Meanwhile, a redditor found this linky from Twatter (you'll have to quote this post to see the link):
..a Russian drone was downed, within which was found an SD card with video showing the base from which it was launched and the operator who made the recording.

The turret went really , is that the record or have there been greater heights reached. It got lost in the expanding smoke at about 250 feet so it may have went higher in the smoke . Are there any more videos showing reasons to avoid tank regiments ?

As much as that might provide some short term satisfaction it would all but guarantee such an escalation that we would have a full on NATO v Russia conflict very quickly. That said, I think that is getting more and more likely anyway. Vlad is getting his butt kicked and he knows it even if his people haven't been told yet. He can't/won't back down and fairly soon either his own people will have to take him out or he will behave like a cornered wild animal. A wild animal with a finger on a nuclear trigger.

At the point where someone blows up 6 reactor cores and knowingly dumps millions of bequerels of radiation over western europe do you not think that is already full conflict?
I would definitely expect Art.5 activation to be requested by all those NATO eastern europe countries.
Let us hope it does not come to that.

The guys gone one hundred percent fruity loops… I do wonder if the Russian population has a clue as to what will happen, it’s ok those dickheads on Russian State TV saying the we can nuke them, one missile and the U.K. is gone crap, but they fail to mention that it is a two sided sword. And a sword that will be difficult to put back in its scabbard.

I assume the SD card would also have very good video and GPS position information of its flight path to the location it was downed. Such information could be most useful. Perhaps the SD stands for Sudden Death if any useful targets it overflew can be identified and taken out.

BBC ... Don't stand down, but perhaps breathe more easily this weekend?

Footage just released from way back in May of the fight for Snake Island

As to nuclear weapons (not the plant) I think Putin's bluffing, and using the various talking heads to trumpet that about is a smoke screen.
Indeed, let's hope not. You have an interesting take on applying Article V, and I think it probably fits within the intent. *tips cap*
Difficult indeed, it's one of those irreversible decisions.
Glad to see that a few level headed suggestions are being considered.

Glad to see that a few level headed suggestions are being considered.

The only problem I have is that I no longer believe ANYTHING that Putin says!

Surprisingly there has been no discussion of the explosions that happened close to/on the Belbek airfield last night. This is one of the last remaining major airfields in Crimea, therefore of major significance for the Russkis, with a good number of fighter aircraft based there ( can't recall where I read that ) and therefore likely aircraft losses

Has no one seen/read anything ?

With the winds as currently blowing, the radioactivity would mostly impact Odessa, Turkey and maybe Crimea, rather than western Europe..
Highly recommend this site https://earth.nullschool.net/ to see the local winds, it was useful during the Fukushima disaster.

It seems obvious that Russia, which controls the site, wants to unplug this facility from the Ukraine grid.
That would be damaging to Ukraine, so they are pointing out forcibly that the site is very vulnerable and that any accidents there would mostly impact Russia.
So there is a method to the madness, while both sides blame each other for events both provoke.

I'm not interested to make this a political discussion, but Britain is currently shackled with a cretin as a PM ( speaking as a conservative supporter ) and I really wouldn't want him to be involved in any such existential decisions.

A straight short answer to a straight short question please:

WHICH EVENTS DID UKRAINE PROVOKE?

Why do it then? For the record It is due in no small part to UK government decisions that Ukraine is still in the fight at all - an opinion freely acknowledged by Ukraine itself.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon...ian-artillery/

‘Seek and destroy’: New US aid to Ukraine targets Russian artillery

WASHINGTON ― A new $775 million military aid package for Ukraine marks the first time the U.S. is sending ScanEagle drones, for targeting artillery, as well as 105mm howitzers and anti-tank rounds for the Carl Gustaf rifle to the fight against Russia, the Pentagon announced Friday.

The latest package of U.S. aid to Ukraine also includes the AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missile, which will allow Ukrainian forces to target Russian radars in the artillery-focused war. The disclosure marks the first time the Pentagon has discussed its provision of high-speed anti-radiation missiles to Ukraine in detail.

