On downed aircraft and uncle Luka
"Bryansk
Over in Bryansk Oblast one Mi-8, one Mi-28 (Electronic Warfare version of the Mi-8), on Su-34, and an SU-35 all dropped to their firy doom over Russia.
There has been much discussion about this, how it happened and what did them in.
Initially everyone thought that it was Russia that downed them themselves, but it turned out to indeed be to good to be true.
Sadly (Bohoo) for Russia the answer is much worse.
All 4 was part of the same mission to attack Ukraine, but Ukraine had gotten hold of the information that they were coming and set a trap.
The Mi-28 was downed by a HAARM missile launched from a Mig-29, this was done so that the Russians would not see what was waiting for them.
Ukraine recently received the second battery of IRIS-T, and it seems like it is deployed here to plug up any attacks from the north.
With the Mi-28 gone the IRIS-T opened fire and a 3 missiles later the pride of Russia was down infront of the eyes of a lot of Russians, who happily spread videos all over Russia.
The Russian authorities then launched their brilliant propaganda plan to defuse any worry at home, they stated that ALL FOUR of the aircraft had suffered engine malfunctions.
Please, could someone explain to me how this would be better than saying that they had been downed by the enemy.
A fifth airplane was downed over Crimea, but that was not related to this.
Uncle Luka ad memoriam
Uncle Luke was flown home on the 9th of May from Moscow at great speed, upon arrival he was driven at breakneck speed to the State Military Hospital in Minsk, the finest in all of Belarus.
Today Belarus informally asked permission for a medivac flight to Zürich, but that request was quickly cancelled.
After that two Russian planes left the ongoing diplomatic summit carrying Prime Minister Mishustin and the Speaker of the Duma.
After a couple of hours they left for Moscow.
Belarus has yet to confirm it, but we believe that Uncle Luka may have died.
We also believe that he was poisoned while Moscow, and we do believe this is an attempt by Russia to take over Belarus.
What now? How could they take over Belarus?
The answer is quite simple.
Both Putin and Uncle Luka is due to a constitutional cockup the successor for the other if one of them dies on the post.
If they are voted out this is not a thing, only if they die on the throne.
Obviously all that Belarus has to do to stop this is say, "fine Putin... let us first have a DNA-sample to compare with what we have on file".
Obviously Russia will not play it that way, they will try to take over rapidly.
And that will go down swimmingly in Belarus, mass protests will ensue, and this time it is unlikely that the Belarusian Security Forces and the Army will play ball.
Instead they are equally likely to take to the streets themselves against Russia.
Of all stupid things that Russia could have done, killing Uncle Luka (if that is what they did) and try to take over Belarus, it is the worst thing they could have done.
Russia lack the cohesion and power to be even remotely close to being able to pull it off.
Especially since there is a fully legitimate President that won the last election, and she would have the western support for an intervention even.
Anyway, let us sit and eat popcorn and wait for confirmation of what is happening in Belarus.
Girkin/Strelkov
Oh, and little third thing...
Strelkov have pointed out that the Ukrainian Offensive in Bakhmut is the first step of the larger Offensive.
Funnily enough he is not overly bothered with Kherson and Zhaporizhzhia, he seems to believe more in a Donbas offensive from Kreminna down to Vuhledar.
He is also quite convinced that Ukraine will go North and take Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk Oblasts.
Everyone laughed at this stating that Ukraine would never do that due to politics.
I am actually more siding with Strelkov here.
From a military standpoint it is a knockout blow with a following count to ten.
And Ukraine can comfortably pull it off since Russia has extremely few troops in this direction.
If they hold those Zelenskyy could put on a leisure suit and ride to Moscow in a fortnight while singing Chervona Khalyna at the top of his lungs.
It is in the politics things get more complicated.
While The West is quite fine with Ukraine doing commando raids, artillery fire missions, massaging the frontline troops, and generally blowing **** up, they would not at this point in time be fine with Ukraine taking a large chunk of Russian territory and threatening to go further to Moscow.
This did not stop Ukraine from running heavy artillery fire missions on the border last night, and as morning came two huge columns of armour charged out of the morning mist towards the border along the main roads to Belgorod and Bryansk.
Let us just say there was many brown pants in Russia, and Russian telegram-channels was suddenly filled with pure and utter dread.
Ukraine obviously trolled Russia, but it showed Russia that keeping those oblasts is only due to Ukraine being nice (for now).
No, Russia keeping those 3 oblasts is completely up to them, and depends upon how stubborn the Russians are.
I am fairly certain that Ukraine will take Bakhmut, and then cut down from Vuhledar towards Mariupol (or another place) to cut the landbridge, then they will drop the Kersh Bridge and sit and wait for the Russian army there to give up.
With that land returned to Ukraine they have two choices.
A very bloody war against their own in Donbas supported by the Russian army, or just take the 3 oblasts and trade them for Donbas.
In an ideal world Ukraine would just have gone directly up now, it would after all save time, suffering and many many lives on both sides.
I wish The West was not so... expletive... "
