Russia is seizing hundreds of commercial jets owned by US and European leasing companies, a further sign of the challenges the country's airline industry faces due to sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine.
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I hope this doesn’t lead to poorly maintained planes falling out of the sky on a regular basis. We have already seen what an embargo can do to the vehicle situation in Cuba, where most cars are decades old. While a jet can last, it needs those parts. It would be horrible for a jet full of people to suffer for the ambitions of their leaders.
I’m sure a nuclear superpower that’s one of the few countries that can launch stuff into space can figure out how to keep planes running. People in the west seem to have a profound misunderstanding of the technological capabilities in Russia.
Meanwhile, the last time planes full of people were falling out of the sky was when Boeing rolled out their new planes.
Russia has some amazing technical capabilities and brilliant engineers, the question is not going to be how to do it - the question is going to be how to afford to do it.
Russia’s problem has never been “figuring out how”. It is a nation full of world-class scientists and geniuses.
Russia’s problem (and the USSR before it) has always been to manufacture goods in the quantity and quality needed for mass produced consumer goods and a robust economy. They’ve never seemed to be able to do that.
The good news is that one problem solves the other. Who will be able to afford to fly on jets they can’t maintain when their economy finishes imploding?
It’s important to keep in mind that USSR never had a chance to develop peacefully. It got invaded in 1918, then it was plunged into WW2 a couple of decades later, and after that the Cold War. USSR was completely devastated during the war, while US emerged unscathed with a huge booming economy. The combined west had much greater resources, and this allowed the west to drag USSR into an arms race that was a huge drain on its resources.
If USSR could’ve devoted all the effort that was put into keeping up with the west militarily into domestic development, amazing things could’ve been achieved.
This isn’t about assigning blame, not for me. Yes, they did get a shit deal. Hobbled at first by the sort of royalty/nobility like out of some fucked up fairy tale right until and even into the 20th century, then almost nonstop warfare. For all the lack of fighting, even the cold war was nearly as bad.
Though I am not generally sympathetic to communism, I wince to think what might have happen if they had no developed nuclear weapons. But that cost dearly.
They had a shit hand.
Possibly. Or they could have squandered it. Even if a person accepts that communism and marxism is a legitimate political ideology and in the right circumstances can flourish, it can also fail… and fail without any deliberate sabotage or harsh misfortune.
The funny thought is that, had they succeeded peacefully, that might have been most threatening of all.
Thing is that even with all the external pressures, USSR managed to provide a good standard of living for the the people. Personally, I remember my time growing up in USSR very fondly and I think I had a far better childhood than most kids growing up today. Everybody had housing, food, healthcare and education. Everyone had a job guarantee without any grind and with over 20 days vacation. Nobody worried about losing their job and ending or on the street or not being able to retire in dignity. Life wasn’t opulent, but it wasn’t bad either, and after 30 years of capitalism it got significantly worse for the vast majority of the population in former USSR republics.
I think that the threat of a good example is precisely why capitalist nations are so hostile to any socialist experiments. Not a single socialist country has ever been allowed to develop free from threat of invasion, coups, or economic warfare.
If they hadn’t been saddled with a monster like Stalin. Also, if they’d followed their own path. Rather than trying to force a moon landing, when they lacked the computers to coordinate many small rockets, as SpaceX can do today. Or dropping all their plans to copy the Space Shuttle with Buran, which they didn’t even use anyway. The USSR was always too occupied with image over substance and you can see a direct line of that in Putin today.
More ignorant drivel. Your comment regarding Buran is a perfect allegory for your superficital level of understanding of the subject. Your knowledge is skin deep. https://www.buran.su/buranvssts-comparison.php
From Wikipedea: “Buran completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988, and was destroyed in the 2002 collapse of its storage hangar.”
Reminds me of the fate of the Admiral Kuznetsov. A pattern of neglect.
The program was abandoned because Russia went through hell in the 90s that was engineered by the west. Hateful westerners like you are precisely what gave rise to Putin. Now you get to reap what you sowed. Enjoy.
