SpaceX reportedly fed up with providing free Starlink to Ukraine The Starlink-Ukraine honeymoon period appears to be at an end: SpaceX reportedly wants the US to begin picking up the tab for more of its war-zone services, while CEO Musk's tweets have only served to upset the situation. Claims that Musk's satellite company were unhappy with the costs of sending Starlink base stations and …
Most of that wealth is tied up in stocks.
His companies have already contributed far more to Ukraine than most others. Many companies have delivered weapons to Ukraine -- how many of them did that pro bono? (tempting to ask how many of them also sold stuff to the russkies, but hopefully we westerners have a handle on that)
> His companies have already contributed far more to Ukraine than most others.
That's a bit of a paradox in the perception of charity. If you donate to charity, and then stop, you get far more shit thrown at you than someone who never donated to begin with.
I'm not even talking about Musk specifically, and also Musk is a weird special case in many ways; it's a generalized problem with how society perceives charity.
See also, for example, Bill Gates - funds charity projects with enormous amounts of money, and gets a lot of flak either because they are not the "right" projects, or because he still has enormous amounts of money yet, or because it's perceived to be just a PR stunt. These might be good points, if not for the fact that, meanwhile, there are other hyper-rich out there who never donated a single dollar, and yet they hardly get criticism for that, if ever.
This is problematic, because it's a disincentive to donating, and an incentive to just staying out of the public eye and enjoying your money.
>>an incentive to just staying out of the public eye and enjoying your money.
The problem is that His Muskiness seems to be physically incapable of staying out of the public eye. Without his daily dose of worshiping in social media, he may melt and disappear like the Wicked witch.
So he rather mess with the stock market, a rescue operation or an active warzone, before attempting to remain silent
Here's another scenario that Musk has turned into begging for *corporate welfare*. It was an obvious bait-and-switch the moment he announced it. Every single one of his projects depends completely on government payouts. When he doesn't get them, the company is shut down, or greatly reduced to fit the size of the payout. Essentially the entire business model is to snag investment from schmucks, and the biggest rubes are a) in government spending other people's money, and b) shareholders gambling on the economy.
He keeps telling us he's the smartest guy on the planet, and reading most of these bickering comments about how "it's hard" and "charity", he's not far off.
"Every single one of his projects depends completely on government payouts."
There does seem to be some sort of government lash up with all of his businesses. What surprises me is that he hasn't put Tesla's designers to work on a fleet vehicle he could sell to government agencies by the thousands. Not police cars or other vehicles that need lots of specialized gear, but something the welfare mobs (and there are loads of them) can drive around to visit all of the poor people to make sure they are poor and can keep getting free stuff. Cars that building inspectors, public works supervisors and all sorts of other functionaries that get provided with a "company" car can use. They don't need hundreds of miles of range, driver assistance features or luxury touches.
Fleet cars are great. They have no frills beyond an AM/FM radio with maybe a 3.5mm socket to plug in an iPod or phone. Nothing is motorized other than the windows. They come in one, maybe two colors. The interior is done up in the cheapest hard wearing material there is to be had. They can even be equipped with tracking and logging as well as a dash cam and rear facing cam that's accessible to the fleet managers. Being all electric means that users don't need to be provided with a card for gas and can't fill up an extra can every time they fill up to take home. Some EV's, most notably Teslas, send the VIN through the charger to pay for the juice. For a government car, setting up accounts with the major charging firms means the cars could always be charged if needed without issuing drivers with any sort of charge card.
Some people have other things they want to do than simply make money.
I have a friend who's quite wealthy, in the "owns vehicles he's never seen in person, much less used, because they were delivered to his various vacation homes" sense of wealthy. Lives in a multi-million-dollar luxury apartment in Manhattan, that sort of thing. He runs a couple of hedge funds and an executive placement service; he used to do some import/export and might still be. I don't know; he has his fingers in various pies.
I could easily be doing what he does. We have similar backgrounds and perform similarly in the areas necessary to get into that position. I'm not, because that wasn't what I wanted to do.
My wife could be making millions doing ... well, that's her story, so I won't tell it, but she could. Again, not what she wants to do.
(And, technically speaking, we have made millions, though our net worth is down a bit at the moment thanks to the vagaries of the economy. Making millions in the US these days is pretty standard for the professional classes. It doesn't go all that far.)
Any person of reasonable intelligence and organization starting from a sufficient class and social position in the US ought to be able to make millions, if that's the goal. For a lot of us, it isn't.
Given Gates has made most of his money by gaming politics and business to maintain a monopoly I can see why people think he cannot buy off that stain by now giving away money, especially since in earlier days he only gave that money under the condition that his monopoly was maintained by the receiving country. I can't find it now, but there is one famous letter which was published where someone from a government made his opinion very clear in one of the best structured letters ever (I think he was a lwyer by training anyway).
It's great that some well off people give to charity (and more should), but let's not allow that to be a whitewash for how they obtained that money.
[slight aside: isn't a sign of really having money the ability to say "thanks, I have enough already"? Could be fun if that got going]
"See also, for example, Bill Gates - funds charity projects with enormous amounts of money, and gets a lot of flak either because they are not the "right" projects, or because he still has enormous amounts of money yet, or because it's perceived to be just a PR stunt."
The "charity" foundation is still going the usual bill gates way, extend, embrace, extinguish and manipulate the market. Above all, as any "charity" foundation belonging to one of the one percenters its primarily a tax evasion and PR scheme, see also Bertelsmann Stiftung which is juristically also seen as not charitable but "gemeinnützig" (not really translateable, something along the line of "good for society") and gets the respective tax cuts for this presumed status.
After the german red cross killed off any cheaper blood donation services in germany, even the "Blutspendedienst der Bundeswehr" and now monopolizes the market with hefty prices, no more cash for donators and a lot of "unneeded" blood conserves not donated to medical projects but sold on to the cosmetic industry i started looking behind the "charity" label and have not found a single organisation that doesnt primarily feed the "administration" with only a pittance of the money actually going where it should.
"That's a bit of a paradox in the perception of charity. If you donate to charity, and then stop, you get far more shit thrown at you than someone who never donated to begin with."
It doesn't seem like Elon is donating because he is extremely concerned about something. It always seems to have the aire of a PR stunt and a way to build himself up as a techno super hero.
Elon also has a lack of grace. He could have come in with a set number of Starlink terminals and accounts and made it clear that there won't be more hardware so look after what you get. Instead he created the expectation that he'd replace failed and damaged units and manage the accounts so captured hardware would be deactivated. Then one day, he says it's all far too expensive and he's cutting them off and goes on to suggest that the US or some other entity take up the costs of supporting everything he's been doing to date and send him checks. Now that people have become accustomed to relying on the gear, it's harder to disengage especially for the military.
I agree that too many people are critical that wealthy people don't give enough or should keep giving to a charity after they have already endowed them with a bundle of money. I can easily see that there are more hands out than packets of banknotes to put in them. Charities need to make the most of what they are given and not get too used to a limited number of generous benefactors. If the charity does good work and doesn't squander money, they can use the donation of one entity to chivy a couple more to donate to them too. If they are paying their directors fat salaries and fly them around on private jets, the first big donor may elect to cut them off and while not criticizing them in public, will let other philanthropists know that there may be better places to donate money. I'm sure Bill Gates would love to be known as the person that sponsored a group's success in coming up with a cancer cure so Mr Bill is going to want to donate money to the groups that seem to have the best hope of achieving their goals.
Part of Elon's problem is his gross lack of social skills and king sized braggadocio. He's not a clear speaker and fails to consider the political and social impacts of what he says and does. The term "bow out gracefully" has no meaning for him. He could tell a little white lie that due to the chip shortage and needing to keep Starlink a going concern, he has to pull back on replacing hardware but he can keep the accounts going. As time goes by, those accounts will drop off as hardware fails, gets damaged and captured. The whole thing fades into the background without creating a bunch of negative publicity and he can use his support down the road without people instantly remembering that he tried to pull out and stick some government with the bill for his "charity".
The terrestrial fiber bandwidth is nearly free, the bandwidth limit in Starlink is because each satellite only has a limited transmit power available and the limited uplink power of the stations themselves. To increase capacity they will have to deploy more satellites. And FCC regulations probably prevent them from using higher transmit power.
I wonder how much paying capacity there is over Ukraine and surrounding areas the sat can work with while dealing with "free" Ukrainian data and therefore are there actual paying customers getting less than they paid for or unable to connect? I find it hard to believe that Starlink isn't just using excess capacity and so apart from the hardware cost, there's little actual ongoing cost to Starlink. that can be directly attributed to Ukraine as "lost income".
I suspect the biggest problem is that Starlink is not in profit, so they can't write off these costs as losses against tax so it is actually costing them money. On the other hand, how much free advertising and kudos are they getting for that money that might otherwise have been spent in tradition advertising?
"I suspect the biggest problem is that Starlink is not in profit, so they can't write off these costs as losses against tax so it is actually costing them money."
They can just carry more loss on the books until they have some profits they need to write down.
The user terminal hardware is suspected to be rather costly so that's where he's be losing any money. The easy cure for that is to not endlessly supply replacements. There needs to be downlink stations for the satellites to exchange data with but the internet traffic is next to nothing in cost.
