Ukrainian Defensive War against the Russian Invasion - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

[TJT]

Tom Luongo and friends talking about the European War Footing. Interesting listen.

https://tomluongo.me/2025/03/16/podcast-episode-209-martin-armstrong-and-the-european-war-mentality/

 

[Ghostse]

Macron's brave, big boy talk about troops in Ukraine seems to have collapsed to the cuckoldry of UN Peacekeepers from Ukraine. Apparently Antonio Guterres, the UN Sec Gen was at this EU Summit and he'd be glad to facilitate his pal Putin. UN Peacekeepers have a very mixed record. Srebrenica is an example of their performance from the region. The main EU leaders seem very wary of sending their own to Ukraine. Perhaps the strategy is to kill Putin by making him laugh too hard. Trump's idea that US workers and security as a security guarantee of sorts isn't too strong, given that Putin could give the US access to occupied territory (and the US is afraid to do much unless Israel is in danger), but Macron doesn't impress when it comes to cold, hard reality. He's even too afraid to sort out pro Russian dictators who overthrow French aligned governments in Francophone West Africa with a smart deployment of the Foreign Legion, something his predecessors had no fear doing.

archive - Daily Telegraph / original (subscription needed)

aaaaaaand there it is. The Euro infighting. I thought they might wait until boots were on the ground before devolving into slapfighting but nope, they went full Euro in record time.

Jesus christ fucking Eurocucks cannot even unite under the banner of "Orange Man Bad" when it comes to actually coordinating and doing things that are not just sending strongly worded letters.
This would have been the prefect time for the EU to unite, show Trump that they aren't just a bunch of squabbling charity cases, and provide a solid rebuttal of "The rest of NATO is worthless" while also dealing with their greatest threat and showing a strong front. Instead, we get a perfect demonstration of why Putin thought knew he could get away with it.

"The UK, Canada, US and Turkey are currently shut out of plans to encourage members to “buy European” at this stage, but that could change in future defence pacts with the bloc.

Sources in Brussels suggested that France was behind the decision to exclude the UK for the time being, with at least one eye to looming EU negotiations over continued access to British fishing waters."

Amazing, well done France. Yes, this is absolutely the perfect time to bring back up your petty blood feud with the Anglos.

Italy, France and pro-Putin Slovakia are reportedly looking to water down a plan to send €40 billion military aid to Ukraine by the end of the year because it links the military contributions to the size of states’ economies.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, said she would focus on securing agreement for a more limited plan to send 2 million shells worth €5 billion as a first “concrete” step.

40 billion down to 5 billion in less than 3 weeks.

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister has said he will not send soldiers to Ukraine.

I want you to imagine there sit the Poles, given a golden ticket to monitor a peace Russia will have no interest in upholding and thus very high odds of being allowed to kill Russian, and they refuse to commit troops such is their dislike of the Yooks.

---

If you believe the economists and finance people talking about the conflict the EU desperately needs to succeed in Ukraine. Success being measured in how much the Western nations can successfully take out of Ukraine. Much like in prior centuries conquest was the surefire way to inject new capital into your markets. Russian sanctions have had an inverse effect on the EU not only due to the inability of buying cheap Russian energy but the novel strategy of simply seizing Russian sovereign assets abroad has had huge implications in the global markets.

One of those being London losing its 200+ year monopoly on insurance and aspects of the shipping trade. While I understand that West Europe has devolved into a service economy much like the US. I don't really understand what would truly happen if the London finance market just kind of imploded. The UK is already the champion when it comes to speedrunning the destruction of a centuries old empire. A hundred years ago today the UK had the largest and most dominant naval fleet in the world.

People tend to forget what kicked all this off was Ol' Yakkitysax taking his resources to the EU markets, getting smacked by Putin, and trying to reverse course and that reversal getting him overthrown.

Re: Legality of seizing Russian assets, that's always been a sticky issue and why I never went hard on Biden for not doing more to impound Russian finance - he/his state department did as much as they reasonably could as quickly as they could. Europe went a little harder on that front and that's going to cast the impartiality of Euro finance into question. The US had to go through and prove their work.
All of this made that much harder by the fact that Russia and Ukraine are not, legally speaking, in a state of war.
Which is also the issue at the heart of why shutting down the Russian "Shadow Fleet" is so difficult.

