Beside this gas question (that also touches us in south of France, most people are warmed up by gas), it indeed looks like russian forces around Kyiv are retreating.
https://liveuamap.com/
Recents caption shows village around the north or Kyiv are freed from russian soldiers, few unities are still there but isolated. Lots of equipment abandonned, which is good loots for UA.
Shelling intensifies in the south between Zaporizia and eastern disctricts, but south front around Kherson and Kryviy are also backing off.
What’s most surprising is that Belgorod fuel depot(“behind russian border”) was attacked and blew up yesterday, by a 2 ukrainian helicoptersr raid.
Russian nuclear service left Tchernobyl, and many helicopters have been seen leaving Belarus Support base to Russia…
Some good signs, but South-east region seems where war is going to concentrate now.
by a 2 ukrainian helicoptersr raid.
Has UA confirmed it was them? Could be a false flag operation; Russians do those readily regardless for the loss of own lives.
Just read somewhere that one of the Big Four (accountancy firms – don’t know which one) is rebranding in Russia, and has advised clients that existing contracts continue 
According to the Daily Trash a partial workaround has been found already for the payment currency.
Putin doesn’t look too healthy in that pic…
Waiting for more news on the helicopter raid.
With very limited information, my bet is that it’s a false flag. I don’t think the Russians would publicise a successful Ukrainian raid like that if it were real – sometimes the biggest clue is simply the fact that you’re being told about it. Helicopters also seem an odd way to go after a non-mobile logistical target in enemy territory – slow, ponderous and liable to be shot down.
However if it really was the Ukrainians, does it represent the first proper strike on Russian targets on Russian soil?
I agree a standby generator is useful, but with the cost of fuel at the moment, here, it costs around 4 times the price per unit as electricity.
But still ok in the short term.
Nuclear is probably the best way of generating the base electricity for the moment, but they can take many many years to build, even if governments override the objectors. At the moment I think the uranium for most European reactors comes from Niger, yeh not Russia, but hardly a hotbed of political stability.
So what are we going to do next winter? Well as Peter suggest we can take more oil and gas from the USA, possibly Saudi Arabi, Quatar and Kuwait. The last 3 would of course have opposition. But I believe what extra they would supply amounts only to about 50% in total of our current usage.
We might have got more oil from Iran if Trump had not pulled out of that nuclear agreement.
The most recent attempt gas stalled because Russia didn’t want it. Surprise, surprise and of it has brought Israel and Russia closer.
Of course we could build more storage and stock up from these countries for next winter. But how much storage could we build in 6 months?
Quicker to build might be pumped storage units such as Dinorwig or Ffestiniog in the UK. These can also be fed by renewable wind and solar.
The Scandinavian countries and Scotland have the geography to be able to produce huge amounts of hydro power and building the stations to do that and interconnectors to join them into grids across Europe would take a lot less time than building a nuclear station. And would probably produce electricity much cheaper, as would tidal power and possibly, even wave power.
Many cities have rivers running through them. When the external temperature gets below 0° C go drop a thermometer on a piece of string into that water. Much of the time you will find it reads somewhere between 18° and 20° C. Could that be used in heat pumps to help heat cities. Or would there be too many protests from fishermen or no political will.
Political will is the much bigger problem than the technology and this has always been so.
Peter wrote:
Just read somewhere that one of the Big Four (accountancy firms – don’t know which one) is rebranding in Russia, and has advised clients that existing contracts continue
Bear in mind that big 4 accountancy firms are little more than francises. The people running the Russian offices will be Russian accountants based there. They aren’t mobile. If “HQ” decides that they want nothing to do with Russia anymore (which is probably what has happened) the local partners will still be doing accounting (but now in their own names) and they will still have their Russian clients needing their services.
So a name change is probably as much as can be effected from outside Russia.
Graham wrote:
With very limited information, my bet is that it’s a false flag
I don’t see how such a false flag operation would benefit the Russians.
gallois wrote:
The Scandinavian countries and Scotland have the geography to be able to produce huge amounts of hydro power and building the stations to do that and interconnectors to join them into grids across Europe would take a lot less time than building a nuclear station.
I don’t know about Norway, but Sweden already has about as much hydroelectric power as we can. Only a few rivers have not been exploited and these few are explicitly reserved for cultural and environmental reasons.
Denmark can’t have any hydroelectric power – its highest elevation is ≈173 m. Finland does have some, but it also does not have any significant mountains so not much more is possible. Very little of the country has an elevation of more than 300 m.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I don’t see how such a false flag operation would benefit the Russians.
They used this excuse to justify another shelling that prevented civilians to leave marioupol…
But I wouldn’t be to proud to admit such an attack on russian soil, from an army which air support is supposed to have been eliminated…
Airborne_Again wrote:
I don’t see how such a false flag operation would benefit the Russians.
Probably internal PR. They can show the Russian population via state-controlled media that the evil Ukrainian Nazis – puppets of the west – are now attacking Russian territory and infrastructure beyond the boundaries of the ‘special military operation’.
Gives them excuses to double down and keep blowing up civilians.
greg_mp wrote:
They used this excuse to justify another shelling that prevented civilians to leave marioupol…
Why start bothering with justifications now? It doesn’t make sense.
