Russia-Ukraine War (Threadbanned in op)

I’m holding my fire on this one. BASF’s Ludwigshafen plant (which is larger, and arguably prettier than the entire city of Ludwigshafen) has had similar issues before, not least in 2016, when a worker cut into a pipe containing flammable liquid with an angle grinder, with predictable results. I still have the emails from my late mom, who used to work across the Rhine in Mannheim, in which she described the resulting explosions rocking her workplace. Back then, the issue was attributed to a lax safety attitude on behalf of BASF management. I can post screenshots of those emails if you want, but they’re in German.

Speaking of which, local newspapers “Rheinpfalz”, “Mannheimer Morgen” and local TV station SWR now reporting 18 casualties, all described as light injuries. Apparently, some sort of “organic solvent” started leaking in one of the buildings, which triggered the explosions: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/ludwigshafen/knall-und-rauchwolke-ueber-der-basf-100.html

I'd suspect @engineerws will disappear for a few weeks now...

North Korean tech starting to appear

Took their sweet time to start rolling out the North Korean crap. That M-2018 veichle appears to be a locally made update of the Soviet tech they cloned in previous decades. The "Bulsae-4" Anti-Tank missles appear to also be a retooling of a Chinese weapon.

In the right hands it might be dangerious little Tank-Killer. It's essentially a pile of Wish.com Javelins packed above an anfibious armored car.

But this will be the first time they've been tried in an actual war. They also might be little useful beyond displaying them in Pyongyang parades.

There has been several videos of large Russian assaults (dozens of tanks and dozens of other vehicles including motorcycles and buggies) posted on X

Each time they get absolutely demolished and hammered

Not posting here, but in case there is an impression here that war is in a lul, if anything it’s not hard to see how the daily visually confirmed equipment figures are so dire for Russians, complete bloodbath and sheer stupidity of throwing men and equipment against well organised defences

Fresh meat to the grinder seems unrelenting from the Russian side. I do wonder how much those heading towards the front understand about what awaits them? Do they think that Ukraine has the same weaponry, or are weaker, thus those racing towards the front on motors bikes think that victory is just one more push away?

Regardless of what Putin orders I'm still amazed by the Russian forces willingness to ride into the grinder. If Russia are recruiting mercenaries from poor countries are they telling them that victory and pay await at the other side of the ridge?

There's no way Moskovites have their kids sent to the fronts but if Putin runs out of imported fighters then will Moskovites be as willing to enter the slaughter house?

At some stage the futility of the war will be inescapable domestically, are we near that tipping point?

The notion of greater Russia will outlive Putin, but unlike a century ago they have fewer people to match their outdated mostly Soviet era arsenal.

I really honestly didn't believe Putin would attempt an outright invasion as it would be economic suicide, we're here now over two years later watching the Russian body pile stack up at a far greater and accelerating rate than the defenders.

And even if Putin was toppled tomorrow how would we in Europe ensure we're not back in the same position in another few generations?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/27/ukraine-nato-membership?

An open letter to Nato

On 8 July, the eve of Nato’s 75th anniversary summit, a Russian missile
struck Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, destroying, among other
sections, its cancer center, hematology lab and surgical transplant
unit. Russia launched 40 missiles at cities across Ukraine that day, killing more than 40 people, wounding numerous others, and demonstrating yet again that there are no legal, political or moral
lines it won’t cross in its determination to conquer Ukraine.

As Ukrainian doctors, rescue workers and volunteers evacuated child
patients, many of them still in hospital gowns and attached to IVs, from
the bombed-out hospital, heads of state from Nato’s 32 member countries
arrived in Washington DC to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine and how to
strengthen Ukraine’s defense. Although they affirmed that “Ukraine’s
future is in Nato”, and that the country’s path to the alliance is
“irreversible”, Ukraine’s potential membership was once again deferred:
the Washington summit declaration stated that an invitation for Ukraine
to join Nato would come “when Allies agree, and conditions are met”.

