149 posts shown.
Russia called an emergency session of the UN Security Council regarding Nord Stream. I’m expecting a pretty entertaining performance from them—lots of finger-pointing about who, when, and why.
gentlestag15 said:Gas is secured across the whole European Union for this winter, so there's really nothing to worry about.
We've got 23% of annual consumption sitting in storage right now.
Which basically covers two months of winter—and that's assuming Norwegians, Qataris, Americans, or anyone else doesn't sell a single extra cubic meter to the European Union.
It’s the same story for Los Angeles County. While places like San Francisco or Columbus deal with companies going under and people still waiting on gas delivery solutions because SoCalGas hasn't even leased the necessary capacity. I don't understand why there's such a drive to exaggerate everything here, as if anyone posting on this forum who isn't pushing some idealized narrative is somehow undermining Ukrainians in their fight on the front lines. We should be able to have a normal discussion here without all the hyperbole.
Fine, we'll shut down the fertilizer plants, but we'll face the consequences of losing domestic production. There's no point in hiding that.
gentlestag15 said:Isn't it basically just some equipment failure on the pipeline that caused the Russians to cut us off?
Of course it’s just another Russian play. Putin pulled the rug out from under them, not the Germans.
The Germans definitely wouldn't be crawling on their hands and knees like a lapdog after Viktor Orbán, begging Putin for a few extra cubic meters of gas.
The explosions went down in international waters, which changes the whole vibe. Plus, the pipeline is mostly under Russian control anyway.
What kind of headache is NATO even dealing with there?
Right. So the Russians pulled off an impossible mission right under the nose of the world's greatest superpower without being noticed, and we're supposed to act like that isn't a massive deal?
Foreign media is already spinning stories, while our local outlets are busy reporting on how the Russian navy is suddenly "invincible"—capable of these incredible maneuvers that NATO supposedly can't prevent or even detect. We’ve seen the state of the military and air force in Ukraine; now we're meant to believe the navy is suddenly a different beast entirely.
Remember when that Russian aircraft carrier had to run on coal just to get from the Baltic Sea to Syrian waters?
hollowdriver13 said:Nord Stream 2 was basically dead on arrival anyway; it never even really got going. And let's be real, NS1 was heading for the exact same fate once Germany started distancing itself from Russian gas.
Then you've got the maintenance costs for dead pipelines sitting on the owner (Russia). Now that the pipeline is trashed, those costs are gone, and hey, maybe you can even squeeze some cash out of insurance.
Plus, it definitely stirs the pot in the West.
What's the actual endgame for the Americans blowing up an inactive, half-dead pipeline? To have it come out that they did it, just so relations with all of Europe sour again, and to prove to the rest of the world once more that they're the bad guys fueling the conflict?
In that scenario, I’m playing the hand where the explosives were planted by the FBI during construction. If this operation was carried out by the Russians now, it’s worse than a drone flying over all of Canada and crashing into the capital of a NATO member. It makes you wonder about their defense readiness.
dustyfalcon122 said:That's it exactly—false flags and pure distraction. Putin doesn't even think gas will ever flow through there during his lifetime, so the whole pipeline is basically useless to him anyway.
I bet the Americans would rather mess with Canada and Mexico or go after the Turkish pipeline than deal with an empty pipe that won't even start moving for at least another ten years.
Canada and Mexico are completely irrelevant to this conflict. They don't move the needle. Biden is heading to France now just to shore up the alliance. What's happening with S1 and S2 is far more significant from an economic and political standpoint than what you're pointing out.
dustyfalcon122 said:I mean, if you ask me, Americans probably would've just taken out the Turkish pipeline way before this one, especially since this thing isn't even running anyway.
It feels pretty obvious to me that the only real motive here would be some kind of false flag operation.
I just can't wrap my head around why the US would bother blowing up an empty pipeline.
As for Russ, the only motive I can spot is exactly what we're doing right now: sowing confusion and doubt.
But is it worth billions in investment? Any rational person would say no. And like I mentioned before, it’s a disaster waiting to happen because Russ is completely unpredictable—like a madman swinging a knife that you can only stop by shooting him.
For the Americans, the only goal is to ensure they don't trust Europeans, especially Germans. Again, unbelievable.
Correction regarding that lethal force. This is what media silence gets you—I completely blanked on the aircraft crash over Chicago. Hopefully, I can manage to forget this one just as easily.
hiddeneagle98 said:I’ve got this nagging feeling that those pipelines—which are basically useless right now anyway and headed for sanctions regardless—are being "sacrificed" just to muddy the waters. It feels like a calculated move to create enough chaos and ambiguity to cover up the actual destruction of the Norwegian pipelines.
