poesel

It is necessary for Ukraine to attack Kerch Bridge once in a while, so Russia cannot stop wasting resources to protect it. Its high symbolic value forces Russia's hand, no matter what the actual military value is.

It is necessary for Ukraine to attack Kerch Bridge once in a while, so Russia cannot stop wasting resources to protect it. Its high symbolic value forces Russia's hand, no matter what the actual military value is.

It is necessary for Ukraine to attack Kerch Bridge once in a while, so Russia cannot stop wasting resources to protect it. Its high symbolic value forces Russia's hand, no matter what the actual military value is.

Hmmm....
 

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

If my recollection is correct, didn't the guillotine have a plank kind of table to lie on?
yeah I think this is the "negotiating" table.

Found this in the thread of the GOBLN:
Ukraine has developed a drone mine-detector called “Brave 1”. It can survey 3000 m2 on a 30 minute charge. The drone scans the surface and creates a map of metal containing objects using GPS tags. It grades the size of each detection and attaches photos or video of the ground.

Found this in the thread of the GOBLN:
Ukraine has developed a drone mine-detector called “Brave 1”. It can survey 3000 m2 on a 30 minute charge. The drone scans the surface and creates a map of metal containing objects using GPS tags. It grades the size of each detection and attaches photos or video of the ground.

Does drone supremacy (tm) solve the minefield problem? Or in other words: if you absolutely swamp one sector in drones and suppress every movement in a 10km(?) radius - is that enough to make breaching a minefield a possibility (under the assumption that you have half decent AA, too)?

Found this in the thread of the GOBLN:
Ukraine has developed a drone mine-detector called “Brave 1”. It can survey 3000 m2 on a 30 minute charge. The drone scans the surface and creates a map of metal containing objects using GPS tags. It grades the size of each detection and attaches photos or video of the ground.

Does drone supremacy (tm) solve the minefield problem? Or in other words: if you absolutely swamp one sector in drones and suppress every movement in a 10km(?) radius - is that enough to make breaching a minefield a possibility (under the assumption that you have half decent AA, too)?

Does drone supremacy (tm) solve the minefield problem? Or in other words: if you absolutely swamp one sector in drones and suppress every movement in a 10km(?) radius - is that enough to make breaching a minefield a possibility (under the assumption that you have half decent AA, too)?

Does drone supremacy (tm) solve the minefield problem? Or in other words: if you absolutely swamp one sector in drones and suppress every movement in a 10km(?) radius - is that enough to make breaching a minefield a possibility (under the assumption that you have half decent AA, too)?

Meanwhile frontline situation still hard.
On Vuhledar direction Russians seized western part of completely destroyed Novomykhailivka village

On Avdiivka sector after UKR successfull conter-attack 2-3 days ago, allowed to recapture lost positions in eastern part ot the Ocheretyne town, yesterday unnamed UKR unit in front of the face of next Russian attack along railways just abandoned positions and Russians again seized part of Ocheretyne, but in this time in south-eastern part. UKR command was forced to throw in the battle elements of 47th mech.brigade, which was partially moved to second line for short rest. 
Russians have choosen Ocheretyne as priority objective now and use here the same tactic like in Chasiv Yar. Unlike Wagner during the battles for Soledar and Bakhmut with a tactic of multiple small group attacks, with continous changing of these attack directions, Russians now use strong flanks pressure - this doesn't lead to decisive results without concentration of forces on one direction, but in conditions of personnel and aartillery support lack of UKR forces, this method hampers our reserve manuevers. 

Russians after short rest have thrown in the battle units of 41st CAA on the section Novokalynove - Ocheretyne - Berdychi.  This did for consolidation of battle orders and widening of offensive line in area where 30th motror-rifle brigade of 2nd CAA operates on Ocheretyne and create a narrow salient, which can be in theory attacked by UKR forces from north and south. To avoid this 35th motor-rifle brigade of 41st CAA now entered in offensive line of 2nd CAA from the north in Novokalynove area and 74th motor-rifle brigade in Berdychi area on the south  
Around Chasiv Yar Russians desperately try to breakthrough toward two sections of canal, where it flows under the ground, so there are two section about in 1 km wide each, where they can cross the canal and outflank the town from north and south. Soldiers report from there Russians gathered there many "meat", likely their command has an order to seize Chasiv Yar on 9th of May. 

Russians gradually have been learing of Ukrainian experience of artillery fire control. If in 2022  - mid 23 we have seen typical Soviet style of whole batteries and even battalions of side-by-side standing guns simultainous work, that now Russians are more and more shifting to dispersing of artillery and work by single guns of a battery with individaual targeting for each.
Here is google-translated post about changes since 2022. "The work was carried out in areas with a low coeeficient of UAV use" - means "ineffective area fire with low UAV usage", though for summer 2022 it's not always could be true, or soldiers then reported about dozen Orlans and Zala, ajusting fire. Probably ajusting was inefefctive or come on too long command chain, which made it ineffective.

 
And addition to this post by other Russian artillerist with my translation:
I'l throw my 5 cents:
Regimental artillery tied on artillery chief (of regiment). He, sitting on command post (let's call it in such way) together with chief of recon, watch streams from UAVs (and intercepted streams of the enemy). Spotting the target chief of artillery transmits it to battery commander or senior battery officer  [he is commander of 1st artillery platoon also] and they transmit this data to the gun. 2-7 minutes for targeting of the gun, the bird [drone] in the sky. First shoot - the fire ajustment from artilelry chief directly to the gun. Or artillery chief opens the map, come into communication with gun commandr through the radio and gives the targeting (angle, azimuth, lines). The gun crew lives on position 2-5 days, further a rotation is coming. Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakrep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 
We don't work with mortars since new year. This is no longer relevant becaus of crews life preservation purposes. Drones already fly on 10 km in the rear, so they clicks them at once  

And here Russian feedback about CAESERs

Should Trump win, couldn't (and wouldn't) Biden just value old weapon stocks at one cent per piece and have it ship to Ukraine out of his own purse? Not exactly very gentlemanlike for an outgoing president but in this case...

