Bohdanivka Has FALLEN | "Frontline Has Significantly Worsened" - Commander Syrsky
Latest updates from the front: (10 min)
ALERT RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread
- Thread starter danielboon
- Start date
Latest updates from the front: (10 min)
Without question this is the most extensive propaganda war in history.
Excellent (but long) detailed article on the Billions being pumped into both propaganda and censoring going on.
realclearwire.com
Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield – to win hearts and minds.
A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.
Excellent (but long) detailed article on the Billions being pumped into both propaganda and censoring going on.
U.S. Helps Pro-Ukraine Media Run a Fog Machine of War
U.S. Helps Pro-Ukraine Media Run a Fog Machine of War
By Lee Fang, RealClearInvestigations and LeeFang.comApril 11, 2024 Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but al
Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield – to win hearts and minds.
A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.
jward
passin' thru
OSINTtechnical
@Osinttechnical
Serbia is preparing a massive pivot away from Russia with a €3bn order for a dozen French Rafale fighter jets.
Per a Serbian official quoted by the Financial Times "Due to geopolitical circumstances now it is not even feasible — even if you wish — to buy from Russia"
@Osinttechnical
Serbia is preparing a massive pivot away from Russia with a €3bn order for a dozen French Rafale fighter jets.
Per a Serbian official quoted by the Financial Times "Due to geopolitical circumstances now it is not even feasible — even if you wish — to buy from Russia"
What would we do without experts?
As if Trump would tell someone what his exact plan will be. He doesn't even know what it would be yet, I reckon.
It is NOT the surface ships you need to worry about - it is the SUBS which you can't see.
von Koehler
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Indeed. Ukraine is trying to convert Putin's Black Sea fleet into "submarines" as quickly as possible.
von Koehler
Has No Life - Lives on TB
26:09 minutes
Analysis of Russia's collapsing natural gas sales and effects of sanctions. Summary and conclusions start at 22:07 minutes.
vector7
Dot Collector
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will go to Paris in a few weeks, Emmanuel Macron said.
The French president intends to discuss with his Chinese counterpart a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza as well as in Ukraine for the duration of the Olympics.
View: https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/1779792678219035070?t=_V48F3uMCaZx65_wZObvLA&s=19
wait-n-see
Veteran Member
Escalating Dangers: Russia's Dominance with Armed FPV Drones
Run time - 8:36
Apr 15, 2024
In the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the utilization of armed FPV or First-Person View drones has reached unprecedented levels. Recent reports reveal a stark increase in Russian drone deployments, with a staggering 234 FPV drones dispatched to strategic locations in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts within the past day alone—a surge of nearly 40%.
These armed FPV drones, once primarily used for reconnaissance, now serve a multifaceted role in the conflict, from gathering intelligence to executing precise strikes deep within Ukrainian territory. The intensification of the conflict has spurred a surge in drone production and technological advancements, amplifying their effectiveness on the battlefield.
Alongside this drone surge, Russian forces executed pinpoint strikes using cruise and ballistic missiles in Mykolaiv Oblast, targeting areas outside populated regions. While no casualties were reported from these strikes, they underscore Russia's relentless assault on Ukraine's critical infrastructure. Russia's recent attack on the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant, Ukraine's largest hydroelectric station, on March 22, further highlights the severity of the situation. The Ukrainian military has also reported the deployment of 13 Lancet combat drones and the release of 269 munitions from various drone platforms in the past day, indicating a sustained and coordinated effort by Russian forces.
What specific capabilities do FPV drones bring to the table, given their increasing use?
Apparently - from what I'm reading - is the addition of AI-driven algorithms which allow a drone swarm to communicate in a hive fashion. One of the benefits seems to be the ability to resist electronic warfare (EW) systems which have been somewhat successful in scrambling drones' guidance commands.
As these drones get larger and more powerful, they will also become more deadly with increased payloads, speeds and maneuvering capability, I reckon.
I would suggest you - actually read - the article I posted above on propaganda
These YouTube "experts" get well paid to push narratives by cherry picking some "facts" that they can then spin to generate the message Russia is about to fail. Consider these "experts" have been saying the same for the last 2 years!
LNG is a major PITA to produce and ship - actually for all nations as the fleet of LNG ships is limited. Also the processing plants are complex and expensive to build - for all nations.
So instead of some (well paid) unknow "expert" claiming - Russia's collapsing natural gas sales - lets look at what actual WESTERN FINANCIAL sources are reporting.
Lets start with REUTERS - in their section of data and analytics produced for financial market professionals. April 3rd 2024 - about as non-political and current as you get
New west-east route keeps Europe hooked on Russian gas
April 3 (Reuters) - Western European governments have sought to reduce their energy dependence on Russia since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, but when it comes to gas, they have increasingly substituted the country's pipeline supplies with its liquefied natural gas (LNG).
EU statistics and Reuters calculations show the rise in LNG has pushed the share of Russian gas in EU supply back up to around 15% after pipeline imports from Gazprom had plunged since the war to 8.7% from 37% of EU gas supply.
Russia sent more than 15.6 million metric tons (mt) of Russian LNG to EU ports last year, according to data analytics firm Kpler, a slight increase from 2022 and a 37.7% jump compared to 2021.
How about another Market Publication - NASDAQ
Russian natural gas output up 10% in Jan-Feb y/y
Russian natural gas production rose by 10% in the first two months of this year from the same period a year ago to 131.5 billion cubic metres (bcm), Kommersant newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with energy ministry's statistics.It said natural gas production in February alone increased by 13.8% to 64.5 bcm from the same month in 2023, mainly thanks to energy giant Gazprom's GAZP.MM efforts to raise output by some 20% to 44 bcm.
Or how about an OIL TRADE Publication
More Russian LNG Being Exported to Europe Than Asia
More Russian LNG Being Exported to Europe Than Asia | OilPrice.com
Russia’s liquefied natural gas exports gained over 4% in the first quarter of this year as it increased output to replace sanctioned pipeline gas exports to Europe
oilprice.com
Citing a 4.3% (8.7 million metric ton) increase in unsanctioned LNG exports in Q1 2024 based on data from Kpler, Kommersant.ru said exports to the European Union were rising,
BOTTOM LINE - Russia's NG and related LGN Production and Sales are NOT collapsing as pushed by this Propagandist
Overall their NG Production is up (sure going somewhere) and their related LNG is also up and being exported to Europe.
I could pull up plenty more WESTERN independent trade and financial articles that all report and agree on the FACTS that - Like it or Not - Russia's Oil and Gas production and related income has not been impacted by SANCTIONS.
