Posts by Benjamin Taylor6

Andrew Miller102 said:The issues we’re seeing right now are trivial compared to what happens if Russia decides to go after and wipe out the Ukrainian grain silos.If things escalate to that point, there won't be anywhere left to store the upcoming harvest, which means the crops just rot in the fields.

I can only assume Zelenskyy and the European Union are accounting for this exact scenario, because once that threshold is crossed, we’re looking at a massive, large-scale crisis. Since Ukraine serves as a major breadbasket for the European Union, the folks in Brussels had better be preparing for an escalation that isn't exactly a surprise.

We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out; we'll deal with the consequences when they arrive, so by all means, just keep piling those sanctions on Russia.☕

Russia simply doesn't have enough cruise missiles in their arsenal to take out every single silo.

Anthony Hill5 said:The article claims they sent over 10 new Type-600 systems, which totals 100 units according to their own math.

However, if one bothers to look at the facts, 100 older Type-300 systems were dispatched previously, amounting to 1,000 drones total.

Every single system carries 10 drones.

The crew is heading back from training:

The Americans are training Ukrainian soldiers on how to pilot killer drones. They'll be heading back to the front lines shortly.

feralnomad35 said:Lol, right, because the Russians have always been such paragons of virtue, right? Like, "Oh, we wouldn't dream of touching those weapon shipments... unless the Ukrainians get armed too fairly and correctly, then we might consider a little destruction." Give me a break.

They’d probably try to blow up everything in sight before it even reaches the Ukrainians if they could, but reality is hitting them hard. It actually blows my mind how the Russians don't seem to have better intel; you'd think in a country where there are so many Russian assets infiltrated everywhere, information would be leaking to Moscow constantly, but clearly, nothing is happening.

These Russians are honestly a joke.

Do they seriously think they’re fighting some ragtag group of cave dwellers or amateurs? Those weapons are going to be moving in convoys miles 19 miles long, just like when the Russians were parading their way toward Kyiv. I really think the Russians need to wake up and realize they aren't fighting some easy target—they are stuck in a massive proxy war against the USA. They’re facing the absolute best of the best, the guys who have been fighting non-stop for decades and are hands down the strongest military, operational, and intelligence forces on the planet.

That whole supply route is definitely decentralized, probably broken down into tiny individual shipments right before they hit the border, so Russia doesn't stand a theoretical chance of destroying any significant amount of gear.

I mean, the Americans have set up bases right on the Belarusian border; they’re actually closer to the front lines near Kyiv than the Russians are, LOL.

Why do you think the Belarusians suddenly backed off? It’s because the Americans are deploying something like 100,000 troops along that border. And we aren't talking about some unprepared amateurs like these pathetic Russians; we're talking about highly trained, elite professional armies, fully geared up, who could march across the entire country in 20 days if anyone made even one wrong move.

The Americans are just waiting for an excuse. If they can't enforce order in Moscow, they can do it in Canada, the Middle East, Belarus—basically wherever an opportunity pops up to make their presence felt. 🙂 And the Russians are already whining that the Americans don't want this war to end. Well, duh! Of course they don't; the Americans want to fight this thing until the very last Russian tank is gone, and frankly, they couldn't care less what happens to them.

Putin is such a chess player!

At this point, their only real move is lobbing cruise missiles at delivery trucks😬
provided they can actually tell which truck is carrying a weapon shipment and which one is just hauling rolls of toilet paper.

So, American actor Sean Penn is out here playing philanthropist, basically begging some billionaire to cough up $300 million to buy two squadrons of F-15s or F-16s for Ukraine. He’s essentially saying—and I quote—that "someone with money should spend $300 million on 12 jets with better tech than the Russian Mig's." It’s funny how his little plea for high-tech hardware showed up just a few hours after the Ukrainian Air Force officially put out their request for American fighter jets.

The guy clearly forgets that having the gear isn't everything—it's not just about who has the biggest wallet. The real headache isn't just acquiring the fighters; it's actually learning how to fly them properly. We aren't talking about a weekend seminar here; we're talking about months upon months of intensive training for the very best Ukrainian pilots!
The USA (and everyone else involved) really needs to provide experienced pilots to lead the way. And honestly? That’s a much more complicated mess to untangle.

casualtiger2 said:I can't help but wonder—if Ukraine actually gets those tanks from the West, how much of an impact would they even make?
Hasn't it already been pretty clear that they’re kind of sluggish and easy targets for the Ukrainians? It feels like the same thing would happen in reverse.
By the time they even reach the front lines, they’d just be sitting ducks for Russian air strikes. Plus, you've got the whole logistical nightmare to deal with—constant supplies of fuel, ammo, and so on.
The Russians have been struggling with their own supply chains lately, but then there's the issue of being exposed to anti-tank weaponry—do the Russians even have much defense against that?
Would these tanks honestly provide any real advantage at this stage?