Well, maybe for once, Russia could not fall for it? Nope, tricked by NATO into humiliation against Ukraine.
I really can’t wait to see what you’ll have to say in a few months.
War is an economic activity and Russia’s war chest is frozen. You won’t have to wait that long.
Russia’s what is frozen?
Putin was counting on Russia’s foreign currency reserves to bankroll the invasion. But surprise, the Canadian Deputy Minister of Finance had been waiting all her life to pull this trigger. Surprise, fuckers.
You realize Russia doesn’t rely on foreign currency reserves to fund anything right? Freeland pulled the trigger with the gun pointing at herself. The only fuckers who are surprised so far are western bankers who weren’t consulted about this idiocy and the western public whose basic necessities are becoming unaffordable.
The only reason you talk shit here is because you’re not personally affected yet, and you don’t understand what’s coming. We’ll see what tune you’re singing once the recession hits full force.
You apparently don’t realize that Putin admitted those funds were intended to bank roll the invasion through the sanctions. He was clearly surprised at the masterstroke the Canadian Deputy Minister of Finance has been waiting decades to unleash. “Oh no! We’re holding all this cash now! Whatever will we do!” Probably force Russia to use them as restitution in Ukraine, now.
You apparently don’t realize that Putin never said anything of the sort and that Russia’s been preparing their economy for this for years. So far, the “masterstroke” is driving western countries deeper into recession and getting China and India to accelerate dedollarization.
This is going to be the end of the western financial system running the global economy. The only time you can legally freeze assets of a central bank are when UN invokes article 7 or when there is a declaration of war. Neither of these things happened last I checked. Therefore, freezing Russia’s central bank is literal robbery in legal terms that completely delegitimizes western financial system. This is precisely why every western financial institution was categorically against this “masterstroke”. These financial experts actually understand the implications of what was done. Yet, they weren’t even consulted. Instead, they consulted Freeland who is an ideologue like you and completely out of her depth.
Meanwhile, west is still buying energy, commodities, food, and fertilizer from Russia to a tune of over 700 million a day. So, these idiots quickly realized that they can’t even meaningfully enforce the sanctions they themselves created.
He’d spent years preparing for the lukewarm sanctions and half-hearted resistance of his first invasion. He clearly did a “uh oh”:
https://www.allsides.com/news/2022-03-18-0548/his-invasion-ukraine-bogs-down-putin-admits-western-sanctions-are-killing-his
I find that crying about the legality of freezing the central bank reserves is ironic given it’s hampering an illegal invasion. You want to go rogue? Enjoy living outside the community of nations. Meanwhile, the invasion is stalling out for lack of computer chips to resupply guided missiles. But I thought you said, Russia was self-sufficient? It’s pure delusion to believe that, in this day and age.
Nobody is crying about the legality of freezing the central bank reserves. What you’re being told is that western financial experts think this was a bad idea because they understand that doing so undermines western financial system.
Meanwhile, Russia has been producing its own chips for all its military equipment since 2014. Something you would know if you actually had a clue regarding the subject you keep yammering about.
Also, waiting to see actual evidence of the invasion stalling. Last I checked, all the Ukrainian forces are encircled in Donbass, and once they run out of food and fuel the Ukrainian army will collapse.
I guess being a westerner you can’t understand why Russia isn’t bombing the shit out of civilians as first order of business and levelling the cities in Ukraine the way NATO would’ve done.
I still don’t see why you feel the need to flaunt your ignorance so extensively here instead of waiting a few months to see what actually happens. Why are you so desperate to document in writing how much of an ignoramus you are?
The war started not with air domination, but with cruise missile salvos. Those have petered off, too. Both of these indicate that even if Russia could produce chips, they can’t replace them fast enough to risk their few modern jets or restock the smart missiles they had left over from bombing Syrian hospitals.
