Just FYI: Here on the Danish Island of Bornholm where I have a coastal house and have been quite aware of all the activities the past couple of days, one explosion occurred south of the southern part of the island, and 2 NE of the Island. Shipping traffic has been re-routed. Here a video of a leak from the Danish Defence:

https://www.forsvaret.dk/en/news/202...he-baltic-sea/

Although the Danish Defence are not releasing details, The Daily Mail have reported that it was caused by Russian Drones.

Extra info: because of its location, military activities around Bornholm are not at all uncommon due to its location.

because Azerbaijan is run by a kleptocrat dictator suppressing democracy in an oil rich state, imprisoning dissenters, waging war on its neighbours and torturing political prisoners.

does this ring a bell?

Sorry if this is a little off topic - I didn’t want to start a new thread just for this. Today I saw an Ukraine plated car in our car park, it also had a CH sticker. I wondered if this is what Ukraine refugees are required to do on their cars, or this particular person just doesn’t get how the country code stickers normally work??

Try going to Pristina, where every other luxury 4WD had a CH sticker (at least my experience when visiting just after that wars war crimes were being uncovered by Swisscoy - (partner there was with Swisscoy on a UN Legal related mission))

Maybe you want to read my post again. I have no illusions about Mr Aliev. But the energy supply situation is not about democracy, but about diversification. Had Russia been only 15% of our supply base, we would have far less problems.

I get your point, dependence on Russia is a bad thing, but would you be happy with your gas supplies being diversified by different vile dictators?

Happier.

To keep the latters from being decommissioned, they keep generating massive income for UA.

Although war by nature is unpredictable, UA after breaking through recently have the initiative and almost have Lyman encircled. Assuming Lyman is re-captured, it feels like UA has unstoppable momentum.

The recent drive by RU to conscript more soldiers seems too little, too late and even when the new troops finally arrive, I doubt they will be very effective. If even the 1st Guards Tank Army is defeated, what chance do people up rounded off the streets having failed to escape call-up have?

UA have shown not only that they are willing to fight, but have done so tenaciously and adapted to the challenges they faced. With more motivated fighting forces and backed-up with modern equipment from NATO, I don't see how RU can sustain this war.

I would not be surprised if the RU army will soon lose the will to fight and collapse.

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From TheLocal.DK:

Brigadier General Carsten Rasmussen, who was Denmark’s Defence Attaché in Moscow until June, laid out the argument for why Russia might want to blow up the own pipeline in a series of Tweets in Danish.

He said that the sabotage “creates fear” about whether Europe can get gas this winter, and also over the vulnerability of other infrastructure in Europe. He said the sabotage would lead markets to react, pushing up gas prices by 12 percent. He said the attack would “threaten Western unity”, pointing to Sikorski’s tweet. Finally, he said the attack was a distraction from Russia’s referendums annexing new areas conquered in its invasion.

“Who might be interested in provoking the four effects mentioned?” he asks, pointing the finger at Russia. “Nothing has yet been proven – and perhaps never will be. The sabotage actions in the Baltic Sea look like a hybrid action, not aimed at Denmark, but at the West’s unity and willingness to support Ukraine.”

Indeed: The stock market price of gas rose from 15 kroner per cubic metre on Tuesday morning to 18 kroner per cubic metre on Wednesday, according to energy analyst Kristian Rune Poulsen of Green Power Denmark.
“The gas leaks in the Baltic Sea have made the market nervous and prices increase by 5-10 percent in the wake of that,” Poulsen told news wire Ritzau.
“But on top of that, [Russian state gas monopoly] Gazprom has threatened to shut off supplies to Europe through Ukraine and that has made the price of gas go up even more,” he said.

If we're more than happy to be allied with Saudi for all our energy needs, is this really a sensible question?

Clearly we do not give a hoot, where political or energy based expedience is involved.

speak for yourself, I do give a hoot.

The Royal, or parliamentary "we" in the UK

I am not best pleased, either.

Seems even Margarita Simonyan has concerns about the mobilisation, from her telegram account (original in Russian)



This whole affair is turning into a parody of itself.

Yes.

There's no perfect, just better. And sourcing small fractions from different vile dictators is already an improvement over sourcing a large fraction from one sole vile dictator.

Of course it can be even better, but...baby steps

Without a worldwide boycot on country XYZ it doesn't really matter. Instead of buying from, say, Nigeria China now buys from Russia while Nigeria sells to Europe instead. Worldwide production and consumption are unchanged. Over time Russia will adapt to the transport problems Europe's boycot creates, and perhaps build pipelines to China+India as replacement for those to Europe.

You could even argue that the buyer has at least marginal influence on the seller. A non-buyer however has zero influence.
They could have done the exact same before the sabotage. Losing NSx permanently changes nothing for Russia because they keep controlling the feed of all that are available, with or without NSx.

Come to think of it, the reaction supports the notion that it wasn't Russia, obviously Putin's not amused.

How surprising. Didn't they want to do that also when they were claiming the Ukrainians bombed Mariupol?

-----

Russia plans to convene UNSC session over Nord Stream pipelines

"US President Joe Biden must answer the question of whether the United States carried out its threat on September 25 and 26 when an emergency was reported at three lines of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2," Maria Zakharova emphasized

Russia intends to convene a United Nations Security Council session in connection with the provocations against the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Wednesday.

"Russia is planning to call for an official meeting of the UN Security Council over the provocations against the Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2 pipelines," Zakharova said.

https://tass.com/politics/1514731

Well, when on Bornholm this Spring for a few months, I did become aware of the following - the threats may have already been there - make of it as you will:

https://cphpost.dk/?p=134014
https://cphpost.dk/?p=131412

This is already happening. Saudi Arabia is buying Russian oil for domestic use and refining, which allows them to sell more of their own oil.

Even in Europe, Russian oil is being laundered and mixed, refined and re-sold. It's actually a win-win for all involved. Europe can look tough while still getting oil under the table, and Russia still sells.

So what's the betting that the 'so called Nord Stream sabotage' was caused by the Ukrainians after weve exhausted the usual excuses like weve had
about explosions in the Crimea, that the explosions was caused by careless Russian soldiers discarding cigarettes.