Lefty
Well-known member
I think she is on a wanted list.
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
I think she is on a wanted list.
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
Just having read one article on China limiting drone parts & sales to Europe & US so therefore Ukraine too.. I come across a nice article about a Ukrainian made drone.. fly by wire..
Have to hope they can still get all the parts they need..
www.kyivpost.com
Have to hope they can still get all the parts they need..
Ukraine’s Revolutionary Fiber-Optic Drone: An Electronic Warfare Game-Changer
Ukrainian engineers have developed a drone tethered to a fiber-optic cable that makes it virtually undetectable and impervious to EW attack on the battlefield.
www.kyivpost.com
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Macro or Micro level?
Stay positive and support the Ukrainian fighters in any way that you can. And lobby your MP to press the government for more help.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Every month I send a note to my MP on the progress of shifting the money they are holding onto from the sale of Chelsea which would do so much good to Ukrainian civil society.
It’s bogged down in a legal challenge from Abramovichs children btw which doesn’t seem to ever get reported on
In retrospect, it's somewhat ironic that 20 years ago I was working for a bunch of Ukrainian gangsters/crooks, who were supposed to be building a huge villa for Abramovich on the Costa Del Sol. The deal was scuppered by their own stupidity in the end (not paying their own workers on time .... the accountant getting angry calls during a meeting with Abramovich and his people). He pulled out of the deal.... I'm pretty sure they were going to rinse him like they rinsed all their other Off-plan customers/clients.
Of course, I didn't know much about them when I took the job with their TV company.
The main fella sort of redeemed himself in the last couple of years. Apparently he went and collected a huge shipment of arms from North Africa that was detined for Russia, and took it directly back to Ukraine (according to you know who).
Decent_Left
Well-known member
I can only assume this promotion comes with a new office on the top floor of the building with a better choice of windows
bsky.app
Prune60 (@prune602.bsky.social)
‼️ “Putin awarded the rank of lieutenant general to the commander of the Akhmat special forces, deputy head of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Apti Alaudinov.”...
bsky.app
About knickers and bras
"Too good to be true?
To a Northlander* life is at the root of things ****. So, when life has gone to ****, the Northlander is happy, because then he/she knows what to do. And that is to work painfully hard. And when the Northlander has worked like a donkey and life is getting better, then the Northlander will become worried, because now things can only go to ****. And when it inevitably has gone to ****, he/she is happy again. This is the philosophy of the Northlander.
*Northlander = Person from the Northern half of Sweden.
I live by this creed, and now I’m at the worried state of things, because something will go to ****, so I have to work like a donkey again.
Nobel
Thankfully there’s no Nobel Prize of War, but I fear I would have gotten one for my frighteningly dull foray into statistical analysis of War. To me it is mindboggling that nobody has done this before, at least on this scale.
And when it has been done on a smaller scale, never with such a detailed and exact result. Also, it has never been the foundation of how a war is run in real-time.
It has also changed how I look upon Industrialized War forever. This is the accepted terminology for the type of war that we have on our hands. Few wars have been Industrialized War’s, previously only WWI and WWII have been seen as such, but there’s always a side of economy and industry to all wars obviously.
So, what did I learn? That the Industrial part in the equation is far more important than the War part.
When I was a young unwilling soldier I suffered from the notion that bravery and morale, and other things was the most important part. The much older and grumpier version of me is seeing it completely different.
In an Industrialized War the factory worker, the miner, the lorry/truck driver, the engineer, and so on, are more important than the soldier on the battlefield. In the end it is the raw economic output of the parties involved that will ultimately win the war, not the armies.
The only way to decide a war by armies when the war is on this scale, is within the first few weeks, after that raw economic and industrial output will decide the outcome.
From this perspective you can state that Russia had lost the war back when they had to make their first big retreat from Kyiv, because at that point it was abundantly clear that Russia would lose the war, Russia just can’t compete with an economic difference of 50:1.
Combat Power
As you all know, probably to the point of nausea, I fairly early stated that Russia would suffer a chokepoint in November of 2024, and that from then on Russia’s Combat Power would start to decline with time until it would not be able to hold on to it’s positions, and then be driven out with time from Ukraine.
I was very clear that this would be the time of a slow decline, not Russia suddenly totally run out of arms and collapse.
For that to happen you need civil disturbance or a coup inside of Russia, or something else happening that truly cracked Russia. Or, for that matter a political decision to just go home, however unlikely that now is.
But what we are seeing signals of, is that Russia is running out of Combat Power at an astounding rate, so much faster that it deviates significantly from the prognosis.
And if life, war and Universe is symmetric in its equations, we would assume that if the part leading up to November was spot on, so would be the decline section be. After all, both sides are depending on the same factual entry values.
So, when you a month later see things that you should not be seeing for another 5-6 months, then you know that something most likely is about to go to **** spectacularly and you will have to work even harder to fix it.
What am I harping about?
Kursk
Tank Girl truly enjoys complaining about defective or missing Russians. She is often comparing them to eating shrimp, you first have to work hard to get them out of their husks, and when you have done that they taste ****, and you get an allergic reaction. I like shrimp, she dies if she eats them, hence the analogy.
So, her grumping about the Russians not being satisfying to her standards is normal. But now she has reasons to ponder where they went, and whatever happened to those that she is on the receiving end of.
“Where are my Russians?” and “Why are my Russians unarmed?” are very real questions that are fact based, and not just TG grumping about Russian’s being defective in general.
There is now a big difference in the number of Russians that comes in each meatwave, and the frequency of said meatwaves have dropped off significantly. So much so that the casualty numbers have dropped by 40 percent like if someone threw a switch.
