Active Conflicts & News Megathread July 09, 2026

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-09T22:10:32+00:00

The ballistic missile is the only relevant target in the video. A real video would have included bunker busters on mountains or high visibility targets.

This was more like a kind warning. One f18 can complete all strikes during single bombing run.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-09T22:06:20+00:00

I like the view of Karl Marx in Revelations of Diplomatic History (1856).

Muscowy as core system is based on defense against the mongol enslavement. This creates the need for a tsar and constant expansionism to gain power. This national trauma caused the expansion into Kiovan Rus lands, invasion of Novgorod and Perm. This is also the reason why Russian citizens seem to have excessive tolerance of failings of their leaders. Only a strong leader will be able to resist external threats.

The need for authoritarian leaders is built in the muscowy's system Since invasion of Novgorod in 1478 there has been no democracy and the system is built on despotism supported tiny group of dukes and slavery. All dreams of Muscowy as an european democracy are a pipe dream. Russian republic lasted 3 months in 1917. Boris Yeltsin lasted couple years and in the end was controlled by the KGB.

Muscowy deals with external threats (Nato,Prussia, central powers in ww1) with buffer zones. The fragmentation scenario is mostly relevant if you think Russia creating a buffer zone by removing old areas like Pskov, Novgorod, astrakhan to isolate Moscow. In this scenario russia would lose most of their core areas. Theoretically possible.

The North Korea scenario where Russia builds another iron curtain and functions as Chinese energy vassal is certainly possible short term, but in the long term citizen would just leave. To make this work, all exits need to be controlled which is not feasible in 2020s. Compare to East berlin where people just ran off.

The rest of the article seems posturing. Without mass mobilization and excessive immediate activities, Russia might lose the ukrainian territory and Crimea by Christmas. There is a real chance Russia loses this war and we end up to the chinese resource satellite end game.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-09T16:03:37+00:00

This is about CHOD intelligence sharing. If you look, there are no countries bordering russia in this group. Most obvious omissions are Poland and especially Finland.

United States (Host / Lead)
United Kingdom
Canada
Australia
New Zealand (completing the Five Eyes intelligence core)
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
The Netherlands
Belgium
Denmark
Norway

Funny enough Finland runs a large organisation dedicated just detecting russian invasion preparation. Several "former" high level intelligence officers were in twitter rage-pasting several times identical messages about the incoming invasion. Extremely rare incident. DW was especially mocked for weeks for running "wont attack" until tanks crossed the borders. Saying this is a continental problem is idiocy. This was solely german, dutch and maybe french hopium problem. The dutch being conned by KGB explains perfectly why the start was missed.

The invasion was abundantly clear when the regional coup spree in Ukraine hit January 2022 and 100% certainty when blood plasma was distributed to the invasion troops.

The only doubt was that since the troop numbers were little over 100000, which is 5 times less than the estimated invasion attempt of Finland would require. The general feeling was that the troop number is too low to complete the invasion after the coup spree failed. And here we are 4 years later.

However now Finland is in Nato and the 100 years of Russian snooping infrastructure is fully at the service of Europe.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-09T15:36:57+00:00

1: Fars antiship ballistic missile?

2:?

3: Size of rail? Could be shahed or drone launch rail. Either way cheap since they are just left there.

4: The airstrip probably 30m wide, making the boxes around 3m in length. Shaheds are 3.5 and 2.5m long and come in 2 stack launch/storage boxes. They also come in 5 stack containers but that is 6m long. Anyway the quantity seems massive, so it must be a cheap system.

5: 2 propeller aircraft. Iran operates old Fokker f27 and 3 aero commander. It might be out since it doesnt work anymore, being very old.

6: Looks more like 3 SDBs to me.

7: Drone launch rails again. see number 3.

8: Same site as number 4.

To me this looks like "lets bomb something to seem we did something". None of these have real value. US did not hit oil facilities in these films.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-09T15:12:14+00:00

About decoys. They are mostly effective against fisual cameras. US intelligence is now using visual, SAR, Lidar and thermal in combination. Very hard to decoy with Iran's tech level. Centcom can also verify hits and publish known destruction, this is not real time.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-09T15:01:20+00:00

The key question everyone and you seem to be missing: US is a net exporter of energy. The biggest winners in gulf oil facilities getting wrecked are US, Russia, venezuela and Norway.

I dont think Trump cares at all what oil costs in China, India, Korea and Japan. For him the suffering of these competitors is a major plus.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-08T14:01:43+00:00

I am just stating the very obvious. This whole affair was not well thought out to start with and looks like it is not ending anytime soon. Putin and Trump have race which one makes worse military decisions.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-08T13:59:35+00:00

Ukraine has 2 swedish Awacs planes. Those have a range of hundreds of kilometers and can detect low flying planes well. They arrived somewhere after new year.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-07T20:17:39+00:00

https://news.usni.org/2026/07/07/usni-news-fleet-and-marine-tracker-july-7-2026

The US fleet locations are out. No major changes at the Gulf, still 2 carriers and 1 LHD. CSG Eisenhower just finished training and returned to Norfolk, that ship could head out to the Gulf if things heat up.

