OT subject but worth a main-stream read- OT News Feeds...

Botch

Go to about 17:10 on this video (the PBS website doesn't allow a "paste at this point" that I can see)
 
https://www.pbs.org/video/april-19-2023-pbs-newshour-full-episode-1681876801/
 
Fascinating story on how a volunteer group in Ukraine is using social media/Google Maps/Streetview to pinpoint targets within russian territory itself; warfare is advancing faster than I can even keep up with, in my current armchair status.  
Twenty years ago the taliban figured out how not to use cellphones to communicate; the russkies haven't cracked that code, yet.  

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The Biden administration announced $325 million in new military aid for Ukraine yesterday, including additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, advanced missiles, and anti-tank mines. It is the 36th security package for Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, bringing total U.S. military assistance to more than $35.4 billion in that time. Reuters reports. 

Denmark and the Netherlands will jointly donate 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, the two countries said today. The Leopard 2A4 tanks, to be bought from a third party and refurbished, are expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2024. Reuters reports. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address Mexican lawmakers by video today as he seeks support in his country’s war with Russia. The Mexican government has said it wants to remain neutral in the conflict. Some supporters of Ukraine have criticized President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for taking issue with European arms shipments to Kyiv. Mexico has voted alongside the United States on several major U.N. resolutions critical of Russia’s invasion. Reuters reports. 

Russia is increasingly using treason and espionage laws to smother criticism of the war against Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin’s government widened the scope of the legislation and expanded its crackdown on opponents. OVD-Info, a Moscow-based rights group, last year recorded the filing of more than 20 criminal cases for high treason. Its unpublished figures for 2023 show ten espionage and treason cases launched in March alone. Matthew Luxmoore reports for the Wall Street Journal.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine had received its first deliveries of the US Patriot air defence system.

The Kremlin warned South Korea sending weapons to Ukraine would make it a participant in the war. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol earlier said Seoul might extend its support for Ukraine beyond humanitarian and economic aid if there were “a situation the international community cannot condone, such as any large-scale attack on civilians, massacre or serious violation of the laws of war”.

Russia launched a drone attack on Odesa, hitting civilian infrastructure. General Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, added that air defences had destroyed 10 of 12 “kamikaze” drones.

Inspections of ships carrying Ukrainian grain from its Black Sea ports have resumed under a UN-brokered deal, as Ukraine faces import bans in Europe."

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"A Russian fighter jet accidentally bombed the Russian city of Belgorod near Ukraine’s border yesterday, Moscow’s defense ministry said. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that three people were injured and several buildings were damaged. There was no explanation for the bombing other than what is described as an “abnormal descent of aviation ammunition.” George Wright reports for BBC News. 

NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, during his first visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion, said yesterday that Ukraine’s “rightful place” was in the alliance. Despite these comments, accession remains a “long-term project.” There is division among NATO countries about whether Ukraine should be offered any kind of detailed “road map” toward membership at the Vilnius summit this summer. Enjoli Liston reports for the New York Times. 

Pro-Russian hackers carried out a cyberattack on the website of the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, the air-traffic control agency said yesterday. A senior agency official familiar with the situation said that the agency had ringfenced its operational systems and that air-traffic safety was not at risk. However, there are growing fears that Moscow could interfere with the region’s critical infrastructure as its confrontation with the West escalates. Killnet, a Russian hacking group, announced their attack on the agency on their Telegram channel on Wednesday. Bojan Pancevski reports for the Wall Street Journal. 

Russia is attempting to build an antiwar coalition in Germany comprising both far-left and far-right elements, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents that were obtained by a European intelligence service. The documents record meetings between Kremlin officials and Russian political strategists. The Kremlin ordered the strategists to focus on Germany to build antiwar sentiment in Europe and dampen support for Ukraine. Catherine Belton, Souad Mekhennet, and Shane Harris report for the Washington Post. 

