Some heavy americans over the poland border at this moment. They are probably refuelling some stealth one…
(NHCO134, LAGR222 and 223, and a lower flying MC-130J Commando)
Russia is being squeezed on two major fronts.
One is the expulsion from the Eurovision song contest – the pinnacle of musical achievement.
The other is the termination of man’s oldest activity:
Really daft of Russia to not remember this. An iptocountry lookup of pornhub.com (I only guessed the URL, honest, guys) yields
66.254.114.41 – Lookup information – Find IP Address 66.254.114.41
Information for 66.254.114.41. This IP Address is located in Waltham, United States
They need to sort this out by the summer, otherwise the yacht charter customers won’t be able to get any girls to “staff the yachts”; they are mostly from the Ukraine 
That will really hit the Croatian economy.
Is it really that expensive? Or are those costs that would be incurred anyway?
To some extent that is true, but damaged or consumed hardware needs to be replaced afterwards. It’s many years ago since I was an arms dealer 
but the stuff is quite pricey. Even a simple artillery shell is $100.
dublinpilot wrote:
we got an indication at the UN last night now they will choose.
I must have missed that. Could you elaborate?
Airborne_Again wrote:
I must have missed that. Could you elaborate?
There was a resolution at the UN Security Council yesterday evening, condemning the Russian attack on Ukraine. It was never going to pass, because the Russians have a veto. But all eyes were on China to see if they would stand by Russia and also veto it, or distance themselves by abstaining.
China abstained from the vote (along with India and UAE—-UAE was a surprise). Apparently the West took China’s abstaining as a deliberate attempt to distance themselves from supporting the Russian conflict and was seen as a big win.
The Chinese ambassador to the UN, when abstaining said something like “We encourage Russia and Ukraine to resolve their differences peacefully”. I don’t remember the word exactly, but it was as far from supporting Russia’s right to take military action as could be expected or hoped for.
France is reported to have intercepted a Russian cargo vessel, apparently outside the 3 mile limit, and forced it to a French port.
This looks like a serious escalation, in an important international sea route.
I hope it was an over-reacting official, not a Government decision. C
The US sanctions have exclusions:
RTE news : Ukraine crisis: Bombs, banks and gas
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/0225/1283055-ukraine-crisis-bombs-banks-and-gas/
For example soldier salaries will be paid if they are in barracks or in the front line.
Probably a rounding error overall.
Regarding artillery, modern gps guided shells are >100.000 USD a shot.
When fact and truth really do hurt…
Truth?? Nobody disputes that China is an enemy, but also everybody knows that nothing can be done about China (or Russia) and because they have nukes and for the sake of trade, nobody will do anything about them all the time they stay within their borders.
I have just been robbed of a ~$3k moulding tool by some Chinese gangsters but I still buy moulded cables from there, and I am still talking to another Chinese moulding company about a new tool (it will be the 4th identical one in ~20 years!). Why? Because the £0.50 cables would be £5 in the West, and the $3k tool would be £10k, and the $0.20 mouldings would be £0.50. Why? Because everybody here wants a couple of T34 tanks in their drive, etc.
We have to open our eyes and embrace what is really going on. We are led by gormless fools. None of us will benefit from the idiocy of morons. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the whole of Europe, showing us the way?
This situation could all have been avoided, a point I have been trying to make, however, the jingoists just love their day. They are not in the trenches though. When the Taliban crow about peaceful negotiation we have reached the bottom of irony.
Quote….The TALIBAN call on Russia and Ukraine to ‘resolve the crisis through peaceful means’ months after massacring innocent people as they took over Afghanistan
Sorry we in the West are a total laughing stock.
