The end?

Full frontal updates

"There has been a lot of things happening in the last 48 hours that I could not talk about.
But, now that it is out in the open I can at least summarise things.

As per usual, let us do this clockwise.

Luhansk

The Russian advances have more or less stalled out now.
According to Tank Girl she send out a company during the day to blow up advancing Russians as they come trundling, and at night she sends out another company to do some corrective education on the Russians that are by then sleeping under their equipment while it explode ontop of them.

I am just happy that she is speaking to me.
I had words with her guards about letting her go to dangerous places, and heavily implied that if she died it would be the last thing they would see in this existence.
I also privately berated her on taking risks, to all points and purposes she is the third most important military asset in all of Ukraine after Zaluzhnyy and Budanov.
She was quite miffed as I left.
But, after a couple of days she started to call me again, and she is now rather happy about being no 3 Asset after Zaluzhnyy and Budanov.

Bakhmut North
Artillery has once again increased on the Northern side down towards Soledar and on the Road from the West, a sign that Ukraine is prepping for another push.
At Berkhivka the Ukrainians have pushed all the way to Yahidne, secured Berkhivka and completed the Northern encirclement of Bakhmut.
The have also taken control of the first line of Blocks in Northern Bakhmut itself.
Control here being, gone in and smoked out Russians, retreated, and are now holding it under fire control using it as a buffer.

From now on Ukraine will concentrate on attacking to the North and to the Northeast to undercut Krasna Hora, cut the road, and set conditions for an attack from the South towards the important city of Soleder.
Currently Ukraine has 3 different attack vectors towards Soledar.
Also, these actions would put two large groups of Russians into pockets.

To the South Ukraine have advanced toward Opytne, Andri'ivka and Kurdumyivka.
All 3 of these are very important points to take.
Kurdumyivka holds an important road, Andri'ivka is the hub for the defence in this section, and taking control of Opytne would mean that Ukraine has control of 3 out 4 sides of Bakhmut.

Andrivka and Krasnahorivka
Ukraine went on a small offensive and cleared out a few Russians and blew up to armoured vehicles taking a few hundred meters, widening the envelope slightly.

At Krasnahorivka they have retaken fully the coalmine and punched the Russians back to their original positions and are letting drone harass them mercilessly for having the bad taste of trying to attack Krasnahorivka.

Vuhledar
Russia launched missiles against Vuhledar yesterday to try to undercut the Ukrainians holding the H20 ramparts since they rotate to Vuhledar.
The Ukrainians got miffed since the Russians literaly blew up their Borstj, so a bit of artillery therapy was unleashed on the Russians, both from the advanced battalion and from Vuhledar itself.

Neskuchne / Slavomaiorske
Here my second favourite colonel did a picture perfect encirclement and then crossed the T.
It was impressive to see.
He is already trying to do a repeat of this feat at another spot.
Here I suggest concentrating on how wide an opening he has made in the Zero line and the first Surovikin line.
The door is pretty wide open now.

Robotyne
This one does not understand things like going around obstacles.
He is steadfastly attacking straight on, but at least he is now doing it at high speed with well spaced vehicles.
But, at least he is looking impressive and is tying down quite a lot of Russians.

Kakhovka
My third favourite colonel called and said that he had taken 1 by 5km towards the forward dam, and that he was making good progress on taking the entire Highland, he heavily implied that I would have to come with that vodka bottle in a couple of days.
According to the bet he has until Thursday to achieve it.
I think he might.

Antonivka / Oleshky
I should have patented the Castle Attack Plan.
On the other side plagiarism is also a very good compliment. :)

A week ago the commander for Kherson came visiting and wanted to learn more about our plans, mostly since we are using a spot that his troops took that I told about earlier at the spot where the river properly made a 90 degree turn into the former dam, the one that is a highland fortress of sorts.

We gave him the gist about how we are isolating the Castle and generally how it had been achieved.
He did not say much about it before he left, but as soon as he came back he used the same tactics.
Out with roads and bridges, offing AD, then artillery removal, and then hitting fortifications.
The b***r even kept to the same distances as we do.

Due to fewer targets and more barrels he achieved this in about 5 days.
And then he went into full berzerker mode and crossed the river.