Actually it is the EU that has taken the financial hit.
wait-n-see
Veteran Member
Russia Touts Its Air Defence Systems As "Superior" to NATO, Reveals Problems in Ukraine's Strategy
Run time - 5:00
Apr 15, 2024
As Russia marked the annual holiday of Air Defence Force Day on April 14, a top Russian commander stressed on the told the country’s air force has played in Ukraine conflict. Air and Missile Defense Forces commander Lt. Gen. Andrey Semyonov stressed on how aerial troops have been part of the military strategy since the Ukraine war began. Semyonov said that Russia’s Air Defence Troops are “working closely” with the defense sector to make Russian systems superior to their Western counterparts.
Tom McDowell
BAMN
Posting this here to tie in some of the technical and political similarities:
Simplicius
Apr 14, 2024
Iran made history yesterday by launching “Operation True Promise”. In our usual style here, let’s cut through all the noise currently clogging up social networks and incisively demonstrate the facts as thoroughly as possible, while also pointing out how this was a game-changing and historic event which has brought Iran onto the world stage in a big way.
Firstly, as establishment, Iran’s stated goal for the operation was to strike back at the bases from which the Israeli consular attack was launched on April 1:
Now, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts.
This strike was unprecedented for several important reasons. Firstly, it was of course the first Iranian strike on Israeli soil directly from Iranian soil itself, rather than utilizing proxies from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc. This alone was a big watershed milestone that has opened up all sorts of potentials for escalation.
Secondly, it was one of the most advanced and longest range peer-to-peer style exchanges in history. Even in Russia, where I have noted we’ve seen the first ever truly modern near-peer conflict, with unprecedented scenes never before witnessed like when highly advanced NATO Storm Shadow missiles flew to Crimea while literally in the same moments, advanced Russian Kalibrs flew past them in the opposite direction—such an exchange has never been witnessed before, as we’ve become accustomed to watching NATO pound on weaker, unarmed opponents over the last few decades. But no, last night Iran upped the ante even more. Because even in Russia, such exchanges at least happen directly over the Russian border onto its neighbor, where logistics and ISR is for obvious reasons much simpler.
But Iran did something unprecedented. They conducted the first ever modern, potentially hypersonic, assault on an enemy with SRBMs and MRBMs across a vast multi-domain space covering several countries and timezones, and potentially as much as 1200-2000km.
Additionally, Iran did all this with potentially hypersonic weapons, which peeled back another layer of sophistication that included such things as possible endoatmospheric interception attempts with Israeli Arrow-3 ABM missiles.
But let’s step back for a moment to state that Iran’s operation in general was modeled after the sophisticated paradigm set by Russia in Ukraine: it began with the launch of various types of drones, which included some Shahed-136s (Geran-2 in Russia) as well as others. We can see that from the Israeli-released footage of some of the drone interceptions:
At the 0:49 mark you can see what looks like a Shahed, though it appears similar to the jet-engine-equipped Shahed-238 variety.
After a certain pre-timed span, Iran then released cruise missiles so that they could strike roughly in a similar window as the drones. One video from last night confirmed the low-flying cruise missile presence:
It’s not known for certain, but it appears it could be the new Abu Mahdi missile which has the appropriate ~1000km range. Here’s some other possibilities:
Then, following the appropriate time interval, Iran launched the coup de grace, its vaunted ballistic missiles. Here’s Iran’s own released footage of the start of Operation True Promise, which includes the ballistic launches:
As stated, all three layers of the attack were timed to coincide, with the slowest (drones) going first, then next fastest (cruise missiles), followed by the fastest time-to-target, the ballistic missiles.
The U.S. scrambled a large coalition to shoot the threats down, which included the U.S. itself, UK flying from Cyprus, France, and, controversially, Jordan which allowed them all to also use its airspace and even partook in the shoot downs.
Dozens of images proclaimed the “successful” shoot downs of Iranian ballistic missiles, like the following:
The problem is, all of those are the ejected booster stages of two-stage rockets. There is no conclusive proof that any ballistic missiles were shot down, and in fact all the evidence points to the opposite: direct footage of the missiles penetrating the AD net and striking targets. But we’ll get to that.
There are speculations and then there’s what can be dutifully confirmed.
As for the confirmed, with my own eyes from the actual longer released launch video we can see the following:
Which appears to match what is likely the Shahab-3 below:
Here’s another photo from a Shahab-3 test:
In the launch photo, the very top warhead nose cone does appear slightly shorter and may match the Sejjil rocket better. The Sejjil is in fact a much newer evolution of and upgrade to the Shahab that has both a two-stage and three-stage variety for an extremely long range of 2500km+. And some also claim it might be the Ghadr-110, but this is also an evolution and similar ‘upgrade’ of the Shahab-3 system, which likewise looks almost identical.
There are some other launch videos that appear to show possible Zolfagher or the updated Dezful systems as well.
Then there is the closest shot of the launch video, which gives us the most accurate confirmation of one of the missile types:
end snip
====
Our board has limitations on amount of characters and images per post, and, as usual this post from Simplicius would run three to four pages here. I'd recommend visiting the OP for a fascinating essay.
another snip
They call this the New Equation. Anytime Israel attacks them, Iran now intends to strike them ‘head on’, i.e. directly from its soil as is their newly demonstrated capability.
Beyond this, Iran broke new ground in setting new milestones for missile technology and modern warfare, as stated in the outset. Iran demonstrated the capacity to bypass the most powerful and advanced anti-missile systems in the world—ones that have no built-in excuse as is the case in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the excuse is that the Patriots and other systems are manned by under-trained Ukrainians, and are not reinforced and integrated as wholly into layered Western systems as they would be in Western hands.
But last night, Iran penetrated every missile shield manned and operated by NATO itself, with all the trappings and advanced C4ISR and SIGINT capabilities inherent to the entire Western alliance; from THAAD, to Patriot, David’s Sling, Arrow-3, SM-3, Iron Dome, and even ‘C-Dome’ from Israeli corvettes—not to mention the entire complement of the West’s most advanced A2A defenses flown from F-35s, Typhoons, Eurofighters, and likely much more.