Eight new storm brigades totaling 40,000 soldiers are being trained by Ukraine to be used during a counter-offensive against Russian occupiers in the coming weeks or months. The units have benefited from an aggressive recruiting campaign on social media and billboards to attract highly motivated volunteers. The success of the counter-offensive is crucial for Kyiv, as a failed attempt to seize back territory from Russian forces could dim optimism among key Western backers and push them to encourage Kyiv to seek negotiations with Moscow. Sergiy Karazy and Anna Dabrowska report for Reuters."

Botch

“abnormal descent of aviation ammunition.” 
"rapid unscheduled disassembly."
 
  
The Language of My People is changing rapidly, and I'm feeling old.  

fishlessman

Botch said:

“abnormal descent of aviation ammunition.” 
"rapid unscheduled disassembly."
 
  
The Language of My People is changing rapidly, and I'm feeling old.  

its the age where we get participation trophies and no one gets blamed for being a fvkup

HeavyG

Interesting video of the Russian aircraft that experienced an “abnormal descent of aviation ammunition". You'll see the bomb penetrate the surface and then a few seconds later the detonation. It seems that this was one of the bombs the Rooskies had converted to a "glider bomb" but in this case the wings of the bomb didn't unfold properly.

https://v.redd.it/7bqzklu0l8va1

JohnInCarolina

A wild article about a county in Michigan that’s gone full nutjob:

https://wapo.st/3KRBhug

That’s a gift account link, so hopefully gives access to those of you without a sub.

lousubcap

Thanks @JohnInCarolina as the article came thru just fine.  Too bad for me because I then read it.

How far will this go??  That's the real concern for me and how will it translate in the larger scale elections and levels of gubmint. 

nolaegghead

Wow.  More dogs are catching the car.  These things will adjust themselves with time, but they are so unnecessarily hurtful to society.

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Strategists observing the preparations for Ukraine’s “high stakes” counter-offensive say they expect the push in May or June. Mark Kimmitt, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who commanded artillery units, has said, “With little battlefield progress and declining attention worldwide, the Ukrainians must break out of the current stalemate or face increased calls for a cease-fire and negotiations.” Daniel Michaels and James Marson report for the Wall Street Journal. 

Despite deliveries of powerful Western weapons, Ukraine still falls short of what U.S. military planners have assessed Ukraine needs to retake territory captured by Russia, according to leaked intelligence reports dated February and March. While additional weapons and supplies have been delivered to Ukraine since the assessments were made, key components, like Abrams tanks, are unlikely to arrive before the counter-offensive begins. Lara Jakes and John Ismay report for the New York Times.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that if the G7 bans exports to Russia, Moscow would respond by terminating the Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine, signalling that it will not allow the agreement to continue beyond May 18. The G7 has called for the “extension, full implementation and expansion” of the Black Sea port grain deal.

Russia on Sunday said its forces have advanced in Bakhmut while Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi shared images on the Telegram messaging app with the caption “Bakhmut frontline. Our defence continues”.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has repelled a drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol early on Monday, the Moscow-installed governor of the city said on social media.

Russia has pounded the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Beryslav, destroying about 30 buildings and injuring civilians, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command reported."

lousubcap

This just in regarding Russia-Ukraine:

"Iran has been sending Russia artillery shells via the Caspian Sea for the past six months, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing shipping documents and input from Middle East officials. That includes an alleged September deal for about 74,000 artillery shells at a cost of around $1.7 million.

The most recent transit occurred in early March aboard a ship called the Rasul Gamzatov,which carried "1,000 containers with 2,000 artillery shells" to Russia after a six-day journey across the Caspian, according to the Journal, which noted U.S. enforcement options in this waterway are extremely limited.

Update: Iranian-made drones targeted Ukrainian cities again late last week, including nearly two dozen used to attack cities like Kyiv (for the first time in nearly a month), as well as the oblasts of Odesa, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv on Thursday evening. Ukraine says it shot down 21 of those 26. The following night, Russia launched another 12; Ukraine's military said it shot down eight of those Friday. They aren't believed to have caused significant damage, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, writing Friday evening.

The war in Ukraine is now fueling economic growth in Europe, but "Hiring enough workers to meet the demand will likely be tricky," the Journal reported separately on Monday from both sides of the Atlantic.