Then you've got the Turkish pipeline, the Azerbaijani pipeline, and the one running through Ukraine...
Anything goes at this point. For all we know, they might start steering LNG tankers straight into icebergs. It’s getting grim.
This situation is a mess, and completely unexpected. For the first time in this war, lethal force has been used outside the borders of Ukraine or Russia.
I’m in shock. I honestly don't know what to write. I've been trying to find some sort of motive or logic behind this, but all I can find are reasons why nobody would actually pull this off.
Russ has burned through billions investing in pipelines; S2 was supposed to pay for itself through gas sales. Now, once seawater gets into those pipes and the corrosion starts, the whole project is essentially trash. We're looking at billions in lost investments.
Secondly, why specifically there, right on the maritime borders of Denmark and Sweden?
I really hope this isn't the case, but flight and vessel tracking sites noted US Navy activity in that area just before these incidents occurred. What is that supposed to imply? That the USA doesn't even trust the Germans anymore and fears they might blink this winter, necessitating a physical blockade of their options?
What kind of message does that send to our allies?
Then again, if it's Russ, it's eerie for two reasons. First, it's unsettling that they could carry out an operation so close to NATO waters; if they wanted to, they could have done this much closer to home in safer territory. Second, it's just insane if they've actually lost their minds and are destroying their own infrastructure for god knows what reason.
Total madness. Not exactly the best news to digest.
Amy Parker10 said:Total isolation would mean telling the Chinese, the Indians, the Canadians, and all the other players still doing business with Russia that they either cut ties completely or face sanctions themselves.
That won't work because that effectively kills globalism. And let’s be honest, the West grew powerful and wealthy specifically because of globalism—from the days of colonialism right up to now.
Doing that would be our own undoing. What we have going on right now is already more than enough to dismantle Russia.
Doma184 said:It was mined back in April—at least, that’s what the Ukrainians claimed when they were trying to cut off the Russians near Izium.
Attacking the forest is the only move that makes sense if you want to clear out the entire eastern side of the Oskil. They clearly can't cross the river south of Kupiansk, and there's just a lake further down.
Where to after the forest? Likely Svatove.
They need to be careful. Even if there's room to push north, they have to secure those eastern flanks. I honestly have no clue what the Russians have stationed over there, and it isn't worth risking a situation where our forces get pinned against the river with the Russians holding the other three sides.
That's why Lyman and the surrounding towns are such a critical piece of this.
Jessica Peterson2 said:It looks like Putin’s regime is planning to set up a mobilization checkpoint right next to the border crossing leading toward Georgia. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/27/09/20...om=from_main_1
🤣
People think they're heading toward freedom, but they're actually just gathering in one spot to make it easier for the military to round them up and ship them to the front lines.
I have to hand it to the Russians—that’s some impressive moral gymnastics.
gentlestag15 said:A few years back, the EU rolled out this massive plan to dump about $1 trillion into renewables over the next two decades to make sure they aren't reliant on imported fuel ever again. Now, that whole transition is probably going to hit the fast track.
The momentum started during the pandemic, but this current mess is acting like high-octane fuel. For the EU, it’s pretty much the only viable path forward.
It’s not even just about pivoting to renewables; it’s about tightening the belt on consumption. That’s where the real progress happens.
Ever since this kicked off, I've been rooting for a total blackout of all Russian gas and oil.
hollowdriver13 said:Rybar (that big propaganda channel) is having a total meltdown right now. He’s out here ranting about how the guys mobilized over the last four or five days have basically just been left to wander around training grounds with zero supervision or any actual refresher training to brush up on their skills.
The military apparently told the new recruits that there’s no body armor available unless they want to cough up the cash and buy it themselves. 🙏
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...23754095841280
Videos like this one, showing mobilized guys just sitting around chopping wood in the forest, pretty much back up everything he's saying.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...28015261409286
Fantastic news. They should just clog the system with as many people as possible. Go ahead, mobilize another 500,000 and toss them into this "top-tier" organization.
They probably don't even have enough food to go around. If there are any canned goods left from the USSR era—assuming they haven't all been sold off recently—they might actually look decent.
Christian Torres3 said:A little more off: if you go to the Military History and Technology subforum and look for posts by MadMax, he goes into way more detail on this. It’s not quite the situation you think it is.
