boneless | Nov 27 2024 3:00 utc | 596
I thought I was sufficiently ironic.
—
Unlike the partisan, domestic forums many of us are used to, MoA has both an international flavor, but worse, unsophisticated true believers.
One of the advantages of being an American is the development of a jaded outlook
When you’ve been on top so long it becomes casually de rigueur to view events with an ironic, almost dismissive POV.
This particular flavor profile of course is entirely missed by the earnest try hards.

Posted by: Markw | Nov 27 2024 3:38 utc | 603

Interesting Twitter post by Armchair Warlord an hour ago re: ATACMS, Oreshniks and Dnipro. Post includes graphics and replies are worth reading, too. Text of main post for those that don’t have Twitter:

Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW 8:52 PM · Nov 26, 2024
Ukrainian Missile Crisis: Day 7⬇️
There were two significant developments in the last day that have shed new light on the ongoing escalation crisis between NATO and Russia. At this point it’s clear Ukraine wasn’t alone in their scheme – the UK and France were also key players.
1. The Russian Ministry of Defense made an unprecedented public disclosure of the targets, weapons, and outcomes of two Ukrainian ATACMS raids on November 23rd and 25th, including several photographs of missile debris at the targeted locations.
The actual net results were unspectacular – an air defense radar damaged and several Russian soldiers wounded, for 13 missiles expended – but it is interesting that the missiles used were very old base-model M39s, manufactured in the 1990s (see picture #2, with a vintage Lockheed Martin Vought Systems nameplate). These lacked the range to strike anything important in Crimea from Ukrainian territory, and rather than being new deliveries were likely from earlier tranches retained for tactical use after the Ukrainians ran out of newer M39A1 and M57 models firing them at Crimea.
2. Around the same time, the British Labour government disclosed that they had shipped as many as 150 Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine in the last few weeks, replenishing the AFU’s arsenal after they had run out (!) of these weapons. Given known stocks and the glacial production rate of these missiles, I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if this represented Britain’s entire remaining national stockpile.
This is a key piece of information that indicates that this missile escalation was in no small part planned by Britain and France, who – along with Ukraine – have been aggressively lobbying Washington for months now to order a strike campaign in “old” Russia. Ukraine wasn’t so much “going rogue” as it was aggressively playing different factions of NATO off each other to get the policy outcome it wanted.
Now, the interesting thing here is that Ukraine has only actually launched one raid with Storm Shadow missiles, on November 20th – almost a week ago now. There’s been nothing since despite the Ukrainians supposedly having a substantial stockpile of these missiles available and a whole “Christmas list” of targets in the Russian interior to strike. One would think they’d be getting busy.
This brings me to my theory for the evening.
Let us recall that in “retaliation” for the Ukrainian missile raids on November 19th and 20th, on the 21st a Russian “Oreshnik” IRBM plowed dozens of kinetic penetrator submunitions into the Yuzhmash industrial plant in Dnipropetrovsk at something like Mach 14. Muted secondary explosions could be seen on videos of the strike shortly after the impact. Yuzhmash is known to have a deep bunker complex underneath it dating from the Soviet Union, presumably to allow some level of industrial production to continue even following an all-out nuclear exchange.
Let us also recall that the Russians have located and destroyed Storm Shadow stockpiles in Ukraine on multiple previous occasions, despite what are presumably heroic operational security measures by the AFU. I’ll just put it this way – the SVR and GRU are very, very good at their jobs. As such it would make a great deal of sense for the Ukrainians to store their long-range missile stockpile in a facility which, even if the Russians could sniff out the missiles there, they would have great difficulty targeting. A facility like, say, the doomsday bunker under Yuzhmash.
The British and French national leadership are full of war hawks that are, for whatever deranged reason, perfectly happy to play nuclear Russian roulette. I doubt that they would be sufficiently deterred by the Russians unveiling yet another weapon system that could reheat their nations over the course of a lunch break so as to order a U-turn on their scheme to dramatically escalate the war and “lock in” American policy before Trump takes office. The Russians know this very well of course.
What if last Friday’s Oreshnik strike wasn’t actually aimed at deterring anyone but was instead a disarming attack that destroyed the latest – and possibly last – shipment of Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles in a hardened warehouse underneath Yuzhmash? This would explain both a lack of follow-up Storm Shadow attacks and new trial balloons floated in its aftermath by the same bad actors about transferring JASSM cruise missiles to Ukraine. I’ve even heard from a flight monitoring contact that covert transfers of Taurus missiles from Germany may be underway – something that would be totally unnecessary if the Ukrainians still had 100+ Storm Shadows on hand.
As I’ve said many times, the winning move for the Russians here is to continue to play the existing game rather than start a new one by widening the war. Under the rules of that game, anything in Ukraine can be targeted – and if these fancy British missiles cook off in their storage bunkers then there’s really no need to deter anyone from using them.
This is, by the way, far more consistent with the normal logic of war than some kind of tit-for-tat retaliation scheme. You use everything you can, all the time, to inflict maximum damage upon the enemy so as to defeat them. That’s well beyond mere deterrence.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Nov 27 2024 3:47 utc | 605