One big obstacle: "Defense jobs can require niche skills and security clearances," and "defense companies are all trying to hire at the same time in a field that has long struggled to meet recruitment goals." Meanwhile for the U.S. side, "defense companies have been wrestling with labor shortages since last year, when they accelerated efforts to replace workers who didn't return from pandemic furloughs."

Consider these numbers: "Europe's largest defense company, BAE Systems PLC, is hiring 2,600 this year for its apprentice and graduate training programs, and several thousand more for other roles," according to the Journal. And "Missile maker MBDA wants to add 2,000 workers, equivalent to more than 15% of its workforce. Others including Saab AB, the Swedish maker of the Gripen jet fighter, and Rheinmetall AG, the German company that helps make the Leopard tank, also plan to hire thousands of new workers." Read on, here.

Related reading: "Ukraine war spurs record global spending on military, Stockholm think tank says," Reuters reported Sunday. Read over that report in full, here. "

lousubcap

And more from today, The Washington trick sack and some solid commentary-

"Alex and JONATHAN LEMIRE have a story today about how the Biden administration fears it will be criticized if Ukraine’s counteroffensive falls short of its goals. Simply put, if Kyiv’s forces don’t retake a large chunk of territory seized by Russia, hawks will say the United States should’ve provided more weapons while doves will claim the time for peace talks was yesterday (and that’s not even including what on-the-fence allies would do).

So today, we thought we’d dive a little deeper into why this fear is cropping up all of a sudden.

Two U.S. officials told our own ERIN BANCO that the belief is the Russians are so dug in that the Ukrainian offensive won't amount to much. There is even some thinking that the offensive might not happen at all, at least not in the way Ukraine’s push last year went down. "I don't think that there's going to be this, wake up one morning and see, like, Ukrainian streaming across large swaths of territory sort of situation,” said one of the officials, who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. “Definitely not."

Furthermore, our own PAUL McLEARY heard that when Ukrainian officials were in Washington, D.C., last week, they asked administration officials what pledges or guarantees they could expect from the United States during the NATO summit in July. The general response to them was: “Depends on how the counteroffensive goes.”

All of this tracks with what Alex and Jonathan heard. There’s a sense that a lot — and we mean a lot — is riding on Kyiv to turn the ever-forthcoming counteroffensive into a clear win. If there isn’t one, Ukraine risks losing America’s staunch support and allied publics wondering aloud why they’re paying such exorbitant food and energy prices.

This may be why there have been discussions, per U.S. aides, of framing any negotiations to the Ukrainians as a “ceasefire” and not as permanent peace talks, leaving the door open for Ukraine to regain more of its territory at a future date.

Incentives would have to be given to Kyiv: perhaps NATO-like security guarantees, economic help from the European Union, more military aid to replenish and bolster Ukraine’s forces, and the like. And aides have expressed hope of re-engaging China to push Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN to the negotiating table as well.

In the meantime, it’s possible the counteroffensive is on the verge of starting. On Saturday, the Institute for the Study of War assessed that Ukrainian forces are on the eastern side of the Dnieper River and have supply lines. That’s not conclusive evidence, to be clear, but it is a sign that the anticipated operation is about to get underway."

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The Ukrainian military “agreed, at Washington’s request to postpone strikes” on Moscow that it had planned to carry out during the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leaked intelligence reports show. The Biden administration feared that attacks inside Russia could provoke an aggressive response from the Kremlin. Shane Harris and Isabelle Khurshudyan report for the Washington Post.

Over the past six months, Russian ships have ferried more than 300,000 Iranian artillery shells and a million rounds of ammunition across the Caspian Sea to resupply troops fighting in Ukraine, Middle East officials said. According to U.S. officials, Iran has primarily used cargo planes to ship weapons to Russia, making it all but impossible to intervene. Officials from the U.S. military have visited Turkmenistan on the Caspian Sea to discuss various issues, including ways to deepen their cooperation and expand maritime security. Dion Nissenbaum and Benoit Faucon report for the Wall Street Journal. 

China has distanced itself from the remarks of Paris-based Ambassador Lu Shaye, who questioned the sovereignty of Ukraine and other former Soviet countries. Yesterday, China’s foreign ministry said it respected the independence of all post-Soviet republics. Robert Greenall reports for BBC News. 

