Posted on 05/01/2024 9:02:51 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Russia has no warships deployed in the Black Sea at present, Ukraine's Navy said on Wednesday, shortly after Moscow said Kyiv had attacked annexed Crimea with U.S.-supplied missiles—using Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS.
Ukraine's military didn't detect Russian warships in the Black and Azov Seas on Wednesday morning. "In the Black and Azov Seas [the] enemy ships are missing," the press service of the Ukrainian Navy said.
Kyiv has targeted Russia's Black Sea Fleet throughout President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of the country, which began in February 2022. Ukraine has vowed to reverse the Russian leader's 2014 annexation of Crimea, which now serves as Moscow's central logistics hub for its forces in southern Ukraine.
Russia appears to have relocated some of its prized Black Sea Fleet vessels from its port in Crimea to avoid further losses following successful Ukrainian drone and cruise missile strikes.
Satellite images from last October showed that Russia's Fleet was fleeing from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia as Ukraine targeted Moscow's vessels. Ships were also heading to the Russian naval port in Feodosia further east on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
More recent satellite images, from last month, shared by open source intelligence OSINT researcher MT Anderson, appear to show that the Black Sea Fleet has largely abandoned its major Crimean naval bases.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I’m not that worried about Russia per se. China is a much greater threat, IF it decides to lose its (by far) biggest customers. That seems somewhat unlikely, but can’t be ruled out.
General insecurity and the reaction to it is another matter. A well armed Europe (think Poland in a few years, X2) is, with time, very likely the most dangerous region on Earth.
They’re not Zeepers, much more insidious.
A fellow Freeper pointed out this article to me:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4233879/posts
CIA sponsored Ukrainian Troll is more accurate.
I felt foolish responding to their propaganda as it is clearly written by an ESL, (English as a second language) tool.
My advice is to save your breath, and give this Warpig diminishing returns on his investment here.
I’m here to laugh at them 😂
The find-an-opening is a really big ask given the current and probable short term future technology. Yes, it can be done, but not in the miniature scale required to mount it on a seagull sized (or anywhere close) drone. But given the rate of technical development it would occur within ten to fifteen years. You’re dead right about the entrenched interests. Big, expensive systems generate big profits and tiny, inexpensive systems aren’t wanted by the military, to whom the bigger the budget the higher the rank, or industry.
100% agree!
Russia is a “has-been” that ruffles their feathers to look bigger than they actually are. We are the ones pushing on them and making them out as some big threat they actually are not.
Russia can push back, they aren’t some chump like like we’re used to pushing around, but they are not an equal to us or China. China once bought or licensed produced Russian designed hardware. Today, China develops their own and is bigger than Russia, with Russia depending on them for componenets to build some of their hardware. China is many TIMES larger industrially, in GDP and PPP than Russia.
Our real only peer today: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/China-Military-Budget-Graphic.png?x85095 Rest of article: https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/setting-the-record-straight-on-beijings-actual-military-spending/ China is actively trying to downplay.
China is an emerging threat trying to downplay what a monster they have become and we don’t want to see, hear or speak any evil about China in political circles. The truth is known to anyone familiar with the topic. However, China is economically very important for us: where much of our manufacturing base is, they hold onto US securities and are a major market for US goods and services.
If you want to see the power of China, just look at how they snubbed Blinken on his last visit. Blinken went to China to discuss their cooperation with Russia, and China didn’t roll out a red carpet, didn’t have any representative there to see him off, and made sure to be overheard asking “how long will he stay?” China cares very little about our threats because they know they have just as much leverage over us, as we have over them. With a war we are financing, high inflation, an economy that is so-so despite glorious BS government reports and a media printing them unquestioned, do we really want to start a trade war with China? No. Blinken went to China to push them to back off helping Russia, and all he got was a Chinese humiliation: https://www.newsweek.com/did-china-humiliate-antony-blinken-1894989 It’s even worse than our media tells.
It is China that has newer 5th gen fighters, a newer generation tank (Russia is rebranding old T-72s), putting a 4th carrier (domestic designed and built) into the sea, has more military man power than us, is massively moderizing its forces and developing weapon systems directly designed to counter our strategic force projection capabilities: https://news.usni.org/2021/11/07/china-builds-missile-targets-shaped-like-u-s-aircraft-carrier-destroyers-in-remote-desert / Designed to overcome much of our stealth capabilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HQ-22 (B2, F22, F35)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-20 and has >260 of them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_99_tank and has >1,200 of these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_programme
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army Is roughly 1.3 times our size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-21 What is the only real purpose for these? Go after our carriers.
While we are beating up a smaller kid on the playground who once was a big kid (Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact), we are willfully pretending away that another kid who has grown to challenge us. But eventually the ignoring and pretending won’t work.
China understands that the underwriter of any foreign policy is your military, that we post 1991 have become quick to use force. Their military moderization and growth is to challenge us, period. China is the real reason why you see Japan coming out of the post WWII cocoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=pQKK5tgUzuo
Our relationship with China: https://dyeco.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/HeadinSand.jpg
That is a photoshopped picture.
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