mosuri

Striking at a symbolic target like Kremlin to whip up support for Great Patriotic SMO in Moscow? Any statement from Russian government is a lie by default for me -- I believe it to be an Ukrainian operation when Ukraine claims it.

I didn't see this being discussed yet, claims that JDAMs are vulnerable to Russian GPS jamming? https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/12/russia-jamming-u-s-smart-bombs-in-ukraine-leaked-docs-say-00091600 I have no real knowledge on the topic but AIUI JDAM has inertial + GPS and Wikipedia claims 30m CEP with inertial only when GPS is not available, doesn't sound super awful given the long reach, but of course depends on the target and number of munitions used in the strike... All the more reason to target Russian EW units then.

Just wanted to drop in and say a big thank you! Bought CMBN, CW, and MG way back when they were new but was never a fan of Battlefront license system. Getting the Steam keys and having also my CM games under a single system just makes it so much easier to access and manage my games when transitioning to new hardware eventually. And to show renewed support I also purchased the vehicle pack and battle pack now, something I probably wouldn't have done without the Steam option rekindling my interest. Please move the rest of the products to Steam as well

Regarding that, I hope there is a clear plan -- and very soon the means-- in the works for placing Petrograd under naval blockade from both shores of Gulf of Finland. You know, just in case.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ally-armenia-says-putin-arrested-if-he-visited-country-2023-3?r=US&IR=T I thought Armenia was pretty much in Russia's vest pocket? Poor Vlad ... everyone turning their backs

Another sign to that direction is that Russian national wealth fund was flatlining until 2014, but especially since 2019 was growing significantly. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1078279/russia-national-wealth-fund-volume/

Any scuttlebutt on who was taking an ambulance jet flight?

Finland is sending three mine clearing Leopards to Ukraine: https://yle.fi/a/74-20019449 Maybe not the most exciting development, but should be useful I hope

Well, sounds like you had a discussion with an ignoramus TBH. Mendeleev? Pavlov? Sakharov? Tolstoy? Tarkovsky? Tchaikovsky? Whether Russia has pulled its full weight or not is another thing but there's certainly a bit more than zero cultural achievement stemming from there. And even with that said, I do think the country needs a lesson beat into it.

Russia's revenues down, spending up: Russia's Jan budget deficit widens as energy revenues slump There's always the piggy bank to break into: Russia rainy day fund shrinks by $38 bln as government plugs deficit And business profits can be mobilized: Authorities may increase taxes on businesses for the first time since the start of the war (Google Translated) So nice to have plenty of good news

And sanctions like the price cap on oil do actually work. It needs to be noted that while e.g. India is opportunistically buying oil from Russia, they are not paying a premium price. One reason why the price cap works is that ships that are owned or insured by Western nations do not carry oil that is sold above the price cap, and Russia or third nations simply don't have the capacity. I am not an economist either, and this guy's videos have clickbaity titles, but the message itself seems solid enough:

Two weeks, be sure! (old IL-2 players will get this)

Tangentially related, in Sweden the convicted two Iranian-born brothers who were employed by Swedish intelligence agency for spying for Russia. Some relatively ridiculous sums of money (in the order of US$50k) apparently changed hands; doesn't sound like worth a life sentence? https://apnews.com/article/sweden-government-stockholm-57182be4865a4657c0f243d980f1a547 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/19/former-swedish-intelligence-officer-receives-life-term-for-spying-for-russia Just like to good old days, Russian moles in intelligence organizations ...

I would like to see a reasonable plan for backfilling whatever amount we donate. While I agree the donation should be something meaningful, that land border of ours isn't going away. More likely it's going to be part of Cordon Sanitaire v2.0 ...

I would prefer him to emulate Stalin fully, have a stroke and lie dying in his own waste for a good while, but then again I am mean. You are much kinder.

Double dipping, getting both contract money and corruption money?

Hah, sure. BTW, don't have experiences with hamsters, but guinea pigs are tasty when grilled (regular food in the Andes). My best wishes to Ukraine, may the new year bring victory and peace. As for the Russians, they can eat their belts for all I care.

The Evil Empire never went anywhere. It was just incapacitated for a while in the 90s. Hopefully this time a bit longer than a decade.

Oh man... Need to use infrared instead it seems, found this online now: Infrared Detection and Geolocation of Gunfire and Ordnance Events f rom Ground and Air Platforms

Having some time to think idle thoughts, I recalled that amateur astronomers do a sort of crowdsourced meteor tracking -- they point wide field cameras up to the sky and log any streaks of lights recorded by those cameras to a common database. Given locations of the cameras are known the data can be used to calculate where a meteor might have landed. That got me thinking that in principle a geographically spread swarm of drones could be used to pinpoint the location of enemy artillery. Each drone would have a known location, attitude and bearing (GPS, accelerometer, and electronic compass) so any distant flashes they observe could be collected together and processed quickly enough to send a return packet to the determined location before the gun has time to move. Of course image processing to filter for gun flashes would require some computing power from the drone but should be doable, at least during a night, in principle - many things are possible in principle -- and would require relatively clear weather to see far enough ... well, like said, idle thoughts. But the thought of a swarm of relatively cheap observers providing real time data over a potentially wide physical area, and being able to distill useful bits of information from that data, feels useful.

Also, if the other side manages to set up a Gulaschkanone, spice their soup with a mortar bomb.

Well, you can run digitally encrypted communications over a radio link using even an ancient radio -- whether they do or not is another matter of course.

Normal kremlinite bilge. A while ago another lovely person wrote that since peaceful ways have not cured Finland's and Estonia's russophobia, military means must be used instead. Impeccable logic.

Eastern Finland residents report odd light in the eastern sky (google translate link): https://www-hs-fi.translate.goog/kotimaa/art-2000009123868.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp Rocket launches are occasionally visible (SLBM launch seen in Norway a few years ago was reported internationally) but would be interesting to know more details on this one. EDIT: Plesetsk cosmodrome had a scheduled GLONASS satellite launch, so probably that: https://www.rocketlaunchschedule.com/russian-space-forces-soyuz-2-1b-fregat-glonass-k1-no-17/

Well, true. And the shorter the potential flight time, the more stressful the decision whether to react or not if you're unsure your readings are correct or not, so there is a destabilizing element in that. Of course, not all NATO members allow nuclear weapons on their soil -- as far as I know e.g. Norway and Denmark do not, I don't think Finland and Sweden would either. It might well be that Ukraine would also decline to have them located on her soil, remains to be seen. Fair enough, I read too much into your "all the geostrategical benefits" comment. Playing with Google Earth, looks like Aegis Ashore placed in Ukraine and/or Romania together would protect Central Europe reasonably well from the direction of Iran. Based on interception ranges mentioned online, anyway.