Re: London Insurability I think its a little early to declare them losing their monopoly. Russia is hardly engaging in equitable trade with the recipients of their rusting tankers. But the fact that foreign ports aren't turning away the ships no matter the gain is concerning to say the least.

I mean the "shadow fleet" should be impounded just for violating international safety standards.

God clown world sucks so much.

Another means through which Trump's pro-Russian MAGA movement aids the Russian government is that their slavish submission to Putin creates confidence in a profitable (for Russia) end to the war, which makes it significantly cheaper for the Russians to borrow money.
The yearly yield for OFZ bonds was 17.4% in early February, now it is down to 14.5%.

Yes clearly orange man bad letting Russia save 3% on their bonds is definitely in the same league to the 60 billion Europe sends Russia for gas & oil.
If that makes Trump Putin's Servant what sort of gimp-suited slave does that make Merz/Scholz, Macron, Starmer, et al?

 

[TJT]

Re: London Insurability I think its a little early to declare them losing their monopoly. Russia is hardly engaging in equitable trade with the recipients of their rusting tankers. But the fact that foreign ports aren't turning away the ships no matter the gain is concerning to say the least.

You misunderstand here. It isn't Russia that Lloyds of London lost their monopoly to. The implications of global seizures caused China, India, Russia, and other nations to simply open their own domestic industries for this service.

For nearly 250 years Lloyds was the only game in town. That just isn't the case anymore.

 

[World in Scarlet]

On the night of March 21, the Sudzha gas metering station in the Kursk region caught fire. Russian gas was exported to European countries through the station. Russian Z channels claimed that the strike was carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). "Something very serious has arrived. It was as bright as day," wrote "Archangel Spetsnaz." The fiery torch could be seen tens of kilometers from the explosion site, confirmed Z military correspondent Yuriy Kotenok. According to the Telegram channel "Two Majors," the station was destroyed as a result of the strike. "It is significant that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky in a recent dialogue with [US President Donald] Trump stated his agreement on the issue of stopping strikes on energy infrastructure," the channel's author noted.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine rejected the accusations of a strike on a gas metering station in the Kursk region and called them an attempt to discredit the Ukrainian army amid negotiations to stop strikes on energy facilities. "Today, the enemy has already intensified its planned destructive information impact with another provocation - it fired at this facility with artillery," the Ukrainian General Staff noted. They also recalled that in the summer of 2024, the Russian army hit the station with guided aerial bombs.

link

Trump administration extends Gazprombank sanctions exemption for Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey

The US has agreed to extend the exemption from sanctions imposed against Russia's Gazprombank, allowing Hungary to make payments for Russian gas through it until May, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said.
Turkey and Slovakia also received a similar exemption from the sanctions against Gazprombank, which will allow companies from these countries to continue paying for Russian gas imports through this bank, Reuters reports, citing sources.
The current exemption from sanctions against Gazprombank for these three countries expired on March 20.

link

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Aftermath of Engels attack:

Before:

After:


link

 

[East_Clintwood]

Speaking of the OICW, everyone i knew who used them in anger said the XM25 was really good, just it was a little heavy, you needed stupid moon batteries, and towards the end sourcing ammo was difficult.

Good news, the XM25 is kinda back, and in POG PGS (Precision Grenadier System) form. There's currently two entries remaining, Barrett's SSRS:

and FN's PGS-001:

Still kinda heavy, but this time rocking 30mm 'nades which should be more effective, assuming they actually work, and Barrett at least is promising multiple different types (again assuming they actually work)

 

[National Defense Advocate]

So the energy Ceasefire isn't even real, right?
Russia immediately attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure after the call, Ukraine retaliated, now a gas line in Sudzah blew up.
Will Trump accept Putin lying to his face? Only time will tell.

 

[ToEnsureVerification]

So the energy Ceasefire isn't even real, right?