Ukrainian military forces have established positions on the eastern side of the Dnieper River, which could be an early sign of Kyiv’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, reported on Saturday that geolocated footage from pro-Kremlin military bloggers indicated that Ukrainian troops had established a foothold near the town of Oleshky, along with “stable supply lines” to their positions. The Kremlin-installed head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said Russian forces are “in full control” of the area. David Rising and Joanna Kozlowska report for AP News. 

Three Ukrainian drone boats attacked a Russian-controlled military port in Crimea, and an aerial drone crashed in the Moscow area, Russian authorities said. The drone boats attacked the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, a critical military port city on the Crimean Peninsula. The Russian-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said no damage was caused. The armed aerial drone crashed in a forest near Moscow after running out of fuel. Bojan Pancevski and Ian Lovett report for the Wall Street Journal. "

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia- Ukraine update:

"Ukraine says it is rapidly increasing its production of drones as demand grows on the front line. The government has relaxed import laws and scrapped taxes for drone parts and equipment. The expansion is being funded by a fundraising campaign called the Army of Drones, which has raised more than $108 million. Joe Tidy reports for BBC News. 

China and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding on strengthening maritime law enforcement cooperation, Chinese state media said today. Reuters reports. 

Two Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft and one Ilyushin Il-20 aircraft, flying without transponder signals, were intercepted in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, the German airforce said on Twitter. 

The grain deal that got Ukrainian exports moving and eased a global food crisis is risking support for Ukraine among struggling European farmers. One Romanian farmer noted that prices had been driven so low by a flood of cheap food from Ukraine that selling would mean earning less than he paid to produce his crops. Over the past week, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria imposed tight restrictions on importing Ukrainian grain. Only Romania stopped short of an outright ban. Andrew Higgins reports for the New York Times.

A senior Ukrainian official has said improving and extending a deal on the export of its grain can only succeed if the international community pressures Russia. Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing a “way forward aimed at the improvement, extension and expansion” of the agreement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has blamed the West for a deadlock over the Black Sea grain deal, claiming Moscow had seen “practically no results” from the pact for its grain and fertiliser exports."

lousubcap

Update regarding a call between China's President Xi and Ukraine's President Zelenskyy:

"Exactly 61 weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, China's autocratic leader finally spoke with Ukraine's elected president by phone on Wednesday. In the call, China's Xi Jinping reportedly conveyed a shared "respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity," calling that key pillar of the United Nations charter "the political foundation for China-Ukraine relations," according to Beijing's Foreign Ministry. However, China's readout of the call never once refers to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia has illegally occupied since 2014. 

"China stands for peace," Xi purportedly told Ukraine's President Volodymir Zelenskyy. "Dialogue is the only way out," the Chinese leader said, "and no one wins a nuclear war." 

"With rational thinking and voices now on the rise," Xi said, "it is important to seize the opportunity and build up favorable conditions for the political settlement of the crisis." He also promised "China will continue to facilitate talks for peace and make its efforts for early ceasefire and restoration of peace," including sending an envoy to Ukraine "to have in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis."

Context: The call came as China worked to quell condemnation of its ambassador to France, who on April 22 appeared to question the sovereignty of former Soviet republics such as Ukraine.

Zelenskyy described the call as "long and meaningful," but didn't say a lot more—aside from sharing his impression that "this call, as well as the [upcoming] appointment of Ukraine's ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations."

White House POV: "We want to see the war end; if it can't end by Putin pulling his troops out, it should end in a negotiated settlement. And the only negotiated settlement that we think is worth pursuing is one that President Zelenskyy thinks is worth pursuing," said Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby in a phone call with reporters Wednesday morning. 

"The central, principal, fundamental ideas here" are "Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity," Kirby said. And those principles form the backbone of Zelenskyy's 10-point peace plan released publicly in November. 

• "If Russia stops fighting, the war ends," Kirby said. "But right now, if Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends." 