He rapidly expanded the bridgehead along the riverside from Antinivka down more than 10km past Kherson City on the other side of the River, and the he swung south and took and entire Island for good measure creating depth.
Now he is rasing back taking control of all of the islands back up to Antonivka.
At the same time all hell broke lose with artilery along this line and into Oleshky.

The beauty of this is that Ukraine has roughly 15km of free area to attack at will through a myriad of waterways, while not having any clear line of sight for artillery.

Being Russians the command had taken into the swankiest hotel in Oleshky, and this information somehow got his way... ahem.
So, with a lot of sadistic glee he removed everything from the commanding major down to the captains.
This is the third decapitation in 6 weeks to occur here.
The first gang was blown up, the second ran away and got arrested, and now the third gang was blown up again.

So far no heavy equipment have been barged over, that will happen when Ukraine has taken a hold on the other side of the islands.
If you see that, you will smell the barges.

Crimea
Ukraine continued cutting the supply lines today with new attacks on bridges and depots.
There are signs that Russia are not keeping up with repairs, and even some places where repairs have stopped.
If that is due to living repairmen, lack of equipment, or something else, is yet unknown.

It is though good news since this means that Ukraine will have at least some more days with severely munitions depleted Russians on the entire Southern frontline from Kinburn to H20 Rampart.
Happy days!

Moo's-Cow
Russia did not even really try to push the terrorist narrative.
The two buildings struck are military well known targets for the Russians.
The tall glass building was the new FSB academy.
The low yellow building near Kremlin was the State Security Commission...

The Ukrainians did this time make dead certain that they would not bump Konstantins apartment. :)

Late News!
Bilhorod is now complaining about shelling of positions along the frontline from the Ukrainian side.
First he claimed that they used cluster ammo (not true), but that nobody was injured.
Now he is claiming that the shelling is wider and using regular shells and high precission shells at depth (true).

Anyway, expect more happy little offensive thingies in the future."

Had to lose some oof it, but it is mostly there.
 
MolteniArcore said:
The rest of the world have just sanctioned themselves. The world is in a right state.
Click to expand...

I liken it a bit to Orwell's 1984 we all just assume (myself included) 'it must be pretty barren and crap in Moscow right now' you see the videos of attacks erc then you see videos like this and it's like hang on a minute it's the same as it was in 2021!
 
I have just seen this joke one twitter and thought I would share.

The FSB are 'picking up people' in russia. Three men end up in a cell, all of them already very much the worse for wear.

Finally one of them turns to the others, 'What are you in for?'

'I criticized Girkin.'

'That's funny', says the man, 'I'm here because I support him.'

Both of them turn to the third man, hardly recognizable because of the FSB health treatments.

'How about you?'

'Friends,' says their unfortunate cell-mate, 'I am Girkin.'
 
alvez_49 said:
I liken it a bit to Orwell's 1984 we all just assume (myself included) 'it must be pretty barren and crap in Moscow right now' you see the videos of attacks erc then you see videos like this and it's like hang on a minute it's the same as it was in 2021!
Click to expand...


Moscow is a bubble, it’s not representative of the rest of Russia, the regime will always project an image of strength there and Russians have said for years that “Moscow is not Russia” - maybe similar to how some British view London.

I have just met with a friend who left Moscow last month and she was certainly impacted by sanctions, just like my family were even after we left. There seems to be a heck of a lot of young Russians back in Pattaya now too…

Yes, the amazing malls are all open (minus many, but not all, western brands), the metro is running and if you have steady employment you’ll have a comfortable life, but that’s in Moscow, and don’t forget there are still millions of Muscovites who can’t afford the grand shopping malls, sanctions or not. St Petersburg will be similar, but many other regions will be suffering, especially outside the main cities, hence the increased cannon fodder from places like Udmurtia.
 
ok, catch up time.

this from last night.

"To celebrate the rapid advances South of Bakhmut and the bombing of the State Security Office next door to the MOD, and the new FSB Office Building in Moscow, I am going to write a bit about something different.

But before that I will write about "The genocide of artillery" as a Russian milblogger put it.
I***** found that, and I sort of like the phrase.

Anyway, Russia is really starting to hurt in regards of artillery, and there is evidence now that Ukrainian counter-battery fire is so good that Russia has stopped firing to save their artillery from being blown up, this is on top of the shell hunger and general destruction.

