I think everyone is confused, including the guy that made the post.

There has to be some way to counter this shit. 🤬

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/cybercom-china-targeting-defense-industrial-base/




https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-funds-research-that-involves-chinese-military-linked-universities/

Putin did. Putin said there can be an immediate cease fire if Ukraine withdraws completely from Russia's new territories.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-offers-cease-fire-if-ukraine-exits-russian-claimed-areas-and-drops-nato-bid-kyiv-calls-proposal-absurd

The street interview greatly overstated the case, saying that the war could end in exchange for giving up the four regions Russia claims, when he only offered a ceasefire. I suspect if there were actual negotiations, he might indeed settle on those lines for more than a ceasefire, but the Ukrainians are right: he'll never abide by that. Russia breaks EVERY treaty and commitment.

This might be the source:

https://infolight.in.ua/en/2024/03/01/timely-solutions-ukrainian-defenders-use-armored-vehicles-copied-from-american-models-at-the-front/

Can't say if this is legit. The pictures are not.

https://kyivindependent.com/finland-announces-170-million-in-new-military-aid-for-ukraine/

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/bulgarian-president-wont-attend-nato-summit-disagrees-with-support-for-ukraine/

Somebody serious about countering Russia could have started training Ukrainians on using F16s three whole years ago.

I remember in the early weeks of the 2022 invasion people saying "it takes too long to train people on F16 so it's not worth it."

Speaking of expelled, I think I would have expelled the ambassador for denying that former USSR countries were legally independent and sovereign nations.

'One country two systems' was shown to be a total failure in Hong Kong, as the Beijing regime (let's use their language) denied self-government to Hong Kong, and worse, stripped the people's liberties.

It's past time for free nations to speak of Taiwan in terms not of political status but in terms of conditions for the people. The people of Taiwan enjoy freedom of religion, press, assembly, speech, petition of government, direct election of leaders, independent judiciary, rule of law. Any move to remove these things should be considered intolerable, and any government that threatens to remove these things should be considered illegitimate. Given the example of Hong Kong, Beijing's claims on Taiwan should be rejected. Publicly. What are they going to do about it, stop selling us the manufactured goods their economy depends on? Stop treating the Beijing bullies with kid gloves.

Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa are all included in Russian imperial nationalists conceptions of "Novorossiya." This is often forgotten, but there was manufactured unrest in Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, etc. in 2014. In Odesa, Russia was coordinating with local Russian nationalists, and, should they have been able to get protests off the ground, Russian SOF would've used that as an opportunity to swoop in. In Kharkiv, Russia bussed a ton of agitators across the border to stir up shit (in one hilarious instance, they seized the opera house and claimed to have seized city hall, thus demonstrating that they weren't locals). The Putin regime believed that all it would take was a little push, and that Ukraine's control over all eight oblasts included in "Novorossiya" would disintegrate. That didn't happen, though, because there was never enough popular support for that unrest to really get off the ground anywhere but in the Donbas. Polling from the time indicates that around 30% of the Donbas's population supported separatism, and the next highest support for separatism was 15% in Kharkiv, with it being even lower elsewhere in the east.

The point being, Russia absolutely does want all of Ukraine's eight easternmost Oblasts, which it views as being historical Russian land. If Russia were to get its way, Ukraine's east would be annexed, with any local residents deemed "problematic" getting disappeared. Meanwhile, Ukraine's east-central and west-central would be a quasi-independent rump state with Russian being elevated to a state language, autocephaly removed and the Russian Orthodox Church given free reign, only the Russian version of history being permitted to be taught in school, a limited military heavily integrated with Russia's, etc. Russia would likely encourage Western Ukraine to be annexed by Poland, Hungary, and Romania, as it did in early 2014. Failing that, it might permit far Western Ukraine to go its own way (it's always viewed Western Ukraine as being a hotbed a "Banderite" and "Nazi" ideology and has blamed most of its failures in Ukraine on "Galician nationalists,"), or it might just incorporate it into the aforementioned quasi-independent rump.

I get the hesitancy to send systems beyond small arms, ATGMs, and MANPADS in the early weeks of the invasion (let alone before it, when the outcome was viewed as a fait accompli). However, once the Russians withdrew from Kyiv and it became clear that this was going to be a longer war, the west should've started working towards training Ukrainian pilots, providing IFVs and tanks, long range strike capability, etc.

The only way to have deterred the whole thing was with a show of significant strength, broadcasting to the Kremlin that they would not win. The DC Establishment played to not provoke or escalate, resulting in war and war crimes. Given that Putin's been pushing for this for literally 20 years, it would have taken a LOT to deter the invasion, but dialogue with Russia wasn't going to do it. Quickly ramping up Ukraine's military might have done it. Looking at the forces Putin deployed, it was easy to see that conquering the whole country wasn't on the table; they didn't have the numbers. So training & equipping a new division, augmenting Ukraine's air forces with substantial air defense, added choppers & fighters, might have persuaded the Kremlin that their goal was not attainable with the forces they had.