One must understand that ballistic missiles are precisely the apex predator that these most advanced Western AD systems were created to handle—and last night, they failed spectacularly in the same way the Patriots did in Desert Storm before them:
This sends a signal that Iran is now truly capable of striking any of the most high profile, high value targets of the West’s, in the entire sphere of the Middle East, within a radius of 2000-4000km. That is a significant capability that dwarfs even anything Russia or the U.S. itself is capable of in the same efficient way. Sure, Russia can send Avangards (very few, and highly expensive) and far slower long range cruise missiles, but due to the Treaty, no other country can match Iran’s cheap and immediate ballistic missile capability. The U.S. would have to send up a load of slow planes and do the traditional long range stand off attacks with slow munitions to hit targets at such distances.
As I said, the only question that remains is still of effectiveness by way of accuracy. It’s one thing to develop long range rockets via the luxury of a two-stage allowance, but there’s far more technology that goes into making such objects critically accurate—and I suspect here Iran may fall short of Russia and the U.S.’ capabilities, given that there’s a whole host of special electronics (signal boosting, EW reflecting, etc.) and guidance redundancies that are required for extreme accuracy. This is where Russia’s systems shine. Iran’s missiles have been shown to be quite accurate during tests in Iran under ideal conditions—but in highly contested EW environments, when the GPS/Beidou/Glonass signals are jammed, it could be a completely different story. Furthermore, the science behind signal retention in hypersonic plasma bubbles is quite extreme and no country has yet even proven the capability to consistently do this—but we won’t get into that for now, as I may cover that in an upcoming article focusing on the Russian Zircon.
The optics of seeing Iranian missiles flying over the Israeli Knesset surely sends chills down Israel’s spine because it states: we could have easily destroyed your Knesset, and much else, but we chose to be lenient, for now:
Who came out the winner?
There are now two chief competing ‘takes’ on the situation.
One says that Iran was ‘humiliated’ as Israel intercepted everything, and more importantly, that Iran has now blown its only advantage of surprise and strategic uncertainty/ambiguity by ‘showing its hand’ and not achieving much. They argue that Iran’s one true advantage over Israel was the threat that it could effect a mass launch of its feared ballistic missiles, wiping out huge swathes of Israel. But now that the perceived ‘damage’ from the attack was low, Iran has shown itself to be weaker than expected, which could imbue Israel with even more courage and motivation to continue striking and provoking Iran, as they might see they have nothing to fear from Iran’s long-touted missiles.
This is certainly a reasonable argument. I’m not saying it’s totally wrong—we simply don’t know for a fact because of the aforementioned reasons that:
We don’t actually know how much damage the strikes caused, due to Israel’s obvious lies of “100% interceptions” and disproved fakes.
We don’t know whether it was merely Iran’s goal to do a ‘light’ showing in the interest of ‘escalation management’. I.e. they may not have wanted to cause too much damage deliberately, simply to send a message but keep from provoking Israel to respond too aggressively.
Iran is said to have thousands of such missiles, so obviously having launched only 70+ or so is likely not indicative of a major attack tasked with actually causing serious destruction to Israeli infrastructure.
Then there’s the converse side: Iran came out the big winner by demonstrating all the previously-outlined abilities of bypassing the West’s densest AD shields.
Here’s why I think in some ways this conclusion to be the more correct in the long term.
Firstly, one of the common counterarguments is that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which ultimately trumps anything Iran can throw at them. But in reality, now that Iran has proven the ability to penetrate Israel, Iran too can cause nuclear devastation by striking the Israeli Dimona nuclear power plant. Destroyed nuclear plants would produce far more radioactive chaos than the relatively ‘clean’ modern nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Israel is much smaller than the comparatively gigantic Iran. Iran can take many nuclear hits and survive; but a single mass nuclear event in Israel could irradiate the entire country, making it uninhabitable.
Secondly, recall the main fear of Iraqi Scarabs and Scuds back in the day: that they could contain chemical/biological warheads. Iran too could technically load its missiles with all kinds of nasty goodies of this sort: either chem-bio or even unenriched Uranium—which it has aplenty—to create a ‘dirty bomb’. Now that we know it can penetrate Israel easily, Iran could actually wipe the country out with a mass un-enriched nuclear, chemical, or biological attack with these now-proven hyper- or quasi-hypersonic ballistics. That threat alone now presents a psychological Damocles Sword that will act as asymmetrical deterrent or counter to any Israeli Samson Option threat.
Thirdly, this was Iran’s very first foray into such a direct strike. It can be argued that they gained critical data and metrics from the entire Western alliance’s defensive capabilities as well as Israeli defensive vulnerabilities. This means that there is an implied threat that any future attack of this scale could be far more effective, as Iran may now ‘calibrate’ said attack to maximize what it saw were any failings or weaknesses on its part last night. Russia has had two years of launching such strikes, and it has only been semi-recently that they’ve calibrated and finetuned the precise timings of the sophisticated multi-layered drone-ALCM-ballistic triple threat attack. Iran can improve with each iteration as well and maximize/streamline the effectiveness with each attempt.
/snip
===
.
Iran Breaches Anglo-Zionist Defenses in Historic Attack: A Breakdown
Simplicius
Apr 14, 2024
Iran made history yesterday by launching “Operation True Promise”. In our usual style here, let’s cut through all the noise currently clogging up social networks and incisively demonstrate the facts as thoroughly as possible, while also pointing out how this was a game-changing and historic event which has brought Iran onto the world stage in a big way.
Firstly, as establishment, Iran’s stated goal for the operation was to strike back at the bases from which the Israeli consular attack was launched on April 1:
And another:
Nevatim Airbase in the south of occupied Palestine
It should be noted that the rest of the explosions or hits in other areas of the occupied territories are related to the confrontation of the Israeli air defense systems with the projectiles in the sky or the falling of the wreckage of the interceptor missiles or the wreckage of Iranian missiles.
Now, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts.
This strike was unprecedented for several important reasons. Firstly, it was of course the first Iranian strike on Israeli soil directly from Iranian soil itself, rather than utilizing proxies from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc. This alone was a big watershed milestone that has opened up all sorts of potentials for escalation.
Secondly, it was one of the most advanced and longest range peer-to-peer style exchanges in history. Even in Russia, where I have noted we’ve seen the first ever truly modern near-peer conflict, with unprecedented scenes never before witnessed like when highly advanced NATO Storm Shadow missiles flew to Crimea while literally in the same moments, advanced Russian Kalibrs flew past them in the opposite direction—such an exchange has never been witnessed before, as we’ve become accustomed to watching NATO pound on weaker, unarmed opponents over the last few decades. But no, last night Iran upped the ante even more. Because even in Russia, such exchanges at least happen directly over the Russian border onto its neighbor, where logistics and ISR is for obvious reasons much simpler.
