Forum - Spårvägssällskapet.se

Enceladus skrev: ↑tisdag 02 maj 2023 1:27 Ernst slams Biden administration plan to electrify military fleet: ‘You don’t fight a war that way’

The Hill skrev:“This administration has taken it to the extremes with this climate agenda,” she continued. “We are not focusing on the lethality of our American military. Instead, they are focusing on green energy and climate change. This is not how we project power around the world.”

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“This is a ludicrous idea to transition all of these vehicles,” Ernst said. “And Secretary Granholm was very adamant that yes, by 2030, we could transition — but the problem with this is that we continue to enrich China because we know that most of the parts… it’s all owned, controlled by China.”

Har det så kallade kulturkriget nått den amerikanska militären?

Ernst called on President Biden to abandon his failed foreign policy doctrine of appeasement

Wikipedia skrev:Having been strongly critical of President Barack Obama, she has been characterized as a reliable ally of President Donald Trump, and was thought to be a possible running mate in his 2016 campaign.

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Ernst opposes legalized abortion, and has supported a fetal personhood amendment and introduced legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. She opposes the Affordable Care Act and has called for reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. During the Trump administration, she expressed concern about, although not opposition to, Trump's trade war with China and criticized some aspects of his foreign policy. Ernst voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While supporting both Trump's nominees for EPA administrator, she expressed concern over their commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard. She rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Ernst has opposed a federal minimum wage and advocated for the elimination of federal departments such as the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.

BBC skrev:The series by Denmark's DR, Norway's NRK, Sweden's SVT, and Finland's Yle broadcasters revealed last month that Russian vessels appeared to be mapping out wind farms in the North Sea, including off the UK coast.

Now, the latest episode focuses on what they say are suspicious ship movements in the run-up to the Nord Stream blasts.

The ships are believed to include the Russian naval research vessel Sibiryakov, the tugboat SB-123, and a third ship from the Russian naval fleet that the media outlets have not been able to identify by name.

Di skrev:I april lyfte importen av LNG till rekordhöga 10,6 miljoner ton, enligt en sammanställning av data gjord av Bloomberg. Det mesta – 50 procent – kommer från USA, medan omkring 10 procent härrör från Ryssland.

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Gaslagren i Europa är just nu fyllda till omkring 60 procent, vilket är betydligt större lager än normalt för perioden, enligt statistik från Gas Infrastructure Europe.

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Priset på naturgas låg 37 euro per megawattimme på råvarubörsen i Amsterdam i onsdagens förmiddagshandel, ned med 1,4 procent. Prisnivån kan jämföras med de historiska topparna i augusti i fjol på över 300 euro per megawattimme.

The Kyiv Independent skrev:Russian missile strikes are likely shifting from targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure to military, industrial, and logistical infrastructure, the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote on May 3.

According to the U.K. Defense Ministry, the shift is likely related to Russia's need to replenish its air-launched cruise missile stockpiles.

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Russia began targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure in mid-October with mass missile and drone strikes, which plunged the country into frequent and widespread blackouts throughout the winter. As of March 2023, Ukraine's electricity grid is in stable working condition.

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑onsdag 15 mars 2023 20:26

BBC skrev:In his response to a questionnaire by Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, Mr DeSantis said: "While the US has many vital national interests... becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them."

Ja, vem vinner slaget om republikanerna - The Good Old Party - nästa år?

Washington Post skrev:One of the best things that could have happened to waning U.S. support for Ukraine was Tucker Carlson being pulled off Fox News’s airwaves last week. Carlson was maybe the most prominent and influential critic of U.S. aid, but he was also an extreme and conspiratorial one. He said he was actually rooting for Russia, he suggested Vladimir Putin wasn’t that bad a guy, he baselessly claimed the U.S. military was fighting alongside Ukrainians, and he used an apparently altered document to make his case.

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But we shouldn’t dismiss the Carlson effect. It was just three months ago that conservative former British prime minister Boris Johnson suggested that Republicans were too scared of Carlson to stick up for Ukraine. “I’ve been amazed and horrified by how many people are frightened of a guy called Tucker Carlson,” Johnson said.

Kyiv Post skrev:In the World Press Freedom ranking, Ukraine has suddenly risen 27 places, despite the war. It grew to 79th place from 106th. There are several reasons for this, and they are all very different. First, it is a drop in the ranking of other countries. Almost complete suppression of independent journalism in Russia as a result of the war in Ukraine, mass arrests of media workers in Turkey, and the further increase in aggression against reporters during demonstrations in Germany have led to many countries falling in the rankings. A record of 31 countries have a press freedom situation judged to be “very serious.”

Enceladus skrev: ↑onsdag 28 september 2022 14:04 Why the capture of a Russian T-90M tank matters

The Economist skrev:The T90M—also known as Proryv-3, meaning “breakthrough”—is Russia’s best active tank. It is an upgrade of the earlier T-90 model which was introduced in the early 1990s. Both models, of which the army has several hundred, are far superior to the Soviet tanks still widely used by both Russia and Ukraine. T-90Ms were not deployed during the initial invasion. Some analysts suspected that they were being reserved for a possible war with NATO—until they appeared a couple of months into the war.

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The T-90M is not invulnerable: Ukrainian forces have already destroyed one. But capturing one is far more useful. Being able to disassemble and analyse a top-of-the-range Russian tank will make it easier to defeat more T90-Ms in future. As well as its high-tech defences, the captured tank has the latest Russian offensive weaponry, including a computerised fire-control system and a gun capable of firing guided projectiles. The captured T-90M specimen will give military analysts a chance to assess Russia’s claims about these capabilities. And as the war in Ukraine grinds on, the intelligence bonanza will continue. The West has already gained access to a variety of Russian radar, intelligence gathering and command vehicles with their valuable secrets. Fleeing Russian soldiers ought to be more careful about what they leave behind.

