Carolus

Can you not let this go? No one except you talked about building concentration camps and destroying democracy in response to my post. You are free to disagree with the idea of preventing North Korean freighters with weapons from reaching Russia. To argue that Kennedy ushered in a new age of darkness when he blockaded Cuba in 1962 is more than a stretch.

This is better discussed via PMs.

I wrote about subterfuge, rescuing willing nations from Russian influence and sabotaging the freight lanes of our enemies the same they they are doing while using the same implausible deniability. You are the only one who spoke about erecting concentration camps and destroying democracy in reaction. No, you really were... "unique". Let's not dwell on it, though, and move on to better, more interesting topics. I understand how embarrassing a gaffe like yours can be and we don't have to draw this out for your sake.

The British and the French already have troops in Ukraine doing targeting for Stormshadow / SCALP, killing Russians without a declaration of war. Your high horse is not just dead, you actually never realised it was an alligator you were riding this whole time. You are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. The "letter of the law" was always the principle of fools and children. The intent behind a law is where the true value of principle lies. If you abandon the intent for the letter, you never had principles to begin with.

Aye. I am worried of the "They go low you stay high" scenario, which will lead to the eventual end of international law. People seem to miss that international law is not a value by itself, it is a means to an end. Like any law it requires enforcement. At the moment we can see that enforcement is not possible. What is the purpose of international law? To reduce, via many island hops, human suffering. Once the suffering created by upholding a law becomes bigger than the suffering it prevents, the minority that limits itself to endure that suffering and faces an existential threat has to do a pro and contra analysis. Sorry, but we are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. We have hot conventional war in Europe, we have the nation's which care for an orderly world being dangerously undermined, we have a whole series of side conflicts in the developing world where the anti-democratic forces are happily slaughtering their opposition to install strongarm dictator types, and a brewing conflict in the Pacific. If we need to break some eggs to make this global omelette, you won't see me demanding the US government to be pulled in front of the ICC, which they openly ignore anyway (and ask yourself why they do - because they see it the same way. Hegemony is never clean, but I am content with the label "least dirty").

While you can certainly bring that to the table of discussion if you like, it would be better next time of you to read what was actually written (even if it was written with a bit of comedic exaggeration). It tends to help with discussion when you do that instead of living in your own fantasy world where you want to erect concentration camps. I think the Captn has summarized the potential of subterfuge and grey area warfare in his post on the previous page quite well, that the risks are great and that, as I also think, no Western government is remotely willing to start taking this global conflict really seriously at the moment.

To be fair, it is possible that politics didn't even play a role. It is said Fico had contacts with organized crime in Slovakia. I am not saying it is likely, but it is not impossible that he stepped on someone's shoe. They arrested the shooter at the scene of the crime, so things will likely become more transparent soon.

And they spread that conspiracy and many others so quite successfully. And they will continue to do that, because it is intrinsic to their warfare against democracy. So why not become the monster your enemy paints you as? Within limits. Russian soldiers are already suiciding with grenades when taken prisoner because they're being told stories about the Ukrainian Gestapo prisons. It is entirely necessary to use every reasonable means of warfare and subterfuge in this war that does not unravel the international order too much because your enemy will accuse you anyway and benefit from this accusation anyway. As long as the West found no defense against this form of warfare, offense is the only defense. That means sinking Russian, Iranian and North Korean freighters, claiming it must have been an accident or terrorists, and when Russia hands over the evidence of an American torpedo / USV to the UN and threatens to nuke New York (as they are already doing every week) you take a giant sh*t in the middle of the UN assembly and claim it's made up. It doesn't matter. The people who are already on the Axis side will believe what they want anyway. Russia will always say that it is Ukrainian sabotage or NATO spies. They already do, and plenty of people believe it. It is time to stop using western power to fump toxic waste in Africa and to do actually heinous **** (to your enemies) because you *can*. Because your enemy is already is doing that and the advantage of keeping the moral high ground becomes meaningless when people get massacred anyway.

