Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Syt]

"You know, sometimes borders only exist in our heads."
"Hehe, so philosophical."

[Razgovory]

I still haven't seen any confirmation that Russia has moved into the Donbas.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/23/europe/russian-troops-donbas-latvian-pm/index.html

Washington and Lviv (CNN)Russian troops have moved into the eastern region of Ukraine that Russia has now recognized as "independent," the Prime Minister of NATO member Latvia told CNN Wednesday, while the US has issued a new warning to the Ukrainian government that the latest intelligence points to a full-scale Russian invasion imminently, according to Ukrainian, US and western officials.

"According to the information at my disposal, Putin is moving additional forces and tanks into the occupied Donbas territories," Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš said. "By any definition that's a crossing of a sovereign territory into a neighboring country."
Pressed specifically on whether he was referring to the entry of additional Russian troops since Moscow recognized the two separatist regions earlier this week, Kariņš replied: "Yes, according to the information at my disposal, this is exactly what we're seeing."
Two other sources familiar with US intelligence confirmed to CNN that additional Russian troops have in fact crossed the border into the Donbas region since Putin recognized the two regions and issued an order deploying "peacekeepers" into the Donbas on Tuesday. According to a senior US official familiar with the latest intelligence, Russia has deployed one to two so-called battalion tactical groups, Russia's main combat formation, each of which comprise an average of about 800 troops.

CNN has not independently verified the presence of additional Russian troops in the Donbas.
The new warning from US intelligence was conveyed to Ukraine on Tuesday morning local Kyiv time, according to three of the sources. A senior Ukrainian official said Ukraine has not verified the intelligence and noted that the United States has issued similar warnings before, for assaults that ultimately did not materialize.
The US has assessed that Russia has completed all preparations for an invasion, a senior US defense official familiar with the latest intelligence. "They are as ready as they can be," the official said.
NATO allies have been given a similar intelligence assessment warning of an imminent attack, according to a NATO military official. The official cautioned that "no one knows for sure" what Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to do.
Kariņš told CNN there were new Russian troops movements into the Donbas region, Putin declared independent republics earlier this week.
Newsweek first reported on the US warning.
News of the warning comes as the Ukrainian president has called for a state of emergency to be imposed across the country starting at midnight tonight in Ukraine.
Of particular concern, the US warned, is the major northeastern city of Kharkiv, according to the senior Ukrainian official and a western official familiar with the intelligence. The Ukrainian foreign minister said on Tuesday there were no plans to evacuate the city,
"We do not have such plans," he said during a press conference in Washington alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
A senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday that 80% of Russian forces amassed on Ukraine's border are "in what we would consider forward positions, ready to go." a senior defense official told reporters during an off-camera briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
Russian military forces "arrayed around Ukraine and Belarus are as ready as they can be," for an invasion, the official said.
Russian military capabilities along the Ukraine border are "near 100% of all forces" that the Pentagon anticipated Putin would move into the area, the official added. Putin has a "full range of capabilities" already moved to the Ukraine border, including "significant offensive missile capability," "two dozen warships in the Black Sea" and "armor, artillery, certainly infantry," according to the official.
Social media videos geolocated and analyzed by CNN over the past several days show a continuing buildup of armor and support vehicles less than 30 kilometers across the border in Russia.
US officials have said that they anticipate both a ground invasion and airstrikes should Russia launch an attack.
"Russian missiles and bombs will drop across Ukraine. Communications will be jammed. Cyberattacks will shut down key Ukrainian institutions," Blinken said last week before the UN Security Council, describing how the US believed a Russian attack on Ukraine would unfold. "After that, Russian tanks and soldiers will advance on key targets that have already been identified and mapped out in detailed plans."
President Joe Biden on Tuesday described events now underway in Ukraine as "the beginning of a Russian invasion," but senior administration officials have since declined to confirm whether additional Russian troops had entered into the Donbas — where unmarked Russian forces have propping up separatist fighters since 2014.
The US and European allies invoked sanctions against Moscow on Tuesday in response to Putin's moves, and the Biden administration is expected to announce Wednesday that it will allow sanctions to move forward on the company in charge of building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
Kariņš told CNN that the initial round of sanctions from the US and Europe was only the beginning of the Western response toward Moscow if Putin escalates further in Ukraine.
"I think that what we're seeing now is the first wave of sanctions. So Putin moves military units into Ukraine, the democratic world responds immediately, within one day, and across all the time zones, with coordinated and very deep sanctions," he said. "If there would be more moves, there would be more sanctions, and they will only be cutting deeper and deeper."
On Wednesday, Ukraine's parliament said it was "dealing with a cyberattack" on its website, a member of Ukraine's parliamentary press team confirmed to CNN.
Internet monitor NetBlocks tweeted that Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service and Cabinet office websites have been "impacted by network disruptions."
Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council announced Wednesday that the state of emergency would be introduced across all parts of the country under government control. The measure is expected to be approved by the Ukrainian Parliament within 48 hours and would last for 30 days, with the possibility of being extended for an additional 30 days.

[Syt]

The minister president of Bavaria announced that he will see to it that no more of Russia's Sputnik anti-Covid vaccine will be produced in his state. I was not aware that there was Sputnik production in Bavaria.

