rocketman

Well since technically this is a video game forum, I will leave this news here.
 

Mostly correct,  but the columns were not rebuilt, just the decks were replaced. 
The fun part of these photos is that those are vertical cracks, extending from base to top. You can bet a billion rubles those fractures extend further down. These seem like compressive failure cracks in the concrete,  which could be caused by the concrete itself being of shoddy manufacture and/or casting,  the rebar inside twisting or shifting (crap steel,  bad arrangement of rebar, insufficient rebar) or (and we know this to be the structural history of previous bridges in the area) the foundations are on the ****ty side of a stress curve. The ground below the bridge is notoriously unreliable in different and separate ways. 
The extent and consistency of the fractures implies internal failure within the columns extending down to the base, which itself doesn't show cracking,  that we can see.
The columns are not clad so this isn't external damage to a system separate from the primary structure -  this is the primary structure.
Also,  the visual proof its happening in both columns and showing similar patterning implies similar causation and propagation. Because the columns were built in identical fashion this makes sense.
That also proves that it is not a single point failure, but a systemic or area failure affecting both columns. 
I'm curious if these columns are near or below the blast zone. That would help explain how the cracking started, which combined with any of the factors above would start a slow but sure, internal failure cascade. It could also just be a **** build. 
Further visible development of the failure would be bulging, sections/plates of concrete falling off and exposing the rebar,  warping or twisting of the columns proper and fracturing at the connection zone where the columns meet the base. 
Hard to know the timeline,  it comes down to just how bad is the construction,  how heavy and constant is the live load,  if any repairs or additional support added (unlikely to stop it  and short term at best)  and weathering. Six months to failure?  
An army and foreign population trying to evacuate would stress everything nicely... 
A storm shadow to the base of this arrangement would be ideal. 
Over to you,  @chrisl... 

More infighting within the Russian military sphere.   How can the Russian MOD, Wagner, the Chechens, multiple PMCs, DPR, LPR, etc. co-ordinate actions, logistics and seamlessly work together as the Ukrainians increase pressure with their upcoming offensive?
Who will stand and who will fold?  Who gets ammo when it's running short?  This just seems to be a sh!tshow waiting to happen.
 

Oh, sh....t. 3:30 of night now and next mass ballistic strike on Kyiv was 20 minutes ago. It was VERY loud and reportedly over left-bank districts of the city. About two dozens explosions. Preliminary Iskanders, launched from Klintsy area, Briansk oblast. Looks like all were intercepted. I think, more details will be at the morning. Well, I should try to sleep after THIS.

Graham is a political weasel, very good at feeling the political winds and sailing with them. Anything he says is only designed to make him look good, statesmanlike, irregardless of any vetting by the Ukrainians. 
What they have probably done is used him to amplify the propaganda campaign, by telling him something Very Very Secret, and swearing him to Biggest Pinky Swear that he won't divulge, No Sir,  You Have My Word. 
He's the proverbial political sock puppet, and being used as such. 

Russia terror bombs Ukraine for over a year
 

 
Moscow gets hit by a handful of small drones causing limited damage and no reported casualties. 
OMFG don't they know the allied terror bombings were a failure!!!

 

It seems to me this spot needs to get hit with absolutely everything the Ukrainians haven't specifically promised not to shoot across the Russian border.

11 Iskanders flying over Kyiv today. Heavy stuff.
 

Hackers Force Putin’s Holy Man to ‘Bless’ Ukraine’s Counteroffensive (yahoo.com)
 
Ukraine definitely wins the world trolling competition.

Russia will be completely broken and will likely break into several different countries, unless they retreat right now and go full North Korea. North Korea is Putin’s best case, and I suspect Russia’s elites know that. Without rail infrastructure for movement of goods and military, and a broken military, I don’t think they could win a conflict against a resurgent Chechnya for example, especially not with some random donations of weaponry from the outside.
China has no friends, and is a huge net importer of food and fuel. Their demographic cliff is here; the US advantage in space + air will only grow. If Xi doesn’t invade Taiwan within the decade, he’ll have no chance whatsoever. If he does, he’ll face a ruinous war. If he doesn’t, well, there are serious structural problems.
India isn’t in the worst spot, apart from running out water and having Pakistan and Bangladesh imploding next to them. However, what do the West or China need India for? It’s not a critical producer of anything besides generic medication. It’s not a huge market for luxury goods that France would collapse without. And they hate China.
So who is this outsiders club anyway? What is their motive for banding together?
Meanwhile, the US, being so bored with the world and lack of competition engages in wokeness and facism and inventing new awesome **** like chatgpt and giant space rockets to pass the time until someone gives a reason to actually care. Maybe we’ll go build a space elevator?
EDIT: To add Europe, the continent wide retirement home that has good R&D but doesn’t produce new industries. ASML, wait, that’s just licensed tech from the US that they were the lowest bidder on. Eastern Europe I’d be more bullish on but the birth rates are horrific.

