Russian lawmakers authorize Putin to use military force outside the country, Part II

[robkelk]

The Register: Ukraine busts bot farm spreading Russian infowar propaganda and fraud

Insiders in Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, and Lviv were involved in the bot farm, we're told. Law enforcement are pursuing charges of interference with electronic communications, unauthorized sale of information stored on computers, and knowingly spreading false notifications about safety threats. Investigations remain ongoing.

[robkelk]

Reuters: Russia raises maximum age for military conscription to 30

The law also bans men from leaving Russia from the day they are summoned to a conscription office. In April, legislation was passed allowing conscription summonses to be served online instead of in person.

Can't imagine why they need to do that...

[Norgarth]

I heard that Russia has also raised the age limits for recalling Reserves/retired soldiers

How high the max age is now increases with rank. troopers up to age 50 IIRC, high level officers (colonels and generals) up to age 70

[robkelk]

In the "hearts and minds" column, BBC reports that Ukraine has moved Christmas Day in a snub to Russia.

One might call this move... unorthodox.

Also seen in the same story, Motherland Monument is getting its arms replaced. No, not the person's arms, the heraldic arms on the shield that it carries.

[Labster]

In the "hearts and minds" column, BBC reports that Ukraine has moved Christmas Day in a snub to Russia.

One might call this move... unorthodox.

Also seen in the same story, Motherland Monument is getting its arms replaced. No, not the person's arms, the heraldic arms on the shield that it carries.

Nice pun, but most of the autocephalous Orthodox churches have also moved to the Revised Julian calendar -- and honestly so should everyone else because it's slightly better.

The Motherland Monument faces towards Moscow, so it presents an entirely different message with the tryzub on the shield, doesn't it?  Russia could decide to bomb it... which would be great, because it's one less bomb killing civilians or even soldiers.

Day 522 out of 3 of the special operation: African edition:

-- Iraqi protesters light Swedish embassy on fire.  How it pertains to this thread: Russia invades Ukraine -> Nordics decide to join NATO -> Erdogan wants to win reelection -> blocks Swedish entry into NATO because some Dane burned a Koran -> Other countries now know about this Koran burning and start getting upset.
-- Niger has a military coup.  This one is more directly connected, since the supporters of the coup were waving Russian flags in the street (and burning French flags).
-- It's looking like there's been something of a detente with Wagner PMC, where Prigozhin is allowed to run all of the deniable ops in Africa.  Prighozhin himself was at a summit for Russia/Africa relations in St. Petersburg.
-- Wagners also setting up camp in Belarus near the Polish border.  Poles continue to have finger over Article Five button.
-- BRICS summit in South Africa suffers complication, because as a signatory to the International Criminal Court, they would have to arrest Putin if he attended.  SA asked for an exemption, the court said "lol nope", and Putin took the hint and announced that he wasn't going to the summit.
-- As usual, Africans are most at risk with the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal.
-- African peace plan in Ukraine starts with a cease-fire, which is a non-starter for both sides.
-- The recent bombings in Odesa hit grain bound for China, and a Chinese consulate, along with a bunch of civilians.  British Military Intelligence notes that " [Russia] is attempting to strike targets in Odesa because it believes Ukraine is storing military assets in these areas. Since the start of the war, Russia's strike campaign has been characterized by poor intelligence and a dysfunctional targeting process."
-- Transfiguration Cathedral of Odesa (Russian Orthodox) bombed by Russians.  It was destroyed by Russian communists and rebuilt before.
-- Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan asks if she can skip the handshake at the end of the match, the official say sure.  Then she wins the match, and only offers her a sword tap as a sign of respect.  The Russian opponent stands on the piste pouting for a solid 45 minutes until the Ukrainian is disqualified.
-- IOC offers her a qualification at the Olympics despite any points lost.  Such nice IOC people; I'm sure they will offer all Russians qualifications too based on this example.
-- In actual war going on, Ukraine bombs a big vehicle depot in Crimea, which was supposed to be safe.  Ukraine can't bomb here, maybe it was an Ivan smoking?
-- Ukrainian drones hit office towers in Moscow.
-- According to Russia, due to air defense the drones missed their target of terrorizing the residential area, and instead were forced to crash into a building housing Russian ministry offices at 3 in the morning.
-- What air defense doing?
-- Moldova to limit Russian embassy staff to 25, down from the current 80+.
-- Russia raises conscription age to 30 (but it doesn't apply to you if you live in Moscow of course)
-- ZNPP Unit 4 moved from cold shutdown to hot shutdown mode
-- In the war itself, it's looking like Ukrainian hopes for an easy rout of Russian positions like last year did not happen, and caused the early offensive to stall.  More experience troops are leading now, instead of saving them for the breakthrough.
-- Russia is making gains on the Luhansk front, but not much.  Ukraine is holding on the Donetsk (Bahkmut) front, and making larger gains on the southern Zaporizhzhia front.
-- Everything is mined.  Mines are mined -- in particular protecting anti-tank mines with anti-personnel mines.  Russians dug trenches just to mine them, to lure Ukrainian advances into taking booby-trapped positions. This is most of the slowness in advancing.