The quote I've seen that mentions the cost of the launches and satellites is utter tripe (or would that be udder tripe?). Starlink isn't launching satellites just to service Ukraine. The ones that fly over might wind up being rather idle otherwise since people in a war zone might not spend money on something like Starlink with so many other things costing more and all of the uncertainties. I found a statement that each sat can cover about a 285 mile diameter. Obviously you need to be in that footprint to connect to the satellite, but a ground station also needs to be in that footprint for the satellite to connect with unless it's a new model that can use a laser side link (and there is a cousin that it can work with) to get to the ground and onto the backbone. This is why Elon has stated it will take around 42,000 birds to cover the whole Earth other than the poles. Each one of the sats has an estimated 5yr lifespan according to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.
Peering really isn't free or even cheap.
I have seen the data but I get the feeling they are only using a few ground stations which probably isn't helping. I haven't seen too many complaints about speed, seems to be jamming seems to be the main issue
Anyway, looks like he will continue to fund the donations for the time being.
Many companies have delivered weapons to Ukraine -- how many of them did that pro bono? ..... 9Rune5
Quite so, 9Rune5.
Delve deep into that quagmire and you will probably find the Ukrainians are now loaded with crippling future foreign debts which it be expected they will struggle to pay with mounting compounding interest .... well, if not for ever or centuries, how about for decades or a couple or three generations at least or until there be some sort of revolutionary movement and/or Alien Intervention .....via ye olde war time spiv racket* cloaked in the Lend Lease root**
The fact that it also gets rid of all of that old outdated and outmoded stock and provides for the US to print money, willy-nilly, to pay weapons businesses and Military Industrial Complexes for their own armoury refilling at home to take part in the next contrived and cynically planned outbreak of hostilities and war racketeering is a sweet expensive bonus too at the cost of providing more death and destruction, chaos and misery to hundreds of thousands and millions maybe even stretching as far as to impact upon billions. And with no home skin or blood to be lost and spilled in the game, no one there will be too terrified to care and give it more than just a moments thought if it be given some show time on the news being pimped and pumped and dumped on you via the auspices of informative media .... but which one is constantly being warned is rotten to its cores with perverse disinformation and corrupting misinformation.
* ..... "War is a Racket" by Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, Unites States Marine Corps ... https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf ..... an illuminating relatively short read. Arm yourself with the knowledge and experience it freely shares lest ignorance leads you up the garden path to nowhere good and generous and everywhere dark and foul.
** .. Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. ...... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
Lend Lease effectively gave materiel to the Allies.
The recipient nations didn't pay for anything that wasn't returned because it had been destroyed during the war.
They didn't even have to physically return some materiel, bulldozing American-built aircraft into craters, or pushing them off aircraft carriers into the sea was sufficient.
And the stuff UK did keep hold of post war was charged at only 10%, still enough to put UK finances in a dire state but a very large discount.
We did pay a lot more than that.
And Ukraine is going to be expected to pay a lot.
So either they lose the war (unlikely) or they lose by winning the war, and then join the eu and the eu gives them money that will go to the us.
So essentially europe is screwed no matter the results.
Similar "buy weapons now, pay a decade later" happened with the greek military dictatorship and leopard tanks delivered in the 1980ies. This is one of the higher debt packages that crippled greece even more after the "solidarity" of the EU somehow transformed into the solidarity of a piranha infested toilet bowl. The EU was a sneering and insulting bystander as the IMF moved in for the economical kill.
The only thing that economically killed Greece is Greece. Economically Greece is now in a far better and far more stable place than it has been for decades and it's no longer even one of the nations I'd be worried about bringing the collapse of the EU and Euro zone (Italy, Spain and France will get us there probably).
There was plenty of solidarity from the EU (and still is) with untold billions from those bail-out packages and the economic funds set up to bail out Greece and other nations now weighing on the economic necks of EU nations like a mill stone. But somehow saying: "You can get the money only if you get your shit together so we won't have to do this again" makes it a "piranha infested toilet bowl"...
The costs are multi-faceted. Ukraine is a major producer of food crops. Just look at a satellite view and it's easy to see that the vast majority of the country is farmland. With droughts in many other parts of the world, having those farms crippled due to war is a global problem. Lots of people are going to starve which means lots of politicians will lose their comfy jobs and some governments will be toppled. There isn't the excess to draw on from other countries at the moment. Does the rest of the world stand off to the sides while an aggressive leader in one of the largest countries continues to annex more territory and thereby take control of a larger percentage of prime agricultural land? Whose next?
Seeing as Starlink only provided a couple of terminals itself, with the majority being paid for by governments, the costs are notional. No satellites were launched and the no one is losing coverage as a result. So, it's the costs for interconnects for all the cat videos they're watching and some maintenance costs.
But providing and then moaning about it gets Musk in the news and that's good PR for someone looking to keep share prices up.
"But providing and then moaning about it gets Musk in the news and that's good PR for someone looking to keep share prices up."
In the case of Tesla, the price of shares has been dropping. They could even go as low as it takes for the P/E of Tesla to be on par with the rest of the industry if the company starts being valued for the industry they are in.
His random tweet suggesting Ukraine should just hand over a bunch of its territory (at a time when Russian forces are totally on their heels and retreating on all fronts) is about as pro-Putin as you can get without openly saying so.
Probably the only reason he wanted to donate the Starlink stuff was publicity, now he thinks he's got all the value he's going to get out of that so he's looking for the US government to fund him - no doubt at full retail price when if he's worried about "losing money" he could offer the hardware and service at SpaceX's actual cost.
More and more he proves himself to be a real slimeball who cares only about personal publicity and doesn't really have any empathy for anyone else.
>Probably the only reason he wanted to donate the Starlink stuff was publicity
Exactly. This is just a repeat of his cack-handed "help" in the case of that Thai cave rescue. Make a gesture, expect to bask in everyone's adulation, and then get peevish when it turns out that reality doesn't let you play the part of the messiah.
As someone said below - brilliant businessman, but he has the interpersonal skills of a petulant 6-year-old.
Yep. Worse is what he's said about Taiwan, which the CCP loved so much, put it out on all their news outlets. Shortly after the CCP gave him tax free allowance on his new vehicles in China. Funny that. Not only his he pro-putin he's clearly a CCP shill.
At this point he's shown what a true cunt he is. He gives no fuck about anyone, just profit and how much money he can make. He'll say and do whatever anyone tells him, even if they are holding guns to a group of peoples heads. He'll first ask "What do I get out of it?".
No, there's clearly a lot of ego in there as well. There are more profitable things that you could do, but there aren't companies where you get lots of praise and attention just for being in the market. He's seen what having a bunch of obsessed fans feels like and he wants more of it. Meanwhile, he'd rather not lose any money, not that he'd notice, by actually doing the things he gets praise for in a fair way. Some of his companies produce useful technology, but all produce a firehose of attention on him.
Like the Twitter deal, he probably decided the Ukraine free Starlink thing when he was totally stoned one night then sent out a drunken email to his employees demanding they work all night to have it working tomorrow morning. So it happened.
And then he woke up and remembered he's an ardent admirer of Pooty Poot, for obvious reasons.
'Probably the only reason he wanted to donate the Starlink stuff was publicity,"
It also gets rid of a bunch of v1 terminals that they can't send out to anybody in the rest of the world. They can just 'donate' them to Ukraine and put that in the charitable donation column at full MSRP to be set against any profits there may be some time in the future. The alternative is to stick them in the shredder and only be able to write off the actual cost of manufacture.
Are you sure about that Sergei? Ukraine is pushing Russia back, and I suspect that Putin backing off on missile attacks today has rather more to do with a limited supply of munitions than any change of heart on his part.
After all, if Russia is so all powerful why is it attacking cities with surface to air and anti shipping missiles rather than weapons that are actually designed for the task?
No one wants nuclear war (no one in their right mind wants war at all), but what alternative is there? We let Russia run roughshod over Ukraine. What next? Hungary? Poland? East Germany? Where do you draw the line? France? The UK?
Let us hope that there are enough sane (or saner) minds in the duma and in the Russian armed forces that Putin can be deposed sooner rather than too late. And let’s hope that the leaders in the west will spend money on rebuilding Russia and it’s economy, rather than focussing on punitive reprisals, if that day comes.
Are you sure about that Sergei? Ukraine is pushing Russia back, and I suspect that Putin backing off on missile attacks today has rather more to do with a limited supply of munitions than any change of heart on his part.
Russia has been about to run out of ammo since the end of February! Stop regurgitating such easily debunked Western propaganda.
No one wants nuclear war (no one in their right mind wants war at all), but what alternative is there?
Umm...not having a nuclear war by pushing hard for negotiations?
We let Russia run roughshod over Ukraine. What next? Hungary? Poland? East Germany? Where do you draw the line? France? The UK?
You start your post claiming that Russia is almost out of weaponry and they're being pushed back by plucky little Ukraine and you end it by claiming Putin will steamroller the whole of Europe unless we escalate.
Please make your mind up because none of what you write makes the least bit of sense!
You start your post claiming that Russia is almost out of weaponry and they're being pushed back by plucky little Ukraine and you end it by claiming Putin will steamroller the whole of Europe unless we escalate.
The problem is the threat that is basically "give me what I want or I'll use my nukes". The world has pretty much drawn the line in the sand that Russia is not going to take Ukraine. I don't know if they will stand in solidarity all the way through Ukraine recovering Crimea, but unless things go really bad I expect NATO nations will continue to stand behind Ukraine until the Russians are pushed out of the rest of their country.