Putin's sinking stock: For the first time in the history of Gallup polling, "the majority of the world disapproves of Russia's leadership," the analytics firm announced Tuesday (relevant polling data extends back to 2007). That comes from a 19-point rise in median disapproval among 137 different countries surveyed; and among those 137 nations, majorities in 81 disapproved of Putin's leadership in 2022."

lousubcap

And given the Carlson RIP{ thread on the main board has been nuked, give this a read:

Tom Nichols STAFF WRITER

Tucker Carlson is, for now, off the air and lying low. But his rapid slide from would-be journalist to venomous demagogue is the story of a generation of political commentators who found that inducing madness in the American public was better than the drudgery of working a job outside the conservative hothouses.Pushing the Needle

(Jason Koerner / Getty)View in browser Tucker Carlson has been fired, and you’ve probably already read a bushel ofstories about his dismissal, his career, and his influence. Today, I want to share with you a more personal reflection. (Full disclosure: Carlson took a bizarre swipe at me toward the end of his time at Fox.) I always thought of Carlson as one of the worst things to happen to millions of Americans, and particularly to the working class. As Margaret Sullivan recently wrote, “Despite his smarmy demeanor, and aging prep-school appearance,” Carlson became “a twisted kind of working-class hero.” Not to me. I grew up working-class, and I admit that I never much cared for Carlson, a son of remarkable privilege and wealth, even before he became this creepy version of himself. I am about a decade older than Carlson, and when he began his career in the 1990s, I was a young academic and a Republican who’d worked in a city hall, a state legislature, and the U.S. Senate (as well as a number of other less glamorous jobs). Perhaps I should have liked him more because of his obvious desire to be taken seriously as an intellectual, but maybe that was also the problem: Carlson was too obvious, too effortful. I was already a fan of people such as George Will and Charles Krauthammer, and I didn’t need a young, bow-tied, lightweight imitator. But still, I read his writing in conservative magazines, and that of others in his cohort. After all, back in those days, they were my tribe. But the early ’90s, I believe, is where things went wrong for this generation of young conservatives. Privileged, highly educated, stung by Bill Clinton’s win—and, soon, bored—they decided that they were all slated for greater things in public life. The dull slog of high-paying professional jobs was not for them, not if it meant living outside the media or political ecosystems of New York and Washington. A 1995 New York Times Magazine profile of this group, some of them soon to be Carlson’s co-workers, was full of red flags, but it was Laura Ingraham, whose show now packages hot bile in dry ice, who presaged what Fox’s prime-time lineup would look like. After a late dinner party in Washington, she took the Times writer for a drive: “You think we’re nuts, don’t you?” muttered Laura Ingraham, a former clerk for Clarence Thomas and now an attorney at the Washington offices of the power firm of Skadden, Arps. Ingraham, who is also a frequent guest on CNN, had had it with a particularly long-winded argument over some review in The New Republic. It could have been worse. They could have been the dweebs and nerds that liberals imagine young conservatives to be. Or, more accurately, they could have been the dweebs and nerds they themselves feared they were. And in time, they realized that the way to dump their day jobs for better gigs in radio and television was to become more and more extreme—and to sell their act to an audience that was nothing like them or the people at D.C. dinner parties. They would have their due, even if they had to poison the brains of ordinary Americans to get it. Carlson joined this attention-seeking conservative generation and tried on various personas. At one point, he had a show on MSNBC that was canceled after a year. I never saw it. I do remember Carlson as the co-host of Crossfire; I didn’t think he did a very good job representing thoughtful conservatives, and he ended up getting pantsed live on national television by Jon Stewart. He was soon let go from CNN. When Carlson got his own show on Fox News in 2016, however, I noticed. This new Tucker Carlson decided to throw off the pretense of intellectualism. (According to The New York Times, he was “determined to avoid his fate at CNN and MSNBC.”) He understood what Fox viewers wanted, and he took the old Tucker—the one who claimed to care about truth and journalistic responsibility—and drove him to a farm upstate where he could run free with the other journalists. The guy who returned alone in his car to the studio in Manhattan was a stone-cold, cynical demagogue. By God, no one was going to fire that guy. What concerned me was not that Carlson was selling political fentanyl; that’s Fox’s business model. It was that Carlson, unlike many people in his audience, knew better. He jammed the needle right into the arms of the Fox audience, spewing populist nonsense while running away from his own hyper-privileged background. I suppose I found this especially grating because for years I’ve lived in Rhode Island, almost within sight of the spires of Carlson’s pricey prep school, by the Newport beaches. (This area also produced Michael Flynn and Sean Spicer, but please don’t judge us—it’s actually lovely here.) Every night, Carlson encouraged American citizens to join him in his angry nihilism, telling his fans that America and its institutions were hopelessly corrupt, and that they were essentially living in a failed state. He and his fellow Fox hosts, meanwhile, presented themselves as the guardians of the real America, crowing in ostensible solidarity with an audience that, as we would later learn from the Dominion lawsuit, they regarded with both contempt and fear. An especially hateful aspect of Carlson’s rants is that they often targeted the institutions and norms—colleges, the U.S. military, capitalism itself—that help so many Americans get a chance at a better life. No matter the issue, Carlson was able to find some resentful, angry, us-versus-them angle, tacking effortlessly from sounding like a pompous theocrat one day to a founding member of Code Pink the next. If you were trying to undermine a nation and dissolve its hopes for the future, you could hardly design a better vehicle than Tucker Carlson Tonight. But give him credit: He was committed to the bit. A man who has never known a day of hard work in his life was soon posing in flannel and work pants in a remarkably pristine “workshop,” and inviting some of the worst people in American life to come to his redoubt to complain about how much America seems to irrationally hate Vladimir Putin, violent seditionists, and, by extension somehow, poor ordinary Joes such as Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. Carlson is emblematic of the entire conservative movement now, and especially the media millionaires who serve as its chief propagandists. The conservative world has become a kind of needle skyscraper with a tiny number of wealthy, superbly educated right-wing media and political elites in the penthouses, looking down at an expanse of angry Americans whose rage they themselves helped create. As one Fox staffer said in a text to the former CNN host Brian Stelter shortly after the January 6 insurrection, “What have we done?” If only Carlson and others were capable of asking themselves the same question."