But Iran did something unprecedented. They conducted the first ever modern, potentially hypersonic, assault on an enemy with SRBMs and MRBMs across a vast multi-domain space covering several countries and timezones, and potentially as much as 1200-2000km.
Additionally, Iran did all this with potentially hypersonic weapons, which peeled back another layer of sophistication that included such things as possible endoatmospheric interception attempts with Israeli Arrow-3 ABM missiles.
But let’s step back for a moment to state that Iran’s operation in general was modeled after the sophisticated paradigm set by Russia in Ukraine: it began with the launch of various types of drones, which included some Shahed-136s (Geran-2 in Russia) as well as others. We can see that from the Israeli-released footage of some of the drone interceptions:
At the 0:49 mark you can see what looks like a Shahed, though it appears similar to the jet-engine-equipped Shahed-238 variety.
After a certain pre-timed span, Iran then released cruise missiles so that they could strike roughly in a similar window as the drones. One video from last night confirmed the low-flying cruise missile presence:
It’s not known for certain, but it appears it could be the new Abu Mahdi missile which has the appropriate ~1000km range. Here’s some other possibilities:
Then, following the appropriate time interval, Iran launched the coup de grace, its vaunted ballistic missiles. Here’s Iran’s own released footage of the start of Operation True Promise, which includes the ballistic launches:
As stated, all three layers of the attack were timed to coincide, with the slowest (drones) going first, then next fastest (cruise missiles), followed by the fastest time-to-target, the ballistic missiles.
The U.S. scrambled a large coalition to shoot the threats down, which included the U.S. itself, UK flying from Cyprus, France, and, controversially, Jordan which allowed them all to also use its airspace and even partook in the shoot downs.
Dozens of images proclaimed the “successful” shoot downs of Iranian ballistic missiles, like the following:
The problem is, all of those are the ejected booster stages of two-stage rockets. There is no conclusive proof that any ballistic missiles were shot down, and in fact all the evidence points to the opposite: direct footage of the missiles penetrating the AD net and striking targets. But we’ll get to that.
Missile Types
First: what kinds of ballistic missiles did Iran use?There are speculations and then there’s what can be dutifully confirmed.
As for the confirmed, with my own eyes from the actual longer released launch video we can see the following:
Which appears to match what is likely the Shahab-3 below:
Here’s another photo from a Shahab-3 test:
In the launch photo, the very top warhead nose cone does appear slightly shorter and may match the Sejjil rocket better. The Sejjil is in fact a much newer evolution of and upgrade to the Shahab that has both a two-stage and three-stage variety for an extremely long range of 2500km+. And some also claim it might be the Ghadr-110, but this is also an evolution and similar ‘upgrade’ of the Shahab-3 system, which likewise looks almost identical.
There are some other launch videos that appear to show possible Zolfagher or the updated Dezful systems as well.
Then there is the closest shot of the launch video, which gives us the most accurate confirmation of one of the missile types:
end snip
====
Our board has limitations on amount of characters and images per post, and, as usual this post from Simplicius would run three to four pages here. I'd recommend visiting the OP for a fascinating essay.
another snip
They call this the New Equation. Anytime Israel attacks them, Iran now intends to strike them ‘head on’, i.e. directly from its soil as is their newly demonstrated capability.
Beyond this, Iran broke new ground in setting new milestones for missile technology and modern warfare, as stated in the outset. Iran demonstrated the capacity to bypass the most powerful and advanced anti-missile systems in the world—ones that have no built-in excuse as is the case in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the excuse is that the Patriots and other systems are manned by under-trained Ukrainians, and are not reinforced and integrated as wholly into layered Western systems as they would be in Western hands.
But last night, Iran penetrated every missile shield manned and operated by NATO itself, with all the trappings and advanced C4ISR and SIGINT capabilities inherent to the entire Western alliance; from THAAD, to Patriot, David’s Sling, Arrow-3, SM-3, Iron Dome, and even ‘C-Dome’ from Israeli corvettes—not to mention the entire complement of the West’s most advanced A2A defenses flown from F-35s, Typhoons, Eurofighters, and likely much more.
One must understand that ballistic missiles are precisely the apex predator that these most advanced Western AD systems were created to handle—and last night, they failed spectacularly in the same way the Patriots did in Desert Storm before them:
This sends a signal that Iran is now truly capable of striking any of the most high profile, high value targets of the West’s, in the entire sphere of the Middle East, within a radius of 2000-4000km. That is a significant capability that dwarfs even anything Russia or the U.S. itself is capable of in the same efficient way. Sure, Russia can send Avangards (very few, and highly expensive) and far slower long range cruise missiles, but due to the Treaty, no other country can match Iran’s cheap and immediate ballistic missile capability. The U.S. would have to send up a load of slow planes and do the traditional long range stand off attacks with slow munitions to hit targets at such distances.
As I said, the only question that remains is still of effectiveness by way of accuracy. It’s one thing to develop long range rockets via the luxury of a two-stage allowance, but there’s far more technology that goes into making such objects critically accurate—and I suspect here Iran may fall short of Russia and the U.S.’ capabilities, given that there’s a whole host of special electronics (signal boosting, EW reflecting, etc.) and guidance redundancies that are required for extreme accuracy. This is where Russia’s systems shine. Iran’s missiles have been shown to be quite accurate during tests in Iran under ideal conditions—but in highly contested EW environments, when the GPS/Beidou/Glonass signals are jammed, it could be a completely different story. Furthermore, the science behind signal retention in hypersonic plasma bubbles is quite extreme and no country has yet even proven the capability to consistently do this—but we won’t get into that for now, as I may cover that in an upcoming article focusing on the Russian Zircon.
The optics of seeing Iranian missiles flying over the Israeli Knesset surely sends chills down Israel’s spine because it states: we could have easily destroyed your Knesset, and much else, but we chose to be lenient, for now:
Who came out the winner?
There are now two chief competing ‘takes’ on the situation.
One says that Iran was ‘humiliated’ as Israel intercepted everything, and more importantly, that Iran has now blown its only advantage of surprise and strategic uncertainty/ambiguity by ‘showing its hand’ and not achieving much. They argue that Iran’s one true advantage over Israel was the threat that it could effect a mass launch of its feared ballistic missiles, wiping out huge swathes of Israel. But now that the perceived ‘damage’ from the attack was low, Iran has shown itself to be weaker than expected, which could imbue Israel with even more courage and motivation to continue striking and provoking Iran, as they might see they have nothing to fear from Iran’s long-touted missiles.