Looks like NAZO paid a price for their latest SS and Atakms strikes into Russia. Seems the untermenschen sniffed out the location of the NAZO personnel behind those launches, and many of them are no longer with us.
https://youtu.be/VOcCKAgPtEw?si=A82QEXfh0sehSA0P
This one’s gift wrapped for the outgoing U.S. prez who seems so invested in that godforsaken corner of Eastern Europe and Galicia – shove that up your prolapsed ass, Joe!

Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Nov 27 2024 4:00 utc | 607

An exceptionally good interview and debate with Prof Jeffrey Sachs at Cambridge University students union, UK. This one traces the root of the anglosaxon imperialist monster out of Spiritus Mundi, “slouching toward Bethlehem to be born” – back to Malthus, Darwin and the roots of British Russophobia from their empire “great game” in Central Asia (such as the British Holocaust of Tibet conducted on the fake pretext of a threat of Russian invasion of Britain’s empire state of India:
https://youtu.be/0Bl6_MAhg_4?si=G16i9b-CV5WYsEJm
Essential viewing for the English speaking world

Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Nov 27 2024 4:37 utc | 609

@ PavewayIV | Nov 27 2024 3:47 utc | 606 and Peter AU1 | Nov 27 2024 4:58 utc | 611 with the Storm shadow missiles scenario….thanks
My question with the scenario is what happened to the secondary munition explosions from those missiles?
We didn’t see any….

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 27 2024 5:05 utc | 611

psychohistorian | Nov 27 2024 5:05 utc | 612
In the first report from the site that Martyanov quoted, people in the the area said there was ongoing underground explosions for some hours afterwards.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Nov 27 2024 5:20 utc | 613