USA tackar och tar emot.

The War Zone skrev:The Pentagon has finally provided a statement on the Russian T-90A tank from Ukraine that wound up parked for two days at a Louisiana truck stop.

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“I can confirm that a T-90 tank was being transported to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, when the truck transporting it suffered a mechanical issue. That issue has been fixed and the item is secure."

The "ultimate consignee" on the shipping label attached to the barrel of the tank’s main gun was listed as Building 358, 6850 Lanyard Rd., Aberdeen Proving Ground. That's the home of the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center (ATC).

Reuters skrev:India and Russia have suspended efforts to settle bilateral trade in rupees, after months of negotiations failed to convince Moscow to keep rupees in its coffers, two Indian government officials and a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

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With a high trade gap in favour of Russia, Moscow believes it will end up with an annual rupee surplus of over $40 billion if such a mechanism is worked out and feels rupee accumulation is 'not desirable', an Indian government official, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

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"Right now we are making some payments in dirham and a few other currencies but the majority is still in dollars. Settlement is happening in different ways, third party countries are also being used," one of the government officials said.

Reuters skrev:Russia's federal budget revenues from oil and gas, the lifeblood of its economy, fell 64% in April from the year-earlier period and declined by 5.9% from March, the finance ministry said on Thursday, as a result of higher subsidies to oil refineries.

Budget income from oil and gas sales reached 647.5 billion roubles ($8.3 billion) last month, compared to 688.2 billion in March and 1.798 trillion roubles in April 2022, it said.

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The Russian finance ministry plans to halve subsidies to oil refiners from July 2023, and is aiming to cut payments from the budget under the damping mechanism by 30 billion roubles.

Reuters skrev:"So far, these benchmarks are unchanged, but to say that it will be exactly 2%, this means giving incorrect estimates. There can be deviations in one direction and the other. Let's see what will happen to oil and gas revenues," Interfax quoted him as saying.

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The minister was also cited as saying that Russia would begin exchanging sovereign Eurobonds for rouble-denominated OFZ treasury bonds by the end of the year. He said Eurobonds issued by both companies and the government would be replaced.

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Russia last year defaulted on its international bonds for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution, after the U.S. Treasury effectively blocked it from making payments as part of sanctions to punish it for the invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainska Pravda skrev:"In fact, if Russia does not initiate a mandatory mobilization and secure substantial third-party ammunition supplies beyond existing deliveries from Iran and others, it will be increasingly challenging for them to sustain even modest offensive operations."

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Haines has said that Putin has likely scaled back his short-term ambitions in Ukraine in order to consider a victory "to consolidate control of the occupied territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, and ensuring that Ukraine will never become a NATO ally".

Despite this assessment, Haines believes it is unlikely that Russia will agree to a pause this year unless political factors "change Putin's mindset".

Ukrainska Pravda skrev:A journalist from the project reported that two distant explosions were heard in central Sevastopol around 18:55.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, said that Russian air defence downed a drone near the Belbek airfield around 19:00.

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On 29 April, a drone attacked an oil depot in Sevastopol’s Kozacha Bay, causing it to catch fire.

WSJ skrev:Rather than showing an economy that suffered an initial shock and has since stabilized, this data reveals an industrial sector that, for the most part, has declined even further as the war has continued.

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“Right now the trend is quite bearish on most of Russia,” said Benoit Bellone, the head of research and senior research data scientist at QuantCube.

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That interpretation has a strong logic to it: if Russian factories’ output is expanding, their pollution ought to be rising. For example, said Mr. Bellone, “To double your steel production, the pollution must rise proportionally.” Short of building new factories or power plants, there is really no way around this.

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Over the past six months, urban pollution in Moscow and St. Petersburg has begun to increase (partially a reflection of traffic) but pollution in industrial regions has continued to drop, off 1.2% over the six months ended in April and down 6.2% over the past year—more than during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. By contrast, Russia’s official measure showed industrial production rose 1.2% in March from a year earlier.

Bloomberg skrev:Stewardship of the Arctic is suddenly in question as a result of the isolation of Russia, the largest Arctic state, over its war on Ukraine. The Arctic Council — the main body for cooperation among the eight nations that share guardianship — is in limbo. Its meetings have been suspended since last year, and no one is quite sure what will happen after May 11, when Russia is due to hand over the rotating chair to Norway.

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The US, another Arctic power, remains committed to the region and to the council, a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. But Russia’s actions in conducting a war against Ukraine “inhibit the cooperation, coordination and interaction that characterize the work of the Arctic Council,” the person said.

NPR skrev:DARIA MELNIK: Rosneft continues to develop the project despite these challenges related to the financing of the project. But it still continues to invest in the project, meaning that this project is very, very important for Russia, even though it is quite expensive and risky.

NORTHAM: But Arctic drilling could be profitable, and Melnik says Russia hopes the Western backing will return someday.

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NORTHAM: Ariel Cohen, an energy specialist at the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center, says Russia might have to turn to China for help financing the Vostok Oil project.

ARIEL COHEN: And one of the scenarios we saw again and again is when a Russian project goes down, they run to the Chinese, and the Chinese buy it pennies on the dollar, squeezing the Russians really hard.

DN skrev:Wagnerledaren Jevgenij Prigozjin ber Moskva överlåta de ryska positionerna i det omstridda Bachmut till Tjetjeniens ledare Ramzan Kadyrov.

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Prigozjin ska ha tackat Kadyrov för hans erbjudande i ett meddelande på lördagen och sade att de tjetjeniska styrkorna ”utan tvekan” skulle erövra Bachmut.

Prigozjin ställde i veckan ultimatum till den ryska ledningen: Wagner-styrkorna lämnar Bachmut om man inte får mer resurser. Han anklagar Rysslands försvarsdepartement för att endast ha levererat drygt 30 procent av den nödvändiga ammunitionen sedan i höstas.