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian military leaders’ recruitment plans to enlist 400,000 additional troops are raising the alarm among other government officials worried about an increasingly critical labor shortage, according to leaked intelligence reports. President Vladimir Putin “reportedly backed” his military’s proposal to “quietly recruit” additional troops throughout 2023. Russia is facing the worst workforce shortage in over 20 years due to the war. Mary Ilyushina reports for the Washington Post. 

Russia will be able to fund the war in Ukraine for at least another year despite the sanctions, according to leaked intelligence reports. Adam Taylor reports for the Washington Post.

Despite degeneration, Russia’s “ground force … is bigger today than it was at the beginning of the conflict,” Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commander of U.S. European Command, told the House Armed Services Committee. Russia’s navy and air force have not sustained significant hardware losses. Haley Britzky reports for CNN.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was likely to start after May 2 and that his mercenary forces had still not received much-needed ammunition from Russia’s defence ministry.

The United Kingdom’s defence ministry said heavy combat continued in the ruined city of Bakhmut, where battles have been going on for months.

The top United States general in Europe, Christopher Cavoli, said Ukraine’s military will get the weapons it needs in time for its upcoming counteroffensive against Russia."

lousubcap

An interesting article from the Washington Post regarding the costs to manufacture an EV-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/electric-car-batteries-geography/?pwapi_

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

Senate Armed Services Committee members rebuked top military commanders at a hearing yesterday and called for the expedited delivery of Abrams tanks as Ukraine prepares for a counteroffensive to retake territory from Russia. Senators on both sides of the aisle are frustrated with the Pentagon’s monthslong timeline for shipping the tanks. Connor O’Brien reports for POLITICO.

At least 12 people have been killed after Russia launched a wave of air strikes on cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv. Ukraine’s air defense system shot down 21 out of 23 missiles and two attack drones, officials said in a post on Telegram. Hugo Bachega and Antoinette Radford report for BBC News. 

The Iranian drones sold to Russia are powered by an engine based on stolen German technology, according to Conflict Armament Research, a UK-based organization that investigates weapons’ components. Tim Lister reports for CNN.

