That is why it is all more important to ensure that Ukraine wins soon. The longer the war drags on, the more prolific these weapons are becoming. It is only a matter of time before ISIS starts to send 3000km drones out.
I'd be very surprised if for components like this Russia can't source from China. It's not like the West have a monopoly on tech innovation and production… almost the opposite if anything.
Once it happens once in a western country by terrorists and I'm sure it will then you will see massive clamp downs on who can purchase drones etc. Imagine some terrorist used it let's say in England on a live premiership game or say when the king is at Buckingham Palace waving to the public. I can see something mad like that happening someday with drones.
Putin's palaces. With the golden toilets, that would be fantastic.
If we cannot defend his own palaces it would really make him look weak.
Yes I would.
I wouldn't consider it necessarily as "Ukraine tax" but rather a Defence tax. This is in Ireland's interests. A strong and safe EU is in Ireland's interests.
We are known as free-loaders when it comes to defence spending, I think there are other threads on this.
From the FT
Russia hitting EU trains etc.
Russian attempts to destabilise European energy infrastructure have been well documented but interference in transport networks has been less discussed.
The EU Agency for Cybersecurity published its first report on threats to transport in March last year. It said there had been “attacks against railway companies with an increasing rate, primarily due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.
It noted major cyber attacks by “pro-Russia hacker groups” on railway companies in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Estonia.
The Czech cyber security agency, NUKIB, has warned of rising cyber attacks in recent years. “One of the last year’s prominent trends has been the growing interest of malicious attackers in the energy and transportation sectors,” it said in a report published in July.
České dráhy said it had “seen an increased number of cyber attacks on our digital infrastructure” and was “continuously strengthening” its cyber security.
Prague has become increasingly hawkish on Russian influence campaigns after it approved a law in 2022 that allows the government to take measures against foreign entities suspected of violating human rights or cyber crimes.
Reports from the guardian:
I wonder if a lot were pilots.
I read Mike Martin's excellent book "How to Fight a War" last year. This is the book's epilogue which is very relevant to the conversation above:
Even though it's a case of when not if, you'd also wonder why it hasn't been done by now; or at least tried. Maybe not hitting its target but a drone blowing up over London would be headline news, even if it didn't reach Buckingham. Unless it's an ideological block & your typical Muslim terrorist considers them an dishonourable form of attack, still favouring suicide or "in person" assaults. But that still leaves plenty of terrorist grouping who'd (presumably) be more than happy at taking a shot at X from the comfort of their sofa.
This war will be studied by military analysts for years to come. The fact that 40% of Russia's black sea fleet was destroyed not by an opposition Navy but by Drones. I think it will really have many countries reevaluating where they put their military focus and questioning how valuable some of their shiny toys really are.
wait till they start using the lasers….
To be fair I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the works. Like why do a suicide bomb on a bus when you could have a few drones doing the same. Technically you could just have 1 terrorist and they have multiple drones set up. If there in the middle of say London you could technically have a drones go and hit Buckingham Palace, big Ben, Westminster all in the space of a few mins or seconds laced with explosives. I think we will see this happen and I say stuff like this is in the works. I say its just a matter of when sadly. Not just militaries are looking at what drones can do now since the conflict in Ukraine, you will have terrorist organisations looking big time into these and even your mad nutter type person.
I honestly can see ships instead of mine ships just be drone ships with tons of sea borne drones in the ship. Imagine for example China put a ship in the mid Pacific and it had just sea borne drones say the likes that Ukraine have been using to launch that say could go up to 500 miles and attack for instance American reinforcements coming to say Taiwans aid. Just the drones in the mid Pacific on standby waiting for enemy ships to be in the vicinity and they go after them and try and sink them. Be carnage.
I can't really see that happening anytime soon, perhaps not ever. A similar line of thinking was followed when the very first torpedo boats came along. There were actual torpedo boat carriers in the late 19th century, operating along the same principles that you just outlined, until it turned out that the concept just didn't work. By the time torpedo boats were truly oceangoing, they had morphed into what we now call a destroyer.
Those maritime drones are very powerful weapons, no doubt about that, but they're not really a deep-ocean weapon. They're small and likely wouldn't stand up to open ocean conditions very well. They're also not invisible to radar and sensors and when there's no land to mess around with radar returns, even small contacts can be picked up rather easily. A navy that's actually competent should be able to deal with this type of threat relatively easy in the open ocean.
That being said, they can be absolutely lethal in enclosed waters such as the Black Sea, or in narrow choke points such as the Bad el Mandeb, the Straits of Hormuz or the Malacca Strait. Not much space to maneuver, generally calm waters and lots of islands and local shipping to create a confused radar picture, not to mention an absolute cacophony on sonar. And I can see countries like the Philippines or Indonesia making use of them, as they generally lack the resources to effectively patrol their territorial waters with conventional warships. Having a couple dozen maritime drones available for each naval sector/district/whatever command could end up being a headache for any potential aggressors, with relatively little resource expenditure.
UAF another strike
Edit: or more success from the same strike but different airfield?
Thank you well said. I shall take my claim back so.
Classroom indeed. Or worse-into a music venue or a football stadium. As is often the case in the worlds of war and terrorism, fiction is ahead of the reality. I believe '24' prophesied a terrorist attack on an urban target using a drone.
Well, the propagandists claim Irish reunification would cost 20 billion a year for 20 years and cause us a lot of hardship.
If that's true, the cost of unification of Ukraine would be astronomical. Besides, the EU would help us like they helped Germany. The president is there.
It wouldn't cost 1%of that anyway.
Bizarre story: a US city councillor, currently wanted for possessing sexually explicitly photos of a minor, has fled the country and signed up to fight with Russia.
he has just got himself a death sentence
This must be the most deranged post yet on this thread. What connection is there between Ukraine and the status of Northern Ireland?
Well, looks like my favourite youtube anti Putin channel will soon shut down. The 'dude' [not the name of his channel] is at the end of his nerve due to massive numbers of reports made against him. His sure the you know who's in Russia are to blame. I will miss him he was very entertaining guy. His is not the only channel on YouTube facing shut down.
Apparently Ukraine is potentially very rich if the country develops its resources.
You (still) have to get the explosives, or make them.
The effectiveness and novelty of a drone "delivery system" with possibility for swarms of the things in future and potentially AI doing the flying/targetting etc. (that "slaughterbots" video from a few years ago, well before Ukraine war, comes to mind) does not change this and it seems to get overlooked sometimes.
That is still hard in Western/developed countries with decent police, intelligence etc. that will (usually) spot people trying to construct bombs.
Not heard anything yet but would give me great pleasure if that place was actually hit and those within destroyed.
Birds of a feather.
Flock together.
How can this be? 😲 Russia is totally opposed to any kind of sexual perversion.It's a good Christian country. So MAGA tells us.
Sort of obvious really .. doesnt surprise me anyway
Their greatest asset is their proximity to a potential trading partner like Russia. All they have to do is be nice and stop all this fascist nonsense.
Africa is now developing it's resources with the help of Russia so Ukraine can learn a lot from Africa.
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