DN skrev:Den Kremlvänliga författaren Zachar Prilepin skadades och hans chaufför tillika livvakt dödades i ett bilbombsattentat på lördagen, enligt den statliga nyhetsbyrån Tass.

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47-årige Prilepin är en uttalad anhängare till president Vladimir Putin och står bakom den fullskaliga invasionen av Ukraina. 2014 stred han med proryska separatister i Donbass. Författaren har tidigare stoltserat med att hans förband dödade ett stort antal ukrainare i striderna, enligt Reuters.

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Det är inte första gången i kriget som bombdåd med dödlig utgång äger rum på ryskt territorium. I augusti dödades Darya Dugina i en attack mot henne pappa, den nationalistiske ideologen Aleksandr Dugin. Förra månaden dödades också militärbloggaren Vladlen Tatarsky i ett dåd på ett kafé i St Petersburg.

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑torsdag 20 april 2023 8:56 Märkligt att Teixeira, som uppenbarligen hade tänkt sig en militär karriär (en tradition som verkar finnas i släkten) förstört sitt liv på detta sätt.

The New York Times skrev:Even as he relished the respectability and access to intelligence he gained through his military service and top secret clearance, he seethed with contempt about the government, accusing the United States of a host of secret, nefarious activities: making biological and chemical weapons in Ukrainian labs, creating the Islamic State, even orchestrating mass shootings.

Washington Post skrev:“Wagner and Prigozhin have always represented a unity of command problem in this war,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Putin likes to use competing factions as a way to maintain power but that is very damaging in a military operation.”

Enceladus skrev: ↑lördag 06 maj 2023 23:58

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑torsdag 20 april 2023 8:56 Märkligt att Teixeira, som uppenbarligen hade tänkt sig en militär karriär (en tradition som verkar finnas i släkten) förstört sitt liv på detta sätt.

Inside Airman Teixeira’s Online World: War, Weapons and Conspiracy Theories

The New York Times skrev:Even as he relished the respectability and access to intelligence he gained through his military service and top secret clearance, he seethed with contempt about the government, accusing the United States of a host of secret, nefarious activities: making biological and chemical weapons in Ukrainian labs, creating the Islamic State, even orchestrating mass shootings.

Snarare märkligt att en person som tror på sådana konspirationsteorier hade tänkt sig en militär karriär.

Foreign Affairs skrev:As the Russian winter offensive reaches its culmination, Ukraine is poised to seize the initiative. In the coming weeks, it plans to conduct an offensive operation, or series of offensives, that may prove decisive in this phase of the conflict. This is not Ukraine’s only remaining opportunity to liberate a substantial amount of territory and inflict a major defeat on Russian forces, but the upcoming offensive may be the moment when available Western military equipment, training, and ammunition best intersect with the forces set aside by Ukraine for this operation. Ukraine is also eager to demonstrate that, despite months of brutal fighting, its military is not exhausted and remains able to break through Russian lines.

Policymakers, however, have placed undue emphasis on the upcoming offensive without providing sufficient consideration of what will come afterward and whether Ukraine is well positioned for the next phase. It is critical that Ukraine’s Western partners develop a long-term theory of victory for Ukraine, since even in the best-case scenario, this upcoming offensive is unlikely to end the conflict. Indeed, what follows this operation could be another period of indeterminate fighting and attrition, but with reduced ammunition deliveries to Ukraine. This is already a long war, and it is likely to become protracted. History is an imperfect guide, but it suggests wars that endure for more than a year are likely to go on for at least several more and are exceedingly difficult to end. A Western theory of success must therefore prevent a situation in which the war drags on, but where Western countries are unable to provide Ukraine with a decisive advantage.

Bloomberg skrev:The goal of those alleged war crimes appears to be to eliminate the Ukrainian identity in the areas Russia has occupied, the European officials said. As a result of those abuses, Kyiv will need more than just success on the battlefield to re-establish control, they said. The Russian actions, they added, suggest little interest in negotiating over the occupied areas on the part of President Vladimir Putin, who vowed to secure victory at a military parade in Moscow on Tuesday.

Russian forces “are engaged in filtration operations, torture and extrajudicial killings,” Michael Carpenter, the US permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said by email. “Healing the wounds of war will not be easy.”

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French President Emmanuel Macron is already trying to lay the groundwork for potential negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and other European officials are starting to accept that the moment for talks may be approaching. Any appearance of support for Russian control in occupied areas will increase Putin’s leverage in any negotiations.

Greg Yudin skrev:For quite a while, nobody took the word “defeat” in their mouth, even if they considered the invasion to be an insane choice. That has changed 3/23

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The whole public fight between feudal warlords makes it extremely difficult to imagine this army achieving any success. Their language projects defeat, and this is what I often hear – “I don’t know how this can possibly end with a victory” 7/23

A recent confession from Andrey Kovalev, one of the major Russian developers, is indicative, too. Putin was feeding the rich people with the stories of how he is going to win it in the end, and now they seem to lose confidence 8/19

Investing.com skrev:Russia's federal budget recorded a 3.4 trillion rouble ($43.8 billion) deficit in the first four months of the year, the finance ministry said on Wednesday, as Moscow continued to spend heavily and energy revenue fell sharply.

In the same period of 2022 Russia posted a surplus of 1.2 trillion roubles, but since then significant outlays to support its military campaign in Ukraine and a wall of Western sanctions on its oil and gas exports have hit government coffers.

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The finance ministry stopped publishing individual monthly budget fulfilment data last year, but based on Wednesday's figures, Russia posted a deficit in April of 1 trillion roubles ($12.9 billion).

That compares with a 181 billion rouble surplus in March and deficits of 821 billion roubles in February and 1.76 trillion roubles in January.

Just four months into the year, the spending gap in April took Russia's deficit 17% above the government's plans for a 2.9 trillion-rouble deficit in 2023 as a whole.

