Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

And have them dropping yellow and blue paint on the reviewing stand…

I was thinking they could load up a fleet of cheap drones with "gender reveal" smoke bombs, fly them high over Red Square, and every time one was shot out of the sky, it'd release a cloud of blue and/or yellow smoke.

With Putin & Allies looking on, that'd put their air defence teams in a bit of a quandary. :D

Britain will on Friday impose the biggest-ever package of sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet and add a hundred tankers to a blacklist, the British government announced.

The sanctions imposed today represent Britain's biggest ever package of measures against the shadow fleet, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said.

"The government is imposing sanctions on 100 oil tankers that make up the bulk of Putin's shadow fleet and have carried more than $24 billion worth of cargo since the beginning of 2024," the British government said.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

So much more should have been done on the sanctions front and in making them more effective and putting the screws on sanction breakers, like India. The Orc arms industry is utterly reliant on western electronics and they are finding it far too easy to get whatever they need.

As an example, they have been trialling a new 80km range drone that has an on board image data set of 100GB, a 14mp camera and a laser range finder and a sophisticated AI terrain matching system that is thought to identify targets of opportunity autonomously, all this stuff is based on western hardware.

That's it's main guidance system and camera/laser.

it was a unilateral decision by Putin re three days ceasefire. Ukr is 100 % not obliged to even give it .000001 second of a consideration. It should ‘fire away’.

All fur coat, no knickers - it seems for all the big talk there was neither an attack on Moscow of on any other targets, bit disappointing really

I presume Putin said he would kill 1000 children if they interfered with his Grand Parade of Lunatics.

Shutting down all air travel into and out of Moscow from any place in the world,in the days before the parade, was as good an attack as any munitions dropped on the parade itself. And if they can do it once, they can do it again anytime they want..

T’is the signature hallmark of totalitarian militaristic states, especially of the Soviet variety. Indeed, they can look impressive with all of those spotless uniforms, polished equipment and lock step marching to a beat. North Korea are also very good at presenting an impressive parade.

But it is superficial. Underneath the veneer of this usually well managed event is the attempt to paper over all of the ills of the society under its flag.

• Got horrible human rights abuses, and people worked to death in our labor camps? Nah…just look at all these shiny troops go though Kim Ill Sung Square.
• Spending 3+ years mauling your own state to bits against a numerically inferior foe…and still not winning? Nah…just look at our shiny tanks, and replicas of the Reichstag victory flag to remind everyone of that one time Russia helped beat a universally agreed upon villain.

It’s pretty, it’s shiny….and it’s also overcompensation for the fact that there’s little else to be proud of when one flies the flag of states like these.

Ah Celtic, come on now….the Russians don’t have enough working tractors left to tow a whole fleet of Armatas :P

Yeah there shiny junk military tech really performs how it looks on the battlefield.

3 years and they still can’t take Eastern Ukraine.

Definitely. I especially liked when they thanked North Korea for their help. That just screams strong military.

Do you know what I appreciate about the war? There's about a million less ruZZian nazis in existence and about 40 million Ukrainean people who will forever hate their neighbours and in most cases will refuse to speak ruZZian again creating a natural border of hate!

Why is Europe so worried and spending tens of billions on defence then.....

Too late in my view, Germany should have been doing this for a decade

Although I can appreciate the pro-Ukraine slant of your post, I’d urge you to reflect on your words.

I don’t appreciate the loss of 1 million Russians to this conflict. I feel that they too are victims of Putin. A large cohort of them likely didn’t know any better about the situation, or worse, there were those who did know but were pressed into the meat grinder against their will and sent to an almost certain painful death. The Ukrainian soldiers had to do their duty and kill these men to protect the people they love, but I feel that these is nothing to celebrate about the meaningless death of a million Russians.

Nor would I delight any kind of a border made of hatred. We live on a continent that was criss-crossed with borders made of that kind of hatred, but look at Europe now. Now you can cross between France & Germany, or Germany & Poland, or Poland & Slovakia, near seamlessly. 100 years ago, that idea would have been madness, but now it’s a fact of life, all thanks to peace & not hatred.

Don’t hate the Russians themselves. Hate Putin, hate the Kremlin, hate any facist who promotes Putin’s agenda, but don’t condemn a whole people to the point of appreciation of their destruction. We are all better than that.

Yeah…for one day of the year out of 365, the Red Square shines….like the tip of the iceberg. Except unlike the iceberg,which is pure ice, like its tip, beneath the tip of the of Putins glitter and shine, lies corruption, death and destruction. Here is the richest region in Russia, Yakutia, yet see how the people live there. And Yakutia is far from being the only region like this in the Russian Federation.Travel outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, and you will see the hidden part of the iceberg. But of course, Glenomora, if you have travelled through Russia, you would be well aware of this.

https://x.com/i/status/1920555971589345455