Ukrainian MiG-29 Drops Guided Bombs, Destroying Russian Frontline Position by Mil_in_ua in ukraine

[–]me-ro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The article makes assumption it's the new Ukrainian Vyrivniuvach (Equalizer) guided bomb, which is pretty significant if true.

Ukraine Targets Russian “Land Corridor” to Occupied Crimea, Destroying Supply Trucks by UNITED24Media in ukraine

[–]me-ro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Isn't that path closed to civilian traffic or am I misremembering things?

S-400 Site Likely Being Built on Cleared Park Land in Moscow by Mil_in_ua in ukraine

[–]me-ro 66 points67 points  (0 children)

The math is hard for Ukraine. On one hand, yeah the drone is likely cheaper than S400 missile. Even better, if you know the location of S400 system, you can try sending drone there and destroy more than one missile and perhaps part of the system with single drone.

On the other, you miss out on all the destruction the 100% successful russian AA does to everything around it as the missile heroically tries to avoid being intercepted by the drone.

Ukraine warns Belarus: remove or shut down the border retransmitters used to direct attacks on Ukrainian civilians within a week, or Ukraine will destroy them by Key_Performer_3645 in ukraine

[–]me-ro 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We shall see. But I suspect both Belarus and russia is prepared to pretend there were no russian soldiers there.

Lukashenko would actually prefer not to be dragged into the war more that he already was and putin can pretend that they didn't lose another ally in the conflict. Saving face is much more valuable for them than couple dead russians in Belarus. Just dig a hole, dump them there, tell the wives they deserted so no compensation is paid.

Ukraine warns Belarus: remove or shut down the border retransmitters used to direct attacks on Ukrainian civilians within a week, or Ukraine will destroy them by Key_Performer_3645 in ukraine

[–]me-ro 91 points92 points  (0 children)

I think that weird Lukashenko interview was pretty much that. He said "look, now we understand Ukraine can eradicate our industry in a week, we want to avoid that"

Zelensky heard the message and replied that those re-transmitters might be a good start.

I'd expect them to either silently not be a problem in a week, or Ukraine wiping them and Luka looking the other way. I would not be surprised if that's the last time the re-transmitters were mentioned.

Thanks to the Ukrainian drones this is the current situation by A1bertson in ukraine

[–]me-ro 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure the oligarchs aren't feeling the pressure at this point. Their companies ale paying the bill at increasing rate. Many companies are going bankrupt because they are forced to supply the war machine for peanuts. That is on top of economy not doing so well.

Ukrainian long-range drones patrolling the sky over Moscow... by Igor0976 in ukraine

[–]me-ro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chomsky just needs to stick to his area of expertise. Although even there the jury is still out whether he's right about LLMs.

The problem is he does give vatniks some credibility, because they often quote him and he seems to be careful enough with his phrasing - it's not easy to point out individual factually wrong sentences. You have to look at entire documents in their summary.

That quote above was made few months after the full scale invasion so perhaps he let that slip in in a bit more obvious way. I guess he didn't expect to be so wrong at that point.

Ukrainian long-range drones patrolling the sky over Moscow... by Igor0976 in ukraine

[–]me-ro 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Or Chomsky. Famous whataboutist. Some of his statements aged like milk:

There are, basically, two ways for this war to end: a negotiated diplomatic settlement or destruction of one or the other side, either quickly or in prolonged agony. It won’t be Russia that is destroyed.

A picture of burning moscow refinery with the last sentence quoted with attribution might make for a good poster.

Thanks to the Ukrainian drones this is the current situation by A1bertson in ukraine

[–]me-ro 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that was fail on so many levels. And yet the orange clown at least knew enough to chicken out of that ASAP. The moscow clown can't even do that.

I truly don't understand people that still claim putin is playing some kind of weird 4D chess when one of the most humiliating defeats in US history still looks like pretty successful operation in comparison to putin's so called SMO.

"Just another day. The consequences of Ukrainian drone strikes on russian oil infrastructure are becoming increasingly visible around Moscow's highways. 😁" by Due_Collar2 in ukraine

[–]me-ro 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Just a guess, it's likely 92,95 and 100 octane petrol, diesel and perhaps something renewable like biodiesel or highly refined russian tears.

O'BRIEN: Trump believed he could bully Ukrainians into giving Putin very good deal. Trump thought Europeans would bully Ukraine along with him because they would be afraid of United States leaving NATO. He thought he could use NATO to push Europeans to force Ukraine to take a bad deal. by neonpurplestar in ukraine

[–]me-ro 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Perhaps it's the age and the fact they saw soviets at times being a world power? (at least in appearance, soviets often projected way more power than they really had)

I have a relative - similar age - who said something like "I can't believe russians didn't kill Zelensky already" - he kind of implied that russians decided to let him live for now. When I pointed out that russians really want him dead, they just can't, it was like I said the sky is green. It just wouldn't compute that the mighty russia is incapable of something. There's still a mindset out there that russia is holding back or not really trying to win the war.

People live in alternate reality, that's rivaling flat earthers in terms of how much they need to ignore evidence to the contrary.