Reuters skrev:U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has authorized the first transfer of forfeited Russian assets for use in Ukraine, he said on Wednesday.

The Justice Department last year charged Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev with violating sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, saying he provided financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea.

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"While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine," Garland said, "it will not be the last,” he said in a statement.

Energy Monitor skrev:It would cost just over €800bn ($875.81bn) to replace all Russian gas in the EU with green alternatives – including renewable energy for electricity, and renovation and heat pumps for heating – by 2028, according to the Group, which is part of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.

While this figure greatly exceeds the €299bn that the EU is expected to spend under the European Green Deal as it stands, the researchers suggest that approximately 50% of the additional spending required between now and 2028 could be recouped over the next 30 years from the need to buy less gas.

The authors add that if gas prices remain as high as they are currently and Europe moves to more expensive sources such as liquified natural gas, the savings could be even greater, accounting for up to 92% of the additional investment. Both higher and lower estimates are based on the European Commission’s forecast of gas prices out to 2050.

Reuters skrev:Kaliningrad, which sits in an exclave that is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic coast, was known by the German name of Koenigsberg until after World War II, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union and renamed to honour politician Mikhail Kalinin.

Warsaw says Kalinin's connection to the 1940 Katyn massacre - when thousands of Polish officers were executed by Soviet forces - had negative connotations and that the city should now be referred to as Krolewiec, its name when it was ruled by the Kingdom of Poland in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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Kaliningrad was cut off from Moscow when Lithuania became independent during the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Reuters skrev:A military object found in a Polish forest in April was a Russian KH-55 missile, two Polish media outlets reported on Wednesday.

Poland has been on alert for possible spillover of weaponry from the war in neighbouring Ukraine, especially since two people were killed near the border last November by what Warsaw concluded was a misfired Ukrainian air defence missile.

Polish authorities said last month a "military object" had been found in a forest close to the village of Zamosc near the northern city of Bydgoszcz, without going into further details about its origin.

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑söndag 02 april 2023 8:40 Den framtida relationen till Ryssland är mera svårbedömd, men en ny turkisk statsledning kommer nog inte att äta glass med Putin! Sedan är ju frågan hur den turkiska militären kommer att agera.

Al Jazeera skrev:Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is challenging Turkey’s longtime leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday’s presidential ballot, said “foreign hackers” recruited by his rival are preparing deepfakes – manipulated videos and soundbites – aimed at discrediting the opposition days before the election.

“Dear Russian friends … you are behind the montages, conspiracies, deepfake content and tapes that were exposed in this country,” he said on Thursday without explaining why he was blaming Russia.

“If you want our friendship after May 15, get your hands off the Turkish state,” the main opposition alliance’s candidate added in tweets written in Turkish and Russian.

The allegations came hours after a third-party candidate dropped out of the race after being targeted by an online smear campaign.

DN skrev:Uppgifterna om hur många soldater som dödats i kriget så här långt har varierat men ryskspråkiga BBC har tillsammans med Mediazona och en grupp volontärer lyckats identifiera 10 230 soldater som dött i kriget sedan den 1 december 2022.

De flesta kom från fattiga delar av Ryssland och enligt BBC var risken att för en ung man från delrepublikerna Burjatien eller Tuva i Sibirien att dö i kriget 100 gånger större än för en man i samma ålder från Moskva.

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Överlevande som BBC och Mediazona talat med beskriver hur de skickats fram i rena stormningar utan någon träning. Uppgifter som också sprids av Ukraina som talar om hur soldater stormat fram och lätt har kunnat skjuts ned.

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BBC har också kartlagt hur många ur de ryska specialförbanden som dött i kriget och enligt de siffror som publiceras på fredagen har man lyckats identifiera fler än 3 300 fallskärmsjägare, marinkårssoldater och andra med årslånga utbildningar bakom sig.

Sedan invasionens början har också 2 012 officerare med majors grad eller högre dött. De som ersatt de döda befälen har betydligt mindre erfarenhet, skriver BBC.

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Om man också räknar in de som skadats svårt eller försvunnit är den totala siffran över ryska förluster 203 300, skriver BBC. Då är inte soldater ur milisen i Donetsk och Luhansk inberäknade. Om man också räknar in de proryska milissoldater som dött under striderna i östra Ukraina, som BBC uppskattar till strax under 60 000 som minst, har minst 263 200 soldater dött eller skadats sedan krigets början.

CNN skrev:Russia tried to destroy a US-made Patriot air defense system in Ukraine last week with a hypersonic missile, two US officials told CNN.

The attack failed, and the Ukrainian military instead intercepted the missile using the Patriot system, the officials said, marking their first known successful Ukrainian use of the advanced air defense system only weeks after it arrived in country.

The Ukrainian air defenders fired multiple missiles from the Patriot at different angles to intercept the Russian missile, demonstrating how quickly they have become adept at using the powerful system, one official said.

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The Patriot missile system has a powerful radar to detect incoming targets at long-range, making it a potent air defense platform capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and more. But the radar emission necessary to spot threats at a distance also makes it possible for the enemy to detect the Patriot battery and figure out its location. And unlike some shorter-range air defenses provided to Ukraine that are mobile and harder to target, the large Patriot battery is a stationary system, making it possible for the Russians to zero in on the location over time.

Upstream skrev:Oil and gas producers even paid less in direct taxes in April after the new increases were introduced than the previous month, the ministry said — 647 billion rubles ($8.6 billion) in April against 688 billion rubles in March.

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However, the new tax formula uses a pre-set discount on Urals, which is deducted from a monthly average of Brent blend spot quotations to determine the final price for both taxes.

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Russian state gas giant Gazprom’s gas exports to Europe so far this year have been about 25% of the level before Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.