It really speaks to the major levels of disinformation we are all experiencing that there's doubt if a ceasefire ever existed. But since a ceasefire cannot be declared unilaterally then yeah, it probably didn't ever exist.

Will Trump accept Putin lying to his face? Only time will tell.

I'm sure Trump will be outraged and will bring Fire and Fury only to the enemies of the State of Israel, who we all love.

 

[No. 7 cat]

So the energy Ceasefire isn't even real, right?
Russia immediately attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure after the call, Ukraine retaliated, now a gas line in Sudzah blew up.
Will Trump accept Putin lying to his face? Only time will tell.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-military-accuses-ukrainian-army-blowing-up-sudzha-gas-facility-during-2025-03-21/

The Ukrainians are saying Sudza was a false flag that Russia shelled. Russia says not.

 

[teriyakiburns]

The Ukrainians are saying Sudza was a false flag that Russia shelled. Russia says not.

Russia dropping false-flag artillery to justify a continuation of a war of conquest is something that has never happened ever in the history of ever.

 

[Ghostse]

So the energy Ceasefire isn't even real, right?
Russia immediately attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure after the call, Ukraine retaliated, now a gas line in Sudzah blew up.
Will Trump accept Putin lying to his face? Only time will tell.

It really speaks to the major levels of disinformation we are all experiencing that there's doubt if a ceasefire ever existed. But since a ceasefire cannot be declared unilaterally then yeah, it probably didn't ever exist.

I tried to comb through the shouting earlier in the week, what I understood was:

Zelensky has agreed (in principal) to full ceasefire for 30 days - basically "you get Russia to agree and we're in".
After a call between Trump and Putin, Putin agreed to sign a 30-day limited ceasefire covering only energy infrastructure (and a few other non-military targets away from the front) but provided a verbal commitment he would sign/abide. Zelensky has said he also finds the proposal acceptable, but I don't think any official signing date was set.
Thus both sides have agreed/committed to a limited ceasefire, but no official ceasefire has actually been signed - but not every ceasefire needs to official or signed, some are just verbal commitments from both sides, I haven't seen if this one was expected to have an official signing or not because reporters on all sides are absolute fucking garbage.

About two hours after the call with Putin ended, a massed Russian drone swarm enters Ukraine and attacks Ukraine energy infrastructure. This WOULD be a ceasefire violation had the ceasefire been signed/official but as far as I can tell it was not in force at the time (but its a massive dick move; Russia also claims it launched the strike before the call, which is bunk and I believe has been conclusively proven so.)

Ukraine in response blows up an ammo dump at a Russian strategic bomber airbase; this would NOT violate the ceasefire in any manner.

So from my understanding the ceasefire is not yet in place, but these strikes on energy strikes could be used by one side or the other to claim the other side won't respect the ceasefire and back out.


.

You misunderstand here. It isn't Russia that Lloyds of London lost their monopoly to. The implications of global seizures caused China, India, Russia, and other nations to simply open their own domestic industries for this service.

For nearly 250 years Lloyds was the only game in town. That just isn't the case anymore.

They weren't, there were other players, but they were only in play because Lloyds let them. Port owning nations would turn ships away that weren't properly insured, port facilities would refuse to touch their cargo.

Again, I think its premature to declare the suprmacy over - the insurance on those ships is absolute shit-tier and flimsy as a post-it in a promnight virgin's panties, and all that needs to happen is for a couple of ships to have accidents for those holding companies to be shown as little more than shells and everyone gets a reminder of "Oh yeah.... that's right, that's why everyone used the same company for hundreds of years"

The reason India/China permit this to happen and aren't turning back vessels is because how much money they stand to make importing and laundering Russia crude. If they were not given access to such largess, if this was equal trade, they wouldn't be permitting it.