On the one had, you say the world will collapse without Russia, but on the other you say Russia will not collapse without the world. Despite all evidence to the contrary. A table with three legs will still stand, but a table with one… not so much.
It’s the 3rd week of the invasion and you’re waiting to see evidence of the invasion stalling? Ha ha! The plan was to take Kyiv within days. Russia’s main issue now is that without air support, their supply convoys are vulnerable to drone and shoulder-launched strikes. Recall that the plan was not to sit around stranded tanks for weeks, so it’s an open question of who will starve first, the besieged, or the besiegers?
Your BS about bombing civilians is straight up lies. Putin has been targeting civilians with bombs since he took power (Russians that time). Go find a Ukrainian maternity ward to hide in, if you trust him so much.
You sound like a real military expert there with great insight into Russian military strategy. The obvious alternative explanation is that Russia destroyed objectives like the supply depos early on, and now they’re mopping up the forces they surrounded in Donbass that can’t get resupplies. Which is what actually happening right now.
This is western egoism at its finest. The west is not the world bud, and the sooner westerns learn to internalize this fact the sooner the world can move on. The evidence is that the world continues to trade with Russia, and the two biggest countries in the world are backing Russia both politically and economically.
LMFAO when US invaded Iraq with ten times the troops, which is half the size of Ukraine and completely isolated, it took them a month to get to Baghdad. US also had no problems with bombing civilians and levelling cities in Iraq. That seems like a good base line to measure against.
Wow, you know Russian military plans, you must be well connected indeed! Seems like the evidence points to the fact that the actual plan was to draw Ukrainian military into cauldrons in the east where they ended up surrounded. Once the military breaks then Ukraine will have no choice but to negotiate a surrender with Russia. I’m not sure where you got the notion that the cities are what’s relevant here.
Ok there ghost of Kiev.
edit: here’s what an actual US colonel thinks about the situation, but I’m sure you know better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Iw0m-Pc08Q
Looting grocery stores because your expired rations ran out does not speak to an effective supply chain.
You are the one that sees reality as “The West” and the rest. It’s an interconnected global economy, which makes your claims of Russia being able to be cut off from the society of nations hilarious. Even the US would struggle with that, today.
The US had air superiority in the first day or two of that war. So if it took a month to mop up the ground after that, what does this imply in the current context? Russia’s aging and ill-supplied military is going to progress even slower against more modern weapons and better intelligence. While having their economy ground down, something the US didn’t have to deal with then. When you paint it like that, this is looking like Putin’s Waterloo.
Making stuff up is not a convncing form of argument.
Can you explain what Russia has actually been cut off from again?
Russia had air superiority in the first day of the war. Why do you think Ukraine keeps asking NATO for a no fly zone again?
You understand that Russia is one of the top military manufacturers in the world that sells weapons across the globe yes? Given that, how do you come to the insane conclusion that Russia is running out of supplies for its own military?
Yeah they did ignoramus https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic/economy
When you’re completely divorced from reality then sure.
Russia supplies the world with a flood of simple to maintain rifles, sure. Older Soviet gear is always on sale, too, just like anything that wasn’t nailed down from that era. But night vision gear on Russian tanks is French. Russia just isn’t the high tech wonderland you imagine. You’re being thick headed insisting that any single country is self-sufficient.
Also, you what happened to the great Soviet stockpiles of nuclear weapons? They were sold to the American nuclear energy industry to power homes and televisions. The ultimate triumph of capitalism.
I love how I literally linked you an article showing what Russia actually supplies, and you continue to spread misinformation in the reply. It’s just phenomenal to see to be honest.
I also love how you imagine that Russia isn’t able to continue innovating and manufacturing things after USSR. All the same scientists, engineers, workers, and factories are still there, but somehow magically they stopped being able to make new things.
Why don’t we take a look at what people who actually know what they’re talking about have to say about this https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/advanced-military-technology-russia
Russia produces all of its necessities domestically, that’s a fact. Meanwhile, anything it can’t produce it gets from China https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1569862/putin-xi-russia-china-partners-sanctions-ukraine-gas-usa
Russia has over 6,000 nukes, but whatever you say.
