Beleg85

Main workhorse and concern are still 155 mm shells, PGM or dumb. Would be difficult to produce them in Ukraine only, in mass. Even if placed underground, Russians would find a way to bomb these facilities. Workshops and startups for drones are already working in neighbour countries, but they not formally part of traditionally understood MIC.

More about North Korean missiles: Curious if this will have any effect on Republicans in Congress. Also, first reports of something hitting Crimea and possibly Belgorod again.

Reportedly another Russian assault on Synkivka ending in predictable way. “Through endurance we conquer", as Ernest Shackelton famously wrote. I bet Russian generals whisper something like that while posing their muscles before mirrors or presenting orders for another decoration. Perhaps it's earlier clip just shot from another drone. Level of casualties is still stunning, though.

It seems somebody was partying in Kalinigrad/Kralovec in Russian style. Still some reservations if this OSINT-er localization is correct, but it seems so; NATO spy planes most probably know it well for long time.

It seems muscovites revived Smersh...or somebody just made a happening. Also, record of clearing the trenches:

FlyEye + Himars at work. High-level fire mission; note they corrected fire and hit two times. Russians barely introduced this new Hawk system and already lost one. https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russia-deploys-the-newest-yastreb-av-system-to-war-against-ukraine/ Good to see perhaps one's donated money at work. Btw. a propos last clips of Himars targeted by Russian missiles, Wolski claims he has good internal sources that at least two Himars sets were eliminated so far, with several more damaged.

For this salvo casualties in the city seems fortunatelly rather small. A propos discussions about Russian will to fight, war with West etc.- it is always worth to remember, that significant minority of Russian populace seems seriously convinced they already wage undeclared, conventional war with NATO, and just fear AFRF instills in weak Western minds (especially its rocket and nuclear component) limits the escalation to Ukraine.

Very interesting, long time ago there was discussed such possibility...whatever weapon this is (perhaps thermobaric?) by very nature of its unstable launching platform it cannot be precise.

So far only sign of Russian collapse is acute lack of eggs...but it's better than nothing I guess. Sometimes a pebble can start an avalanche. Happy New Year to everyone.

Mischievous spirit of New Year. Now it seems ok. About recent mysterious GPS jams.

Guys do you also have this problem when trying to post? Some captcha menu pops out.

The problem here is that world is not at World War and global order is shaking, but not collapsing. Therefore, comparisions with apocalyptic bombings of Germany or Japan miss their mark. Not that I would complain too heavily about Ukrainians paying Russians in kind- to hell with katsaps- but AFU simply lacks practical means of "waging destruction" on Russians you often seem to envision. Several dozens cardboard drones a week, while inventive, will hardly make a difference, even if they fly straight into residences of muscovite oligarchs. And occassional casualties from artillery in border cities are actually perfect from Putin standpoint. Real missiles like Storm Shadows are in short supply and when new fighters become operational, they will likely be used on military targets. Yup, albeit Israelis have massive advantage in this respect, living where they live they can do "more". Western audience seem to grow thicker skin over past two years when comes to accepting grim realities of war. If only AFU will not make a habit of purposefully killing civilians, I doubt there will be some wide reaction. Btw. latest Russians version, slightly changed from previous one, is that Belgorod was hit almost exclusivelly by debris of succesfull AA defence against Olchas and Vampires. Cluster munitions we observed were supposed to fall out of falling missile. Thus, imperial honour is saved. https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/12/30/chasti-sbitih-raket-popali-pogorodu-minoboroni-rfpriznalo-chto-tragediya-vbelgorode-stala-rezultatom-raboti-rossiiskoi-pvo-a117625 https://www.interfax.ru/russia/938653 Zakharova made a conference that blamed...guess whom? Naturally United Kingdom, for planning this attack. Crimean War 2.0.

More pictures from Belgorod. No idea if it was one salvo or some more prolonged strikes. But already claimed number of victims- no doubt inflated- is reaching 14 killed. Zakharova requested emergency UN security council meeting.

Significant Russian hybrid warfare in the Baltics, involving large Russian minority there is entirely possible, though, at least from point of view of Kremlin. There are some preliminary conditions for destabilization efforts there. Also, still don't get what "dealing first with Ukraine" we discuss here actually means. It's largest European country, currently smeared in Russian (and own) blood up to the belt. Even if West make massive geopolitical and moral mistake of ditching them entirely and force to froze the conflict (hipothetically), Russia will need hundred of thousands of soldiers to keep an eye over their newly captured lands anyway. In fact they already recognized this need by their recent reforms of military districts. In that scenario, one of most positive for Kremlin, Ukraine still drains its military resources heavily and bounds most of effective muscovite force in the south. For years, decades perhaps they will be trapped with unresolved problem of smaller, but vengeful enemy watching for any sign of their weakness, like bloody honey badger half stuck with its teeth while gnawing your leg. Going head-on against NATO in such geopolitical conditions would be pure suicide.

Quite impressive casualties. There is a gossip flying around, coming from one of Russian TG's that captain was not on the ship but on shore spending night with local escort girl. If true, he should marry her for saving life. Sadly, even propaganda UA channels like Noel treat it as fake news so far. Perhaps crew forget to remove tire-cover from wings before starting engines?