And the only reason that the numbers remain even at the level of 1 200 – 1 350 is that she is going on minor offensives finding them hiding in their ratholes, and also via more long-range drone attacks to hit their second and third lines.
At the same time, we see that the rate of arriving soldiers have dropped off a proverbial cliff. And we do not understand why this might be the case. As far as we are aware Russia is still trying to find more meat for the grinder. They even made new laws to rectify their recruitment problems.
Russia and the Punderati is always waxing lyrical about Russia building a huge new professional army that will win the war. Obviously this is just an enormous load of bullhork. We would know exactly where such an army would be, how strong it is, etcetera.
And we in fact know exactly where that army is. Russia has throughout the war prepared these batches of soldiers for every offensive period. It has ranged between 50 to 100K per offensive episode.
They just had their latest dollop of an army squashed by TG in Kursk. Problem is that by now we should be seeing the new Russian Dollop forming, and we don’t see it forming for the next offensive at this point in time. Note, it may still come a dollop, and they are just somewhat slow in making it.
But in general Russia should now be ready to bring forward a brand-new dollop of freshly minted **** for the winter offensive, and that is what is missing.
Remember that Russia has a set goal of kicking Ukraine out of Kursk before 20 th of January 2025. That is when they hope that Peesident El Humpo will force Ukraine into an armistice locking the conflict down, and Russia does not overly want Kursk to also be locked down inside Ukraine.
But, with 39 days remaining the all-out Russian offensive ran out of steam. And it is not only soldiers that Russia is lacking in Kursk and elsewhere. We also see how the numbers of destroyed tanks, armour and artillery have dropped to near zero.
And if we look towards the Russian rear in Kursk we see the same thing, a general lack of heavy equipment, nor do we see heavy equipment being brought in. Neither does it seem like they are getting basic ammunition and rifles.
Hence why for a few days troops were sent out on meatwaves with the order, “Find a rifle from a fallen soldier”. It may be why they stopped offending, the Russian army without even Kalashnikovs is a rather silly thing after all.
It is here we have the problem; we know that Russia should have both soldiers and equipment enough to keep up the war for several more months, albeit at a slowly diminishing combat power.
The effects are so far most marked in Kursk, but we see how similar problems are cropping up on a smaller scale down the entirety of the frontline. It is just that at Kursk Russia put in the most effort, and so did Ukraine.
It is possible that Russia can somewhat redistribute resources towards Kursk, but that would slow down their offensives in Kurakhove and Toretsk, which in turn would be beneficial for Ukraine.
But, it is now a fact that it is Ukraine slowly gaining a tiny bit each day in Kursk.
So why? It could be that Russia has postponed operations due to Rasputitsa that is in full swing still, albeit slowly turning towards the winter season. But, we do not see that they have pulled back the heavy equipment to conserve it during a lull, instead it truly looks like they ran out.
Anyway, I worry. This should not be happening now, and when something inexplicable and confusing is happening it is time to beware.
I do not see this being a battlefield mechanics problem. But, if it is it’s time for Ukraine to go on their large winter offensive with additional gusto. In fact, it is a good idea to go on the offensive regardless of the reason, but it would be good to understand the why before they do.
Politics
Next Northerner lesson: When things go to ****, always look for the responsible politician in Stockholm. In this case it would be a politician in Russia, but the rule still applies in transmuted form.
I do not know if you noticed how many different messages that came out of Russia in regards of Syria. A Putin declared that Russia would not help due to Russia being occupied with their own “trouble”.
Lavrov went bat **** crazy and stated that Russia had made a deal with Iran and Turkey to throw out the revolutionaries, and that Russia would keep their bases. Peskov went out on a tangent and stated that Russia had lost Syria, and that it was up to the new government to decide if Russia would get to keep their bases.
Medvedev for once kept his mouth shut. Same with the Russian MOD. And the poor state TV propagandists looked in all directions, got not directions to follow, and instead started stating what the 3 had said, with some tried to talk about nukes, their eternal favourite. But it came out more like “nukes?” with a fully visible question mark.
It is somewhat odd that there were 3 different messages, when a Putin clearly had stated already what would happen, and still we got two different versions after him, that is new.
And I think it is from this perspective we should see the lack of soldiers and weapons. Someone and somewhere is not working on fixing and sending them to the frontline. And that someone or something has enough pull to pull it off.
Also, wishes are not horses. Seeing everything start to halt in Russia directly that Russia has faced its largest loss ever in Syria, it just can’t be a fluke.
I am fairly certain that there is some sort of political fallout going around in Kremlin right now, and the question is how far it will go. I can just say that Putin has never looked this week, and from a political perspective no leader in Russia has ever staid after a loss even remotely on this scale.
Remember that Khruschev got yeeted for the comparatively small Cuban Crisis loss of face. Syria was the pinnacle of Russia’s ambitions and having Russia yeeted from their greatest success… there will be consequences.
Underwear & Ladybits
So, what am I doing while Tank Girl is planning her winter offensive? What am I doing to write my part of history, however small?
Underwear, that is what I have done all morning. I definitely have to many old farting penises around me.
I had to explain that we just can’t buy one type of underwear in fashionable green and call it a day. And yes, we had a report stating which out of 5 green underwear was the best green underwear.
And at no point had any of the creators of said report used their penises to think, nor did my colleagues with more brass than brains on their shoulders, affected by the penis disorder as they are.
What am I grumping about? Having to read 200 pages of a report that had forgotten about the simple thing that female soldiers have Ladybits. So, I had to explain hips and boobs to a bunch of generals.
Me being me, I did it in excruciating detail to hammer home my point. Red cheeks aplenty ensued. I after all do not want to have revisit the issue just due to penises having forgotten that women might not fit in the same uniform parts as male counterparts, and I also pointed out sternly to make certain that body armour should be able to fit on the most endowed woman possible.