[Dartz]

Busy day today.

A Russian pilot defected to Ukraine with his Mi-8. The two aircrew with him were eliminated before they figured it out. Whether it be buy a pilot who didn't like the idea of splitting 500k three ways, or what, we don't know. Either way, it's a bit of a Clancy moment.

In another Clancy moment, Yevgeny Prighozin got yeeted out of the 40,000ft window when his private jet was shot down by Russian air defences. The last thing to go through his head - besides the fucking ground - was probably that old adage. When you take a shot at the king - don't fucking miss. The Pantsir sure didn't

In a Third Clancy moment of the day, America has advised its citizens to GTFO of Belarus. And if they don't GTFO, then not to expect any help from the American government getting the fuck out. America has also sold Poland 96 Apache helicopters.

Finally, a Russian soldier was video'd by a drone drinking from his own personal fountain.

[aku]

In another Clancy moment, Yevgeny Prighozin got yeeted out of the 40,000ft window when his private jet was shot down by Russian air defences. The last thing to go through his head - besides the fucking ground - was probably that old adage. When you take a shot at the king - don't fucking miss.  The Pantsir sure didn't.

BBC on this

[robkelk]

In a Third Clancy moment of the day, America has advised its citizens to GTFO of Belarus. And if they don't GTFO, then not to expect any help from the American government getting the fuck out.

Meh - Canada's been saying that since the middle of June, and has relocated the entire embassy to Warsaw.

[Labster]

It's been a banner day altogether. Ukrainians raised a flag over Robotyne, famous as the home of Castle Heterodyne, on their way to Melitopol. There are some reports that Hill 166 has been captured by Ukraine as well.

General Sergei Surovikin was removed as head of the Russian aerospace force. "General Armageddon" was presumably replaced due to his closeness with Prigozhin, who has apparently ceased to be.

But is Prigozhin dead, or did he fake his own death? He seemed so bright and full of life on his video yesterday about how Wagner was going to help overthrow all of those governments in Africa. What will coup plotters do now?

Moscow skyscrapers still getting attacked by drones in the middle of the night.

Oh, and since no one mentioned it yet: Russian spaceship fucked itself.

[hazard]

Looks like a good chunk of Wagner's higher ups were on that plane, and supposedly Prigozhin was going to one of Putin's mansions outside Moscow for a talk with Putin. Said mansion has its own air defenses.

[Dartz]

It's also still not impossible for this to be a hilarious fuckup. Russian air defences have a history with civil aircraft and there have been a lot of drone attacks lately - putting them on edge

Being able to pick Prighozin's jet out from the rest of the civilian traffic flying overhead would take some level of competence on the part of the trigger man on the missile battery.

[hazard]

Even if it is a fuck up, it wouldn't matter. Unless the evidence is rock solid, nobody would believe it.

Putin has a history with people he finds troublesome dying suspicious deaths.

[Labster]

I have found myself thinking about what happened with the Catalan Company, when the Byzantines started to fear them.  The son of the Emperor of the Romans, Michael IX Palaiologos, ordered that the leadership of the mercenary company all be invited to a banquet in Adrianople to be killed.  They were killed, and the garrison in Constantinople was attacked.  Then the main garrison at Kallipoli (modern Galipoli/Gelibolu) went on its own rampage, killing and looting Greeks at the betrayal.  A lot of battles happened, and with eight years had conquered for themselves the Duchy of Athens, as well as Thebes and Thessaly.  The Catalonian mercenaries would remain in control for the next eighty years, until they were defeated by the Navarrese Company, whose turn it was to basque in glory.