The nuclear threats are problematic, because nuclear deterrence is based on MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). That means there HAS to be a punishing response to any use of nuclear weapons. There is a lot of talk about Putin being backed into a corner, but so is the rest of the world if Russia uses nukes or we back down to Putin's nuclear threats. The MAD part is what stops their use, but if someone gets what they want my simply threatening, or using tactical nukes without being punished, then there is no deterrent.
It's very easy to see the progression going down the same path as with Hitler if other nations don't take a stand and stick to it. You can't cower in the corner and cry "he might use nukes" while he rolls through Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova. He would be free to use the same 'referendum' approach in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Or even Finland.
The problem is the threat that is basically "give me what I want or I'll use my nukes". The world has pretty much drawn the line in the sand that Russia is not going to take Ukraine. I don't know if they will stand in solidarity all the way through Ukraine recovering Crimea, but unless things go really bad I expect NATO nations will continue to stand behind Ukraine until the Russians are pushed out of the rest of their country.
I think this is a dangerous view, but one that's been encouraged by the West and our media. The 'world' is much larger than the 30 NATO members who've aligned against Russia. Some of the world seems to be against our sanctions, and the way we've been conducting our diplomacy. So we've had Biden going to Saudi to fist bump and persuade MBS to hold off oil production cuts until after the mid-terms. That didn't work, but then Biden did call MBS a murderer and is now threatening Saudi with retaliation. Or India importing Russian oil/gas, relabelling it and exporting it back to the EU. Or Putin proposing to make Turkey an oil & gas hub for the EU, which promises a lot of money to Erdogan and pulls Turkey closer into Russia's sphere. And Russia's apparently caught saboteurs trying to attack the Turkstream pipeline, and we still don't know who attacked Nordstream.
So it's all a colossal mess, and exposed many structural weaknesses (or just sheer incompetence) in the glorious EU. Russia taking 25% of Ukraine has perhaps also exposed weaknesses in NATO, and Stoltenberg's made comments that a loss for Ukraine is a loss for NATO. Which kinda makes this an existential threat for both Ukraine and NATO. Pretty much every analyst said that Russia wasn't using enough manpower to defeat Ukraine. But if it does (and a pretty big if), it's defeated NATO's best and brightest. Combined with the way our sanctions have backfired spectacularly, other parts of the world may be rethinking who they should align with, the West, or Russia.
"Russia taking 25% of Ukraine has perhaps also exposed weaknesses in NATO"
Part of that is how much can other countries support Ukraine without crossing a line that puts them firmly in the crosshairs. NATO could marshal a large force, especially in air cover and rout the Russian army rather quickly, but that might push Putin too far and have him bring in a lot more assets himself. If each side keeps upping the ante, things could get completely, world encompassing bad in hours. The game is to find the point where enough pressure is applied that Putin decides it's better to pull out than to keep pushing.
Part of that is how much can other countries support Ukraine without crossing a line that puts them firmly in the crosshairs. NATO could marshal a large force, especially in air cover and rout the Russian army rather quickly, but that might push Putin too far and have him bring in a lot more assets himself.
NATO v Russia is basically WW3. Even if going nuclear is something the West seems to want to happen, or just Zelensky with his demands for a pre-emptive strike.. I mean kick on Russia. But then Ukraine's nuclear ambitions are another of the reasons why Russia went kinetic. Ukraine has to content itself with shelling an NPP instead. And Russia's been low on men, moral and materiels since March, so the convoys arriving in Belorus and towards Chernobyl aren't real. More nations have been telling their people to leave Ukraine now, and it's probable that Russia's gong to open up new fronts to pressure Kiev, or just force Ukraine to redeploy it's existing forces.
The game is to find the point where enough pressure is applied that Putin decides it's better to pull out than to keep pushing.
We've been trying that since 2014, and it hasn't been working. Endless rounds of sanctions appear to be harming our economies far more than they have Russia. Russia knows this. We've been told to ration heating and hot water, take fewer showers and our barrel scrapers have resorted to sanctioning Russian toilet paper, sanitary and hygiene products Usula Von Der Lyer has probably stockpiled hairspray though, so she'll be fine. We could, of course have tried for peace, and taking the Minsk proposals seriously. Russia's last demand was for Ukraine's neutrality, and setting up DPR & LPR as autonomous regions. As they were pre-coup. But we don't seem to want that, and seem happy to sacrifice Ukrainians in our desire for regime change in Russia. Putin isnt stupid though, and can see the effect sanctions are having on the EU and RoW. All he has to do is wait for winter, and watch the EU collapse, and there's little our leaders can do to prevent this. Protests have been increasing, more people are asking why we're expected to sacrifice so much for Ukraine, and wouldn't peace be a better idea?
The MSM strangely aren't reporting this. Nor do they seem to be reporting Sweden completing their investigation into the Nordstream sabotage. Apparently the results were 'too sensitive' to share, which seems odd given we've already been told Russia blew up it's own pipeline.
" Ukraine has to content itself with shelling an NPP instead"
Both Ukraine and Russia have been firing on NPPs. Russian forces in all their well-trained wisdom even dug trenches (by hand) and other fortifications around Chernobyl, probably giving a lot of them radiation poisoning in the process. Russian forces also seem to have no qualms about hiding equipment and possibly even firing artillery from the grounds of Zaporizhia which is just asking for trouble too.
"Russia's last demand was for Ukraine's neutrality, and setting up DPR & LPR as autonomous regions". And if Russia hadn't been threatening Ukraine continuously with invasion and feeding weapons and funds to radical independence groups/rebels in said regions Ukraine might actually have remained neutral. Right up until the last invasion (even after the unlawful annexation of Crimea) most of Europe (and Ukraine itself) wanted to remain neutral. But Russia had other plans. Even if DPR and LPR had become autonomous regions Moscow would just have continued stirring shit until they "voluntarily" fell under Russian control.
There isn't going to be peace by acquiescing to Russias demands and feeding the beast. It's about time the EU frees itself from the clutches of Russia and the USA, but I doubt that's going to happen (Few seem to realize the influence of the US). And yes, it's going to be a painful, potentially deadly to some process. We're going to end up in a war otherwise, which would be worse.
Russian forces in all their well-trained wisdom even dug trenches (by hand) and other fortifications around Chernobyl, probably giving a lot of them radiation poisoning in the process.
Only if they ate the dirt. The IAEA inspection report visited Chernobyl and took soil samples from the disturbed areas. The results were in the report, and the radiation levels weren't very high. But we've been conditioned by decades of anti-nuclear propaganda to have an irrational fear of radiation. Which is one of the reasons we're in this mess, ie if we'd built our own reactors instead of tilted at windmills, the gas shortages would have had far less impact on our bills and economy.
Russian forces also seem to have no qualms about hiding equipment and possibly even firing artillery from the grounds of Zaporizhia which is just asking for trouble too.
Back when this all started, Ukraine had done the same thing. Remember those terrifying videos of the NPP being 'shelled'. By a parachute flare. Rest is just one of those strange ways this conflict is being reported. It obviously makes perfect sense for Russia to shell a NPP it's captured, controls, and probably intends to utilise to power Crimea and Donbas. You'd have hoped our leaders would have told Ukraine to STOP SHELLING THE NUCLEAR PLANT! but either Ukraine isn't listening, or more likely, doesn't really have much control over the forces attacking it.
Right up until the last invasion (even after the unlawful annexation of Crimea) most of Europe (and Ukraine itself) wanted to remain neutral. But Russia had other plans.
There was no invasion of Crimea. It was a major naval and general military base used by Russia for a very long time. It was permitted post-independence under a leasing deal/Treaty. But of course denying Russia access to the Med was one of our objectives, much as with the Syria regime change campaign. Then it'd be on to denying access to the Baltics, which is still ongoing. Crimea did have a degree of autonomy, the incoming regime removed that, so it's people voted for self-determination in accordance with UN principles. We just refused to accept the will of the people. It's analogous to Scotland's inpendence campaigning. Maybe they'll eventually vote for independence, we deny it, and start shelling Glasgow. Which is pretty much what happened with the DPR/LPR, who've had 8yrs of shelling, and thousands of civilian deaths. Most of which have, and still go unreported.
Instead, we get headlines of the attacks on Kiev. Welcome to the Donetsk experience. This is probably intentional by Russia. A few weeks ago, there was a video of Ukraine's bright young things dancing and drinking in a Kiev nightclub. Meanwhile, it's conscripts were being relentlessly pounded by Russian artillery on it's front lines. That results in classic projection in 'news' like this-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-63282756
No place for Russia in G20 - Ukrainian presidential advisor
"Those who give orders to attack critical infrastructure to freeze civilians and organize total mobilisation to cover the frontline with corpses, cannot sit at the same table with leaders of G20 for sure." he tweeted.
He added: "Time to put an end to Russian hypocrisy.
Someone gave an order to attack Nordstream, attacking European critical infrastructure, which will freeze civilians. Russia hasn't come anywhere near close to 'total mobilisation', and Ukraine (or the West) really don't want that to happen. Ukraine, however has gone through 7-8 rounds of conscription and drafts, is covering it's frontline with corpses (but not of Ukraine's elite) and has been invited to sit at the top tables of the G7, G20, and Vogue. Plus again, Russia's doing much the same as Ukraine's been doing to Donetsk, although it hasn't yet dropped anti-personnel mines on Donetsk markets. But it's projection. Russia's focusing the minds of Kiev and other east-Ukrainian cities, and bringing the reality of war closer to them. They've been pretty insulated from that up until now. Ukrainians may indeed decide it is time to end the hypocrisy, and do the regime change thing again. Then perhaps there'll be a chance at peace.