Later in the day I commiserated to Maternal Leader about it, and she got a good laugh out of it. She offered to come by to explain Ladybits further, from the perspective of being a medical doctor and mother of 7. I might take her up on it, that should really drive my point home.
Anyway, something is wrong when I have to explain the concept of green sports bras to grown men.
Admit it, you have never heard about any such details in a history book?
Now I’m looking forward to tomorrow, at least I will get to try a couple of tanks. I know that it is technically below my paygrade and that I supposedly have experts able to decide that at least as well as I can, but I have recent experience in using one in a war and they don’t. Also… it is fun.
As soon as the 3 that has offered up bids heard that I will come and do the final test in person tomorrow they positively crapped themselves.
Personally, I have not even made up my mind if we want a tank even, and when a Tank-general is saying that it means that most likely the tank is going obsolete. One thing is clear, if what I see is not heavily adapted for the new tank battle warfare, it is not happening.
It is akin to heresy to say it, in a way it is like if our resident Astronomer would state that we should no longer have radio telescopes. I might end up infront of the Spanish Tanqvisition after this.
If I’m disappeared in the middle of the night, it is the Sacred Guild of Tankologists that have kidnapped me. "
"Too good to be true?
To a Northlander* life is at the root of things ****. So, when life has gone to ****, the Northlander is happy, because then he/she knows what to do. And that is to work painfully hard. And when the Northlander has worked like a donkey and life is getting better, then the Northlander will become worried, because now things can only go to ****. And when it inevitably has gone to ****, he/she is happy again. This is the philosophy of the Northlander.
*Northlander = Person from the Northern half of Sweden.
I live by this creed, and now I’m at the worried state of things, because something will go to ****, so I have to work like a donkey again.
Nobel
Thankfully there’s no Nobel Prize of War, but I fear I would have gotten one for my frighteningly dull foray into statistical analysis of War. To me it is mindboggling that nobody has done this before, at least on this scale.
And when it has been done on a smaller scale, never with such a detailed and exact result. Also, it has never been the foundation of how a war is run in real-time.
It has also changed how I look upon Industrialized War forever. This is the accepted terminology for the type of war that we have on our hands. Few wars have been Industrialized War’s, previously only WWI and WWII have been seen as such, but there’s always a side of economy and industry to all wars obviously.
So, what did I learn? That the Industrial part in the equation is far more important than the War part.
When I was a young unwilling soldier I suffered from the notion that bravery and morale, and other things was the most important part. The much older and grumpier version of me is seeing it completely different.
In an Industrialized War the factory worker, the miner, the lorry/truck driver, the engineer, and so on, are more important than the soldier on the battlefield. In the end it is the raw economic output of the parties involved that will ultimately win the war, not the armies.
The only way to decide a war by armies when the war is on this scale, is within the first few weeks, after that raw economic and industrial output will decide the outcome.
From this perspective you can state that Russia had lost the war back when they had to make their first big retreat from Kyiv, because at that point it was abundantly clear that Russia would lose the war, Russia just can’t compete with an economic difference of 50:1.
Combat Power
As you all know, probably to the point of nausea, I fairly early stated that Russia would suffer a chokepoint in November of 2024, and that from then on Russia’s Combat Power would start to decline with time until it would not be able to hold on to it’s positions, and then be driven out with time from Ukraine.
I was very clear that this would be the time of a slow decline, not Russia suddenly totally run out of arms and collapse.
For that to happen you need civil disturbance or a coup inside of Russia, or something else happening that truly cracked Russia. Or, for that matter a political decision to just go home, however unlikely that now is.
But what we are seeing signals of, is that Russia is running out of Combat Power at an astounding rate, so much faster that it deviates significantly from the prognosis.
And if life, war and Universe is symmetric in its equations, we would assume that if the part leading up to November was spot on, so would be the decline section be. After all, both sides are depending on the same factual entry values.
So, when you a month later see things that you should not be seeing for another 5-6 months, then you know that something most likely is about to go to **** spectacularly and you will have to work even harder to fix it.
What am I harping about?
Kursk
Tank Girl truly enjoys complaining about defective or missing Russians. She is often comparing them to eating shrimp, you first have to work hard to get them out of their husks, and when you have done that they taste ****, and you get an allergic reaction. I like shrimp, she dies if she eats them, hence the analogy.
So, her grumping about the Russians not being satisfying to her standards is normal. But now she has reasons to ponder where they went, and whatever happened to those that she is on the receiving end of.
“Where are my Russians?” and “Why are my Russians unarmed?” are very real questions that are fact based, and not just TG grumping about Russian’s being defective in general.
There is now a big difference in the number of Russians that comes in each meatwave, and the frequency of said meatwaves have dropped off significantly. So much so that the casualty numbers have dropped by 40 percent like if someone threw a switch.
And the only reason that the numbers remain even at the level of 1 200 – 1 350 is that she is going on minor offensives finding them hiding in their ratholes, and also via more long-range drone attacks to hit their second and third lines.
At the same time, we see that the rate of arriving soldiers have dropped off a proverbial cliff. And we do not understand why this might be the case. As far as we are aware Russia is still trying to find more meat for the grinder. They even made new laws to rectify their recruitment problems.
Russia and the Punderati is always waxing lyrical about Russia building a huge new professional army that will win the war. Obviously this is just an enormous load of bullhork. We would know exactly where such an army would be, how strong it is, etcetera.
And we in fact know exactly where that army is. Russia has throughout the war prepared these batches of soldiers for every offensive period. It has ranged between 50 to 100K per offensive episode.
