Pali

Zelensky escorted by Italians.

ORAC

Wow! On prime time Russian TV….

RT's former Director of Broadcasting, Anton Krasovsky, talks to propagandist Akim Apachev about killing millions of Ukrainians, turning Ukrainian children into Russians and other genocidal ideas. They also touch on Bakhmut, Medvedchuk and Prigozhin.

ORAC

​​​​​​​This is why you centralize the planning of fortified works…

Seriously, what the **** were the Russians going for here?

They can only push up armor to support the rear-most line, these trenches aren’t mutually supporting or connected (i.e. so the only way out of a position that’s being stormed is to run several kilometers across a field — and reinforcing beleaguered trenches is difficult if not impossible), this line is just begging to be shattered...

NutLoose

Lol… from Twitter

Video Mixdown

You have to wonder how keen Russian aviation will be to continue the fight if they survive combat missions only to be killed by their own side.

NutLoose

Nice souvenir

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rattman

The rascist telegrams are reporting that 2 rare EW Mi-8 (only 20 made), SU-35 that were escorting a SU-35 fullback as part of a strike package were all shot down by unspecified ukrainian SAM /AAMS

Whole 'strike package' was destroyed

NutLoose

Extensive footage of the assault on the outskirts of Bakhmut where the Ukrainians drive the Russians back.

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Beamr

Nevermind, it was a red herring.

fdr

The presenter doesn't get the irony of his comments related to Ukraine friends, and the propagandist musician is objecting to Ukraine existence, period. That works both ways; yet, Ukraine has the decency to not be calling for the erasure of russia as an idea, they would just like the home invading criminals to leave, taking their trash with them. The US congress vote for transferring seized funds for war reparations from russia to Ukraine is at least a move in the right direction, as is Switzerland finally doing something that they have a moral obligation as just a member of the UN, to assist a UN member that is being attacked by an aggressor.

The series of apparent own goals on russian helicopters and a jet or two suggests that the natives are getting the message that the propagandists are sprouting nonsense, as is Fort Fumble, and that aviation overhead could just as easily be Ukrainian as russian, or an German Cessna 150, a Korean B747 or a Malaysian B777, times have not changed. The Mi-8 with the tail boom separation in flight appears to have some background jet aircraft noise, rumour is that the jet noise is of another aircraft downed by their own team. For 70 years we fretted on the air defence capabilities of the USSR, we did the same on their surface ships, their tanks and submarines, and it seems a little embarrassing now. The 10 years I spent chasing Soviet boomers could have been spent eyeballing the Yugoslavian naval forces at Lake Bled with as much effect.

The shrill rhetoric to conduct genocide from the russian media won't play well in time, who is going to want to be the friends of a country that has such contempt for the norms of civilisation? The Kazakh President's comments on russia seems to be on mark, he has no illusions about count the money vlad, or of the integrity of russia as a whole. It seems that the russians new position is that no one state has a right to be a state other than russia, and that is hardly a way to either make friends and as it breaches every agreement that they have ever held, including their membership of the UN, their presence in the UN is a stain on the institution.

fdr

aviation:

This is reported as being a fatal accident for the flight crew. That is at odds with the survival space that exists and the lack of fire damage, either they make really really strong airframes, or weak crew. The crew may have had an assisted suicide as likely as not given the lack of damage. To have enough vertical velocity to cause fatality tends to make everything else break; modern ejection seats give around 12-18g acceleration over a 1.5-2.0sec time frame... older bang seats were much higher loads even with sequential charges. The chest compounds the peak g load by around 50%, under the compression of the body, so around 80% of the back injuries end up around the thoracic region from studies of ejections and research into damage mechanism of the spine. What is weird with this Mi-28 (apart from the fact that it is an illegal operation inside Ukraine by a foreign invader) is a design that apparently is stronger than it's crews. A western designer would be pretty unhappy with their handiwork of having a design that takes a relatively low vertical impact and the helicopter survives by killing the crew (assuming the crew's demise is not related to 9mm lead poisoning by Vlad's mates).

