sburke

I like what appears to be a submersible AFV just below the bottom right-hand corner of red. What a clusterfk..

More on the most recent Oligarch death Russian oligarch Alexander Subbotin died under mysterious circumstances at the house of a shaman over the weekend, according to Russian media. Subbotin, the former top manager of Russian energy company Lukoil, is the latest of several Russian oligarchs to die in a suspicious manner amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He was found dead in the basement of the home of a shaman in Mytishchi, a city just northeast of the capital city Moscow, on Sunday after suffering an apparent heart attack, Russian media outlet TASS reported. A criminal case into his death has been opened. The billionaire allegedly went to the shaman's home "in a state of severe alcoholic and drug intoxication the day before" his death, a source told TASS. His body was discovered in a room of the basement reportedly used for "Jamaican voodoo rituals." Local news outlets reported that Subbotin went to the shaman in search of a hangover cure, which allegedly involved toad poison. However, these claims have not been confirmed by law enforcement, and other details of what happened to cause his death remained unknown as of Monday afternoon. Russian Oligarch Found Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances (msn.com)

Land based? Yemen? I think you might need to look at a map again...maybe a map of the belt and road initiative. Think about the volume you are talking and then tell me again how land transport is going to make any sense. If there were a RR line maybe. But there isn't and there isn't a pipeline, so you are talking trucks... or maybe camels. The land route runs from Gwadar Pakistan to Urumqi China. Trucking any volume over that route would be insane. Maybe the basis of a new reality TV show. The New Silk Road - China's Belt and Road Initiative (chinahighlights.com)

It also might be a bad button to push. Right now those conscripts are figuring they are safe from getting shot at. Add in to that watching how Russian families are being denied compensation because "Moskva was an accident" and Putin might want to rethink the political temp. before doing that.. but then this is Putin...

cleanliness is close to godliness and hopefully a few more of RFA troops are now closer to God.

I wasn't but that spreadsheet kind of kicked it into gear. What we are tracking is not just the rank, but organization which is pretty interesting to see who has taken losses that we can see. Also saw this come up today @Haidukany idea what unit he might have been with?

This guy now has it at Lt Gen 1 Mjr Gen 7 Col 20 Lt Col 36 Maj 52 Cpt 94 Sr Lt 96 Lt 75 KIA/WIA/MIA Officer list - Google Drive I think we may be short a General or two (and a load of non General officers) as I don't think we ever got confirmation about that Command center strike.

how does that change the need to ship to China? It would seem to just create additional transit points. Taiwan needs to get a few diesel subs.. or as JonS said!

yep, we are sure. Bagration was an enormous offensive with far more material and men than what are available now. Weapons are also a lot more deadly now. The nature of this is also driven by the limitations of what Russia can do now, material conditions on the ground as well as the tactics and weaponry the Ukrainians are fielding. It is highly doubtful (hopefully) we'll ever see anything on the scale of Bagration again. The size and composition of the Russian army is pretty well known and most of it has been committed to this fight.

I've seen this mentioned a couple times now about the Russians massing in Belgorod. The figure that seems to be tossed around is some 19 BTGs. What exactly does that mean I wonder. It is pretty certain they aren't full strength. Question is whether they are functional at all.

Man Haiduk, it must have sucked for Ukraine when you lost that Missile Cruiser.

I did a lot of LSD at dead shows, but even my wildest couldn't come up with this insanity. WTF?!

another oligarch to add to the list.

One of the reasons (besides absolutely refusing to do it) that I didn't progress up the management chain at "The Firm" (yes they do talk like that) was my unwillingness to learn the MCK way of PowerPoint. You must always have 3 bullet point options... so I asked, what if you are discussing an on/off switch? That earned me a very sour look. Then I put this up in my workspace.

Brutal yes, evil... I am not so sure. Gas chambers just kind of goes for the win in pure evil. Anyway back on topic - any more news of what is going on around Kharkov? Vorchans'k always did look to me like a target for at least interdiction. Looking at @LongLeftFlankpost early it seems Russian supply issue may start getting a lot worse.

Having formerly worked for McKinsey... I second this. (McKinsey pulled out of Russia earlier this year). How about we give every other one a rifle?

making the world safer one officer at a time! We never did get a batch report on that strike by UA on the command post.

well they could point to Kaliningrad and say "Mission Accomplished!!"

that is a somewhat unfortunate avatar....

Don't count your chickens Durham prosecution faces hurdles in D.C. court - POLITICO

Man, I don't even know what to say. Sorry you had to go through that. I expect not too dissimilar to what the allied troops experienced when coming upon the first concentration camps. Thank you for sharing though. It frequently helps to put the whole conversation in perspective and beyond the realm of just a theoretical discussion. and if it helps to talk about it here I don't think you'll find a single exception.