They just had their latest dollop of an army squashed by TG in Kursk. Problem is that by now we should be seeing the new Russian Dollop forming, and we don’t see it forming for the next offensive at this point in time. Note, it may still come a dollop, and they are just somewhat slow in making it.
But in general Russia should now be ready to bring forward a brand-new dollop of freshly minted **** for the winter offensive, and that is what is missing.
Remember that Russia has a set goal of kicking Ukraine out of Kursk before 20 th of January 2025. That is when they hope that Peesident El Humpo will force Ukraine into an armistice locking the conflict down, and Russia does not overly want Kursk to also be locked down inside Ukraine.
But, with 39 days remaining the all-out Russian offensive ran out of steam. And it is not only soldiers that Russia is lacking in Kursk and elsewhere. We also see how the numbers of destroyed tanks, armour and artillery have dropped to near zero.
And if we look towards the Russian rear in Kursk we see the same thing, a general lack of heavy equipment, nor do we see heavy equipment being brought in. Neither does it seem like they are getting basic ammunition and rifles.
Hence why for a few days troops were sent out on meatwaves with the order, “Find a rifle from a fallen soldier”. It may be why they stopped offending, the Russian army without even Kalashnikovs is a rather silly thing after all.
It is here we have the problem; we know that Russia should have both soldiers and equipment enough to keep up the war for several more months, albeit at a slowly diminishing combat power.
The effects are so far most marked in Kursk, but we see how similar problems are cropping up on a smaller scale down the entirety of the frontline. It is just that at Kursk Russia put in the most effort, and so did Ukraine.
It is possible that Russia can somewhat redistribute resources towards Kursk, but that would slow down their offensives in Kurakhove and Toretsk, which in turn would be beneficial for Ukraine.
But, it is now a fact that it is Ukraine slowly gaining a tiny bit each day in Kursk.
So why? It could be that Russia has postponed operations due to Rasputitsa that is in full swing still, albeit slowly turning towards the winter season. But, we do not see that they have pulled back the heavy equipment to conserve it during a lull, instead it truly looks like they ran out.
Anyway, I worry. This should not be happening now, and when something inexplicable and confusing is happening it is time to beware.
I do not see this being a battlefield mechanics problem. But, if it is it’s time for Ukraine to go on their large winter offensive with additional gusto. In fact, it is a good idea to go on the offensive regardless of the reason, but it would be good to understand the why before they do.
Politics
Next Northerner lesson: When things go to ****, always look for the responsible politician in Stockholm. In this case it would be a politician in Russia, but the rule still applies in transmuted form.
I do not know if you noticed how many different messages that came out of Russia in regards of Syria. A Putin declared that Russia would not help due to Russia being occupied with their own “trouble”.
Lavrov went bat **** crazy and stated that Russia had made a deal with Iran and Turkey to throw out the revolutionaries, and that Russia would keep their bases. Peskov went out on a tangent and stated that Russia had lost Syria, and that it was up to the new government to decide if Russia would get to keep their bases.
Medvedev for once kept his mouth shut. Same with the Russian MOD. And the poor state TV propagandists looked in all directions, got not directions to follow, and instead started stating what the 3 had said, with some tried to talk about nukes, their eternal favourite. But it came out more like “nukes?” with a fully visible question mark.
It is somewhat odd that there were 3 different messages, when a Putin clearly had stated already what would happen, and still we got two different versions after him, that is new.
And I think it is from this perspective we should see the lack of soldiers and weapons. Someone and somewhere is not working on fixing and sending them to the frontline. And that someone or something has enough pull to pull it off.
Also, wishes are not horses. Seeing everything start to halt in Russia directly that Russia has faced its largest loss ever in Syria, it just can’t be a fluke.
I am fairly certain that there is some sort of political fallout going around in Kremlin right now, and the question is how far it will go. I can just say that Putin has never looked this week, and from a political perspective no leader in Russia has ever staid after a loss even remotely on this scale.
Remember that Khruschev got yeeted for the comparatively small Cuban Crisis loss of face. Syria was the pinnacle of Russia’s ambitions and having Russia yeeted from their greatest success… there will be consequences.
Underwear & Ladybits
So, what am I doing while Tank Girl is planning her winter offensive? What am I doing to write my part of history, however small?
Underwear, that is what I have done all morning. I definitely have to many old farting penises around me.
I had to explain that we just can’t buy one type of underwear in fashionable green and call it a day. And yes, we had a report stating which out of 5 green underwear was the best green underwear.
And at no point had any of the creators of said report used their penises to think, nor did my colleagues with more brass than brains on their shoulders, affected by the penis disorder as they are.
What am I grumping about? Having to read 200 pages of a report that had forgotten about the simple thing that female soldiers have Ladybits. So, I had to explain hips and boobs to a bunch of generals.
Me being me, I did it in excruciating detail to hammer home my point. Red cheeks aplenty ensued. I after all do not want to have revisit the issue just due to penises having forgotten that women might not fit in the same uniform parts as male counterparts, and I also pointed out sternly to make certain that body armour should be able to fit on the most endowed woman possible.
Later in the day I commiserated to Maternal Leader about it, and she got a good laugh out of it. She offered to come by to explain Ladybits further, from the perspective of being a medical doctor and mother of 7. I might take her up on it, that should really drive my point home.
Anyway, something is wrong when I have to explain the concept of green sports bras to grown men.
Admit it, you have never heard about any such details in a history book?
Now I’m looking forward to tomorrow, at least I will get to try a couple of tanks. I know that it is technically below my paygrade and that I supposedly have experts able to decide that at least as well as I can, but I have recent experience in using one in a war and they don’t. Also… it is fun.
As soon as the 3 that has offered up bids heard that I will come and do the final test in person tomorrow they positively crapped themselves.