Seeing dilapidated the state of it’s air force, navy, and military the claim of 6000 working nukes is absolutely preposterous. I cry bullshit.
When we substitute seeing for imagining and your comment starts to make sense.
They aren’t a superpower. This would imply the ability to project power across the planet. And right now, Russia is struggling at the ends of it’s own rail lines. And how many aircraft carriers do they have? Zero.
They are nuclear armed, but I doubt if they can maintain 1% of their arsenal given the corruption and neglect evident in the rest of their military. They do love blowing money researching old-fashioned “super weapons,” ala Hilter’s last days. But they can’t afford more than the demo model. Or the clean up when they splash isotopes all over their own lands when one blows up in testing. Meanwhile, America, the real superpower, is on to 21st century tech.
You’re an ignoramus with an axe to grind. There’s no point trying to correct your nonsense. Go read up on hypersonic weapons though.
Putin’s nuclear powered, nuclear tipped, nuclear flavored wet dream? That’s so pedestrian. We’re living in the future, not a 1950s pulp novel. And again… they can’t even maintain their conventional forces. It’s highly dubious they’ll be able to support more than the demo, or even that, as was the case with the Buran.
It’s so pedestrian that US can’t make them. Here’s some more pedestrian stuff US can’t produce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_System
You’re an ignoramus with an axe to grind.
Lol. Can’t or already has complete domination? I love to root for the underdog, but come on, Russia isn’t even in the same league.
meanwhile in the real world https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/20/hypersonic-technology-us-behind-china-russia-523130
Yep, that’s why Russia is getting spanked by a nation the size of Nebraska. It’s good to dream, but don’t quit your day job.
I’d love to visit the alternate universe you inhabit one day.
There’s room for you, Yogi. Join the rest of us and live in peace. There’s some real issues we all need to deal with. Pull your head out of your ass and deal with the real existential threats we all face.
I’d rather stay sober than smoke whatever you’re smoking.
But there can’t be much air up there, with your head up your ass.
In a few months we’ll conclusively see whose head is up whose ass. You seem to think that if you just convince enough people of something being true then it will magically become true. You’re about to find out that’s not how the real world works.
That, my friend, is straight-up projection. Yes, we shall see. But I doubt it’ll be that long before the dust settles.
The difference between us is that my position is the same as that of the actual experts, like US colonels and US federal reserve. Meanwhile, your position is based on literal propaganda you consume. You go around regurgitating this nonsense while getting upset when facts are presented to you.
Lol, you’re still projecting. You literally resort to name calling whenever the facts don’t fit your narrative.
LOL, you clearly don’t understand what the word projection means. Not really surprising given that you don’t seem to understand much of anything. Also rich having you talk about facts not fitting the narrative. Facts like Russia having a stable economy that’s not dependent on the west, or having advanced manufacturing capability, or even simple facts like Buran not actually being a copy of the shuttle. Funny how you just pivoted the conversation when I presented you with that fact. You keep accusing me of projection while that’s precisely what you yourself are doing. The most hilarious part is that you lack any sort of self awareness and just keep clowning around here thinking you’re making great points.
You make dozens of comments on a daily basis attacking people over and over, you were catastrophically wrong about fundamental facts relating to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, evinced no willingness whatsoever to engage in self-examination about why you were wrong, and you can’t seem to express disagreement without antagonizing others, have an irritating inclination toward self-satisfied last-wordism which doesn’t make you right but just wrong in ways that are tedious to litigate, and your entire comment history is a history of you arguing with other people 24x7.
I can’t think of any thread on lemmy where you did anything that was contributing to building a positive community and I think the community would be more healthy without you here.
You’re claiming that I’m catastrophically wrong about fundamental facts. What specific facts are you claiming I’m wrong about?
Meanwhile, you can feel free to block me if my comments offend you so much. What you mean by “building a positive community” must refer to having a community of people who agree with you. I think the community would be a healthier place without people such as yourself.