This is certainly a reasonable argument. I’m not saying it’s totally wrong—we simply don’t know for a fact because of the aforementioned reasons that:
We don’t actually know how much damage the strikes caused, due to Israel’s obvious lies of “100% interceptions” and disproved fakes.
We don’t know whether it was merely Iran’s goal to do a ‘light’ showing in the interest of ‘escalation management’. I.e. they may not have wanted to cause too much damage deliberately, simply to send a message but keep from provoking Israel to respond too aggressively.
Iran is said to have thousands of such missiles, so obviously having launched only 70+ or so is likely not indicative of a major attack tasked with actually causing serious destruction to Israeli infrastructure.
Then there’s the converse side: Iran came out the big winner by demonstrating all the previously-outlined abilities of bypassing the West’s densest AD shields.
Here’s why I think in some ways this conclusion to be the more correct in the long term.
Firstly, one of the common counterarguments is that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which ultimately trumps anything Iran can throw at them. But in reality, now that Iran has proven the ability to penetrate Israel, Iran too can cause nuclear devastation by striking the Israeli Dimona nuclear power plant. Destroyed nuclear plants would produce far more radioactive chaos than the relatively ‘clean’ modern nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Israel is much smaller than the comparatively gigantic Iran. Iran can take many nuclear hits and survive; but a single mass nuclear event in Israel could irradiate the entire country, making it uninhabitable.
Secondly, recall the main fear of Iraqi Scarabs and Scuds back in the day: that they could contain chemical/biological warheads. Iran too could technically load its missiles with all kinds of nasty goodies of this sort: either chem-bio or even unenriched Uranium—which it has aplenty—to create a ‘dirty bomb’. Now that we know it can penetrate Israel easily, Iran could actually wipe the country out with a mass un-enriched nuclear, chemical, or biological attack with these now-proven hyper- or quasi-hypersonic ballistics. That threat alone now presents a psychological Damocles Sword that will act as asymmetrical deterrent or counter to any Israeli Samson Option threat.
Thirdly, this was Iran’s very first foray into such a direct strike. It can be argued that they gained critical data and metrics from the entire Western alliance’s defensive capabilities as well as Israeli defensive vulnerabilities. This means that there is an implied threat that any future attack of this scale could be far more effective, as Iran may now ‘calibrate’ said attack to maximize what it saw were any failings or weaknesses on its part last night. Russia has had two years of launching such strikes, and it has only been semi-recently that they’ve calibrated and finetuned the precise timings of the sophisticated multi-layered drone-ALCM-ballistic triple threat attack. Iran can improve with each iteration as well and maximize/streamline the effectiveness with each attempt.
/snip
===
.
The Ukrainian 25th And 67th Brigades Will Be Disbanded.
Latest updates (12 min)
Some general information on this poster - YES PRO RUSSIAN - but attempts to be somewhat objective.
He will post both Russian and Ukrainian setbacks and advances
Dima is an aggregator of information found mainly on Russian and Ukrainian language telegram channels. he speaks the language, knows the culture and has firsthand knowledge of the battlefield terrain.
Dima is just one source of information offering a unique perspective and a perspective that the west does not want you to know. As you would expect from this kind of grass roots reporting it's gossipy and full of speculation ... it's up to you what you do with that information.
If anything his maps are more conservative than what you see at either Ukrainian or Western maps like Deepstate or ISW. He refuses to change the map without geolocation even after the likes of Deepstate and ISW have acknowledged Russian advances.
Cedar Lake
Connecticut Yankee
And today........Russia's Answer to Macron.
Report: About 60 mercenaries and Ukrainian officers killed in attack on Slavyansk
According to a report by the TASS news agency, around 60 foreign mercenaries and career officers of the Ukrainian military are said to have died in the Russian air raid on the city of Slavyansk. The news agency quotes an unnamed representative of the Russian armed forces:
"There are reports that at the time of the attack there were career officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including high-ranking and foreign mercenaries, in the accommodation in Slavyansk. These were French as well as representatives of the USA and Georgia."
According to the source, there were up to 100 people at the target site of the attack, of whom around 60 were killed.
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It is impressive the advancements in this type of weapon (by all sides)
This is the latest on the Russian side - actually most home security cameras have a similar capability to ID and track a person. Naturally this is a bit more complex but not unexpected.
DD Geopolitics
Russia unveils 'Square' AI guidance system for FPV drones Russia has unveiled a newly-developed AI first-person view (FPV) drone guidance system that allows a UAV to recognize, lock on, and attack targets without human intervention, Andrey Ivanov, the creator of the “Ovod” (lit. “Gadfly”)...
t.me
It is implemented through two types of tracking: algorithmic, where technical vision is used, and a neural network, allowing it to recognize targets and destroy them,” Ivanov said.
According to the developers, this solution will allow FPV kamikaze drones to lock on to a target beforehand and continue to track it even when communication between the operator and the drone is lost.
The AI guidance system ensures that the drone continues to accurately engage and hit the target, “regardless of whether it is static or dynamic,” Ivanov said.
Inside Russia's War Machine! America's Role in Ukraine's Drone Strikes | Peter Zeihan
RT: 9:37From 3 days ago......
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Vtck34kRs
The Limits of Russia's War Machine
RT: 5:30
wait-n-see
Veteran Member
As Putin has stated many times, it is a new world now and parts of former Ukraine have already voted to be part of the Russian federation.
The only question is how much more of Ukraine will become part of Russia before this is over.
Not even Cher gets to turn back time.
wait-n-see
Veteran Member
Russian Elite Division STORMS Donbas Hilltop Fortress
Run time - 21:14
Apr 16, 2024
The battle of Chasiv Yar has started.
Latest Article from MoA
The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski is lobbying Congress through U.S. media for more weapons and monetary support. It requires him to finally depict the situation as dire as it is:
“Frankly speaking, without this assistance, we stand little chance of victory, because we need to be significantly stronger than our adversaries. The current ratio of artillery shells stands at 1 to 10. Can we endure for much longer? No,” Zelensky said.
Ukraine SitRep: The Power Plant War - Ideological Losses - More Signs Of Corruption
The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski is lobbying Congress through U.S. media for more weapons and monetary support. It requires him to finally depict the situation as dire as it is:
“Frankly speaking, without this assistance, we stand little chance of victory, because we need to be significantly stronger than our adversaries. The current ratio of artillery shells stands at 1 to 10. Can we endure for much longer? No,” Zelensky said.
wait-n-see
Veteran Member
"Can we endure for much longer? No." Zelensky said.