Personally, I have not even made up my mind if we want a tank even, and when a Tank-general is saying that it means that most likely the tank is going obsolete. One thing is clear, if what I see is not heavily adapted for the new tank battle warfare, it is not happening.
It is akin to heresy to say it, in a way it is like if our resident Astronomer would state that we should no longer have radio telescopes. I might end up infront of the Spanish Tanqvisition after this.
If I’m disappeared in the middle of the night, it is the Sacred Guild of Tankologists that have kidnapped me. "
Oh, and for your "Where's next?" bingo card.
Russia's colony of Transnistria declares state of emergency due to the imminent loss of russian gas - Kyiv Insider
Russia’s colony of Transnistria declares state of emergency due to the imminent loss of russian gas Russia's colony of Transnistria has declared a state of emergency due to the imminent cut-off of Russian gas. After losing Syria, the last thing Putin's already flailing image needs is the loss of...
kyivinsider.com
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Phillips P O'Briens point almost word for word about WW2
How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory i…
World War II is usually seen as a titanic land battle, …
"he argues that in terms of production, technology and economic power,"
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
After reading about Israel hitting several ammo & possible chemical weapon sites in Syria.. it continues with attacks on the former Russian base on Tartus, nice..
en.defence-ua.com
Israeli Forces Strike Base in Tartus, Where russian Ships May Still Be Present | Defense Express
The fighting in Syria is gaining momentum. The issue of the integrity of their bases has become more pressing for russians
en.defence-ua.com
Lefty
Well-known member
Oh, and for your "Where's next?" bingo card.
Russia's colony of Transnistria declares state of emergency due to the imminent loss of russian gas - Kyiv Insider
Russia’s colony of Transnistria declares state of emergency due to the imminent loss of russian gas Russia's colony of Transnistria has declared a state of emergency due to the imminent cut-off of Russian gas. After losing Syria, the last thing Putin's already flailing image needs is the loss of...kyivinsider.com
Thought so.
TeessideCleveland
Well-known member
Not wonderful for the population but wonderful to have another headache for PutinOh, and for your "Where's next?" bingo card.
Russia's colony of Transnistria declares state of emergency due to the imminent loss of russian gas - Kyiv Insider
Russia’s colony of Transnistria declares state of emergency due to the imminent loss of russian gas Russia's colony of Transnistria has declared a state of emergency due to the imminent cut-off of Russian gas. After losing Syria, the last thing Putin's already flailing image needs is the loss of...kyivinsider.com
Maybe all gas should be supplied to the government of Moldova - to decide how to distribute it to that part of their country
The latest episode of "You heard it here first".
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
Not enough to control the media, they are now testing fully blocking the outside world to their citizens..
uk.pcmag.com
Russia Tests Cutting Off Access to Global Web, and VPNs Can't Get Around It
Russia reportedly blocks some areas of its country from the global web for a day as it continues to develop its own 'sovereign internet.'
Missive on ... what is going on?
So, firstly, some brief news that's more recent than the message.
Russian ships have left Kaliningrad and Murmansk to facilitate the return of the Syrian fleet. Obviously, certain Nordic nations may have opinions about new Russian warships in the Baltic.
Following the devastating attack on Tagenrog... it looks as though Russia is moving all its military aircraft that are within 750km of Ukraine far far away ... ie places like Tobolsk,
The ruble is nose diving again
The new Syrian government has officially thanked Ukraine for their help and support.
Anyway ... the WTF? stuff
"Ukraine and The World – Tactical and Strategic Update
As I’ve been out driving tanks in the morning it feels more and more like that particular weapon has played out its role. 4-6 million Euro and 3 men, that will survive just for a few minutes, just to perform short-range line of sight fire missions, just does not feel worthwhile any longer.
I think the tank is dead, problem is more how I convince politicians and tank-fetish colleagues about it. I think the entire industry will have to go back to the drawing board and invent something new to perform this role.
Basically, a sturdy land-based AI-drone can perform that with a rocket-launcher. No need for an expensive 60-ton hulk. For those of the Euro-persuasion among you, I’m about to save a few billion of our favourite currency.
EU Expansion
With Momsie having officially said welcome home to UK, it is now fun to watch Starmer and his merry band of Politico’s baby-stepping things while still saying “No Effing ReJoin!”.
It is fun, we all know it will happen, but that Starmer needs to be a “no politician” up to say, “I sadly have to inform you, that after careful consideration…”.
The latest baby-step is to erode the VISA-thingy. Schoolchildren from EU will from now on be able to freely enter UK to “study proper English”, and it will be reciprocated. That will be followed by ever older people.
In reality UK is looking at the Orange ****-baboon and him pulling out of NATO and going “Momsie, can we move home?”. Metaphorically Momsie is busy baking some Spotted d*ck as a home-coming gift.
How fast? Within the next 3 years, and during that time rule after rule will be re-aligned. So, who to blame? Obviously it is those pesky Swedes going about it again. For some reason all Swedes are born as anglophiles, and they never gave up on getting their beloved UKians back into the family.
How badly? There’s been a monthly visit to number 10 since Brexit happened. There’s even been pecuniary support to ReJoin-movements by Swedish companies. And when caught out they just say, “we just love you guys and want you back home”. Literally.
Who invented the entire EU Fleet in UK idea? Sweden. And so on and so forth, Sweden is behaving like that younger sibling fixing a family squabble. Always blame Swedes.
Ukraine
We might have found our blob of Russians. They seem to be hiding in Zhaporizhzhia of all places. It is not a big blob, but enough to perform a small offensive there. They are though lacking sufficient equipment and artillery to get anywhere.
