1. #22661
    Quote Originally Posted by jonnysensible View Post
    your country is one of the main funders of the russian war machine. How much gas have you brought while the Russians commit atrocities?

    We need a visa ban for french and german citizens across the eu.
    Free travel within the EU, never heard of that ehhh?

  2. #22662
    Ukraine is reporting they have broken through the first line of Russian defences in Kherson.

    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/08/29/7365196/

  3. #22663
    Herald of the Titans Iphie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Corvus View Post
    Ukraine is reporting they have broken through the first line of Russian defences in Kherson.

    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/08/29/7365196/
    So...is Ukraine giving russia a lesson in Blitzkrieg or is it too early days yet?

  4. #22664
    Quote Originally Posted by Iphie View Post
    So...is Ukraine giving russia a lesson in Blitzkrieg or is it too early days yet?
    I would be nice to see Russia routed but lets not cheer to early.
    It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death

  5. #22665
    Quote Originally Posted by jonnysensible View Post
    your country is one of the main funders of the russian war machine. How much gas have you brought while the Russians commit atrocities?

    We need a visa ban for french and german citizens across the eu.
    Aren't you from Greece or Greek or something?

    Some people should really look in the mirror first and realize how dependent they are themselves. Just because a country relies on it more than the other doesn't really change that.
    Isn't for example Greece washing russian oil for europe and earning lots of money from it?
    Last edited by KrayZ33; 2022-08-29 at 12:36 PM.

  6. #22666
    Herald of the Titans Iphie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    I would be nice to see Russia routed but lets not cheer to early.
    Oh, I agree, I was just harking back to February when russia attempted a Blitzkrieg. The events are going quickly right now so it was a bit tongue in cheek.

  7. #22667
    Immortal Poopymonster's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arrashi View Post
    So russia claims that Ukraine deployed psychic commando that is hypnotising and indoctrinating russians into burning cars in moscov. I guess its full out Red Alert now - Be on with Yuri.
    Seem a bit more krazy than that. Better send in Ivan Popovich.
    Quote Originally Posted by Crissi View Post
    Quit using other posters as levels of crazy. That is not ok


    If you look, you can see the straw man walking a red herring up a slippery slope coming to join this conversation.

  8. #22668
    Over 9000! zealo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZ33 View Post
    Aren't you from Greece or Greek or something?

    Some people should really look in the mirror first and realize how dependent they are themselves. Just because a country relies on it more than the other doesn't really change that.
    Isn't for example Greece washing russian oil for europe and earning lots of money from it?
    I strongly believe that guy is British.

  9. #22669
    Quote Originally Posted by zealo View Post
    I strongly believe that guy is British.
    wot the fok did u just call me seal clubber


  10. #22670
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    If there is an irrational actor, the response should not be appeasement. Rather the response should be to weigh the potential actions of that actor and mitigate them ahead of time. While Ostpolitik may have been reasonable when it was convinced, it should have been set aside and replaced with a policy of economic disengagement after the summer of 2008 and not simply considered dead but any of its proponents should have been internationally ridiculed after 2014 (looking at Merkel). Any who claim pragmatism in Europe's and primarily Germany's foreign policy regarding Russia after the Russian-Georgian twelve day war of 2008 should be derided as anything but rational. There are three ways to see it. Romanticism born of a constructivist approach, with many European policy makers in frequent contact with Russian counterparts and thus believing they had an understanding (which has easily been proven grossly false), heedless greed where short term costs were valued inordinately against strategic uncertainty or lastly and most glaringly, rampant corruption with many high ranking european politicians having their hands on the Russian pie.

    The US is the last actor who can be blamed. Not even the US under Trump should be blamed (if anything, it should have rang alarm bells and forced disengagement from Russia, not just derision of Trump). The US made its disappointment with European dependency on Russian energy clear at every possible level. Opponents just dismissed all concerns as US being entirely interested in selling LNG to Europe as if geopolitics were a settled matter. The last 15 years have proven nothing more than how little the current generation of European politicians are, only concerned with serving the short term gains of their corporate masters and how blatantly unequal to the circumstances given to them to handle.

    So if you are looking to blame someone other than Russia in part for what happened in Ukraine, don't blame NATO. Blame Europe.
    All the while the US is heavily dependent on Russian uranium, to sustain their power plants and has not sanctioned the import of it. So as usual blame all the major players.

  11. #22671
    Quote Originally Posted by Combatbulter View Post
    All the while the US is heavily dependent on Russian uranium, to sustain their power plants and has not sanctioned the import of it. So as usual blame all the major players.
    Would the US lose more than half its energy production if they halted purchase of Russian uranium? Cause several european countries would if they stopped buying Russian oil and gas?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZ33 View Post
    Aren't you from Greece or Greek or something?

