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TG channel of 177th naval infantry regiment servicemen mothers and wives says for two months in Krynky only 10 % of regimemt were turned back intact from initial 3000 of personnel. So 2700 killed, wounded and missed. Regiment now in own permanent station preparing new replenishment.

There were six launches of Kh-22/Kh-32 today. Typical payload of Tu-22 is two such missiles. Reportedly one Russian bomber turned back after his leading Tu-22 was hit. So, probably 8 bombers participated in this raid and it's hard to designate which of them is Tu-22M3M

Interesting. I think there's at least one bomber in Russian service that the Ukrainians are going to focus on destroying. Steve

Today was claimed Ukrainian AD first time shot down two Kh-22 supersonic cruise missiles. But as became knowingly one of these missiles turned out newest Kh-32 - deep upgrade of Kh-22 with reduced warhead, extended fuel tanks and newest homing and EW protection equipment. Kh-32 can be carried by upgraded Tu-22M3M bomber. In present time probably only one such bomber exists, upgraded in 2018 and which became operational in 2020. In 2019 several Tu-22M3 were moved from storage to Kazan' aviation plant for modernization into Tu-22M3M version, but it's unknown either works were finished or not. In more recent times Russia palnned to upgrade 30 bombers to M3M version up to 2020, but long time of works over Kh-32 foiled these plans. It was adopted only in 2016. On the photo - fragments of shot down Kh-32 missile, issued today by General Staff https://mil.in.ua/uk/news/ukrayinska-protypovitryana-oborona-zbyla-raketu-h-32-yaku-vyrobyly-u-2023-rotsi/

This is probably wasn't posted here Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko in own intervew about week ago let it slip (or not), hinting about Putin's startegy for nearest time. He told that it would be great if Ukraine and Russia sign peace up to 31st of May. Because in this day powers of Zelenskiy expire and if, God save, other president will come to power like Poroshenko again, he may just to reject any agreements, signed after this data, because they were signed by illegitimate president. Many of Poroshenko followers in unison with Russian propaganda try to share among Ukrainian society an opinion, that after 31st of May Zelenskiy will become an usurper and army shouldn't execute his directives. Really in Ukrainian Constitution has wriiten that in conditions of emergency and martial law any elections are prohibited. But there is no definition what should happen with powers of current president in this case. And this gives a food for different speculatoins. So, probably, desperate and fierce meat assults, strikes on energy system, blocking of the military aid with help of MAGA side and some other factors, like blocking of Ukrainian borders by Polish farmers under protection of pro-Russian political force, urgent requests to stop hit Russian refineries are the chains of one plan to broke Ukraine and force to sign peace agreement. But something getting wrong...

Cool! Thanks!

Well, it's a broad analogy, not necessarily a good analogy. Experts with far more to their name than my meandering thesis view it as a better metric and from what I've learnt, it makes sense. Perhaps wildfires are a better analogy: wildfires/democratic backsliding is something which can affect different numbers of people, but regardless of how many or few it affects, they both need countering and counting in the same way (we're not counting the size of the wildfire in this example). Absolutely, this is perhaps the "size of the wildfire": if leading world players like the USA slide towards autocracy, that's definitely a larger issue than e.g. Hungary doing so. But the number of citizens here doesn't correlate with the relevance these countries have on the international stage: India had a massive population already in 1948 when it played virtually no role in international politics, for example.

Quick question on the US political process. Does the vote today mean that the Discharge Bill is no longer relevant? Or is that still hanging around in the background and can be triggered if the Aid bill doesn't pass?

Obviously Budanov's comments were carefully decided upon before he gave the interview. My guess is it was to remind the West that Ukraine is still capable of defending itself as well a making a lot of Russian leaders nervous. Steve

Chief of GUR Kyrylo Budanov told in own comment to BBC Ukraine, that AD and GUR have been waiting Russian Tu-22M during a week in the ambush. The bomber was shot down on the range 308 km. Budanov told some thing was used, deeply upgraded by Ukrainian enginners. Some OSINTers on the GUR video recognized interiror of S-200, but with complete changed equipment. If true, looks like we could extend the range of missiles much more than 180-240 km of Soviet S-200V/M variants PS. Ukraine hadn't latest S-200D system with range 300 km. USSR had a time to produce and deploy only several complexes of this type in the late 80th, and they were only in Russia and were withdrawn from service in the mid of 90th. Ukraine had S-200V with 180 km range and S-200M with 240 km range (255 km on AWACS planes). They were withdrawn from service in 2011-2013 https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/articles/c3g58qn2jvgo?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2AfBzV1Eh_3H9H3O2ycqZbVOnB3WvjlLJhYLm5Fh4_3lVpdQphJ-pBTRU_aem_AdlSS5xReobUX09lrT-tHx8agDHkU2b3y0ncsvUX982bv2sWMivU_F_W5V7t4OaV4MVejUFjlmfwVQc283wuhDYP

I see both as important factors. On the one hand, having 1.4 billion people being raised in an illiberal democracy means 1.4 billion people potentially looking to move to a freer country. And since corruption and incompetence issues are always higher in illiberal countries, there's more reason for 1.4 billion people to go abroad to find better financial opportunities. More people to be exploited by other countries, such as Russia duping poor Indians into fighting in Ukraine (I posted a detailed article on this last week). On the other hand, India is only a single state. It has only one national policy, one vote in the UN, one seat at any economic group, etc. It may be, or might not be, more powerful because of its size, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more influence. Very much like the Senate in the US. It doesn't matter if you are the most populous state, you have the same voice in the Senate as the least populated. Which matters more depends on the circumstances it is being applied to. Russia, for example, has a large population under its thumb, the largest amount of territory of any nation on Earth, but it's influence is less than that of many countries much smaller in terms of physical and population size. Steve