The feeling I’m getting is that this is an old idea. Intended to draw resources that way prior to a bigger blob of Russians arriving in Kursk, but the second blob doesn’t seem to materialize. And on top of that, Russia seems somewhat frozen right now in its thought processes.
Zyrskyi does though seem convinced that he can deal with this blob if it rushes forward with what he has in the region.
Instead, the brand-new powerful brigades trained abroad and in Ukraine, like the Marie de Kyiv Brigade trained and equipped in France, are all moving in endless columns to Spot X. I assume that Russia knows about it, but in their current confused state they might not, so I will keep mum about it.
During the night the Taganrog Aircraft Factory ceased to exist. It was utterly ripped apart by the brand-new Peklo (Hell) missile that Ukraine have developed and put into serial production. The Peklo has an initial range of 700km and travels at a speed of 700km/h. Going by the utter mayhem, it is very effective.
The Taganrog Aircraft Factory produced AWACS-aircraft for Russia, so they no longer have that ability. Lately it has though mainly operated as an aircraft repair facility.
Missing Russian Weapon Classes
In the last couple of weeks Russian air sorties have dropped by 75 percent. It is especially visible in regards of dropping of glide-bombs on the frontline. A few still happen, but those are mainly directed at civilian targets, and there are also missile launches, but fewer.
There are several reasons for this. So, I will list a few of them, but I think it is mostly the same strange malaise that seems to have hit all of Russia’s military operations that’s affecting things.
Russia is low on glide-bombs. Those that they had was adapted Soviet Era dumb-bombs into a glide-bomb capacity. And Russia for reasons are not producing new baseline bombs, creating a shortage due to the ridiculous amount of them that Russia has used during the war on public toilets and other civilian targets.
Same obviously goes for almost all sorts of missiles, ranging from hypersonic bombing missiles to anti-aircraft hunter missiles.
Russia also has the problem with their own air-defence. They are running out of it, and that is putting their own airplanes at risk of Ukraine going after their aircraft with their ever-increasing amount of F-16s.
Russia knows that Ukraine is getting close, or are at, the critical mass of airframes needed to perform direct combat operations, and for some reason they seem very worried about the F-16s having advanced radars, and for some reason they also worry about Meteor-missiles.
Finally, we have yet another missing fleet. This time it is the battered Black Sea Fleet that has gone missing completely. It started with all surface combatants leaving the Sea of Azov, a natural move since Ukraine now have the ability to air-launch antiship missiles from their own territory with the ability to sink ships there.
And last we have the seeming lack of jet-fuel for the fighter jets. After Ukraine bombed all those distilleries Russia is struggling with producing enough high grade ethanol to produce jet fuel of the grade required by fighter jet engines.
So, this part is just prudent. What is though a bit more perplexing is that Russia has withdrawn all missile ships from active duty in the Black Sea. Those are all anchored or docked in Abkhazia in Georgia.
By the looks of it, most of them will not sortie out again. Part of it is lack of repair, and lack of missiles in sufficient numbers. Some parts might also be the high number of navy drones in the Black Sea operated by Ukraine.
But, in the end I think that once more the malaise of Russia is the true origin of it. They have not run out completely of missiles, some of the ships can sail, and I suspect that they could sortie and perform an attack and get away with it.
No, it is more like they are saving them for the future. And I think that it is a future that is looking very different compared to just what Russia expected a few weeks ago.
Peesident El Humpo
It is now looking ever more like I will become right about something I was somewhat unsure of myself.
I claimed that Trump will be unbeholden to anyone this time around, and that it was less than sure that he would support Putin. My reasoning for this was twofold, one is that it is in his direct economic interest to **** over Putin and backstab him.
Trumps loans are all either directly Russian or secured by Russia. No Putin and he can just state that he has found out that the loans are illegal and just strike them from his books, all 4.8 Billion of loans… you see my point.
The second point is due to me having met him a very long time ago. At that time, I judged him to be the most vain, self-centred person alive. And he throughout our 15-minute meeting harped on about how much he hated losers and being around losers.
This is why he loved Putin and hated Zelenzkyy. He saw the former as a winner, and the latter as a loser. This has now changed.
So, Trump has now stated that Putin has lost the war and is weak. And he is actively trying to be seen around Zelenzkyy all of a sudden, sunbathing in the light of “a winner”.
I think Trump will backstab the living **** out of Putin. And obviously steal all the glory for the Ukrainian victory that he can get away with.
I think that at least parts of Kremlin has figured this one out, and that this might be at least a part of what is behind the Russian military malaise.
Conclusion
I am far from certain about what is happening in Russia. All I can say that what we are seeing is strictly speaking not indicative of Russia being on the brink of a military defeat in the common sense of it.
They still field large resources, albeit dwindling. They could easily extend the war with a year or more by going into a defensive role, and even be offensive for 3-6 months more. But is there will for it remaining?
It currently looks like either the will for it is gone, or they have realised that if they continue that they will over time be broken apart as they get weaker and weaker.
Another option is obviously that there is a big power struggle now behind the walls of the Kremlin itself. The mixed messaging is indicative of this and notice how few of the big guns are talking. It has in fact grown awkwardly silent in Moscow.
Not even the propagandists on TV are bleating with gusto any longer.
On top of that, the more “independent” Russian analyticists are now openly talking about the war being lost, and that “Russia must concentrate its resources on deep defence”. A sentence that in Russian has different connotations compared to what comes out in translation to English.
Deep defence in this reference frame means, concentrating on defending the unity of Russia. And it is not one or two of them, it is all of the big ones in Russia.
I see three potential things happening. Russia pulls itself together and continues the war, or Russia goes home, or we get to see the Swan Lake, and Russia goes home.