Crimea was Ukrainian from the moment Ukraine became independent. Russia further affirmed that when Ukraine gave up the nuclear arsenal within it's borders after the fall of the USSR. The only bit of Crimea that Russia controlled by lease/treaty was/is the naval base in Sebastopol.
"The world has pretty much drawn the line in the sand that Russia is not going to take Ukraine."
Sorry but the world is a lot bigger than USA and EU. Not many other countries are playing in that sandpit and about 80% of the worlds population has governments that dont care at all about ukraine.
As to the claims of russians out of ammo, washing machine chips in missile guidance systems and turret controls, all i have heard so far gives me the idea that i cannot ascertain anything about the situation as everybody involved keeps spouting absolute nonsense and much of the current propaganda is along the lines of what i heard when NATO attacked yugoslavia.
But rest assured, once the iraqi army digs out their weapons of mass destruction and starts playing, too, we can rest assured that every western "free" media outlet has spoken the full truth.
"washing machine chips in missile guidance systems and turret controls"
My washing machine has a mechanical timer, but my mom's with digital controls has worked well for the last decade. I can remember when I needed to go over and help get it replaced the last time in 2012. I have some 555 timers in mil spec ceramic packages that I got surplus years ago and they don't seem any better than the much cheaper plastic DIP or surface mount versions I have used. Even in very hot weather conditions. There really isn't a "washing machine chip". There's commercial temp range, extended temp range and really extended temp range. With some sorts of IC's you can get Rad-Hard versions for use on spacecraft but those are very expensive and make no difference if you aren't sending them into space.
There really isn't a "washing machine chip".
There won't be any washing machine chips soon anyway. Not content with sanctioning one of the world's largest suppliers of raw materials, Biden's now gone and sanctioned the world's largest supplier of components-
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-13/biden-chip-export-controls-are-designed-to-give-us-an-advantage?sref=ZMFHsM5Z&leadSource=uverify%20wall
and
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/chinas-semiconductor-industry-rocked-by-us-export-controls/news-story/a5b46fb3cfd2651be23a549c38b3e2d6
The restrictions ban the export of US semiconductor equipment that cannot be provided by any foreign competitor. There’s also a licence requirement for the export of American tools or components to China-based fabrication plants.
And critically, any US citizen or entity is required to seek permission from the US Department of Commerce before providing support to Chinese plants.
Which has apparently lead to mass resignations of American citizens working in China to avoid being sanctioned individually. China is, of course going to retaliate. So much for 'Green New Deals' that hope to replace gas generation with clean, green Chinese solar panels and wind turbines. Or their components.
"There won't be any washing machine chips soon anyway. Not content with sanctioning one of the world's largest suppliers of raw materials, Biden's now gone and sanctioned the world's largest supplier of components-"
I noticed that the US gov didn't want Apple using memory from a company that may have also supplied Huawei. It made me want to ask if Apple used that company anyway but didn't ship any of the products made with those components to the US, would they get in any sort of trouble? The chips would likely be stamped with Apple's information anyway.
"There really isn't a "washing machine chip""
Yes, i know. I also know that there is no single "turret control chip" (Gepard has about 4 major components for turret movement plus another three for gun elevation) or "missile guidance chip" although as far as i remember, one of the first playstations was prohibited to sell to iraq due to processor power big enough for ballistic calculations. (I believe that was prior to the iraqi mass murdering of 5000+ kurds with nerve gas rockets but thats a few decades too long ago to have precise memory).
Apart from the questions how any "washing machine chip" would be designed to stop the barrel at a precise position, it still begs the question why a washing machine should have any sensor apart "motor standstill" which basically equals "motor power cut off" so on the I/O side thats pretty bull manure. Much more so in 3D/Missile guidance/navigation, even when i take the absolute primitive tech in the "Roland" missiles or other primitive AA missiles like the SA 7 "Grail" (for russian tech) or the western counterpart "stinger" into account, no electronic i ever found in a washing machine could cope with the most basic requirements as it never needed to be designed to do so.
TL:DR most of the "russians are desperate enough to use improvised stuff" propaganda falls flat on its face as soon as you take a closer look and are not totally incompetent.
"The nuclear threats are problematic, because nuclear deterrence is based on MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). That means there HAS to be a punishing response to any use of nuclear weapons. "
I liked Thunderf00ts take on Russia's nuclear arsenal possibly being somewhat unreliable due to a lack of maintenance. Perhaps that is true which would mean that it would be bad for Russia to try and use nukes since it's even worse if they try and deliver a few fizzles. The MAD concept gets a bunch of holes punched in it at that point.
It's very easy to see the progression going down the same path as with Hitler if other nations don't take a stand and stick to it. You can't cower in the corner and cry "he might use nukes" while he rolls through Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova. He would be free to use the same 'referendum' approach in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Or even Finland.
Attacking the majority of the countries you mention would trigger Article 5. That's the red line and Putin knows it.
No one wants nuclear war (no one in their right mind wants war at all), but what alternative is there?
Umm...not having a nuclear war by pushing hard for negotiations?
Ummm, not having a nuclear war, or indeed any wall at all, by turning round and rolling the Russian forces back into Russia where they belong? With no Russian forces in Ukraine - and I include Crimea - there is no war. There are a lot of other questions to answer, and a lot of rebuilding to do, which I am sure the generous and helpful Russian government will be funding, but *THERE IS NO WAR*.
This is not difficult. For Putin to send his armies into a neighbouring country, and then to claim that Ukraine should be negotiating for piece? Was the vodka harvest particularly good this year or something?
turning round and rolling the Russian forces back into Russia where they belong
you and what army ? Go on Neil, pack your gear and push back those slime ruskies. I'm really fed-up with this type of armchair warriors.
Ukraine lost 20% of it's territory : so what ? Big deal, happens all the time, read history books you ignorant warmonger.
The US was thrown out of Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation by a rag-tag band of religious nutters, and you want to take on the Russian army ? France was unceremoniously thrown out of Mali and is now accused of war crimes, and you think NATO has a chance against the Tchechen Kadhirov ? The purpose of NATO is not to win wars, it's to spend money, YOUR money ! President Eisenhower warned of the militaro-industrial-complex, FFS, why do you support this corrupt band of mafiosis ?
They can't sustain a rational train of thought, and break down into repeating their list of talking points.
You and what army, Ukraine is corrupt (the new version of Ukraine is full of Nazi's), The idea that it's normal for nations to invade their neighbors and former allies to annex their territory in the modern era. NATO should be dissolved, blah blah blah.
Beneath that, the inevitable low effort screed that is big on outrage and thin on reason.
Yeah, bring up Afghanistan. That should be the lesson both the US and Russia learned from. Did they? Russia's invasion of Ukraine has tracked with a repeat of Afghanistan from the beginning. Initial gains that were illusory, an inflated sense of optimism and an unwarranted sense of superiority, that melts away to the realization that every inch of gains cost more than the last. That every mile held costs more to keep every day. Like both Russia and the US in Afghanistan, fools thought that through brutality and indiscriminate force they would "break" the enemy. Russia insisted on learning this lesson again apparently.
And while it helps that the Ukrainians are winning the war for hearts and minds, the cynical hand of NATOs strategists would happily back those that are far worse than the Ukrainians to exhaust Russia for as long as it it foolish enough to overextend itself. Ironically, this sets Putin and his ego against the interest of Russia as a nation and the Russian people. But now he has once again placed himself back in Afghanistan, where all his adversaries have to do is keep piling on sanctions and supplying arms to leave him trapped. So it is good for Ukraine that we like them right now, and that will make their prospects better when this is over. But is not necessary, as NATO has it in it's interest to end Russia's ambitions here in Ukraine instead of in someplace like Estonia, Finland, or Poland. Putin's Russia made itself an adversary of the EU and NATO. Now, having critically overextended itself, why would they not let Putin bring himself down? Or keep him down when they have the leverage to do so?
"why would they not let Putin bring himself down?"
Because the people waiting in the wings to put the dagger in his back are probably far worse. NATO's interest stop at making sure Russia will not get any bright ideas about invading NATO countries. Backing Ukraine with weapons and materiel helps make sure Russia loses much of it's teeth with (comparatively) little cost to NATO countries (Not counting the Ukrainians ofcourse) .
@Zolko
Amazing. After only sixty years I am obviously losing my ability to communicate in English. I am not an armchair warrior; I've spent a lot of my career in parts of the world either close to war or suffering the results (including as it happen, Ukraine. I rather enjoyed the time I spent in Kiev) and it does not fill me with a delight for combat. Equally I am not an armchair warrior, and do rather take offence at the implication. I've even read one or two history books in my time. So I am sorry that you have completely missed the point of my comment.
I'll spell it out.
Dear Mr Putin.
The way to stop this war is not through negotiation with an illegally invaded neighbour. It is for you, Mr Putin, to issue the orders that withdraw your army back where it belongs - into the country of Russia. No part of Ukraine is a part of Russia - it may have been in the past, but you seem to think that your illegal occupation of parts of it entitles you to call it yours, to occupy it, to kill and maim its inhabitants - and incidentally cause huge property damage to parts of it.
