That's actually the sad part. I'm a huge geek, and the sheer ingenuity of some of the Soviet era aircraft designs is just incredible. For all their faults, the Soviet leadership was not above letting their design bureaus run wild if there was the promise of a useful aircraft or spacecraft at the end that would give them an advantage. Just look at the Ekranoplans or the VVA-14. Check out the videos that aerospaxce/tech YouTube channel Mustard made on those two projects to get a real feel for just how radical those designs were.
Even in the 1980s, they came up with some brilliant stuff. I mean the MiG-29 delivered similar performance to early and mid model F-16s without sacrificing aerodynamic stability or relying on Fly-By-Wire and computers to keep the aircraft stable. That is a remarkable achievement in aerodynamics!
All of that is well and truly gone at this point, to the point where Russian aerospace companies can't even produce an airliner anymore that doesn't rely on western avionics or engines. They can't even provide proper after-sales support for those aircraft that they do manage to produce and sell, just look at the Sukhoi SuperJet regional aircraft and the experience that airlines like InterJet in Mexico, or CitiJet here in Ireland had with them. And the SuperJet was considered to be competitive with the Embraer E Jets that dominate feeder airlines around the world these days.
broken arrow
Putin himself said on Monday that Russian forces need to he refreshed as they are literally out of gas. The UK MOD also reported that Russian frontman are almost totally dependant on separates for local knowledge and support. All that on top of Ukrainian forces having considerable successes at targeting Russian supplies line's. Its slowly going back into the Ukraine favour.
There will be fewer panicky visits and calls to Kyiv but fundamentally nothing is going to change.
Putin's speech to-day stating they hadn't really started the war in earnest yet sounds like the ranting of a totally deranged man. Can anyone make sense of it?
More from his speech here:
"According to Putin, the conduct of a military operation means the beginning of "a radical breakdown of the American-style world order, this is the beginning of a transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world." In his opinion, this world is based on international law, the sovereignty of peoples and civilizations, justice and equality.
The President of the Russian Federation believes that the West is trying to impose on the world "a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious culture of abolition, widespread bans." In his opinion, the peoples of most countries do not want such a life and such a future and strive for "meaningful, real sovereignty." “And they just got tired of kneeling down and humiliating themselves in front of those who consider themselves exceptional,” Putin added."
You can actually see why he has an audience among the far right and the extreme left in Ireland and in Europe. They share his hate for liberal values, globalism, centrism, cooperation etc and much prefer the politics of the extremes.
Someone needs to tell Putin or at least Mini Putin standing next to him, the more Russia threatens the west and Ukraine with all that rhetoric the less we take notice of him.
Sounds like a man with his back against the wall imo…
Germans desperate to just go back to doing business with Russia
Great bunch of lads
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-07/germany-s-habeck-urges-canada-to-help-thwart-putin-s-gas-excuses
Yes, he doesn't actually explain how he is going to stop or defeat Western liberalism / globalism / democracy etc.
All this was said a long time ago in Putin's famous Munich speech -
Opinion | The Speech In Which Putin Told Us Who He Was - POLITICO
Geopolitika - Putin‘s speech in Munich - what was that?
DP_Fillinger_Speeches.pdf (muni.cz)
So it's far right but extreme left . . . interesting choice of adjective comrade . . . tell me weather in vladivostok, is cold da?
Those who support Putin's views, should go and live in Putins Russia for awhile.... there is good reason why so many ex soviet states wanted out of Putin's Russia. They know only too well what communist Russia was like, and now it seems that's Putin's plan to wind Russian back to the communist era.
Darth Putin sums up well the latest rant...
"We will be outraged when West does what we say they are already doing."
Regarding all the hi-tech farm machinery they stole, and "repatriated" back to Chechnya, it all went well until they tried to use them, but being hi tech, the location of every one of them is known, and all the electric modules have been switched off...now they have the job of by-passing the manufacturers computer systems, or replacing them, and Good Luck with that!!!☺️
Yes, they have a very rosy picture of what Putin is like. I doubt any of them would want to live there though, it's just his ideology and extreme views they're fond of.
Intruiging story for those fond of the big-talk of a Russian-Chinese axis. Russian scientist arrested on treason charges by the FSB for spying on behalf of Chinese intelligence 'dies of cancer' two days after being collared.
Russia and China don't do friends. A cursory look at their respective histories and their bilateral relationship over the past two centuries should tell you all you need to know.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62031294
By the wonder of technology and the Internet.
This is one of the farms where some of the equipment ended up. Farm taken from the DW report.
Hmmm...
How true...
Good enough for the scumbags! They're very delicate for a warmongering sh1thole aren't they?
What a vile scumbag the man is. I don't like to wish death on people but he truly deserves a bullet
The White House may have doubts that Ukraine can drive out Russia, but, the man in charge of Ukraine Zelensky has a will of iron and is determined to reclaim all lost areas. It might be noted on day one when the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, the US had no hope at all for Zelensky and offered to fly him out of his home country into exile. The US is wrong to doubt Ukraine's ability to retake all its lands.
The war seems to be shifting in Ukraine's favor now. They need to hit hard while the Russians are stumbling.
More firecrackers-
Let's be realistic here for a moment. Currently Russia occupies something like 20% of Ukraine, most of Donbas. Ukraine has made them pay for every kilometre that's for sure and keeps making them pay, but the fact is they are still up against a much larger force. Force of numbers no matter how lacklustre is a very strong weapon. And they have a lot of "dumb" artillery. More than Ukraine. Can Ukraine hold them down and make them fight for every further metre? Yes I believe they can. Can they hold them away from Odessa and keep that part of their coast? Yes I believe they can but will need more modern western weaponry to do it.
Can they drive Russian forces back to their borders? As it stands currently I really can't see how they can. The Russians are dug in pretty deep, certainly in the behind their lines areas. Yes there will be pools of Ukrainian nationalist resistance that will make it a right pain for them to operate in, but a lot of Ukrainian nationalists will have left, or will have been "removed" by the occupiers. What balance of nationalists to separatists that existed before this invasion is more skewed to the latter.
Most of their cutting edge stuff was from....Ukraine 😂
Maybe the manufacturing of the stuff. The mathematicians and scientists would have been in big cities regardless.
I have great respect for what Zelensky has done so far since this invasion started. But lets be realistic here. What else is he going to say? He is hardly going to turn around and say that the chances of reclaiming the eastern areas are slim to none. That would damage moral among the troops fighting, and he may also start to lose support from many people within Ukraine if he did that.
I think he is a very intelligent man, he knows Ukraine needs as much weaponry as possible to keep fighting the Russians, he is trying to balance that against keeping up moral and hope for his people that they can drive out the Russians.
I really would love to see it, but on current evidence I cant see how that is remotely possible, unless their is a massive change in the amount of military support, and weapons they they have recieved up to now.
It will be achieved by time. Russia wont always be able to afford this level of military engagement. The sanctions will tell.
BTW, did we finally fully expose Zen something or other... did they reallocate him/her?
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/eedacf599b4135dfd56d6fdbddcbd867.svg)