Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Gusington]

I would not be totally shocked if the Russians sank one or two grain ships just to prove the can sink them all if they want to.

[MengJiao]

  I think Zelinsky mentioned a couple of days ago that there was a big Russian attack that got seriously messed up.

And the Russians are back onboard with the grain deal (so what was that about?  Was there really an attack on Sevastapol at all?)

CNN:
—
Russia said Wednesday it was rejoining the agreement that guarantees safe passage for ships carrying vital grain exports from Ukraine, a move that may help ease concerns about global food supplies that were raised when Moscow suspended its participation in the pact last week.

The decision to reverse course and rejoin the agreement was announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense just days after Moscow cited drone attacks on the city of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea as the reason for its withdrawal from the deal.

"The Russian Federation considers that the guarantees received at the moment seem sufficient and resumes the implementation of the agreement," the ministry said in a statement posted on its official Telegram channel.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the Sevastopol attacks. Ukraine has not confirmed that its forces attacked the city, and the extent of the damage to Russian naval vessels remains unclear.

IRT Russia being back onboard with the grain deal:  My $0.02 on the issue is that Russia realizes that right now it can effectively interfere with the grain convoys, at least not at an unacceptable cost in terms of aircraft and ships.  While Russia could use submarines, that would risk NATO ASW assets being deployed to the AOR.  Also, a sub vs. neutral-flagged merchant ship engagement does not look good from an international political POV.  Given that Russia is unwilling to sink the merchant ships, it might as well take credit for allowing them to continue unmolested to feed the starving in Africa and the Middle East.

  As generally accepted in laws of the sea, the Russians cannot legally sink any ships at all since they haven't declared war on anyone.  Moreover, most of the Black Sea is international waters so
to interfere with any shipping they would have to declare war AND declare a blockade -- note that Turkey in closing the straits to the Russians has declared a de facto state of war to exist...but if the
Russians started just sinking ships, it would trigger a legal state of war and cause a lot of routine UN actions that would be mostly bad for Russia.  I think the real function of the Russian verbiage about the
grain shipping is about all they can do diplomatically at the moment and doesn't reflect any serious intent to sink any ships or trigger a legal state of war.

  This does make one wonder about what really happened with the drones at Sevastapol.

[Dammit Carl!]

Don't disagree but shit'll get wacky if they do (in a bad way).

[Sir Slash]

The Russians are not invaders. They're, 'De-Nazification Specialists'.  :P  Why not sink a few grain ships and claim it was the same drones that attacked Sebastopol? Stalin would have.

[Tripoli]

  I think Zelinsky mentioned a couple of days ago that there was a big Russian attack that got seriously messed up.

And the Russians are back onboard with the grain deal (so what was that about?  Was there really an attack on Sevastapol at all?)

CNN:
—
Russia said Wednesday it was rejoining the agreement that guarantees safe passage for ships carrying vital grain exports from Ukraine, a move that may help ease concerns about global food supplies that were raised when Moscow suspended its participation in the pact last week.

The decision to reverse course and rejoin the agreement was announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense just days after Moscow cited drone attacks on the city of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea as the reason for its withdrawal from the deal.

"The Russian Federation considers that the guarantees received at the moment seem sufficient and resumes the implementation of the agreement," the ministry said in a statement posted on its official Telegram channel.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the Sevastopol attacks. Ukraine has not confirmed that its forces attacked the city, and the extent of the damage to Russian naval vessels remains unclear.

IRT Russia being back onboard with the grain deal:  My $0.02 on the issue is that Russia realizes that right now it can effectively interfere with the grain convoys, at least not at an unacceptable cost in terms of aircraft and ships.  While Russia could use submarines, that would risk NATO ASW assets being deployed to the AOR.  Also, a sub vs. neutral-flagged merchant ship engagement does not look good from an international political POV.  Given that Russia is unwilling to sink the merchant ships, it might as well take credit for allowing them to continue unmolested to feed the starving in Africa and the Middle East.

  As generally accepted in laws of the sea, the Russians cannot legally sink any ships at all since they haven't declared war on anyone.  Moreover, most of the Black Sea is international waters so
to interfere with any shipping they would have to declare war AND declare a blockade -- note that Turkey in closing the straits to the Russians has declared a de facto state of war to exist...but if the
Russians started just sinking ships, it would trigger a legal state of war and cause a lot of routine UN actions that would be mostly bad for Russia.  I think the real function of the Russian verbiage about the
grain shipping is about all they can do diplomatically at the moment and doesn't reflect any serious intent to sink any ships or trigger a legal state of war.