There was also that time when the condottieri (mercenaries) decided that Cesare Borgia was too cruel, and decided to rebel against him.  Borgia waited for the coalition of mercenaries to fall apart, then acted conciliatory.  And then had them captured, imprisoned, and strangled.

Russia is a medieval country with medieval problems.  By taking out the leadership of the Wagner company, he solved one problem only to create another: a lot of angry Wagners who do not want to fight for the Russian state are now considering fighting against the Russian state.  They might be considering that fighting against the state is the only way to survive.

I suspect the situation is more analogous to the Byzantines, because of the byzantine nature of the Russian military, where all orders must come from the top.  Wagner PMC was the single most effective military force Russia had.  Their offensive in Bakhmut while stupid and costly was the only major victory that Russia has had in over a year.  A force of mercenaries was more effective than the entire world's #2 army.  They nearly overthrew the government, had they not stupidly stopped.  In any case, war... war never changes.

Meanwhile in the actual war, it's looking like there has been a major breakthrough near Robotyne.  Mines make a great defense, but once you get through the minefield, you spread out your army behind the lines.  And they can't make more lines, since the Azov Sea lies behind.  We hope for a rout where Melitopol gets recaptured, but they don't actually need any city -- just a reasonably defensible place where you can have fire control on the GLOC (supply line).  Russia only controls one road going into Crimea on the Ukrainian side, and of course the Kerch Bridge.  Once you can reasonably prevent anything from passing those two roads, Crimea is encircled.  Unless the mighty Russian Navy comes and, oh, whoops, Russian warship fucked itself.

They have 6-8 weeks before Mud Season sets in again, and mines made it a hard operation, but it's been a reasonably successful one.  Which is another point I should bring up: I feel like the Mainstream Media has done a terrible job reporting over the past few months.  They're looking for soundbite narratives about how things are shifting, when events just aren't moving that fast.  Ukraine is not losing.  Russia is not winning.  This has been true since April 2020 and is still true today.  This offensive started with a bit too much enthusiasm, a few too many tanks got wrecked in the process of learning that Russian mine defenses were more effective than last time.  Ukraine shifted tactics and still has the momentum.  Russia has a thousand kilometers of other fronts to advance on, and hasn't made any progress at all, while Ukraine is slowly gaining, at the cost of too many heroes.

This is kind of a boring narrative, not suitable for The Washington Post and The New York Times.  So they publish other ideas.  Sources used to publishing military stories are much better (The War Zone, ISW) as well as various Ukrainians outlets (e.g. Ukrainska Pravda).

[Dartz]

American army has made people think war is more like 'Show up, annihilate formal army, get chewed up by nibbling insurgents for long enough that both father and newborn son die in the same conflict, call it 'Mission successful' and fuck off and watch the balloon you've kept inflated with blood and materiel whither and die in moment through the gaping hole yourevacuation has left.

Everyone expected that when Russia tried to roll over Ukraine.

Nobody really knows what true peer-level industrialised war looks like because the modern world order was so damned succesful in keeping Europe from going fucky on itself and it was generally Europeans that started that shit. Two industrialised nations kicking the shit out of each other hasn't happened in a long fucking time.

And grinding through industrialised defences takes a long time and a lot of bodies. Russia's on the defence so even if all the mobik does is absorb a bullet that would've killed a more experienced trooper, he's achieved some value. He is a meat speedbump. Ukraine's successes last year where the Russian army just sort of imploded like a cheap submersible gave everyone false expectations for a sledgehammer victory when the Modern Western Wundewaffles showed up....

Generally, the true effectiveness of Western vehicles hasn't been in their ability to kill --- but in their ability to keep the crew alive when hit so they and their training can be recovered, along with the added experience from getting knocked out. While a Russian tanker's training gets tossed with the turret when the ammorack detonates. The crews love them because they can clamber out, dust themselves off, change their cacks and then tell the other crews what they did wrong and could do better next time. They're better on soft factors like maintenance, repairability, comfort, ease of use and crew surviveability.