Seems to me that Mi-28 pilots should consider formation ejections to rid themselves of a flight safety risk, their helicopter. If they give advance notice, sure that they will get lots of likes for that on YouTube or twitter, or on Tinder...

WARNING: Don't land heavily in Mi-28's unless your life insurance is up to date, or your wife needs a new Lada.

[Lady Di's longitudinal g was around 85g peak, and that tears the aorta as often as not. A seat belt would have reduced that to <35g and she would have had some bruises... A heavy helmet doesn't help an unbraced vertical impact, and many UH-1/OH-6 fatalities resulted from the seat giving way and the pilots being fatally injured by the cyclic, well below the physiological limit of instantaneous peak g loads. With an ejector seat, that isn't gonna happen].

NutLoose

The blue areas around Bakhmut are growing


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fdr

latest toll for the day of russian aircraft downing is 4, not bad for apparently zero munitions expenditure from Ukraine. Add one from the day before, and that is a good start. It's either russia's way of lowering carbon emissions, or the partisans inside their own territory are as revolting as Vlad the impaler is.

• 2x Mi-8
• 1x Su-34
• 1x Su 35
• 1x Mi-28

With the 'orrible head of the PMC peeved at putters, it could be his guys kicking off on the home front chukka.

The russians have recently shifted to standoff air ordnance to continue their terror attacks on the Ukrainian civilian population, seems like an very helpful turn of events to have russian aircraft dropping out of the sky while preparing for such attacks. The effort by the russian pilots would be better served firing the same ordnance at the Kremlin, seems to be safer than annoying the natives around where they are setting up to let loose their ordnance. Seems russia is not only the second best army in Ukraine, it may not even be the best air defence in russia either.

ORAC

fdr

ORAC The intelligence update supports the level of incompetence that exists in the upper windowed floors of the Crimlin and russia's Fort Fumble. The detritus of the invaders still has lots of ammo and apparently there is little concern with fertilising Ukrainian fields with those unlucky enough to be cared for by Lord Farquard. The counter offensive by the defenders of Ukraine is still hampered by the lack of firepower they can use to persuade lads conscripts to take up a new line of work, and that will cost Ukrainian lives, as well as the lice of the russian conscripts, and lead to a prolonged war to get to the point of evicting the home invaders.

Farquad the first still considers that there is only a ceasefire if he gets his ill gotten gains against all international law and civilised norms, and as he has never honoured any commitment that was entered, there is zero chance of Ukraine accepting any solution that keeps farquard and his team to the west of the rightful, internationally recognised (even by the USSR) boundaries of Ukraine. Given that, Ukraine needs the F-16's or the F/A-18C/D's to be able to make up for their still constrained arty. Add AH-1G, -Z, and A-10Cs, but give them the ability to move every russian conscript from Ukrainian soil sooner rather than later. There is no bargaining with a criminal kleptocrat such as farquard.

This war will continue to bleed the globe into next year and beyond if the response is eaked out as it has been instead of being overwhelming. The crim-in-chef's chief doesn't not have sufficient reason to stop killing his own people yet, nor have his own people yet got to the point of flushing him out of their misery.

Tartiflette Fan

Neither side is able to make significant use of its airpower over the FEBA. Russian air-defence is supposedly one of their best abilities. Under these circumstances, what benefit would more planes bring, except to offer more targets ? What strategies do you offer to suppress the Russian SAMs, that are not currently available ?

pr00ne

Agree, fast jets, and A-10’s, massively vulnerable on both sides to a very dense Radar and SAM network that exists in very large numbers (witness the volume of missiles and drones successfully engaged on a daily basis).

What the Ukranians need in large numbers is long range fires, to really make a difference, and more of the very extensive training already being provided.

Hopefully the UK supply of long range cruise missiles will be the key to unlock more just as Challenger 2 was.

jolihokistix

'If' the Russians are beginning to shoot themselves down, (with emphasis on the first word) would this not suggest that friendly recognition may be working patchily?

NutLoose

Doctors from Moscow have arrived to look after Lukashenko, or to administer a booster dose of whatever he got in Russia?

NutLoose

Strategic strikes at work.

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