Good news, the XM25 is kinda back, and in POG PGS (Precision Grenadier System) form. There's currently two entries remaining, Barrett's SSRS:

Well, at least there's some good news

 

[NKVD qt]

Good news, the XM25 is kinda back, and in POG PGS (Precision Grenadier System) form. There's currently two entries remaining, Barrett's SSRS:
View attachment 7119280
and FN's PGS-001:
View attachment 7119281
Still kinda heavy, but this time rocking 30mm 'nades which should be more effective, assuming they actually work, and Barrett at least is promising multiple different types (again assuming they actually work)

The Chinese also have the QLU 11 though it looks heavier and clumsier.

 

[No. 7 cat]

So from my understanding the ceasefire is not yet in place, but these strikes on energy strikes could be used by one side or the other to claim the other side won't respect the ceasefire and back out.

source

POTUS thinks there's a limited ceasefire. I certainly don't see how that's the case, what with the immediate Russian violation and Ukraine's response.

 

[Ghostse]

View attachment 7120586

source

POTUS thinks there's a limited ceasefire. I certainly don't see how that's the case, what with the immediate Russian violation and Ukraine's response.

Ukraine blowing up Engels was not a ceasefire violation - Engels was a military target and as Russia didn't want a full ceasefire was valid to attack.

Now if Ukraine blew up Sudza, that would (I think) be a ceasefire violation. Maybe. No one has published the terms but IIRC the Russian side wanted an exemption for things within X miles of the front so it might still be ok?
But Ukraine is claiming they did not and Russia blew it up - so I have no fucking clue what happens because I don't think there was an official document.

Trump also puffing up a "pending" agreement into an actual ceasefire is completely in line with Trump boasting. I don't think any one knows, and I don't think anyone actually cares.

Anyway, I think by lasting something like an hour or something before the Russian drones started exploding after Putin hung up, we can agree the ceasefire lasted longer than any of us expected it to.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

Good news, the XM25 is kinda back, and in POG PGS (Precision Grenadier System) form. There's currently two entries remaining, Barrett's SSRS:
View attachment 7119280
and FN's PGS-001:
View attachment 7119281
Still kinda heavy, but this time rocking 30mm 'nades which should be more effective, assuming they actually work, and Barrett at least is promising multiple different types (again assuming they actually work)

Wasn't there already a grenade launcher that resulted from this program way back? And from what I heard troops loved it.

As for the ceasefire, I don't remember seeing anything being officially agreed upon, which I would think requires signing some kinda document by both sides at least. You can't just go "Yeah we talked it out, it's totally a thing now" - pretty sure that's not how this works.

 

[Tactical Wizard]

Wasn't there already a grenade launcher that resulted from this program way back? And from what I heard troops loved it.

As for the ceasefire, I don't remember seeing anything being officially agreed upon, which I would think requires signing some kinda document by both sides at least. You can't just go "Yeah we talked it out, it's totally a thing now" - pretty sure that's not how this works.

It was chambered in 25mm which, under the Geneva Conventions, makes it an explosive bullet and not a grenade and the use of explosive bullets is a war crime. So, they got fielded and they were awesome and then someone at the pentagon went "Wait, they chambered it in WHAT?" and they got pulled from arms rooms across the army and everyone pretended that it didn't happen.

 

[MG-34]

It was chambered in 25mm which, under the Geneva Conventions, makes it an explosive bullet and not a grenade and the use of explosive bullets is a war crime. So, they got fielded and they were awesome and then someone at the pentagon went "Wait, they chambered it in WHAT?" and they got pulled from arms rooms across the army and everyone pretended that it didn't happen.

Total bullshit. 20mm high explosive.

 

[Type 10 MBT]

It was chambered in 25mm which, under the Geneva Conventions, makes it an explosive bullet and not a grenade and the use of explosive bullets is a war crime. So, they got fielded and they were awesome and then someone at the pentagon went "Wait, they chambered it in WHAT?" and they got pulled from arms rooms across the army and everyone pretended that it didn't happen.