The allies do not yet agree. Nato membership for Ukraine is supported by
some European member states – in particular, the Baltic and Nordic
states and Poland. At the same time, key powers like the US and Germany
remain opposed. The arguments against Ukraine’s Nato membership, which
have been proffered repeatedly since Russia’s attack on Ukraine began in
2014, ultimately reiterate the same concern: that any step, however
small, would be seen as threatening Russia’s security, and would
therefore provoke greater conflict. In reality, Russia’s calm acceptance
of Finland and Sweden, two of its neighbors who applied to join Nato in
2022, has put the lie to the claim that Russia is on a hair trigger
about Nato drawing any closer. It is time to acknowledge that Russia
opposes Ukraine’s Nato membership only because it would obstruct
Russia’s continued aggression against that country.

The
focus on Russia’s alleged “Nato expansion anxiety”, and attempts to
appease it, ignore Russia’s genocidal propaganda and systematic war
crimes in occupied territory of Ukraine, including massacres, mass rape
and torture. Russia’s actions demonstrate a clear intent to destroy
Ukraine as a nation, rather than to alleviate its own security concerns.
The idea that extending security guarantees to Ukraine would further
incentivize Russia’s brutal prosecution of this war is unfounded, since Russia is fully determined to destroy Ukraine and needs no additional motivation to do so.

Secondly, it is a fact that Russia has not attacked a single Nato member. Instead, it has threatened, invaded and occupied non-member
countries: Georgia, Moldova and now Ukraine. The territorial boundary
between Nato and non-Nato countries has so far proved the only
red line that Russia has (however warily) respected, even as it breaks
numerous other international treaties and agreements. Russia’s
resurrected imperialist militarism can only be contained by the
existence of a much stronger military alliance.

Finally, attempts to appease the Kremlin fail to address Russia’s determination
to secure anti-western global power. Russia already fully controls
Belarus and has been actively forming its own alliances with China,
North Korea and Iran, which stand for the destruction of the democratic
order. Russia bombed Syrian cities to keep Bashar al-Assad (a dictator
who used chemical weapons against civilians) in power. Russia supports
terrorist organizations globally, including the Taliban and Hamas, and
may soon send missiles to Yemen’s Houthis.

Assuming that appeasing Russia’s demands will resolve the war, or somehow
de-escalate it, is naive. Impunity for Russia’s war crimes in Syria,
Georgia and Ukraine has only emboldened the Kremlin. The question of
Russia’s escalation is thus not “if”, but “how far?” How far will its
escalation be allowed to go before democracies muster the political
backbone to halt it? Western democracy must stand in unity and
determination against the growing threat to global security represented
by the Kremlin.

There is still time for the most powerful military alliance in the world to make a historically and
politically justified decision to neutralize the existential threat
posed to Ukraine by Russia. Sacrificing Ukraine in the interest of
avoiding a Nato-Russia war only increases the likelihood of such war,
and of further wars, as Russia will conclude that Nato’s vaunted article
5 may be negotiable, if a broader war can be averted.

Inviting Ukraine to join Nato would mark a definitive step away from the
politics of appeasement and back to the rule of international law and
protection of human rights. A decision to extend security guarantees to
Ukraine would not only safeguard the Ukrainian state, via the only means
yet shown to be successful, but would also reassert Nato and the
western democracies as effective political agents on the world stage.

Victoria Somoff, Dartmouth College

Sarah D Phillips, Indiana University

Sophia Wilson, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, president, AAUS

Oxana Shevel, Tufts University

Maria Popova, McGill University

Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas/University of Basel, president, ASEEES

Amelia Glaser, UC San Diego

Emily Channell-Justice, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

Yuliya V Ladygina, The Pennsylvania State University

Giovanna Brogi, University of Milan (Italy)

Marci Shore, Yale University

Jaryna Turko Bodrock, Harvard University, Slavic bibliographer

Andreas Umland, analyst, Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies

Natalie Kononenko, University of Alberta, emerita

Ani Kokobobo, University of Kansas

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley

Victoria Donovan, University of St Andrews

Katerina Sviderska, Université de Montréal

Anastasia Fomitchova, University of Ottawa

Otari Gulbani, Central European University

Abigail Scripka, Leibniz Center for Contemporary History, Potsdam

Michael Alpert, US National Heritage fellow

Mayhill Fowler, Stetson University

Kristina Hook, Kennesaw State University

Olga Bertelsen, Tiffin University

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, the Crown Family professor, Northwestern University