Currently Ukraine and Russia is about on part in the East in regards of shells fired (not shells hitting) due to the better supply chain in that area.
But, down South it is going downhill quite fast.
Last week Ukraine fired 2.5 shells per each Russian shell, now it is nudging above 5 to 1.

So, in their wisdom the Russians have started to instead of firing back to aim for pointless object.
Yesterday I was sitting outside after having eaten drinking tea with cherry jam and puffing on a cigar.
As I was doing that I was looking at a particularly nice example of Soviet-era bus stop about 100 meters away.
Since there is nothing around it is a bit perplexing to see such a large and beatiful bus stop.
It was then hit by a random shell and got destroyed.
Believing that we were the targets we vamoosed rapidly to a new location, but no.
One shell, one bus stop.

Today we are camping near a small town, it has two small parks and 3 public toilets.
For some reason Russia decided to shell the two out of three toilets.
It is like they have turned into petty art critics hellbent on blowing up things just to troll everyone.

Poland
It has been talked a lot about among the Punderati that Lukashenka has threatened Poland and said that Wagner wish to attack Poland, and also Putin has gotten in on Poland bashing.
At the same time both Russian and Polish TV got into the Poland threats.

The Punderati is having a field day telling everyone where Poland will be attacked and how horrible it will be, some of them have gone off on a tangent and dusted of the old Suwalki Gap and are running with the rapid occupations of Suwalki that the BelRusWags will perform.

Problem is that nobody asked to question.
With what?
Against what?
Let us start with what.

Russia has no troops in the area.
There are about 1500 border guards towards Balticum.
In Kaliningrad there are about half of the sailors remaining, the others have been sent to the front.
So, roughly 3 000 sailors, augmented by 700 soldiers guarding the nukes.
So, let us forget Russias troops.

How about the ginormously dangerous Wagnerites?
There are around 10 000 of them in Belarus now.
They do not have any heavy equipment, all tanks, airplanes, and heavy artillery was taken away.
They have light artillery and some BMPs.
Yes, they are battle hardened, but without propper gear and numbers?

Belarusian army.
Now we are cooking, about 60 000 soldiers that are better trained, somewhat well fed, and that has a fair amount of gear.
So, together BelRusWags have 75 000 men, a fairly respactable force going by prewar standards.

Navy/Air
Obviously Russia has their navy intact, but half of it can't move due to lack of sailors.
Airforce? Yes, there is theoretically 300ish airplanes available for an attack towards Poland.

Against what?
In Poland and Balticum there's roughly 130 000 soldiers armed to their teeth with the best stuff that the West can produce, with everything ready to go and the weapons trained eastwards.
At Suwalki there's oodles of artillery pre-installed and pre-aimed...
This is not counting the reinforcements that would start coming in within 72 hours, nor the Finns that are generally slobbering on the Russian border sharpening knives, all 50 000 of them...

So, the navy will take Poland?
Nope, there is a honking NATO navy waiting for them if they leave port.
This does not count the oodles of Missile Batteries installed that are waiting to blow the Russian navy out of the water.

Air?
Russia will of course be able to immediatly take control of the airspace with their 300ish airplanes.
No?
NATO would within minutes have absolute dominance in the airspace with 600 aircraft, doubling within 72 hours.
Oops...

Reality
People seem to have a problem with reality and numbers.
The second the first soldier tried to cross the border NATO Article 5 would be enacted.
And we are not talking about defence action, no troops would enter Russia and Belarus within hours.
St Petersburg would fall to Finland within 24 hours, and Moscow in 36.
It would be a stampede of people screaming Kurwa and Perkele towards Minsk and Moscow.

No, this has all been a psyop trying to pull the attention away from what is important, Ukraine.
And the Punderati as per usual fell for it.

Remember that we have spent 18 months on beefing up our defence.
Everything is more than ready to go.
On manpower it is more than 2 to 1 from the start, on equipment it is more like 10 to 1.
And that equipment is so far superior that it is ridiculous.
The sad thing is that Ukraine is getting our handmedowns from the 80s, our new shiny toys are defending our own borders.
Russia knows that we are ready for war and that they are not ready.

