I guess there is a lot more going on behind the scenes which is kept quiet. There is constant US presence along the border, one AWACS, one tanker at the very least. And a few hours ago, the 757 with Blinken on board has flown from Poland to Moldova. Clearly, this is there to show presence, amongst other things. Also the Israelis appear very active. I reckon the fact that the US is extraordinarily quiet in this whole thing has a lot to do with whatever goes on there.
The no fly zone would mean war with who ever protects it. I think that is also what Putin implies. And that is why it won’t happen.
loco wrote:
I guess the cubs are the newly born Donetsk and Luhansk.
Still neither is accurate. Protecting the two “cubs” does not in any form require smashing the rest of Ukraine to rubble. If that is what they had wanted, then they should have occupied those two territories.
I guess the cubs are the newly born Donetsk and Luhansk
Not sure who buys those cartoons in Russia? but 1/ surely, it’s missing Belarus and Chechenya and 2/ at least, the bear has to be inside the hunter house with kids & wife…
I just wanted to remind of one topic. Some days ago one raised the point here that if we were burning less oil and gas that this could have a direct impact on Russias income. Looks like this was true. German Federal Minister of Economics Habeck stated exactly that in a yesterdays interview (in german here ). Seems to be particularly true for Germany, where most of our gas and oil seems to be russian.
So anyone who lowers energy consumption might help the Ukraine a bit. We have a quite efficient wood-burning stove, lowered the heating temperature and fire the stove every other day now.
Is there anything we could offer to be transported by plane? I wouldn’t bother flying someone or something to, say, Poland or back, if it’s of any use…
I switched the heating off yesterday evening. So please no complaints anymore about Germans burning Russian gas. And the 20l of MOGAS for yesterday’s trip were already in the plane 
.
UdoR wrote:
Seems to be particularly true for Germany, where most of our gas and oil seems to be russian.So anyone who lowers energy consumption might help the Ukraine a bit.
The big question is whether the fact that Germany still is paying a lot of the gas and so on might have some impact on the decision tree in the kremlin whether to bomb the daylight out of Germany (literally) or not.
Lowering your personal energy consumption will primarily help your costs. The way things are going, prices for gas and gasoline may well reach levels, where people will start to lower their consumption without any political motivation….
Mooney_Driver wrote:
reach levels, where people will start to lower their consumption without any political motivation
No I don’t think that’s true. Russia is not the only source for fossile energy. Others may be more expensive in comparison, but it’s not that far.
Poland announced that they might send some MIGs soon to Ukraine, obviously without pilots. This is borderlining.
Does anyone know by chance how effective are the NATO counter-rockets which shall take out incoming nukes? Didn’t Putinia have ultrasonic rockets?
UdoR wrote:
Poland announced that they might send some MIGs soon to Ukraine, obviously without pilots. This is borderlining.
It is indeed worrying, particularly, as some sources suggest, they would be operating with Ukrainian pilots but from Polish airstrips.
UdoR wrote:
Does anyone know by chance how effective are the NATO counter-rockets which shall take out incoming nukes? Didn’t Putinia have ultrasonic rockets?
Let’s hope we won’t have to find out. I think those systems never really came on line, but whatever they are, they are hardly capable to stop a full scale assault. If that happens, it is all over.
The VC32 which delivered Foreign Secretary Blinken to Chisniau appears to be there still.
This is interesting
they would be operating with Ukrainian pilots but from Polish airstrips
Why?
Does anyone know by chance how effective are the NATO counter-rockets which shall take out incoming nukes?
Not useful. ABMs have been located around a few big cities only, per the then ABM treaty. But recent missile developments have produced a number of missiles which do have ABM capabilities. Still, the numbers of incomings would be too large.
UdoR wrote:
Poland announced that they might send some MIGs soon to Ukraine, obviously without pilots. This is borderlining.
This was “green lighted” by the US and denied by Polish govt today. We’ll see if US will push PL to do it.
UdoR wrote:
Does anyone know by chance how effective are the NATO counter-rockets which shall take out incoming nukes? Didn’t Putinia have ultrasonic rockets?
There’s Mach 2 maneuvering Iskanders in Kaliningrad. Could reach all of PL and Berlin but not farther.
There’s Mach 10 maneuvering Kinzhal launched from aircraft with 2000km range, so most of Europe.
There’s other stuff that I don’t want to think about.