John Vsetecka, Nova Southeastern University

Nataliia Goshylyk, University of California, Berkeley

Oksana Lutsyshyna, University of Texas at Austin

Jonathan Stillo, Wayne State University

Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, University of Alberta, Canada

Jessica Robbins-Panko, Wayne State University

Halyna Herasym, University College Dublin

Ivan Kozachenko, University of Warsaw

Polina Vlasenko, University of Oxford

Valeria Sobol, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Anna Chebotarova, University of Oslo

Robert Romanchuk, Florida State University

Oksana Malanchuk, University of Michigan

Sofiya Asher, Indiana University, Bloomington

Olga Kostyrko, independent researcher

Ievgeniia Kopytsia, University of Genoa

Kseniya Oksamytna, City, University of London

Mariya Lesiv, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador

Jars Balan, University of Alberta

Steve Swerdlow, University of Southern California

Jessica Storey-Nagy, Indiana University Bloomington

Marko Pavlyshyn, Monash University

Ilona Solohub, VoxUkraine

Maria Rewakowicz, University of Washington

Yuliya Komska, Dartmouth College

Olena Nikolayenko, Fordham University

Svitlana Melnyk, Indiana University

Markian Dobczansky, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Roman Ivashkiv, University of Alberta

Oleksandra Wallo, University of Kansas

Tatyana Deryugina, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jurij Dobczansky, Library of Congress

Ana Rewakowicz, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada

Serhii Plokhii, Harvard University

Ainsley Morse, University of California, San Diego

Bohdan Klid, University of Alberta

Mischa Gabowitsch, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Viktoriia Biliaieva, University of Tartu

Anselm Schmidt, University of Tartu

Sanshiro Hosaka, International Centre for Defence and Security (Estonia)

Mart Kuldkepp, University College London

Giorgi Cheishvili, Tbilisi State University

Kaarel Vanamölder, Tallinn University

Abigail Karas, University of Nottingham

Grigore Pop-Eleches, Princeton University

Jennifer J Carroll, North Carolina State University

Ioulia Shukan, University Paris Nanterre

Nadiia Koval, Kyiv School of Economics

Franziska Davies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Paweł Dobrosielski, University of Warsaw

Anete Ušča, European University Institute

Yuliya Yurchuk, Södertörn University

Olena Palko, University of Basel

Hana Cervinkova, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Yaroslav O Halchenko, Dartmouth College

Lia Dostlieva, independent artist

Fabian Baumann, Heidelberg University

Dmytro Khutkyy, University of Tartu

Jonathon Turnbull, University of Oxford

Yuriy Kruchak, Platform for Interdisciplinary Practice Open Place, Kyiv

Julia Sushytska, Occidental College

Sasha Dovzhyk, Index: Institute for Documentation and Exchange

Stefano Braghiroli, University of Tartu

Kateryna Botanova, Culturescapes, Basel/Kyiv

Marnie Howlett, University of Oxford

Michael Rochlitz, University of Oxford

Anastassia Fedyk, University of California, Berkeley

Yuliia Chystiakova, Université Paris Nanterre

F Benjamin Schenk, University of Basel

Marcin Jarząbek, Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Ada Wordsworth, University College London/Kharkiv and Przemyśl Project (KHARPP)

Andrii Smytsniuk, University of Cambridge

Bohdana Kurylo, University College London

Zbigniew Wojnowski, University of Oxford

Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences

Michał Murawski, University College London

Olesya Khromeychuk, Ukrainian Institute London

Uilleam Blacker, University College London

Viktoriya Sereda, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (VUIAS)/Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Oleksandr Zabirko, University of Regensburg

