Fascinating! Presumably not a decision by Google maps but a decision by US Government authorizing satellite photo companies to release higher resolutions (as has been done regularly during the war by Maxar).
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Nicely done. Demonstration of actual knowledge of targets more menacing than a threat but conveys same message to public.
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Presumably Russians know those details are available to enemies both from the resolution of commercial maps not obscured and from their own capabilities.
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The twitter thread includes a demonstration of similar Russian capabilities with high resolution image of NATO naval base at Toulon, France from Russian internet search engine Yandex:
https://yandex.ru/maps/?l=sat&ll=5.905956%2C43.113647&z=17
Not quite as high resolution but more than adequate.
- I wonder whether the aims is to unleash some crowd sourcing of target assessment?
Been some interesting finds by google searchers
Click through this thread for all the screenshots & commentary
The Russian story about towing of the ship might have actually been true as photos show a very large tug in attendance.
Interesting conjecture though that depending on the shape of the hull breach under the waterline, ( the ship had quite a severe list in those photos.) the very act of towing might have scooped water into the ship and sunk it.
Its a good thing the Ukrainians did not have to waste another Neptune just to finish it off.
I donât think anyone doubted the towing of Moskva story.
Many fighter bases have lots of well spaced hangars arrayed along long loops of taxiways sometimes with earth mounds/ bunds between them for protection. However, it would be wrong to believe that all the hangars are occupied. Thats one way to decieve the enemy, the other might be polystyrene, but as we know even polystyrene needs maintenance.
Every public statement that Russia makes needs to be subjected to scrutiny.
Well that might be true. I hope not. If as has been said ground is soft they will need to use actual infantry to fight this time across a wide front. They are using lots of conscripts apparently. But maybe infantry, being a diffuse target will reduce the big advantage that small groups of Ukr soldiers had in destroying a lot of Ru armour during the first 40 days
Unfortunately Russia likes to take villages and towns and murder civilians or at the very least raze their buildings . I hope the folk living there have taken the opportunity to move out.
You can watch this movie, âMr Jonesâ, on SBS on demand. It gives a great insight into the politics and propaganda of this era and what happened to the Ukrainians in the 1930âs. A must watch if you want to try and understand what is happening now.
It is impossible to ignore the paralells between then and now. Firstly what is happening to the Ukrainians again at the hands of Russia, and secondly the world geopoltics again being consumed by out of touch, ridiculously wealthy, oligarchs/tycoons/oil barons/ billionaires who also control the media and spread misinformation and propaganda to meet their own ends, and treat there citizens as cannon fodder and grist for the mill.
Speculation that some of the Russian missiles have been launched from the Caspian Sea region.
I donât have links handy, but my understanding from early reports was that expected Russian plan was to encircle Kyiv and use their large numbers of relatively short range artillery (â10 kmâ as shorthand description) to pound away at it and thus compel a ceasefire ONCE THEY HAD CONTROL OF THE TERRITORY THEY WANT TO KEEP AFTER THE CEASEFIRE.
Russia publicly announced that they were commencing the destruction of military industrial sites as part of the âdemilitarizationâ. Ukraine immediately denounced this as cover for the sort of bombardment that reduced Grozny and Aleppo (and eventually Mariupol) to rubble and demanded immediate closing of the sky to prevent mass murder. Air attacks would be the most effective means of suppressing artillery at 10km range.
But Russiaâs main offense to capture the territory it wants to keep was not completed in time.
The south coast is still contested at Kherson, even when Mariupol falls. Donbas offensive did not get far and Kharkiv offensive still ongoing.
They are now attacking Kyiv âfrom far far further than 10kmâ. But this is not massive routine shelling. It is expensive long range cruise missiles that they will run out of and can only be aimed at selected targets. They do also have longer range artillery which can shell from say 30km and NATO is now starting to supply this to Ukraine. This equipment is much less available and an attractive target.
But the masses of artillery that need to be used to pound a city to submission work from about 10km - which is well beyond the range of the shoulder mounted rockets Ukrainians initially supplied with - hence the urgent demand for heavier long range weapons and especially for air power.
Even if Ukraine had comparable 10km artillery for an âartillery duelâ, which it does not, this would not work out well because it would be firing from within the encircled city and the counter fire aimed at legitimate military targets would inevitably do lots of collateral damage to surrounding city where it would also be hard to quickly move to another concealed location after firing.