The only way Ukraine can stop this war is to stop fighting, and that looks a somewhat unlikely possibility. But Russia could stop it tomorrow just by withdrawing. How many people have already died because of Putin's vanity project?
The only way Ukraine can stop this war is to stop fighting, and that looks a somewhat unlikely possibility. But Russia could stop it tomorrow just by withdrawing. How many people have already died because of Putin's vanity project?
Good post, thumbed, but..
How many Ukrainians have died since the 2014 coup? Probably 20,000+ after 8yrs of civil war. Crimea was a bloodless coup, but in the rest of Ukraine, things weren't so good. So burning alive protestors in a building in Odessa. Or just the shelling of civilians in Donetsk, including use of cluster bombs, air-dropped anti-personnel mines, or just plain'ol artillery. Or the assassination of journalists, opposition leaders etc. Or the banning of political parties, media, and general de-Russification and imposition of pretty extreme Ukrainian nationalism. So a rather extreme and authoritarian government that apparently is the beacon of Europe, thus should be fast-tracked into NATO and the EU.
Or just back to the story. Musk was told by a senior Ukrainian diplomat to 'fsck off'. Subtle. Then Musk was added to Ukraine's kill list-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrotvorets
Which is a rather disturbing site created/run by some senior Ukraine figures. Various governments have called on it to be banned, along with other groups. It lists journalists, politicians like Rand Paul, 'extremists' like Roger Waters, and apparenly around 300 children. When targets on it's list are assassinated, like Darya Dugina recently, it stamps 'liquidated' across their pictures. The Ukrainian government won't do anything about it, other than use 'evidence' from the site in prosecuting people who've ended up on it.
And from an IT angle, it's shielded by Cloudflare.
Given how quickly Musk's addition to the kill list spread around social media, and Musk's own social media influence, his entry was quickly removed. But it's, as Musk puts it, troubling that this site exists, and is allowed to exist. Especially as Cloudflare has stopped supporting other extremist sites.
"With no Russian forces in Ukraine - and I include Crimea - there is no war. "
Not really the truth as economic warfare like the seppuku sanctions is also war.
Even if your wish came true, russia would soon be visiting again as one of the main reasons for destroying military airports in the first wave still prevails - the nuclear carrier F-35 , equalling NATO nukes directly at the russian border. Cuba crisis with inverted sides.
Ummm, not having a nuclear war, or indeed any wall at all, by turning round and rolling the Russian forces back into Russia where they belong? With no Russian forces in Ukraine - and I include Crimea - there is no war. There are a lot of other questions to answer, and a lot of rebuilding to do, which I am sure the generous and helpful Russian government will be funding, but *THERE IS NO WAR*.
This is not difficult. For Putin to send his armies into a neighbouring country, and then to claim that Ukraine should be negotiating for piece? Was the vodka harvest particularly good this year or something?
Oh how everything's so simple in Neil Barnes' black and white world!
The origins of this conflict date back long before Russia's invasion in February. The eastern pro-Russian regions of Ukraine were never happy with the 2014 election result that they consider a coup, perhaps with some justification considering the level of EU and US meddling. Since that time Ukraine's government has attempted to ban the use of the Russian language and shelled various eastern towns and cities killing civilians.
Of course, people like you are either ignorant of the past or are willfully blind.
>And let’s hope that the leaders in the west will spend money on rebuilding Russia and it’s economy, rather than focussing on punitive reprisals, if that day comes.
I believe the Allied forces learned that lesson the hard way after the experiences of the Great War and the Second World War. After the first, punitive reparation terms were forced on Germany to make the country pay for its aggression. Result? A festering sense of grievance that was seized on and manipulated by a certain short Austrian painter who twisted it into a narrative of "the whole world is against us, it's so unfair".
After the latter conflict, wiser heads realized the truth of "vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" and the emphasis was on rebuilding and getting the country back to a functioning state as quickly as possible - Marshall Plans, Berlin airlifts and so on (and by the way, for a lovely riff on this concept, do watch the 1959 Peter Sellers film "The Mouse that Roared" - "there is no more profitable undertaking for any country in the world... than to declare war on the United States and to be defeated"). The result that time was a Germany that whilst still repentant for the enormity of what it had caused, was grateful to get a second chance to join the ranks of civilized nations.
Not, by the way, that any of this is relevant to the current conflict. Despite the hysterical paranoid dribblings of Putin, Prigozhin and his cronies, I don't for one instant think that anyone supporting Ukraine wants to attack, much less destroy, Russia.
After all, Putin is doing a wonderful job of that all on his own.
The German war reparations were proceeding fairly well post WWI.
The Allies did rescale the payments with a bit of American nudging. American money was going into Germany which meant that Germany could produce stuff for export which gave them income to pay reparations; an interesting money-go-round but it worked.
And then the Great Depression dried up that source of financing after which the little corporal got his chance.
Can recommed Tooze Wages of Destruction for explaining it properly
> What next? Hungary? Poland? East Germany? Where do you draw the line? France? The UK?
East Germany? Have ypu taken a look at a map, lately? Since 1990, I mean?
And what could keep evil Ivan from invading France and the UK - maybe Spain, Portugal, Germany (yes, East and West), Austria (lol), Italy and the rest of the NATO? Because that's what the NATO was actually supposed to do - back in the days of the Warsaw Pact when it still existed.
Honestly, until February 22nd this year Ukraine had "the most corrupt nation" title by a mile.
Obviously once the country became the victim then it was transformed overnight into "A plucky little nation defending itself against the overbearing might and imperial ambitions of its neighbor". One that's had its hand out ever since.
Its actually a very large country, the largest in Europe, and most of it is unaffected by the Russian SMO/Invasion/whatever (especially the western half) so it might be expected to pay a few of its bills.
When did Putins "little geen men' show up in Crimea and eastern Ukraine again? Right.
Ukraine is on the upswing corruption wise, despite being eyeballs deep in a war. So maybe let's talk about Belarus instead? Russia may not be part of Europe, but it's certainly a cesspool of corruption, and in large part responsible for the political problems in it's neighbors and former satellites. Moldova was in the same boat as Ukraine before the Crimean invasion, and while nobody seems to be paying attention to it outside the region, is still a tinderbox. Hungary is backsliding, and may end up worse off than Ukraine if they can't fix their Orban problem.
As to your throw away about how the rest of Ukraine isn't affected, strait up fuck you. Millions internally displaced, millions forced to flee the country for the safety of their families. Power cuts, infrastructure damage, airstrikes and missile attacks deep into the county. Invasions across 3/4 of their international border, and the ongoing threat of renewed strikes though Belarus and potentially the Russian held enclave in Moldova. Every citizen of Ukraine has been deeply impacted by this invasion, even those living abroad.
Sell your BS to somebody else. And if you are talking to anyone at the Kremlin tell them we'll be happy to reserve Putin the seat next to Trump in Kiev when the Ukrainians start the post war trials. Wouldn't want him to miss the show if he has to answer for blocking essential defensive arms during the initial Russian invasion. If he wasn't a human dumpster fire, the Ukrainians might have ended the initial occupation, and the subsequent Putin backed and approved ethnic cleansing in the Russian held east.
Excuse me, but in the last four years about 14,000 people had been killed in the east and about 2 million displaced, some to Russia, some to western Ukraine (about 50/50, I think).
As for the size of the country Ukraine is about the size of the north east part of the US, say from about St Louis to the Atlantic seaboard and up to the Canadian border. Its big.
As for "little green men' I have two colleagues, one from Russia and one from Ukraine. You would not be able to tell them apart, certainly not by listening to them. I don't know much about Crimea except that its a major military area, its been a Russian naval base longer than Gibraltar. The UK, French and others fought a war there against the Russians in the 1850s. I doubt if Russia would just up and walk away from the area.
An important takeaway form the Crimean War, is that the Russians lost. Suing for piece after the siege of Sevastapol ended in 1855 with French and British taking control.
Also, on the other side of Europe, there was a blockade of the Baltic (the RN has a thing for blockades) which affected Russian economy.
For what its worth there were a lot of caualties among the non-professional Russian army - it's losses were about half a million, twice that of the opposing British, French, Ottomans.
The subsequent peace treaty banned Russia from having a fleet turning the Black Sea into a demilittarised zone.
Hardly worth mentioning really.....
One AC replying to a thread from another, like as like, and judged on their words. I won't take it personally if that's not your style, as your objection seems to be on form not substance.
Or did you forget to switch screen names? I think Jellied Eel is pretty obvious in their options and very much wants them to be known, as are a few of the others, are you one of the four up votes that keep showing up on pro Russian and anti-Ukrainian posts? None of my concern really, but I am idly curious.
I think Jellied Eel is pretty obvious in their options and very much wants them to be known
Yep. It's why I don't hide behind being an AC, like you. I think in my time here, I've probably dished out <10 downvotes because I prefer to debate. I know when my comments are likely to attract downvotes, because they're usually on topics where people have been conditioned to believe a certain view. Much like this one.