One thing is though clear, that for each days we see this expanding Russian malaise in the army, the harder it will become to restart the war for Russia, and if it goes on long enough, the soldiers will vote with their feet and go home. Soldiers tend to do that if they are left without orders in a war. It happened to Russia in 1917 after all.
I suggested that Tank Girl should write a letter to Defence Minister Belousov:
“Dear Minister Belousov!
Dear Uncle Usy (moustache), could you be ever so kind to send more soldiers for me to blow apart. And while you are at it, would you be a dear and equip them with rifles? I do not enjoy killing unarmed men.
Kindly!
Your ever loving Major General ****** **********”
I think he needs some love and attention from someone who cares deeply about the supply of Russians for her ministrations. If nothing else it would truly be something for the history books. "
So, firstly, some brief news that's more recent than the message.
Russian ships have left Kaliningrad and Murmansk to facilitate the return of the Syrian fleet. Obviously, certain Nordic nations may have opinions about new Russian warships in the Baltic.
Following the devastating attack on Tagenrog... it looks as though Russia is moving all its military aircraft that are within 750km of Ukraine far far away ... ie places like Tobolsk,
The ruble is nose diving again
The new Syrian government has officially thanked Ukraine for their help and support.
Anyway ... the WTF? stuff
"Ukraine and The World – Tactical and Strategic Update
As I’ve been out driving tanks in the morning it feels more and more like that particular weapon has played out its role. 4-6 million Euro and 3 men, that will survive just for a few minutes, just to perform short-range line of sight fire missions, just does not feel worthwhile any longer.
I think the tank is dead, problem is more how I convince politicians and tank-fetish colleagues about it. I think the entire industry will have to go back to the drawing board and invent something new to perform this role.
Basically, a sturdy land-based AI-drone can perform that with a rocket-launcher. No need for an expensive 60-ton hulk. For those of the Euro-persuasion among you, I’m about to save a few billion of our favourite currency.
EU Expansion
With Momsie having officially said welcome home to UK, it is now fun to watch Starmer and his merry band of Politico’s baby-stepping things while still saying “No Effing ReJoin!”.
It is fun, we all know it will happen, but that Starmer needs to be a “no politician” up to say, “I sadly have to inform you, that after careful consideration…”.
The latest baby-step is to erode the VISA-thingy. Schoolchildren from EU will from now on be able to freely enter UK to “study proper English”, and it will be reciprocated. That will be followed by ever older people.
In reality UK is looking at the Orange ****-baboon and him pulling out of NATO and going “Momsie, can we move home?”. Metaphorically Momsie is busy baking some Spotted d*ck as a home-coming gift.
How fast? Within the next 3 years, and during that time rule after rule will be re-aligned. So, who to blame? Obviously it is those pesky Swedes going about it again. For some reason all Swedes are born as anglophiles, and they never gave up on getting their beloved UKians back into the family.
How badly? There’s been a monthly visit to number 10 since Brexit happened. There’s even been pecuniary support to ReJoin-movements by Swedish companies. And when caught out they just say, “we just love you guys and want you back home”. Literally.
Who invented the entire EU Fleet in UK idea? Sweden. And so on and so forth, Sweden is behaving like that younger sibling fixing a family squabble. Always blame Swedes.
Ukraine
We might have found our blob of Russians. They seem to be hiding in Zhaporizhzhia of all places. It is not a big blob, but enough to perform a small offensive there. They are though lacking sufficient equipment and artillery to get anywhere.
The feeling I’m getting is that this is an old idea. Intended to draw resources that way prior to a bigger blob of Russians arriving in Kursk, but the second blob doesn’t seem to materialize. And on top of that, Russia seems somewhat frozen right now in its thought processes.
Zyrskyi does though seem convinced that he can deal with this blob if it rushes forward with what he has in the region.
Instead, the brand-new powerful brigades trained abroad and in Ukraine, like the Marie de Kyiv Brigade trained and equipped in France, are all moving in endless columns to Spot X. I assume that Russia knows about it, but in their current confused state they might not, so I will keep mum about it.
During the night the Taganrog Aircraft Factory ceased to exist. It was utterly ripped apart by the brand-new Peklo (Hell) missile that Ukraine have developed and put into serial production. The Peklo has an initial range of 700km and travels at a speed of 700km/h. Going by the utter mayhem, it is very effective.
The Taganrog Aircraft Factory produced AWACS-aircraft for Russia, so they no longer have that ability. Lately it has though mainly operated as an aircraft repair facility.
Missing Russian Weapon Classes
In the last couple of weeks Russian air sorties have dropped by 75 percent. It is especially visible in regards of dropping of glide-bombs on the frontline. A few still happen, but those are mainly directed at civilian targets, and there are also missile launches, but fewer.
There are several reasons for this. So, I will list a few of them, but I think it is mostly the same strange malaise that seems to have hit all of Russia’s military operations that’s affecting things.
Russia is low on glide-bombs. Those that they had was adapted Soviet Era dumb-bombs into a glide-bomb capacity. And Russia for reasons are not producing new baseline bombs, creating a shortage due to the ridiculous amount of them that Russia has used during the war on public toilets and other civilian targets.
Same obviously goes for almost all sorts of missiles, ranging from hypersonic bombing missiles to anti-aircraft hunter missiles.
Russia also has the problem with their own air-defence. They are running out of it, and that is putting their own airplanes at risk of Ukraine going after their aircraft with their ever-increasing amount of F-16s.
Russia knows that Ukraine is getting close, or are at, the critical mass of airframes needed to perform direct combat operations, and for some reason they seem very worried about the F-16s having advanced radars, and for some reason they also worry about Meteor-missiles.