Thanks for the clarification. 300 vehicles destroyed trying to take a tiny piece of terrain is significant no matter what the timeframe. To put this into perspective, If we figure 15 vehicles per attack with a 50% average rate of destruction, that's about 40 large scale attacks at a rate of about 7 every month, or roughly 2 attacks per week. It still amazes me how Russia can keep this up month after month in the face of such minimal visible gain. But that's Russia for you. Steve

Hmm, well I will take your word for it but it really sounds like creative accounting. This is a bad example really, traffic accidents are more often expressed in fatalities, not cars. In fact one can have more car accidents but fewer fatalities (see: seatbelt campaigns in the 80s). To my mind one cannot discount the mass of the population as a foundational metric of the power of any given state. If Lesser Tonga decided to go back to a monarchy it will have far lesser impact regionally or globally than if China suddenly breaks out in Liberal Democracy; however, by these metrics we are counting "one". Regardless, as much fun as this side journey has been, I think we can agree that democracy has come under pressure recently - there seems to be wide agreement on this. Whether this is a blip or trend is kind of a red herring as it will either be a blip or trend based entirely on what we do right now. And more specifically how well the US defends its own democracy individually and abroad...like Ukraine. As a Canadian, I can say with a lot of authority that if the US democracy fails/erodes, we are not going to be able to write it off as a "single nation backsliding" in the global ledger. We are going to feel that impact on a very broad scope and scale. Further, the western world and champions of democracy, fumble the ball in Ukraine the impacts on global order and stability will also be felt far and wide. We cannot reduce this war to "one more in the lose column". More importantly "how" we win or lose this war is also very important. If we can "lose" in a Korean Peninsula scenario - which, I for one do not see as a loss but many will disagree - we can still preserve something of a global order. If we catastrophically lose through apathy and political paralysis it is going to risk damaging the democratic narrative and influence for some time to come.

For six months, as clarified General Staff

These folks have always existed. Some were in the House and Senate. Those of us in the middle have hoped that the "rational right" would be able to take back the GOP from the hands of con artists and the "intellectually ungifted" (hey, I just made up a cool Woke term!). Sadly, the opposite has happened over the last 4 years. And this is why it matters. Not just for democracy, but also for those who support political policies that are right of center. This GOP Rep put it quite nicely in this article: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4604636-gop-rep-blames-gaetz-and-seven-useful-idiots-for-house-turmoil/ What it boils down to is the "useful idiots" made such a mess of the process, that in the end Johnson had no choice but to go along with what the Senate came up with. All of the potential issues, such as loans or using Russian assets, had to be thrown out because there wasn't enough support for them within their own party because too many were in full blown tantrum mode and wouldn't support ANYTHING. The Dems knew this, so why would they negotiate when the opposition has no support for their own points? To sum up... if the GOP didn't have such a large number of wingnuts, they could have come up with some compromises to the Senate bill for foreign aid that the Dems would have been forced to swallow. But the wingnuts killed that because they are extremists and compromise, to them, is not what democracy is about. Steve

well this should make your day. Freedom Caucus' New 'FART' Team Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes (msn.com)

It's a matter of perspective. 1.4 billion Indians reverting to electoral autocracy does mean more seen to the number of people (negatively) affected by democratic backsliding. But seen from the perspective of politicial science and democracy, that's "just" 1 state which has shifted towards autocracy. It's the state that's changed, not its citizens. You can view it like road safety almost: if a car with 4-5 occupants crash, that affects more people than if a car with just a driver crashes, but the focus is (and can only be) on the entities containing said people, i.e. the cars. It's also a relevant from the democratisation aspect. Democratisation spreads to neighbouring states according to many, regardless of size.

That's partly why I posted it. The "right" isn't a monolith any more than the "left" is. Shapiro in particular, while generally aligned with the "right", thinks independently. In any event, the fact that, as you say, someone influential on that side of the line is making supportive statements - backed up with obvious logic and some obvious emotion (never bring facts to a feelings fight)- is significant, and that's the main reason I posted. Very hopeful that a meaningful Ukraine (and others) bill is passed, and I see Shapiro's support as indicative that it will. There is clearly bipartisan support, and that's what's needed to get this through. I would say "tripartisan", but is it just as obvious that a faction, including MGT and similar, will not be onboard.

Ukraine aid is advancing! Vote of 316 - 94: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4604948-house-advances-ukraine-israel-aid-as-dems-help-speaker-johnson-gop/ 3:1 margin for supporting the Senate approved aid, and yet it took us months to get this vote. I can tell you that if my local government held back on something critical that more than 75% wanted because less than 25% were unhappy about it, we'd tar and feather them. Yet at the Federal level, it is just business as usual. Looks like we'll know tomorrow how many actually vote against the aid package itself (the above vote was administrative). The Senate is staying in session this weekend to do what it has to once the House passes the legislation. Steve

What is the timeframe for all of this destruction? Several months? Steve

An interesting peak into the russian geopolitical mindset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06PtZaSK4YU

Battle for Novomykhailivka (Vuhledar direction) remains in the shadow of Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar, but here soldiers of 79th air-assault brigade and other units already destroyed and disabled 300 enemy vehicles

Well, I am red-green colorblind, and I have a lot of family there.