There’s a cat and mouse game every few years where you have trolls who poison communities, and communities that adapt their community norms in response, and then trolls who adapt their behavior to new communities norms and on and on.
I think modernized community norms for 2022 would identify most of the stuff you are doing: expressing disagreement through antagonization and ridicule, gish galloping, one-dimensional focus on controversial subjects, lack of gracious contrition when wrong or even when right, and a cumulative net effect of constantly creating hostile back-and-forths as within the bounds of what it means to be a troll who poisons a community in 2022. If it were up to me we would update community norms on Lemmy to exclude this kind of behavior.
That’s a complete and utter mischaracterization of my interactions with the community. Let’s start with the fact that I’ve had my account here for two years now, and in that time pretty much all my interactions with the community have been positive. Go ahead and look back through my posts and comments.
The only time I’ve started having negative interactions was when I started being hounded by a handful of trolls such as @julianus on the specific topic of the conflict in Ukraine. I haven’t had any negative interactions with other members of community outside literally four or five people who suddenly appeared on Lemmy and whose history is pretty much exclusively spreading misinformation about the situation in Ukraine.
I’m very glad that people such as yourself aren’t deciding the norms for the community. However, you can feel free to start your own instance and invite the trolls following me around to join it. Maybe you can all be happy there together.
I believe, if you remember soferman incident, that Julianus could be soferman all over again. Not sure, because he definitely wanted to come back at some point to harm Lemmy.
So you’re saying Buran was a totally new concept sprung from the free thinking of the Soviet Union? “I’m just spitballing here, comrades… let’s make an oversized spaceplane that’s totally unlike the American one… but we’ll add jets to it!” That sounds exactly like this nationalization of McDonalds, where they keep everything exactly the same, but just change the logo. Good luck getting a resupply on those seasonal McRibs, Yogi.
What the article I linked very clearly explains is that Buran was a substantially different design from the shuttle, and the similarity to it is only skin deep. USSR was also the technological leader throughout the space race and managed to produce plenty of things like closed cycle engines that US still isn’t able to manufacture on their own.
Meanwhile, I don’t even live in Russia. Your whole world view is ideologically driven so you just assume I must have some personal stake in this. I’m simply explaining to you that the reality of what Russia is differs wildly from your conception of it.
The very idea of a spaceplane is flawed. But Stalinist brutality hammers out anything but conformity. Even Korolev himself spent time in a gulag! So it’s no surprise Soviet engineers simply aped whatever their spies said the Americans were working on. With better bells and whistles, because Capitalism is flawed! They could worked on something actually revolutionary, instead built a knock off they only flew once.
Consider that ridiculously long table in Putin’s bunker today with meek generals at the far end. Isn’t that the same mentality today? It wasn’t a recipe for success then nor is it now.
Stalin was around when Buran was made?
Once again, you should actually learn why both US and USSR made space planes. My favorite part in these discussions is how you just keep saying stuff that’s just demonstrably false, and you could just google and learn about it instead of making shit up constantly.
Another perfect example of you having absolutely no clue about Russia or history. Zhukov promoted by Stalin precisely because he challenged Stalin and had strong opinions. And do remind me how the war worked out then, who was it that won it again?
No, I said Stalinist, since he left a stain that wasn’t easily removed, even today. He did actually send Korolev to prison in Siberia, though. Imagine what the Soviet space program might have achieved, if getting sent to a gulag a daily option. Echoes of the past, as Putin threatens his generals with arrest for telling him what he doesn’t want to hear.
In the US, the space shuttle’s goal was to reuse expensive engines and thereby bring the cost per kg of payload down. This did not come to pass. The Soviets spent all the money to copy the same idea but never actually used it, because they concluded, as well, that it wasn’t economic.
