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Interesting… Surely Russia (leadership) is not that stupid.
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Could be just a terrorist threat level thing. Of course we know the sponsorship of these kinds of things either ends up in Moscow or Tehran.
War update - 5 hours old.
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Russia exerting maritime influence. Perhaps one of the reasons the Yanks have heightened alerts in European NATO.
The intersting news in this article for me, was the revelation that Venezuela and Guyana are apparently nearing a war footing… Russia on standby to back Venezuela.
Putin Isn't Bluffing: The Ukraine Was Is Slowly Becoming a Global War | The National Interest
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It appears Russia has managed to obtain an intact guidance system for an ATACMS, which they are studying so to counteract.
Russia ‘studying captured ATACMS’
Russian forces have captured and are studying an intact guidance system from a long-range US-made ATACMS missile, according to reports.
RIA-Novosti, a Russian state media outlet, released a video set to dramatic music showing a man in military uniform wearing a balaclava sitting at a table in a warehouse inspecting the device.
Behind him were several shelves of land mines, missiles and other military hardware.
“We can, in principle, analyse the work of the missile systems at all stages of the flight trajectory, that is, the base of correction and how much it can be corrected because it flies along a complex ballistic trajectory,” the unnamed soldier said as he picked up the device to inspect.
A camera zooms in on the alleged tracking device to a label that identifies it as part of a US-made ATACMS with a specific serial number.
Neither the RIA-Novosti report nor the video footage explained how or when the device was captured. Russian experts said they would get to work immediately on working out how to use the captured device’s data to help the Kremlin’s air defence systems.
Viktor Litovkin, a retired Russian colonel, told the online Lenta.ru news portal that scientists would soon identify any weak spots.
“We can reconfigure our surface-to-air missile systems that are supposed to shoot it [the missile] down and we can reconfigure and fine-tune our electronic warfare systems against this missile,” he was quoted as saying.
ATACMS have a range of nearly 200 miles and have been one of Ukraine’s most potent weapons, knocking out command centres, warships and air bases.
The US only started supplying ATACMS to Ukraine in April as it was worried that using one of its most lethal missile systems would escalate the war.
Russian forces had complained about the speed and accuracy of the ATACMS. It is rare for Russian forces to shoot them down.
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This guy doesn’t look like he could do anything useful with it except mail it to the Chinese
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Did you know? russia launched an outspoken humanoid robot with a low opinion of humans to the ISS. It later went rogue on twitter and started insulting cosmonauts, accusing them of being drunks and talking nonsense…
Moar
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The russians are really ■■■■■■■■ their pants over Kaja Kallas. They have turned all channels of russian disinformation and influence inside and outside of Europe to working against her and are trying to fling all kinds of mud at her.
People trying to make a controversy out of this photo and Kallas’ family history
Furniture? I didn’t even notice any furniture…
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Bump
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RU leaders have demonstrated many times over that they are that stupid, it would not surprise me if they were again, and don’t call me Shirley.
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Russian losses per 02/07/24 reported by the Ukrainian general staff.
+1280 men
+8 tanks
+16 APVs
+56 artillery systems
+3 MLRS
+21 UAVs
+2 cruise missiles
The usual 1000+ men and 50+ arty pieces.
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2/ Russia has made some progress on the ground and yet even this has come at massive costs. For the gain of around 513 square km, they have lost around 180 thousand personnel. Losing 360 people for every km is a poor return on investment - in any war.
3/ And, as this graph from @ragnarbjartur shows, Russian casualties have only increased in the past six months during its 2024 offensives.
4/ Russia has failed to stop Ukrainian strikes on Russian bases and oil infrastructure in Russia, and is failing in its campaign to defend against strikes against #Crimea.
5/ Russia does however have a very robust strategic influence and misinformation campaign. But, even that is yet to persuade Ukraine’s key supporters to reduce their support.
6/ Russia has probably developed a better approach to strategic adaptation than the Ukrainians have. This is allowing them to out-produce the Ukrainians and to continuously recruit. But these are only providing marginal improvements in the tactical and operational effectiveness of the Russian military, and are disproportionate to the massive losses in manpower and equipment.
7/ The Russian military had a significant opportunity at the end of 2023 after Ukraine’s military culminated in its counter offensive in the south and with the shortfalls that in manpower and munitions that began to tell in 2024.
8/ And yet, the Russians over the last six months have generally failed to capitalise on this convergence of opportunities. And in squandering such enormous quantities of troops in lots of smaller actions across the front line, Russia is less able to build a better quality, large force that might be able to undertake larger scale offensive operations.
9/ This was probably Russia’s best opportunity to make significant gains on the battlefield which it could then turn into significantly increased political and diplomatic pressure on Ukraine for peace negotiations.
10/ Russia may still have time to conduct offensive activities against Ukraine before they culminate. But, given Russian losses so far, the lack of any new, wide-ranging offensive doctrine, and that Ukraine’s strategic prospects are improving, Russia appears to have blown what might have been its last chance to strike a decisive blow against Ukraine in this war.
11/ The question now is whether #Ukraine, which seeks to liberate more of its territory occupied by Russia, can build all the different physical, moral and intellectual elements of offensive combat power to do better than Russia has either later this year or in 2025?
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Motorcycles of death.
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