“Ukraine has successfully employed these missiles. They have successfully integrated them onto Ukrainian aircraft. And this enables Ukraine to seek and destroy Russian radars,” a senior defense official told reporters. The Pentagon provided the official for comment on condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon is sending 15 ScanEagles ― a small, long-endurance, low-altitude drone made by Insitu and used for reconnaissance, which is intended to help guide targeting for Ukrainian artillery. Other firsts include 16 105mm howitzers (with 36,000 artillery rounds) as well as 1,000, tube-launched, optically tracked anti-tank missiles for Carl Gustaf weapons sent by other allies.

The aid also includes 40 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles for mine-clearing, 50 Humvees and 1,000 Javelin anti-tank weapons….

"80% of Wagner recruits will not come back from Ukraine", says Evgeny Prigozhin, Wagner owner (and Putin's chief recruiter for Ukraine invasion)

For the plant, shelling items near it.
Seriously, we had the video yesterday of Excaliburs plinking individual towing trucks in shelters, looked like under 10 feet error.
So Ukraine has the means to hit any target near the plant without damaging the facility itself. If they don't, it is to send a message.

This is looking like a resort to nuclear blackmail.

Putain is militarily stuck and hugely embarrassed verging on humiliated and being a 'little man' he can't accept that.

Occupying a nuc plant gives him several advantages.

Tactically, a safe place to amass weapons and troops as the other side daren't retaliate.
Strategically, a guaranteed way to utterly and globally discredit the other side if they do.
Plus he opportunity to do that 'false flag' even if they don't.
An unanswerable bargaining chip to ensure any 'negotiation' towards ending the conflict goes his way.

I can see no disadvantages to Russia in doing this - at least, no disadvantages that they care about - and as massive radiological disaster is not one that much bothers them they hold all the cards here.

I can't see what anyone can do in the face of this.

Of course it's blackmail. The Russians have held the nuclear gun to the World's head numerous times since this all started. As per normal, combined with their lying/distortion/blaming the innocent. Pretty simple really.

Provocation
noun [ C or U ]
UK /ˌprɒv.əˈkeɪ.ʃən/ US /ˌprɑː.vəˈkeɪ.ʃən/ an action or statement that is intended to make someone angry:

I would suggest that invading a sovereign country and placing 'targets' near a Nuclear plant fits well within that definition.
Russia is the provocateur here, NOT Ukraine!

If I may make an appeal for a bit more aviation content.
Asking for a friend. ;)

Etu, do you think about facts at all before you send, or just hit send? What provocation did Ukraine make to you Russians, other than the discovery of more hydrocarbons under Donbas?

1. Russia had access to Sevastopol by Ukraine in accordance with the aggreement that Ukraine entered into with Russia, Ukraine kept their word. Russia lied, as always;
2. Russia formented unrest in Luhansk, and Donetysk, and gave specious arguments for Crimea, in direct breach of the Alma-Ata protocol that was binding, Russia, lied, as always;
3. Russia invaded Ukraine under the pretext of
(i) de-nazification Russia being the fascist state
(ii) protection of the "Russian's" in Luhansk and Donetsk, that is the ones they gave passports to post hoc. The same people that they conscripted into their illegal war, and the same people that Russian troops raped, murdered, and had their microwaves, TV's, cars, tractors, combine harvesters swapped for T-72's (slightly used, fixer uppers). Russia lied, as always;
(iii) Russia attacked a NPP at Chernobyl...
(iv) Russia has attacked ZNPP....

Russia is a terrorist state, under the august leadership of the dear leader, as a consequence of the lack of moral fortitude that the masses of Russia exhibit in great volume. Those that speak out against the wholesale criminalisation of Russia under its leaders end up glowing in the dark, smelling of Novochok and other responses, such as falling out of closed windows, accidentally shooting themselves 12 times, and otherwise meeting unpleasant ends.

Please stop defending the indefensible. At some point in time, you will look in a mirror and you will not be able to stand what you see. Your country needs patriots to return the country to the people and get it out of the road to ruin that Putin and the rest of the excrement that exudes from the crimlin represent.


You are purportedly in a free country, so the hypocrisy of your words should be called out for what they are. If you like what Putin has done to the Russians, then go home, enjoy. Please send a message to your dear leader though, that he is not welcome in his neighbouring countries, from Chechnya, Ukraine, Moldova, Belorus, Kazakhstan, Siberia, etc.... go home, please go home now.

:)

In response to T28B's appeal for aviation content, please fly home, take Aeroflot, or whatever else is still flying in Russia other than missiles.