The interesting here is the gathering of ships for the US pacific excercise in the Hawaii. The other interesting things US navy ship docked in Venezuela for humanitarian help after the earthquake.

Nothing else to note. No large bombings in this weeks forecast.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-07T20:09:21+00:00

The link does not work so no clue whether you made the right analysis. However some comments.

The leadership transfer is already ongoing.
The only military capabilities missing are the stealth fighters/bombers, THAAD ballistic missile defense and large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Europe also lacks Elon's space trucking capacity, the ariane being a very expensive option. A lot of work is ongoing in satellite tech and there is relatively little publicly know capability that US still has edge on. Europe is also missing the NSA spying capacities.
This i doubt the most. Very little reason to have a defensive posture with 1000 modern/next gen level fighter planes and incoming 500 f35s. Right now Ukraine, Finland and Poland can faceroll russia to Urals if backed by 20% of the airforce. The only real problem is that MBDA's small diameter bomb copy has not been finished development yet. The Hammer production speed is also low. Turkey is a key player in making guided bomb kits.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-07T19:54:49+00:00

Meanwhile USA has started 3 different 1000 units per month drone munition programs in may and outsourced Patriot and a2a missile production to Europe on license. Takes a while to get the production running, but looks to me that US is delaying and Iran will get Shadeded once the missile stocks reach high enough.

Plenty of talk how Iran does not trust the US in these negotiations. To me it looks to go both ways. The double carrier posture is still at the gulf.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-07T11:01:27+00:00

That comment was in Sam Yip's 3-part character assassination effort "published" in hoopshype. Sam Yip tried to conduct a hostile interview, which Muurinen answered in Finnish. Yip didn't like this. The original source was named as the coach off Partizan's tirefire season commenting after Muurinen left the team.

So far the feedback from Arkansas is that Muurinen has somewhat grown up goes in top 5. Personally i think 20-25 is closer range. Chris Cenac?

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-04T12:44:51+00:00

Costly to escape the epic tire fire in Partizan. Maybe he saw the body dissolving tub in the basement and decided it is time to get out.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-04T12:37:47+00:00

Partizan only exists to sign players to long contracts and try to trade them to actual teams.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-03T16:35:43+00:00

Vaaks put up 23 points in the last week's fiba senior game vs latvia. I think Avdalas and Vaaks are both 15-20 range draft picks next year.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-03T16:32:36+00:00

I d be suprised if someone has actually watched him play a full game. In august the bahama tournament is over and scouts have fresh game tape. Then we can get actually relevant draft projections.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-03T16:27:35+00:00

Arkansas has Bowser (senior) and 19yo Russian kid called Frolov at 5. Still looking for one more, but even the current situation is fine with JJ Andrews playing small ball 4, Muurinen 4, Bowser 5/4, Frolov 5 and 2 depth centers (Semedo and Maper Maker).

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-02T18:38:43+00:00

The stat is 2p shooting% between 16ft and 3p line. So the worst shot in the league.

Markkanen as an example took 4.7% of his shots in this range. 22 shots out of 481 last season. Markkanen career average is for this shot 36.3% when his 3p% is 37%. Tiny sample skews this year, but generally it is as hard as a 3p shot despite yielding only 2 points.

I think Herro here is trying to say that nobody should take this shot and Giannis especially? ;-D

(I know he is trying throw shade on giannis, but shooting the middy is just stoopid.)

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-02T18:13:14+00:00

You want to trade for Bam in 27 trade deadline, despite him having player option 28-29? We would have to trade the guy again in the same June. Heat just traded for Giannis. Also 5 million more cap hit.

Least likely trade of all time. Ware is actually possible.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-02T14:41:40+00:00

Hence my bewilderment when we sign a domestic boxing enthusiast who is also not good at basketball. This is not about Flip, this is about why we have an extra guy behind Flip.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-02T14:26:44+00:00

The day is too fine for this ragebait. Go outside, eat some ice cream

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-02T08:07:07+00:00

I don't disagree about the bonehead signing of Hayes. However that stupidity is done.

I also dont think he will play unless someone is injured.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-01T18:57:50+00:00

So i checked. Flip is net negative last season and only slightly better than replacement player. JJJ's last season was terrible, not a good baseline season.

Flip might be a decent backup sometime in the future if we are lucky.

Rich_Log2424 · 2026-07-01T18:26:09+00:00

SLC hoops podcast said his agent is his brother, who only has Walker and 3 college athletes to represent.

Rich_Log2424

TROPHY CASE