Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

[N.E. Brigand]

Apparently the Moskva is the largest military ship to be sunk in combat since World War II.

Ukraine apparently used drones to distract the ship, so that it's most efficient missile-detecting radar was pointed in the wrong direction. The Neptune missiles said to have taken out the ship are of Ukrainian design and have never before been used in combat.

And Russia seems to want revenge; I'm reading that there are lots of missiles being fired into Ukraine tonight.

[Frelga]

Something is on fire in Belgorod again. Best comment so far, "i think belgorod caught fire while it was being towed in a storm....🫧"

[Dave_LF]

The bad guys are all such a bunch of f--ing tools, but they still do so much damage

[Sunsilver]

Just came across this on FB. Of course, according to salvage laws, the Moskva is supposed to remain the property of the nation it belongs to, unless they give up ownership. Which of course, is extremely unlikely.

But still...YIKES!

David Lubkin
.
The next question is who salvages the Moskva. Some of its systems are still intact. Worth hard cash if sold, and perhaps invaluable if retrieved by a power who can make direct use of it. (That is, the Ukrainians or anyone with a white Persian cat.)
In particular, its sixteen P-500 Bazalt or P-1000 Vulcan missiles (known in NATO as SS-N-12 Sandbox) are a versatile design that's deployed on both surface vessels (the three, now two (or perhaps one) Slava-class guided missile cruisers and the one Kiev-class aircraft carrier) and submarines.

That *should* mean that the specific missiles that sank with the cruiser won't have been damaged, and least not from being at the bottom of the Black Sea. But I suspect from what we've seen of the Russian (and before that, Soviet) military in action that the crew of the Moskva were lax in the maintenance of ship's systems and armament. Perhaps to the point that the ones on the Moskva were no longer watertight.

The P-500 has a range of 550 km and can carry a 1,000 kg payload, with a CEP of 300-700 meters. That can either be a 950 kg semi-armor-piercing conventional munition or a 350 KT nuclear warhead.
The P-1000 is an upgrade that can take a heavier payload. It was installed on some submarines but—as far as we know—not on the surface vessels.

Either the Ukrainians reputedly shot anti-ship missiles at a warship that might have had nuclear weapons or the Russians were so lax in its care *while at war* that a fire and munitions explosion occurred.

*Did* it contain up to sixteen nuclear weapons? Don't believe anyone who says they know either way. Admiral Ospov, commanding the Black Sea Fleet, knows. The captain of the Moskva knows. Certain higher-ups and seamen. Maybe a really good intelligence service.

No one who knows for sure will be on tv, online, or on Facebook talking about it. At best, someone might know if it did at some point in the past forty years. And if someone in the know was talking, e.g., how can you know they're telling the truth?
All we can say for sure is that it was capable of carrying them. Which means the Ukrainians, or whoever might have fired on the Moskva, was flirting with a Russian nuclear response. But it also means there might be nuclear weapons sitting at the bottom of the Black Sea.

What if?

[Sunsilver]

So, someone has updated the stamp already...

[Sunsilver]

Things seem awfully quiet lately on the Ukrainian front. Anyone else thinking about "The deep breath before the plunge", as Gandalf put it?

Latest news - there are over 7,000 dead Russian soldiers in Ukrainian morgues, and Zelensky is criticizing the Russian military for their failure to repatriate their dead. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -Kyiv.html

This has happened before, and the main reason, in both cases was the Kremlin's refusal to recognize casualties are that high. This article is from 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/ ... in-ukraine

The Ukranian government has been using facial recognition software to scan the faces of both the living and the dead that have no ID. This is being used for both civilians (those killed by the Russians) and the Russian military. If they get a hit for a Russian soldier, they are then trying to locate his family, and inform them of his whereabouts, as it seems the Russian military isn't doing a very good job of keeping track of their soldiers.

The technology being used is extremely controversial, due to privacy concerns, and the possibility of misidentification: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61055319 Clearview provided the software to Ukraine at no charge.

There was an episode of Bull this year that focused around the misidentification of a suspect by this type of software.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is a relatively small but telling incident, shared by a New York Times editor:

[Sunsilver]

I heard the same thing happened to someone who was trying to get to an animal shelter to feed all the dogs there. Over 100 dogs died of starvation/dehydration. They went nearly a month without care.

That could explain the picture of the dead dogs you posted the link to 2 pages back. I mentioned they couldn't have been shot by the Russians, as there was no blood. So it could have been just simple lack of care.

[N.E. Brigand]

Not good. At least in some countries, Putin's lies are winning out over the truth:

[N.E. Brigand]

Probably related: a new AP poll finds that 54% of Americans say that Joe Biden hasn't been "tough enough" on Russia. I agree with Josh Marshall that this is partly the fault of President Biden and the Democrats for "not reminding Americans every day — and I mean every god-damned day — that the GOP has spent the last 7 years boosting, allying with and even conspiring with Russia."

