Octopus Overlords

Russia official warns of “uncontrolled deorbit” of ISS, a beacon of international space science

https://flip.it/9XfRcu

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Not gonna happen, at least not anytime soon (as in years).

With all the talk about how far and how fast the Russians have advanced, I went looking for a map to visualize the situation. For scale, the distance from Belarus to Kiev is about 100 km (60 miles).


(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War)

Max Peck wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 4:17 pm

IceBear wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 4:02 pm You guys see the Bond villain plot regarding the international space station. The head of Russian space agency implied letting it crash into India or China

He also mentioned Europe and the US as possible crash sites. I don't believe he was referring to deliberately crashing it, but rather that the ISS is dependent on Russian vehicles for propulsion in order to maintain a stable orbit, and if the Russian space program is crippled by sanctions then there would be consequences to the ISS if they can't launch missions.

Yes, it started that way but the "There is also the option.." statement that seems a little more direct. Again I agree it's more this is what might happen if you don't lift sanctions because we can't do anything rather than intentional.

"If you block co-operation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe?" he wrote. "There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure to India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect?"


I still have visions of Dr Evil saying that though

IceBear wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 4:29 pm

Max Peck wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 4:17 pm

IceBear wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 4:02 pm You guys see the Bond villain plot regarding the international space station. The head of Russian space agency implied letting it crash into India or China

He also mentioned Europe and the US as possible crash sites. I don't believe he was referring to deliberately crashing it, but rather that the ISS is dependent on Russian vehicles for propulsion in order to maintain a stable orbit, and if the Russian space program is crippled by sanctions then there would be consequences to the ISS if they can't launch missions.

Yes, it started that way but the "There is also the option.." statement that seems a little more direct. Again I agree it's more this is what might happen if you don't lift sanctions because we can't do anything rather than intentional.

"If you block co-operation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe?" he wrote. "There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure to India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect?"


I still have visions of Dr Evil saying that though

It's a nice space station you got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it and who knows where it would fall, if say we couldn't steer it?

...or if we could...

malchior wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:33 pm Yeah it strikes me that people still don't get the hard boundary on conflict between nuclear powers. Putin *lied to his own people* when we killed Russian mercs in Syria. Sending civilian volunteers? Possible. Sending arms? Probable. Drone strikes? Not happening.

Edit: Anecdotally I can even say we're very cautious about probing each others critical infrastructure with cyberattacks. The Russians use cut outs for this that are well-known (and are largely the same folks who attacked the 2016 election).

Drone strikes are happening apparently. Ukrainian Drone Strikes from Turkish Airbases maybe:

Seeing this was somewhat comforting
This, not so much.

That's 100+ elite paratroopers, perhaps as many as 200. (The linked source is Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.)

Russia keeps underestimating Ukrainian anti-air capability.

I am saddened by the loss of lives on all sides. There is no point to this. Its just killing for killing. Its a war crime. A sovereign nation has been invaded. I feel sad though for the uselessness of it all. We should be past this crap.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 8:02 pm I am saddened by the loss of lives on all sides. There is no point to this. Its just killing for killing. Its a war crime. A sovereign nation has been invaded. I feel sad though for the uselessness of it all. We should be past this crap.

Same.

Russia vetoes U.N. Security Council condemnation of its offensive in Ukraine.

And this is why the UN has become irrelevant.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:35 pm

Kurth wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:29 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:16 pm The first take is certainly dumb but actually Cenk has a real point here. There is a definite axis in the white nationalist movement here in America that backs Putin because he has been seen as strong on protecting white nationalist identity and also for his anti-gay pogroms. It is most prevalent in neo-Nazi circles which for decades has talked about how Hitler was right. Putin has been for some time become the embodiment of the "pure White" muscularity they desire here. That he is attacking a fellow almost uniformly white country is entirely put aside in this calculation.

There's so much that's inconsistent and incoherent here.

Because consistency and coherence are major traits in racist extremist thinking? It's no more complicated than "he's white, he's powerful, and he's going to war." The fact that he hates gays is a plus. The fact that he's "reuniting" Ukraine using ethnic and Christian orthodoxy as pretexts is a plus. Nothing else is needed for certain elements to rally around him. Not all elements. But certain ones.

I can't speak for MAGA Land but I've seen on twitter far right, Anti-American, pro-Russian accounts praising Putin/Russia taking on the Woke, decadent multicultural West (and multicultural is the nice term for what they are saying). There's definitely a racial element in Putin's appeal.

That's the ticket.

I cant tell these days if thats aimed at the GOP or the DEMs.