All pointless speculation, but true deterrence was never even tried. It should have been.

Remember when Clinton and Obama said 'well it takes 10 years to get wells to produce oiol so we shouldnt allow drilling?' Same bullshit.

"Peace at all costs"

I definitely agree, but that also would've required Ukrainian political leadership to take the threat seriously, which they largely didn't (local Ukrainian patriots did take the threat seriously, and they are perhaps the largest reason Kyiv didn't fall). Regardless, it's all water under the bridge at this point.

Thanks for that.  

Interesting.  I have played volleyball with a Russian (some are minorities from Russia, one guy who sometimes comes is Chuvash, some are Ukrainian) church group I go to, all in the Sacramento area, and at quite a few parks we play in, there are a lot of Persian people.  The women almost all if not all wear clothes like they do in Iran, with headscarves and the like.   The last two times, this Iranian kid, who himself has darker skin (a lot of them would be considered white, I would guess some of them have Arabic roots), played with us.  He just showed up one time and asked if he could, and his dad showed up at the end of a game and played with us too.  

All of these people get along just fine in a neighborhood, albeit without mingling too much.  Americans, Russians, Iranians.

That place needs an enema badly.

Newest Russian S-500 intercepts (literally) ATACMS cluster missiles

Source: Tivaz Artillery "The ATACMS cassette (cluster Warhead) has arrived on Ebal Radar from S-500."

(Possibly the 76T6/77T6 ABM Engagement Active Phased Array Rada used for tracking high-speed ballistic… pic.twitter.com/vDsvGFGEWT

— OSINT (Uri Kikaski) \uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDF8 \uD83C\uDDE8\uD83C\uDDE6 \uD83C\uDDEC\uD83C\uDDE7 \uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 \uD83C\uDDEE\uD83C\uDDF1 (@UKikaski) June 28, 2024

My poss. geolocation of Russian S-500 Prometheus ADS near Dzhankoi base is

45.686, 34.422

Based on Sentinel 2 historic images traffic evidence & NOAA-20 heat source detection pixel size, 410 x 450 meters plus < 1 pix RMSE.

Annotated on 4 days old satellite image.#Crimea https://t.co/EfwG3ViLXm pic.twitter.com/rKsu32v6GM

— Tom Bike (@tom_bike) June 28, 2024

The M39/A1 is a missile between 36-28 years old (production age). For a system that was invented/designed 40yrs ago.

Lol. Just killed a “bleeding edge” S-500 the first week it arrived.

I imagine there are some people in and around DC watching with interest.

I showed that to Mrs. BGB. Her flinch, and OH FUCK ME! was priceless!

Quite right. I'll add F16s to the things I won't rant on anymore.

IIRC the conversations in the earlier days of the other thread, a lot of those folks had spent years training and working with our "allies" in ME countries and considered UA no better, and as such there was no need to do it.

Others, wanted more immediate concerns addressed to stabilize the lines before doing long term stuff.

Some consider RU victory a fait accompli even now.

I suggested giving them the entire A10 fleet along with F16's as it would get it out of US inventory, allowing the USAF to spend the money elsewhere. And second it would give UA a robust plane to attack the front lines.

It was instantly poo poo-ed because the A10 would be a sitting duck to RU ADA. They'll all get shot down, it's to slow, it's to old, and the pilots will get killed, etc, etc, etc...

Never mind it would take months to a year to train them during which the UA would attrit the ADA before the planes were in country like they're doing now. Amazing how that worked.

A lot of people with a bias against the A10 ignored everything after A10 was mentioned in the conversation.

And I'm sure I'll get push back for mentioning it here.

Not from me, I agreed with ya.

14 minutes ago.

?And again, during the day, the russian orcs lost another SU-25

Donetsk region?\uD83C\uDFFB\uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 pic.twitter.com/sCe6xOyYLX

— ???? South (@Azovsouth) June 28, 2024

I still am for Fissile material and delivery systems....

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/06/27/serbia-kosovo-talks-collapse/

https://www.voanews.com/amp/iran-installs-4-new-centrifuge-clusters-iaea-report-says/7677389.html

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2024/06/29/2003820052

https://thediplomat.com/2024/06/why-is-china-stockpiling-key-resources/

China’s Communist Party expels two former Defense Ministers. This is on the grounds of corruption charges, but also for damage to the image of senior officials. It's interesting to ponder whether this is due to actual corruption or just an excuse to get rid of politically unreliable people. In autocracies, nearly everyone is corrupt to one degree or another. It's not a bug; it's a feature. It gives you a built in excuse to purge politically unreliable people whenever the need arises.