How could this be?
We been told now for over 2 years of how the mighty Knights of Good are massively defeating the Orcs of Mordor!
And yet Peter Zeihan in post 64,779 (just above) at 5:20 in that vid states that the war will last another 5 to 8 years. Note that this vid is from his official web site. 5 to 8 years of more aid to Ukraine!! Can you hear the salivating of the grifters?
Would also be nice if the two could get their spin cycle stories synched up better, eh.
Even more shocking considering the Russians are able to be in this situation after running out of ammunition and missiles 2 years ago.
NEWS: IMF and the BBC must have been taken over by Russian agents - no other way to explain these headlines.
After all we have been told - over and over again -their Energy Sector has failed and they are on the verge of Economic collapse by YouTube Experts.
www.bbc.com
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Russia to grow 3.2% this year, significantly more than the UK, France and Germany. (and the US)
Oil exports have "held steady" and government spending has "remained high" contributing to growth, the IMF said.
Despite the Kremlin being sanctioned over its invasion of Ukraine, the IMF upgraded its January predictions for the Russian economy this year,
Away from Russia, the IMF downgraded its forecasts across Europe and for the UK this year, predicting 0.5% growth this year, making the UK the second weakest performer across the G7 group of advanced economies, behind Germany.
Have to love the SANCTIONS - who needs cheap energy.
Not to leave the US out of this:
The IMF upgraded Tuesday its forecast for US economic growth to 2.7% this year — 0.6 percentage points higher than it predicted as recently as January.
After all we have been told - over and over again -their Energy Sector has failed and they are on the verge of Economic collapse by YouTube Experts.
Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF
Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF
The IMF estimates Russia's economy will grow faster than the likes of the US, UK and Germany this year.
www.bbc.com
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Russia to grow 3.2% this year, significantly more than the UK, France and Germany. (and the US)
Oil exports have "held steady" and government spending has "remained high" contributing to growth, the IMF said.
Despite the Kremlin being sanctioned over its invasion of Ukraine, the IMF upgraded its January predictions for the Russian economy this year,
Away from Russia, the IMF downgraded its forecasts across Europe and for the UK this year, predicting 0.5% growth this year, making the UK the second weakest performer across the G7 group of advanced economies, behind Germany.
Have to love the SANCTIONS - who needs cheap energy.
Not to leave the US out of this:
The IMF upgraded Tuesday its forecast for US economic growth to 2.7% this year — 0.6 percentage points higher than it predicted as recently as January.
wait-n-see
Veteran Member
HISTORY LEGENDS - The Truth of Russia's Tactical Evolution in its War against Ukraine
Run time - 1:06:13
Streamed live 4 hours ago
jward
passin' thru
Mario Nawfal
@MarioNawfal
BREAKING: EXPLOSIONS AND FIRE REPORTED AT MILITARY AIRFIELD IN CRIMEA
Multiple explosions and a significant fire have been reported at the Dzhankoi military airfield in Crimea, a location where three Russian aviation squadrons are reportedly based.
Local residents and reports indicate ongoing explosions with the area's air defense system in operation.
Initial information suggests the incident occurred near the airfield, but details on casualties are unavailable.
Source: RawsGlobal
View: https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1780452422977978453
@MarioNawfal
BREAKING: EXPLOSIONS AND FIRE REPORTED AT MILITARY AIRFIELD IN CRIMEA
Multiple explosions and a significant fire have been reported at the Dzhankoi military airfield in Crimea, a location where three Russian aviation squadrons are reportedly based.
Local residents and reports indicate ongoing explosions with the area's air defense system in operation.
Initial information suggests the incident occurred near the airfield, but details on casualties are unavailable.
Source: RawsGlobal
View: https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1780452422977978453
jward
passin' thru
Victor vicktop55
@vicktop55
The attack of the AFU on the airfield in Crimea.
The enemy publishes a diagram of possible fires in the area of the military airfield. Data from open monitoring resources from NASA satellites.
There are no casualties among the personnel.
Russia's top bosses and diplomats promised a nuclear strike in response to the attack on Crimea. Well, here is the 6th attack, you are already launching a nuclear strike.
Victor vicktop55
View: https://twitter.com/vicktop55/status/1780455913008054737
@vicktop55
The attack of the AFU on the airfield in Crimea.
The enemy publishes a diagram of possible fires in the area of the military airfield. Data from open monitoring resources from NASA satellites.
There are no casualties among the personnel.
Russia's top bosses and diplomats promised a nuclear strike in response to the attack on Crimea. Well, here is the 6th attack, you are already launching a nuclear strike.
Victor vicktop55
View: https://twitter.com/vicktop55/status/1780455913008054737
jward
passin' thru
Square profile picture
Terror Alarm
@Terror_Alarm
Game Changer: Ukraine tests a new Ukrainian submarine vessel that is capable of firing torpedo rockets.
View: https://twitter.com/Terror_Alarm/status/1780415886463234550
Terror Alarm
@Terror_Alarm
Game Changer: Ukraine tests a new Ukrainian submarine vessel that is capable of firing torpedo rockets.
View: https://twitter.com/Terror_Alarm/status/1780415886463234550
Tom McDowell
BAMN
Inferiority of the 'Western Way of War' Slowly Comes to Light
Analysis of two new interesting findings from both the U.S. and Ukraine military sphere.
simplicius76.substack.com
Inferiority of the 'Western Way of War' Slowly Comes to Light
Analysis of two new interesting findings from both the U.S. and Ukraine military sphere.
Simplicius
Apr 17, 2024
∙ Paid
There has been another series of very revealing transmissions from the Ukrainian side that will undoubtedly fly under the radar. They shed light on certain key thematic aspects of the war, particularly in this case the NATO relationship to the AFU and its doctrinal military philosophy, which gives us a much more informed understanding of how and why the conflict is playing out the way that it is.
The first item is the latest video from popular YouTube channel Red Effect, which many of you are familiar with, that focuses mostly on tank videos throughout the conflict, with a pro-Ukrainian slant:
Initially I was ready to dismiss the video offhand, but ended up being increasingly intrigued by what was being said. It’s called “Are Ukrainians using the Abrams tank wrong?” and consists of an interview with an actual active duty U.S. Army Abrams tank commander.