Putin is bad! Orange man bad! All must go! Putin interfered with the election of St. Hilary! But there's a court case underway in the US regarding the dubious actions of the DNC wrt the infamous Steele Dossier. As for the current fiasco, that's been built on a background of political interference in Russia, and attempts to create regime change there. The kind of stuff we accuse Russia of doing, but present little evidence for it actually happening. But Putin has had a bad habit of interfering with the West's cunning plans. Whether that's closing off access to the Med by creating regime change in Russia, or Russia's intervention in Syria.
But that's politics for you. I think Ukraine has been a failed state since that 2014 coup, and is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Yet we're pouring billions into supporting it. I also don't entirely support Russia's intervention in Ukraine, but I do understand why it did it. Ukraine has been killing Ukrainians since their 2014 coup and civil war. It's been shelling civilians off and on since then. Last year, it passed a law to retake Crimea, DPR and LPR, and started to amass forces there to 'invade' those regions. There were attempts at peace deals, like the Minsk agreement, but that was ignored, and seems like just an excuse to allow Ukraine time to build up it's forces. There have been a couple of subsequent attempts at peace negotiations, but it appears we obstructed those.
But that's geopolitics for you. Ukraine's turned out to be a useful proxy in our war against Putin/Russia. We must fight Putin to the last Ukrainian, no matter what the cost to ourselves and the RoW due to our ill-considered sanctions. Those won't affect our political elite though, even if they get voted out of office. Ukraine's perhaps having it's Ardennes moment right now, and if the same thing happens, history will repeat itself. But that's fine, things may not have worked out in Ukraine, so back to promoting regime change in Turkey, or bombing Iran instead.
There is pretty stiff competition for the most corrupt country in Eastern Europe: along with Ukraine, there's Moldova with Vlad's black market enclave of Transnistria but Romania and Bulgaria won't give the fight up easily.
But they're all choir boys in comparison with Russia's kleptocracy which makes no distinction between state, security services and oligarchs.
Happen to know a couple of Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. This week they're families suffered power losses due to missile strikes and even saw a rocket that was shot down crash close to where they live. School and universities are closed because of the aerial threat.
Okay, for most of the war they haven't been directly affected by many attacks but that doesn't mean they aren't affected by displacement, by material shortages, war-based inflation, etc.
I wish it was that easy.
However, it appears Putin has also set up Russia for a long term problem, but I assume he calculates he'll be dead and buried by the time the country notices it.
All those young men who die in Ukraine will no longer contribute to the Russian economy, and at some point they'll run out of people to operate the machinery that make the profit in that economy. That is essentially death for their society, it just takes a while to register.
Tick tock tick tock..
Meanwhile Ukraine has essentially unlimited equipment, even if it is on loan.
If only that were true. So Germany's supplied more wunderwaffe. The game-changing IRIS-T air defence system. Except Germany's sent a grand total of one. It's promised 3 more next year, once they've been manufactured. If they can be manufactured given Germany's having energy problems. If that's one battery, ie 3 launchers + command vehicle, it's 24 missiles to cover all of Ukraine. At least till an AMRAAMski takes out the command vehicle. At least Germany may get some real-world peformance data given it's never been tested in combat. So will Russia of course.
It's much the same with the HIMARS. I think Ukraine's had something like 20 in total delivered, and depending on who you believe, half have been destroyed. 20 pounding a section of the Kherson front may have been effective, plinking bridges, perhaps not. They're not designed for dealing with hardened structures like bridges, as demonstrated by the small craters it made. But at least 1 seems to have been used over the weekend as a V-weapon in retaliation to the attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure. It took some potshots at Belgorod, hitting a power station and supply dumps there. I'm fairly sure Ukrainians on the front would have preferred them to be supporting their counter-attacks. Ukraine did manage a 5-hr preparatory bombardment over the weekend, before attempting another 'Thunder Run'. 2,000 Ukrainians in SUVs charged the Russian lines, sadly many are now dead. especially as Russia appears to have counter-attacked while Ukrainian forces retreated.
Such is war.
Point being the West pretty much de-industrialised, while Russia's been adopting a policy of self-sufficiency. So it's a question of who can produce stuff like 155mm or 152mm artillery shells faster than they're being used up. Wunderwaffe like HIMARS also rely on tech manufactured overseas, in places like China and Taiwan. There's been a few supply chain issues around there. There'll be more if China decides we're out of ammo and tries to bring Taiwan back into the fold. The US has invited it's industry to start mass-producing artillery shells, but that requires stuff like steel, heavy machinery and industrial sectors that have been in steep decline in the West. We can outsource and off-shore that stuff. Well, we used to. Cadillac used to make tanks, but can't any more. Not that modern car plants probably could easily be converted to make AFVs like they were during WW2.
But that's what happens when you listen to economists, globalists and various advisors who tell us we should be focusing on services, not basic engineering and industry. Plus there was a lot of military equipment donated to ISIL and the Taliban in Iraq and Afghanistan that could have been useful to Ukraine. And given the way sanctions have backfired so spectacularly, it's a situation that's going to get worse before it gets better. It's always been a problem with sanctions, as demonstrated in S.Africa during apartheid, or against Iran. If they can no longer buy stuff from us, it just encourages those countries to develop their own industries and become more self-sufficient. Russia's been doing that, plus sitting on huge supplies of very useful natural resources since 2014. Meanwhile, we've been letting our own capacity collapse.
So get your terminals in place for "free" in a PR stunt. Then bait and switch and expect payment for something they're already using and embedded. Utterly dick move from a man who whilst is unquestionably brilliant when it comes to ambition and vision, is also one of the world's greatest morons.
I think it's better than that. Shipped 20,000 terminals, wants $400m, how much does that work out to per month for the service? I thought Starlink only cost around $80/month. But the board or other investors may be asking questions given Starlink is it's own person. I'm sure Musk could look down the back of his sofa and find the money personally to pay the subs, if this was his decision rather than his company. Unless Musk is in the process of losing money faster than Starlink. All those launches can't be cheap, even as inside(r) sales.
I'm struggling with the math. Market price on the terminals is $600. Even at 40k terminals that only comes to $24m. The cost of the satellites is a fixed cost. Operating them will remain regardless of whether service is being provided to Ukraine. The $80 or $110 month subscription fee is revenue, not a cost. So is SpaceX paying $375m a year in backhaul just for Ukraine?
If SpaceX isn't turning a profit, tax credits aren't helpful. And I doubt Ukraine is recognized by the IRS as a charity anyway. I personally wouldn't be opposed to the US gov't reimbursing SpaceX retail price on the terminals they donated. (retail, because with supply chain shortages these terminals would have probably been sold). And then verifiable operating costs for Ukraine customers. (not full subscription costs, because in an open market they wouldn't have those customers)
But $400m a year, not a chance. Even at full subscription rate those customers would only contribute ~$53m. (assuming 40k terminals at $110/mo)
"Perhaps there is some confusion there between Starlink satellites and red Teslas?"
That particular red Tesla was supposed to go to the founder, Martin Eberhard, so launching it into space was Elon giving him the final bird after taking the car for himself for a bit.
..so I'd guess the bill is for diverting a string that might have been parked over a lucrative US market to Ukraine.
I doubt that would fly. Or even be possible depending on just how maneuverable the satellites are, ie a string launched to orbit over NA probably has wildly different orbital characteristics than one that would cover Ukraine. Plus they have to provide global coverage eventually anyway, so would seem like a timing/revenue recognition issue anyway. So deferring revenue in one market if launches to cover Ukraine were brought forward. The costs just don't seem to add up, especially not compared to current market price. If it's really costing $1,600 per terminal a month, and they're selling at $80, $110 or whatever the current market price is, Musk doesn't have a business. Especially given he's previously stated that both SpacX and Starlink are in trouble, if they can't launch their V2 satellites that might actually deliver the features promised to justify a higher service charge.
I think it'll also be more interesting to find out just why there are claims that they've stopped working. So is that SpacX's credit collections terminating services for non-payment, or if Russia's worked out a way to jam/disrupt the service. They are apparently quite adept at detecting Ukrainians turning their mobiles on, but that's relatively trivial with a few Stingray type devices to triangulate the cellsite registration and pass the details to their artillery.
"or if Russia's worked out a way to jam/disrupt the service."
The easiest way to do that is find the downlink stations and disable them. That's quicker and easier than trying to jam the satellites.
I would hope that captured user terminals are black listed so the Russians can't use them. That could account for some still held by Ukrainians going off-line by mistake.
The easiest way to do that is find the downlink stations and disable them. That's quicker and easier than trying to jam the satellites.
Those aren't in Ukraine though, so hitting the earth stations would be.. bad. There have been rumors of lights in the sky, so perhaps Russia's got a way to jam satellites as they pass overhead. Or blind them. Being low orbit/altitude, they're easier to interfere with than 'spy' satellites in much higher orbits. Plus being privately owned, probably legally more easily attacked than state-owned satellites, especially if those attacks don't cause permanent damage. Or Russia may find/have found a way to use it's ELINT satellites to geolocate active Starlink dishes on the ground, and pass their co-ordinates to it's artillery units.
"Those aren't in Ukraine though, so hitting the earth stations would be.. bad. "
They wouldn't 'hit' them, but just drill a couple of small holes in the electronics cabinets and mist the inside with something as simple as vinegar. They could also make it look like some 'youths' broke in and stripped out the copper.
If I remember, it might be interesting to take a footprint of a Starlink satellite's coverage and move it around on a map of Ukraine. I think that coverage of Kiev would need a ground station within the country. Just guessing from memory right now.