Armchair Warlord’s assertions are almost the opposite of what I posted a few hours before that in PavewayIV | Nov 26 2024 21:23 utc | 567 responding to Lysias | Nov 26 2024 16:16 utc | 512 “Where are the ATACMS missiles being used to attack Russia being stored?”
Most, including me, figured that they would never send the ATACMS allotment into Ukraine for this exact reason – Russia would blow them up. Armchair Warlord was describing Storm Shadows being squirreled away in Dnipro. I would easily defer to his views on this, but Dnipro seems like an unlikely place to stockpile air-launched missiles unless Ukraine has suitable aircraft/airfields nearby. Not sure they do. The general belief was that they were arming Ukraine aircraft in Romania or Poland flying into Ukraine to release air-launched missiles. Hard to believe they’re flying into Ukraine unarmed, landing at an airfield near Dnipro for missiles, then taking off and launching them at Russia – all without being pounced on by RuAF or at least the airfields being targeted. There really hasn’t been any lately, AFIK.
Now if we’re talking ATACMS, then the deep catacombs of Dnipro’s Pivdenmash complex might be a relatively safe place to stockpile them and stage in launch racks. Maybe even a good place to hide the M270 or HIMARS launch vehicles. Russia has always had penetrating warheads of various kinds, but those wouldn’t be particularly useful if you didn’t know precisely where underground in the 6 sq. km complex’s labyrinth of tunnels they’re hiding them even if you know the tunnel layout. They cruise-missile’d the plant a couple of years ago, but I don’t recall anything since.
So the Pivdenmash complex would clearly be a good place to test a missile with 36 or so hypersonic kinetic penetrators. Whatever surface damage is observed is inconsequential if Russia was trying to get to ATACMS (or whatever other goodies) were several floors underneath the surface.
Now given Ukraine has only used old stock ATACMS after the Pivdenmash attack, the answer to Lysias’ question is even more cloudy unless we presume the new-stock, long-range ATACMS were already delivered, being stored there and destroyed. So where the latest old-stock ATACMS something just shipped from Romania/Poland, survivors of the Pivdenmash attack or leftovers from somewhere else in Ukraine?
It’s like watching one of those horrible murder-mysteries that goes on forever and ever, piling on so many clues and clever plot twists that you completely lose track of what the hell is going on and don’t care anymore – you just want it to end.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Nov 27 2024 5:32 utc | 615

Also Latest updates from Simplicius
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/wonder-weapon-mania-dies-down-revealing

Posted by: golddigger | Nov 27 2024 6:45 utc | 617

Also Latest updates from Simplicius
Posted by: golddigger | Nov 27 2024 6:45 utc | 618
His entire article is based on Budanov’s words and using Ukro provided photos, equals them to Putin’s words. People are still falling for this cheap propaganda trick?
But what has happened to his hypersonic denial? He used to write a lot about their impossibility to exist. He said they “would turn into ashes from atmospheric friction”, they’re not really hypersonic, maybe only in space a bit. Or like icbm warhead at the end, there’s no big deal, US already has that

Posted by: rk | Nov 27 2024 7:10 utc | 619

@PavewayIV | Nov 27 2024 3:47 utc | 606

What if last Friday’s Oreshnik strike wasn’t actually aimed at deterring anyone but was instead a disarming attack that destroyed the latest – and possibly last – shipment of Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles in a hardened warehouse underneath Yuzhmash?

The Oreshnik attack probably had dual or triple objectives. Disarming does not exclude deterring. The idea that ‘something’ was hidden underground has been mentioned before, it is very likely it was targeted.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 27 2024 7:25 utc | 621

https://t.me/rusich_army/18817

Dozens of Storm Shadow cruise missiles secretly delivered to Ukraine by Great Britain – for the first time during Keir Starmer’s premiership
By the way, the British transferred a new batch of cruise missiles for the first time under Keir Starmer’s Labour government. This was reported by Bloomberg, noting that all this was done secretly.
But we would like to add that all deliveries of long-range missiles are carried out secretly. They are loaded onto railway trains and transported directly to the Starokonstantinov airfield, and from there the missiles are distributed to other facilities in case of a strike.
When the media talk about this, it means that it was allowed to show the whole world support for Ukraine. And this is being done some time after the missiles were transferred to Ukrainian nationalists.
The recent strikes on the Kursk region and the attempted strike on the Rostov region were most likely carried out by the French SCALP, since they were delivered earlier. And the next attacks, which will certainly happen, will be carried out by the British Storm Shadows.

There was also an attack on Sevastopol again this morning, neptun missiles were used again and supposedly some storm shadows too.