Russia is literally the brothers Dinsdale.

The Kremlin blinks first in the geo-economic war over Ukraine (msn.com) On April 29, Russia’s finance ministry announced that it would pay some $650m to foreign creditors on two overdue Eurobonds. And by making the payments before the bonds’ grace period expired on May 4, the Kremlin has avoided falling into sovereign default. On the surface, this may look like a win for Russia. But in reality, the move was an embarrassing one for Vladimir Putin. Ahead of the bond’s formal maturity on April 4, the Kremlin announced that it would buy back the bonds in roubles – and pay those who refused to accept the rouble buy-back as well. Nearly 75 percent of bondholders (almost certainly all domestic) agreed to the new terms . Emboldened, the Kremlin announced on April 6 that it was also depositing roubles into accounts set up for other bondholders. The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees judged this to be a “potential-failure-to-pay” event, ruling that Russia would effectively be in default if it fails to correct the situation by the aforementioned May 4 deadline. In response, Russian officials accused the West of attempting to force Russia into a default by restricting its access to foreign currency reserves. The US Treasury, which oversees sanctions, however made clear that sanctions do not bar Russia from paying with funds it was earning from ongoing oil and gas sales. Russia’s recent decision to pay the bonds in foreign currency enabled it to avoid the all-but-guaranteed acceleration of other debts and lawsuits that would have followed a default and further impoverished the Russian people. However, the move also left the Kremlin in a position of extreme hypocrisy and embarrassment. In the end, what Putin did was to repay domestic bondholders with roubles, which they cannot convert freely into hard currency to spend abroad. And pay foreign holders in full, in dollars – hardly a feat worthy of praise. To achieve this Putin likely tapped into the record levels of foreign currency Russia accumulated through oil and gas sales since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. And it seems, soon it may also lose that crucial income. On May 4, the European Union proposed plans to phase out the purchase of Russian oil. Between the launch of its invasion on February 24 and the time of writing, Russia has earned $21bn from oil sales to the EU according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CRE). This record income was partially due to high hydrocarbon prices resulting from the war itself. Russia’s foreign currency stockpile, however, will not keep growing forever as the costs of the war are borne and oil and gas markets readjust. And now, it is also on the verge of losing a key customer. Furthermore the EU is going after Russia’s oil sales not just within the bloc but around the world. The bloc’s package of sanctions measures also includes a ban on providing transportation to Russian oil, regardless of where it is destined. This is certainly a fallible measure, given shipping companies set up outside the bloc could avoid it. However, the package will also bar the provision of insurance services for such shipping. This is far more difficult to evade, given the shipping insurance market is so dominated by EU, Canadian and US firms. In case there is any doubt just how exposed the shipping sector is to Western sanctions, one just needs to look to the actions of Russian state-owned shipping company Sovcomflot. On May 3 specialist maritime industry publication Lloyd’s List revealed that Sovcomflot was looking to sell at least 40 ships from its 121 ship fleet before wind-down authorisations expire and it becomes fully sanctioned on May 15. If Sovcomflot fails to raise enough cash to honour its debts before then, it will fall into default and creditors will go after its ships. Just like the Russian state, Russian businesses are still fearful of defaulting on Western creditors – even amid a war. These sanctions are unlikely to be lifted as long as Russian troops remain beyond the pre-February 24 lines of control. For example, none of the sanctions introduced after Russia’s annexation of Crimea have ever been lifted. Despite these setbacks, there is clearly some fight left in Russia, which is using its gas sales to Europe to try and ensure that the rouble remains convertible even as sanctions are further tightened, and thus that it can at least buy foreign currency if and when needed. The Kremlin is likely to cut off other EU countries and companies who refuse to comply with the gas-for-roubles demand, as it already has with Poland and Bulgaria. But gas sales to Europe are an even more important source of revenue for the Kremlin. Pipelines are expensive to replace, and the above mentioned shipping sanctions are applied to liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes as well. Europe should prepare to call Putin’s bluff. The West is winning the geo-economic war. The Kremlin will blink again.

Could also be that they are positioning all that artillery they have been getting to bring the hammer. If the Russian forces have gotten to that brittle tipping point.....

A Russian official complained on Thursday that Western intelligence and arms deliveries are keeping the nation's war with Ukraine going. Russian Official Complains West Aiding Ukraine is Keeping War Going (msn.com) Yeah, sucks to be you guys doesn't it. While speaking to reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Western intelligence and the ongoing delivery of weapons to Ukraine "do not contribute to the quick completion of the (Russian) operation, but at the same time are not capable of hindering the achievement of the goals set," Now if they could just decide what the hell those goals are now that are achievable...