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Moscow-based energy consultancy RusEnergy’s managing partner Mikhail Krutikhin said that Russian producers have been prioritising spending on brownfield projects to maintain production at existing assets while holding long-term investments in greenfield developments.

He also suggested that Russian producers have increased oil export sales to affiliated foreign-registered players and trading outfits in an effort to accumulate more earnings outside the country, and thus reduce their tax obligations to the state.

bne IntelliNews skrev:Siluanov points to several mitigating one-off circumstances that caused the deficit to balloon to RUB1.79 trillion in January – the biggest start of the year deficit in almost two decades – and believes oil and gas revenues will recover after the summer.

Siluanov missed last year’s 2% target as well – but not by much. Russia’s total budget deficit posted in December amounted to RUB3.3 trillion ($47bn), or 2.3% of its GDP, making it the second-largest deficit in modern Russian history. Total government spending in 2022 amounted to RUB31.11 trillion, exceeding the pre-war forecast by over a third and the amount spent in 2021 by over a quarter, the Moscow Times reports.

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The spread of deficit forecasts amongst independent economists for the full year remains wide. Bloomberg’s Russian macro analysts Alexander Isakov estimates the full-year deficit will be between RUB3 trillion and RUB4 trillion. Other more pessimistic forecasts see the deficit rising to between RUB6 trillion and RUB9 trillion, while Kyiv School of Economics released one of the most extreme forecasts on May 10, estimating the Russian budget would end this year with a RUB12.4 trillion deficit.

Press TV skrev:Tehran and Moscow have embarked on deepening cooperation amid massive Western sanctions. Iran and Russia have signed major deals in recent months to boost economic, trade, energy and military cooperation.

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Heidari said Iran will also receive air defense systems, missile systems and helicopters from Russia in the near future.

Iran has not acquired any new fighter aircraft in recent years, excluding a few Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters it bought in the 1990s.

Besides the MiG-29, IRIAF mainly uses locally modified F-4 Phantom II, F-14 Tomcat, and F-5E/F Tiger II planes from the 1970s that the toppled US-backed Pahlavi regime received before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Air Data News skrev:The Swedish Air Force, in turn, gave up purchasing second-hand C-130J Super Hercules aircraft and reopened competition to replace the first-generation turboprops.

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The closer relations between the two manufacturers and the mutual interest of the governments of Brazil and Sweden suggest that the potential order for KC-390 jets is a matter of time.

So far, four air forces have announced orders for the KC-390: Portugal, Hungary, the Netherlands (contract still pending) and Brazil.

Air Data News skrev:“We want Brazil to become an export hub to Latin America and potentially other regions,” said Johansson.

Enceladus skrev: ↑onsdag 10 maj 2023 23:07 Beyond Ukraine’s Offensive: The West Needs to Prepare the Country’s Military for a Long War

Defence Today skrev:The training program for Ukrainian pilots is a significant step in enhancing Ukraine’s air capabilities and interoperability with NATO allies. Ukraine operates mostly Soviet-era fighter jets, such as the MiG-29 and Su-27, which are outdated and vulnerable to Russian air defence systems. By training Ukrainian pilots on NATO-standard fighter jets, the UK aims to help Ukraine modernize its air force and prepare it for future challenges.

Sky News skrev:The government said Mr Sunak will confirm today the further provision of hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems, including hundreds of new long-range attack drones with a range of over 200km.

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On Saturday, the German government promised Kyiv its biggest military support package so far, with further arms deliveries worth €2.7bn (£2.35bn).

France also pledged further military aid, as President Emmanuel Macron and Mr Zelenskyy met in a surprise summit in Paris on Sunday.

Al Jazeera skrev:“In the coming weeks, France will train and equip several battalions with tens of armoured vehicles and light tanks including AMX-10RC,” the two leaders said in a joint statement on Monday after some three hours of talks.

Paris would also focus its efforts “in supporting Ukraine’s air defence capacities in order to defend its population against Russian strikes”.

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The French AMX-10RCs vehicles have high speed and manoeuvrability, allowing them to move quickly on the battlefield and change positions.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov called them a “sniper rifle on … fast wheels.”

The Guardian skrev:Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who has not been seen in public since 8 May, did not appear at a ceremony in the capital of Minsk on Sunday, triggering speculation the longtime leader is seriously ill.

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Lukashenko also did not speak at an event in Minsk marking the Victory Day anniversary, for the first time in his long presidency. That event, last Tuesday, was the last time he was seen in public.

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A Russian online publication, Podyom, quoted a senior member of the Duma lower house of parliament, Konstantin Zatulin, as saying that “Lukashenko ‘has simply fallen ill … and probably needs a rest’”.

Washington Post skrev:Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.

[...]

According to one document, Prigozhin told a Ukrainian intelligence officer that the Russian military was struggling with ammunition supplies. He advised Ukrainian forces to push forward with an assault on the border of Crimea, which Russia has illegally annexed, while Russian troop morale was low. The report also referred to other intelligence noting that Prigozhin was aware of plummeting morale among Wagner forces and that some of his fighters had balked at orders to deploy in the Bakhmut area under heavy fire, for fear of suffering more casualties.

[...]

The documents also suggest that Kyiv suspects, or may know, that the Kremlin is aware of Prigozhin’s communications with Ukrainian intelligence, if not his secret negotiations over Bakhmut.

DN skrev:Ukraina hävdade också att man dödat tre ryska överstar och ett tjugotal soldater och lägre befäl när man ryckte fram i Klishchiivka utanför Bachmut. Det skriver den ukrainske översten Anatolij Shtefan på Telegram.

[...]

”Fyra plan – om du ritar en cirkel runt platserna där de störtade, då visar det sig att denna cirkel har en diameter [och alla ligger exakt i en cirkel] på 40 kilometer ... Gå nu på internet och se vilken typ av luftvärnsvapen som kan vara i mitten av den här cirkeln, och bilda dig sedan din egen uppfattning”, skrev Prigozjin.