Posted by: 5thcolumn | Nov 27 2024 7:55 utc | 623

Yuzmash strike would of course make full sense if the facility was used in order to stock pile StormShadows and French and US équivalent missiles.
Russia did the same in 2023, in Western Ukraine, for British depleted uranium ammunition for Challenger tanks, which was stocked deep in the earth. It already used hypersonic missiles.
What remains strange is to locate Storm Shadows, which need to be launched from an aircraft, in Dnipro, relatively close to the front, and not the best place to load them on airplanes.
( US missiles can be launched through Himars systems)

Posted by: Dany | Nov 27 2024 8:59 utc | 625

Posted by: guest from franconia | Nov 27 2024 7:43 utc | 623
There was a link posted earlier that suggests there has been a Russian response. NATO officers eliminated and missiles destroyed. Not sure how reliable it is but if true it is not “nothing”

Posted by: watcher | Nov 27 2024 9:24 utc | 627

Posted by: Salmon | Nov 27 2024 10:01 utc | 629
There is no social consensus, it’s governments consensus.

Posted by: Mario | Nov 27 2024 10:06 utc | 629

The Ukrainian case is more extreme but not qualitatively different from what the Soviets did to kill Americans in SE Asia.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Nov 27 2024 7:03 utc | 619
I don’t recall the either the Koreans or Vietnamese launching missiles into the USA? I don’t recall the Russians arming the Viet Cong and occupying a few farms and villages in Texas then firing SCUDS at Lackland AFB in San Antonio. That would have made the news wouldn’t it?
it’s easy to be heroic and self righteous when your always an ocean away from the death and destruction you’re creating.

Posted by: HB_Norica | Nov 27 2024 11:22 utc | 631

taken from Armée de terre française
The breakdown of personnel in 2023 is as follows: 14,566 officers, 38,270 non-commissioned officers, 58,637 soldiers and 379 volunteers, plus 24,919 reservists.
Come on, let’s be reasonable… Nord Stream repairs are on me, let’s shake hands.

Posted by: fabrice | Nov 27 2024 11:54 utc | 633

“This is the week of truth for Putin. If there is no appropriate response to the recent missile attacks on Russian territory, then he has a problem.”
This is purely my speculation, but observing everything that is happening, the sudden visits to Turkey by Russian diplomats and Cyprus’s unexpected application to NATO, I think the Russians might be considering targeting the UK base in Cyprus as retaliation for the Storm Shadow missiles.

Posted by: John Archer | Nov 27 2024 12:59 utc | 635

The Russian stock market is crashing too. Russia’s largest property developers are in serious problems and the prospect of a rising interest rate is tanking the real estate market. The future oil price is very uncertain as demand is low and Trump has made a pledge to let the oil flow again.
Will it effect Russia’s ability to wage war? Short term, probably not.
Long term, the war doesn’t matter as Russia is spiraling towards a bad place reminiscent of the 90’s. The war ending will not affect that at all.

Posted by: Prins Hamlet | Nov 27 2024 12:59 utc | 637

You should listen to what the Russian central bank is saying now for months
Depletion of the sovereign fund by 2025
Loans from friendly countries will be difficult for Russia due to sanctions
Shortage of civil labor especially in the agricultural fields, topped by the cancelation of imports contracts by countries like Türkiye, Iran and so on
Stagflation
Bankruptcy of civil companies due to the inability to take loan or repay them
…. Just go on the official statements by the Russian central bank and see for yourself

Posted by: Dependent Pickle | Nov 27 2024 13:36 utc | 639

The russian economy is not only doing fine, it will outpace most of western economies including the US in the years ahead…Thank you sanctions!

Posted by: Larsbo | Nov 27 2024 13:54 utc | 641

like a broken record. since 2014.

Posted by: Justpassinby | Nov 27 2024 14:31 utc | 643

Posted by: Bigboytorsten | Nov 27 2024 14:10 utc | 643
More Bollocks

Posted by: PalmaSailor | Nov 27 2024 14:33 utc | 645

Pro-Russ are inhaling the highest levels of copium I have ever seen on this website and I’m loving it 😂🤣 Putin has crippled Russia, the west has already won.