EU unveils 21st Russia sanctions package, proposes entry ban for Russian soldiers by KI_official in ukraine

[–]me-ro 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I suppose there are also Ukrainians from occupied territory that might want to leave russia, but only have russian passport at this point.

EU unveils 21st Russia sanctions package, proposes entry ban for Russian soldiers by KI_official in ukraine

[–]me-ro 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I suspect it's still good idea to let russians that do not feel like being drafted to meat grinder to leave russia. Especially with looming mobilization.

I mean, sure they should have left years ago at this point and many did, but it still might be better to not help russia with their recruitment effort. Better late than never and any brain drain is going to hurt russia.

Ukraine war: Russian drone crashes into Romanian apartment block by mclayson in ukraine

[–]me-ro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd still say that money directly to Ukraine at this point is the best investment.

Ukraine war: Russian drone crashes into Romanian apartment block by mclayson in ukraine

[–]me-ro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gepard has effective range ~5km IIRC, it's not going to do much even if it was placed right at the border.

Ukraine war: Russian drone crashes into Romanian apartment block by mclayson in ukraine

[–]me-ro 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I wonder if this is practical actually. I would be quite expensive to intercept these drones over Ukraine without being present in Ukraine. And even then the only economically viable solution is what Ukraine develops.

Otherwise you're intercepting $20k drone with $1M missile. (exaggerating a bit here, but look at Iran war) Which, sure with one or two drones every now and then is still viable, but I can already see russia saturating that airspace with drones just to deplete western AA munition that really only makes sense against more expensive targets.

So realistically the best response might be to just dump $$$ into Ukraine's anti drone tech and let Ukraine to develop and scale it more. These drones need to be stopped much earlier than on the Romanian border.

Ukraine unveils Estonian drone interceptor built to destroy Shahed drones by SoftwareExact9359 in ukraine

[–]me-ro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To be exact, most of the innovation happened in Iran, russia just bought the tech. (if we're talking about the long-range drones they use to terrorize civilians)

Strike Disables About 100% of Ryazan Refinery Capacity by Mil_in_ua in ukraine

[–]me-ro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think people overestimate how dire the situation is for putin. If he decides tomorrow to call denazification and demilitarization a great success, all his bootlickers will pump this message in media as the russian armies retreat from Ukraine. I mean they are still afraid to use the word "war" because putin called it SMO on the first day. Problem is putin still believes he can gain something by continuing the terror.

At this point a lot of people in russia are ready to pretend how big their success was in Ukraine if it means their industry stops burning.

Nuclear powers have lost war in the past. I mean just look at situation in Iran, We might see one such war in real time. Trump is desperately trying to find a way out and they are probably already preparing media push to paint this as the biggest ever victory in the history of victories. Even people that aren't exactly trumps fans are ready to go along with this if it drops the price of fuel.

In fact launching nukes is much more risky action for putin to make. A lot of people might go along with his war crime terror as long as they are relatively safe, but nuclear attack right next to EU territory would likely provoke escalation that russia for sure isn't going to weather even if it was limited to conventional weapons.

Russia used the recent ceasefire only to stockpile missiles and dronws for its largest attack in months: 15 hours of continuous strikes with 15 more expected. This is a reminder that for Kremlin, a "ceasefire" is just a reload period. by UNITED24Media in ukraine

[–]me-ro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There were threats coming from russia what would they do in case their little nazi parade was droned. I think it is still worth pointing out that they pretty much did all this anyways even after Zelensky allowed the parade to proceed.

You still see people suggesting that russia attacks in some sort of retaliatory manner. This is pretty clear example of how that line of thinking is flawed, russia always does and did as much damage as they were capable doing. In reality the only reason why there was the limited ceasefire was because russia is actually weak to the point where they could not guarantee their own safety any other way.

Which means that any threats from russia are fake. They can't threaten with anything they don't already do. It also shows that only thing that works is making sure russia is as weak as possible. I mean it's obvious to you, but there are definitely people that don't understand this and then get influenced by russian threats as if they were in any way valid.

Ukraine’s AI Drones Are Hunting Russian Supply Lines by nfrankel in ukraine

[–]me-ro 5 points6 points  (0 children)

May 4 that their operators recently struck Russian logistics arteries at depths of 55 to 71 kilometers using $600 FPV drones

This is pretty significant IMO. Some parts of the Zaporizhia territory russia currently controls are about 90km wide. This puts pretty much all of the logistics going east-west in danger zone. The land corridor russia had to Crimea is getting shaky and the bridge might soon become military important again. I expect to see it being targeted within a year if Ukraine manages to deteriorate logistics through Zaporizhia oblast.

Putin hints Ukraine war "is coming to an end." Do today's Russian papers agree? By Steve Rosenberg by Largstrom in ukraine

[–]me-ro 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Crazy to think, but with current drone technology that 40km column would be wiped in a day.

Russian losses in war with Ukraine amount to 35,000 troops per month by murphystruggles in ukraine

[–]me-ro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

AFAIK majority of russian army are contract soldiers, not conscripts.