SvD skrev:Utmanaren Kiliçdaroglu har sagt att Sverige nu borde släppas in i Nato, medan Erdogan ännu inte gett något besked om när det kan bli aktuellt. Ann Linde hoppas att utmanaren Kiliçdaroglu, som företräder socialdemokratiska CHP, vinner den andra omgången. Men samtidigt tror hon, paradoxalt nog, att det skulle kunna gynna Sverige om Erdogan tar hem segern.

– I och med att vi redan vet hur det ser ut i parlamentet, där Erdogans parti och stödpartier har majoritet. Det betyder ju att det kan bli olika politiska diskussioner mellan president och parlamentet om Kiliçdaroglu vinner. Det är lättare för Erdogan att fatta ett beslut.

[...]

Bildt menar vidare att en seger för Kiliçdaroglu skulle kunna leda till en ”dragkamp” mellan president och parlament där Sveriges Nato-ansökan kan ”en av flera spelbrickor”.

Washington Post skrev:The disconnect among NATO members — 15 years after the United States spearheaded a push to declare that Ukraine would eventually join the alliance — highlights the risks such steps could entail at a fraught moment in the West’s standoff with Russia. It also underscores the potential for longer-term challenges within NATO despite the cohesion that has characterized the alliance’s response to the war.

[...]

Countries that support faster action argue that making membership conditional on Ukraine’s ability to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion effectively gives Putin a veto — not the message NATO wants to send.

They say history shows that only membership, not the promise of it, can deter Russia’s use of force. Months after NATO’s 2008 declaration of eventual accession for Ukraine and Georgia, another former Soviet republic, Putin sent Russian forces into Georgia to seize territory. Ukraine’s slow steps toward NATO accession likewise did not deter Putin’s illegal seizure of Crimea in 2014 or its full-scale invasion last year.

[...]

One official from Eastern Europe said there is “something of a ping-pong between Germany, France and the U.S.,” in which each country indicates that the others are the ones with the most significant reservations. The French and German governments declined to provide comment for this article.

Mediazona skrev:History is not a perfect guide, but it tells us that when wars last this long, they are typically very difficult to end. Whether they end via negotiations, which can take years, or there are no negotiations and the war continues beyond any decisive period of combat operations, or even when one side attains a fairly clear military victory, they may not be able to quickly translate that victory into a political one, because it’s often up to the loser to decide when the war is over. So even if a decisive battlefield victory or a series of victories are attained, the war can go on as a cross-border war, or a war of attrition between two countries. That’s why it’s important to disambiguate between military victory for Ukraine, defeat for Russia, and war termination.

[...]

But in general, I think we understand much better now that the initial Russian invasion was heavily premised on political assumptions that within a matter of days, Ukraine could be forced to surrender and the Ukrainian political leadership could be decapitated. And that the Russian military did not prepare for a prolonged combat operation, didn’t organise for a sustained war, and did not take the Ukrainian military seriously in terms of Ukrainian will to fight. In many respects, what Russian leadership was attempting to do was recreate a much larger version of the annexation of Crimea, having actually learned very little, it seems, about Ukraine since 2014.

That said, as a caveat, despite the profoundly unrealistic political assumptions of the Russian leadership behind the operation, the irrational employment of force, the lack of planning for a real war, and the general shambolic organisation of this invasion, the outcome in the early days was far from overdetermined. It was actually a fairly close-run affair. And the more we learn about the early days of the war, the clearer it is that much hinged on those first hours, on individual decisions made by Ukrainian leadership, by commanders, and by many Ukrainian volunteers and Ukrainian society. In short, we are fortunate to be living in this timeline of events.

[...]

I think the more important question, the more important objective, is avoiding a scenario where most can agree that the war has been a defeat for Russia, but not necessarily a clear victory for Ukraine, or the West.

Daily Express skrev:In a major blow to Russia and Vladimir Putin, Grosu said: "After 30 years, it became clear that the presence of the Republic of Moldova in the structures of the CIS did not help us to remove the Russian army from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, to resolve the Transnistrian conflict. Being in the CIS did not protect us from blackmail in the middle of winter.

"Withdrawal from the CIS Assembly is a first step. Ukraine left this organisation. The Republic of Moldova is a free country to make sovereign decisions. We demonstrated that we want democracy, freedom at home.

"In the next meeting of the Parliament's office, we will make an approach to Prime Minister Recean regarding the termination of the Agreement.

Financial Times skrev:The EU is planning an undersea internet cable to improve connectivity to Georgia and reduce dependence on lines running through Russia, amid growing concerns about vulnerabilities to infrastructure transmitting global data.

The €45mn cable will link EU member states to the Caucasus via international waters in the Black Sea, stretching a span of 1,100km. The project aims to reduce the region’s “dependency on terrestrial fibre-optic connectivity transiting via Russia”, the European Commission said in a policy document.

[...]

Vodafone is also exploring the possibility of developing a cable route across the Black Sea, according to two people briefed on the plan. The project, called Kardessa, would connect Ukraine to Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia and then continue under land to Armenia, Kazakhstan and onwards to Asia.

Enceladus skrev: ↑lördag 13 maj 2023 6:57 Brazil will offer the C-390 airlifter to Sweden in exchange for more Gripen fighters

Air Data News skrev:The Swedish Air Force, in turn, gave up purchasing second-hand C-130J Super Hercules aircraft and reopened competition to replace the first-generation turboprops.

[...]

The closer relations between the two manufacturers and the mutual interest of the governments of Brazil and Sweden suggest that the potential order for KC-390 jets is a matter of time.

So far, four air forces have announced orders for the KC-390: Portugal, Hungary, the Netherlands (contract still pending) and Brazil.

