If Ukraine alone can kill and wound hundreds of thousands of Russian troops it isnt hard to figure out what NATO would do to them.
Russians : ,,Sanctions are inefficient'' Gazprom posts first annual loss in 20 years The Russian state-owned energy company has struggled after losing revenues from Europe. Alfie Shaw May 3, 2024 Gazprom last made an annual loss in the early 2000s. Credit: Stas Knop/Shutterstock. Gazprom has posted its biggest losses in at least a quarter of a century after gas sales more than halved since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022. The Russian state-owned energy giant made a loss of Rbs629bn ($6.9bn) in 2023, after declining sales in Europe led to an almost 30% fall in revenue to Rbs8.5trn, according to the Financial Times (FT). Gas sales dropped from Rbs8.4trn to Rbs4.1trn. Gazprom’s Moscow-listed shares fell more than 4.4% on the news, with analysts telling the FT that the company had failed to adapt to losing the EU market. Revenues from gas sales outside of Russia fell from Rbs7.3trn in 2022 to Rbs2.9trn in 2023. As Europe has sought out alternative energy sources, it has reduced Russia’s share of its gas imports from 40% in 2021 to 8% in 2023, according to EU data. https://www.offshore-technology.com/news/gazprom-posts-first-financial-loss-in-20-years/ Russians : ,, It's because of smoking ''
Biden is not fighting the war, Putin does. 35,000 number comes from Hamas and have 0 credibility. But yes human toll is big unfortunately.
This is a reminder that the U.N. states the Hamas Health Ministry numbers have NO CREDIBILITY. Furthermore, at least half of the deaths are of Hamas militants actively attacking the IDF. The U.N. states that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry has been completely lying about Palestinian casualties in Gaza. This should not surprise any rational person. United Nations Reports Lower ‘Identified’ Death Toll Among Palestinian Arabs, Noting Conflicting Numbers From Hamas-Run Health Ministry https://www.nysun.com/article/unite...icting-numbers-from-hamas-run-health-ministry
Gazprom is in a difficult position. It lost revenue from Europe. It will be opening the new Siberian pipeline to China- so - on paper- it will look like Russia is exporting even more gas than before the war- but the Chinese demand deep, deep discounts on the gas price - so Gazprom ends out doing more for less. That is the same situation with oil. On paper, it looks like the Russians are shipping more oil than before the war, but the Chinese and Indians have demanded deep, deep discounts and long-term contracts. Gazprom is now losing money. The problem-among many others- is that they are still paying a very large dividend to shareholders- even though they should not be paying any dividend- they are broke. But the Russian Federation is the primary shareholder in Gazprom and Vlad needs the dividend payments to fund his war and because other parts of his economy have collapsed. The bottom line: Vlad will bleed them dry by forcing them to keep paying high dividends and high mining taxes even though they do not have the money. And Gazprom desperately needs to be making very substantial investments in infrastructure to replace their old crap. Except they are now forced to cut back on capital improvements instead. Not good. We can see where this will end. Gazprom will start to collapse and Putin is too broke to help- he is part of the problem not part of the solution. So, surprise, surprise, China will invest in them..........and they will, in return, demand even deeper discounts on gas. This is what "Russian World" looks like these days.
So let's catch up with how the Russian offense is going. The Russians primary target is the city of Vovchansk. The Russians were repulsed there with significant losses and have now reverted to attempting to surround the city while still bombarding Vovchansk continuously. Russia has captured five small villages near the border which were effectively given up by Ukrainian forces since they are indefensible... and the only Ukrainian armed forces in these small towns were border guards. The Russian offensive has caused 1700 civilians to flee near the border. Keep in mind that Russia failed to seize Kharkiv with 150,000 troops early in the war; now they are trying with a mere 50,000 troops. It is not clear yet if this offensive is just a feint by the Russians as they rally to attack other areas, or a primary offense. Or if Putin is just trying to seize his proclaimed buffer zone. Russia does have superiority in air cover, artillery and troop numbers in the Vovchansk area which is being attacked. We will see how this assault goes over the upcoming weeks for the Kremlin -- so far it has just racked up significant losses in Russian equipment and troops for minimal gain. A renewed Russian offensive on Ukraine’s Kharkiv forces about 1700 to evacuate The Russian Defense Ministry says that Moscow’s forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in northeastern Ukraine https://abcnews.go.com/Internationa...aines-kharkiv-forces-1700-civilians-110130022
Putin is furious at how stoppable his "unstoppable" hypersonic missiles have proven to be against 30-year old American air defense tech. Murderously furious, in fact. Putin Goes After Scientists Behind 'Unique' Hypersonic Missiles https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...behind-unique-hypersonic-missiles/ar-BB1hIn2e At least 12 scientists in Russia have been detained in politically motivated arrests linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin's much-touted hypersonic missile program, it has been reported. Three have died since their arrests. Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer who represented the defendants, told news outlet BBC Russian that FSB sources told him every accusation was reported to Putin, and the arrests were to demonstrate that Russian missile technology is being hunted down. The cases aimed "to show that Russian missiles are the best and that they are trying to steal them," Smirnov told the outlet. In March 2018, Putin boasted to Russian lawmakers about Moscow's hypersonic missile program. He described the hardware as "super weapons," which are faster and more agile than standard ones and harder for missile defense systems to intercept. Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin by email for comment. Among them is the Kh-24 Kinzhal ("Dagger"), which Russian forces have regularly used in their full-scale invasion of Ukraine to hit infrastructure in cities. However, any connection to the program appears to come at a high risk, according to BBC Russian, which reported that at least a dozen scientists have been accused of transferring secrets about the program to other countries. The outlet said those detained were not even involved in weapons development and were simply working with foreign partners on the fundamental science. Those arrested had been working at the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (TsNIIMash), in the Moscow region; the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) in the Russian capital; as well as at the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITPM) in Siberia. ITPM director Alexander Shiplyuk and researchers Anatoly Maslov and Valery Zvegintsev were arrested in May 2023, accused of passing secrets to China. Shiplyuk had insisted the information in question was not classified and was freely available online, Reuters reported. The trio's arrests prompted colleagues to publish an open letter, saying that the case threatened to damage Russian science. Zvegintsev founded the high-speed aerodynamics laboratory at the institute. He collaborated with his former colleague, associate professor at Tomsk Polytechnic University, Vladislav Galkin, whose arrest was reported in December 2023. TASS, Russia's leading news agency, reported that a treason case could be linked to a 2021 publication in an Iranian scientific journal. Maslov, Zvegintsev, and Shiplyuk, TsAGI and TsNIIMash were involved in the European Union's FP7 program, which allocates funds for space research. Meanwhile, in October 2023, TsAGI physicist Anatoly Gubanov was sentenced to 12 years in a maximum-security colony. He had been arrested in April 2021 and denied charges of passing materials to colleagues in the Netherlands, with whom he collaborated on the HEXAFLY-INT, the world's first civil hypersonic airliner. His colleague Valery Golubkin was also arrested but denied the charges against him. However, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison in June 2023. TsNIIMash physicist Vladimir Kudryavtsev faced a treason case, but the 78-year-old died of complications linked to cancer before he could stand trial, Russian media outlet RBC reported. Another TsNIIMash scientist, Roman Kovalev, was sentenced to seven years in 2020 but released due to ill health and in April 2022 died of cancer, state news agency Interfax reported. Dmitry Kolker from the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences also died. Six other employees from the institutions have also been accused of treason, BBC Russian reported, without naming them.