But, what if Russia breaks out the nukes in Kaliningrad and start using those?
If Russia tries to take them out of storage we would know it before they were even out of the door.
450 missiles would slam into the base at Kaliningrad within minutes.
Navy gone, bases gone, soldiers gone, half the town gone.
In mere minutes.
Russia has been told about this.
Move nukes, die.

Arctic
We believe that Russia may detonate a nuclear device at Severny Island.
It is believed that they are planning an aerial detonation from a TU-95, or from a Sarmat.
If that happens, remember that it is not the end of the world, it is just impotent sabre rattling.
Russia is now desperate to try anything to rattle the resolve of the West, and nuking Novya Semlya once again would after all not yield a nuclear war.

Hot or cold?
I was a bit bemused today as I learned that the IAEA had stated that the Russians are gonna move Reactor 4 from cold reserve into hot reserve.
I found that to be rather surprising since it has been in hot reserve for months, and we are seeing signs of it being moved to cold reserve.
I suspect that it was a mistranslation from a fevered punderati somehow.

IAEA also reported that they had seen directed mines.
Yup, those are there. It is after all fairly standard to put up claymore mines around something you are defending.
Theres also antitank and personel mines there going all the way around.
After all, 700 drunk dudes are not able to secure and hold an area that is 10x5km...
If you have mapped the mines and found a path into the place you can actually stroll into the area if you need to stretch your legs, or have some sort of an errand.
After all, there is not 1 Russian per each 28.6 meters of the perimeter guarding it all the time.
They used to rely instead on cameras, but those stopped working a while ago.

So, a couple of random Russians generally amble about from time to time.
We like our ambling Russians, they are very good at not getting close to the perimeter, and instead they concentrate on guarding the samovars.

Anyway, rambling now.

There will probably be good news soon.
We will see."
 
This morning

"Last evening I promised good news in the next 48 hours.
Obviously I knew what was gonna happen this night (it was very busy on my end for other reasons).
I did though not expect it to be reported upon this fast.

Colonel Thickhead of the 47th have spend the last 45 days doing fast cavalry charges with armour columns against the Russian lines North of Robotyne, completely disregarding any opportunity to encircle the city and take it that way.

About a week ago I suggested to Olexandr that he should inject a 5th Brigade to shake things up and increase stress & strain for the Russians, and to increase general speed of the advances.

Olexandr is not thick at all, so the 5th Brigade was injected just to the East of Colonel Thickhead.
It attacked in a southeasterly direction from the breach that the 47th created North of Robotyne and is now happily galumphing around Robotyne while Colonel Thickhead is planning for the next frontal assault.
The Russians was obviously not prepared for a sideways manouvre by a fresh Brigade.

Expect more of these things to happen soon."
 
And now for something completely different.

"I had originally planned to write about the Ukrainian offensive and gains, but I felt that instead I want to write about something sort of more civilian.

Blockade Runners
About once every week China is blamed for selling anything from shells and weapons, drones, armour, etcetera, to Russia.
Problem is that this is quite simply put not true.
China is in fact very stringent in not selling anything that could be used for weapons production, or the war in general.
For instance the cars have parts removed before delivery that contain electronics and parts that can be repurposed.
Even something as simple as air bags are removed, and several car models are outright not exported to Russia.
China is even pretty open up about what they export.
They are upholding their part.

And still newspapers and punderati (and on occation even the US intelligence services) write about China supplying weapons and components.
In reality these are reexports performed by blockade runners, and no China is not organising it, they are trying to clamp down on it.
Companies that are caught selling to known blockade runners will end up with prisoned company leaders.

In fact, China is not selling to Ukraine either, but with less items blockaded.
Here China does organise blockade running of their own blockade, or look so far to the side that they are staring Uranus up the wazoo.

Blockade running is among the most profitable things to do, more so than smuggling drugs, arms, stolen art, etcetera.
So there are a lot of takers that try to make as much money as possible.

How many people can run a blockade?
My guesstimate based on 25 years on business is that around 10 000 people across the globe has the wherewithal to do it, me included.
About half of those are burdoned with a conscience like me, and would never do it to Russia.
I have though done it on other occation for parts of our government, so I know jolly well how to do it.
Sometimes things are not available on the white market, and you go and buy deep inside the blackest of markets.
You would all be surprised how often deals like that are made.