Brics-länderna drar åt olika håll: Sydafrika närmar sig Ryssland medan Brasilien och Indien gör tvärtom. Sverige hoppas att Brasilien kan bli ett handelsnav:

Air Data News skrev:“We want Brazil to become an export hub to Latin America and potentially other regions,” said Johansson.

Air Data News skrev:The closer relations between the two manufacturers and the mutual interest of the governments of Brazil and Sweden suggest that the potential order for KC-390 jets is a matter of time.

Enceladus skrev: ↑lördag 01 april 2023 22:30

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑lördag 01 april 2023 17:44 Också kul att Enceladus-kollektivet kan se in i framtiden och vet vem som vinner det turkiska presidentvalet. Jag kan ju, som jämförelse, peka på det ungerska parlamentsvalet, där den förenade oppositionen troddes ha en realistisk chans att vinna. Men Orban sopade mattan med dem.

Opinionsundersökningar är förvånansvärt träffsäkra. Turkiets Gandhi har inte samma försprång som Orban, men är likväl favorittippad.

Enceladus skrev: ↑lördag 13 maj 2023 6:37

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑söndag 02 april 2023 8:40 Den framtida relationen till Ryssland är mera svårbedömd, men en ny turkisk statsledning kommer nog inte att äta glass med Putin! Sedan är ju frågan hur den turkiska militären kommer att agera.

Turkey’s Kilicdaroglu accuses Russia of interfering in elections

Al Jazeera skrev:Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is challenging Turkey’s longtime leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday’s presidential ballot, said “foreign hackers” recruited by his rival are preparing deepfakes – manipulated videos and soundbites – aimed at discrediting the opposition days before the election.

“Dear Russian friends … you are behind the montages, conspiracies, deepfake content and tapes that were exposed in this country,” he said on Thursday without explaining why he was blaming Russia.

“If you want our friendship after May 15, get your hands off the Turkish state,” the main opposition alliance’s candidate added in tweets written in Turkish and Russian.

The allegations came hours after a third-party candidate dropped out of the race after being targeted by an online smear campaign.

Nä, Kilicdaroglu kommer nog inte att äta glass med Putin. Dessutom har den utmanaren en chans att vinna över Erdogan direkt på söndag efter presidentkandidaten Inces avhopp. Då kan Sverige möjligen bli medlem i Nato innan toppmötet i Vilnius i juli.

Enceladus skrev: ↑måndag 15 maj 2023 18:21 Paradoxen: Natochansen ökar om Erdogan vinner

SvD skrev:Utmanaren Kiliçdaroglu har sagt att Sverige nu borde släppas in i Nato, medan Erdogan ännu inte gett något besked om när det kan bli aktuellt. Ann Linde hoppas att utmanaren Kiliçdaroglu, som företräder socialdemokratiska CHP, vinner den andra omgången. Men samtidigt tror hon, paradoxalt nog, att det skulle kunna gynna Sverige om Erdogan tar hem segern.

– I och med att vi redan vet hur det ser ut i parlamentet, där Erdogans parti och stödpartier har majoritet. Det betyder ju att det kan bli olika politiska diskussioner mellan president och parlamentet om Kiliçdaroglu vinner. Det är lättare för Erdogan att fatta ett beslut.

[...]

Bildt menar vidare att en seger för Kiliçdaroglu skulle kunna leda till en ”dragkamp” mellan president och parlament där Sveriges Nato-ansökan kan ”en av flera spelbrickor”.

Ingen av kandidaterna i det turkiska presidentvalet nådde 50 procent av rösterna. Därmed blir det ett omval den 28 maj. Ann Linde (S) och Carl Bildt (M), båda tidigare utrikesministrar, hävdar att en seger för Erdogan i den andra omgången kan gynna Sveriges möjligheter att släppas in i Nato innan eller i samband med Nato-toppmötet i Vilnius den 11–12 juli. Priset blir dock en fortsatt autokratisering av Turkiet.

DN skrev:I en rapport publicerad av den amerikanska centralbanken har Ryssland lagt ned motsvarande 272 miljarder kronor på kriget bara under januari och februari. Det är en ökning med 282 procent jämfört med januari–februari 2022, precis innan kriget inleddes.

Därmed har 40 procent av hela årets försvarsbudget redan gått åt.

– Ryssland kommer att få spendera en allt större andel av sina utgifter på kriget, och i takt med att inkomsterna från olja och gas har minskat är den allmänna trenden att det kommer att alltmer kännbart också i andra delar av ekonomin, säger Torbjörn Becker, chef för Östekonomiska institutet vid Handelshögskolan.

[...]

– Nu används dessa pengar i ganska snabb rask. Och under året kommer reserverna förmodligen att ta slut.

Ett alternativ för att stoppa detta vore att dra ned på ännu fler sektorer i ekonomin. Men det tror inte Torbjörn Becker blir verklighet. Istället kommer Ryssland att söka efter nya inkomstkällor med skatter på företag och privatpersoner för att hålla igång krigsapparaten.

France 24 skrev:Leaders from the 46-nation Council of Europe including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasised that Moscow would be held accountable for the harm and destruction it has caused in its 15-month invasion of its neighbour.

The register of damages, to be lodged in The Hague, aims to record the tangible costs Russia has exacted on Ukraine in that time.

"There will be no reliable peace without justice" and the register lays the ground for "a full-fledged compensation mechanism," Zelensky said in a video address at the start of the two-day summit.

[...]

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte agreed at the summit that they would build an "international coalition to provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting with everything from training to procuring F-16 jets," according to Sunak's office.

ABC News skrev:Australia has provided Ukraine with 90 Bushmasters to help in its efforts and now it wants the light protected mobility vehicle, the Hawkei.

Mr Conroy would not be drawn on whether Australia would send more Hawkei vehicles to Ukraine as publicly requested by its ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko in April.

"We're proud to be one of the biggest non-NATO contributors of military aid to Ukraine in their valiant efforts to stop the unprovoked aggression from Vladimir Putin.

