Ukraine and Only Ukraine. If it isn't about Ukraine then fuck off

[LeoV]

Some reports from Russia about Wagner said only a few token ones got a pardon. PR you know.

FT;

Russian president Vladimir Putin is pardoning convicts to allow them to fight in Ukraine as members of the Wagner paramilitary group, the Kremlin has admitted.
SNIP.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said prisoners were being pardoned “in strict adherence with Russian law” and praised one convicted armed robber recruited by Wagner for “heroism” on the battlefield after the president gave him a medal. Russian law gives Putin sole authority to pardon prisoners, though Peskov said “there are open decrees and there are decrees marked classified”, declining to comment further.

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News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

www.ft.com

So still secrecy about the numbers released with a pardon out of Wagner.

 

[Bristol-Cruiser]

How many folks here think that Putin will a) still be Russian president and/or b) still be alive at this date next year?

 

[veni vidi vici]

How many folks here think that Putin will a) still be Russian president and/or b) still be alive at this date next year?

Evidently he has ultra paranoid security around him and there are plenty of examples and reminders to those thinking of off him.
We can only hope he croaks naturally or otherwise, sooner the better.
What a fucked population!

 

[Bristol-Cruiser]

Evidently he has ultra paranoid security around him and there are plenty of examples and reminders to those thinking of off him.
We can only hope he croaks naturally or otherwise, sooner the better.
What a fucked population!

Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her bodyguards. I suspect if he dies in the next year it will not be of natural causes.

 

[Keith]

Russia-affiliated journalist paid for Quran burning in Sweden - I24NEWS

Swedish media suggest that Moscow was behind the protest aiming to sabotage Sweden's NATO membership bid

t.co

 

[Keith]

US targets Chinese firm for helping Russia’s Wagner group in Ukraine

Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co is said to have provided satellite imagery to enable the mercenaries’ combat operations.

t.co

 

[Ishmael]

How many folks here think that Putin will a) still be Russian president and/or b) still be alive at this date next year?

That would be nobody except Slutski and Motorbikeovitch.

 

[Dervish]

it does not / will not take anywhere near as long to gear up for mass production of war supplies as it once did
in the days of old every welder / lathe operator / press operator had to be trained for months / years to become highly skilled
each die and tool had to be hand made to very tight measurements by exceptionally highly trained engineers
and many machines had to be purpose built
all that went by the board when CNC machines started coming out
0.1mm tolerance is average workaday stuff
job changes to a completely different part can be done by one person in 5 - 10 mins if any change is needed at all .. as turrets hold a multitude of tools .. saving up to a day for 4-5 skilled fitters
robot welders can be 'trained' in a short time ( 3-4 times what a normal welder takes to do that job once ) then are happy to work 24/7 with no smoko, toilet or nose scratching breaks

if they need to ramp up production in a real hurry .. you will be able to see it increase every day

During WWII the production line at Springfield [Massachusetts, USA] Armory to make the M1 Garand receiver had over 300 different machine tools in a horseshoe shape. Each one fixtured for an operation, manned by a skilled operator.

Today a guy with a Fadal in his garage could duplicate the effort: with higher precision.

The Andover, Massachusetts Raytheon factory used to give tours to school children. They invited the kids to look through a microscope to see a hole they’d drilled in a human hair (roughly 0.004” / 0.1mm) and inserted a fiber in it.

 

[Dervish]

Armor museums around the world: “Noooooooo!”

From the turrets those look like T34/85’s, a much improved later war development. In Ukraine they’d be a death sentence.

 

[d'ranger]

Well the engines started and were able to propel them to the carrier so, yep - excellent shape. They will likely be top performers in the upcoming turret tossing competition.

 

[Go Left]

Armor museums around the world: “Noooooooo!”

From the turrets those look like T34/85’s, a much improved later war development. In Ukraine they’d be a death sentence.

Tank crews throughout Russia: Noooooooo!

 

[12 metre]

Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her bodyguards. I suspect if he dies in the next year it will not be of natural causes.

Not really a comparable dynamic.

In the assassination of Gandhi, the two Sikh bodyguards were motivated more by religion than money or political ideology.

The two had been initially terminated after Operation Blue Star -where security forces were sent to remove an orthodox Sikh leader and his militant followers from the Golden Temple during which over 500 people were killed. The subsequent fear was that her Sikh bodyguards would attempt an assassination, hence their termination.

Nevertheless Gandhi had the two reinstated as bodyguards in an attempt to quell further Sikh unrest. A well intentioned act that ultimately led to her demise.

I can't see Putin reinstating let alone letting live any bodyguards that might pose even the most minor of threats.

I also can't see any religious motivation since there isn't any widespread religious persecution in Russia I am aware of - and religion is a great motivator for some people to commit certain acts of terror.

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

Brazil refused to sell shells for Leopard tanks to Ukraine - media - Ukraine Today .org

Yuri Kobzar21:15, 01/27/23 The Brazilian President decided not to “provoke” Putin by sending shells to Germany against the Leopards. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva turned down a German request to sell ammunition for Leopard tanks , which Berlin promised to transfer to Ukraine. The...

ukrainetoday.org

Brazil not to supply ammunition for German tanks that Berlin intends to transfer to Ukraine – media

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday refused to supply ammunition for German tanks that could end up in Ukraine, the Brazilian edition Folha de São Paulo said.

en.interfax.com.ua

"Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday refused to supply ammunition for German tanks that could end up in Ukraine"

Last year, Brazil was on the verge of selling 300,000 shells for the German anti-aircraft Gepard.

