"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (1 Viewer)

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POlish farmer anger is rooted in protectionism. Ukrainian goods have had their normal supply chains disrupted, and the farmers are concerned that they will be dumped into Poland, driving down prices on Polish products. Their livelihoods are at stake.
The EU should adjust that with temporary subsidies to the Polish farmers to make up any losses caused by Ukraine products entering Poland. But do their claims have merit? I would have thought that any Ukrainian grain transiting Poland would be exported to Ukraine's existing customers. Perhaps Poland has been enjoying a temporary increase in prices for their own grain, and thus wants to continue to benefit from ensuring Ukraine suffers.
 
The EU farmers (not just Poland) have already been angry because of new regulations and taxes imposed through Climate Change legislations.

Ukraine was given temporary duty-free access to markets in limited quantities, which the farmers are convinced will put them out of business.

A while back, the farmers protested when Ukraine was trying to ship grain through Poland to Baltic ports in an attempt to break the Black Sea blockade, claiming that it would undermine their market - which makes no sense.

So I have no doubt that Kremlin lackeys are whipping the farmers up in an attempt to cause domestic problems in Poland.
 
A while back, the farmers protested when Ukraine was trying to ship grain through Poland to Baltic ports in an attempt to break the Black Sea blockade, claiming that it would undermine their market - which makes no sense.

Actually, it does make some sense. I'm not saying it's an accurate perception but I can understand why the Polish farmers are concerned.

There's a finite amount of transportation available, whether it's trucks/trains/barges to get grain to ports, or ships to take the grain to export markets. If Ukrainian grain gets priority transit across Poland and through Baltic ports, how do the Polish farmers get their grain to market? If Ukrainian grain constituted, say, 50% of what Polish farmers produce, that will demand a 50% increase in transport infrastructure capacity for the same market segment. That's a BIG lift to achieve in a short space of time.
 
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Actually, it does make some sense. I'm not saying it's an accurate perception but I can understand why the Polish farmers are concerned.

There's a finite amount of transportation available, whether it's trucks/trains/barges to get grain to ports, or ships to take the grain to export markets. If Ukrainian grain gets priority transit across Poland and through Baltic ports, how do the Polish farmers get their grain to market? If Ukrainian grain constituted, say, 50% of what Polish farmers produce, that will demand a 50% increase in transport infrastructure capacity for the same market segment. That's a BIG lift to achieve in a short space of time.
It is the price they get for their products. Ukr grain get to eto markets in lager quantanties then before, cutting the profit for local farmers.
These locals have higher cost in fuel labour etc.
So you see the profit margin drop even further.
Combine that with the environment policy now comming from Brussels and you can see in what sqeeze they are.
There are far more reasons like subsidies. It not just ukr grain that make farmers so angry, or better desparate. In Holland for instance cow farmer had to invest an awfull lot of money in zero emission stabels to be told a few years later it didnt work and they had to invest again in something else.

A good thing for the farmers is they have lots of heavy equipment are organised and in a lot of cases fighting for their livelyhood.
 
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From what I've seen, farmers in Europe are like an entity to themselves.

The Polish government and people support Ukraine, but the farmers don't lean one way or another and if something irritates them, they are very vocal about it.

French farmers are the same way.
Don't rule out some Russian stoking the fires here…and with various political groups opposing Ukraine support.
 
Reports about the Sergey Kotov are that it's either so heavily heavily damaged its going to be out of service for years, or that it's been sunk but maybe in the process of being recovered.

Russian social media reports the ship was disabled by seaborne drone strikes while in the Kerch Strait, but was able to be towed back to a mooring point. They claim the ship ended up sinking off a pier in shallow water.

Multiple videos from third party sources show one definite hit on the stern.

Footage from Ukraine's GUR shows at least three hits, one on the stern and two in close succession amidships (with one drone entering the hole made by another). A fourth strike may have also hit the aft quarter. Hard to tell from the video as it's chopped up a bit.

EDIT: Russian mil blogger claims ship was sunk. Reports 10 drones involved in the attack, with 5 hitting the Sergey Kotov. Post on Telegram claims the ship listed over and sunk in around 40 minutes. The 10th and final drone reportedly attempted to hit a rescue tug before being destroyed. END OF EDIT

Russian sources posted pictures of what looks to be like a crane barge moving into the area. Could be a possible recovery attempt (or something more morbid, like getting corpses out).

These are not small ships - they're 95m in length and up to 1700 tonnes. That's similar to a WW2 destroyer.

What's most interesting to me is the distances involved. These USVs were likely launched from somewhere near Odesa. That means that they had to travel right around the Crimean penninsula, past Sevastopol, and then get into the Kerch strait without being noticed. That's a journey of ~700km. That takes a major degree of planning and coordination to get right.
 
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Or, it's entirely possible that the Sea Babies are being launched from a mothership of some sort.
True. I have this dream of Ukraine filling a Russian-flagged cargo ship with twenty-thousand tons of TNT and sailing under the Kerch bridge, and then boom. For comparison, when the SS Mont-Blanc entered Halifax harbour on December 6, 1917 her cargo was 2,300 tons of picric acid, 500 tons of TNT, and 10 tons of guncotton. The resultant Halifax Explosion levelled much of the city and killed approximately 2,000 people and injured about 9,000.

Perhaps 20,000 tons is overkill, as we don't want the explosion to appear as a WMD to both NATO and a nuclear armed Putin. If PGMs are not available, how big of a boom do we need to destroy the bridge?
 
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