Russian invasion of Ukraine

Trying to figure out if this means they don't like Dutch style bikes or if they like it so much they want to take it home with them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/tdj26o/they_arrested_fucking_bicycle/

real politik suggests that when NATO and the west started courting Georgia and Ukraine around 06 then of course Russia was going to feel under threat. Akin to China moving military resources into Canada or Mexico or similar to the Cuban missile crisis. No world power is going to be happy with their enemies making those kind of moves.
In addition, the Ukraine means nothing to the US in terms of strategic importance so leading them down the primrose path was a bit naughty when you realise they aren't going to get caught up in a fist fight.
However, Putin is a noisy needy child that thinks Russia is a great power when in reality it is a basket case with nuclear weapons.
The West are playing a decent chess game at the moment and Putin and Russia are finished unless they agree to suck Chinese cock for the next 100 years or start a nuclear war in a one man temper tantrum. Unfortunately Ukraine will get badly waisted as the price for removing Russia from the stage. Hopefully all the billions from the Oligarchs will be used to rebuild it.

In terms of why not build another, its a really big deal and insanely expensive.

https://youtu.be/DGYxqpTBzb8

It looks like there's a few mega yachts heading for Vladivostok as a safe refuge. They are insanely expensive

90%+ of Ukraine wheat exports go via their ports

Wheat exports?

Can't imagine much is getting planted for a long time.

95% of their wheat is winter wheat, it had already been sown before the conflict began

Will screw up other crops like sunflower and barley more

👍

They want Odessa so their corridor can include Transnistria https://www.intellinews.com/former-moldovan-pm-says-if-russia-occupies-odesa-next-target-is-transnistria-236799/

There was a commentator in radio 4 this morning saying it would be almost impossible to harvest until they can be sure all the mines and unexploded bombs have been cleared from the fields.

Expensive to you and me, but Abramovich has one worth $600 million and one worth $700 million.
Interesting timing that he got his out of port the day before UK sanctioned him.
He has a mole in Boris’ cabinet, or does he own Boris outright?

They should all be seized. The one I worked on had the mpg of 100 cars. The pollution was many times worse than that because marine diesel emissions are off the scale compared to vehicle fuels. We crossed the Atlantic to get the boat painted a different colour. The owner wasn't even aboard. The diesel bill was $250,000+ each way. When we filled up in Miami we didn't do the usual thing of going to a pump in a harbour, we got 18 road tankers to drive to us. Probably did it so the captain could boast to the owner that he'd saved a couple of bucks.

Wow, Russian TV news interrupted by an editor who makes an anti-war protest. She was arrested. Incredibly brave. She could get 15 years, plus very nasty maltreatment. A lot of Russian prisoners have their health completely broken by prison conditions. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/14/russian-tv-employee-interrupts-news-broadcast-marina-ovsyannikova

They should all be seized. The one I worked on had the mpg of 100 cars

I got chatting to the captain of Abramovich's old yacht, the Luna, in about 2005 when it was moored in Girona. At the time he said the hourly fuel bill was about $4,000. Madness.

What the western propaganda doesn't show you is that after disposing this shitty bike they returned with a brand new Canyon Grizl CF....

Had their been a spate of flooding prior to this?

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Had their been a spate of flooding prior to this?

Rings a vague bell but back then I was in Girona most summers so its hard to pin it to a year. Not sure that it was 2005 when I saw the Luna either. Digging deep into my memory I think it might have been during a European Championship and Frank Lampard's wife had borrowed the yact so 2005 doesn't make sense. Not that it matters. It was around that time, give or take a year or two.

I remember being much more impressed by the massive Spanish coastguard frigate moored next to it.

Edit: Just checked the photos. It wasn't the Luna, it was the tastefully named Ecstasea which he owned before Luna...and it was 3rd September 2008. My memory is shocking.

Where is that whooshing parrot?

Where is that whooshing parrot?

I get it now. Yes, I meant Palamos. You guys really need to be more direct with me than this stuff.

Especially as there had been serious flooding in and around Girona in 2005. Calonge, which is just above Palamos, was really badly affected that year. Which is why I was confused.

I’ve dropped flightradar24 for Marine Tracking app..

never thought I’d be dotwatching super yacht movement..

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I was going to say "why are there dots on land?", then I remembered rivers exist....

I was going to say "why are there dots on land?", then I remembered rivers exist....

You also get inland AIS beacons very occasionally. They sometimes appear as ships on the map. There's one on the top of Shooters Hill that the Port of London Authority uses.

Apparently there are Russian naval groups heading toward Odessa with landing craft.

https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1503732767569420296?t=N30gBNV_jm_4UgvkjFVk8A&s=19

the trail of dots from Vienna to Constanta (the black sea) is the Danube international waterway.. same as the Rhine where landlocked Switzerland has a port in Basel.

#truefacts

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There's one on the top of Shooters Hill that the Port of London Authority uses.

I live 100 yards from that for ages and could never even get 3G.

Time to see if my military strategy historian friend is right about how much of a bad idea an attempted amphibious landing at Odessa might be. He even went to so far as to stack the odds 80% in Ukraine's favour if anybody is stupid enough to try, in his opinion of course.