"President Zelensky visited liberated Bucha" https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/4-april-president-zelensky-visited-liberated-bucha
Zelenskyy not sitting at the end of a 100m long table in a deep bunker somewhere.
I hope you meant 'fortunately'?
Air defences have made that tactic obsolete.
Finally. Don't know why it took so long.
The Russian strategic bomber force isn't really that large when you look at it. 66 Tu-22 "Binder", 42 Tu-95 "Bear" and 15 Tu-160 "Blackjack". The actual operational number of aircraft at any given time is likely lower due to maintenance & repair requirements. Out of those, the Binders are basically cruise missile trucks, whilst the Bears and especially the Blackjacks are likely held back for the nuclear role.
Granted, there are still the fighter bombers, mainly the Su-34 "Fullback" and the Su-24 "Fencer", of which Russia has a whole lot. However, those are more geared towards individual targets and haven't really been deployed in large formations from all that I've seen. Given that most of the countries Russia has fought until now really haven't had much in the way of an air force to counter them, I doubt whether the institutional know-how for the types of massed air strikes you mention still exists. Just like on the ground, the attacks seem uncoordinated. A fighter sweep here, an attack by a flight of two Su-34s there, but not the kind of tightly woven bomber + SEAD + EW aircraft + fighter escort package that you'd expect in an environment where air superiority cannot be guaranteed.
You reckon he couldn't fly a load of Tupolev bombers over loaded with thermobaric payloads and decimate the place no? (Great news if that's the case!)
Austria against sanctions on Russian gas
Not only is Filatov still here they have invited him to attend Zelensky's address to the Dail on Wednesday morning
I doubt he is going to show up but if he does TDs should use the opportunity to directly address him and the war crimes he is standing over
It's propaganda. I'd be shocked if there was more than a few dozen Russian soldiers who changed sides and are now actively fighting against Russia.
The plan, as far as I could understand from Putin's ramblings:
1) "Denazification". In Putin's terms nazis are those who do not want to submit to the "Russian world/order", the "nazis" need to be eliminated. The plan would be to kill thousands of Ukrainian elite and intellectuals, plus the deportation of millions of Ukrainians to labor camps for the re-education.
2) "Demilitarization" is self explanatory.
3) Put pro-Russian collaborators in power, keep Russian military and police forces to control the population.
4) Pay for the invasion by looting Ukrainian resources and by re-distributing factories and mines to Russian oligarchs.
Not really. Numbers aren't everything, as I alluded to above. Ukrainian airspace is still contested and Ukrainian air defenses are still active and effective. That means that any bomber strike would need a fighter escort, a SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) formation, possibly an Ilyushin Il-22PP Electronic Warfare aircraft somewhere behind the main formation to jam radars, and an AEW (airborne early warning) aircraft to coordinate everything and vector in the escort fighters towards any interceptors coming their way. The AEW and EW aircraft are also going to need a fighter escort of their own.
This force needs to be coordinated, have it's departure times, flight plans ingress & egress routes to & from the target synchronized, every element needs to be aware of where the other is to avoid friendly fire, ground based air defenses need to be briefed, again to avoid friendly fire, and so on. Granted, Russia has all the elements to form such a strike force, and some of the individual elements are actually pretty effective combat platforms in their own right. I'm just not sure whether the know-how to coordinate these disparate elements is really still present within the current Russian Air Force, especially since such strikes will likely require significant initiative from whoever is the on-scene commander, something that is quite alien to the current Russian armed forces and their Soviet predecessors.
mis read the post and deleted my illinformed out of context post
A short while after a Malay jumbo jet was downed she pushed through Nordstream 2. The invasion of the Donbass was accompanied by brutality, murder and Targeting of hospitals etc.
It didn't make a difference a few months after to Merkel, hard to pretend that this would.
Zelensky called her out today.
She remains silent on the invasion, in fairness to her, when bought she stayed bought.
Forbes piece on what Russia are doing with their fancy planes.
That's the one
Genuine question
If Ireland expelled all the Russian diplomats, what would happen to the embassy. Who owns it?
No they would get shot down either by anti aircraft or migs ,
This is why they are firing cruise missiles from the black sea staying in their own airspace protected by air defenses ,
He Lost a new Tupolev TU22M bomber over Georgia during that short conflict
The Russians are nowhere near like the Einsatzgruppen.
The Russians are just like the Soviets of old and the SS/Wehrmacht units that slaughtered people as they went.
Zelensky has shown the people of the world what a true leader is.
It is no coincidence that he isn't a career politician who spent his life sucking at the teat of the taxpayers and citizens.
Not one leader in the Western world has shown the bravery and fortitude that he has shown.
His media background has also proven to be invaluable and has shown how to truly communicate unlike most of the eejits in the rest of the world.
Kerry hoors.
Some supposed footage of more AFV's being moved from Yekaterinburg towards the Ukraine border. Judging by the fading on some of the vehicles it appears that they have come out of long term storage.
The Austrians always had a soft spot for Nazis.
The head of the DNR, Denis Pushilin, awarding a medal to Lieutenant Colonel Timur Kurilkin for "destroying 250 Nazis" - which is ironic, considering Kurilkin has two neo-Nazi patches clearly visible on his uniform.
Amazing - more power to those Azovs.
Careful this is the worst ive seen so far
https://twitter.com/Mariana_Betsa/status/1510966912724963328
Had a very surreal moment when on linkedin earlier where a former colleague of mine who is Russian that I would have gotten on very well with and always gave a very off a very friendly vibe went on a bit of a rant about RTE's biased reporting and how he used more than (Russian) state sources but also YouTube to get a more comprehensive view of the current invasion and how the Ukrainian city of Mariupol is actually Russian and the Ukranians did atrocities there.
This guy is crazy smart, well regarded (well he was when we worked together) and I would have thought at minimum he would have kept quiet. But instead he's vocally come out in support of the Russian invasion. On LinkedIn?!
Very sickening - evil b*stards, and even evil is not harsh enough
When I see batshit out of character outburts, I just assume they've been hacked in some way. A couple of times I've been right. Maybe thats whats happening?
That Putin supporter is wrong on Mariupol. Although the city is Russian speaking and its citizens are ethnically Russian, all the anecdotal evidence suggests that people there were enraged by the Russian assault on their city and now regard Putin as the scum of the earth.
I thought so but he was pulled up on it by a few colleagues and replied to some of them, and it seems legit from his own thoughts. It's weird as hell, I really looked up to the guy when I worked with him so I think that's why I'm having trouble with it. I'd freaking love it to be hacked but he wrote it in the same style he'd send emails and everything.
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