https://twitter.com/johnkunza/status/1504171876096032772
Could also be a lot of Putin trying to run his natural opposition out of the country.
You assume wrong. The Ukrainians figured out the Bayraktars well enough, which are more sophisticated.
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Our war on terror drones aren’t designed to fight Russia or China. Neither are the TB-2s, which are as big as a cessna and could get shot down by the good air defense stuff that Russia has. Probably why we haven’t heard much about those lately, they either aren’t flying or they’ve all been killed. But small drones like the switchblade are designed to fight China or Russia because they’re small and disposable and could operate without air superiority.
They’ve had those drones well before they started the conflict and I’m sure had trained operators at the start of the war. These drones they’ve had no training on, right? So getting a weapon that no on in their army has ever laid hands on in the middle of a chaotic war? That’s totally different.
There are still videos coming out from TB-2s. But not a lightning pace.
UA only had 12 of them to start the war, and then got a new shipment of unspecified number from Turkey in the early days. Speculation is UA has only had 20 total at any point. Turkey has made something like 250 total.
The Russians have had success with electronic warfare against Ukrainian drones. It makes sense that the less sophisticated drones would be vulnerable to jamming. The switchblades probably get around that by targeting front line units and accepting a few losses.
Slovakia and other countries have the 300s. The US has used them for a while. The 600s are brand new but use the same system apparently, just javelin-level armor piercing ability.
Also it’s still unclear if UA is getting the 300s or the 600s. The US has just said they were giving 100 drones.
Don’t understand the confusion over Putin’s speech when an Unstuck poster just told us his friend was murdered for doing what he has done his whole life. Mask is off, dissent is not a gamble anymore, it’s a death sentence.
Putin’s been throwing journalists out of windows for like 20 years, was the mask ever really on?
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lol nice. Guy is par excellence when it comes to marrying Instagram influencer clout faking with being a psychopathic murderer.
+1 gazillion
Ze is feeling confident about winning the war.
https://twitter.com/NewVoiceUkraine/status/1504169377255641089?t=OofOXunCE3Q1mDg_5T3woQ&s=19
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With the caveat that I know nothing about military strategy
However, an exclusive focus on cities – though understandable – may obscure more than it reveals. Though it seems clear that the initial Russian plan was based around a swift coup de main against Kyiv while the bulk of the Ukrainian army was pinned in the east opposite Donetsk and Luhansk, this is unlikely to remain the case. Even under best-case assumptions (from a Russian perspective), it is unlikely that Kyiv will be taken soon. However, it is worth considering that there is a second Ukrainian centre of gravity – alluded to by Vladimir Putin in his pledge to ‘demilitarise’ Ukraine – the regular Ukrainian army, most of which remains near Donetsk and Luhansk under the aegis of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO).
The position of this force is looking increasingly precarious as Russian forces advance to encircle it on three axes. Russian forces of the 58th Combined Arms Army and 22nd Army, pushing north from Crimea, have commenced assaults on Beryslav along the Dnieper, and appear likely to link up at Polohy with Russian separatist forces and the Eighth Combined Arms Army advancing from Donbas. Elements of the First Guards Tank Army and Sixth Combined Arms Army advancing past Kharkiv also appear to have largely eschewed attempts to take the city – focusing instead on reducing it with artillery while bypassing it as they advance south and west past Poltava, cutting the JFO off from escaping northwards. Finally, in the southwest, Russian forces of the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division appear similarly intent on bypassing Mykolaiv but, notably, may not be advancing on Odessa. Instead, they appear to be advancing north, which could suggest a desire to seize the western banks of key crossing points over the Dnieper.
Viewed in conjunction, these advances present a troubling picture whereby the Ukrainian forces opposite Donetsk and Luhansk are at risk of encirclement on the eastern side of the Dnieper. If this is indeed the focus of Russia’s approach, then the emphasis on Russia’s ability to take major cities as a metric of success will have been an analytical error, as Russia appears more intent on pinning Ukrainian forces in cities like Kharkiv while it bypasses them. Indeed, preparations for an amphibious assault on Odessa may have been a feint, given that the ground forces such an assault could have linked up with appear to be moving north.
For Ukraine, this represents a critical moment. The encirclement and destruction of a large part of the country’s regular armed forces could represent a victory condition for Russia in two ways. First, we might consider what figures like Jomini and Clausewitz postulated in the context of their own time: that armies and not cities are a nation’s centre of gravity. The destruction of armies tends to lead to a broader collapse of will that makes sieges unnecessary. In 1940, for example, German forces did not besiege Paris; having encircled the French army in the field and decisively beaten it, this became unnecessary. To hold Kyiv and other major cities at the cost of allowing the forces of the JFO to be encircled could prove disastrous. Even if Ukrainian will did not collapse following the encirclement and destruction of the JFO, the elimination of this force could lead Russia to claim it had achieved its goal of demilitarising Ukraine and would enable an annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk at a minimum.
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Yeah there’s a lot of weird stuff around this theater. It was a staging point for evacuees the last few days. The scenes of children inside were those waiting to be evacuated. There are street scenes of families hustling to cars past dead bodies in Mariupol. It has also been reported that 20k have been evacuated, and that some were very recent when a corridor was successfully opened (refugees did get out, but still no aid was allowed in).
So we know the theater was a staging point for evacuees. But we don’t know that it had 1200 people in it when bombed (praying). The fact that not one picture has come out yet could be because the area is too hot. But it seems weird no one has snuck over to get some shots of the carnage. It’s possible there weren’t many people sheltering there when the missile hit, and UA is still stringing out the “casualties unknown” as long as they can.
Russia at first said the Azov battalion was headquartered there and they bombed it, then changed their mind and said Azov blew it up themselves. Because of course.
And zero concern about consistency - first saying they did bomb it, then saying Azov blew it up themselves.
Dissent is not a gamble anymore? What do you think has been happening the last 100 years in that country?
I read that Putin speech as a direct threat to the oligarchs. Which other Russians have villas in Miami or the French Riviera?
If I was an oligarch that still has business in Russia I would have chills down my spine right now.
It’s not just a lack of concern about consistency, the deplorable right has embraced just saying contradicting things about any topic so that they have plausible deniability later. You say that Russia claims that Azov bombed the theatre, but I have a post right here where Russia acknowledges they bombed it. What else are you lying about, huh?