Jimmy_D

Utterly corrupt.

Those production figures are even worse than they seem, as they include reporting refurbishing and upgrading Soviet era equipment as equipment produced (hence the mention of dwindling Soviet stocks of equipment.) It won’t be lost on Putin that the conditions of high military spending and a collapsing economy are very similar to those that led to the collapse of the USSR.

Walking away from this one feeling like we deserved something from the game. Our second goal was a thing of beauty.

Oh yeah. Russia’s in a far better state now than it was over a year ago. Staying in Ukraine hasn’t cost them anything. So you don’t think that Russia’s economy is getting far worse, and think that that isn’t already having an effect on their ability to wage war then? Russia’s train service hasn’t just got a ‘bit’ worse, it’s catastrophically worse than it was at the start of the war. You might not care, but it’s far more than a ‘service’, it’s an absolutely vital part of logistics in Russia. The point being that it demonstrates clearly that Russia isn’t getting everything it needs if something so vital to them is in such a poor state. It’d be one of the first priorities to fix and improve if Russia were capable of it, and demonstrates that the state of the rouble is already having very real effects. Russia hit Ukraine with a missile that they can only have in extremely limited quantities, so far has a launch success rate of 50%, and that they were so nervous of triggering an international response with that they notified the USA in advance before launching it. It’s not worth much to them militarily beyond a headline compared to what they’ve already been hitting Ukraine with, and seems to have had the opposite effect to what they were hoping for in terms of Europe reaffirming their backing of Ukraine since it was used. Ukraine‘s people certainly aren’t willing to give up, which isn’t surprising considering they’re fighting to stop a country that wants them to no longer exist. That’s been using terror, torture, murder and rape as tools to commit genocide.

So you’re claiming that Russia’s capabilities haven’t been degraded at all since the start of the war then? Also care to point at any predictions in particular? Go on, go and find a quote.

Plummeting currency value combined with incredibly high inflation and interest rates, as well as withdrawal restrictions banks are imposing, would suggest they’re not self sufficient at all. Food prices in Russia are going up and that’s only accelerating. The state of the road network and the size of Russia means they’re massively reliant on the rail network, but railway maintenance is one of the things that’s suffered most under sanctions and Russia’s war economy. Take a look at the volume of rail cargo year-on-year in Russia, that’s just one of the symptoms of Russia’s economy degrading, and that degradation having very real effects.

Where do you think the term ‘war chest’ comes from? Every war in history has been waged based on each side’s ability to pay for it according to the economy of the time. Russia have been absolutely torching their economy to pay for this war, and despite what they would like everyone to believe, their resources aren’t bottomless.

Not sure why you’d think that.

The Rouble has now fallen to its lowest level since the start of the war, when emergency measures (which are still in place) were put in place to artificially prop up the currency. There’s not too many levers left that they can pull to arrest it this time.

Effective safeguards like the Minsk agreements? Russia is demanding no NATO involvement in Ukraine, what other 'strong enforcement' is possible? Russia don't want negotiations, they just want to be able to do what they're doing with weaker opposition.

Any agreement to anything by Russia is utterly worthless. Getting around a table certainly wouldn't end it.

The main miss in that is just how unbelievably unsustainable Russia's tactics are. North Korean troops buy them roughly a couple of extra weeks of assaults at the level they've been throwing troops away. Russia are still slowly gaining territory, but Ukraine are making them pay for it with an astonishingly massive number of troops.

What a moment that is for him!

At least 8 points we’ve been cheated out of by referees this season, unless we come back into this one.

Absolutely disgraceful refereeing. Again.

Perfect set of results considering the fixtures this weekend!

GERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNN!

A win! Cracking finish to score the winning goal by Bree.

At least we kept ourselves in the game. Always a chance of nicking something in a game when you keep it close, which is more than I expected against City.

If we ever see Taylor refereeing us again it’ll be too soon.

That was fun to watch!

Damn. Gave it a bloody good go today.

Cheated out of that by a bunch of worthless cheating ****s and a woeful ref.

A weapons store only built in 2018, supposedly to a standard that could withstand nuclear weapons, one of the biggest they had. Russia are now claiming that it wasn’t enough to protect the stored munitions (including ballistic missiles) from debris from shot down drones(!) Unconfirmed, but reports suggesting that Russia were using it to store and refurbish expired missiles, and that correct storage protocols weren’t being followed. In any case, it sounds counterintuitive, but weapon stores are generally extremely difficult to cause to completely go up like that (assuming they’ve been correctly designed, built, and used.) It wouldn’t be a surprise though, if corners have been cut and corruption has affected every stage of that.

Gerrin!