I was generally in the 'none of our business' camp, until this:

Russia threatens Finland and Sweden over plans to join NATO

https://www.foxnews.com/world/russia-fi ... weden-nato

And yes...it's been so long since I posted that I've forgotten the syntax to name the link rather than post the raw link. Can someone remind me?

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 12:02 am

Code: Select all

[url=link]Fancy display text[/url]

thanks!

Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but there doesn't seem to be much activity from the Ukrainian military. They have armor, and artillery, and rockets. Why aren't they shelling Russian staging areas or troop movements?

If things go badly enough for Putin, would he ever resort to nukes?

Holman wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 7:25 pm

That's 100+ elite paratroopers, perhaps as many as 200. (The linked source is Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.)

Russia keeps underestimating Ukrainian anti-air capability.

A second Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane was shot down near Bila Tserkva, 50 miles (85 kilometers) south of Kyiv, according to two American officials with direct knowledge of conditions on the ground in Ukraine.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 2d3585f548

Alefroth wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 2:21 am Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but there doesn't seem to be much activity from the Ukrainian military. They have armor, and artillery, and rockets. Why aren't they shelling Russian staging areas or troop movements?

If things go badly enough for Putin, would he ever resort to nukes?

The thoughts thay I've seen on this is that Ukraine knows they can't win a straight up fight. Instead they might try to put up a decent defense, but then save most of their offense for gorilla style warfare after Russia captures Kiev. No idea how true that is, but it might explain why they aren't shelling.

Don't think they have much in the way of air defense...saw some clips of destroyed convoys that Russian planes hit described as "targets of opportunity"

If they start using artillery that just gives the Russian airforce targets to hit

IceBear wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 8:14 am Don't think they have much in the way of air defense...saw some clips of destroyed convoys that Russian planes hit described as "targets of opportunity"

If they start using artillery that just gives the Russian airforce targets to hit

And Russia probably has counterbattery radar capability so the Ukrainians need to be very careful about when to commit artillery.

Sure thing Putin (behind the Reuters free-wall)

Russian troops started advancing into Ukraine again on Saturday after President Vladimir Putin paused the offensive a day earlier in anticipation of talks with Kyiv that never happened, the Kremlin said.

Both Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke of possible talks on Friday but Ukraine said clashes with invading Russian troops continued on Friday night and on Saturday.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov said that after Putin's order Russian troops only clashed with "groups of nationalists" -- as opposed to regular Ukrainian forces.

Also breaking is the news that Russia could be cut off from SWIFT in days. The ramifications are unclear yet but I imagine folks at Russian banks are in a full panic right now.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 11:18 pm

Spoiler:

I know he would spin it regardless but a lot of people really should have an introductory course in “political and economic systems of the world”. By his criteria we should be worried about Socialist Canada next coming across the border to overthrow our way of life.

I’ve been hearing about the Swift thing on NPR for about a week now. Is there some new ‘breaking news’ element, or is it still just “they could do it,man”

Still not implemented but it sounds like the few countries that were holding out against it have said they've changed their minds

My understanding is that nobody needs to be convinced, they just need to get the infrastructure in place so that when Russia is cut off from SWIFT it doesn't hurt them more than it hurts Russia.

Ok...I was hearing stuff about how it's really going to hurt Germany regardless

Putin said cutting off SWIFT would be equivalent to an act of war. The US is still reluctant to use it because of that. It's the nuclear option of economic warfare.

The UK back on board on recent days from what I understand so there is more pressure to use it. My hunch is that certain US financial interests are pressing hard against it. It won't happen without US approval.

Archinerd wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:38 am My understanding is that nobody needs to be convinced, they just need to get the infrastructure in place so that when Russia is cut off from SWIFT it doesn't hurt them more than it hurts Russia.

It's not infrastructure, it's unwinding all kinds of financial relationships. It's tranactional. They can isolate Russian banks with a switch flip, essentially. Non-Russian institutions need time to extract themselves from the Russian side of the cutoff. But the longer it takes, the more Russian interests can do the same.


If you hold Russian debt, for example, you'd be screwed.

@ Unagi
re: SWIFT As of my last perusing of the news (last few minutes). Germany & Hungary were the last holdouts. I hope they cut it. Though someone a few posts up says SWIFT is cut off, nothing from BBC, NY times or anything is reporting it.

It's my fear we will see nuclear strikes soon and we are well on the way to WW3. What's to stop Putin? The nuclear theory of Mutually Assured Destruction? Nothing is off limits I fear with him. I actually want the US/NATO to get involved because that's the only way this is going to stop. Unless an internal option stops Putin, this is going to get real bad and could hit WW 3. Who's next? Bulgaria? Poland?