He doesn’t reveal his real name, but he does sound knowledgeable, knows the lingo, and his rank of staff sergeant does accord with what the lowest level of tank commander below platoon leader would be. He states he has 10 years experience, 4 deployments, and has served multiple years in each position of the Abrams tank, i.e. gunner, loader, driver, and commander, and so knows the system in and out.
He starts off with fairly generalized and uninteresting answers. However, reading between the lines he lets out quite a few tacit reveals.
The first one of these is around the 4 minute mark, where he states his own unit, which is currently undergoing further training, has only just now begun to ‘interject drones’ into the equation. The most eye-opening part is the types of drones they’re using are ones which drop grenades from above onto the tank. Anyone who’s followed the Ukraine war would blink hard at such an amateur oversight by the seemingly clueless U.S. Army.
It’s widely known that drones which drop grenades onto tanks are not even remotely the issue in current combat. Even the stock footage they play over this segment of the interview proves the point: those types of drones are typically used to ‘finish off’ tanks which have already long been disabled. That means they are not active combat drones, but rather the clean up that scours a post-battle field of desolation, opportunistically looking for vehicles or wounded to finish off. What possible use would tank commanders have in wasting their time training against that?
FPVs that fly at high speeds with cumulative charges are the problem, not slow grenade-heaving drones. His next words are in many ways even more jarring because his manner of even discussing drones feels so ‘green’ and, quite frankly, out of touch.
He relays that his command will “supposedly” interject “more of this kind of training”—admitting he’s not even certain if they’ll go beyond just the superficial and totally pointless affectation of dropping a few grenades from above. He then further admits that “the whole concept of drones is absolutely crazy [to us]”, in essence revealing the U.S. Army is so far behind drone developments they are still in effect just poking at it with a stick, unable to even come to terms with basics in the way that’s become second nature for both the Ukrainian and Russian side two years running.
This is supported by his further comments, as everytime he speaks on the drone threat, it feels increasingly like the U.S. Army really hasn’t got a clue and is treating drones as a sort of novelty to vaguely acquaint tankers with, as if still counting on the intangible magic of the mythical U.S. “Might” to take care of the threat.
This is actually a typical U.S. military behavior, alluded to by many in the past, like Dr. Phillip Karber in his speech at West Point. Each U.S. military branch quietly expects to pass the buck to ‘some other’ branch which they feel confident will ‘take care of the problem’. For instance, tankers might feel: “I’m not worried, I’m sure our EW units will take care of those pesky drones for us if we ever have to deploy”, thinking just a basic familiarity with the problem should be enough to mitigate any potential harm.
But little do they know, there will be no other unit or branch to miraculously save them. The U.S. frontline EW capabilities are not even a fraction as developed as those of Russia—and you can see Russia itself struggling against this persistent drone threat. The fact that the sergeant in the video continues referring to FPVs as dropping ‘grenades’ seems to imply he does not even truly comprehend the specific threat FPVs pose, which has nothing whatsoever to do with grenades or dropping anything. It’s akin to a ‘boomer’ discussing Gen Z fads—you can just sense they’re not quite picking up on the real essence of it.
It also makes me wonder whether the commander is misapprehending the videos he’s watching out of Ukraine. This would be telling, and redound onto the U.S. Army itself. He may be viewing grenade drops into open hatches, interpreting the targets to be live still in combat, which is almost never the case.
Next, he admits that “cope cages” are the only real protection possible against drones—a fact that may not be a surprise to us, but could surprise anyone still retaining some kind of idealized vision of the U.S. Army as some superior force that’s “above” using such crudely makeshift solutions. Of course we’ve now seen even the much-touted IDF resort to these cages in Gaza, as would the U.S. be forced to do. The commander even openly states at 5:45 that his units have never even “thought about” heavy camouflage measures, further exposing the U.S. Army’s complacency over the years of fighting unarmed bedouins.
When such thinking becomes institutionalized on a mass scale, as it has become in the U.S. Army, it cannot be solved in an expedient manner. One can’t simply snap a finger and expect this unwieldy monstrosity composed of hundreds of disparate units and Byzantine hierarchical structures to be able to fluidly conform to some total overhaul of its most basic operational doctrines and inbuilt organizational ‘reflexes’. The U.S. Army would take years to effectively structurally adapt to much of these modern shifts in a large scale composite way.
But the second half of the video is where things get really interesting, and tie into the main thematic arc of this article, which will be supported by the subsequent pieces.
This section is kicked off by Red Effect asking the sergeant about tactics, and whether the AFU is using the Abrams tanks properly. This veers into a direction where the sergeant makes some extremely revealing concessions.
He begins by saying he’s discussed the issue with his own officers and it always boils down to the idea of ‘doctrine’, and what is U.S. doctrine when it comes to tank combat, exactly?
He explains that in essence U.S. armored doctrine revolves around utilizing the armored vehicles in mutually supportive sections or groups, i.e. together, rather than one or two vehicles acting individually as is so often the case in Ukraine. He correctly notes that the chief consequence of the modern proliferation of drones is the ability to concentrate fire extremely quickly. This means any tank unit comprised of multiple vehicles that’s sitting bunched up will be very quickly targeted and taken out in a way that’s unprecedented to the training and doctrines of just about every country of the world.
Here the American actually demonstrates an impressively competent awareness of the situation. Most remarkable is that, contrary to the expectation, he never once criticizes the Russian army or way of war, mostly implicitly agreeing with how Russia conducts its operations due to these unique peculiarities of modern drone-centric warfare.
Around the 11:45 mark he confirms something I’ve specifically written about when he states: “The United States Army switched from COIN (Counter Insurgency) to peer on peer warfare in 2016”, implying that the U.S. has only relatively recently even begun thinking about fighting realistic wars rather than small-scale insurgency actions. It’s actually ironic how the U.S. haughtily trumpeted up its own minor military ‘special operations’ like the Iraq War as “wars”, while Russia, which is fighting an actual WWII-style war, conversely downplays it as a mere ‘special operation’.
But returning, the American sergeant admits the U.S. Army has no way of dealing with such drones (~13:00) and then makes the biggest admission of the video: that, in his opinion, NATO will totally restructure their tactics to reflect those of Russia in the ongoing conflict. I.e. he believes NATO will go from a “grand battle idea” to more of the “individual tanks” and “smaller elements with initiative to achieve a larger goal” style we see Russia pioneering:
This is astonishing for a multitude of reasons, not least of which is that it’s been precisely one of my main ongoing themes carried over various strategic-inclined thinkpieces about how modern combat is being evolved by Russia to a state where the grand strategic battle is becoming obsolete due to fog-of-war-banishing omnipresent ISR, in favor of a ‘nibbling’ style of small-scale operations, which seek to achieve a grander operational objective by way of an almost invisible but persistent accumulation of small, barely perceptible tactical gains akin to a bunch of small leaks gradually filling up a reservoir.
