The downside:
The expectation is that Russia won’t launch many hypersonic missiles in the near term since they don’t have a lot of them. Instead, Moscow will likely drop more “dumb” bombs in the weeks ahead — almost certainly leading to more civilian casualties around Ukraine.
This is likely to change the discourse around American drones and targeted killings.
Disclaimer: I haven’t checked out the state-of-the-art in about a decade. Perhaps someone can correct me.
Overdriven amplifiers that are distorting are adding harmonics. IIRC, the harmonics added by solid-state devices like transistors lean towards the odd-numbered harmonics and lack the warm, pleasing-to-the-ear even-numbered harmonics added by tubes. Digital processing does a good job, but it’s surprisingly tricky to get right, and delightfully simple with tubes.
I suspect the timing of the announcement has something to do with “logistical pull-down”. Maybe not all containers are out, but enough that they can walk away.
OCRed version. I wish people would consider scanning documents at a higher resolution
Уважаемый Клиент,
В свете продолжающегося конфликта между Россией и Украиной A.P. Moller – Maersk,как оIдеIIIвенный учаиник |раниюр|но1 о рынка, принял решение о прекращениидеятельности Maersk и продаже активов компании в России.
Если ваш груз уже находится в пути, мы сделаем все возможное для исполнениянаших обязательств и доставки груза в пункт назначения. В то же время, начиная стекущего момента Maersk прекращает прием мовых букингов на всех своих сервисах- включая океанские, трансконтинентальные железнодорожные и авиационные - в ииз России. Вывоз всех ранее ввезенных контейнеров из России планируется доконца апреля 2022 года.
Исполнение нормативных документов и ограничительных мер, введенныхправительствами зарубежных стран в отношении РФ, а также ожидаемаяэкономическая турбулентность в экономике страны не позволяют нам далеепродолжать свою деятельность в России.
Maersk в полной мере осознает всю сложность данного решения, но как ответственнаякомпания, не может пренебрегать невозможностью далее обеспечивать требуемыйуровень эффективности и безопасности в использовании и управлениисоответствующей критически важной транспортной инфраструктурой портов и судовв России в этих обстоятельствах.
Просим посетить Справочник и Часто задаваемые вопросы на Maersk.сот дляполучения дополнительной информации и рекомендаций по переадресации вашихгрузов. Поэтапное свертывание нашей активности уже началось, и, к сожалению, насегодняшний момент у нас нет ясности относительно перспектив возобновлениядеятельности Maersk в России.
С самого начала конфликта на Украине нашим приоритетом было обеспечениебезопасности и благополучия наших сотрудников. Этот приоритет мы сохраняем и всвязи с данным решением. В ходе поэтапного сворачивания деятельности Maersk вРоссии в ближайшие шесть месяцев мы сделаем все, что в наших силах для поддержкинаших российских сотрудников и членов их семей.
В случае возникновения дополнительных вопросов, просим обращаться к вашемуспециалисту в отделе клиентского обслуживания Maersk.
Run it through your favorite translation service…
tl;dr = “we’re making money, and though I Charles Koch am richer than Croesus, I won’t stop profiting, anywhere, for any reason, and certainly not for a moral one”
ETA:
ETA 2:
Similar to how leased planes were seized by the Russian state?
Gee, that’s an argument as fragile as a crystal champagne flute.
There’s been speculation that the Russian government will seize foreign-owned businesses and sell them to oligarchs. That would bring in money for the government and help to compensate the oligarchs for the money they’ve lost because of the war.
So roughly: “it’s chaos, we can’t control shit, we’re outa there.”
*Jeff Goldblum voice
“Business, uh, finds a way.”
Update on FBOOK from Billy Bragg:
Three days ago, I posted a clip of Ukrainian band Beton (it means Concrete) performing their version of the Clash’s ‘London Calling’, rewritten as ‘Kyiv Calling’. You can see it here
My attention was subsequently drawn to photos on the band’s Facebook page showing them wearing t-shirts commemorating Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. I deleted my original post two days ago and called the band out for their apparent support of fascism.
Yesterday, I was contacted by Andriy Zholob, the guitar player of the band, who was understandably concerned by my criticism. He’s a doctor currently working in Lviv with traumatised refugees from the war zones in his country. Beton he said are an anti-fascist band and he asked me to help craft a statement that both apologised for the offence caused by the shirts and clarified the band’s position.
I’m pleased to say that, as a result of our discussions, the band have removed the offending photos and posted the following statement on their Facebook page:
STATEMENT FROM BETON
Beton apologise for any offence caused by photos of our band members in tee shirts carrying the name of Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. We have removed the images from our Facebook page. We understand that perceptions of Bandera around the world are different form those held by many Ukrainians. We realise he is a very controversial figure. And we would like to clarify our position.
Like many eastern European countries during the 20th century, Ukraine suffered greatly from being invaded by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Badera’s passion for Ukrainian independence led him to both collaborate with the Nazis and then turn against them when they tried to supress the country. During the most troubling period in our nation’s history, Bandera was sent to a concentration camp for resisting the Nazis.
His experience is a reminder that our history is complex and we accept there are very dark chapters in it. Nonetheless, we believe that it is up to all Ukrainians, irrespective of their ethnic or religious affiliations, who finally have secured the opportunity to openly and democratically debate the legacy of their historical figures, to ensure that this debate includes acknowledging and accepting crimes that have been committed both against them as victims and by them as perpetrators.
We need a national debate about our history and contested memory - exactly the kind of debate that would be impossible in Putin’s Russia. The invader is trapped by the past, seeing everything through the prism of Russia’s imperial history. We in Ukraine are seeking to escape that prison and to take our place as a nation free to make our own democratic choices.
This is the Ukraine that we are fighting for – a place where people of all races and creeds can work together to build a nation free from oppression.
Slava Joe Strummer & The Clash! Slava Ukraini!
The band’s statement can be seen on their Facebook page. I have also deleted the offending photo from my page.
Бетон - STATEMENT FROM BETON Beton apologise for any... | Facebook
Excellent!
“Ukraine has what may be the richest soil in the world,” writes University of Georgia historian Scott Reynolds Nelson in his astonishing new book Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World. “In 1768, Tzarina Catherine II sent a hundred thousand Russian troops through this region and across the Black Sea to capture it.” Her goal: to establish a Russian Empire by “seizing the steppe, planting wheat here, and then feeding all of Europe.”
It wasn’t just the fertile land that made Ukraine such a prize. Nelson writes evocatively of the “black paths” ( chorni shlyakhy in Ukrainian), the “ancient oxen trails that cut across Ukrainian plains to Black Sea ports,” where grain could be gathered on ships and sent to the Mediterranean, the gateway to the lucrative European wheat market.
Two and a half centuries later, Russian soldiers have once again besieged Ukraine, and another Russian ruler dreams of an empire with easy access to the Black Sea and Europe. Russia’s latest assault on its western neighbor has plunged global food markets into a state of chaos, with prices gyrating upward.
Russia has also been using PENAIDS (penetration aids) on their conventional missiles. These are little packages fired out the side of the missiles, with flares and jammers to confuse interceptors. These are things that are saved for the big conflicts, because as soon as they use them, other people will get them and take them apart to learn to defeat them. So the next gen replacements better be coming down the production lines (doubtful).
They must need to get as many missiles through the defences as possible.