It's telling that there're very few Leopards showing up in captivity. I'd expect Russia to be parading a wreck or two if they got them - but they haven't. Which is telling. Tanks are being wrecked in positions Russia is not able to recover them from, but Ukraine is. Recovered tanks can be repaired/stripped for bits and sent back out to the fight.

But real, industrial war is bloody and slow. This is World War 1 level shit.

---

As for Wagner, Russia seems determined to vapourise them and their memory to prevent anything from happening in the aftermate. Their cemetaries are being plouged through and paved over.

They paved wagnerites
And put up a parking lot

Thats just sad.

[Labster]

When I said that Russia was a medieval country, I didn't mean it wasn't industrialized.  It's definitely industrialized to some level.  Let's call it Second World, as we traditionally called the communist powers.  This war shows once again what happens if the machinery to kill men is activated for years.

But it is medieval in its politics, with the rampant corruption and the oaths of loyalty.  Honestly I feel like killing Prigozhin was the wrong thing to do, politically.  A medieval king would have just accepted the renewed fealty of his wayward count, and sent him back to his post.  Nothing actually happened, some people showed some strength, Putin lost a tiny bit of legitimacy that could have been regained. Instead, he fucked around and found out what air defense doing.

This is definitely on brand for Putin, who likes serving revenge cold.  But the whole l'état c'est moi routine isn't really a good model for post-Soviet Russia.  Instead of an absolutist Politboro, we have rich oligarchs with lots of influence, both locally and internationally.  (Did you know that Lord Lebedev originally wanted to be called Lord Moscow after his birthplace, and the college of heraldry only rejected that because Russia wouldn't agree to it.  lol)  This feels substantially more feudalist to me.  Particularly in the institutional of vassalage, and definitely with respect to Putin's most important vassal, Lukashenko.

I'm left with the impression that Putin does not know what the actual fuck he is doing, and is digging a deeper hole.  If you keep making armed people hate you something will eventually go wrong.  Honestly he should make a deal to live the rest of his life in a villa on Saint Helena, because this is not a war he can win.  Russia will certainly lose.  No one really wins industrialized war, but you can definitely lose.

As for Wagner, Russia seems determined to vapourise them and their memory to prevent anything from happening in the aftermate. Their cemetaries are being plouged through and paved over.

They paved wagnerites
And put up a parking lot

Thats just sad.

You know, this is to the point where I'm not even surprised any more.  Russia always seem to be able to pick an option that's worse than anything I thought of.  Ammo in wooden boxes, mobik's cubes, paving over soldier's graveyards.  What happened to them in life is an even worse betrayal than what happened to their corpses after death.  But it's so stupid.  So stupid and sad.  Authoritarians praise death for the homeland, because you can project whatever values you want onto the dead.  Except Russia, which is like "bodies?  what bodies?  we don't know what happened to him, so no Lada for you."  Fucking orcs.

Also: apparently Ukrainians are grinding open the cluster bombs that America sent over, and putting the individual bomblets onto drones.  I mean, uh, Russians don't have a monopoly on doing stupid things.

[hazard]

Putin's running Russia as a feudal power, sure, but he's running it as a Muscovite style feudal power, and offing the boyar who rose up in rebellion is what you do in such circumstances. A tsar cannot accept letting such a thing go, it's a threat to their legitimacy.

Frankly, I'm surprised it happened this fast, but Prigozhin's days were numbered the day he went on his trip to Moscow. There was absolutely no fucking way he'd survive doing it.


Also, putting the bomblets on drones was always part of the (public) plan for the cluster bombs send to Ukraine. It's not the first time the drones are being used as delivery vehicles for explosives.

[Dartz]

I think I might've lost what I was trying to say

People are used to expecting quick military victories with fancy western tech and are surprised when they doesn't happen. But it's not happening because the one other factor that enables fancy western tech to operate with impunity is missing --- the absolute and total domination of the airspace above the battlefield

So you've got two European industrialised countries kicking each others teeth in the old-fasioned white-people way and it takes a lot of time to do that. People are too used to quick victories with modern western stuff that they don't expect a hard slog through

The wunderwaffe have to actually move up and engage into strong resistance in contested airspace where everyone has access, and drones add a new dimension. Now it's the secondary characteristics of crew surviveability, vehicle repairability and salvageability that are becoming the useful things. The most popular thing about Western vehicles isn't their overall effectiveness, it's the tendancy for the contents to survive while the vehicle is killed.

