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The Ukraine invasion could impact on the French election – politicalbetting.com
The Ukraine invasion could impact on the French election – politicalbetting.com
Not a good pic of Le Pen to be circulating less than a month before the French presidential election pic.twitter.com/KsYFePUzXC
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Practically all analysts think Russia will win out in the end, its a matter of how long, how much damage and destruction both sides inflict and what "winning" means i.e. does that mean Russia have replaced the government and nominally controlling all the major cities, but there still being an insurgency?
Despite the amazing fight the Ukrainians are putting up, Russia are still moving forward, creeping forward inch by inch in some places, but in the South they are definitely "winning".
*insert own definition of "winning" here.
"The footage looks much like what you would get from a £1k consumer DJI, or perhaps something even cheaper.
Air support isn't much use against something that weights 250g and is 10cm across."
Handy cheap and cheerful facility to have though - to see exactly what the enemy is doing in real time. Especially if you want to set up an ambush on their return journey.
At that size, I doubt they even knew they were being watched.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/10/russia-ukraine-news-latest-war-putin-zelensky-weapons-attacks/
Which is a worrying thing to be sure, but it's not really nuclear warlord talk. and we've imposed the sanctions now anyway
Busted flush
TV interview at:
https://twitter.com/kiraincongress
Russia about to pass 1,000 vehicle & aircraft losses confirmed via photographic evidence, including over 160 tanks. When you consider that we're only seeing somewhere between 1/3rd and 2/3rds of all losses, it is just a truly staggering amount of scrap metal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maUK2_WiTrw
Total cost of a European away game must be costing many times that.
Maria Pevchikh
@pevchikhI would like you to meet Polina Kovaleva. Polina is a 26-year-old glamorous Russian girl from London🇬🇧. She lives in a huge apartment in Kensington and loves to party, her instagram feed looks like a non-stop holiday. That’s not unheard of, but there is one small detail…
Polina is the stepdaughter of Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov.
https://twitter.com/pevchikh/status/1501878715709632518
Walking up Charlotte St. Generally one of London’s most vibrant streets (“a man could be happy living on Charlotte Street” - Saul Bellow). I remember strolling down here in spring last year and it was desolate. Almost every bar and restaurant shuttered. Some in deep decay. I thought “this will never recover. Or it will take many years”
It has recovered. Already. Apart from a small section above Goodge Street, all the premises are buzzing - either with customers, or the sounds of building work. Several places are brand new
Highly encouraging. The resilience of cities. They can take a lot of punishment
+ 1 Vladimir Putin on that list
- Cases increasing. However there is some indication that R may be flattening out at 1.2 or so.
- Admissions up. R is above 1 here
- MV beds - flat
- In hospital - up a bit
- Deaths still falling, though it looks like the rate of decent is slowing.
This is the kind of thing:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/DJI-Mavic-Air-Quadcopter-ActiveTrack/dp/B0876XYV7D
Video range of up to 6km is easily enough to stay hidden in the bushes somewhere. Ideal for the task really.
But would you go further at this stage Mike, flutter on a shock Macron defeat?
I think analysing it there’s an argument Macrons platform is now the wrong one for the constituency he will be fighting the second round in. Maybe not wrong in the moderation we would vote for ourselves, but in French electorate being in a different more anti macron place than last time.
Yes, I am making this point much in defiance of current second round polling, on basis that polling could change closer to make mind up time, with campaign oxygen given to the anti macron platforms.
Rather than simply being left of centre votes and right of centre votes, the fact is Melenchon and Le Pen sit on the opposite side of the table from Macron on type of French nationality, the anti immigration, close the borders to be at home, dislike for Germany and dislike EU policies central to both their campaigns. Last time nearly half of Melenchon’s support didn’t endorse Macron, if you include abstention. However This time, everyone on other side of table clearly know what he stands for, his policies very much their enemy if you remember back to the Yellowjacket campaigns, Melenchon and Le Pen voters shared yellow jackets with each other. Now their votes could be more interchangeable and tactical anti macron than last time. Through anti immigration, anti eu and look after our own being the main positions of those sat opposite macron, they virtually share “on est chez nous” slogan. Certainly on unfairness of taxation structure, retirement, a credit crunch could play into the hands of the yellow jacket platform.
In Russia, Vlad, you will have to barter your TV/car/wife for a potato....
Yes, and that's perfectly fairly enough.
However I think you are unique on PB insofar as you are a Liverpool fan who is actually from Merseyside!
Born in Swindon. When I was starting to get into football we lived equidistant between Town and Southampton. Dad new Swindon as he had served there as a copper, so took me there (weirdly for the first game in the away end).
So I could have had 30+ years of mainly top flight footy, with the odd cup final thrown in. Instead its been a right rollercoaster. I've seen four league titles (three times Division 4, once Div 3), three play-off final wins to gain promotion (and a fair number of play off loses) and nearly reaching the league cup final once.
On the whole I'm happy enough, but some days you wonder...
I think Putin prefers to swig Meths than tea anyway, so I don’t see how it hurts him.