Attacks on airports to destroy airbases were pretty general as the first round. Attempts to seize one close to Kyiv was more part of special forces operations aimed at decapitating leadership, which would certainly have been helpful if achieved. Not particularly relevant to occupying entire city.
Certainly do need boots on the ground in suburbs of a city of 3 million to be able to bombard it with short range artillery to districts 10km further away. That is what they DID and failed to hold (because the brilliant defense was able to cut their supply lines using mainly shoulder mounted weapons at close range behind their lines).
Yes. So immense that even a more modest plan to bombard from 10km resulted in a complete retreat back to Belarus rather than merely being pushed back to wait in better protected positions with shorter supply lines until the main objectives elsewhere in the south and east had actually been achieved and then try again to get close enough.
But this UTTER DEBACLE for a more modest plan is obviously NOT evidence that they were attempting something vastly more GRANDIOSE and DELUSIONAL - installing a puppet government to rule an occupied nation of 44 million people with forces that were so obviously inadequate for such a task that it turned out they were unable to even remain on the outskirts of the capital.
Interesting finds indeed. Wings falling off styrofoam aircraft!
Sheds further light on motives for release.
Huge amount of lobbying for Air Force funding has been based on how mighty the Russian air force is compared with run down US air power.
That stuff goes down really well in uninformed Congress and general public and has been echoed here in explanations about how difficult it would be to Close the Sky in Ukraine.
Most dramatic example was in use of WMDs as official basis for removal of fascist regime in Iraq.
Anybody remotely interested should have been aware that stronger powers invite military attaches, âOpen Skiesâ etc to ensure their opponents are thoroughly aware of what military capacities they have and do not assume that any of it is fake.
Weaker powers, like Iraq and Russia rely heavily on what Russians call âMaskirovaâ to convince their opponents that they are stronger than they are. Hence weaker powers heavily dependent on secrecy.
Yet the idea was successfully sold that Iraq was CONCEALING its WMDs instead of DISPLAYING them and the US intelligence agencies solemnly concurred in that absurdity which dominated the entire âdebateâ which was about WMDs instead of about the desirability of removing fascist regimes.
Perhaps this move is part of preparing public opinion for US action to âClose the Skyâ?
It will certainly not be too early if the Donbas offensive has already started.
Well I now know 
Never occurred to me before.
I am guessing that it is somebodyâs job to rush out and remove debris whenever some storm results in bits of decoys falling off so it will look like the fake weaponry simply got moved somewhere else next time there is a satellite photo.
General corruption results in that job not being done as rapidly as necessary.
Even a small proportion of photos showing such events would enable statistical estimates of the actual proportion of fakes.
Given allied Westâs determination to keep their forces out of Ukraine wouldnât this action more likely be providing Ukrainian pilots with planes so they can defend their airspace?
Yes, even that was delayed. But even after delivery of all available aircraft that Ukrainians can learn to fly quickly, each Russian BTG is equipped with adequate air defenses that have severely limited the sorties Ukrainians can fly.
Entire Donbas front would be saturated with Russian air defence (and supported with some Russian air power despite Ukrainian air defense still functioning to limit that).
Only NATO airpower (core of which is USAF) can rapidly achieve complete domination of the sky over Ukraine by suppressing and destroying Russian air defenses in Ukraine.
I am hoping that recent events might indicate some weakening of the Westâs âdeterminationâ to keep their forces out of Ukraine.
This âdeterminationâ is mainly based on fear and undercutting the fear could be a preliminary move.
More concrete move would be deploying Patriot SAM batteries into Ukraine eg with âLincoln Brigadeâ volunteers assisting Ukraine to staff them.
History rhymes:
This is a nice thought but there is just no possibility of it happening.
Asking highly specialised techs to accept a discharge to then enter a theatre of war in another country is not an offer that would be widely accepted.
Along with this, the idea that this somehow provides the US and NATO with their desired level of detachment from the conflict is a big stretch.
I think we have seen the extent of Western support (in terms of capability), unless there is a significant escalation from Putin.
I have been to a lot of airforce bases and even within the same country, some bases have spent a lot on fighter concealment, others are happy to line up their fighters in neat angled rows on the hard stand area. I suppose it depends on if its primarily a training base. None of that is secret, you can see it all on google earth, which I usually did before I visited site.