Russia v Ukraine

[Section_31]

It's a bugbear of mine that the likes of Harwood and Owen Jones are called 'journalists'. They're not, they're opinion writers. There's a massive difference. 

[Gnasher]

5 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

It's a bugbear of mine that the likes of Harwood and Owen Jones are called 'journalists'. They're not, they're opinion writers. There's a massive difference. 

It's a fair point, although in defence of Jones he did earn  both a BA and a masters from Oxford University before going into journalism. Harwood meanwhile is just an over promoted ex public school boy.

[Jordy Brouwer]

19 hours ago, Strontium said:

The US believes it can knock out Russia's nuclear capabilities before they even get the chance to launch them.

Is anyone willing to be the world on that?

[Captain Turdseye]

You’ve even got Switzerland and Sweden getting involved. This is now escalating into a World War in everything but name. 

[Gnasher]

2 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

You’ve even got Switzerland and Sweden getting involved. This is now escalating into a World War in everything but name. 

Its escalating alright, rumours the Belgium it's a knockout winning team of 1976 are making a comeback because of this.

[Jordy Brouwer]

1 hour ago, SasaS said:

The FB source (Tom Cooper) summary as per everyday now, split it in two so it is easier to read.

 

Part 1

 

Good morning everybody!

Today, 5th day of the war in Ukraine, I’ll continue the coverage of events over the last 24 hours, and answer a few questions, too. There’s too much activity on the diplomatic/international plan: the mass of that is useless babbling. Sufficient to say that the West – plus Japan and South Korea – have imposed massive sanctions upon Russia, blocking de-facto all the trade, all the Russian assets abroad, and all the cooperation in a mass of other fields (space, sports etc.). Let me concentrate on military developments instead.

 

STRATEGIC LEVEL

Putin has put his nuclear forces on ‘special alert’, as ‘deterrence’ against ‘aggressive statements by the NATO’. There was no reply from the USA and/or NATO – and that’s good that way. Better to avoid engaging in a spiral of escalation with a bully.

 

AIR

The EU – repeat for emphasis: the EU – is intending to donate old MiG-29s and Su-25s of different NATO-air forces to Ukraine. Sounds logical: Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria etc. are still flying MiG-29s, for example. Ukrainians can fly such jets, even if their communications and IFF have been significantly modified over the time. Still, I consider this for useless political decision in style of, ‘we must do something’. It’s going to make Ukrainians happy, no doubt, but, jets in question are 40 years old and ‘bent’ from all the training over the years, and some of installed equipment (especially IFF and radios) is not going to be ‘compatible’ with the Ukrainians. On top of that, it’s near pointless, because of the massive Russian superiority, and hiding fighter jets is anything else than easy. Thus, I’m curious to see if and how anything of this kind might be realised.

 

‘Hiding fighter jets’ brings me to a question several have asked yesterday. That is: how does the Ukrainian Air Force operate? In the night prior to the Russian aggression, it dispersed its aircraft and helicopters on airfields in the west and south of the country. A few are at ‘official’ air bases, but the mass is at minor airfields. Even then, Ukrainians are keeping them 1000-4000 metres away from any runways, well-concealed. Thus, except for destroying many of old, ‘stored’ – actually: abandoned – jets left behind, the Russians hit less than a handful of Ukrainian combat aircraft and helicopters on the ground.

 

For the Russians,´finding these jets is anything else than easy. Because Ukrainian S-300s are still operational, the Russians can’t freely move their handful of precious Tu-214R reconnaissance jets equipped with SLARs. They can’t bring them closely enough to find Ukrainian jets on the ground. Thus, they have to wait for Ukrainians to fly.

Now, MiG-29 and Su-25 were built for operations from ‘primitive’ facilities, can use even grass runways. That far, no problem. Where there is a massive problem is the command and control of such a ‘force’: what jet is where, which one to scramble in what case, and, hand on heart, one can’t just scramble a jet and send it ‘to attack whatever enemy it finds’, nowadays. Jets are moving very fast. What’s ‘here’ one moment, is ‘there’ the next, and thus easier to completely miss than to find. Moreover, the Russians are ‘hiding’ their aircraft with massive volumes of electronic warfare, and thus any Ukrainian jets that are airborne but do not have very specific targeting information, only serve as targets for the enemy. Especially, MiG-29 needs good support from the ground control to operate effectively: it needs ground control to tell the pilot where is the target and what is it doing. Unsurprisingly, Ukrainians have already lost a number of MiG-29s – to Russian interceptors, to surface-to-air missiles and other Russian weapons.

By now, Ukrainian Air Force can operate only in the west and the south, where the Russian air defence- and electronic warfare assets have not yet been deployed, are too far away, or are yet in the process of development. This is why we only see videos of Ukrainian Su-25s attacking advancing columns of the Russian Army, and then, primarily, in the south, where the battlefield is ‘still fluid’. When doing so, they are facing a full range of air defence means, from AKM assault rifles to S-400s (ASCC/NATO-codename ‘SS-21 Growler’). Unsurprisingly, they’re flying very low, to limit detection and exposure – and still suffering heavy losses: at least 3 Ukrainian Su-25s were shot down yesterday and this morning. Apparently, all their pilots were killed.

 

Why such losses? Fast- and low-flying jets operating in the skies ‘saturated’ by enemy aircraft and air defences are ‘perfect targets’ for own air defences, too – as there is no way for ground troops well-supplied with MANPADs to say which is Russian and which is Ukrainian, while Russian aircraft are better-protected by countermeasures. Unsurprisingly, at least one of three Ukrainian Su-25s lost yesterday and today was shot down by own troops.