As for the idea that Mexico is blocking anything for us? Honestly, that's just stupid. If we decided tomorrow to buy 12 F-35s and ATACMS (which was mostly just speculation anyway), the Americans would have them delivered in no time.
Thanks for the link regarding anti-aircraft systems. There’s been this whole narrative floating around about how Mexico used threats to block our ATACMS purchase. I'll admit, I might have fallen for the propaganda regarding their influence, but honestly, the info hitting the public lately has been pretty murky.
Timothy Williams5 said:Roman Glomba is only 19 years old, yet he has already managed to take down SIX Russian aircraft and one cruise missile using his Lockheed Martin MANPAD!
Yesterday, he was officially awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine.
A little more off.
Our allies really screwed us over when they ordered us to hand over our MANPADS. Great weapons, those.
And then, because Mexico—a Russian ally—is acting up, they block our purchases of aircraft and long-range systems from our own allies.
Our leadership could learn a few things from this war and try growing a backbone for once.
Handing over those MANPADS might be the biggest mistake our political elite has ever made regarding the military.
Larry Wilson25 said:They’re dragging their feet on passing that law specifically so their career soldiers lose the ability to refuse orders—which, according to the rules, they actually could do if the theater of war was outside of Russia.
And look, I’m not talking about those massive nukes everyone keeps freaking out about. The USA could easily deploy a small tactical one in international waters—say, somewhere like the Black Sea.
edit: every fight has two sides, after all.
Do people seriously think the Russian generals are idiots? They aren't. These guys are trained for war; they can absolutely project where this whole mess is headed. Sure, maybe we end up in a skirmish involving mini nukes, but do you honestly feel any safer thinking the USA and Britain are leading that charge? Or maybe it's France and... who else?
Anyone with nuclear weapons can use them. This isn't any more serious now than it was before the invasion, following this referendum. This move is just about seizing any leverage for peace talks while keeping the entirety of Ukraine on the table. They're cementing it now, and there's no undoing that without a total military defeat of Russia. There's no other way; they have to be pushed out of Ukraine so completely that once they're gone, they won't even dream of attacking from Russian soil again. That's the bottom line.
hollowdriver13 said:By the way, for anyone out there thinking the USA isn't keeping tabs on what the Russian Federation is doing with its nukes, or that the USA wasn't being dead serious when they told the Kremlin "Don't do it, you will regret it"...
https://twitter.com/NguyenK68421403/...30512304107520
All three USAF "Cobra Ball" aircraft have been in the air these past few days. For context, these planes are specifically specialized to track changes or launches within another country's nuclear arsenal (for example, a Cobra is regularly airborne whenever Korea runs its tests).
And yeah, they fly on orders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-She...5s-cobra-ball/
Maybe they'll finally figure out where all those UFOs near Norfolk come from every month.
The Russians are basically backing themselves into a corner with no way out.
When does the Duma push through this annexation of rogue territories and officially claim them for the Russian Federation? Is that just a precursor to declaring war on Ukraine?
And theoretically, if someone actually manages to sideline Vladimir Putin, they'd have to run the whole process in reverse through the Duma to "relinquish" those lands. Is there even a single political faction in the Duma with the actual backbone to attempt that, or does anyone even possess the political will for such a move down the road?
Vladimir Putin is setting the stage to trap Russia in this conflict indefinitely.
It’s looking more and more like there are only two ways this ends.
Either a total defeat for Ukraine or a total defeat for Russia. Given how NATO is positioned alongside Ukraine, I’m predicting a Russian defeat, but it won't happen without heavy casualties on both sides. We're in for some dark days.
crimsonorca42 said:https://twitter.com/NOELreports/stat...23216217538560
"Russia will declare war on Ukraine"
Following the " referendum, they’re apparently going to issue an ultimatum to Ukraine demanding their military withdraw from the occupied territories (Lugandonija, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia). If Ukraine refuses, Russia says they'll officially declare war on Ukraine!
So, was this all just some kind of game until now? Honestly, I can't even wrap my head around how delusional these people are. 😵
I suppose any attempt at having a rational conversation with folks like this is probably just a complete waste of time.
So this marks Putin's 30th address since the session ended. If the Russians hadn't already proven they’re more of a disorganized mob than an actual army, you'd actually expect them to gain ground with new forces on their side.
Instead, I'm expecting more of the same stalling. It's pathetic for the brave souls caught in the middle. Especially for the Ukrainians.