Finally, we have yet another missing fleet. This time it is the battered Black Sea Fleet that has gone missing completely. It started with all surface combatants leaving the Sea of Azov, a natural move since Ukraine now have the ability to air-launch antiship missiles from their own territory with the ability to sink ships there.
And last we have the seeming lack of jet-fuel for the fighter jets. After Ukraine bombed all those distilleries Russia is struggling with producing enough high grade ethanol to produce jet fuel of the grade required by fighter jet engines.
So, this part is just prudent. What is though a bit more perplexing is that Russia has withdrawn all missile ships from active duty in the Black Sea. Those are all anchored or docked in Abkhazia in Georgia.
By the looks of it, most of them will not sortie out again. Part of it is lack of repair, and lack of missiles in sufficient numbers. Some parts might also be the high number of navy drones in the Black Sea operated by Ukraine.
But, in the end I think that once more the malaise of Russia is the true origin of it. They have not run out completely of missiles, some of the ships can sail, and I suspect that they could sortie and perform an attack and get away with it.
No, it is more like they are saving them for the future. And I think that it is a future that is looking very different compared to just what Russia expected a few weeks ago.
Peesident El Humpo
It is now looking ever more like I will become right about something I was somewhat unsure of myself.
I claimed that Trump will be unbeholden to anyone this time around, and that it was less than sure that he would support Putin. My reasoning for this was twofold, one is that it is in his direct economic interest to **** over Putin and backstab him.
Trumps loans are all either directly Russian or secured by Russia. No Putin and he can just state that he has found out that the loans are illegal and just strike them from his books, all 4.8 Billion of loans… you see my point.
The second point is due to me having met him a very long time ago. At that time, I judged him to be the most vain, self-centred person alive. And he throughout our 15-minute meeting harped on about how much he hated losers and being around losers.
This is why he loved Putin and hated Zelenzkyy. He saw the former as a winner, and the latter as a loser. This has now changed.
So, Trump has now stated that Putin has lost the war and is weak. And he is actively trying to be seen around Zelenzkyy all of a sudden, sunbathing in the light of “a winner”.
I think Trump will backstab the living **** out of Putin. And obviously steal all the glory for the Ukrainian victory that he can get away with.
I think that at least parts of Kremlin has figured this one out, and that this might be at least a part of what is behind the Russian military malaise.
Conclusion
I am far from certain about what is happening in Russia. All I can say that what we are seeing is strictly speaking not indicative of Russia being on the brink of a military defeat in the common sense of it.
They still field large resources, albeit dwindling. They could easily extend the war with a year or more by going into a defensive role, and even be offensive for 3-6 months more. But is there will for it remaining?
It currently looks like either the will for it is gone, or they have realised that if they continue that they will over time be broken apart as they get weaker and weaker.
Another option is obviously that there is a big power struggle now behind the walls of the Kremlin itself. The mixed messaging is indicative of this and notice how few of the big guns are talking. It has in fact grown awkwardly silent in Moscow.
Not even the propagandists on TV are bleating with gusto any longer.
On top of that, the more “independent” Russian analyticists are now openly talking about the war being lost, and that “Russia must concentrate its resources on deep defence”. A sentence that in Russian has different connotations compared to what comes out in translation to English.
Deep defence in this reference frame means, concentrating on defending the unity of Russia. And it is not one or two of them, it is all of the big ones in Russia.
I see three potential things happening. Russia pulls itself together and continues the war, or Russia goes home, or we get to see the Swan Lake, and Russia goes home.
One thing is though clear, that for each days we see this expanding Russian malaise in the army, the harder it will become to restart the war for Russia, and if it goes on long enough, the soldiers will vote with their feet and go home. Soldiers tend to do that if they are left without orders in a war. It happened to Russia in 1917 after all.
I suggested that Tank Girl should write a letter to Defence Minister Belousov:
“Dear Minister Belousov!
Dear Uncle Usy (moustache), could you be ever so kind to send more soldiers for me to blow apart. And while you are at it, would you be a dear and equip them with rifles? I do not enjoy killing unarmed men.
Kindly!
Your ever loving Major General ****** **********”
I think he needs some love and attention from someone who cares deeply about the supply of Russians for her ministrations. If nothing else it would truly be something for the history books. "
Lefty
Well-known member
I like these analyses by Perun. They usually independently arrive at similar conclusions/predictions to our well connected Swedish friend. This one is again not a million miles away.
It also does have a gap it can't explain of potentially hidden equipment, similar to our friend. You can never write off the Russians for coming up with something, just look at their history. There might seem to be a lot of stupidity these days, but they can't all be. You just worry there are hidden factories producing the equivalent of thousands of cheap, innovative, effective T34's somewhere hidden beyond the Urals, as in WW2.
Or the gap could be simply actual losses are at the higher end of estimates, or corruption is.
However my hunch is also resources being husbanded into private armies for the inevitable power struggle, civil war and potential break up.
It also does have a gap it can't explain of potentially hidden equipment, similar to our friend. You can never write off the Russians for coming up with something, just look at their history. There might seem to be a lot of stupidity these days, but they can't all be. You just worry there are hidden factories producing the equivalent of thousands of cheap, innovative, effective T34's somewhere hidden beyond the Urals, as in WW2.
Or the gap could be simply actual losses are at the higher end of estimates, or corruption is.
However my hunch is also resources being husbanded into private armies for the inevitable power struggle, civil war and potential break up.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Heroyam Slava
bsky.app
Olena Halushka (@halushka.bsky.social)
63yo Sofia Bila has passed away after battling a severe illness. This brave lady hid 3 Ukr soldiers in her basement for a month while her village was under occupation. She later evacuated them, passing 6 enemy checkpoints. The immense stress caused a stroke. What a courage! Via Zmina & Hromadske
bsky.app