Russian invasion of Ukraine

First BP divesting, now Shell

Shell announces it's exiting all its joint-ventures with Gazprom, including its 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-2 LNG facility. Shell carries those JV at $3 billion valuation on its books, and it's warning of impartments
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1498354014282555397

Guess those big windfalls this year make it alot more palatable

Powerful and damning speech by Ukrainian ambassador at the UN
https://twitter.com/VeraMBergen/status/1498329378907992068

Reading out apparent text messages between a dead russian soldier and mother

V good read

Surely this means either Putin goes or Russia becomes a North Korea.

I really can’t see him regaining the military momentum again unless he has reserves to put in and can do it faster than the Ukrainians can move up reserves and equipment. The US say he has 40,000 uncommitted troops but some of these must be his missing artillery, engineers etc. His existing armies must be getting tired and will need replacing anyway.
Can he grab some territory and call a ceasefire before getting deposed. A General is going to get a Field Marshals baton or a bullet.

The place where the Diggers founded a utopian anarchist commune back in the 1650s. There's a great bit on it in London Orbital, but I guess it has got even worse since then.

Suggestion that Ukraine won't be getting new jets from EU members after all, was thought Poland, Bulgaria or Romania might be able to supply Mig-29's which Ukraine pilots are trained on but is suggested Poland and Bulgaria have now declined, looks like someone jumped the shark making the announcement
https://twitter.com/vonderburchard/status/1498336344673853447

It’s where Thatcher allowed General Pinochet to retire to, maybe Putin could move into his old house.

I really can’t see him regaining the military momentum again

It's only been couple of days. How long were Russia involved in Syria, Afghanistan?

How battle-hardened are the Ukraine troops? Give it a couple of months, and a lot more deaths, and see how morale is.

I’m surprised Poland won’t trade some in for F16s would have been difficult to get them safely over the border. I think a private US company owns some.
I suppose once you give some to Ukraine you know Russia isn’t going to give you any spare parts so you have to sell off all your fleet, which rules out India. You have to retrain your pilots which leaves you less protected for a while even if you get new planes.

How long were Russia involved in Syria, Afghanistan?

I don't think its possible to pick two more different conflicts to compare to, but you make a reasonable point. That said, Russia didn't do much in terms of infantry and mechanised infantry in Syria...they scaled that side of things down quite early on (2016 I think) and switched approach to private armies (mostly Wagner) with air support. I reckon the Russian troops with the most combat experience would have gained their experience in Georgia, Chechnya and Ukraine itself.

Edit: I'm not sure that Russia ever had more than 5,000 non support staff in Syria.

There's a song about The Diggers.

How many troops did Russia deploy in either Afghanistan or Syria?

Wikipedia says 115k was the maximum deployment in Afghanistan. Let's not forget they lost that war.

Syria?

4,300 according to Wikipedia (sourced from Reuters and ABC News)

Right. Completely different scenario.

How battle-hardened are the Ukraine troops?

I will try and find the link but read a thread yesterday on how Ukraine has been developing its forces since 2014, one of the points was it has been deploying 60,000 (drafted) troops to the Donbass on 12 month tours, so has cycled 400,000 men through active duty who now form the core of the National Defence Force they have called up, so not totally green

Fair more battle hardened than the Russians is the answer.

I hope you're all correct, but I don't see the Russian army falling apart myself.

Momentum might not be the right description, I can’t see him increasing the pace of operations sufficiently to knock out the Ukraine opposition and dictate peace on his own terms,can you?

The Soviets did manage to knock out the Afghan government, it’s worth pointing out that was the USSR not just the Russians.
(Indeed they minimised the number of Russians in the initial attack using soldiers from the Caucus’s thinking they would be more acceptable to the Afghans.)

Russia has a similar defence budget to the UK, whilst their rifles might cost less than ours(everyone’s rifles cost less that ours) so they get more bang for their rouble it’s not the Great Bear I grew up with.

I hope you're all correct, but I don't see the Russian army falling apart myself.

I was really suprised to read that Russia has a similar defence budget to the UK.

Size of UK army: ~80k (and dropping)
Size of Russian army: 1,300,000+ depending on who you ask.

It does raise questions about quality of training and equipment...

I hope the Russian Army doesn’t fall apart because they probably don’t practice retreating and the result of being chased home by a bunch of vengeful Ukrainians armed with loads of anti tank missiles probably won’t be conducive to long term peace in the area.

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A couple of the twitter links to Ukrainian military personnel telling the Russian Armed forces to give up or be killed mention 'bayraktar', or Turkish armed drones. This wiki suggests these drones have a proven track record against Russian armour and other military hardware from the 2020 Azerbaijan Armenian conflict.

I can’t see him increasing the pace of operations sufficiently to knock out the Ukraine opposition and dictate peace on his own terms,can you?

Ceasefire, humanitarian corridor, that sort of thing. Large percentage of general public leave. Will make it easier for air strikes for weeks on end.

60 tweet thread arguing just the opposite, that he can still probably take the East of the Dnieper for himself and the force the West of it in to a demilitarized buffer zone and survive the sanctions
https://twitter.com/defencewithac/status­/1498199000733949963

Size of UK army: ~80k (and dropping)

Size of Russian army: 1,300,000+ depending on who you ask.

Does the Russian figure include those on national service?