Elżbieta Kwiecińska, Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences

Gražina Bielousova, Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science

Kateryna Volochniuk, University of St Andrews

Vlada Vazheyevskyy, University of St Andrews

Anne Lange, Tallinn University

Martin Aust, University of Bonn

Filip Kostelka, European University Institute

Oksana Prokhvatilova, VN Karazin Kharkiv National University

Olga Onuch, University of Manchester

Daria Mattingly, University of Chichester

Mišo Kapetanović, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Emily Finer, University of St Andrews

Liliya Morska, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Matthew Kott, Uppsala University, Sweden

Margus Ott, Tallinn University, Estonia

Eugene Finkel, Johns Hopkins University

Emma Mateo, New York University

Marc Elie, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France

Henry Hale, George Washington University

Rory Finnin, University of Cambridge

Nicola Camilleri, German Historical Institute, Rome

James Hodson, CEO, AI for Good Foundation/Economists for Ukraine

Kataryna Wolczuk, University of Birmingham/Chatham House

Jody LaPorte, University of Oxford

George Soroka, Harvard University

Ksenya Kiebuzinski, University of Toronto

Panayiotis Xenophontos, University of Oxford

Tetyana Lokot, Dublin City University

Jan Kubik, Rutgers University

Heather Fielding, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Alexandra Pavliuc, University of Oxford

Hanna Oliinyk, University College London

Victoria Juharyan, Johns Hopkins University

Shaun M Byrnes, retired US senior foreign service officer, deputy chief of mission, US embassy Kyiv, 1992-94

Michael M Naydan, The Pennsylvania State University

Olena Synchak, Ukrainian Catholic University

Mark Beissinger, Princeton University

Inna Melnykovska, Central European University

Alyssa Dinega Gillespie, independent scholar

Joanna Niżyńska, Indiana University

Pavel Khazanov, Rutgers University

Mykola Riabchuk, PEN Ukraine

Karsten Lunze, Boston University

Jesse Driscoll, University of California, San Diego

Matthew Pauly, Michigan State University

Iwa Kołodziejska, University of Warsaw

Elise Giuliano, Columbia University

Yana Prymachenko, Princeton University

Mikhail Alexseev, San Diego State University

Oksana
Nesterenko, executive director, Anti-corruption Research and
Educational Center of National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
(NaUKMA), Kyiv, Ukraine

Nicola Camilleri, German Historical Institute, Rome

Oleh Kotsyuba, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

Jesus what next. Maybe the LOL tractor from world of tanks.

I'm not sure that this comparison is all that valid. Whilst I agree with you about the general risk of such a strategy, we are much more attuned to the threat posed by insurgent groups such as the Taliban or ISIS. How much would yet another armed group really change the global threat picture? Western countries have the tools to go after such groups, as do upcoming hegemonial powers such as China, who have interests in many of the affected regions that are just as strong as those of the western world, if not more so due to their resource hunger. And those countries will also have far fewer scruples about responding with a heavy hand than the west does.

Looking beyond the massive loss of life and equipment that these attacks bring with them, I find it interesting that even over two years into this war, Russia's military leadership still hasn't adapted to the realities of this war, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Back in mid/late 2022 and early 2023, one of my fears was that a prolonged war would weed out the peacetime desk jockeys and parade ground generals, allowing more savvy, experienced commanders to rise to the top and take command. For all the talk about the "Russian steamroller", the Red Army displayed some impressive logistical and tactical creativity in WW2 post Stalingrad, and my concern was that a 21st century Zhukov or Rokossovsky would emerge to sort out, or at least mitigate, the ongoing Russian operational or logistical issues.

The fact that this hasn't happened indicates to me that the institutional "rot" within the Russian command structure is far more deep-seated than I'd thought. And honestly, I don't think Putin has what it takes to change that. He grew up in the latter years of the Brezhnev era, and he seems to have internalized the "stability of cadres" doctrine of said era, which postulates that it was better to have stable and reliable, if subpar, leadership in place that is able to keep up appearances, rather than bringing in radicals and rabble rousers. I feel like that is a factor that is often overlooked.

I very much agree on the outcome of it. I am just curious on how the optics of it will play out.

There is nearly never a "good guy" in international relations…. it's usually who has similar-ish interests and who is the best of a bad bunch.