These could be very interesting for the a SOF in crimea / russia

Not your ordinary supermarket drone:

Payload 8 x 60mm mortar grenade.
MTOW 43kg
endurance 20-40min
Range 20km

If 800 is accurate figure, it is a lot.

fdr,

Imho, the Maidan revolution transformed the situation for Russia, a previously friendly country became hostile. When the facts change, countries adjust their policies, else they fail, gradually or rapidly.
Russia's reaction was entirely predictable and was in fact predicted by most of the US foreign policy veterans who had experience in Russia. Unfortunately they were ignored.
The disaster we now face was entirely avoidable, a little sense of putting yourself into the other guy's shoes would have done the trick.

Pontificating about the unprovoked assault on Ukraine while ignoring the post Maidan civil war in Donbas is rewriting history.
Likewise, claiming all the responsibility was from Putin's 'little green men' is convenient, but unsupported by the evidence from independent observers.

Now we are in a war, bullish for the MIC, which has its testing ground for modern weapons and massive replacement demand, but a horror show that is worsening for everyone who lives in the region.
Worse, we have stupidly allowed our client state to decide what conditions it will accept to make peace. That kind of blank check worked out badly in 1914, it seems we have not learned anything.
Meanwhile, bellicose war nerds cheer the death of masses of 'orcs' here on PPRN, as though the Russians were not likewise human beings. I don't see the situation in Ukraine that way

Nope. Ukraine's conditions are simple and reasonable. All they want is for the Russians to stop killing them, stealing their resources and get out! So do it.

Their conduct is not one associated with human beings, decapitations, castrations, murder of civilians, rape, I'd say that's why folk cheer.It aint your client state, haven't you got the memo? It's you who started this fraca, so they have every right to make the rules.

US has confirmed the Ukrainian MIG 29 have been equipped with the AGM88 HARM missile, I suppose some of the reported drone shoot downs of late might be attempts to get the Russian AD radars to revel their locations and some of the reported explosions around the likes of Kherson, Kerch and Sevastopol?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...es/ar-AA10QDWj

Additional helicopters transferred to Ukraine from Latvia.
To put that in context, they only have 4 helicopters in service, 4 MI17. So that is 50% of their active helicopter fleet. Superb effort and kudos to them :D

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1559235188114194433

https://mezha.media/en/2022/08/16/latvia-for-ukraine-6-m109a5-self-propelled-guns-4-helicopters-and-fundraising-for-bayraktar-tb2/

..

plinking the trucks in a nuclear power plant? Did you see the video from inside the power plant showing the military material stored inside? Are you serious?
reality has become a fiction to you

Who put that bloody cellar there..

Especially as they are reported to be full of explosive.

I fort the nuclear plant was designed to be so strong as to be able to be hit by an airliner and still hold it's structural integrity.
Am I missing something here?

That reads like the Ukrainians chose the time to attack not just to hit the airbase, but to coordinate it with the height of the holiday season to cause the maximum effect at home when the shocked fleeing tourists would return to the likes of Moscow, there was no way of controlling nor keeping a lid on that story, all their false stories being shown on the Russian news channels would be shown for what they are.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...bef336a0bd9826

The Twin Towers were designed to withstand a 707 direct hit, says it all really.

It all depends on what is hit and where, take out the reactor cooling and you have problems, containment integrity or not. Plus you also have the stored waste in water tanks.

says it all really

If 6 reactor cores are blown then, yes, I would agree. But Putin is sly and I would suspect something much smaller but which still carried a great threat and which Putin would then try to use as some form of negotiating lever.

A UAV struck the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in Sevastopol, according to Crimean officials.

You simply ignore the fact that nations want freedom. In your logic the bloody crushing of Hungary in 1956 was "predictable". In your logic the invasion to Czechoslovakia in 1968 was "predictable". Chechnya, Transnistria, Georgia, Ukraine all of them are supposed to be raped and subdued because Putin wants to be like tzar and no nation in the Russian zone of interest has any right to be independent and allied to defend itself from Russian aggression.

So I translate your thinking to the rest of the forum – anyone resisting Russian imperialism needs "denazification" and Russia has every right to invade, kill, rape and turn cities into rubble.

The time when Stalin and Hitler (and other dictators alike) agreed on marking the lands which they grabbed under their rule is over. We are lucky that your "foreign policy veterans" were ignored, now is the time to teach Russians a lesson.