Every time a Republican tries to claim Biden is soft on Russia, they should be asked why they were the ones going easy on Putin. Only Mitt Romney should get a pass on this. Romney complained that Barack Obama was soft on Russia, and Romney voted to convict Donald Trump for illegally withholding Congressionally approved aid to Ukraine.

And this is not just a U.S. domestic issue. Remember, President Zelenskyy's chief of staff said just a few weeks ago that Joe Biden has been their strongest U.S. ally ever. Almost every day for the past eight weeks, the Biden administration has announced either new sanctions on Russia or new weapons shipments to Ukraine. It's highly unlikely that any Republican who could win the U.S. presidency in 2024 would do more.

[N.E. Brigand]

U.S. Congressman Kevin McCarthy, who leads the Republican minority in the House of Representatives, is in the news this week because of recordings that were made of him in January 2021 telling his colleagues that (1) he would ask then-President Trump to resign in the wake of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump had incited and (2) Trump had admitted that he bore some responsibility for the day's events. (On a side note: this makes it even more galling that Democrats decided not to call any witnesses during Trump's second impeachment trial.) McCarthy yesterday at first denied the New York Times reporting about his comments, before he knew that there was a recording.

That's reminding many people of what previously had been the most famous secret recording of McCarthy. In May 2017, the Washington Post revealed that McCarthy, then the number two Republican in the House majority, said in a July 2016 meeting with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan that he believed that Donald Trump (then the presumptive Republican nominee for the upcoming presidential election) was one of two politicians paid by Russia. When the Post told McCarthy they would be publishing this story, he at first denied ever saying such a thing. Then they told him about the recording, and he changed his story to claim he had only been joking.

What I had forgotten was that the 2016 comments came in a discussion among the Republican leaders after a Ukrainian delegation met with them to explain about how the Russian government had encouraged corruption and spread propaganda in their country and was likely doing so in the U.S. as well.

[RoseMorninStar]

It all really stinks, doesn't it?

[Frelga]

Can they just leave them fueled and unattended for a few minutes?

During the economic troubles of the 90s, someone stole high-voltage lines for scrap metal, supposedly while live. Planes should not represent a problem.

Toldja.

[River]

I giggled.

[Frelga]

Apparently during ww2, when US was still neutral but Canada already joined the fight, a number of planes moved to Maine near Canadian border, where they mysteriously vanished. Also some RAF pilots turned out to have Yankee accents.

[Sunsilver]

So did I!

Yes, there were quite a few Yankees fighting in the Battle of Britain before Pearl Harbor. Some were with the RCAF, some with the RAF. The RAF was already a very diverse lot, with pilots from nearly every country in the Commonwealth, so no one even blinked at it.

[RoseMorninStar]

While not directly Russia/Ukraine related France's president Macron won.. I think in no small part to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and La Pen's perceived closeness to Putin. Also, probably due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Japan has decided to not take such a passive role in Russia's illegal occupation of Japan's Kuril islands, a stance Japan has taken in the hopes that one day Russia would be conciliatory and back off (Putin now SAYS they were considering it but now he won't.. a story which no one should believe). Japan has also sent Ukraine drones and some other equipment.

[Sunsilver]

Yes, there were quite a few Yankees fighting in the Battle of Britain before Pearl Harbor. Some were with the RCAF, some with the RAF. The RAF was already a very diverse lot, with pilots from nearly every country in the Commonwealth, so no one even blinked at it.

Okay, my curiosity got the better of me, so I had to find out just how this worked. It was easy enough - I belong to the Bomber Command FB group, as one of my uncles flew with the RAF during WWII. They are a wonderful group -within 24 hours of me having joined, they'd found his entire wartime history for me, and corrected a lot of misinformation I'd heard from my family!

Anyway, Yanks in the Air Force, prior to Pearl Harbour:

"Even before the USA's involvement after Pearl Harbour (7-Dec-1941) many United States nationals also swelled the ranks, usually by the simple expedient of crossing into Canada and joining the RCAF. Provided that the man concerned took an oath to adhere to the rules and discipline of the RCAF, this practice was winked at by the authorities and he did not have to take allegiance to the Crown or lose his US citizenship."
http://robdavistelford.co.uk/webspace/raf_bc/index.html

[RoseMorninStar]

The National guard has been awfully active in our area of late. I hope this is general readiness/precautionary and not anything more. It's well after midnight & they're still training.

[N.E. Brigand]

Russian state media hosts over the past few days have been (1) broadcasting images showing how vulnerable Germany, France, and the U.K. would be to Russian nuclear missile strikes and (2) musing about how nuclear war might not be so bad because even if Russians die, they'll at least go to heaven.