No, that would be smart, risky, and a step towards long-term victory over the new axis. Western governments are not interested in victory over the axis, they are interested in winning elections and gaining personal benefits, which means they are bound by human animalistic desires of themselves and of their electorate. That means minimizing risks and favoring short-term benefits with long-term disadvantages over long-term benefits with short-term disadvantages. That includes working shoulder to shoulder with the axis towards their own long-term defeat if necessary, both indirectly (by inaction) or directly (through trade). Dictatorships are incompetent and corrupt, but they are able to accept and relegate short-term disadvantages in pursuit of a long-term goal (how beneficial that long-term goal is? Very debatable. But it's a goal).

If only there was a game with a complex set of cover and spotting rules and large realistic landscape maps where drones could either be indirectly called like an aircraft over a certain area or they would be like slow Javelin missiles that are allowed to be fired without direct line of sight or they would be units of their own (maybe "detached" from a drone controller squad) and be able to follow a waypoint system and give vision to the controlling squad before a fire order makes them crash into a target / building / enemy unit or they attack based on a firing angle you can set from a waypoint (by e.g. "firing a missile straight ahead that has the same model as yourself and despawn yourself at the same time" (like making itself a casualty and then getting buddy help immediately)) and a complex damage system would allow to see the effects of the different warheads on vehicles and how many are shot down by SHORAD / turrets / automatic shotguns. And what if these drone units had a morale meter which represents signal strength and enemy EW and distance to the controller unit would reduce that meter and if the meter goes too low but an enemy EW unit has a sufficient area of effect, the drone unit would be "captured" (aka go to ground) and if the enemy unit goes away and your own unit comes closer, the drone could be "recaptured". If only...

My rational guess is also pre-programming. But that is not I want it to be. What I imagine is Ihor and Danylo from the UA SOF in a jeep with a 60mm mortar in the trunk, 1000s of km behind the frontline like in the good old stories of 2022. This is what the dreams of men are made of.

Sorry, as @FancyCat noted there is no corroboration of this story. I should have checked myself before I posted. Lesson learned!

Girkin is being accused of treason in Russia.

And the problem is, the war cannot end from a Russian regime perspective. Not while the UA still stands. Imagine if Russia actually runs out of something critical and the UA is still in some sort of combat-ready state (with Western supply). There will be a push attempt, unless there is a radical change in political will from the Ukrainian population. Of course, just like Ukraine, Russia will try to make up for less amounts of artillery by substituting with FPV drones and Lancets. Which is why in 2024/5 we will have to see where anti-drone measures are going. UA needs to project a drone-free bubble ahead of every movement.

This poster claims that with the current loss rate, Russia will be out of heavy artillery within the first half of 2025 based on counting satellite photos of Russian depots. Production rate is miniscule compared to losses. 152mm will run out before 122mm, SPGs will run out after towed guns do. Mentions it is likely they will run out of usable tubes before that.

"A little more sprinkles on the topping, please." Looks like some shells have made their convoluted way through the Ukrainian logistical system to the frontline.

These will be M795. If the complaints about the fragmentation pattern of the M107 are not just yarn, I hope the M795 will show more satisfactory results for the troops.

Might be confirmation for the airplane (reported as SU25) shot down on the Donbas front a dew days ago.

You are right, it is fake news. This clip is from a US research project

Clip of Ukrainian octocopter shooting down a smaller quadrocopter. Poster claims it's combat footage but I think it looks like training / testing.

Good questions for potential buyers. What comes to mind is the greater number of available launch platforms. Regarding Ukraine, I think at the moment they will be happy to get whatever goes boom from the West and doesn't add too much to their logistical zoo.

100km 155mm? Is this the unholy baby of a missile and a shell? If Ukraine can reduce the GPS jammers, these could have interesting applications.

The article was edited to remove that quotation. I hope it's true and this was simply done to create plausible deniability for the UK government. But it could also just be a hasty comment by Cameron or an overly eager journalist who misheard.

I think the Western response is to fire an anti-rad or anti-EW missile salvo with its infinite airforce that homes in on whatever is making the most EM noise after being launched in the general direction of the enemy. Some people might say "but what about long-range AD" at which point we look at the comparatively unimportant Iraq war with over 1000 airplanes in the initial attack waves.