  This does make one wonder about what really happened with the drones at Sevastapol.

While I agree that legal niceties may prevent the Russians from sinking ships directly, they haven't been too careful about such nuances as international law in the past few months.  ;)  Further, there is always the deniability angle, ie, "we were shooting at Nazi warships , and those merchants got in the way."  There is also mine warfare,  which layers in an entirely new level of deniability. Simply by "accidentally" sinking or damaging some merchants, they may make in risky or impossible for merchants to find crew or insurance to sail in the Black Sea, effectively imposing a blockade without the necessity of damaging too many ships..   But I agree with your larger point: The Russians don't have the military capability to enforce a blockade, at least not at a cost that they are willing to pay.  The real lesson here is that if you stare down a bully (and have the means to back yourself up), they will usually slink away....

[Crossroads]

While I agree that legal niceties may prevent the Russians from sinking ships directly, they haven't been too careful about such nuances as international law in the past few months.  ;)  Further, there is always the deniability angle, ie, "we were shooting at Nazi warships , and those merchants got in the way."  There is also mine warfare,  which layers in an entirely new level of deniability. Simply by "accidentally" sinking or damaging some merchants, they may make in risky or impossible for merchants to find crew or insurance to sail in the Black Sea, effectively imposing a blockade without the necessity of damaging too many ships..   But I agree with your larger point: The Russians don't have the military capability to enforce a blockade, at least not at a cost that they are willing to pay.  The real lesson here is that if you stare down a bully (and have the means to back yourself up), they will usually slink away....

But they'd not need to get directly involved even, would they. First release a few mines from a submarine within the international shipping lines then do your best Fawlty Towers "I know nothin" impression  :(

No civilian ship would enter mined waters until an all clear would be declared.

I recall there was at least one mine incident as in mine(s) spotted earlier this spring?

[JasonPratt]

Wait, who exactly released the drone footage at water's level in the harbor going after ships, then? And how did whoever that was, get that footage?  ???

[MengJiao]

While I agree that legal niceties may prevent the Russians from sinking ships directly, they haven't been too careful about such nuances as international law in the past few months.  ;)  Further, there is always the deniability angle, ie, "we were shooting at Nazi warships , and those merchants got in the way."  There is also mine warfare,  which layers in an entirely new level of deniability. Simply by "accidentally" sinking or damaging some merchants, they may make in risky or impossible for merchants to find crew or insurance to sail in the Black Sea, effectively imposing a blockade without the necessity of damaging too many ships..   But I agree with your larger point: The Russians don't have the military capability to enforce a blockade, at least not at a cost that they are willing to pay.  The real lesson here is that if you stare down a bully (and have the means to back yourself up), they will usually slink away....

But they'd not need to get directly involved even, would they. First release a few mines from a submarine within the international shipping lines then do your best Fawlty Towers "I know nothin" impression  :(

No civilian ship would enter mined waters until an all clear would be declared.

I recall there was at least one mine incident as in mine(s) spotted earlier this spring?

  I really don't think the Russians want to open the cans of worms involved in sinking ships.  The international community could legally mobilize to protect neutral shipping and effectively close the
Black Sea to any Russian messing around.  Hence the grain ships can sail and the Russians can hope to get some kind of guanantees that their stuff isn't going to be blown up all the time in the Black Sea.  On the other hand its all legally pretty much a win-win for the Ukrainians since the Russians are shooting missiles from all over the place so any hits anywhere on any Russian assets are fair game no matter what goes on with grain ships.

[MengJiao]

Wait, who exactly released the drone footage at water's level in the harbor going after ships, then? And how did whoever that was, get that footage?  ???

  Some journalist released the footage.  Ukraine has not said they did the attack.  The Russians blame the Anglo-Saxons for that kind of thing and have summoned the ambassador of the United Kingdom to
explain.  So there you go.  Maybe it was some other migration era tribe -- the Goths?  The Alans?  Even the Avars? or any tribe with Canadian engines -- the Kwaikiult?  The Haida?  The Tsimshin?

[ArizonaTank]

Wait, who exactly released the drone footage at water's level in the harbor going after ships, then? And how did whoever that was, get that footage?  ???

The Russians blame the Anglo-Saxons for that kind of thing and have summoned the ambassador of the United Kingdom to
explain. 

Wow! News of Hastings sure travels slow.

[MengJiao]

Wait, who exactly released the drone footage at water's level in the harbor going after ships, then? And how did whoever that was, get that footage?  ???

The Russians blame the Anglo-Saxons for that kind of thing and have summoned the ambassador of the United Kingdom to
explain. 