(OK, it's just possible I may have covered different bases at other points, but I definitely said that. Though I bow to your superior agility in that respect
Putin just greenlit Russia’s nationalization campaign. Foreign companies that leave could (will?) find their properties seized and placed under “external management.”
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1501935395092631556
Russians know a lot about tea, and grow a lot of it. This will only hit boutique hotels in Moscow
I'm not saying that would be a trivial task..... but the kind of electronics mad hobbyists I have come across could do that, I think....
Your own DIY UCAV....
A proper military version of the consumer drone would presumably include frequency hopping and wouldn't worry much about OFCOM, but I'm not sure that's what we are seeing here.
Pick the ethical bones out of that one.
But, then everybody knows all their tanks are vulnerable to these shoulder launched missiles and all they have done is put cages on a limited number, which apparently do the square root of f##k all unless its an old school RPG. All these modern systems a) are too powerful and cut through the cage and b) have two charges so even if the cage was to stop it, its blows the cage and then the tank.
https://twitter.com/alastairmeeks/status/1501968344328642561?s=21
Would you trust anything Putin said?
More footage from the fighting around Kyiv earlier today.🇺🇦
Note how nearly every other soldier has some form of anti-tank weaponry - German Panzerfaust 3s, British NLAWs, RPG-7s etc.👇
https://t.co/sHP0TEjNSg
Ukrainian SOF requests immediate tractor support to recover yet another seized Russian Pantsir S1
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1501967750855634944
Victory:
"After the war, after our victory, we will rebuild everything that was destroyed. Very quickly and with very high quality"
https://twitter.com/UATV_en/status/1501943540338757640
"Good evening,we’re from Ukraine🇺🇦The President,country's leadership,members of the government-all work,in their places.We know how sad its for 🇷🇺.I recommend every russian soldier to follow a russian ship before its too late. BTW 🇺🇦 will accept 🇷🇺 capitulation with understanding" [Head of MoD]
https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1501949185175654412
Counter Attacks:
"Zelensky aide Arestovich: Ukr forces have taken Dergachi in Kharkiv oblast. That has driven wedge in Russian formations to north and south around Izyum. "From a military perspective it’s a serious tactical success.... overall situ will switch to Ukraine's favour in near future”"
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1501879187640135688
"More footage from the fighting [UKR counter attack] around Kyiv earlier today.🇺🇦
Note how nearly every other soldier has some form of anti-tank weaponry - German Panzerfaust 3s, British NLAWs, RPG-7s etc.👇"
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1501970387567063047
Credit to Phillips O'Brien on twitter for articulating what was bothering me. I wonder if they've seen some juicy intelligence that we haven't?
The polling on Macron is really stable. He isn't popular - indeed consistently underwater on approval ratings - but is the TINA candidate and consistently has 25-30% first round support in the polls (indeed picking up lately over Ukraine). He will win the second round at a canter because he owns the centre and the left will hold their noses and vote for him with a right wing opponent, and the right will do so with a left wing one. That's easier if the opponent is Le Pen than Pecresse, but Pecresse is a very underwhelming performer and doesn't give him sleepless nights, I suspect.
Le Pen has long been the dominant figure on the right - she led the first round polls for a while, stumbled while right wingers considered Pecresse and Zemmour, and now has a clear advantage again as neither of those captured the imagination of the waverers.
Melenchon is a decent candidate but a bit of a retread now - a known quantity. Last time, he had a pool of votes to fish in as Hamon's candidature collapsed. Even then, it only took him to fourth (albeit in a blanket finish). This time he's after greens (and isn't the natural choice for them) and a small pool elsewhere on the left. He also has his own Russia problems and, if he even gets close to Le Pen in the polling, the far right will tend to consolidate around her.
So the French elections are exactly what they look like - an inevitable procession towards Macron v Le Pen, with Macron winning pretty comfortably.
We didn't enforce the red line back then. Will we now - and will Putin believe us before he resorts to the tactic ?
Only 4 detached houses sold in SE1 in the last 5 years according to Zoopla!
How Vladimir Putin Lost Interest in the Present
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/opinion/putin-russia-ukraine.html
Lots of boring chain coffee shops and the like have disappeared. Replaced by “Mongolian wine bars” and “Nepalese bubble tea boutiques”
So parts of london are actually looking MORE attractive and diverse than they did pre-plague
EDIT
Sorry, I misread the thrust of your post, which is that she is right not to trust him - sure I agree. But that doesn't mean you stop negotiating with him. Allegations of bad faith and continuing violence (probably true allegations) are pretty standard in peace negotiations aren't they?
Слава Україні
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1501965708674093058
https://www.ft.com/content/d9309ade-f9b7-4dba-b65c-6e4e55356a00
But maybe it's popular because it's easy to wrap?
As they should
And confounded my expectations by turning out to have been white all along
Popular with kids, obviously.
Seems like Ukr tank hunting patrols are doing very well. Meanwhile the Russians keep reusing footage of the same handful of Ukr tanks.
(That said, the Chechens down in the south have claimed some success with jamming Ukranian drones.)
Ethics can be comforting because they provide a comfort blanket (just war, throw the invaders out, disarm dictators, etc) but work both ways. I don't think they are "very, very easy".