Ukraine still has a whole month to implement its plan for a decisive counterattack on Kherson. Then there will be a referendum, according to the results of which the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions are likely to be reunited with Russia.

Although what am I talking about? Talk about a counterattack on Kherson turned out to be part of an information-psychological operation, in other words, another fake. 

As a highly educated person, you cannot fail to know that the idea of the collective responsibility of an entire people resonated with Adolf Hitler.

Thanks, very informative. I have read the original report and I can say that this study (and especially the conclusions from it) are highly politicized. Indeed, Russia has difficulties with the size of the positive balance of payments, but I would not dramatize this situation. After all, if your balance has become sharply positive, then someone's balance has become sharply negative. And if you have a large surplus of energy resources, then someone else has an equally large deficit. And this is a really serious problem.

However, I see three Polish names among the authors of the report, and Poland is traditionally at the forefront of European Russophobia.

I will say a few words about the "barrage of fire" tactics, which the allied forces of Russia and the LDNR used to break into the fortified areas in Avdiivka. This is an old trick from the times of the First World War, which the Russian Army masters to perfection. To use it successfully, you need good logistics, because you will need to spend a huge amount of artillery shells and multiple launch rocket systems. Russia is now spending about 5,000 tons of artillery shells per day in Ukraine on the use of a "barrage of fire" (not counting high-precision missiles). For each unarmored target in the Donbass, 300-500 shells are spent. After such artillery preparation, assault detachments with the support of armored vehicles go into battle, usually formed according to the national principle (Tuvans, Buryats, Chechens, etc.), which use their native language in radio communications, which provides additional protection against radio interception. If the assault squads meet strong resistance, they move back and artillery again works on the identified positions. Such tactics make it possible to successfully advance without numerical superiority and with minimal losses (but with an increased consumption of artillery shells).

That's why 50 or even 100 HIMARS can't turn the tide of this operation. Russia can concentrate 10-15 divisions of howitzers and MLRS on a small sector of the front, and they plow everything with cheap shells and unguided rockets. And Ukraine can oppose only 1-2 divisions, which, moreover, are forced to hide from drones and high-precision missiles. The success of the operation to liberate Donbass is not a matter of strategy or tactics, it is a matter of logistics and timing.

Of course Germany will solve this issue one way or another. But whether after that Germany will remain the locomotive and donor of the European Union - that is the question. And the answer is rather negative. For years, Germany enjoyed an abundance of cheap resources from Russia, and now it's over. It is no longer possible to resell excess gas to neighboring countries, earning more on the virtual reverse than Gazprom on gas supplies to Europe. There will be no more German industrial giants whose profits fed the poor countries of the European Union (such as the Baltics, Poland or Greece). Germany will survive, but the EU is fucked up.

If you are faced with a choice, then you need both.

I am glad that you openly express your fascist views here on the forum.

Can you provide a link to the source so that I can read the report in the original (and so that the Autobot does not ban you for plagiarism)?

Your eagerness to teach me how to do the right thing is commendable, but redundant.
You are right, Ukraine has become a victim of the pressure of external circumstances and its own stupidity. Initially a suicidal idea to build their national identity on hatred of Russia. Ukraine does not and did not have a chance to defeat Russia in a military conflict, but the US and NATO said you can, and we will help you in every possible way. It's just stupid, and now Europe has a problem of how to replace Russian gas supplies. Technically, this is the success of US diplomacy in the framework of the concept that for the collapse of Europe it is necessary to quarrel Germany and Russia. The shortsightedness of this concept is that its success creates a new cluster center of power in the world Russia - India - China, with strong influence in South America, Africa and the Middle East, and this casts doubt on the active hegemony of the United States, in alliance with Britain, with strong influence in Australia, Western Europe and Japan.

You are right and it doesn't matter if you have a separate water strategy and drinking water supply. There are too many advantages to dehydrated foods to ignore without trying to make up for the shortcomings.

Breathe deeply, you are excited. Relations between Ukraine and NATO began in 1992, when Ukraine, after gaining independence, joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. A few years later, in February 1994, Ukraine entered into a framework agreement with NATO under the Partnership for Peace initiative, followed in 2002 by the NATO Individual Partnership Plan. Between these events, in April 1999, a NATO mission opened in Kyiv. You either do not know the latest history of your own country well, or you are lying openly.

Wait a day or two, there is a delay on your cards. The village of Peski has already been completely cleared. In Artyomovsk, fighting is going on within the city, in Avdeevka, things are also going badly for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Zelensky seems to have recently called what is happening there hell.