Anyway, I will give an example out of reality.
Russia bought 100 000 000USD worth of FPV drones originating from China.
These where sold to one of the company's Continent Distributors (super-super-distributor) in Abu Dhabi in the UAE.
At this stage it was an order worth 10 000 000USD, and was nothing noteworthy.

That Company sold them to another UAE Company in Dubai that is the UAE Distributor (but is owned by the same owner).
Officially it was sold at list price, which might even be true.
There the shipment was broken up in 12 smaller shipments and sold to official companies in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey at well above list price.
These in turn sold them on to shell companies.
By now they are worth 25 million USD.
Then they where sold to companies in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for 50 million USD as much smaller batches.
There they bounced companies again and was smuggled into Russia for 100 million USD paid in Gold in 3 different places, Dubai, Zürich and in Northern Cyprus.
The payment was done cash upfron before delivery.

Now, let us jump back to Ukraine.
They also got 100 million Euros worth of drones.
Ingram Micro ordered drones for 100 million Euro, those where loaded directly on trucks to Ukraine, and the EU paid 100 million + 10 percent.
This was done by an Irrevocable Letter of Credit between banks, like any other international deal. Ie., done on a creditline...
Note the brutal difference here in who and how the blockade running is done.
Obviously the Chinese looked very intently at the derriere of Uranus to believe that Ingram Micro could sell out all of the drones in a single day...

Sanctions and Blockades
These work very differently to what people believe.
There is no way to cut the supply chains completely, there will always be some enterprising asshole willing to do the blockade running.
No, they work by running up the prices until the receiving country bleed out.
Basically, they have to pay at least 10 times more per item than any other legal customer.

In this particular case Ukraine got 10 drones per each Russian drone, even though the cost was the same.
There are more effects to this.

The Chinese company made 100 million on the EU order, and 10 million on the Russian order.
For the former the CEO risked a little scolding at worst (probably not even that), but for the order going to Russia he might even be thrown in prison or shot, even though he did not do anything.
Probably the Abu Dhabi company knew about it, but proving it is impossible, but they might have not known... hard to say.
But everyone from there on bloody well knew and dipped their fingers in the honeypot.
Anyway, my point is that the EU is worth 10 times more as a customer (higher in reality) compared to Russia, and then we have the US on top of that and they do it too.
This is why China are very careful to play nice.
Money talks, and the EU has historically been very fast on banning companies.

There is also a monetary effect on having to pay 3 months in advance for the drones before delivery and risks for Russia since they might get ripped off, something that is common, compare this to Ingram Micro who bought them with credit and paid as they got the goods.
90 days out of pocket compared to 0 days... ouch.
And the scam risk on top of that.

Last thing, Russia does not have endless amounts of gold to pay with.
Sooner or later that will run out.
Then the price will more than double.
The reason is that by then Russia will have to pay with goods in advance.
Let us say with wheat.
Problem is that they will not get market price, instead they will get something like half for their goods vs drone price.

And now the last part, Ukraine didn't pay a single dollar for all of this.
This was a gift from the EU, and this time it was interesting.
NAFO has collected 100 million and bought drones for the money and sent to Ukraine, EU decided to match this (on top of everything else the EU is giving).
So... Ukraine in fact got 20 drones per each Russian drone.

The blockades works as economic sanctions that drain the lifeblood out of Russia.
And now multiply this hemorhage by about 100 000 things...
Russia is bleeding out of its **** like if it had Marburg Virus, and it is obviously not sustainable.

Now imagine that you live in a high rise building in Moscow and the elevator lacks a component to be fixed.
You order a 1 000USD component, but you pay 20 000USD, and you have to leg it up 50 stairs for 90 days until it arrive and you can ride the elevator again.

By now the money has basically run out for elevator parts in Russia, only mil-speced components for weapons production, weapons, munition, drones, etcetera, that are directly for the war effort is paid for...
So, lot's of stuff is now grinding to a halt in Russia.
Many of the fires we see are due to simple cheap components being unavailable.

Now comes the weirdest part.
The money in the end meanders over to the US and EU as the money is relocated for safekeaping, or used to order goods from us.