Anyway - there're noises of a Ukrainian breakthrough being made through the orbit of the Russian army's eyeball - and now they can rampage their military leukotome through the soft brain matter beneath. The really hard defences might have cracked.

----

Wouldn't call Russia Medieval anyway. Even the middle ages had standards of conduct for Soldiers in the Field. Ask Peter Von Hagenbach about it. It's not even a mafia state. Because the Mafia have standards of conduct - a basic reciprocity of loyalties and rewards. A basic honour for the dead.

In Russiam all culture is dead. Only existance remains.

I wrote this as a joke a while back, but it now seems nightmarishly true.

It is the 21st century.

For more than Two Decades Vladimir Putin has ruled immoveable from his Golden throne. He is master of Russia by the apathy of millions and the master of a millions by the blight of propeganda. He is a rotting carcass writhing with cancer, sustained by the powers of chemotherapy and kleptomania. He is the ruler of a carrion-state for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed daily so that it may never truly die. To be a Russian in such times is to be one amongst declining millions. It is to live in the corruptest and most criminal regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of democracy and truth, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of peace and prosperity, for in the grim darkness of the near future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the nations, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of a thirsting military industrial complex

[classicdrogn]

Also: apparently Ukrainians are grinding open the cluster bombs that America sent over, and putting the individual bomblets onto drones.  I mean, uh, Russians don't have a monopoly on doing stupid things.

Is that actually stupid, though? A bit hair-raising for the poor schmucks doing the job, I'm sure, but it lets them put each payload directly on a target instead of scattering them across a field or town or wherever, to address the unexploded ordnance concerns several EU members were raising and get the most effective bang for the buck in the most literal possible sense.

[Labster]

Also: apparently Ukrainians are grinding open the cluster bombs that America sent over, and putting the individual bomblets onto drones.  I mean, uh, Russians don't have a monopoly on doing stupid things.

Is that actually stupid, though? A bit hair-raising for the poor schmucks doing the job, I'm sure, but it lets them put each payload directly on a target instead of scattering them across a field or town or wherever, to address the unexploded ordnance concerns several EU members were raising and get the most effective bang for the buck in the most literal possible sense.

Well, other than the fact they have to arm the bomblet in the process of removing it, then stick a plastic tab in to temporarily disarm it, no, no, everything is fine.  There is a benefit to using the right tool for the job, but of course in a war sometimes you'd rather make the enemy dead faster.

-- Putin has decreed that all Wagners sign an oath of loyalty to the Russian state, and an oath to obey all orders of their commanders.  I don't know how you get more medieval than the oath of fealty to your king and lords, but there it is.
-- Two Ukrainian training fighter jets crashed into each other, three pilots killed
-- Estonian PM's husband has some investments that are making money in Russia.  Vatnik troll farms are very upset about her and want her replaced immediately.
-- A video of Russian tanks.  It starts like an episode of GnP, then Ukrainian artillery starts bombarding their path, so they swerve out into the field -- the Russian minefield.  Extra points for the tank blown up by a mine with a round in the barrel, which shoots and kills the friendly tank in front of it.
-- There is every reason to believe that Russia will negotiate peace with Ukraine the same way Putin negotiated peace with Prigozhin: make deal then renege spectacularly.
-- A firsthand account of why progress has been hard for Ukraine, translated to English.  Worth reading for the specific tactics, but TL;DR defense is easier than offense.
-- Tokmak is close, so close, but not undefended.

People are used to expecting quick military victories with fancy western tech and are surprised when they doesn't happen. But it's not happening because the one other factor that enables fancy western tech to operate with impunity is missing --- the absolute and total domination of the airspace above the battlefield

It's also not happening because we're not sending Western tech fast enough. More armor, more ammo, more planes are all needed badly.

Wouldn't call Russia Medieval anyway. Even the middle ages had standards of conduct for Soldiers in the Field. Ask Peter Von Hagenbach about it. It's not even a mafia state. Because the Mafia have standards of conduct - a basic reciprocity of loyalties and rewards. A basic honour for the dead.