Posted by: NK in Code | Nov 27 2024 16:08 utc | 647

NK in code
“Putin has crippled Russia”
Spectacular self-delusion.
https://youtu.be/sIyz6HRgiR8?si=9-5IsvwqeBmXC55i
Russia’s economy is out growing the entire collective farm waste. In what sense can Russia’s economy y overtaking those of both Germany and Japan represent t being “crippled”?
Huge rise in investment in Russia’s economy as well as (non hydrocarbon) exports.
https://youtu.be/Wjvw6vSW9sM?si=oGSXWm9xfUeQv6mH
Boom in Russia’s agriculture sector as China cancels grain orders from USA and meat and livestock from EU, both replaced by Russia.
https://youtu.be/B_VXIiUfu0g?si=-E78dUMISQTUPfdz
https://youtu.be/07N5d6fXU2o?si=A7V3nJl0XANdvvLP
Turns out wastern companies previously in Russia were parasites sucking money out, with them gone business and investment are surging. Russia can make hamburgers and coffee without the waste’s help.
Russia’s own resurgent aviation sector is replacing Boeing’s and Airbuses with their own production.
https://youtu.be/zcE8wnZDt74?si=IzFdYTIMNf4Acxr9
Hot tip: with the west’s economy on such a roll, time to go long in VW, GM, Nissan. Never a better time.
Boeing a hot tip too.

Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Nov 27 2024 19:32 utc | 649

The. White. House.

White House pressing Ukraine to draft 18-year-olds so they have enough troops to battle Russia
Updated 8:20 PM GMT+1, November 27, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of troops as young as 18.
A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private consultations, said Wednesday that the outgoing Democratic administration wants Ukraine to lower the mobilization age to 18 from the current age of 25 to help expand the pool of fighting-age men available to help a badly outnumbered Ukraine in its nearly three-year-old war with Russia.
continues ==> https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-war-biden-draft-08e3bad195585b7c3d9662819cc5618f

Posted by: too scents | Nov 27 2024 21:34 utc | 651

Santiago 654
War is the extinction of humanity and of the rule of law.
War is this the teleology, the inevitable destination of militaristic totalitarianism regimes such as the USA-west and its antecessor Nazi Germany. Into which they are sucked as into a black hole. Circling in an accretion disc before falling in.
War is where smaller countries think they can defeat bigger countries based on racial superiority and then find that they are wrong.
War is like the start of a summer day, where at dawn there is a dense fog which by mid morning is burned away by the sun. The fog is fascistic propaganda that bombards its serfdom with opposite-of-reality and justifies the waging of war based on moral and racial supremacy and the inferiority of the enemy. The war itself dispels the fog showing it to be completely false.
War is where the west is heading like a herd of mythical lemmings charging toward a cliff. It will lose and it will disappear.

Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Nov 27 2024 23:11 utc | 653

Dr Norman Bethune: ‘Wounds’
https://noosphere.princeton.edu/bethune.html

Posted by: John Gilberts | Nov 27 2024 23:41 utc | 655

@Posted by: Canadian | Nov 28 2024 0:22 utc | 659
Better for Russia to just keep changing the facts on the ground, especially with the Ukrainian military close to breaking and a Europe (and Ukraine) about to go through a very unpleasant winter. Trump can try to aid Ukraine more, but the manpower and the Western weapons are just not there after nearly three years of the West emptying their warehouses and even some of their more immediate stocks. The more time this goes on the greater negative impact to Europe, and the greater possibility of strife within Europe. The US can also not afford the time and effort given its need to focus on the Middle East and China.
The West is incapable of reliable agreement, better to go to the Dniepr and take the. region around Odessa. Leaving a rump state with few real resources, with a border much farther away from Moscow. That should be the minimum target of Russia. The defeat of the West will also gretly damage its position internationally and serve as a warning for Taiwan.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Nov 28 2024 1:09 utc | 657

@ Canadian, §659:
Putin won´t agree to any condition that allows NATO to waltz into the Ukraine.
He´s more likely to make dissolution of NATO a condition of the Ukraine continuing to exist.
At most Chornarus (aka ´rump Ukraine´) will be the six oblasts in and around Kiev, and bound to Russia like Belarus.
Poland might get Galicia/Volyn and Rumania might get Bessarabia (Chernovtsy + Bujak) but only if they leave NATO and hand over their Aegis Ashores.

