Ukraine

[Suff]

Meanwhile VW have had to shut down 2 factories producing EV's due to arts from Ukraine being unavailable.

https://www.wionews.com/world/vw-to-hal ... 456932/amp

[Suff]

At the same time,



Haven't noticed any petrol station chains doing likewise.... Perhaps the limited number of vehicles which might need it. Mind you, it is open to all vehicles, not just Tesla's and not just fleeing Ukranians.

[Suff]

A Soyuz rocket carrying 36 OneWeb satellites is on the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Russia's space agency Roscomos demanded guarantees the spacecraft would not be used for military purposes.

It then said it would not launch the rocket unless the UK sold its share in OneWeb

Naturally the UK refused. Now they have to work out what to do. There is only one organsiation with enough spare capacity to launch the remaining OneWeb satellites. Namely SpaceX. Yet SpaceX is in direct competition with them with their Starlink offering.

If, however, they could get SpaceX to lift their satellites, they'd be able to lift about 70 per launch instead of the 32 scheduled on Soyuz and the price would be around half or less. The launcher is rated for around 100 by weight but only about 70 by volume compared to the Soyuz.

This is going to be interesting as Russia launches quite a lot of stuff for countries currently sanctioning Russia. SpaceX could tool up and take their business away in 6/9 months.

Mind you once Starship is running, if anyone can get SpaceX time, a single Starship is sized to launch about 450 OneWeb satellites in a single launch. Hard to see a Soyuz at $9,000 per kg (oneweb load value), doing business if Starship is available. Even at $100m per launch, Starship is $1,500 per kg at OneWeb volume. Musk estimates Starship will rapidly drop to $10m per launch and his eventual goal is $2m per launch. As you can imagine, that's $150 per kg and $3 per kg respectively if he hits those targets.

Russia needs to be going flat out at $9,000 a kg to make as much money as possible, because once Starship becomes a reality their market is dead for anything other than national security launches.

Talk about digging their own grave. OneWeb is only one. For further reading, shutting down the ESA Soyuz operations in Baikonur, halting the ESA Mars rover, not being frosty over ISS.

[cromwell]

I never thought I would see war in Europe in my lifetime.
The Ukranians may be brave but I can't see them holding out against the Red Army for much longer.
And will Putin stop at Ukraine? If he doesn't things will only get worse.

[Suff]

Well I remember Serbia wading into Bosnia and everyone "deploring" it and sanctioning it until Clinton grabbed NATO by the scruff of the neck and got involved.

It took that level of action to stop what was going on and force Serbia to back down.

Unless there is some serious deployment of military capability from NATO countries, Russia is simply going to bury Ukraine in a weight of arms and bombardments. Heavier and heavier until they win.

I was looking at RT today and there was a story about Turkish drones and how Ukraine had ordered more and how they had used them against the rebels. Then it led into how these drones had been used successfully by Azerbaijan to quell insurrection. Then it led onto how the rebels had been "recognised" as independent states by Russia and how they had "asked for aid".

Followed by a full blown shock and awe invasion on the entire country of Ukraine.

Talk about gossamer thin justification. It is hardly a surprise that UN delegates are walking out of the room when Russian delegates talk or that the UN has censured Russia in the general assembly. Yes they have a veto in the security council, but they don't in the general assembly.

For 40 years Russia has been building relations with the rest of the world, building themselves up into a powerful economy, working on multiple stages. Just look at the cooperation they have had in Space operations. It seems a really stupid thing to do to throw this all away on a small win in Ukraine on the off chance that the rest of the world will let them do it again and again.

They may be the second largest Nuclear power in the world, but their economy is smaller than the UK and, by megatonnage at least, the UK is third and only even close to France because the UK has been scaling down the arsenal for decades. If Russia's economy takes a sudden massive contraction, then they're going to find this level of military expenditure crippling.

[cromwell]

That's true Suff. I had forgotten the Balkan conflict. Also there was the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
I suppose the difference is that none of the combatants there were armed with nuclear weapons.

[Suff]

True Cromwell. But the thing about Nuclear weapons is that they are weapons of last resort. You can't use them and survive the retaliation.

That is what Mutually Assured Destruction is all about.

There is the part about burning the whole world down if you are going to lose, but that is why these weapons have multiple levels of approval to launch with any one level being able to block it.

Nukes are not a choice weapon. They are a no choice weapon.

[Suff]

And they thought war was all about tanks, guns, shells and missiles.

Amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the famous hacker group Anonymous claims to have shut down Russia’s space program so that Vladimir Putin “no longer has control over spy satellites.”

The Anonymous-affiliated Network Battalion 65, or ‘NB65,’ released a tweet claiming to disclose Roscosmos server information. According to NB65, they have obtained and erased sensitive material pertaining to the space agency’s satellite imagery and Vehicle Monitoring System.


Roscosmos’s head, on the other hand, rejected the claims and referred to Anonymous as “scammers and petty swindlers.”

“The information of these scammers and petty swindlers is not true. All our space activity control centers are operating normally,” Director General Dmitry Rogozin tweeted.

Furthermore, he claimed that any hacking of Russia’s satellites would be used as grounds for war. Rogozin has previously stated that cyber thieves cannot get control of the Russian space industry, orbital group, or Russian part of the International Space Station.

Russia Satellite Hack: Anonymous says Russia's spy satellites are now hacked
“The WS02 was deleted, credentials were rotated, and the server is shut down,” hackers tweeted:

“We won’t stop until you stop dropping bombs, killing civilians, and trying to invade. Go the f*** back to Russia.”

It comes only days after Anonymous claimed to have successfully breached over 300 Russian websites and offered troops more than $53,000 (£39,000) in exchange for surrendering their tanks.

According to Ukrainian media, the hacking community has accumulated over RUB 1 billion ($10.3 million) and is giving tank crews money for each surrendered tank.

Anonymous declared ‘cyber war’ on Putin’s administration last week as he launched a full-scale Ukraine invasion.

Ukraine conflict: Anonymous declares cyberwar on Russia - Mining Technology
“The Anonymous collective is officially in cyberwar against the Russian government,” the group wrote on Twitter.

Previously, Anonymous attacked groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Islamic militants. The group members are known as ‘Anons,’ and their Guy Fawkes masks may identify them.

[miasmum]

My friends grandson has Aspergers and loves programming.

He applied to join the British Army but was turned down for the military having failed the psychometric testing, but he has been taken on to train for cyber warfare

Says it all

[Kaz]

There was a cyber attempt on BT during the week. It failed.

Slightly off topic, but BT made all UK calls to Ukraine free, almost a week ago. I do find it disgraceful that Ukrainians in Europe, with family links here, are having to PAY to call the numbers provided to get entry here, and go through almost impossible red tape ie printing out forms! I mean seriously?! We need to up our game, like the rest of Europe are.