    Some people should really look in the mirror first and realize how dependent they are themselves. Just because a country relies on it more than the other doesn't really change that.
    Isn't for example Greece washing russian oil for europe and earning lots of money from it?
    Wait what, we are? First time I'm hearing this.

  12. #22672
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    Would the US lose more than half its energy production if they halted purchase of Russian uranium? Cause several european countries would if they stopped buying Russian oil and gas?
    As I said it is too much of a problem they won't sanction its import. There float several numbers around of at least half their nuclear powerplants being dependent on it.

    So it is a big issue.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    Wait what, we are? First time I'm hearing this.
    https://www.dailysabah.com/business/...r-rages-report
    https://shippingwatch.com/carriers/T...le14047513.ece
    https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...ws-2022-05-19/
    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oi...gh-Greece.html

    India is pretty much doing the same
    Last edited by Combatbutler; 2022-08-29 at 01:46 PM.

  13. #22673
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post


    Wait what, we are? First time I'm hearing this.
    It's true, though.

    https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/wirts...sland-100.html [German source, translation with DeepL]

    ZDFheute
    How Russia circumvents the EU's oil embargo ZDFheute Logo



    Sanctions come to nothing : How Russia circumvents the EU's oil embargo
    by Arndt Ginzel and Christian Rohde

    Date:
    17.08.2022 16:45 Uhr

    The EU wants to prevent Putin from continuing to sell oil to fill his war chest. But Russian tankers are simply pumping their cargo around - a search for clues in Greece.
    A view through a telescope of two tankers at sea

    The ZDF editorial frontal shows how Russian oil deals continue despite sanctions.

    Feature length:
    9 min
    Date:
    16.08.2022

    We are in Greece because something strange is happening at the southernmost tip of the European continent. Since spring, coastal residents have been spotting Russian oil tankers in the Laconian Gulf. Fishermen tell us that there has never been anything like this before.

    What the tankers want in their fishing area, the fishermen can only guess.

    There were three tankers 17, 18 miles out, exchanging petrol, oil or whatever. One was giving or taking.

    Costas Roubakos, Greek fisherman

    Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU wants to prevent Putin from continuing to sell oil to fill his war chest. Brussels has therefore decided on sanctions.

    From December onwards, no more oil from Russia may be imported into the EU by sea. The aim is to weaken Putin, but will it work? We want to find out on the spot.
    Ship to Ship - Pumping Oil on the Open Sea

    For weeks we followed the routes of Russian oil tankers via internet trackers. The data research brought a surprising result.

    Especially in the Laconian Gulf outside Greek territorial waters, there has been a conspicuous number of oil tankers moored for weeks. According to the route tracker, many of the ships come from Russian Black Sea ports.

    They first sail through the Bosporus and then along the Greek coast. What the trackers also reveal: Two tankers regularly lie next to each other for hours. That is more than unusual.

    Analysts at Lloyd, the largest ship insurer, assume that the Russians are carrying out so-called STS operations off the Greek coast to conceal the origin of the sanctioned oil.

    STS stands for ship-to-ship transfer - oil is transferred from one tanker to another on the high seas. A way to circumvent sanctions.
    Greek companies provide the logistics

    What we have only been able to see on screens so far, we want to check out at sea and hire a skipper. When he finds out what we are up to, he shows us tug boats from a Greek company in the harbour.

    They drive equipment like big black fenders to the tankers. They look like big black balloons and protect the sides of the tankers when they lie next to each other. Our skipper claims he has been on such STS operations himself. "Russian tankers, all Russians," he says in response to our question about STS transfers.

    He shows us photos of Russian tankers, supposedly transferring oil. But on our first trip out into the Laconian Gulf, we cannot film the pumping of oil.
    The Greek government is allegedly helpless

    The fact that off the Greek coast Russian tankers are transferring oil to other ships in order to sell it - past sanctions around the world - also concerns Greek members of parliament.

    We have an appointment with Stavros Arachovitis, the former Minister of Agriculture. Immediately after the start of the Ukraine war, he says, large tankers entered the Laconian Gulf for the first time.

    The problem is that no country can check what is happening outside the six miles: Where the oil comes from and where it goes.

    Stavros Arachovitis, former Greek Minister of Agriculture
    Greece has deliberately softened EU sanctions plans

    The Greek government recently said it could do nothing about the pumping of oil on the high seas. The truth is that the Greek government softened EU sanctions against Russia during negotiations.

