At the same time, the world can’t just roll over and let every tin pot dictator do whatever they want just because they have a nuke.

“Sooner or later this will end in agreement,” was Putin’s message, arguing that Nato was coming to realise that defeating Russia on the battlefield would be impossible.

Does Putin realize that NATO is effectively fighting Russia with both arms tied behind it’s back right now? We’re funding Ukraine (who are doing a phenomenal job, fwiw), but we’re not even giving them the top of the line hardware. If the US actually got involved, Russia would pretty much instantly lose any glimmer of air superiority they have, and Ukraine could advance all the way to Moscow under NATO air cover. Like, the only reason Russia still exists is because NATO hasn’t even tried to fight Russia on the battlefield yet.

Oh completely agree. I just wouldn’t think that the parts required to fix a steam boiler are high enough tech to be impacted by sanctions.

The most charitable excuse is that it requires parts they can’t get due to sanctions.

At the same time, it’s a boiler in Russia. How high tech could it possibly be???

FWIW, I read “heat blanket” as one of those reflective metallic emergency blankets you find in wilderness first aid kits. Better than nothing, but no true heat source, as it isn’t powered, electrically or otherwise

The one surefire way to trigger an overwhelming US military response is to shoot down one of our helos. So unless they want the entire Somali Yemeni coast glassed (which, to be fair, they might as part of a larger geopolitical strategy), they would have to be very stupid to shoot at a USN helicopter.

ETA: corrected location; my bad

They were creative!

This was a third story window, not a second story one.

According to the USNI Fleet Tracker, the entire Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (CSG-2) and the Bataan ARG are in the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea. So that is a significant amount of firepower in the region, not even counting PATFORSWA or other nations warships.