Posted by: John Marks | Nov 28 2024 10:32 utc | 659

Outright prediction from Larry: Russia to strike quite soon:

Last night east coast USA time, Russia issued the NOTAM (see image at the top of this post) covering the area in Russia where the Oreshnik was launched last Thursday. This indicates Russia is preparing something similar… Sometime between now (Wednesday night on the east coast of the USA) and Saturday, the 30th, Russia is going to strike one or more military targets with the Oreshnik missile, or something comparable, that will be more dramatic and damaging than its attack last Thursday in Dnipropetrovsk.

https://sonar21.com/us-uk-and-france-double-down-on-fafo-russia-preps-response/
Vladimir Vladimirovich gestures toward Kiev, incidentally revealing a few more technical details:

“[Oreshnik has] dozens of homing warheads that attack their targets at Mach-10 speed… Their temperature reaches 4,000 degrees,” the president added. “Anything located in the strike center is obliterated into elemental particles, reduced to dust.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/608338-putin-oreshnik-missile-nuclear/
Aleph’s interpretation: (1) not Russian bluffing; (2) not Poland, Kiev.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Nov 28 2024 11:31 utc | 661

@ malenkov | Nov 28 2024 14:55 utc | 666
Nick-theft at night: It’s 14:26 utc, do you know where your handle is?
(Dammit, malenkov, I was hoping to snag comment 666, myself. You devil.)
Technically, this is the open Ukraine thread at the moment, with the second visitation of Oreshnik due, probably in Kiev, probably in a day or two at most. At the least, that is. It’s quite possible that, after figuring out how to guide 4000 degree hypersonic “homing” munitions, Russian engineers had more ideas which are ready for a field-test now. Stay tuned.
I remember learning from a veteran, back when I was a cub software engineer, the most polished, professional response to whether you’ll meet the next deadline: “We’ll know more in a couple of days.” Never has that stock phrase been more true.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Nov 28 2024 15:55 utc | 663

Ukraine has increased the volume of power outages: information from Ukrenergo
Today, on November 28, Ukrenergo urgently updated its power outage schedules. Shutdown volumes significantly increased due to the morning massive missile and drone attack of the Russians
This is reported by RegioNews with reference to Ukrenergo .
In particular, until the end of the day , four queues of household consumers will be used simultaneously.
The company notes that such measures are caused by damage to power facilities during a massive enemy attack.
The application time and scope of restrictions may change during the day. Schedules of outages for a specific address can be found on the official resources of distribution system operators.

https://regionews.ua/ukr/news/economics/1732804669-v-ukrayini-zbilshili-obsyagi-vidklyuchen-elektroenergiyi-informatsiya-vid-ukrenergo (via translation add-on.)

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 28 2024 20:11 utc | 665

@ malenkov | Nov 28 2024 17:51 utc | 666
The Ukraine or Palestine threads shouldn’t get diverted into the philosophical nonsense treated in the Open thread (at least not until 500 posts or so), but at this point I’ll share my rumination that sixness is quite rich, numerologically. Sum of its prime factors, just for starters. John, the magic mushroom connoisseur who wrote the Book of Revelations, isn’t the only one interested in sixness. Witness the bundled-pencils design of Oreshnik.
I believe the handbasket in which we hurl hellward is woven from swirling sixes.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Nov 28 2024 20:42 utc | 667

@Canadian | Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:22:00 GMT | 658

There was a reason Japan got demilitarized. We got 60 years of peace out of it before they changed their constitution to now start arming up against China.

Japan hasn’t changed their constitution. Not yet anyway. And with the LDP losing their majority it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Posted by: James M. | Nov 29 2024 9:55 utc | 669