2

 

I think they talked about the Swift Trident joint exercise last year.

Well, arming Ukraine with advanced modern weaponry like SPGs and tanks is going to cost a lot. This is a standard NATO artillery piece, so I assume they are going to send these. Ukraine doesn't have the means to produce spare parts or ammunition for their own tanks in adequate amounts, not to mention the foreign ones, so all of this is going to have to be imported.

The closest operator seems to be Germany, which has 570 units. The frontline in Ukraine is about 400 kilometers long, so they are going to need a hundred or two of these howitzers. The wiki says its fire rate is 3 rounds per minute and it carries 28 in total, which means it will run dry in 9 minutes. With rounds costing several thousand USD per piece, they are gonna need to spend a fortune to shoot all day, every day, since USSR shells obviously won't work with US made guns.

Sending anti-tank launchers is also not a great idea money-wise. They will need a lot and the US is most likely going to send these. A single unit costs $246k and a single missile - $80k. Plus there is always the threat of them ending up in Rebel hands, just like those mint condition United States radar stations UA army abandoned in Debaltsevo.

Bottom line: Unless you hear about Europe and US throwing billions at Ukraine monthly, they are not going to send anything other than instructors and some token aid. NATO didn't even give them their old 1970s armored cars for free. Ukraine had to buy them $50k per piece and one of them broke down during transportation to the testing grounds.





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I think all countries have to think about it.

 

Ukrainian Hryvnia is going down hard:

• Official exchange rate is 33 per USD at the time of this post.
• People speculating on the currency set the price up to 50UAH per 1USD.

When the price of hryvnia went down 90 kopeks (1 hryvnia contains 100 kopecs) in 2013 there was a public outcry and people were calling it a disaster and blamed the previous government administration.

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A year later with the new government in charge it went down at least 4 times in comparison with the rule of the "horrible tyrant Yanukovich" and renews records daily. The minimal salary in Ukraine is 1.218 hryvnias, which is ~$43. This is lower than some of the poorest countries in the world. Ukraine is nearing a default.

Does the government stop the ATO? Does the government try to make peace with DPR and LPR? Does the government try to restore its industry and agriculture?

Nope. They continue the mobilization efforts and blame each other:

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The civilian population is panicking and rioting. The prices on everything skyrocketed and are still going up. The shops have severely limited sales on staple foods (Two bottles of cooking oil, two packs of buckweat or 3.5kg of sugar per person for instance):

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Meanwhile Poroshenko goes around the world, buying weapons for the war effort:

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Police beating up a demonstration in front of the National Bank in Kiev:

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5:06: "If someone hits us back, we will shoot, I'm warning you"

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Masked Ukrainian ultras assaulting French fans on the football game "Dynamo" - "Guingamp" in Kiev:

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LPR continues the recovery of dead Ukrainian soldiers, keeping track of all the documents:

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""Hello Barack!Why did you shoot Nemtsov."

 

Firstly, why would he assassinate an impotent opposition figure that has been whining about the government for 15 years with no tangible results right in front of the Kremlin, a day before opposition demonstration, while he was meeting with a Ukrainian model in the middle of the night, creating a martyr for the liberals, instead of actual relevant opposition leaders, like Navalny, Yavlinsky, Khodorkovsky or Kasyanov? Secondly, there are hundreds of ways to deal with opposition without actually murdering them, why would a politician with a 90% approval rating do that? :derp:

Previous murders were of people with influence who actually did something ([1] [2] [3]).

This is a provocation or a preparation for one. The demonstration was rescheduled and replaced with a mourning procession that will be held tomorrow (There are also going to be at least two more, on the 9th and the 40th days after death, it's an orthodox Christianity thing). If there is going to be a shooting on them or some other shit will go down, I'm going to say: "Told ya".

This could also be internal fighting between the political forces.

Meanwhile a minister from the pro-russian Party of Regions in Kiev under home arrest suddenly decided to commit suicide and jumped out of the window of his apartment on the 17th floor and none of the Western politicians condemning the death of Nemtsov said anything about Chechetov's "suicide".

 

Wow, this thread got really large in just 1 week. This was a post, that I type about a week ago, in reply to Heavygunner's post of "The Daily Mail Song" and to Potarto's:

It's really off topic and has nothing to contribute to the actual conversation about Russia/Ukraine. I also thought the the Daily Mail was a U.S. media source until I saw TheDarknessEnvelops' post.

haha ound: Catchy song; but, I imagine every country has their bad media parlors. I know the U.S.' media is largely motivated to get as many viewers as possible, and their stories can sometimes be pure crap -gathered from bits and pieces from other outside sources- but what do you expect, really, from a county, trying to reach out and gather news information from other countries, across seas? And you gotta remember, a lot of people -from what it seems (ironically) from media- dislike the U.S. in a certain way (and I'm not accusing anyone here or any one country or race, this is just for the sake of this conversation). So imagine people who dislike the U.S. that encounter a American reporter: first, they hate the U.S., automatically making them hate the U.S. reporter, so they will attempt to keep the reporter away from them and not give them any information. That, or they will tell them a bunch of hooligan stuff and send them on their way. Then, what does the American reporter have to base a story on? Not much; so they go to another news source and basically interview them on an interview that they did, etc. Stories change as they go from one person from another. And that's a pretty poor way of reporting, I gotta say: turning in a news story without having done a proper analysis of the project assigned to you. (and again, I know that the U.S. media is largely based on entertainment).

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's the same with news coverage, over there, concerning things that happen all the way, over here -in Canada, U.S., and Mexico/South America. Like, did you guys know about all the crazy violence that happened across Mexico and South America due to the drug cartels? Or that the city that borders the one I live, which is only separated by a shit-stream-of a river, was, and could still be, the most dangerous city, in the world? I'm sure you did, just like we heard about the Russian/Ukraine conflict; but I'm sure it wasn't as elaborate on the situation like it is, with you guys, over the Russian/Ukraine conflict -and the same with us over more news converge with Mexico violence as opposed to Russia/Ukraine. I could tune into the news and listen to about all the beheadings going on, every night, in a city that's only about a 20-minute drive away from my house (not that it bothered me or anything). Sometimes it was up to 9 deaths a day.

Anyway^2, I think our media coverage sucks with things, overseas, because of the distance that separates us, viceversa.

Anyway^3, I think Komodo is doing a great job in covering the conflict.

 

I really don't see how this is anything out of the ordinary or even relevant to the conflict. Violent ultras are commonplace in most Eastern European countries, especially racist ones. Russia, Ukraine and Poland are some of the worst offenders when it comes to football hools (gangs jumping each other with machetes in Kraków, Legia Warszawa's "White Legion", and pretty much any Russian or Ukrainian ultra whenever they see a black person).

Yes, that's a good point. There are shitstorms going on in many different parts of the world and we only really pay attention to those that the local/national media decide to focus on.

 

I suppose not. The rumor has it they confused the France/RF flags.

Slow news day.

 

:lol:

 

Exactly! I would find it less funny if they confused a Dutch flag with the Russian colours, but French?

 

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Turchinov inspecting Mariupol defenses:

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