Comments by "David Elliott" (@davidelliott5843) on "William Spaniel" channel.

  1. Russia stopped Germans at Stalingrad. But Russia was not strong enough to push Germany back over the border. Had there been no US aid to Russia, Eastern Europe and Western Russia would today be speaking German.
    50
  2. 5 Potentially spin Kursk Oblast as an Ukraine satellite and ally. The traffic jams of Russian cars trying to escape suggests they expect their local military to stand down.
    20
  3. Outdated but enough to keep Russia busy in Donbas.
    18
  4. When you have only 500 words the book synopsis is more than adequate.
    14
  5. The Kursk break dance.
    10
  6. China certainly has its eyes on Eastern Siberia. Soon enough, they can simply walk in. But probably not this year. Mud season looms too close.
    8
  7. Exactly. They literally all look the same. They literally all act the same. I’m amazed the Iranian people have not “solved” the problem long ago.
    7
  8. The river is especially convoluted with wide boggy areas. Where you might get a bridge across there’s no solid land to get to/from said bridge. Then the enemy sinks it.
    6
  9. China just redraws the lines on maps and says “it’s ours now. Look the names are Chinese”.
    6
  10. The export routes for Russian oil are limited. Pipelines to Europe are pretty much closed. Pipelines elsewhere? There are none. Cork up the outlets by destroying refineries and storage tanks means the wells have to be closed. In Russia that usually means the well freezes and has to be filled with concrete. No more oil from that oil well.
    5
  11. Lined pipes will not stop permafrost from freezing water entrained with the oil. Oil exits the ground pretty warm. No frost problems - as long as it’s kept flowing. But let it stagnate because the oil storage suddenly went away or the refinery can’t process it and the flow stops. Water freezes and the pipes crack.
    3
  12. The Ukraine southern offensive last year, failed because the location was well telegraphed and preparations were ridiculously slow. Russia had weeks to prepare significant defences. This Kursk offensive is a total surprise to Russia. They have no idea what to do.
    3
  13.  @u2beuser714  Russia basically bought in the maintenance and drilling expertise. Halliburton, Shell, et Al made fortunes doing what Russia could not. They all pulled out in March 2022. Russia is now relying on the very few spanner monkeys that have not been sent to fertilise Ukraine farms. The gasoline export ban will hide the collapse in production capacity. However the next winter arrives soon after the ban is supposed to end. The sales ban won’t end and Russia will struggle badly next winter.
    3
  14. It’s not just tritium and conventional explosives. Plutonium itself decays and left long enough becomes spongy. Even a few micro voids will stymie that compression effect. Spongy pit = no boom boom. There’s also corrosion. Plutonium “rust” also won’t go boom boom.
    2
  15. Speaking Russian does not make you a Russian person. For example, Americans speak English but they are not part of UK where the language originated.
    2
  16. Ukraine was safe from Putin as long as they voted for the “correct” president. Within a year of removing Putin’s puppet they found “separatists” demanding Donbas become part of Russia. Men in Russian uniforms with Russian equipment but no badges where badges should be. Coincidentally Putin annexed Crimea.
    2
  17. Russia has extracted its police, teachers, hospital staff and council officials. Everyone else got left to (?) Moscow doesn’t care. Any Kursk resident who does not already know they are “nothing” certainly does now.
    2
  18. It’s wrong to believe the Soviets lost a total of 15,000 men in Afghanistan. That’s the number they admitted to. However the real number is more likely x 10. They lost at least 15,000 PER YEAR (maybe a lot more) for ten years. 150,000 to 200,000 is a likely total for their Afghanistan losses.
    2
  19. Perun is another superb analyst and an amazing presenter.
    2
  20. Has CIA stirred up the situation in Syria? As William says, the timing is perfect.
    2
  21. Is Kursk really riddled with tunnels? Or are these similar to those in Bakhmut. Narrow, not very long and already overrun.
    2
  22. Nuclear plant in long term shutdown has very little decay heat. After a week, decay heat will be 0.2% of the cores normal output. Zaporizija has been in “cold” shutdown for 2 years. The core will be warm. But it will not be boiling any water.
    2
  23. How this $300 Billion invested? Is it all cash? What if there is even more in other assets - Stocks, property (real estate), etc. can we seize them as well?
    2
  24. Assad and entourage flew out of Damascus then switched off the transponder. We are not being told where they went. Assad family left Syria at least two weeks ago. Rebels will move west from Homs and up the coast to capture Latakia and the Russian port.
    2
  25. Ukraine wants 100% of its occupied territories returned. That includes Crimea and when the time comes, that bridge will be hit. Meanwhile Russia expends considerable resources to protect its investment.
    2
  26. The 54 billion from European Union has been ratified. Belgium is giving Ukraine the interest earned by captured Russian assets. Others will now follow.
