Thoughts and Comments on Current Russian,Ukrainian Conflict/War

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Watch the video Modeltrains posted. (Who is the guy in the video by the way?)
The guy is an online gamer, a Navy vet, and a former sonar-man on 688 boats.
Doesn't make him right or wrong, just answering the question. I'm not sure the source of the blast is relevant beyond satisfying our idle curiosity.

Bridge was a legitimate military supply-chain target. Ukraine labored to undermine the bridge, and had partly succeeded.
Russia responded by escalating attacks on the civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
The world yawned in response.

In a few days Russia-lovers will return to blaming Ukraine and USA for "forcing" Russia to invade Ukraine and go medieval on its citizens.
Wash, rinse, repeat.

a

P.S.: The observation that Iranian suicide drones are now being flown by Russians out of Belarus, certainly opens Belarus up as an active combatant (if it wasn't already).
 
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In a few days Russia-lovers will return to blaming Ukraine and USA for "forcing" Russia to invade Ukraine and go medieval on its citizens.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Those jerks never stopped. Immediately after the Kerch bridge was attacked, they swooned about how this was a totally unprovoked attack on civilian infrastructure, was absolutely unconscionable, was all the US' fault, and would clearly bring about WWIII. I wish I was joking.
 
This is all for domestic consumption in Russia to satisfy the Tankies etc. whose support Putin needs to stay in power. It changes nothing on battlefield.
I was glad that it showed that Russia was attacking population centers while Ukraine was attacking pure infrastructure. In my eyes it also served as justification of NATO SAM nets around major cities. If we could enable NATO FoF ident on Ukraine air assets, I'd say deploy MIM-104 and NASAMS on an ever eastward march right up to the pre-2014 lines.
 
Forensics aside, a truck bomb would require either remotely controlling the vehicle after it has passed the inspection point with the driver disembarked and vulnerable to capture, or a driver that was an unwitting enemy combatant. Suicide truck bombs do not play well in the western information space, so it would need to be covered up with an ongoing risk of exposure. It all seems much more complicated than a remotely controlled boat or even a missile, so I would go with Occam’s Razor on this one.
I agree. The Ukrainians don’t appear to be the “suicide truck bomber” type. And getting something like that past an inspection point would be a massive risk. I don’t see any explosive cratering, but that might on the part of the roadway waving “hello” to the Moskva.
 
I was glad that it showed that Russia was attacking population centers while Ukraine was attacking pure infrastructure. In my eyes it also served as justification of NATO SAM nets around major cities. If we could enable NATO FoF ident on Ukraine air assets, I'd say deploy MIM-104 and NASAMS on an ever eastward march right up to the pre-2014 lines.
Here is another one that may be less positive for Russia.

CBS News: Russia rains missiles down on Ukraine's capital and other cities in retaliation for Crimea bridge blast.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-news-russia-war-kyiv-missile-attack-putin-crimea-bridge/
 
Anyone remember the unmanned RPV that washed up on the shore someplace around the Black Sea? Maybe a scouting mission or dry run for the real thing that went wrong.

One of the articles I read about the bridge explosion mentioned that. I had not heard about it before.
 
Well, THAT didn't take long. Russia has arrested 8 people in connection to the attack on the Kerch bridge. Five Russians, two Ukrainians, and an American Armenian. They purportedly loaded up 22 tons (!) of explosives [note most other estimates I've seen have been ~2 tons] in Odesa, drove them into Russia, then blew the bridge on the way into Crimea. The picture below was a comparison of the Russian FSB's released x-ray scan of the truck and a still picture seen earlier. This is like the spot-the-differences puzzles.

1665602124273.png

It's also worth noting that the Russian's main line of prosecution appears to be "Our border and internal security is totally incompetent and completely missed a truck bomb on two separate occasions, including coming through an actual war zone border."

References:
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/12/1128...-explosion-arrests-ukraine-denies-involvement
 
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Well, THAT didn't take long. Russia has arrested 8 people in connection to the attack on the Kerch bridge. Five Russians, two Ukrainians, and an American. They purportedly loaded up 22 tons (!) of explosives [note most other estimates I've seen have been ~2 tons] in Odesa, drove them into Russia, then blew the bridge on the way into Crimea. The picture below was a comparison of the Russian FSB's released x-ray scan of the truck and a still picture seen earlier. This is like the spot-the-differences puzzles.

View attachment 541484

It's also worth noting that the Russian's main line of prosecution appears to be "Our border and internal security is totally incompetent and completely missed a truck bomb on two separate occasions, including coming through an actual war zone border."

References:
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/12/1128...-explosion-arrests-ukraine-denies-involvement

I think the article says the last one was an Armenian.
 
First the quotes then the link,

'Everything has collapsed': Russia's draft tanks small businesses​


AFP - Yesterday 10:48 PM


She employs around ten people in the small business.
But two of her craftsmen left the company in recent weeks -- one fearing mobilisation, another to help her daughter whose husband had been sent to the front.
"After September 21, everything collapsed," Irisova said. "Our sales fell threefold -- from 10 to three orders a day."
She says her savings will keep her going "a month or two, but not more."

No Russian business seems unscathed.
Katerina Iberika, 39, who owns a pastry shop specialising in birthday cakes in Moscow, is also facing ruin.
Her five employees are women with exemptions from mobilisation. But it's the low morale among the public that's endangering her business.
"Cancellations of orders for big events started two days before mobilisation," Iberika told AFP.
Now she gets nearly no orders at all, except for "very small" ones.
She is considering leaving Russia.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...ia-s-draft-tanks-small-businesses/ar-AA12U4KO
 
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I hope the Russians refurbish some PPSh 41s for the troops. That would be great if more came on the market.

25405961-D6D4-45CE-9E56-296E888031EB.jpeg
 
Since the Russians are retaliating and attacking civilian targets in the Ukraine, perhaps it time for Ukraine to really take out the bridge with missles.
 
Since the Russians are retaliating and attacking civilian targets in the Ukraine, perhaps it time for Ukraine to really take out the bridge with missles.
Since the bridge is transporting supplies to hostile units there, it could be justified as a military target.

The decent thing to do would be to explicitly warn civilians not to use it and then destroy it. On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to figure that out through inference.
 
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Since the Russians are retaliating and attacking civilian targets in the Ukraine, perhaps it time for Ukraine to really take out the bridge with missles.

If it was THAT simple, they would have done it by now.
The missiles they have at their disposal either don't have enough range, or the warheads are way too small (<500 lbs) to do enough damage to the bridge to go down. See how many hits the bridges took around Kherson, and are still standing (though damaged).

Which is why Ukraine (likely) delivered a larger batch of explosive by whatever improvised methods the other day (boat, truck, whatever).

That bridge is the key supply link for Russian troops in Crimea and beyond, and Russia is defending it with multiple S-300 and S-400 batteries.
Taking it down from the air remains a challenge.
 
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Since the Russians are retaliating and attacking civilian targets in the Ukraine, perhaps it time for Ukraine to really take out the bridge with missles.
Unfortunately its beyond the range of any missiles in the current Ukranian armoury.
 
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