More detailed sattelite shots of Dzhankoy airbase has appeared
Large article with preliminary analysis: https://www.twz.com/news-features/major-damage-at-russian-airbase-in-crimea-after-ukrainian-attack
Some photos from this article:
At least battery set of S-400/S-300 destroyed

Something similar to separately standing radars in zone of cluster subminition explosions

 

It's confirmed preliminary information about Russian command center of Central military district troops was hit with two Storm Shadows in Luhansk on April 13 on the territoruy of local machine-building factory.
As result of this strike was killed colonel Pavel Kropotov, commander of 59th control brigade of Central military district. Likely more names of HQ officers will come later
 

On the topic of democracy (democracy indexes, democratic backsliding and the like) I can actually contribute with more than my typical "expert amateur's" opinion since poli sci is my academic background.
The Economist Democracy Index appears to be from 2021 (based on Norway's and Sweden's scores of 9.75 and 9.26 respectively). That year Switzerland dipped down below 9.00, which changed its colour in the map @The_Capt posted. It might be a colour vision thing @kimbosbread? Personally I know that my red-green colour vision is in the dumps, and I cannot make out any distinction what so ever between the colours assigned to 8, 7 and 6 in that map. That still places it as a full democracy though.
It should be noted for the Economist Democracy Index's use of the term "Flawed democracy" doesn't mean that it's not a democracy, undemocratic or the like:
In the case of the USA, this likely refers to issues such as voter turnout, gerrymandering, first-past-the-post and the virtual two party system, civil rights, etc. Emphasis on "likely" though, because the Economist Democracy Index is based on anonymous scoring from undisclosed experts, so no one can say with certainty what particular aspects influenced a state's scoring.
 
V-dem is in my experience the preferred democracy index, notwithstanding any personal bias (it's from my alma mater). What makes the most difference (going by the examples cited here) though is how you measure democracy: Visual Capitalist choses to measure shares of the global poluation as opposed to number of states. This leads to statistical oddities/misrepresentations of the scale of democratic backsliding, since states are entities: if say State A and State B have become democracies whereas State Z has become an autocracy, that's a net increase in democracy, regardless of the fact that State A & B only have a combined population of say 20 million whereas State Z has a population of 1 billion. That's how Visual Capitalist arrives at the dire conclusion of "2010 Democracy: 50.4% vs 2021 Democracy: 29.3%".
India alone being reclassed from "electoral democracy" to "electoral autocracy" is behind a not insignificant portion of that change: the number of people living in electoral autocracies increased by 1.76 billion between 2010 and 2021 (India's population today reaching 1.41 billion). The remaining net global population which has shifted from "liberal/electoral democracy" to "electoral/closed autocracy" is "only" 0.7 billion. I.e., one single country falling back into autocracy is behind a smidge over 2/3 of that shift.
 
If we were to look at states instead (the typical poli sci method and arguably the more accurate measurement), we get this more positive picture:

Between the end of the Cold War and 2022, liberal democracies have remained virtually the same, more than half the world's closed autocracies have gone the way of the dodo, and electoral democracies and electoral autocracies are tied at 32.58%: back in 1990, electoral autocracies were almost 30% ahead of electoral democracies, and a staggering 36.84% of the world's states were closed autocracies. Closed autocracies were by far the most common form of government in the world when the Cold War ended: today its the opposite, it's the least common.
 
That was an argument against Visual Capitalist's measurement of democracy. Democratic backsliding is accepted among most experts, but there's not much certainty as to whether or not this will turn out to be a lasting development or if it's simply a symptom of many politically and socially underdeveloped/unprepared states which were democratised when the Cold War wrapped up simply having reverted to forms of government which are more in line for what could be expected of them.
 
 
Edit: I was going to write a brief reply. Instead I wrote more here than I've gotten done on my thesis during the last two months combined. FFS...

I'm always a bit concerned whenever I see any of my friends online advocating "tearing it all down". They never have any suggestions about what to replace it with. And anything you could replace it with would either be worse, or mostly the same but for a few modifications. The system as it is actually has the framework of a pretty good system. It just needs some tweaking. Rather that screaming into the void about tearing it all down, I think we'd do ourselves a lot more good by having constructive arguments over which tweaks would improve the system.
I'd avoid using terms like "evolution" and "species". There is evidence that our species has evolved measurably in the recent past (as in "within the last 10,000 years"). The most notable sign of recent evolution being the evolution of lactase persistence in European populations (clearly a post-agriculture development, probably as a reaction to dairy farming). But there is no evidence at all that our psychology has evolved since the rise of the first civilizations (about 6,000 years ago) in a way that would have any influence on which political systems would be most effective. It's our systems that are changing to better suite the brains we have. It isn't our brains changing to allow us to use better systems. We are certainly still evolving. But the timescales involved are so long compared to the timescales on which we refine our political systems that it just isn't relevant.
I actually think the jury is in. Loads of countries other than the US are democracies. It's obvious at this point that there are much better implementations of democracy than the US system (downsides of being first). But almost universally, people living in democracies (including the US) are better off than people living in autocracies. Democracies do collapse and revert to autocracies (and it feels like the US is currently skirting the danger zone on that). But autocracies also collapse and become democracies. And so far it appears that autocracies collapse at a higher rate than democracies. The overall trend so far appears to be towards greater democratization.