    2
  27.  @giloro85  Hi t ler was a socialist. Stalin was supposedly a communist. Both used fascism as a means to their ends. Both philosophies consider the ends justify the means. Their utopian end point is never attained, so everyone has to suffer under their hideous means.
    2
  28. The “Big mineral deal” is pointless when Russia holds or threatens the entire location.
    2
  29. Israel has already hit Iranian nuke facilities. Israel won’t stop the disruptions.
    2
  30. USA sends a few excellent weapons but 80% to 90% of that $60 Billion goes straight into US arms manufacturers. They win by avoiding end of life disposal costs and they get paid for replacement materiel.
    2
  31. Jimmy Carter removed the Shah of Iran. He might not have been the nicest guy but the alternative was a buck of psychos. Well done Jimmy.
    2
  32. Ukraine industrial output has minimal (though not insignificant) effect on the world economy Taiwan makes the computer chips that effectively power the world.
    1
  33. Right now, China could simply walk into Eastern Siberia. Russia can’t stop them. China would have military costs (men in trenches at the border) but Russia has nothing to fight with. They don’t even have the paper to fold into a tiger.
    1
  34. Crimea has become functionally useless to Russia. (1) Russia destroyed the Nova Kahovka Dam leaving the water supply dam high and dry. (2) Russian Black Sea Fleet is functionally useless. (3) The Kerch Bridge is vulnerable to a drone boat attack.
    1
  35. It’s disingenuous to say that Ukraine has “failed so far”. They have continually moved forward (slowly of course) but they have kept Russia out and they’ve done it without F-16 and without ATACMS.
    1
  36. Biden foot dragged throughout 2023. Had he sent useful volumes of aid, the MAGA delays would have been far less of a problem. Right now, Trump can switch his policy on a dime and that will seriously embarrass Biden. Biden can prevent that by sending more stuff now and scrapping the silly red lines.
    1
  37. The areas of Ukraine invaded in 2022 have all been brutally treated with theft, deportation, rape, torture, murder and everything between. Ukraine people who initially supported the invasion no longer want anything to do with Russia. Russians on Crimea moved out very quickly after the airbase was destroyed. This remaining are likely to have suffered Russian abuse after the 2014 annexation. Few of them will oppose retaking the peninsula.
    1
  38. Trump is painted as a Putin ally, but is that just electioneering? Biden has done his level best to crimp Ukraine while appearing to be their saviour. Is he really the good guy? Harris is just a nothing. She says nothing and she does nothing.
    1
  39.  @s-annel-frii357  Google is a start.
    1
  40. Peter Zeihan reminds us that collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR) caused many Russian oil and gas wells to freeze up and have to be capped- permanently. They are drilled through permafrost so have to be kept flowing to avoid entrained water freezing and cracking the pipes. It took decades to recover and Western expertise. Ukraine taking out export hubs and refineries is having a similar effect. There is nowhere to put the oil so wells have to be shut down.
    1
  41. China and Russia have an even more serious issue. Their ageing population has too may workers retiring with nobody to take their place. China killed itself with the one child policy. Russia just allows HIV, TB and alcohol to crush people who should be in their prime.
    1
  42. Play stupid games with your empire building and expect your assets to get taken away. China would have simply grabbled the lot. So it’s not like there are many alternatives.
    1
  43. Russia has a manufacturing problem because their population demographics has a huge hole right where the working population should be. Sending most of them to die in a silly war just aggravates the problem.
    1
  44. There will be no negotiations because Putin has more than proved the he and Russia cannot be trusted. They had a perfectly acceptable agreement at Minsk that led to Ukraine giving away its nuclear weapons. But they triggered a proxy war, annexed huge chunks of Ukraine and followed up with this war. Negotiations with these people are impossible.
    1
  45. Ukraine drones have not exactly saturated the Russian oil facilities. Each drone gives a point impact so have to be extremely precise. Air strikes deliver many point impacts per aircraft and each one is more powerful. Precision impact means a relatively small area to be repaired. Air strikes wreak havoc everywhere.
    1
  46. UK is doing its level best to hide recent ter or ist activity. A notorious event involving children has been covered up. The true causes of industrial and infrastructure fires is ignored by the media.
    1
  47. Belarus has Russian launch trucks, but do they contain anything that goes whoosh 🧨
    1
  48. USA is more than capable of equipping Ukraine to win within a year of less. Taking down Putin will have a significant chilling effect on the other potential hot spots. It would also cause less damage overall to Russia.
    1
  49. USA is self sufficient in oil. More accurately, North America is self sufficient in oil. Russia trying to push up world oil prices does not concern Biden or Trump.
    1
  50. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea have massive reserves of oil and gas. Perfectly located to supply the EU. But so does Kazakhstan and many others along the southern Russian border. Putin has effectively locked them all out of the oil market. That keeps him in control and prices high. I suggest he invaded Ukraine to remove the competition just like any other gangster.
    1