Conclusion
Yes, it is sad that Blockade Runners exist since Ukrainians die from it.
But, due to price hikes etcetera far fewer will die in the end.
And, the blockade runners are unwittingly helping the war effort by their vampyritic bloodsucking of Russia.
In fact, all of this is more effective than if the blockade had been 100 percent effective due to the horrendous economic effects it has on Russia.

The Problem
There is always a problem, we do not know how deep the pockets of Russia is.
The Soviet Union sent gold, diamonds, and other valuables out from Russia since Stalins death for safekeaping.
It is estimated that half of that was stolen as the Soviet Union broke up.
It has been estimated that Russia had 300 billion after theft in todays value, and that this has been more than doubled after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is estimated that Russia is bying goods for 1 billion USD per day since the Blockades was emplaced.
This means that Russia has spent 500 billion to receive goods worth 50 billion, and completely squandered most of its final reserves that was never meant to be dipped into.
It also means that Russia is now totally empowerished.
We now believe that most is gone.

Reason is that Russia has stopped paying all those alt-right and neo nazi groups and parties.
They have also stopped paying their propagandist infiltrators in the west.
We know this since we can track payments to certain groups and individuals.
They stopped paying them 2 months ago.

Anyway...
I hope you appreciated this deviation from the regular programming.
I might do some other similar things when I need a break from the more warish things.
We will see!"
 
borolad259 said:
And now for something completely different.

"I had originally planned to write about the Ukrainian offensive and gains, but I felt that instead I want to write about something sort of more civilian.

Blockade Runners
About once every week China is blamed for selling anything from shells and weapons, drones, armour, etcetera, to Russia.
Problem is that this is quite simply put not true.
China is in fact very stringent in not selling anything that could be used for weapons production, or the war in general.
For instance the cars have parts removed before delivery that contain electronics and parts that can be repurposed.
Even something as simple as air bags are removed, and several car models are outright not exported to Russia.
China is even pretty open up about what they export.
They are upholding their part.

And still newspapers and punderati (and on occation even the US intelligence services) write about China supplying weapons and components.
In reality these are reexports performed by blockade runners, and no China is not organising it, they are trying to clamp down on it.
Companies that are caught selling to known blockade runners will end up with prisoned company leaders.

In fact, China is not selling to Ukraine either, but with less items blockaded.
Here China does organise blockade running of their own blockade, or look so far to the side that they are staring Uranus up the wazoo.

Blockade running is among the most profitable things to do, more so than smuggling drugs, arms, stolen art, etcetera.
So there are a lot of takers that try to make as much money as possible.

How many people can run a blockade?
My guesstimate based on 25 years on business is that around 10 000 people across the globe has the wherewithal to do it, me included.
About half of those are burdoned with a conscience like me, and would never do it to Russia.
I have though done it on other occation for parts of our government, so I know jolly well how to do it.
Sometimes things are not available on the white market, and you go and buy deep inside the blackest of markets.
You would all be surprised how often deals like that are made.

Anyway, I will give an example out of reality.
Russia bought 100 000 000USD worth of FPV drones originating from China.
These where sold to one of the company's Continent Distributors (super-super-distributor) in Abu Dhabi in the UAE.
At this stage it was an order worth 10 000 000USD, and was nothing noteworthy.

That Company sold them to another UAE Company in Dubai that is the UAE Distributor (but is owned by the same owner).
Officially it was sold at list price, which might even be true.
There the shipment was broken up in 12 smaller shipments and sold to official companies in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey at well above list price.
These in turn sold them on to shell companies.
By now they are worth 25 million USD.
Then they where sold to companies in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for 50 million USD as much smaller batches.
There they bounced companies again and was smuggled into Russia for 100 million USD paid in Gold in 3 different places, Dubai, Zürich and in Northern Cyprus.
The payment was done cash upfron before delivery.

Now, let us jump back to Ukraine.
They also got 100 million Euros worth of drones.
Ingram Micro ordered drones for 100 million Euro, those where loaded directly on trucks to Ukraine, and the EU paid 100 million + 10 percent.
This was done by an Irrevocable Letter of Credit between banks, like any other international deal. Ie., done on a creditline...
Note the brutal difference here in who and how the blockade running is done.
Obviously the Chinese looked very intently at the derriere of Uranus to believe that Ingram Micro could sell out all of the drones in a single day...

