Lukashenko is MIA in Belarus. Rumors range from flu, to in hospital, to poisoned, to dying.
https://twitter.com/maria_drutska/status/1657479774179139586?s=20
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Probably golfing far away from Kyrie
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https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1657912314413084673
No idea what to make of this. Could be real or could just be Ukraine trying to sow discord between Wagner and Putin.
What is the world coming to when you can’t even trust your condottiere?
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ok i watched the video, alleged battery explosion happens much later than the SAM launches, when rocket smoke is clears. also one explosion cannot take out a battery, which is like 4-5 trucks spread out over a few sq km.
ukraine ultimately released details that not all rockets were intercepted over kyiv, majority were launched from carriers in the black sea and some were intercepted in the south. this incident has not been analyzed yet, and we’ll probably know more in a few days. but i wouldn’t exactly trust zvezdanews and bluechecka who retweet it.
also conversation seems to have very quickly moved from “definitely destroyed a patriot,” to “$150m is so expensive, ukraine is poor”. which is a weird tack. i’ll have to wait for koffman to educate me
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Hat tip to US Patriot @simplicitus
On Tuesday evening Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow had not fired as many of the Kinzhal missiles as Kyiv had claimed to have shot down.
However if Ukraine’s claims are true, Moscow will be feeling frustrated that the finest weapons from its missile fleet are now able to be intercepted. This is in large part due to the arrival of modern Western defence systems, including Patriots.
Russia continues to insist that the missiles, which it says can travel at more than 11,000kmh (7,000mph), cannot be destroyed by any of the world’s air defence systems.
The Kinzhal, or “dagger”, is an air-launched ballistic missile. Most ballistic missiles reach hypersonic speed - five times the speed of sound, or just over 6,000 kmh - at some point during their flight.
Kyiv said it shot down a Kinzhal for the first time last week.
Although considered particularly effective, the Patriot is a relatively static air defence system, and is considered potentially vulnerable to high speed missiles.
“We have received very powerful air defence systems from our western partners. They work against air dynamic targets. The Kinzhal X-47 missiles which used to terrorise us are not so scary any more,” Ihnat said. The raid was “unique” in its use of six Kinzhals from an estimated reserve of “about 50”. “The enemy has used a relatively big number of them,” he added.
The combined attack in the early hours of Tuesday featured Shahed loitering drones arriving from the north, Kinzhals launched by MiG-31K fighter jets in the east and Kalibr missiles fired by Russian warships stationed in the Black Sea, he said. The shooting down of the Kinzhals, if confirmed, would be a powerful demonstration of the effectiveness of the newly deployed air defences.
This article highlights something missing in the pure cost analysis of the military aid. The US and other countries are getting valuable data and testing of their equipment.
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So are the Russians
russian MIC hates to change, and doesn’t do well with expensive, high technology tasks.
having said that, it appears that after AFU used JDAMS, russian MIC/MoD did manage to slap cheap gliding gps controls onto their bombs, and are using them quite effectively. finding cheap low-tech ways for some things is believable. doing anything high tech without blowing themselves up a few times, no so muc.
more UA-side updates came out. Kyiv hadn’t experienced a barrage of rockets like that in a few months, and a few bloggers forgot basic security rules and put up the video of spectacular patriot unloading over a dozen rockets. the ru social network monitors picked those up, deduced the coordinates, and sent a smaller number of drones at it. one or more did eventually explode close to a launcher, but it was not a direct hit. normally anti-air defenses are moved after they fire, to prevent targeting them.
but overall, this was not a score for the kinzhals at all. unlikely to repeat.
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They say younger scientists are being deterred by the arrests from pursuing similar research.
Maybe Iran will do an Operation Paperclip.
Broke: arrest the generals.
Woke: arrest the scientists.
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prigozhin would like a word:
— “Where is the unstoppable force, блядь-сука?!?»
screenshot of the moscow times for posterity.
remember the CIA telegram channel targeting russian citizens? well, this just dropped. i, for one, think maga americans fed up with checks notes BLM and gay prides should definitely take them up on it.
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Also
Defense officials and congressional staffers told CNN that Ukrainian troops have in recent weeks used the US-made Patriot air defense system to shoot down at least one faraway Russian fighter jet.