Generally, when you see a video shown a jet over Ukraine these days, you can gauge the following: if flying low, it’s Ukrainian. Only Russian Su-25s are flying low: all others are operating at medium and high altitudes.

Operations-wise, the Keystone Cops in Moscow claim the destruction of over 1,150 military targets in Ukraine, and have, for the first time ever, admitted suffering casualties – but without providing any kind of figures. They also declared ‘total aerial superiority’ in the skies, indicating there must be a reason why they’re as happy (probably shot down some Ukrainian MiG-29s and/or Su-27s).

The whole afternoon, Russian forces deployed in Belarus continued firing 9K720 Iskander (ASCC/NAtO-codename ‘SS-26 Stone’) tactical ballistic missiles at Ukraine. One, after the other.

Fantastic analysis. Do you have the original source?

[J-V]

Belarus having a referendum to see if they become a Nuclear power according to Sky.  Obviously Russia will place missile in Belarus.

[Strontium]

Thread on how Nazism inspires the Russians. 

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

In case anyone is still sitting on the fence, just consider that one President came to prominence committing atrocities in Chechnya; the other provided the voice of the title role in the Ukrainian version of Paddington.

[Section_31]

Footage emerges of recent Ukrainian cabinet meeting. 

 

[littletedwest]

On the subject of de nazification isn't Ukraines leader Jewish? Seems a somewhat unconventional choice to lead a nation of nazis 

 

[Section_31]

3 minutes ago, littletedwest said:

On the subject of de nazification isn't Ukraines leader Jewish? Seems a somewhat unconventional choice to lead a nation of nazis 

 

 

There's some banter about Nazis in their military I think, but there's shedloads in Russia and across Eastern Europe. It's monkey chants agogo whenever England play a match east of the Rhine these days, and I've heard shit from Polish tradesmen that'd curl your hair. 

[SasaS]

29 minutes ago, Jordy Brouwer said:

Fantastic analysis. Do you have the original source?

It's a FB post by Air Combat Information Group (ACIG) writer Tom Cooper, he writes he has been swamped with friend requests by time wasters and complains about it so I am now reluctant to share direct links, he is now asking people just to "follow" him, so I guess, please do just that if you are interested. There is not much more than these daily summaries, plus an occasional post and videos also shared elsewhere. Main focus seems to be aerospace and aircrafts nerdery.   

 

https://www.facebook.com/keksifarm.hayday

[Jordy Brouwer]

2 minutes ago, SasaS said:

It's a FB post by Air Combat Information Group (ACIG) writer Tom Cooper, he writes he has been swamped with friend requests by time wasters and complains about it so I am now reluctant to share direct links, he is now asking people just to "follow" him, so I guess, please do just that if you are interested. There is not much more than these daily summaries, plus an occasional post and videos also shared elsewhere. Main focus seems to be aerospace and aircrafts nerdery.   

 

https://www.facebook.com/keksifarm.hayday

Thanks very much. Its really, really good. 

[Mathewbet1]

Thank good liz truss is our Foreign Secretary during these trying times.

[Gnasher]

41 minutes ago, littletedwest said:

On the subject of de nazification isn't Ukraines leader Jewish? Seems a somewhat unconventional choice to lead a nation of nazis 

 

I think they're talking more about factions within Ukraine and the east. If our arming people in recent wars such as Lybia, Afghanistan and Syria has taught us anything it's we should tread very carefully before painting everything and everyone as black and white, we know what Putin and Russia are like, it might be wise to treat Ukraine with a little bit of caution.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10530885/PETER-HITCHENS-Granny-gets-gun-bunch-shameless-neo-Nazis.html

 

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/28/ukrainian-fighters-grease-bullets-against-chechens-with-pig-fat

[littletedwest]

39 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

 

There's some banter about Nazis in their military I think, but there's shedloads in Russia and across Eastern Europe. It's monkey chants agogo whenever England play a match east of the Rhine these days, and I've heard shit from Polish tradesmen that'd curl your hair. 

Yeah, a lad i know went to the Czech Republic a few years ago and the bouncers on one door refused to let his mate in because he was black. Madness

[Captain Willard]

I see Abromvich is joining the negotiations on the Russian side. The fate of Western Europe now partly in the hands of the man who was persuaded to pay £100m for Lukaku. We’re fucked. 

[Section_31]

Vladimir Putin placed nuclear deterrence forces on high alert after comments made by Liz Truss, a Kremlin spokesman revealed today.

[J-V]

11 minutes ago, Captain Willard said:

I see Abromvich is joining the negotiations on the Russian side. The date of Western Europe now partly in the hands of the man who was persuaded to pay £100m for Lukaku. We’re fucked. 

Better for us then clearly a mug

[J-V]

2 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Vladimir Putin placed nuclear deterrence forces on high alert after comments made by Liz Truss, a Kremlin spokesman revealed today.

Always someone elses fault with these cunts.

[littletedwest]

“I will not name the authors of these statements, although it was the British foreign secretary."

 

Cagey fuck this guy

[Bjornebye]

Mad how all these stand with Ukraine things (great as they are) up and down the Uk are being celebrated yet wave a flag in solidarity with innocent Palestinians getting booties out of their homes, kidnapped, shot, bombed etc and you’re an anti-Semite …… 

[Strontium]

Honestly surprised it took 82 pages.

[Bjornebye]

1 minute ago, Strontium said:

Honestly surprised it took 82 pages.

Was that guilty conscience gnawing away at you?