In Russiam all culture is dead. Only existance remains.

Agree.  And wasn't my original point that Russia is reimplementing feudalism poorly?

I honestly think of feudalism as an advanced form of mafia: you pay your taxes, and you get "protection".  Except that some of the protection is actually real protection.  And then the capo/king gets a cut of all of the local gangs/lords.

[Labster]

I ended up arguing with a Putinbot on Hacker News today.  Apparently in their world the US State Department had a big conspiracy to start this war to protect corrupt Ukrainians, and everyone who disagrees with them is, um, engaging in "anti-intellectualism".  Which is kind of funny because he seems to have a lizard brain.  Poor Putin, he had no choice but to invade because America made him, and he is so weak he couldn't choose not to do it. :'(

Back in reality:

-- Ukraine destroys two Il-76 transport aircraft, damages two more at the Pskov airfield.  The anti-air fire starts a few seconds after all of the explosions, lol  All planes appear to have been hit in the fuel tank.
-- Pskov is *really far* from Ukraine, on the far side of Belarus right next to Estonia.
-- Medvedev threatens nuclear war, quotes Revelation on Telegram of all places.  Obvious conclusion: War must be going badly for Russia.
-- Russian defensive lines are pretty good, they are learning.  But put a mobik in the line of fire, and they act like morons. 
-- Mobiks ignore the fact that a bunch of dead Russian are lying around, and walk into an ambush.  Video mildly disturbing; the drone footage is really high quality.  The last guy decides to run away through an open field, which definitely does not save his life.
-- It turns out that training makes an army more effective.
-- Russia arrests ultranationalist Igor Girkin, saving us the trouble, I guess.
-- Russia is taking air defense missile systems off of occupied Etorofu and Kunashiri islands, according to Kyodo News
-- A reminder that technically Russia and Japan have technically been at war since the 1940s, and that going to these islands is technically self-defense for Japan.
-- The counteroffensive is moving very fast, if you compare it to the Battle of Verdun.
-- Is Prigozhin still alive?  The internet wants to know!
-- China unveils a new national map, which predictably offended all of China's neighbors.  Notably for this thread, they also claimed all of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, which China had previously split with Russia in a 2008 treaty.  (My own noncredible take was that Taiwan hadn't ceded the territory, only PRC, so it still has a claim on Russian territory.)  Anyway BRICS group is building a multipolar world by being bipolar.
-- Ukrainians report 90000+ sexual assaults and rapes by Russian invaders, just in case you were still wondering which side was the baddies.

[Labster]

Kerch Bridge on fire
Your defense is terrified

Here, have some recycled Kerch Bridge memes:

A Cruel Bridge's Thesis - music video (the band playing the music is Japanese, it's just a Ukrainian band synced in the video)




Unrelated: an intelligence brief on the Su-75, brought to you by /r/NonCredibleDefense.

[robkelk]

The Register: Bombshell biography claim: Fearing nuclear war, Musk switched off Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

No tl;dr - read the article for the complete train wreck picture.

[Labster]

The Register: Bombshell biography claim: Fearing nuclear war, Musk switched off Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

No tl;dr - read the article for the complete train wreck picture.

It's not a trainwreck, it's a trolley problem.

The weird thing is that every community I follow has decided to attack Elon Musk all at once for different reasons.  /r/ukraine wants him charged with treason, Ukrainian government officers are saying he committed evil, the tech folks are upset about him apparently going full antisemite, the California government is upset he's suing to stop their anti-hate speech law, the FAA is still upset about that little oopsie where the Starship test exploded its launchpad, and /r/noncredibledefense is mad that the reason he shut down the network was to prevent 'the funni'.

One thing to note is that the Musk's biographer got access to communications with Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister about the war.  It's from last year so not that important, but still the kind of sensitive things that aren't usually leaked to the press during the conflict.