    Originally, Brussels wanted to block the oil trade with Russia completely. Ships owned by Europeans would no longer be allowed to transport Russian oil. But the shipping nation prevailed that it did not come to that. And so, according to the NGO "Global Wittnes", tankers owned by Greek shipowners continue to transport Russian oil around the globe.
    Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, speaks to journalists at a meeting of EU heads of state and government in Brussels.

    At their special summit, the EU states put together the sixth sanctions package against Russia. For the time being, only Russian oil deliveries via sea routes are to be stopped.


    Confrontation with the megaphone

    A few days later, we go out again in the hope of documenting with our camera how Russian tankers are pumping oil in order to circumvent sanctions. We have chartered a faster boat and thus have the chance to

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

  14. #22674
    Quote Originally Posted by zealo View Post
    I strongly believe that guy is British.
    Oh nevermind then, I thought I saw his avatar a few years back arguing for grexit, but not as an "outsider"...more like a Greek living in "exile".
    You know, like the German-Turks voting in Turkey.

    The guy I'm talking about had a real rage boner for Merkel.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post


    Wait what, we are? First time I'm hearing this.
    Well, what can I say, a lot of shit is happening. Doesn't change the fact that the correct way to do this shit is to just "honestly" (and that's the important part) change it whenever and whereever it's possible. I wouldn't expect the shipping companies, who have a large lobby in Greece and used it to lobby to delay EU sanctions as well to stop like a week after the invasion.
    It's the same thing with gas in Germany... can't expect a country in which most households run with it to just stop importing gas, especially when Gazprom emptied the storages (the largest in EU) it had responsibility over to historical low levels right before shit hit the fan.
    Last edited by KrayZ33; 2022-08-29 at 02:00 PM.

  15. #22675
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZ33 View Post
    Oh nevermind then, I thought I saw his avatar a few years back arguing for grexit, but not as an "outsider"...more like a Greek living in "exile".
    You know, like the German-Turks voting in Turkey.

    The guy I'm talking about had a real rage boner for Merkel.
    I believe that guy got permabanned eventually, though I bet he would have had a field day with this.

    Building too much of a reliance on Russia was too great a risk.

  16. #22676
    The Undying Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladier View Post
    That's the thing, Putin expected Ukraine to fold
    Putin sidelines his own Defense Minister.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu may have been “side-lined within the Russian leadership” more than six months into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defence.

    “Russian officers and soldiers with first-hand experience of the war probably routinely ridicule Shoigu for his ineffectual and out-of-touch leadership as Russian progress has stalled,” the ministry said in an update.

    The move is likely “due to the problems Russia is facing” in the war with Ukraine, British officials noted.

    Shoigu, who has a background in construction and at the Ministry of Emergency Situations, “has likely long struggled to overcome his reputation as lacking substantive military experience.”

    He went missing from public eye for nearly two weeks at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and some speculated that Russian President Vladimir Putin had punished him for his start-of-war strategy.

    The U.K. Ministry of Defence cited “recent independent Russian media reports” as its source for the new intelligence.
    I trust James Bond to have up-to-date accurate intel.

    Be careful on the sidelines, Sergei. I hear there's a lot of open windows there.

  17. #22677
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZ33 View Post
    It's the same thing with gas in Germany... can't expect a country in which most households run with it to just stop importing gas, especially when Gazprom emptied the storages (the largest in EU) it had responsibility over to historical low levels right before shit hit the fan.
    Oh we certainly cannot expect things to change now. We can still see apportion blame though. I wouldn't really place blame in my country's foreign policy mostly because we don't really matter.

  18. #22678
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    Oh we certainly cannot expect things to change now. We can still see apportion blame though. I wouldn't really place blame in my country's foreign policy mostly because we don't really matter.
    That is the problem if you deal with people, who can become problematic very fast, which unfortunately is quite a big chunk of the world, who either want to beat down a minority in their nation, are pretty much practicing colonialism etc.

    Russia unfortunately is just the obvious tip of the iceberg.

  19. #22679
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    Oh we certainly cannot expect things to change now. We can still see apportion blame though. I wouldn't really place blame in my country's foreign policy mostly because we don't really matter.
    Eh... you are part of EU and you are voting for and against sanctions like everyone else. And when your "country" does shit like the one next to you or the other side of the pond, it really doesn't matter if your economic/political power is shit or not. How do you blame someone for something when you do the same things.

  20. #22680
    Over 9000! zealo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jonnysensible View Post
    wot the fok did u just call me seal clubber
    Eh, id say my hunch was close enough if you're Irish, European part of the anglosphere at any rate.

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