The situation with oil in the world is quite interesting, I will try to formulate my understanding, trying not to go far beyond the boundaries of my own competence.
1. There is quite a lot of oil in the world, but it becomes more and more difficult to extract it over time. The debit of operating wells is decreasing, the percentage of water cut of produced oil is increasing, it is difficult, long and expensive to explore new fields and drill new wells. The cost of produced oil is gradually increasing - and this is a global trend.
2. Oil is different. The Brent and Ural oil grades are widely heard, but I think few people know that the Ural oil grade is not produced in the Urals (although this would be quite logical), but is obtained by mixing in a certain proportion light low-sulfur West Siberian oil and heavy high-sulfur oil from Volga region. Different refineries in the world are designed for different grades of oil and you can't just change them to another grade of oil without a dramatic loss in productivity. Moreover, from a mixture of different grades of oil, different refineries make different end products - such as gasoline, aviation kerosene, ship fuel for tankers and bulk carriers, diesel fuel, plastics, etc. And for this reason, for example, the United States, which produces the most oil in the world, still cannot refuse oil supplies from Russia, because for some types of end products it is necessary to add a certain amount of heavy oil to the input of oil refineries, which even in the current situation is easier buy everything from Russia (and this is the reason why Biden recently had to conduct humiliating negotiations for the United States in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia).

In short, it is incorrect to talk about oil in terms of the number of barrels only.

I live in Russia and can share my opinion about Western sanctions. They have not affected everyday life in any way: food, gasoline, electricity, heating, the Internet, bank cards and other things that you encounter every day - everything is available and costs about the same as six months ago. There is no reason to panic or hysteria. The biggest discomfort from the sanctions, I personally had about coffee, in the spring it has risen sharply in price by 3-4 times, and so far the price has not returned to its previous level, you have to pay about 30% more for coffee. When Western politicians said at the beginning of spring that they dropped an economic nuclear bomb on Russia and the economy was torn to shreds, it was a lie.

As for the long-term perspective, the situation is more vague. Let's wait and see, now in any region of the world it is difficult to think far ahead.

The numbers look good except for Germany. Germany's demand for gas is huge, and its gas storage facilities are just a buffer to smooth out the fluctuations in gas consumption in winter and summer. Even if Germany fills its storage facilities by 100% by November (which will be extremely difficult to do with 20% pressure in the Nord Stream), this will be enough for her for a month and a half of a moderately cold winter.

Yep. Turkey has driven itself into a difficult economic situation, primarily due to the absolutely mediocre monetary policy of its Central Bank (or even Erdogan personally, who replaced several leaders of the Central Bank who disagreed with his vision of the situation). Technically, Turkey is now experiencing hyperinflation, perhaps not galloping.

I have no illusions about Russian-Turkish friendship, because there is no other country in the world with which Russia would fight more often than with Turkey. But Erdogan's policy is respected, if only by the fact that he is trying to pursue the interests of Turkey, in contrast to the leaders of Europe, who for the most part did not give a damn about their countries and pursue the interests of the United States. If you look at the location of US military bases in Europe, then technically the EU is a territory occupied by the US.

Your understanding will become deeper and more complete if you carefully consider the idea that Biden does not really need cheap oil and cheap gasoline. Expensive oil makes shale mining profitable in the United States, and expensive gasoline makes the transition to electric cars more attractive in the eyes of Americans (which directly fits into the democratic green agenda).

Well, the Sands are taken. There are significant successes in Avdeevka and Artemovsk (Bakhmut). The counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kherson direction is again postponed, for the next year or never. The topic of Ukraine becomes boring, especially against the backdrop of another act of the Marlezon Ballet between Israel and the Gaza Strip and the growing tension around Taiwan. And Russia still does not run out of either missiles or combat Buryats.

Yep. Cherry on the cake - behind the modest name of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is one of the most powerful fleets in the world.

Russia and Turkey have historically very complicated, contradictory and interesting relations. The current head of Turkey is a vivid example of a politician who simultaneously manages to sit with one ass not even on two, but on 3-4 chairs. For example, Turkey is a NATO member and supplies attack drones to Ukraine, but at the same time refrains from sanctions against Russia and welcomes Russian tourists in every possible way at its resorts. In recent history, there was an episode with a Russian plane shot down by Turkey, and a "tomato" war, in short, everything here is very interesting, confusing and complicated.

As recently as today, Erdogan met with Putin in Sochi, the details of their conversation are unknown to me.