Brazil to sell 300,000 shells for German anti-aircraft guns Gepard

The problem with ammunition for this weapon is solved.

en.lb.ua

The Workers Party has no scruples, however, in supplying banned cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia that end up killing civilians in Yemen. Is that why we don't sign the international ban?

The defense industry represents 4.5% of our GDP. It grew immensely during the previous 14 years of the Workers' Party in power, with huge government incentives. One of the first measures of the new Lula administration was to announce a program to "revitalize" the defense industry.

 

[Bristol-Cruiser]

Not really a comparable dynamic.

In the assassination of Gandhi, the two Sikh bodyguards were motivated more by religion than money or political ideology.

The two had been initially terminated after Operation Blue Star -where security forces were sent to remove an orthodox Sikh leader and his militant followers from the Golden Temple during which over 500 people were killed. The subsequent fear was that her Sikh bodyguards would attempt an assassination, hence their termination.

Nevertheless Gandhi had the two reinstated as bodyguards in an attempt to quell further Sikh unrest. A well intentioned act that ultimately led to her demise.

I can't see Putin reinstating let alone letting live any bodyguards that might pose even the most minor of threats.

I also can't see any religious motivation since there isn't any widespread religious persecution in Russia I am aware of - and religion is a great motivator for some people to commit certain acts of terror.

I Was thinking at a more personal level -some guard whose little brother got drafted and killed in a pointless, poorly led battle deciding to off Putin.

 

[12 metre]

I Was thinking at a more personal level -some guard whose little brother got drafted and killed in a pointless, poorly led battle deciding to off Putin.

Yes, but I think they would do a very thorough job of vetting a bodyguard. And if such events you describe happened after being hired - I am sure Putin's security service would quickly find a way of disposing of the bodyguard.

 

[hobie1616]

Pooties guards all have Harkonnen-style heart plugs installed.

 

[Keith]

 

[WhoaTed]

JFC, just drop another one on them and put them out of their misery.

 

[hobie1616]

The Tungsten M-1—How Ukraine’s Tanks Will Differ From America’s

Vehicle-maker General Dynamics Land Systems has to remove the uranium from the tanks then swap in tungsten. Both metals can be problematic.

www.forbes.com

There’s a good reason it might take months—even the better part of a year—for Ukraine to get those first 31 M-1A2 Abrams tanks from the United States.

Vehicle-maker General Dynamics Land Systems has to remove the uranium from the tanks then swap in tungsten. Both metals can be problematic.

It takes six months for GDLS to build an M-1A2 at the government-owned tank factory in Lima, Ohio. The firm manufactures just three “new” tanks a week. It uses, as the basis of each, one of the thousands of surplus M-1s sitting around at U.S. Army arsenals. All have a depleted-uranium mesh in their armor mix.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the nuclear industry. In the United States, it falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Energy—and is subject to DOE regulations that bar its export.

Not everyone agrees the export-ban is necessary. As far back as 1986, the U.S. General Accounting Office—now the Government Accountability Office—questioned the regulation. “DOE should be able to develop more objective criteria that will allow flexibility while better meeting established nonproliferation goals,” the GAO asserted.

Unless and until the rules change, an M-1 has to lose its depleted uranium, and get something to replace it, before the U.S. government will sell or donate the tank abroad.

That something is tungsten. A very hard metal that’s the key to American tank exports. When the United States sells M-1s to its allies—Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Taiwan and Poland all are recent customers—it pays GDLS, and only GDLS, to stuff tungsten into the steel “pockets” on the front of the M-1’s turret and also, on some models, on the front of the hull.

The work takes time. It doesn’t help that General Dynamics Land Systems has a monopoly on the trade. “GDLS is currently the only known contractor with the necessary secure armor facilities and necessary production equipment capable of supporting the installation of classified armor into the Abrams main battle tank,” the U.S. government noted in a recent justification of a sole-source contract to the company.

It’s not clear that the tungsten-armored M-1s are significantly more vulnerable to enemy fire than the uranium-armored M-1s are.

Both metals are very dense, after all. Steel has a density of around eight grams per cubic centimeter. Uranium and tungsten both tip the scale at a hefty 19 grams per cubic centimeter.

Which doesn’t mean you’d cover a whole tank in either of the silver-colored metals. For starters, both metals are hard to come by. Depleted uranium is a nuclear byproduct. Tungsten meanwhile comes from a vanishingly small number of mines, many of which are in China.

Also, depleted uranium tends to combust under certain conditions—and it’s just radioactive and toxic enough that it represents a safety risk when it burns.

Tungsten for its part is dense but brittle. It tends to shatter on impact. When the U.S. Defense Department investigated tungsten outer armor back in 1960, it came away disappointed. “The use of a hard [tungsten] facing does not appear worthwhile for improvement of the ballistic performance of armor,” the testers reported.

It’s not for no reason that armor-makers tend to fold depleted uranium and tungsten into cake-like armor mixes that also include ceramics and steel—and tend to have the steel on the outside. The Ukrainian M-1s, like all non-American M-1s, will feature this tungsten-on-the-inside armor blend.

They’ll have company. At least some of the German-made Leopard 2 tanks that Germany, Poland, Norway, Canada and other countries have pledged to Ukraine also have tungsten in their armor.

 

[veni vidi vici]

The poor Russian population!