Look, having a tank isn't enough. You need to know how to actually drive them and use them effectively—integrated with infantry and other support gear. It’s about the whole system, not just one machine.
Just look at the way the Russians were bragging a few years back:
https://technerium.ru/hr/leopard-2-p...ih-otnoshenii/

Nathan Evans78 said:The Kremlin is actually demanding that gas payments be made in rubles. 🤣🤣

USD/RUB 100.32

Look, if you want to buy anything from them, you have to play by their rules and use rubles.

But here’s the catch—you’re going to have to buy those rubles at whatever exchange rate the Russians decide to set that day. Let’s say they decide 1 USD equals 50 rubles.
Putin is going to act like this ultimate legalist—he'll insist on sticking to the official contract price in Euros, sure, but he'll demand the actual payment be made in rubles. In reality, you’ll end up handing over twice as many Euros just to cover the spread. So, without ever actually touching the sticker price of the gas, you've effectively doubled the cost. It's a clever little shell game. 😬

Sam Alvarez4 said:Everything you hear or read in the news is just the icing on the cake. Total nonsense.

The real, essential stuff isn't publicized; it gets delivered right where it needs to go.

Spot on. Everything you read in the papers is just pure PR designed to boost morale. Meanwhile, under the table, massive shipments of weaponry are being coordinated and moved.
Everyone loves to harp on about the arms moving through Poland, but nobody ever asks about the shipments flowing through Romania or Slovakia.

Timothy Nelson5 said:Well, nobody actually knows for sure...

The NATO nations might start thinking it’s smarter to just carve out maybe 0.1% of their GDP—which, if you do the math, is roughly 10% of their individual military budgets—to set aside for permanent military aid to Ukraine.
Honestly, it's a much more efficient play than everyone trying to hike their own domestic defense spending by an extra 1% of GDP...

Just look at the numbers for a second—we're talking $40 billion. That's about what the Russian military budget will look like once their economy finally hits the floor and their standard of living tanks...

And hey, the NATO countries could always decide to cough up 0.2% if they're feeling generous...

😁


It seems more likely there, even more so than in Russia...

Especially when they realize the entire weight of NATO is standing right behind them!

hollowdriver13 said:https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...co-2022-03-08/

Looks like the United Kingdom is finally pulling the trigger on a total ban for Russian fossil fuels.

And then there's the USA:
President Joe Biden just announced that the USA is banning the import of Russian oil, natural gas, and coal. It’s a massive move—really significant stuff happening right now.

silverotter72 said:You know what this actually means? Absolutely nothing. Nobody in the global financial community is going to recognize this "repayment." It feels like pure PR intended for the naive folks back inside Russia. It's like if I walked into a Chase Bank and tried to pay off my credit card bill with seashells I gathered at the beach. That’s essentially the situation here.

Basically, if you try to offload your holdings in Russia, you'll just end up holding worthless scraps of paper. Honestly, the only logical move is to sit tight and wait for the dust to settle—which could take years, mind you. And even then, the Russians could just issue a decree claiming I invested rubles instead of dollars, and by the time inflation eats through them, those rubles won't be worth the ink used to print them.

The issue isn't about my opinion or how the rest of the world views it; the issue is that the Russians simply won't acknowledge anything else. Unless someone manages to force their hand—which, let's face it, seems impossible right now—you're stuck.

hollowdriver13 said:The dollar just went from 122:1 to 146:1 today. Talk about a massive nose dive.

So, here we go—Putin is prepping his own set of sanctions against the West:
The Russian government announced they’ve compiled a list of "unfriendly" nations where Russian citizens and companies are now permitted to settle their debts using Rubles—a currency that has already lost 45 percent of its value since January.

That list includes the USA, Canada, Australia, various European Union member states (including the US equivalent of a mid-sized European nation), the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Monaco, South Korea, and Japan.

What kind of fallout should those countries actually expect?
This whole thing was greenlit following a presidential decree on March 5th, which essentially gives the Russian government, its corporations, and its private citizens a loophole to temporarily pay off foreign currency debts to international creditors from these "unfriendly" nations using Rubles instead.

Basically, if a debtor asks a Russian bank to open a special Ruble account on behalf of a foreign creditor, they can send over the Ruble equivalent based on the daily exchange rate set by the Central Bank of Russia. This is one of the first real retaliatory strikes from Russia regarding the sanctions imposed on them due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Does this mean if some American firm had invested $10 million in Russia, they’re just going to get paid back in Rubles? And more importantly—at what exchange rate? Because that sounds like a massive headache.
I’m also wondering what’s going to happen with all those Russian Eurobonds that are hitting maturity year after year. It feels like a ticking time bomb.