KYIV, Ukraine — NATO allies and partner countries have delivered more than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine during Russia’s invasion and war, the military alliance’s chief said Thursday, giving Kyiv a bigger punch as contemplates launching a counteroffensive.

Along with more than 1,550 armored vehicles, 230 tanks and other equipment, Ukraine’s allies have sent “vast amounts of ammunition” and also trained and equipped more than nine new Ukrainian brigades, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said."

Edit to add the following article regarding the Russian Army in Ukraine:

https://news.usni.org/2023/04/27/russian-army-ranks-growing-inside-ukraine-says-top-nato-commander?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=882eb20d18-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-882eb20d18-230648085&mc_cid=882eb20d18&mc_eid=da66ed6ca4

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/semaforben/status/1652866508542861315?s=20

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"In its second major airstrike in three days, Russia fired missiles at targets across Ukraine, hitting a railway hub in eastern Ukraine. The Russian strikes set a huge blaze in a southeastern district, Pavlohrad, a railway hub behind the southern and eastern fronts, where officials reported on Monday that 34 people were wounded, including children, and dozens of homes damaged. Ukraine officials said that 15 of 18 Russian cruise missiles were shot down, shielding the capital, Kyiv, and other major cities. The strikes follow 23 civilian deaths three days ago, where a Russian missile hit a high-rise apartment building in Uman, central Ukraine. “Ukrainian officials also released images of a scorched wasteland, and said an industrial enterprise was hit, which they did not identify. Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region council, said the attack had damaged 19 apartment blocks, 25 houses, three schools, three kindergartens and several shops,” Reuters reports.

A Crimean oil depot erupted in fire after it was hit by two Ukrainian drones. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Kremlin-installed governor of the Crimean port city Sevastopol, posted footage of the blaze on his Telegram channel. He said the fire caused no casualties and would not reduce the supply of fuel for Sevastopol. Ukraine did not openly claim responsibility, but emphasized its right to strike any target in response to aggression by Russia, which has controlled Crimea since its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. David Rising reports for AP.

Pope Francis met with European leaders during a three-day visit to Budapest as part of a “mission” to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Francis said he discussed the situation with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been on the outs with European Union leaders in Brussels and has opposed military aid to Ukraine, and with Metropolitan Hilarion, a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Budapest. Before his trip, the Pope met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to discuss a “peace formula.” Jason Horowitz reports for the New York Times.

Russia’s defence ministry has said Russian forces took control of new areas of the eastern city of Bakhmut.

The head of Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries has threatened to withdraw his troops from Bakhmut because of rising casualties.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson has said Kyiv remained in control of a key supply route into Bakhmut. The “road of life” is a vital road between the ruined city and the nearby town Chasiv Yar to the west — a distance of about 17km (11 miles).

The Russian army has replaced its highest-ranking general in charge of logistics ahead of an expected counteroffensive by Kyiv. The Russian defence ministry statement did not say why Mikhail Mizintsev was replaced after just seven months on the job."

Edit for fat finger corrections.

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia has suffered an estimated 100,000 casualties since December, including more than 20,000 killed, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said yesterday. Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Russia had suffered well over 100,000 killed or wounded in the first eight months of the war. The new figures suggest that Russian losses have dramatically accelerated in recent months. Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller report for AP News. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made a public promise yesterday to continue supporting Ukraine’s war effort, walking back previous suggestions that he might curtail the U.S. military aid for Ukraine. McCarthy’s promise could put him in an awkward position with a small but critical faction of ultraconservative Republicans that vocally oppose further military funding for Ukraine. Karoun Demirjian and Patrick Kingsley report for the New York Times. 

Ukrainian forces shelled a village in Russia’s Bryansk region bordering Ukraine early on Tuesday, according to Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz. There were no casualties, Bogomaz said. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. Reuters reports. 

An explosion derailed a freight train in Russia’s Bryansk region yesterday, according to the Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz and the Russian railway company. Bogomaz blamed an “unidentified explosive device,” while the Russian railway company said that “an intrusion by unauthorized individuals” derailed the train. Ukraine did not claim to have been behind the blast. Cassandra Vinograd and Ivan Nechepurenko report for the New York Times.