The invasion is in progress. The results are unclear at the moment, but judging by how insistent Putin and ~~Lapdog ~~Lavrov are bleating more and more about peace talks, it implies the stalled offensive cannot be sustained much longer. I honestly don’t see how Ukraine can capitulate to demilitarize, given Russia’s repeated aggression.
It’s pretty clear that the Soviet space program achieved far more than anyone else. Sure, it could’ve likely achieved even more if USSR wasn’t under constant threat of war from the west. However, your argument was that USSR and later Russia just copied and couldn’t innovate, which is demonstrably false.
Literally the opposite of what actually happened. Stalin gave more freedom to his general as the war progressed while Hitler started making more and more decisions himself overriding his generals. Maybe learn a bit of history?
No, the space shuttle and Buran were designed as military platforms.
Oh, you’re now walking back your claims to things being unclear. In fact, they appear to be quite clear to US military people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Iw0m-Pc08Q
Last I checked, Russia’s demands haven’t changed in the slightest. I’ll give you some free education here. Russia uses Clausewitz war doctrine where war is seen as extension of diplomacy. The goal has always been to pressure Ukraine into Russian terms, and they’re using their military offensive as a lever to achieve that.
That’s because you are ignorant. Go and read up on how Russia achieved this in Chechnya and Syria as two recent examples. They are following exactly the same pattern in Ukraine right now.
I don’t understand how it’s clear the Soviets achieved “more than anyone else.” They might have, without saddled by an authoritarian government. But despite your constant harping about my lack of historical knowledge, you did know that their manned moon landing was cancelled after their N-1 booster blew up three times? Why? Lack of computers to control many small rockets at once. And of course, they’re timetable was determined autocratically. It wasn’t the threat from the west, it was the threats from their own government.
Lol. Where did you learn this history? Stalin regularly purged his generals for giving him bad news. Field promotions were cheap and easy to come by. Interestingly, this is why so many Russian generals have been “liquidated” recently. They’re right up on the front lines because no one else has authority or information to make decisions and it’s their head in the noose. Remind me, professor, when was the last time an American general was killed in action?
I think you should read Clausewitz again. NATO got Russia to break it’s teeth on an unaffiliated nation. That isn’t achieving Putin’s goals. It’s achieving NATO’s goals with a minimum of effort. With an image of a mad dog, Putin has driven fence-sitting nations to join the EU and NATO. All that’s left for Russia is to hide under the skirts of China. Checkmate.
Chechnya and Syria? So more war crimes, I’m afraid…
You don’t understand great many things because evidently you spend all your time arguing here instead of educating yourself. Read some history perhaps?
That wasn’t because they lacked computers. It was because it was literally part of the design process to launch multiple prototypes and then collect telemetry from them. Here’s a whole documentary you can watch on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMbl_ofF3AM
Meanwhile, did you know that US could not replicate the engines Soviets designed for N1, and in fact after USSR collapsed US engineers refused to believe the specs on the engines because they didn’t think that was possible.
Also, you may be shocked to discover that US moon program was run autocratically by the government pretty in a similar fashion to the way Soviets ran their program. Pretty much all the large scale projects US delivered were either government programs or received massive funding from the government.
Go read up on Zhukov as one example buddy.
Weird how the Soviets won the war being so incompetent while efficient and clever Europe couldn’t put up a fight when German tanks rolled in.
Remind me professor when was the last time US won a war?
You will soon discover this was not the case, so I don’t need to convince you of anything here.
If NATO’s goals were to tank western economies and cause mass public unrest then they’re achieving those goals very efficiently indeed.
Checkmate for whom though. The west isn’t an industrial power, it relies on China and Russia for most of its manufacturing and resources. Now the west is cutting themselves off from the very things they need. Some serious 4d chess being played here.
How did things turn out in Chechnya and Syria. Meanwhile, they’re exactly the same kinds of war crimes NATO is committing this very day.
It seems like your right, it’s going to be the people on top with private jets making these unmaintable jets keep flying until an accident occurs.
https://www.bcaa.bm/international-sanctions-press-statement A lot of these planes are officially considered not airworthy