Dog...bone
Trump famoulsly let a small part of the cat out of the bag some years ago when he released classified imagery to the press. Feast your eyes on the sort of imagery and resolution the US are happy to release to the press: https://nypost.com/2022/01/20/satellite-images-show-extent-of-russia-buildup-on-ukraine-border/
I't would be fair to say they can do a lot better than that, so na.
R.I.H
reportedly another 50 or so were rescued by Turkey
There's a jeep in Clane that needs the same treatment.
That is just part of an image of ships waiting to get through the Suez canal when the Ever Given got stuck last year. It's not a photo, but an image built using a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) owned and operated by a US company - capellaspace.com. It would be safe to say the US military can do far better than that - with their own SAR satellites, but the resolution of SAR images taken using spy planes from far lower altitude, would be an order of magnitude or two better than that again.
SAR works through clouds and in the pitch black of night. It doesn't care.
The US Global Hawk spy plane has a SAR, as do multiple other US surveilance assets, and it would be safe to assume those have been monitoring Ukraine, the Black Sea, Bosphorus Straight, Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad, etc, etc - 24/7 since well before Russia invaded.
SAR is just one small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum the US conducts surveilance in. All this is besides the age old business of listening in to radio communications.
The idea that the US could have been wrong has never entered my mind, as I don't believe it's remotely possible.
Finally, a model kit I can do justice to.
Likely it's just a case of plausible deniability ,and to try limit any fallout from the sinking .
It's muchado about nothing.
Wait till it's all over before getting tied in knots about the details on when , where and who knew what
Perhaps us intelligence made the assessment that they would gain little by revealing their true intelligence and just tow the Russian line, keep them guessing about us intelligence capability.
Reports that Belgorod in Russia is burning again; somewhere close to a train station and a power plant:
Does any speculation ever benefit anyone? I just want to know why the US were obviosly lying. I think that's a reasonable thought to have.
That Lithuania has better intelligence sources than the US about happenings in the Black Sea in the early hours of a morning and concerning such a historically important event, seems unlikely to me.
Maybe they wanted to show that they could relay internal Russian comms, word for word.
Maybe they were just wrong?
It is a war and intel is never 100% reliable. Not everything needs to be a conspiracy.
Again: none of these accounts are necessarily contradictory.
Russia could have tried to tow the partially capsized vessel at some point after Turkey rescued a number of sailors. Or maybe the Moskva's power plant was still running and it was moving under its own power for a time until it sank completely.
We also don't know when the intelligence briefing would have been written and given to the Pentagon's Press Office; it's very likely to have been slightly older intelligence by the time it gets approved for the Press Office to release it. Also as far as I can see the Pentagon only stated it was moving; not that it was being towed.
In any case it's pretty much immaterial at this point: there's pretty broad agreement that the Moskva is currently decorating the sea floor and that's good enough for me.
Does it really benefit anyone to keep going over the semantics of it when one thing is for sure - it has sank
Those reports today from Russia and the Pentagon that the ship was being towed to shore are quite puzzling. The Moskva must surely have been in very bad shape given that it (supposedly) sank not long after this.
Is Coveney still in Kyiv?
"Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told CNN that “there was an explosion” on the Russian cruiser Moskva, but added the United States cannot assess at this point if the ship was hit by a missile.
Russia said its warship "remains afloat" after a fire detonated ammunition on board, while Ukrainian officials said the Moskva was hit by Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles and has sunk.
“We’re not quite exactly sure what happened here. We do assess that there was an explosion — at least one explosion on this cruiser — a fairly major one at that, that has caused extensive damage to the ship,” Kirby said.
Kirby said the damaged Russian warship is afloat and "making her own way across the Black Sea."
“We assess that the ship is able to make its own way, and it is doing that; it's heading more towards now we think the east. We think it's probably going to be putting in at Sevastopol for repairs, but we don’t know what exactly caused that,” Kirby added."
https://www.universalpersonality.com/russias-black-sea-flagship-the-moskva-has-sunk-moscows-defence-agency-admits/
I stick by my original question as to why the US were apparently lying when the 'it sunk on the spot around 03:00' account looks like being the real deal as it did sink and everyone is admitting that now.
Explosions in Kyiv in the last few minutes - looks like the dictator is none too happy with today's events.
it is possible the US doesnt want to give intel out so fast that it identifies the technology or whatever asset that provided it
How well does that narrative line up with this one?
"That account tallies with information put out by the Lithuanian Minister of National Defense, Arvydas Anušauskas. Posting on social media today, he wrote: ‘An SOS signal was given from the Russian cruiser Moscow at 1.05am.
‘[At] 1.14am The cruiser lay on its side and after half an hour all the electricity went out. From 2am, the Turkish ship evacuated 54 sailors from the cruiser, and at about 3am, Turkey and Romania reported that the ship was completely sunk. The related losses of Russian personnel are not yet known, although there were 485 people on board (66 of them officers).’" https://www.universalpersonality.com/russias-black-sea-flagship-the-moskva-has-sunk-moscows-defence-agency-admits/
I'd find it odd if Lithuania's defence minister had poor intel.
I found the below a pretty powerful image; somewhat graphic so be warned if you click through:
Sure it's entirely possible it sank quickly: I was mostly just saying that the official accounts we have from the US and Russia do not contradict each other. The unknown is really in the timeframes involved.
I was watching keenly when this was all happening and the Moskva was reportedly still transmitting for a number of hours after the initial incident; but many people seemed to be sceptical of it moving towards port alright.
I've seen conflicting info about this. Some Russian language speakers on Twitter are convinced from their own sources that the Moskva sank in the middle of the night (about 3.30am) and wasn't been towed anywhere today as per the Russia and Pentagon claims.
"Russia has fired on and detained a Turkish-managed general cargoship it claims was attempting a rescue mission to the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
The official representative of the Russian Defence Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, told reporters the 5,200-dwt Apache (built 1991) diverted from a convoy of ships in the Sea of Azov on 8 April.
He said this was an attempt by the Ukrainian government to evacuate Ukrainian leaders by sea from the port.
“The Kyiv regime keeps trying to evacuate the leaders of the nationalist Azov regiment and foreign mercenaries from Mariupol,” the general added.
This is after earlier bids to airlift personnel by helicopters failed, he claimed." https://www.tradewindsnews.com/casualties/russia-fires-on-turkish-cargo-ship-on-rescue-mission-to-mariupol/2-1-1200502
Interesting this wasn't reported more widely.
Well someone earlier mentioned that Turkish and Romanian rescue ships had reported it sinking, so I gave credit to that idea which would have meant it was never under tow and never really moved far from where it was hit.
This is interesting especially the second tweet
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w0.vanillicon.com/v2/05bfdb0bc9f81b358ccf2f55186422bb.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w9.vanillicon.com/v2/9429a6e87ca90295fb14e1083556c0c3.svg)