Not surprised, but happy to hear this confirmed. Hopefully these will come equipped with Meteor.

Those antifa folks are the worst.
I mean, imagine being opposed to fascism. The nerve of some people.
 

anyone who thinks we don't have a fascist problem because folks won't take down their confederate flag to put up a nazi one does not understand that in America, that confederate flag IS the nazi one.  Not specially a response to your comment Steve, but just to point out for folks that think Americans don't blatantly display fascist trappings ought to think twice.  
Getting this back to Ukraine, if I was in the UA and someone from America came and told me they were concerned about some unit in the UA having a patch that resembled a Nazi symbol I'd be scratching my head about that confederate flag I saw on TV being marched through the halls of congress on 1/6.
The History of Democracy: Fascist Movements in U.S. History | WKMS
 

I recall some time ago seeing a pie chart of documented attempted terrorist acts in the US since 9-11. Al Qaeda wannabes came in a distant second from the primary malefactors. Left wing organizations made up the tiniest sliver of the pie. Terrorist 'immigrant groups' didn't even make the chart due to round-off error. In some (most) circumstances 'both-sides-ism' just doesn't wash.

If those guys will indeed hold out there until Wednsday, at least some Russians may finally legitimatelly claim they succeeded in "3-day Special Military Operation". 😎

It's getting complicated.
 

For the Russian Air Force to be chuffed that it can keep Ukraine from flying serious CAS over the Russian lines is the weakest flex in the history of mankind. The Russian Air Force has comprehensively failed to live up to even the lowest possible pre war expectations. Ukraine wasn't supposed HAVE an air force at the start of week 2, we are at about week ~62, and there are Ukrainian planes flying every day that the Russians have to respect and plan around. When Ukraine is flying forty or fifty F-16s I fully expect the Russian Air Force to park itself in Siberia and drink Vodka.

Cherry on top: Su-35 was almost certainly flying SEAD for tonight’s round of cruise missiles.

Russians today again changed own version:
- killed
- critically wounded
- first time appeared on video conference, but anyway - after serious injury %)

Zaluzhnyi is really media person and this can play evil joke with society. His probable lose or long treatment is bad thing, but not critical for army control. Operations develops HQ, heading by lieutenant-general Serhiy Shaptala, completely non-media person. But because of constant presence on TV and internet and huge popularity of Zaluzhyi, society mistakingly believes that Zaluzhyi personally control each step of army (and even some part, followers of Poroshenko believe in consipracy, that Zaluzhnyi didn't allow to Zelenskiy and Yermak to capitulate and becaus of this they want get rid of him). This faith can seriously dismoral society if with Zaluzhnyi happen something.  

Russian ammo dumps were hit:
Mospyne (Donetsk oblast)
Oleshky area (Kherson oblast)
Today's morning photo of expliosin in Berdiansk airport area

heh.  I have no problem figuring out who the real fascists are in this war.  Someone points out a unit badge in UA.  Then I see Wagner taking a sledgehammer to people, the butchery in Bucha and so many other places, keeping recruits who don't want to be a stupid human wave being kept in pits, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure etc etc.

It is uncertainty, which is toxic to humans.  We mostly do one of two things with uncertainty, we push out and explore to remove it, or we pretend it does not exist.  
We were never apex predators in nature, middle of the food chain in reality.  However we had a big enough brain to be aware of where we sat in the food chain which created fear.  We then leveraged that to survive and evolve.  The fuel for a lot of our fear is uncertainty, the unknowns because in nature those unknowns could easily kill us for food.
So we will work very hard to remove uncertainty, it is a primary impulse.  To over simplify and dumb thins down, particularly when faced with highly complex unknowns is a very old human strategy.  One of the first things we did was to try and use substances to cope - alcohol, narcotics etc.  Than when we constructed faith and religion.  And now we have whatever the hell this era has produced with echo chambers and ideologies that embrace obtuse and willful ignorance as dogma.  Better to embrace safe lies and face unknowable truths.  And to be fair there is also a caloric strategy at play here as well. Brain chews up a lot of calories so in one embraces dogma one can stop burning calories on worrying about unknowns.
Certainty and uncertainty are also central to warfare.  I describe all warfare as a violent collision of human certainties.  It creates enormous uncertainty as social structures are fractured.  Uncertainty is a weapon in itself and can be projected onto an opponent.  We have been wrestling with uncertainty since 23 Feb 22.  We have all created mental frameworks that aid us in reasserting certainty - I know I definitely have.  This is not a bad thing so long as those frameworks remain on speaking terms with reality and the facts on the ground.  If the space between my mental certainty framework and reality becomes too wide, I am in an unreality space and that is when decisions get really shaky.
Now for any 8th graders out there.  We are afraid of the dark because we can imagine all the bad within it.  So we can either build flashlights or cover our heads and pretend it is daytime until the sun does come up.