The XM25 wasn't shelved due to the Geneva Convention nor was it adopted in large numbers just to be pulled. The reason the XM25 was scrapped was because of legal issues, funding cuts and H&K and Orbital ATK having a legal battle over damages. The reason for said legal battle was because Germany was one of the original member countries that signed the Saint Peters-burg Declaration of 1868, an antiquated but still around agreement that explosive projectiles weighing below 400 grams of weight couldn't be used as multiple nations were designing explosive musket balls which resulted in neigh-unrecoverable wounds. The U.S notably never signed this however H&K, being German, formerly Prussia, signed it and thus was delaying the production and delivery of more XM25 units until they knew it wasn't a violation of said agreement. H&K wanted the U.S to file for a special certification which they never did. H&K never delivered to Orbital so Orbital never delivered to the U.S military so they canceled the contract. This was after years of funding cuts, safety concerns and internal pressure from the pentagon to make a decision about production or cancellation. The reason why the XM25 was "pulled from arms rooms across the army" was because of a misfire incident in Afghanistan which raised numerous safety concerns. At that time it was in field testing, wasn't in production and was only in Afghanistan and a few facilities in the U.S army, not really "across" many arms rooms. The XM25 "lives on" today because the U.S government filed a suit against Orbital ATK for the I.P rights to the weapon system and ammo. The contract was cancelled in 2017 and then the program itself was shuttered in 2018. The weapon was already on it's way out and was cut because there was no defined future for the system. This was also around the time the U.S army was pouring money in to a new Squad Weapon program which would lead to the XM7 being selected over GD and Textron Systems.

 

[オプセック]

The reason for said legal battle was because Germany was one of the original member countries that signed the Saint Peters-burg Declaration of 1868, an antiquated but still around agreement that explosive projectiles weighing below 400 grams of weight couldn't be used as multiple nations were designing explosive musket balls which resulted in neigh-unrecoverable wounds.

Huh, that's the reason... I also wondered about the disappearance of these 30mm, rapid fire nade launchers and made a thread,
feel free to sperg moar, if you feel like it. But does that mean Germany doesn't operate anti material rifles with HE rounds either?

Spergout on Smart Ammunition​

 

[Type 10 MBT]

Huh, that's the reason... I also wondered about the disappearance of these 30mm, rapid fire nade launchers and made a thread,
feel free to sperg moar, if you feel like it. But does that mean Germany doesn't operate anti material rifles with HE rounds either?

Germany currently only operates one that being the G82A1 which is a license produced and modified barrett M82 .50 Caliber rifle. By most standards it is anti-materiel and could take the HEIAP round but I don't believe the Bundeswehr use those rounds as the G82 was brought in to German service as a means to extend the range of their marksmen and less so as a true anti-materiel weapon. If they do, it's likely they asked the German government for an allowance which is possible to obtain if there's a good enough reason. Outside of that, any large caliber gun that has an HE-like round is usually mounted to a vehicle therefore the declaration doesn't apply. The XM25 was something of a limited niche that just so happened to be limited by a treaty that most people don't even realise exists. With next to no HE rounds made for service rifles from the adoption of the cartridge through to today (of course with a few exceptions) in pretty much the whole world, the declaration sort of lied in wait until it could bite the XM25 in the ass.

TLDR: Theoretically one, in practice? Unlikely.

 

[ToEnsureVerification]

I really like to drink my coffee, check this thread for updates on the Ukraine Defensive War against the Russian invasion and be met with off-topic Gun Autism about grenade launcher prototypes that haven't even been used in the war. Keep it up.

As for the ceasefire, I don't remember seeing anything being officially agreed upon, which I would think requires signing some kinda document by both sides at least. You can't just go "Yeah we talked it out, it's totally a thing now" - pretty sure that's not how this works.

It's really weird. I don't want to go "Oh, the Tzar doesn't know! The Boyars hide information from him" but it legitimately seems like Trump is getting reports that are very distorted. (Or to be very charitable (and not get accused of TDS), perhaps he has more intel than us and knows more).

But yeah, We have like 4 different realities being pushed forward; What Ukraine, Russia, the US say, and what we can piece out from the reports by the most "neutral" people.

More Stratfor glowie opinions. I don't cosign everything Peter says, but it's safe to say his views cover an important part of what many people working in the Federal Government might think. (He was given a guided tour of the CIA facilities fyi)