Wow! News of Hastings sure travels slow.

  It doesn't take a Plantagenet to put a bomb in a boat?

   
England King of England
Kingdom of France King of France (claim)
Holy Roman Empire King of the Romans (titular)
Sicily King of Sicily (claim)
Lordship of Ireland Lord of Ireland
Cyprus Lord of Cyprus
Prince of Wales
Aquitaine Duke of Aquitaine
Normandy Duke of Normandy
Brittany Duke of Brittany
Gascony Duke of Gascony
Cornwall Duke of Cornwall
Gloucestershire Duke of Gloucester
Duke of Clarence
Duke of Aumale
Duchy of Anjou Count of Anjou
Count of Maine
Manche Count of Mortain
Nantes Count of Nantes
Poitou Count of Poitou
Buckinghamshire Earl of Buckingham
Cornwall Earl of Cornwall
Earl of Chester
Essex Earl of Essex
Ulster Earl of Ulster
Norfolk Earl of Norfolk
Kent Earl of Kent
Earl of Lancaster
Earl of Leicester
Earl of Salisbury
Earl of Richmond
Mister Bomb-in-a-Boat

[FarAway Sooner]

Sir Slash hinted at it, but you guys are overlooking the most obvious explanation if the Russians were to attack any ships:  It's not the boats or the crews that they were attacking, but simply the demonstrably Nazi grain inside the ships that was their target.  Thus, no need for a declaration of war (grain isn't a country!), no need to get third parties involved, and they can continue with their ongoing "special deNazification action".

O0

[GDS_Starfury]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1587826317654982657

[MengJiao]

Sir Slash hinted at it, but you guys are overlooking the most obvious explanation if the Russians were to attack any ships:  It's not the boats or the crews that they were attacking, but simply the demonstrably Nazi grain inside the ships that was their target.  Thus, no need for a declaration of war (grain isn't a country!), no need to get third parties involved, and they can continue with their ongoing "special deNazification action".

O0

  And the Russians would like to sell their grain and fertilizers too!  They have immense amounts they can't sell  (I guess all you could tell them would be -- stop attacking Ukraine and you can sell your stuff):

(from the Guardian):

Russia has urged the United Nations, which sponsored a deal to free Ukraine's grain shipments from a Russian blockade of its Black Sea ports, to help fulfil the parts of the deal intended to ease Russia's food and fertiliser exports.

The arrangement is due to expire on 19 November, and Reuters reports Moscow has made clear it does not believe enough has been done to ensure it can export its own huge food and fertiliser output despite the barrage of western sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

"We still do not see any results regarding a second aspect: the removal of obstacles to the export of Russian fertilisers and grain," the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told a news conference in Amman, Jordan.

"We have once again called on the United Nations secretary general to ensure that he fulfils the obligations he agreed to through his own initiative," Lavrov added. He said the situation needed to be resolved "in the very near future".

"If we're talking about the volumes of fertilisers and grain in question, then these volumes from the Russian side are incomparably higher than from the Ukrainian side."

[JasonPratt]

I've been more-or-less out sick with a head cold, so I haven't had a chance until this morning to post a link to Volodymyr Ishchenko's opinion article in Al Jazeera (via MSN) back on October 26th. Seems relevant to Russia's grain/fertilizer export pleas. (Which admittedly also have an important need outside Russia.)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-military-keynesianism/ar-AA13oHZN?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=6363b79846674708a388e21de1051a61

The short version is that Russia could, theoretically, use the logistic demand created by its semi-mobilization to bootstrap its economy and thereby provide something like stability and growth for Russian people, as an alternative to Putin doing something drastic like tac-nuking a Ukrainian area to show off his strength.

This would of course require economic capability: my view (I think maybe with general consensus here) has been that Russia is still not ready to deal with even the logistic requirements of its forces in the field (such as they are, even reduced by losses), much less the strain involved by their even-partial mobilization efforts. And that was BEFORE the sanctions -- which have not improved Putin's capabilities.

Stalin at least had the supervillanous foresight to institute his ruthless "socialism in one nation" plan for hyper-industrialization first, before getting into a(nother) shooting war. He practically killed the Soviet Union doing it, and he oriented it in a way that supported his goals yet left him vulnerable to Hitler kicking him repeatedly in the balls first (so to speak), but he did get it done. Putin has done everything back-asswards: so I doubt this plan will work.

But it's still a plan, which is ahead of where he was originally!  ::)

Step one: piss off the Cossacks beyond rational comprehension
Step two: prepare to survive pissing off the Cossacks
Step three: ??
Step four: ....profit?