For instance, pieces like these two:
Dissecting West Point Think-tank's New Analysis of Russia's Military Evolution
Simplicius·
June 20, 2023
The Modern War Institute at West Point—a sort of think tank chaired by Mark Esper and which is a part of the Department of Military Instruction—released a very interesting in-depth analysis of Russia’s battlefield innovations in the SMO, called: THE RUSSIAN WAY OF WAR IN UKRAINE: A MILITARY APPROACH NINE DECADES IN THE MAKING.
Read full story
And:
The BTG Is Dead, Long Live The BTG!
Simplicius·
February 28, 2023
A Ukrainian reserves military officer has written a very interesting twitter thread, which was subsequently picked up by a host of other analysts from DailyKos to a retired Major General in the Australian army. It details a purported major doctrinal shift in Russian combat group structure in Ukraine, which was discovered by way of (reportedly) captured …
Read full story
But here’s where it gets doubly interesting. The tank commander ends there, but we have a new interview from the UK’s Telegraph with a sharp Lieutenant Colonel of an elite AFU ‘presidential brigade’ which echoes and emphasizes much of the above American tank commander’s words.
Here’s the accompanying article. And the full interview:
end snip
More at OP.
===
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jward
passin' thru
Igor Sushko
@igorsushko
Russia: Military factory Avangard, the main producer of S-300 & S-400 missiles, is on fire in Moscow.
View: https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1780343524963086481
@igorsushko
Russia: Military factory Avangard, the main producer of S-300 & S-400 missiles, is on fire in Moscow.
View: https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1780343524963086481
jward
passin' thru
Woof Jean-Pascal Fella Woof
@JeanPascalMorin
"Russia's only S-300 ammunition factory caught fire in Moscow
UAENRURUSSIA, TUE, APRIL 16, 2024 - 22:30
Photo: Avangard plant (Russian Media)
AUTHOR: KATERYNA SHKARLAT
A fire has occurred at the Avangard factory in Moscow. The factory is part of the Joint Stock Company Concern of Air and Space Defense Almaz-Antey, the Telegram channel Astra reports.
According to preliminary data, the fire has spread over an area of 50 square meters. However, firefighters who arrived to assist were able to localize it."
RBC-Ukraine
The cause of the fire and whether there are any casualties is currently unknown.
4:34 PM · Apr 16, 2024
15.9K
Views
@JeanPascalMorin
"Russia's only S-300 ammunition factory caught fire in Moscow
UAENRURUSSIA, TUE, APRIL 16, 2024 - 22:30
Photo: Avangard plant (Russian Media)
AUTHOR: KATERYNA SHKARLAT
A fire has occurred at the Avangard factory in Moscow. The factory is part of the Joint Stock Company Concern of Air and Space Defense Almaz-Antey, the Telegram channel Astra reports.
According to preliminary data, the fire has spread over an area of 50 square meters. However, firefighters who arrived to assist were able to localize it."
RBC-Ukraine
The cause of the fire and whether there are any casualties is currently unknown.
4:34 PM · Apr 16, 2024
15.9K
Views
Johnny Twoguns
Senior Member
Nukes? Pray tell? Kinda looks silly and nonsensical. From what I've recently heard Ukrainian units are starting to surrender en masse in some sectors, which is wise at this point (and was wise a good 6-8 months ago).
I just don't think they have to worry about facing the same fate as the Wehrmacht that surrendered at Stalingrad to the very evil karl marx marxists that still controlled the very evil upper levels of Stalin's country wide torture plantation. Just as certainly that gang finally had to throw in the towel, so should the Ukrainians. The fiends in charge of that country lost a long long time ago. They need to be removed, and all exposed.
Johnny Twoguns
Senior Member
You really have to wonder; I do; about the industrial fires. Our 755 mil factory caught fire. By now over a thousand food production plants/factories in the US have caught fire. But not once have I seen any evidence of an arsonist getting caught.
Now fires at munitions factories? Half a world away from each other?
Really got to wonder. I do for sure. Not normal in the normal scheme of things.
Fires happen every day - but in today's search for clickbait - anything and everything is posted - and re-posted.
Only surprised we are not seeing article on dumpster fires - yet.
Dmitry Medvedev's Speech On Russia's Strategic Borders
Good review of Russia's position - always best to use primary sources
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/dmitry-medvedevs-speech-on-russias-strategic-borders.html#more
One may not like Russia or even feel hostile towards its current policies and leadership.
But that should not hinder one to recognize and acknowledge how Russia is seeing itself and it defines its own role in the wider world.
The former Russian president Dimitry Medvedev is currently the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia recently spoke about multiple definitions of borders.
Medvedev has lately become a bit of the bad guy who spits the harsh truth with the good guy being Russia's President Vladimir Putin who is using less vitriolic language. But if one removes the rhetoric chaff the concepts espoused by both in various speeches are quite similar and should be seen as the basis of Russia's policies.
jward
passin' thru
Wendy Patterson
@wendyp4545
Yesterday I pointed out that a good portion of the $60 billion they want for Ukraine is actually reimbursements for the Department of Defense who, without congressional approval, contracted weapons and munitions for Ukraine and now they have to replace the funds that they contracted to feed the Defense industrial complex with that they took upon themselves to commit to without congressional authorization.
If congress doesn't stop the DOD from committing to these unauthorized contracts for Ukraine then they're going to keep on doing it.
So tell your representatives to force the DOD to comply with congressional approval before they commit to any future contracts to Ukraine or any other foreign country.
View: https://twitter.com/wendyp4545/status/1780601771838021779
@wendyp4545
Yesterday I pointed out that a good portion of the $60 billion they want for Ukraine is actually reimbursements for the Department of Defense who, without congressional approval, contracted weapons and munitions for Ukraine and now they have to replace the funds that they contracted to feed the Defense industrial complex with that they took upon themselves to commit to without congressional authorization.
If congress doesn't stop the DOD from committing to these unauthorized contracts for Ukraine then they're going to keep on doing it.
So tell your representatives to force the DOD to comply with congressional approval before they commit to any future contracts to Ukraine or any other foreign country.
View: https://twitter.com/wendyp4545/status/1780601771838021779
Johnny Twoguns
Senior Member
He's pretty good. Gives some animation in his podcasts.