The end?

Lefty said:
'Our man was out in the field all day yesterday and has My Sharona, so Lord knows where he found the time/energy to write this.'

I give up. I've been trying to work out what having 'My Sharona' means.

Best I can come up with is he has The Knack.
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:ROFLMAO:

Sorry, yes it's Corona. Covid Rhyming Slang. I was messing about with him and we ended up with My Sharona. Watched it on youtube. Top riff.

It's a bit of a critical week at work so his Le Carre type exploits are taking a back seat at the moment (that'll be the cue for a 3000 word essay).
 
Another good one from The Knack…. too short-lived they were!
A memorable night for me it was seeing them perform on the Sunset Strip in ‘79👍
 
From the maternity ward..... an expectant number cruncher. He hasn't given up yet.

"By piecing together leaked stock inventories of Russian artillery shells, and the abysmal Russian production rate, we now know that approximate date when their artillery runs dry.
First of all, Ukraine is now producing more 152mm and 122mm than Russia is. The largest producer in the world are now in order Czeck Republik, Finland and Slovakia, obviously those are delivering to Ukraine for all they are worth.
This is obviously not counting all the NATO-standard 155mm that is delivered to Ukraine at a rate of 100 000 shells per month.
Russia on the other hand has stock enough for 70 days of continued shelling at the current rate of 5000 shells per day. It is here good that at peak shelling Russia dumped between 20 000 and 40 000 shells per day.
At the peak rate Russia would be dry in two weeks.
Obviously it will be impossible for Russia to continue when they are dry. For the time being they are trying to over-compensate their flaccid artillery with hordes of almost unarmed Mobiks.
Obviously Russia will soon start to conserve their shells even more, and technically they will always be able to send 250 freshly produced shells downrange per day.
But, with their astoundingly bad precission and targeting that will not make a lot of difference from being completely dry.
Only way out for Russia would be to punch through and take the storage in Transnistria, but this is currently beyond Russias abilities.

Peskov
Peskov dragged his nose out of his pile of white powder to announce two things.
The first one is that he denied that Russia will call for an armistice and do a full withdrawal and sign a peace agreement before New Year's Eve. Remember that nothing is true until Russia denies it.

The second message was that Russia will see the Patriot systems as legitimate targets inside Ukraine.
No **** Sherlock, nobody expected that they would be mysteriously safe.
But, if we apply reverse Russian logic to this statement we instead see a recognition of Russias inability to target and hit any Patriot system.

I will in bizarre way miss Peskov's rather coke-fueled statements.

Weapons
New weapons are now galumphing into Ukraine for the upcoming offensive, both new artillery and new armour up to, and including, tanks.
Also, due to the Irano-Russian missile deal Ukraine will be getting ATACMs and other more longrange missiles to supplement the 2 homegrown they are producing per week. They will also receive shipments of components for their domestic production.
Planes will start delivery sometime in late spring, but by then it will all be over.
They are though receiving another tranch of Mig-29s in the next two weeks.

The Silence
On the fronts not much new.
In Luhansk Ukraine are slowly advancing, but the big push is held back until firmer ground and new weapons are delivered.
In Bakhmut the Ukrainian army are slowly falling back to the river that is dividing the town.
Behind the river they can hold almost indefinitely with fewer soldiers, thus releasing more troops for the upcoming offensive.
In Zhaporizhzhia small positional attacks are ongoing from both sides, with small gains on the Ukrainian side. At the same time Ukraine is keeping up the heavy bombardment of barracks, depots and supply lines.
In Kherson all is quiet, Ukraine is only holding their beach heads and the Kinburn spit while long distance shelling the two Isthmuses to Crimea and assorted supply routes.
In Vuhledar two large Russian attacks was stomped out, and minor positional gains was made for the Ukrainians. Surovikin is not an idiot, so he sees the danger that this corner of the world poses to him, but he lacks the resources to clear out the Ukrainians since Mobik meat bags are not artillery and tanks.

Moscow
Girkin/Strelkov vs Solovyov is interesting.
The leadership is now so frightened of Girkin that they have sent forth their best propagandists to squash him.
Solovyov opened up by calling Girkin a coward that shat himself and refused to go to the frontline.
We amply now that Girkin may be many unsavoury things, but coward is not among those, and there are ample photos and videos of him at the front posted by his fans all over Telegram.
Girkin answered by calmly stating that Solovyov is both "poor in the wallet and poor in character".
Someone is really worried about Girkin and his "All Russian Hero Spiel".

The Putins
It has now become routine that "Putin" is cancelling all sorts of events.
First it was his annual 4 hour telethon, and now it was the State of the Union Adress to the Duma.
Russians are now openly starting to grumble about it, and even minor power players are now acting as they please.

Conclusion
The numbers are still pointing towards Russia going giving up in 9 days. Obviously this is not counting in Russia being stupid stubborn, or unable to make a decission due to internal problems.
On top of that even I am starting to admit that it will probably take longer to negotiate etcetera than the 9 days remaining.

Anyway, with no leave given for Ukrainian soldiers during the holiday, staging of arms and supplies, etcetera, I think we are now very near the final Ukrainian offensive, and that will crack any remaining Russian resolve.