Grace Bennett6 said:Things are fine for now, but we haven't even hit the halfway point yet. The sanctions aren't going to really bite until a few months down the road. I mean, they aren't even touching Russia, so how on earth are they supposed to 😵

They’re operating under the assumption that they’ll have all of Ukraine under their thumb by then. And once that happens, they think the sanctions will just... vanish into thin air.

Bryan Booth82 said:According to reports coming out of the German media, a massive shipment of weaponry from Germany—specifically 1,000 anti-tank missiles and 500 Stingers—has officially been handed over to the Ukrainians. 👍👍
Best regards

If that actually holds water, it’s a massive game-changer. But let’s be real—you can't just hand high-tech gear to anyone; you need trained soldiers who won't fumble the equipment.
Ukraine needs to move fast to organize small, mobile units equipped with about a hundred civilian vehicles—preferably SUVs or trucks. It’s a massive country, after all, so they need strike teams that can zip to wherever the trouble is. I remember seeing how ISIS used this kind of rapid transport to their advantage—it works. https://static.dw.com/image/17740988_303.jpg

restlessmason54 said:You seem to be forgetting that when all is said and done, the Americans are the only ones walking away with a profit here.

Politically speaking, sure—but honestly, they don't care much about Ukraine. Their focus is really on Germany—it's all about securing those markets, keeping the gas flowing, and tapping into cheap labor.

fadedgardener16 said:Since when does Russia care about what the West thinks of them?! They can do whatever they want. No one is forcing Ukrainians to stay in their cities; they can surrender if they choose, which means the Russians aren't obligated to let any humanitarian aid through.

Look, the Mexicans were blocking things too back in the day. Technically, they aren't obligated to do anything. But I’m just not convinced that the European Union and NATO are going to limit their support for Ukraine to nothing more than helmets and face masks.

boldmarlin15 said:The Russians could flatten all of Ukraine in an hour. No need to explain, we all know it.

But Vladimir Putin lost this war, and Ukraine and Ukrainians are going down in history as heroes.

I could level the entire USA with atomic bombs for all I care. At least then there wouldn't be any Russians left!

Maria Moore said:It looks like the Russians aren't even obsessed with holding ground; they just want a fast break straight to Kyiv. Even CNN and Fox News are reporting that they've practically surrounded the city already.

https://www.nytimes.com/news/ukraine-war-updates-15163143

"The goal for Russian forces is to encircle Kyiv. They’re using the same tactics they’re applying elsewhere in Ukraine. Basically, one of Russia's biggest priorities is avoiding street fighting in Ukrainian cities," explains military analyst Robert Barić to The New York Times.

See, if you just surround a city, you run the risk of turning it into a total siege disaster—sort of like what happened during the Siege of Ottawa back in the day. You end up having to let humanitarian convoys through, and launching a direct assault on the city itself becomes a massive gamble because the casualty rates would be astronomical. Plus, the Russians would face a PR nightmare on the global stage. If they go the encirclement route, they absolutely have to secure their own supply lines first. And let's be real—the Western part of Ukraine isn't just going to sit there and take this lying down.
Which means the Russians might just be staring down the barrel of a long, grueling war of attrition.

Terry Hernandez10 said:Residential building struck by projectile

If the Russians were anything like the Mexicans, they’d be claiming right now that the Ukrainians did this to themselves with their own rockets.

neonheron9 said:Russ armored vehicles running on empty

https://twitter.com/UkraineNews0/sta...U9pA6xEAbIjbww

It’s honestly bizarre how they aren't seeing this more often. It seems like the Russians just pushed forward 62 miles without actually securing their comms or supply lines in that sector—it makes zero sense. If the Ukrainians could just tighten up their coordination a bit more, they could pull off some absolute miracles. I remember back when we were pushing through the frontier during the liberation efforts, our guys were obsessively making sure the tanks were topped off before moving an inch. You can't just wing it like that.
p.s.
I was lying awake last night thinking about where those Russian soldiers are even sleeping near Kyiv right now. It's freezing out there—well below zero—and they haven't even made it into the city yet! Next week looks cloudy, which isn't great for Russian air support, and then the weekend is hitting negative 7... that's brutal for infantry stuck out in the open.

restlessmason54 said:It makes perfect sense that nothing is being closed; I mean, Erdogan is a total fox, much like how Vučić operates.
The guy basically manages to sit in five different chairs at the exact same time.

There isn't really much going to happen if Turkey decides to block the Bosphorus to Russian ships. Especially the warships. Now, if we were talking about commercial vessels, that would be a different story entirely.

p.s.
Something just crossed my mind while I was sitting here: does international law actually permit piracy by parties involved in a conflict? Think about it—Ukraine could theoretically arm up some inconspicuous merchant ship to intercept Russian cargo vessels in international waters and sink them. It’s the kind of thing the Swabians used back in World War II.