Yeah, I just wanted to write about drones but you are right about Shaheds. There are two crucial questions here that are ongoing: 1. What is actual Russian industrail capacity (yeah, I know, rhetorical as for now) 2. What about military targets of newest attack. There are true barbarians sitting at Kremlin, but I am pretty sure they didn't mount this attack to target civilian targets specifically only. Since some of big missiles come through, it is likely Ukraine military did suffered some losses today. WH statement, just for archive:

Oh boy, let's say I won't open another historical topic here about wwii or deeeper past. Let's say we know perfectly well how vae victis taste. The point is you did very wide ranging claims about supposed ill-will, without any data about actual Air Defences in our border area. We are not at war nor want to be in one until actually attacked. That being said, let's see if NATO will take this into consideration; perhaps they will and we will not notice it for long time. Zelensky visitng troops in Avdiivka:

Naturally. I would be in favour of some joint action sea-air with Finland and Balts to make life in Kaliningrad...harder, there would probably be some non-military ways to do it. But it's pointless anyway, since Kremlin does not care about its own citizens there or anywhere else, except several districts of Moscow itself. There was already Russian KH-55 discovered several months after its fall, anyway. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/military-object-found-polish-forest-was-russian-missile-media-2023-05-10/ There are some new developments lately in EW/ radar front here that are difficult to explain (perhaps themselves effect of captured muscovite elecronic devices), my vote it could be connected to it. Overall, the incident is small one, compared to what is happening in Ukraine. If anybody likes statistics: And these actions would be... War with Russia? No, thanks, we have bad experiences here in the past of charging alone in helpless wars. NATO-level decisions; period. And if you mean about AA assets that even America can't provide, we would gladly accept some from AFU, if not the fact they are engaged in real war.

What do you mean? You realize that even large cities are not protected in any way, right? Rzeszów airport, one or two radar stations, maybe some 2-3 additional militay areas. That would be it- AA defence was sadly neglected by all previous governments and can't be builded within a year. There was discussion that Patriot battery sationed along the border could potentially cover this Russian missile, but it ended its tour of duty some time ago and came back to Germany. Russians naturally knew it. So there is no mythical, impenetrable "bubble" or "shield" against missiles; its not science fiction. Anti-rocket defences, not here nor even in Kyiv, are not even like Swiss cheese- they are small areas of most probable avenues, sitting across relatively small, VIP targets. Village near Hrubieszów is not one of them. OK, I won't get involved in another pointless complain-fest. NATO takes decisions of any higher magnitude collectively, like it or not. Perhaps there will be some response, perhaps even in different field like cyberwarfare, but you can be sure it won't come within hours. We will see.

What so many of our Ukrainian neighbours fail to understand is that any retaliatory decisions vs. Russia are made on NATO level, after consulting with core allies; and I mean below Article 5-grade stuff. The same is about Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, you name it. Perhaps Ukraine wasn't simply in any alliance post-89 and have problems getting how defensive teamwork look. But it's tiring to explain it time and again. That being said, perhaps NATO will take some retaliatory measures. We will see. Bro, take some medicines or something. Or better- read how actual defensive layers work. There was no battery in sight, out AA are in shambles till circa 2035, and even then they will be used only to defend core areas, not stripes of woods along border.

What do you expect, attacking Moscow or Kaliningrad? I doubt they made special avenue, it's just hypothesis. Most probably it was testing NATO reactions.

I am not that sure tbf. 1. We don't know what military installations were targeted and hit- we will probably not know it for a long time as AFU keeps things in secret. There are rumours at least some airfields were hit (Starokonstantinov?). 2. Putin shows his resiliance and steadiness in face of global pressure. It didn't work for him 1,5 year ago when states were still in shock/anger, now it can bear some fruits. 3. This attack was very well planned and coordinated, mixing different types of missiles, working on various angles with defined targets and SEAD tasks. 4. It seems Kindzalhs, Ch-22, Iskanders and modified S-400 did mostly hit their marks, whatever they were: https://twitter.com/wolski_jaros/status/1740689493953310921 5. Interesting snippet- it now seems Russian rocket, probably ch-101/102 did flew through NATO airspace for several minutes, penetrated for some 40kms and turned back into Ukrainian sky. Could be accident, but since it turned its back very fast (<3 mins, beyond decision loop) more people claim it was purposfull testing of our defences and perhaps even marking new avenue for muscovite rockets hitting UA. Especially in connections with last "odd" GPS signal interference in PL several days ago (there were discussions it could be test of new radar or NATO jamming devices) : https://www.dniprotoday.com/en/news/serious-gps-signal-interference-over-poland-no-one-knows-whats-going-on-1106 6. Are we sure we have broadly accurate data as to Russian missile stock that has left? Romanians have it much more often. And it didn't landed this time.

Attack are very broad- they targeted something in Western Ukraine again. Damn, they weven hit building in Lviv. https://kyivindependent.com/russian-strikes-injure-at-least-7-in-kyiv-casualties-reported-in-lviv-dnipro-kharkiv/ Also, in PL all news are about object that flew into our airspace and disappeared from the radar "in the morning hours", not far from Hrubieszów. They are searching for it now, fortunatelly no reports of casualties so far.

Russian armoured column meeting their fate near Sinkivka. Note scale of previous losses lying on the ground. Work of 14th and 30th Brigades.

"Novocherkassk" successfully dispersed itself over Teodosia (over 600m from explosion):