Sanctions and Blockades
These work very differently to what people believe.
There is no way to cut the supply chains completely, there will always be some enterprising asshole willing to do the blockade running.
No, they work by running up the prices until the receiving country bleed out.
Basically, they have to pay at least 10 times more per item than any other legal customer.

In this particular case Ukraine got 10 drones per each Russian drone, even though the cost was the same.
There are more effects to this.

The Chinese company made 100 million on the EU order, and 10 million on the Russian order.
For the former the CEO risked a little scolding at worst (probably not even that), but for the order going to Russia he might even be thrown in prison or shot, even though he did not do anything.
Probably the Abu Dhabi company knew about it, but proving it is impossible, but they might have not known... hard to say.
But everyone from there on bloody well knew and dipped their fingers in the honeypot.
Anyway, my point is that the EU is worth 10 times more as a customer (higher in reality) compared to Russia, and then we have the US on top of that and they do it too.
This is why China are very careful to play nice.
Money talks, and the EU has historically been very fast on banning companies.

There is also a monetary effect on having to pay 3 months in advance for the drones before delivery and risks for Russia since they might get ripped off, something that is common, compare this to Ingram Micro who bought them with credit and paid as they got the goods.
90 days out of pocket compared to 0 days... ouch.
And the scam risk on top of that.

Last thing, Russia does not have endless amounts of gold to pay with.
Sooner or later that will run out.
Then the price will more than double.
The reason is that by then Russia will have to pay with goods in advance.
Let us say with wheat.
Problem is that they will not get market price, instead they will get something like half for their goods vs drone price.

And now the last part, Ukraine didn't pay a single dollar for all of this.
This was a gift from the EU, and this time it was interesting.
NAFO has collected 100 million and bought drones for the money and sent to Ukraine, EU decided to match this (on top of everything else the EU is giving).
So... Ukraine in fact got 20 drones per each Russian drone.

The blockades works as economic sanctions that drain the lifeblood out of Russia.
And now multiply this hemorhage by about 100 000 things...
Russia is bleeding out of its **** like if it had Marburg Virus, and it is obviously not sustainable.

Now imagine that you live in a high rise building in Moscow and the elevator lacks a component to be fixed.
You order a 1 000USD component, but you pay 20 000USD, and you have to leg it up 50 stairs for 90 days until it arrive and you can ride the elevator again.

By now the money has basically run out for elevator parts in Russia, only mil-speced components for weapons production, weapons, munition, drones, etcetera, that are directly for the war effort is paid for...
So, lot's of stuff is now grinding to a halt in Russia.
Many of the fires we see are due to simple cheap components being unavailable.

Now comes the weirdest part.
The money in the end meanders over to the US and EU as the money is relocated for safekeaping, or used to order goods from us.

Conclusion
Yes, it is sad that Blockade Runners exist since Ukrainians die from it.
But, due to price hikes etcetera far fewer will die in the end.
And, the blockade runners are unwittingly helping the war effort by their vampyritic bloodsucking of Russia.
In fact, all of this is more effective than if the blockade had been 100 percent effective due to the horrendous economic effects it has on Russia.

The Problem
There is always a problem, we do not know how deep the pockets of Russia is.
The Soviet Union sent gold, diamonds, and other valuables out from Russia since Stalins death for safekeaping.
It is estimated that half of that was stolen as the Soviet Union broke up.
It has been estimated that Russia had 300 billion after theft in todays value, and that this has been more than doubled after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is estimated that Russia is bying goods for 1 billion USD per day since the Blockades was emplaced.
This means that Russia has spent 500 billion to receive goods worth 50 billion, and completely squandered most of its final reserves that was never meant to be dipped into.
It also means that Russia is now totally empowerished.
We now believe that most is gone.

Reason is that Russia has stopped paying all those alt-right and neo nazi groups and parties.
They have also stopped paying their propagandist infiltrators in the west.
We know this since we can track payments to certain groups and individuals.
They stopped paying them 2 months ago.

Anyway...
I hope you appreciated this deviation from the regular programming.
I might do some other similar things when I need a break from the more warish things.
We will see!"
Click to expand...
Quite enjoyed that, a bit eye opening.

The fellas really collected 100m? That has to be a misspelling, no?
 
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