"Especially given he's previously stated that both SpacX and Starlink are in trouble, if they can't launch their V2 satellites that might actually deliver the features promised to justify a higher service charge."
The newest version of the satellites needs to launch on Starship as, it would seem, they won't fit on the Falcon 9 or F9H. Starship won't work until they get the Raptor engine to be more reliable so it doesn't blow up. To date, SpaceX has managed to fly just one Starship engineering prototype that didn't explode. It's not yet a proper working spacecraft. Somehow, they need to get all of the systems working so they can deploy a stack of satellites without them impacting the clam shell door(s) and then be able to refasten those doors so the rocket can be landed without going to pieces as it descends through the atmosphere. Rockets to date just delete the fairing and let it ball back to drop in the sea to get it out of the way once the rocket is out of the atmosphere. Starship won't be able to do that which adds another complication to be sorted out along with all of the other things that still need to be finished and verified. If SpaceX detonates a full stack at the Boca Chica facility, they might lose their ability to be there anymore. It's also won't work for Starlink launches so the pad in Florida needs to be finished and they may also need to construct one at Vandenberg in California to get to to all of the orbits they need. There's still fantastic amounts of money yet to be spent..... and Elon goes off and buys a social media non-profit.
There's still fantastic amounts of money yet to be spent..... and Elon goes off and buys a social media non-profit.
This is what's bankrupted most previous satcomms operators. It costs a lot of money to get a global constellation into orbit and operating, so if capex/opex exceeds revenues, hello bankruptcy. Musk warned his staff about that last year with the dependencies on getting lots of Raptors working together so it could launch his V2 birds, occupy Mars, offer $200 sub-orbital flights to Melbourne etc etc.
Starlink satellites are not in geostationary orbit. They pass over a particular location for a short amount of time. While above the horizon they take client traffic and transmit it back to ground stations for backhaul. When they drop below the horizon they are supporting the ground stations in the next location in their path and a trailing satellite is supporting Ukraine ground stations.
Two things:
1. They possibly could have moved satellites initially to put them in an orbit that crosses Ukraine. Or launched a new ring. But that is a sunk cost not an ongoing one. The satellites might not have enough fuel to move anywhere else.
2. Even if they turned off coverage for Ukraine, there are likely other countries that are being supported by different parts of their orbit.
Ongoing costs would be satellite depreciation (fixed cost shared by all markets in it's path, and would just be ignored if you are no longer going to provide support, because you won't replace them at end-of-life), customer support, and backhaul.
Manoeuvring a satellite to a different 'time' in a given orbital plane (i.e. ascending node crossing time, spacing w.r.t. previous/next satellite in that plane) is fairly easy, not much fuel involved.
Trying to change the inclination requires a massive amount of fuel and is just not going to happen to any significant level.
Not to defend Mr. Musk in any way, but an initial estimate of the manufacturing cost of Starlink terminals was on the order of $2,000 ["Insider"], which would make the math work better. Well, at least for year one.
The whole starlink constellation is slated to to be upgraded to a much bigger MK2 satellite design, and they plan to launch a BUNCH of them. That will increase the capacity and decrease the cost per user(though probably not the cost TO the user). They are physically much bigger and heavier though.
Those are supposed to launch on the new starship platform, which isn't ready for show time yet. So SpaceX is probably not planning to launch a ton of new sats based on the old design. As the thread has said, the numbers don't add up.
That said with the benefit of hindsight, Musk's latest tweets make it look more like another tantrum like the Thai cave thing, so the economics might not be a primary driver here.
"If SpaceX isn't turning a profit, tax credits aren't helpful."
Depending on the tax credit, they can carry over. Amazon is still recouping losses from the years it lost money every year. The EV tax credits for customers in the US are an example of a one-year credit. If you don't have enough tax due, you don't get to carry the credit over to the next year.
The IRS would have a hard time battling Elon on deducting the cost of the donated equipment. I expect a lot of it was deprecated version 1 hardware that would have had to be scrapped and would be written off anyway. While the country of Ukraine isn't likely a charity, the gear may have been donated to a charity and distributed from there for a veneer of lip gloss on the pig. Lawyers would set it up that way if Elon paid any attention to them.
What a colossally self entitled prick. A man who flings shit at the wall to see if it will stick - often other people’s shit. Seriously - does anyone think that the Tesla car was his brain child? The battery tech came from Panasonic, the chassis (at least initially) came from Lotus. The software came from hundreds of talented software developers. By and large, the only ideas he’s come up with are the sort of ideas that my kids would have thought up - when they were five. Games for cars to distract the driver, an autopilot (which isn’t) and so forth.
He’s managed to gather extraordinarily talented people around him, and those extraordinary people have made some amazing things (SpaceX, some aspects of Tesla cars). But all he’s brought to the party are a big mouth, narcissism and a bullying attitude.
At this time, Ukraine needs help. But Musk just wants to buddy up with his oligarch pal Putin.
I think Musk has become a liability to his companies. While I wouldn't purchase a Tesla, because with their practices related to customer service, parts, and repairs, it's more like a lease with equity. I'll give them credit for advancing BEV technology. We wouldn't see Ford and GM moving to full BEV in the future without Tesla. And SpaceX is a real asset to the US space program.
Having said that, lately Musk has completely turned me off on wanting to do business with any of his companies. Starlink could be incredibly useful, but I'm probably going to stick with 5g for Internet access outside of metropolitan areas. I'm leaning toward Ford for BEV, unless Subaru pulls their head out of their ass.
"We wouldn't see Ford and GM moving to full BEV in the future without Tesla."
EV's have been a DIY thing for many years. They just made no sense for an auto manufacturer due to the costs and what they'd have to sell them for to see a profit. GM figured out that if they put out the Bolt in limited quantities, they'd earn "Carbon Credits" that would allow them to sell more high profit margin trucks and SUV's. This meant they could sell the Bolt at a bit of a loss and still increase their bottom line. If you ever wondered why GM "couldn't sell more Bolts" it wasn't that they couldn't, they didn't want to. A new twist was put in through green credits that could be gamed and that's what they did and the average person pays the price. Take away the 'credits', rebates and subsidies and look again to see if it's really time for the electric vehicle to be a universal thing.
Ford's CEO readily admits that the F-150 Lightning, while very cool, isn't that great for towing big things very far. Battery tech is just at the point where EV's are affordable enough for some cases. The costs have fallen enough that there can be some profits but not so far that all of these auto makers are comfortable switching completely over in the next five years. They can promise 2030 or 2035 and look all eeco, but not really have to deliver when the time comes since there will be some thing out of their control that's holding them back. They'd love to have nothing but EV's but.........reasons. Something's bound to turn up they can use. Recession, war, interest rates, the 'wrong' political party in the majority, whatever, use a big enough hammer and the square peg will go through the round hole.
It is absolutely unclear how much Starlink has actually donated to Ukraine, but the numbers seem to go down every day. Out of the 20.000 Starlink devices that have reached Ukraine, much more than 10.000 seem to have been ordered regularly by people who paid the full price for the device and are paying the full monthly price. Around 5.000 devices seem to have been paid for by the Pentagon at full price.
My tracking table currently only has about 1.500 devices that may have been actually donated, but included only three months of free service, and also have been shipped by the US military at their expense.
So I don't see a single Starlink device in Ukraine that isn't currently already charged the regular monthly fee. Starlink hasn't provided any proof that they exist, but on the contrary has silently updated the numbers on their website and "donation" has turned into "public-private partnership".
Starlink must be in quite some financial trouble if they have to turn such a great publicity stunt into such a desaster just for a bit of money.
I wouldn't take any bets on the accounting. We don't know how many of those terminals are active, or who is using them, or for what exactly. Same for the list price of those terminals. Considering USAID is literally the main front for the CIA.
That said, if the costs for the ongoing war are projected at 1/4 billion, Musk's personal finances may be an issue. His Twitter purchase, voluntary or otherwise is likely to consume most of his liquid assets, in addition to a significant loan float at less then ideal interest rates. Twitter is likely a money pit for at least a few years as he will need to at lest partly turn it around even if he is going to flip it.
And the minority investors at SpaceX may no appreciate Musk signing them up for ongoing and open ended funding of free services in an active war zone, so expecting the company to continue to pay for it could land Musk back in court.
Musk could probably still move money around to cover this, but he might have to make actual lifestyle adjustments. Like not getting fined by the FTC, SEC, DOT and the FDA. Only getting high and buying small scented candle companies that sell on Etsy instead of the worlds largest social media companies. Only dropping Teslas into the challenger deep instead of launching them into space.
So why not ask the CIA to pay Ukraine's share?
Look what's happened in the last couple of weeks.
Ian Bremmer, the founder of the foreign policy consultancy group Eurasia, put out a bulletin to his subscribers (and subsequently picked up by Vice News) that Musk had told him in an interview that he had recently spoken to Putin, who was “prepared to negotiate” etc. This happened shortly before Musk put out his proposition for Ukraine to surrender to the Russian genocidal invasion and his pathetic yes/no Twitter poll to his followers on Oct 3rd 22. Musk and Putin deny they spoke recently.
This also coincided with emerging reports from the Ukrainian-Russian front lines that Starlink was mysteriously becoming unreliable – Starlink being a central component of communication and targeting systems used in Ukranian guided weapons and artillery, and achieving high success. Around this time Musk also announced that he will not facilitate Starlink coverage over the Crimea.