The situation at X continues to deteriorate (going down the Xhitter), which left "Pedo Guy" Guy seeking scapegoats.  So why not Jews, right?  He said that the Anti-Defamation League is mostly responsible for the loss in advertising at Twitter.  He said that he made a deal with them to stop their attacks, and that in exchange he would get around to restoring Twitter's trust and safety committee.  And then they complained about him publicly again the next week, like backstabbers.  Yes, that's the logic of why advertisers are leaving, while they brag that 99% of ad impressions are with brand-safe content -- two nines!  I mean come on, Elon has a trust and safety committee of Me, Myself, and I up and running!

Speculation is wondering if this is classic narcissist behavior -- finding literally anyone else to blame for your own mistakes.  Or maybe it's all of the ketamine he admits to taking to 'open' his mind?  I mean, complaining that he didn't want to be in a war -- like, maybe don't go into the businesses of rockets, communications, and vehicles then?  That's the problem with wars, you get dragged in whether you want to be or not.

Oh, and I didn't mention, but his plan to make X a payment app is continuing, though they're being sued to stop it because of complicity with their major shareholder, the Saudi government.   Meanwhile in an effort to appear trustworthy for banking, X continues to not pay its bills.  Because they didn't want class action suits because those are expensive, X is now facing 2200 individual lawsuits from not paying severance fees.  I know this is all a little off-topic for this thread but there are serious national security concerns here -- they'd be much worse if Gwynne Shotwell were not the person actually running SpaceX -- but still bad enough that Taiwan is pulling out of a deal with Starlink because Elon wants 100% control, and will building their own satellite internet.  This is all one week of news coverage, can you imagine?

Moving back to Ukraine...

-- USA to send ATACMS at long last, just in time for a late summer Crimea Beach Party
---- "A surprising discovery could also ease the administration's choice to send the weapons: The U.S. has found it has more ATACMS in its inventory than originally assessed, the two officials told ABC News."
-- Ukraine to legalize pornography, as lawmakers note that there's nothing that leads to more corruption than a rarely-enforced law.  OnlyFans has become pretty important as a source of wartime income for women.
-- US sends $5.4 million seized from one Russian oligarch to Ukraine.  Maybe if other oligarchs don't want their shit taken, they can overthrow their leader?
-- Russia starts putting cope tires on top of their planes.  But can you count to four?  And maybe they think it will screw up the infrared signatures enemy missiles are looking for?  Either these are decoys, or Russians are praying that Western tech is as dumb as they are.
-- North Korea to start shipping more arms to Russia.  NonCredibleDefense: "If you think about it, Ukraine is already a proxy war between North and South Korea."
-- Russians destroy a Challenger 2 tank, the first one destroyed in any combat.  Everyone survived, of course.
-- US Congress writes a bill to create a Black Sea Fleet... if we can... maybe.  The US isn't a signatory of the Montreaux Convention so, uh... a guy can dream, alright!  Sheesh.
-- Ukraine has broken through the second defensive line in the South.  The rear lines seem to be worse than the front ones, which is the opposite of the way things worked in WWI.
-- Breakthrough of the third and final defensive line is on a clock; it needs to be done in the next month before mud season sets in.
-- Burning Man hosts pre-enactment of mobiks in mud season.
-- US is also sending depleted uranium ammunition for the Abrams it already sent.  Russian government moans about the devastation it will cause before launching more cluster bombs at civilians.
-- Of the 18 people who led the "independence" of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics (now annexed to Russia after a "vote"), 17 of them are dead, and the last, Igor Girkin, is on trial for criticizing the Russian Army.
-- Cuba says it dismantled a human trafficking ring recruiting for Russia's war in Ukraine.  Apparently they were treated like slave labor in digging trenches.  Russky Mir in action.
-- Ukrainian Intelligence:  Maybe Prighozhin is alive?  Maybe he isn't?
-- Romanian borderland gets attacked by Russian drones that got lost.  Everyone mostly ignores it, since nothing of value was lost.  Since grain trade has shifted to the Danube, Russian attacks have to get farther away and closer to NATO.

[Dartz]

I suspect the tyres are to trick thermal sights into thinking a 'dead' aircraft has been fuelled and heated throughout the day by adding thermal mass. So a wreck gets droned rather than an active jet.

[Dartz]

RTemember, Putin Lies.....

Putin praises Elon Musk as excellent businessman and really outstanding person.

One wonders if this is any relation to the tendancy for starlink too crap out when Ukraine is making drone attacks on Crimea.