This is the Quiet before the Storm.
I expect the massive Ukrainian artillery barrages to start any day now.
I seriously feel like I am sitting at a maternity ward waiting for a baby to drop."
 
It's interesting if Solovyov is attacking Girkin like that, but I'm not sure how much to make of that, since he seems to have been getting ever more deranged. I think he has been having a breakdown trying to deal with the shattering of his illusions of Russian military invincibility.

You man thinks he must be acting under orders from someone, but I wonder who?
 
Lefty said:
It's interesting if Solovyov is attacking Girkin like that, but I'm not sure how much to make of that, since he seems to have been getting ever more deranged. I think he has been having a breakdown trying to deal with the shattering of his illusions of Russian military invincibility.

You man thinks he must be acting under orders from someone, but I wonder who?
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Hard to say, but the present leadership group of Shoigu, Patrushev, Lavrov etc clearly see him as a threat.
I'm surprised that he hasn't been silenced yet.
 
@Lefty Our man wrote a short piece on Girkin the other day, which I didn't post on here.

"
How hard it now may seem, I think Gerashenko is on to something.
Girkin is using his conviction as a means of lifting himself up the ladder in Russia.
Portraying himself as the only true Patriot and using the sentencing by the West as proof of it.
It is a very risky masterstroke.
He is really ripping into all of the leaders all the way to the top.

Doing it today is really also a masterstroke, because Kadyrov is in trouble with civil unrest in Chechnya and even reports of fighting in remoter parts of Chechnya.
This deepened the power vacuum, because right now even the Dog of Kremlin is occupied otherwise.

Here is the thing.
Neither I, nor anyone else, is really grasping Igor Girkin, who's real name might be Ivan Ivanovich Strelkov, or even Ivan Makarov.
In other words, we do not even know who and what he really is. All we know is that he was for a time the Defence Minister of DNR, and was a part of downing the airplane.
What we can be certain of is that he is FSB through and through, and that he is as far as we know the brightest of the bunch.
Unlike the other that nowadays he is more like an FSB/GRU agent of old. Well read, well studied, well mannered, devoid of blyat.
He is also the man that Putin forgot to get rid of, he is and was smart enough to know where to lay low, do as told, and improvise when he had to. And he has been critical all along, but not overly much so.
To really mess it up, he seems to be both an FSB colonel, and at the same time a real army colonel. However now that happened. You are just not supposed to be able to go to both schools, and have both careers. He did it using two different identities.
And here comes the kicker. FSB, nor the army, seems to knows who he really is. That is why he was booted out of both organisations and removed from command in DNR.

Anyway, we may very soon have someone going for the throne, who is sentenced to life in the West, who we have no clue who and what he is.
Swiming...
I think I have to get hold of Al-Attal since not even FSB seems to be able to clear house."
 
borolad259 said:
@Lefty Our man wrote a short piece on Girkin the other day, which I didn't post on here.

"
How hard it now may seem, I think Gerashenko is on to something.
Girkin is using his conviction as a means of lifting himself up the ladder in Russia.
Portraying himself as the only true Patriot and using the sentencing by the West as proof of it.
It is a very risky masterstroke.
He is really ripping into all of the leaders all the way to the top.

Doing it today is really also a masterstroke, because Kadyrov is in trouble with civil unrest in Chechnya and even reports of fighting in remoter parts of Chechnya.
This deepened the power vacuum, because right now even the Dog of Kremlin is occupied otherwise.

Here is the thing.
Neither I, nor anyone else, is really grasping Igor Girkin, who's real name might be Ivan Ivanovich Strelkov, or even Ivan Makarov.
In other words, we do not even know who and what he really is. All we know is that he was for a time the Defence Minister of DNR, and was a part of downing the airplane.
What we can be certain of is that he is FSB through and through, and that he is as far as we know the brightest of the bunch.
Unlike the other that nowadays he is more like an FSB/GRU agent of old. Well read, well studied, well mannered, devoid of blyat.
He is also the man that Putin forgot to get rid of, he is and was smart enough to know where to lay low, do as told, and improvise when he had to. And he has been critical all along, but not overly much so.
To really mess it up, he seems to be both an FSB colonel, and at the same time a real army colonel. However now that happened. You are just not supposed to be able to go to both schools, and have both careers. He did it using two different identities.
And here comes the kicker. FSB, nor the army, seems to knows who he really is. That is why he was booted out of both organisations and removed from command in DNR.

Anyway, we may very soon have someone going for the throne, who is sentenced to life in the West, who we have no clue who and what he is.
Swiming...
I think I have to get hold of Al-Attal since not even FSB seems to be able to clear house."
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That is fascinating. High stakes gamble for sure, but he probably has no choice.

There will be a movie in it when this is all over.
 
Lefty said:
That is fascinating. High stakes gamble for sure, but he probably has no choice.

There will be a movie in it when this is all over.
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I'll just be happy if we have a society and electrical power!

In all seriousness, we need to see this through.
 
Mainstream U.K. newspapers reporting new major offensive from Putin in the new year, this despite also reporting some things which concur with borolad’s contact.

You wonder if Russian retreat is a real possibility or wishful thinking, I think it’s hard to tell.

What a nightmare for the ordinary Ukrainian, this has been going on nearly a year now.
 
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