The head of the Wagner Group has appealed to Russia’s defence ministry to increase ammunition shipments to his troops fighting in Bakhmut, Ukraine. In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Yevgeny Prigozhin said he needed at least 300 tonnes of artillery shells a day in his bid to take the city.

General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, has said the situation in Bakhmut remained “difficult”, but soldiers had launched a counterattack in some parts of the ruined city."

lousubcap

Some interesting insights in the Russia-Ukraine war:

"This week in battlefield innovations, the Ukrainian military has apparently been using a videogame controller to direct a machine-gun turret from about 500 feet away. PCMag reportedthe development late last week, and it involves what's called the Steam Deck, which is used to play Windows games via the online platform Steam. "It's unlikely [manufacturer] Valve will be on board with the Ukrainian Army using the Steam Deck for this purpose," PCMag's Matthew Humphries wrote. "However, there's little the company could do to stop it because the Deck hardware is a pretty open platform when it comes to running software," he added. 

This week in civilian innovations: A Ukrainian farmer "kitted out his tractor with protective panels stripped from Russian tanks and operates it by remote control" to clear mines from his farm fields, according to Reuters, reporting Tuesday from southeast of Kharkiv. "We started doing this just because the crop-sowing time has come and we can't do anything because the rescue services are very busy," the farmer told Reuters. Story and video, here.  

Russian troops continue digging into occupied Ukrainian territory and Russian lands alike, according to the British military. It's a trend tracked closely by satellite imagery observers like Brady Africk from the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. On Monday, the Brits took to Twitter to declare, "Russia has constructed some of the most extensive systems of military defensive works seen anywhere in the world for many decades." 

Russia forces appear to have "made a particular effort to fortify the northern border of occupied Crimea, including with a multi-layered defensive zone near the village of Medvedevka," the Defense Ministry said Monday. However, "Russia has also dug hundreds of miles of trenches well inside internationally recognised Russian territory including in the Belgorod and Kursk regions," which the Brits posit "highlight[s] Russian leaders' deep concern that Ukraine could achieve a major breakthrough" with its counteroffensive operations, which are expected to begin any day now. "

HeavyG

I recall reading a few years ago that the newest US subs make use of Xbox video game controllers. Those will probably spread to other uses/branches if they haven't already. 

nolaegghead

HeavyG said:

I recall reading a few years ago that the newest US subs make use of Xbox video game controllers. Those will probably spread to other uses/branches if they haven't already. 

I’m not surprised.  The Xbox connect has been used for some amazing projects, like the “unmissable basket ball hoop”.

https://openkinect.org/wiki/Main_Page

Botch

....

nolaegghead

Gerbils, fear them.

lousubcap

nolaegghead said:

Gerbils, fear them.

Doesn't Richard Gere know a lot about gerbils?

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian ships able to perform underwater operations were present near where explosions later took place on the Nord Stream pipelines, according to a documentary series Putin’s Shadow War made by Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish broadcasters. Formal investigations remain ongoing in countries close to the blast site. Gordon Corera reports for BBC News. 

A second train was derailed by an explosion yesterday in the Russian region of Bryansk, on the border with Ukraine, according to regional governor Aleksandr Bogomaz. The governor did not cast specific blame for the two train derailments. Nor did Ukraine claim the blasts. Neil MacFarquhar reports for the New York Times. 

A fuel depot was on fire early today near a crucial bridge linking Russia’s mainland with Crimea, governor of the Krasnodar region Veniamin Kondratyev said. The fire erupted days after Moscow blamed Ukraine for an attack that set fire to an oil depot in Sevastopol. Reuters reports."

HeavyG

I've always assumed the Russians blew up the pipeline as an FU to the EU when they decided to cease buying the gas from Russia. Basically Putin's way of saying "Oh yeah, you think you can do without our gas, well guess what? Now we can't send it to you anyway if you change your mind. So now you're screwed." His assumption that the EU would be begging for his gas before long was just another major miscalculation by him.