WSJ skrev:Current and former U.S. officials say that despite Mr. Putin’s apparent unchallenged control over Russian society and political life, Russia has emerged as a potentially rich recruiting environment for government officials and others unnerved by the mounting costs of the Ukraine invasion. An estimated 500,000 or more Russians have fled abroad, where they are easier for U.S. spy agencies to contact.

“We’re looking around the world for Russians who are as disgusted with that as we are,” CIA Deputy Director of Operations David Marlowe said in November. “Because we’re open for business.”

[...]

The 1-minute, 50-second video closes with the message: “The people around you may not want to hear the truth. We do. You aren’t powerless. Connect with us securely.”

Instructions for contacting the CIA on Tor, an anonymous encrypted Internet communications tool, then flash on the screen.

Daniel Hoffman, a retired CIA officer who served as the agency’s Moscow station chief, said any Russian volunteering to help the U.S. would do so at a time or place of his or her choosing.

But the video, he said, helps by “letting them know that we’re here and can securely engage with them.”

That is a “respectful” approach, he said. “It’s designed for people that are on the fence.”

Ukrainska Pravda skrev:The Hungarian government confirmed on Tuesday that it has not approved the disbursement of the next €500 million tranche from the European Peace Facility, which finances military equipment for Ukraine.

The WarZone skrev:Reports suggest that Russia plans to start manufacturing a version of its Yars ICBM with a novel, harder-to-defeat warhead configuration

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑onsdag 17 maj 2023 8:45 Samtidigt förbereder sig Ryssland för kärnvapenkrig:
Russia To Get Yars-M Ballistic Missiles With Novel Warhead Delivery System

The WarZone skrev:Reports suggest that Russia plans to start manufacturing a version of its Yars ICBM with a novel, harder-to-defeat warhead configuration

Axios skrev:Acton worries we're entering an almost unstoppable three-way arms race. "At least in the Cold War, we could say, 'Okay, we'll accept parity with the Soviets,'" he says. In a three-way arms race, the U.S. will be unwilling to accept parity with either Russia or China, but neither of them will accept anything other than parity with the U.S.

The Moscow Times skrev:Members of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ (RAS) Siberian Branch warned that the criminal cases risk setting back Russia’s advances in hypersonic technology.

“We simply don’t understand how to continue our craft,” the scientists wrote.

The institute said its members Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev are held in custody on treason charges for speaking at conferences abroad, publishing articles in popular magazines and participating in international projects.

DN skrev:Eftersom förbudet inte är officiellt och saknar lagstöd förekommer undantag, enligt källorna. Den som behöver avgå av hälsoskäl eller kan köpa sig fri kan lyckas få lämna tjänsten.

– Många är redo att betala bra för möjligheten att lämna tyst och obemärkt nu, säger en källa.

[...]

Tidigare har den ryska säkerhetstjänsten konfiskerat pass för högt uppsatta anställda vid myndigheter och statliga företag för att hindra dem att lämna landet, enligt Financial Times. Syftet har varit att förhindra avhopp och läckor till främmande makt.

Kyiv Post skrev:The issues of territorial integrity are important for India. They have their own internal complicated processes, for example, with Pakistan and China. Therefore, of course, they will support the norms of international law, the main one of which is territorial sovereignty.

Some people in India still live in the paradigm of Indian-Soviet relations. However, many people realize that Russia is not the USSR.

Second, we consider that an effective solution for India is to diversify the supply of weapons from Russia, because 60% of India's weapons are Soviet. Actually, our war showed that Soviet weapons are ineffective. I think that India is very actively monitoring the consequences for the Russian army and its weapons in Ukraine and draws its own conclusions regarding reorientation towards other countries.

Enceladus skrev: ↑onsdag 17 maj 2023 11:55

dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑onsdag 17 maj 2023 8:45 Samtidigt förbereder sig Ryssland för kärnvapenkrig:
Russia To Get Yars-M Ballistic Missiles With Novel Warhead Delivery System

The WarZone skrev:Reports suggest that Russia plans to start manufacturing a version of its Yars ICBM with a novel, harder-to-defeat warhead configuration

3 Russian Hypersonic Missile Scientists Jailed for Treason, Colleagues Say

The Moscow Times skrev:Members of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ (RAS) Siberian Branch warned that the criminal cases risk setting back Russia’s advances in hypersonic technology.

“We simply don’t understand how to continue our craft,” the scientists wrote.

The institute said its members Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev are held in custody on treason charges for speaking at conferences abroad, publishing articles in popular magazines and participating in international projects.

Hur tänker Putin ta fram nya vapen utan forskare?

Kreml uppges förbjuda politiker och tjänstemän att avgå

DN skrev:Eftersom förbudet inte är officiellt och saknar lagstöd förekommer undantag, enligt källorna. Den som behöver avgå av hälsoskäl eller kan köpa sig fri kan lyckas få lämna tjänsten.

– Många är redo att betala bra för möjligheten att lämna tyst och obemärkt nu, säger en källa.

[...]

Tidigare har den ryska säkerhetstjänsten konfiskerat pass för högt uppsatta anställda vid myndigheter och statliga företag för att hindra dem att lämna landet, enligt Financial Times. Syftet har varit att förhindra avhopp och läckor till främmande makt.

En ny kärnvapenkapprustning blir förmodligen mellan USA och Kina. Ryssland kan möjligen hjälpa någon av parterna - troligen den som betalar bäst.

The WarZone skrev:Together with corresponding developments in hypersonic weapons, including those that are delivered by other ICBMs, Russia certainly appears to be making concerted efforts to bolster its nuclear deterrence posture.

This is before taking into account the sobering reality that the current U.S. ballistic missile defense shield by itself is not enough to protect against an all-out Russian nuclear strike. Even the current Russian arsenal is more than capable of overwhelming the ballistic missile defenses of any other nation.