Yes I also remember those discussions. Lots of bias from the ME comparing some illiterate Afghan goat herder to a UA Mig29 pilot with years of combat experience and multiple engineering degrees. There was also a near total institutional conviction that Russia was undefeatable and at best we will trigger WWIII so why bother. And these are the SME's...:(

https://ctc.westpoint.edu/june-2024/

Excerpts relevant to this thread:

Russia and proxies:



The Russian sabotage campaign in Europe has been documented fairly extensively (some in this thread), as have Russian influence campaigns aimed at undermining European democratic institutions. Another component of those campaigns is the European far right and its linkage to entities in Russia that are willing to train and equip their European counterparts. Russian Imperial Legion was implicated in training Swedish neo-Nazis a few years back, who went on to attempt to carry out violent acts back home, if memory serves. New information indicates that Russia is even willing to move beyond proxies and act directly:



Iran and proxies:

Iran seems largely content to attack Israelis directly, though with little to no distinction made in target selection.



Wider implications:



Going forward:

The Air Force has been dying to dump the A10's for close to fifteen years now. What better way to send them into retirement than strafing Russians in Ukraine? They were designed to annihilate Russian supply columns and set their tanks and IFV's aflame. Loose the dogs of war!

lol.

Video released by Russia appearing to show the first successful targeting of an M270 MLRS system in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/itcIamVmmQ

— Preston Stewart (@prestonstew_) June 28, 2024

Worth adding there is some debate as to whether the MLRS shown at the beginning is the same vehicle that pulls into the structure. They do look different https://t.co/nJdPTUZojb

— Preston Stewart (@prestonstew_) June 28, 2024

not the same vehicle. Second vehicle is a fuel truck pic.twitter.com/yW1H0jA2QU

jssjhsb  (@jssjhsb4) June 28, 2024

Different vehicles, different time of day, from this there's no way to say with any certainty what was or wasn't destroyed other than a building. pic.twitter.com/zVCZhz4EG9

— \uD83C\uDC04\uD83D\uDC08?\uD83D\uDD38 Dean \uD83D\uDD38?\uD83D\uDC08\uD83C\uDC04 (@ImHere4boobies) June 28, 2024

Hours later, look at the vehicle shadows.

I'm with the "2 different vehicles" crew...that thing going into the building is not an M270

Matthew Clarke  (@CrunchyGiblets) June 28, 2024

The Matrix on the Frontline \uD83D\uDE0E\uD83D\uDC1D

The Wild Hornets night drone dodges enemy bullets.

Want more episodes of "The Matrix New Edition"?
Donate for drones \uD83D\uDC47

\uD83D\uDCB2 Our PayPal: [email protected]

\uD83D\uDD17 monobank: https://t.co/B7YSyuhvQ5#wildhornets #ukrainianarmy… pic.twitter.com/ExpDUWeMmp

Wild hornets  (@wilendhornets) June 28, 2024

LOL

Inbox: US Army awards Lockheed a $4.5b multi year contract for PAC-3 MSE interceptors pic.twitter.com/VgM9RL6CPV

Brian Everstine  (@beverstine) June 28, 2024

\uD83D\uDEA8\uD83D\uDEA8\uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDF2 BREAKING: The Department of Defense has awarded Lockheed Martin a $5.3 BILLION contract for PATRIOT PAC-3 MSE interceptor missiles. The entirety of funds, both Missile Procurement, Army, and Foreign Military Sales, are being obligated at this time. pic.twitter.com/6sK1QmBQ7z

— Colby Badhwar \uD83C\uDDE8\uD83C\uDDE6\uD83C\uDDEC\uD83C\uDDE7 (@ColbyBadhwar) June 28, 2024

The Army's base budget MSE request for FY2024 is $1.2 billion, which includes funds for Advance Procurement. This will be increased by additional reprogrammed funds from the supplementals to buy replacement missiles for those drawndown to Ukraine. A very sizeable amount of the…

— Colby Badhwar \uD83C\uDDE8\uD83C\uDDE6\uD83C\uDDEC\uD83C\uDDE7 (@ColbyBadhwar) June 28, 2024

Note completion date in January 2027.

Lots of FL in that list.

Build another plant and up the order to 8700.

Latest Sreiff Update.  Though I don't always totally agree with everything, his ability to cram a lot of info into a brief, readable product is art! Putin's War week 112

It is certainly a great demonstration of why you shouldn't "stunt drive" or lay down/play in the road.  Probably something that should be shown in driver's ED classes.

From the ISW Irab/Middle East Backgrounder of 28 Jun.   Link

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Dnipro hit again.

‼️Already 12 victims in Dnipro.

Six are in the hospital.

Among them is a pregnant woman. Doctors assess her condition as moderate. The patient is provided with all necessary medical assistance.
https://t.me/dnipropetrovskaODA/14092



📹 What does the now destroyed high-rise building in Dnipro look like from the inside
https://t.me/dneproperatyv/102395

Just this year Sweden and France arrested Iranian agents who entered their countries pretending to be Afghan refugees.  The husband-wife team in Sweden had been given a target to attack and were waiting for the orders to proceed.