dan/california

Any violence in Europe increases the risk of a visa ban. Of course the Putin regime is run by coked up imbeciles, so they will probably dive right in.

Cockroaches are sadly hard to get rid of completely.

If they are worth what we paid for them, you never see them at all...

The Albanian thing is not going to get Article five invoked, but it is exhibit A for the visa ban. Anything the Russians are squeaking about that loudly is obviously a good idea. This war ends when Moscow feels enough pain. Anything with NATO hard points and avionics is better than nothing with NATO hard points and avionics. They just need to figure out what the best type of guided of munition is for the super low flight profile that seems to be the only survivable one for either side, and send trainloads of them, literally. Mind if it was up to me I would give them F-15Es and cruise missiles. The Russians could definitely do some amount of this, or commit some other sort of mid grade atrocity in a European capital. However, it would move the visa ban they are so eager to avoid from probably not happening to a dead certainty. They really don't seem to want that.

Given Russia's proven incompetence in, well, everything, it is possible Neither Dugin was the target. The event they were attended was full of various bad actors, the target could have been any of them.

I doubt it will get to Article 5, but it might move the visa ban right along.

Someone did NOT want to hear from that piece of equipment again to give it six guided rounds on the first go.

https://time.com/6207115/ukraine-train-fighter-pilots-russia/ Either brilliant or crazy, can't quite decide...

https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/dfbcec47-7b01-400e-ab21-de8eb98c8f3a/page/IzToC?s=lZrHK_PhUC0 someone has done some real work graphing Russian losses.

It may as simple as the U.S. has decided to give Russia a small dose of its own medicine in the blatant denial arena. I am guessing the U.S Administration is rather tired of Lavrov denying things that are obvious as the fact that fire burns.

I don't think they care about human rights conventions, or second breakfast, or much else to do with civilization. That is why they will be forever seen as edit: couldn't get the gif to work Although this GIF overstates the Russians level of organization....

There is a longer version, the tank makes it about a 1/4 of a mile back up the road before the crew bails. Two people get out. No way to know if the started with a third. Not every missile gets the turret to orbit jackpot, but very few tanks are actually mission capable after a hit.

The Pickle, and I want credit for that , is at least Cosplaying someone whose coup planning is well along. Given that he literately wants to write his chapter of the history books in blood, someone might want to pay attention.

Since we are speculating for the heck of it... I think if the SOF was on the base, as opposed to up the coast bleeping with radars, they were there with fake ID/credentials that let them walk right to the bomb storage to install the "new fuses/guidance kits". Then the question becomes how? Did they turn the actual bomb handlers? Was it a multi year op to place an agent as a bomb handler, or near enough? A really great forgery of Russian id/orders? A double agent that can issue REAL ID/orders? The possibilities go on forever and I hope the people involved live to write book. I think next great opportunity for Ukrainian special forces is to take advantage of the Russians ever more chaotic supply situation and quietly add some very bad ammo to their supply stream. A sudden outbreak of rounds going off in the barrel would do wonders for Russian morale.

This was addressed in the same thread/article, and the answer was in the same general area of more than a year, but not forever. It is even less precise because you have to make assumptions about the state of the stored guns/barrels.

And they have an entire reinforced company of each. Which is cool, but doesn't really make a terribly coherent regiment. Only sort of kidding. If I may both saddle up one of my little hobby horses, and make an observation that is quite relevant, BELARUS. If Putin pushes his army to utter, absolute, disintegrating failure Lukshenko will go down to some combination of internal rebellion and Ukrainian intervention. It would allow the Ukrainians to inflict a truly paradigm altering defeat on the Russians without crossing the big red line that is the Russian border.

There is a significant possibility there is some critical component of the BMP-3 they just can't get anymore, at least once stock on hand is used up. This may be a simple case of not really having a choice.

Can we wind the clock back to 2016 and get back on the sane timeline? Pretty please?

Fair enough, even my steadiest voter disagrees. But not even the Iranians on their worst day have bleeped up a reactor.

Ok this is a real question, and a hard one, and maybe a little nuts, but it needs asking. Are we going to have to fight Russia eventually? Or can we kick this can down the road forever? If the answer to the first question is yes, will they ever be weaker than they are now? And by the the way a LOT of people owe Patton an apology. It would have been better to roll straight on to Moscow.

Expensive, but not nearly as expensive as the political hit of getting a bunch of the trainers killed.

Very not good, but if they have rigged the place to blow then even a full up NATO operation probably can't stop it at this point. Maybe the night crew will have the intestinal fortitude to drop the control rods and start cooling the thing down. I realize that is a big ask since the Russians very well might torture them to death. And yes I realize it takes more than a day to do a complete shutdown. But the Russians doing something spectacularly stupid might be a little less bad if they process was at least started. Is our resident ex airborne expert around by any chance? I guess with his resume there is a non zero chance he is Poland ACTUALLY figuring out what to do if the Russians are this stupid. I mean besides NATO joining the war and sending the Russians home alive or otherwise.

That isn't a wildfire, It is Putin's Peter the Great fantasy burning down, with sound effects.

What is just amazing is that anyone who has played the game, any version, twice, can do quite this badly. I mean you really can work thru some the obvious and even some of the not so obvious what not to do with pixeltruppen. There is ZERO evidence the Russians learned ANYTHING.

And I am quite certain that is how Biden felt about it for most of that decade. But I still think the trigger for pulling the band aid off and getting it over with when we did and how we did was the near certainty the situation with Russia and Ukraine heating up. It was a significant short term political hit, and was opposed by a lot of people who just couldn't get past the sunk cost fallacy. How to turn a badly run country into a decently run country is literally the hardest question in human history. One of the worst underlying barbarities of Putin's war is that it is basically an attempt to block Ukraine from doing exactly that. And providing that example to a world that needs it rather badly.