(laughing) What a comedian! 
Yeah, and he can dance the pants off Putin too!
It just got worse in Ukraine. There’s not much Ukraine or International Aid can do. The Russians control Mariupol.
Guardian blog
So does this mean that there’s a lot of corpses in rivers, lakes, etc that will poison the water supply, or just enough rotting corpses laying around on the ground getting into the groundwater somehow? How does that work?
I think it would depend on how the wells are constructed. A very deep well that’s thorougly sealed against the entry of any water from near the surface probably wouldn’t be contaminated unless body parts wound up in the well itself. But the sides of such a well might have been cracked by the vibrations caused by bombing, allowing surface water to enter; and not all wells are made that way to start with.
While some areas in some parts of the world draw water from very deep aquifers that had effectively been sealed by geological layers for millenia until humans punched holes to get at the water (a technique which can cause its own problems), groundwater in most cases is replenished by surface water, and contaminants can seep through to varying extents depending on a whole lot of factors.
And, while I don’t know about that particular area, a lot of municipalities and for that matter individual rural homes do draw water from rivers and lakes; often treating it in some fashion, but generally in a fashion meant to deal with normal levels and types of contamination. As Ukraine hasn’t normally been a war zone, whatever treatment facilities they have still working may well not be up to doing a job they weren’t designed for – and that, of course, is presuming those treatment facilities are still functioning, and can get whatever supplies and parts they need to keep doing so.
Ukraine running low on ammo. Have burned through most of their soviet era artillery shells. Not being able to fire artillery to disrupt Russian attacks bodes ill for the defense of the Donbas (and elsewhere)
Shortage of Artillery Ammunition Saps Ukrainian Frontline Morale - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
It does look like the Russian are grinding their way to taking all of the Donbas. Would love to be wrong of course.
Next I suppose will be some ridiculous sham referendum.
Will that then mean Russia stops advancing and then just holds the territory as occupiers? Would have thought that would also be costly… but in a different way.
I hope if that happens the west doesn’t loosen the sanctions.
Russian “progress” has been minimal. I’ll once again recommend the twitter list below, which contains a group of Ukraine experts that tweet every day about the progress of the war. The list is curated by Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall.
Thanks - there’s also this one by Josh Marshall: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1494877848087187461
Has anyone seen a reason for the shortage of artillery shells reaching Ukrainian troops? On a cost basis, artillery has a lot of bang for the buck. It’s not complicated to manufacture. Training on western artillery pieces for those used to eastern designs shouldn’t be that difficult. I’m a bit surprised that after four months of war that production isn’t up and running at full speed.
Ukraine has probably been burning through their artillery shells at a comparable rate to the Russians during the Donbas offensive. However, they have nowhere near the stocks that Russia has. Obtaining standard 122mm Russian shells will be increasingly difficult for Ukraine. Some former eastern bloc countries have been sending theirs to Ukraine, but eventually those sources will dry up. At some point in the not too distant future Ukraine will have to rely almost entirely on NATO standard 155mm shells. That, or maybe ask Russia if they’d be willing to sell them a bunch more shells.
When we come to hang the Russians they’ll sell us the rope?
They might sell the rope to the Chinese, who will mark it up and sell it to us.
Considering the evident levels of corruption in the Russian military, I wouldn’t rule this option out.
Plus, they need the hard currency. Of course, we’d have to put sanctions on Ukraine for buying stuff from Russia, but we can handle that later.
I mentioned this in another thread, but basically Ukraine let its inherited munitions industries decay to dust after the fall of the USSR. It preferred to concentrate on a handful of major systems which had good export potential to generate revenue (at one point Ukraine was the world’s fourth largest arms exporter). Which meant when the separatist war broke out in 2014 it had little but aging stocks of shells. Misfires, failures to detonate and simple plain shortages were the result.
As of 2018 a new factory was opened to manufacture shells for some of their old Soviet-era artillery. But as of last year production per Forbes was a scant 14,000 shells/year which = a couple days stock. There probably isn’t much ramping up that can happen - they were already in serious straits with artillery ammo from the civil war. I imagine that 14,000 was basically capacity and if they could have produced more they would have. This has been a known problem for years. Meanwhile legacy non-Russian Russian-calibre artillery ammo production capacity and old stocks in the old Warsaw Pact states are pretty limited. The folks that still make it in large quantity, are, well, the Russians.
So Ukraine has to pivot to try and get some Western designs. But that isn’t simple or quick. Even then any military involved in high-intensity warfare will outrun their production capacity quickly. That’s why you lay in large stocks. Ukrainian reports (to be taken with a LARGE grain of salt) claim the Russians are or were expending 50,000 shells/day, while Ukraine was firing back 5,000-6,000/day by comparison. This may well be a propaganda exaggeration to highlight the (legitimate) desperate straights Ukraine is in. But even if not quite accurate in real numbers it illustrates the blistering rates at which this ammo can be expended.
There aren’t any easy solutions unfortunately.
Anyone know if artillery shells can be reloaded?
Target shooters routinely collect their spent brass and reload. My dad did it for years. The old brass has to be checked carefully for bulges or cracks. The bad brass can’t be reused
It would help Ukraine because the old Soviet shells are obsolete.
Most artillery in the 122-155 mm range use a separate propulsion charge (in bags full of powder or a combustible cartridge) and a shell.
https://artillerie.asso.fr/basart/article.php3?id_article=1198
in French but there are pictures.
Thanks for all that info, especially the background setup. You seem to be right, no easy answers. Makes me wonder how many NATO countries have a large enough back stock to get some to Ukraine and keep pace with manufacturing new stock as needed.
Question: what are the two sides’ artillery units shooting at, anyway? Are they trying to take out enemy artillery, and if so, are they succeeding?
Bear in mind that having large stocks of artillery munitions isn’t considered that important in the Western fast-moving, air power-based approach to war. Artillery, to them, is a support branch designed to take out specific targets and provide suppressing fire for ground operations, not something that wins the war in and of itself.