EDIT: Ok, so there were plans for production once Sputnik was approved for use in the EU, but no actual production yet.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

might be a good moment to get that nucleair revival on track and replace coal, gas and oil plants with that. Provides power without having to ruin the environment by filling with windmills and solar-panels.

[Jacob]

might be a good moment to get that nucleair revival on track and replace coal, gas and oil plants with that. Provides power without having to ruin the environment by filling with windmills and solar-panels.

Agreed on getting nuclear on track, but I'm happy keeping solar and wind on track too.

[Zanza]

might be a good moment to get that nucleair revival on track and replace coal, gas and oil plants with that. Provides power without having to ruin the environment by filling with windmills and solar-panels.

No idea how it is in other countries, but replacing fossil fuel usage with nuclear or wind/solar power is not as straightforward as building new electric generation.

Gas in Germany is mainly used for industrial processes and decentralized heating, being burned within individual houses. It is also used for electricity generation, but that's a small share of total gas usage.

To switch from gas (or oil) heating to electricity based heating, you have to invest massively into heat pumps and insulation. Replacing gas in industrial processes might be impossible, certainly not replaceable with electricity alone, regardless of how that is produced.

[Iormlund]

might be a good moment to get that nucleair revival on track and replace coal, gas and oil plants with that. Provides power without having to ruin the environment by filling with windmills and solar-panels.

Agreed on getting nuclear on track, but I'm happy keeping solar and wind on track too.

Until some efficient way to store energy comes along, solar has a practical hard limit.

You need baseload sources to cover during the night (best of which is nuclear).
Solar is great to fill the gap between said base generation capacity and peak, because it's available precisely when most stuff is running ... during the day. But installing more solar than needed to fill that gap makes no sense.

Also neither solar or wind are dependable. You need to build almost a 1 to 1 backup capacity from a reliable source (coal, gas).

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, that is a big issue Zanza.  BC is a good case study - we could be 100% hydro electric but the natural gas industry has done an excellent job promoting itself as the best for hot water heaters, stove tops and heating generally.  It would take extensive retrofitting of most homes in this province before the gas could be turned off.

[Berkut]

might be a good moment to get that nucleair revival on track and replace coal, gas and oil plants with that. Provides power without having to ruin the environment by filling with windmills and solar-panels.

Agreed on getting nuclear on track, but I'm happy keeping solar and wind on track too.

Long term, solar is the answer.

I'm just not sure how long term that is.

[HVC]

I'm starting to wonder if all this blabbing about Russian activities and plans is compromising intelligence assets. 

That or someone's phone was hacked.

[Berkut]

Yeah, that is a big issue Zanza.  BC is a good case study - we could be 100% hydro electric but the natural gas industry has done an excellent job promoting itself as the best for hot water heaters, stove tops and heating generally.  It would take extensive retrofitting of most homes in this province before the gas could be turned off.

The message there should not be "Damn, this is hard....we can't do it" but "Damn, this is hard, so we should get started as soon as possible".

[The Brain]

You can't discuss energy in here. This is the war room!

[Malthus]

might be a good moment to get that nucleair revival on track and replace coal, gas and oil plants with that. Provides power without having to ruin the environment by filling with windmills and solar-panels.

Agreed on getting nuclear on track, but I'm happy keeping solar and wind on track too.

Until some efficient way to store energy comes along, solar has a practical hard limit.

You need baseload sources to cover during the night (best of which is nuclear).
Solar is great to fill the gap between said base generation capacity and peak, because it's available precisely when most stuff is running ... during the day. But installing more solar than needed to fill that gap makes no sense.

Also neither solar or wind are dependable. You need to build almost a 1 to 1 backup capacity from a reliable source (coal, gas).

This is disputed. Some claim that if your grid is diversified and the grid operator is clever, you can get away with no base load plants. Example:

http://www.energyscience.org.au/BP16%20BaseLoad.pdf

[Iormlund]

You can't discuss energy in here. This is the war room!

I'm curious. Is RL Brain anywhere close to Languish Brain when it comes to wit/humour?

[Syt]

https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-in-2008-crimea-is-not-disputed-territory-and-is-part-of-ukraine-2015-4

What a difference a few years makes. Back in 2008, in an interview on German television, Russian President Vladimir Putin upbraided his host for asking whether Moscow had any designs on Ukraine and its Crimean Peninsula.
The conversation took place soon after Moscow's military intervention in Georgia and Putin was pointedly asked whether Ukraine, and particularly Crimea, could be next.

Putin, his temper flaring, said Russia recognized all of Ukraine's borders and, he added, there was no ethnic tensions at all in Crimea -- something the Kremlin emphasized as a key reason for its 2014 forced annexation of the peninsula.

Here is the transcript from the interview:

Reporter: "The French foreign minister, Mr. Kouchner, recently expressed concern that the next conflict could be in Ukraine, more precisely in Crimea, and Sevastopol, as a base for Russia's naval fleet. Are Crimea and Sevastopol a target for Russia?"

Putin: "You said the next target. We did not have any target here, either. So I think talking about some kind of next target is inappropriate."

Reporter: "So you rule it out?"

Putin: "If you allow me to answer, you will be satisfied. [pauses] Crimea is not a disputed territory. There has been no ethnic conflict there, unlike the conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia. Russia has long recognized the borders of modern-day Ukraine. On the whole, we have completed our talks on borders. The issue of demarcation still stands, but this is just a technicality. I think questions about such goals for Russia have provocative undertones. "