Putin wants his neo-Facist chum Trump back in the White House, to ferment further division in Western democracies and increase his international Useful Fool/Western leader muppet base. After all, Trump and Putin share the same values. Crucially, Musk has already stated he will re-install Trump’s Twitter account if he gets control, something many observers believe will sway the next USA election in the direction of the extreme Right Wing and probably dismantle democracy in the USA for the foreseeable future.
It’s been widely reported that Musk doesn’t have the finance/assets in place to purchase Twitter for the $54.20 per share he stupidly signed up to without doing due diligence. More recently a number of the financial intuitions who initially agreed to providing multiple billions in loans have reportedly beenbeginning to back away as the size of the financial risks involved to them become clearer.
Musk has been trying to wriggle out of the initial share offer to Twitter all summer and offer a much lower price based on his available assets. However, On Oct 4th 22, the day after his pro-Russian surrender-monkey poll, Musk suddenly announced he’s offering the full $54.20 a share to Twitter, who can’t believe their luck and eagerly accept. Musk still hasn’t revealed where all the money is coming from, and the timing of the offer meant Musk conveniently avoided being cross-examined later the same week in Court about his financial machinations regarding his Twitter bid.
So, given the timing of recent events, my question is this: Did Putin offer to bankroll Musk’s Twitter bid in exchange for an agreement to degrade Ukranian Starlink use, and more importantly for Putin, to get Trump re-established on Twitter as soon as possible to better influence his followers for the next election(s)?
Did Putin offer to bankroll Musk ?
if he did, that would have been a very smart move.
You see, that is your problem: you don't recognize a loosing position. Ukraine has nothing to offer to anyone. It's a lost cause. The Biden regime is using Ukrainians as cannon fodder to ruin Germany and Europe as a whole. They probably don't even care about Russia so much, it's Europe their target: why else would they have sabotaged the North Stream pipeline ? Now Germany has to buy US LNG for 10 times the price of Russian gas ! Ukraine was a poor corrupt country in january 2022, it turned into a lovely princess beaten by the hateful ork only by the Hollywood propaganda.
All wrong, and you flag where you get your talking points by using that date. The conflict started when the Ukrainians booted Yanukovych, Russia's corrupt lackey. When it became that the majority of Ukranians weren't interested in living another Belarus style puppet government, Russia then invaded and started seizing territory, so this war has been going on for about ten years, as a result in Ukraine trying to, by increments, remove a corrupt puppet government and rebuild their nation.
While is was initially uncertain if Ukraine could hold it's own in a war of attrition with Russia, it is clear the Russians are in much worse shape then they appeared. Its now pretty clear that unless the EU and NATO cut support for Ukraine that Russia will destroy itself it it tries that in Ukraine. So people like you shilling for Putin are trying to spin a web of lies to undermine that support.
Biden and the nations of both NATO and EU are allied with Ukraine and against Russia. So it makes sense that this weeks lie/talking point is that this some secret plot to undermine Germany, whom you seem to see as a ripe target for this misinformation. Russia is trapping itself in a proxy war and while Ukraine is the proxy, Putin's Russia is the target, not the EU. The Germans even took the unprecedented step of setting aside it's modern policy blocking arms sales that Ukraine is now benefiting from.
So Putin's remaining play is to try to use the winter to extort Europe into giving up support in exchange for a (temporarily cheap) season of gas shipments that come with some very big strings attached. This will most likely fail, as it will just enable Russia to keep extorting them, year after year. That's not a case where US gas has much of a part to play. The European nations have been rushing to bolster connections to nations in the mid-east and north Africa. A gas connection to the US will never be able to compete, so the US part will be limited to bulk carrier traffic to support the EU during the conflict as a backstop to other supply cuts.
While this will be a terrible winter regardless, if Putin continues to overplay his hand and draws the EU and NATO further into the war, he could also find himself landlocked, blocked from access to any of the essential ports. So he and Russia still have alot to lose. The EU has been stashing as much gas and oil as they can, and should be able to ration there way through the winter.
So if people in Europe listen to you, they will find themselves in a noose, where Putin's tantrums and whims dictate the stability of there energy markets in the dead of winter, and their economy. Fortunately, unlike most of the US, the majority of the EU has a great public education system. You will get the attention of the wingnuts, but the majority of Europeans will not fall for this line. Russia has made itself a Pariah, and has nothing to offer under Putin but a dangerous and unreliable trading partner. While it will be initially painful and expensive, this is the time for the EU to pivot away from it's dependence on Russia. This will benefit both them and their neighbors to the south in the medium and long term more than Ukraine or the US.
This isn't a Hollywood story, there are no Disney characters here. This is a real life war, fought at a huge human cost, and Russia is going to have a hard time framing this in a way that it isn't the clear instigator and cause of this. Putin invaded an ally out of vanity and greed, after (like Belarus) the residents got fed up with the rank corruption of HIS puppet government. So due to his incompetence Ukraine is no longer an ally of Russia, and I doubt many Russians will be spending summers in Odessa anytime soon.
Maybe Putin has some kompromat on Musk, and if he doesn't scale back the Starlink deployment in Ukraine, everyone is going to know about it? Or that Putin is a master manipulator who really knows how to push his buttons?
I actually don't know what to think about Musk, whether he's a good guy or a bad guy or something in-between? Maybe his weird unpredictable behaviour is the result of being under extreme stress?
Also from the Wikipedia article, digressing a bit here, yes that is how evil russia can be:
" In cases of kompromat during the early 21st century, Russian operatives have been suspected, or accused of, placing child pornography on the personal computers of individuals they were attempting to discredit.[21][22] In 2015, the UK's Crown Prosecution Service announced that it would prosecute Vladimir Bukovsky for "prohibited images" found on his computer;[23] however, the case against Bukovsky was put on hold as investigators tried to determine whether the pornographic images were planted.[9] Bukovsky died in October 2019.[24] "
Also, that just shows how dangerous these "illegal image" laws can be and that they can be a threat to our national security as it gives hackers, both state and non state actors, the power to destroy the lives of practically anyone and likely get away with it. Which is relevant to another article I was commenting on yesterday.
In fact, rather than images, I would expect that Putin would try to entrap Musk in a real-world sex related scandal. We as a species are particularly hysterical about sex and russian intelligence agencies know that very well indeed.
Accusing someone of sex related deviance switches off the general public's rational thinking and would be a highly effective means or smearing an opponent. There is a process in the brain where the emotional system inhibits the neocortex, which is responsible for rational thought. And that is likely because sex is critical to our survival and thus there was selection pressure for such behaviours. Those who exhibited it had higher reproductive fitness.
I may be completely wrong, but as I understand it, when the war began Musk activated Starlink in the Ukraine and provided them with a lot of terminals, all for free, and has not charged a penny since then, and it's been eight months?
Starlink was a God-send, and has been absolutely critical and central to the military.
To my eye, Ukraine owes Musk an enormous debt of gratitude, regardless of whether they like his recent comments or not.
I also think it's quite reasonable for him to ask the West to start contributing to the upkeep of the service. He has a business to run, and it need to make money; he's not funded by the tax-payer.
Sure they have helped the Ukraine a lot - and that is also excellent advertisement for the service. Possibly better than anything else could have achieved in promotion.
But before we feel sorry for the richest man in the world loosing money and offering him tax dollars to help I would like to see a bit of transparency on what has been supplied for free and what it has actual cost have been.
I think he likes to be "edgy". Like a 40 year old teenager. He also smoked pot on video, and publicly called that guy in Thailand bad things.
He may be "right" that Taiwan and Ukraine would be destroyed without the West, but he also moved from South Africa to America to enjoy the benefits of its democracy. Maybe he should stop and think how his life would be different if he didn't have the opportunities given by the free world.
Not touching today's piss-storm....
In the lead-up to World War I, the US saw that good cross-Atlantic communications would be important. Radio was VERY new, only Marconi had a practical rig, and his loyalties were not clear to the US. The US seized Marconi's assets in the US, including the huge Alexanderson machine which could throw ether-waves across the waters.
They also seized Bosch's factory to make sparkers for WWI war-engines, and again for WWII. American ignition systems were not near as developed as Bosch's.
If Musk makes real trouble (mouthing-off is not enough) and the US commits to Ukraine, he could lose his pet.
Perhaps Mr Musk could improve his public perception by PERSONALLY paying for this rather than making Starlink and its shareholders bear the cost? Some of the journalistic coverage of this seems to equate 'acts by Starlink' to personal acts by E. Musk. And, as other commetards have noted, he likes the positive coverage but not the negative.
Depends on how Teslaboy perceives himself.
Would he consider the friendly words of ukraines top PR desaster as something typical and unimportant, as that guy keeps insulting countries and individuals needed by the ukrainian regime as donators and backers ?
Or will he now use the string of insults as a reason to stop any support until the ukrainians have learnt at least some basic manners ?
It does not seem to be too intelligent but insanely arrogant to spout insult after insult, demand after demand and undermine any effort of politicians to sell the "theatre europe" style proxy war thats so desperately wanted by profiteers as something like solidarity for our good democratic friends.
I am somewhat adverse to endure economic damage, loss of work and cold housing for the assumend benefit of someone who lacks even the most basic manners so i can relate when musk takes this escape route.
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