Kyiv Post tends to be a little less bombastic with their reporting:

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/79532

They word it differently, saying the US warned that Russia was “considering” an attack. This is probably true, and has probably been true every year for the past several decades. Simply because a nation’s military planners “consider” pretty much everything they can think of.

Oh he knows. I bet he’s known since the second month of his special military operation. He just can’t do anything about it, he’s on railroad tracks that lead nowhere except disaster.

He’s a strongman, his power is based on his reputation, which is based on being able to make decisions that result in keeping the Russian people safe and secure. Had his invasion succeeded, this would have been good for him. But it didn’t, so now everyone has to ask: what have they paid, what have they gotten for it, and are they happy with their leadership based on that?

I think it’s pretty hard for anyone anywhere to argue that the past few years have been good for them, so Putin has to worry about his popularity. But wait, there’s no way to realistically remove unpopular Russian leaders, and that means … his actual life is in danger if anyone wants him out badly enough, which you gotta figure some powerful people in Russia probably do by now.

That’s the problem for Putin. Peace will be the death of him, and he knows it.

Now that’s a sign of an impending apocalypse.

This. Video games too. And porn for that matter. We’re overall a little weak on the trifecta of primary internet subject matter.

At least we’re solid on owls though, my enduring admiration to our dedicated owl posters.

Oh, interesting, thank you. I did not realize that was a thing.

Anyone have any insight on why NR does particularly well in the south of France?

UN decided couldn’t possibly be a problem in the future

Less that, and more that the existence of the Security Council with permanent seats and veto powers was a requirement to get the major powers to actually want to join.

Otherwise it’d have been the post-WW1 League of Nations, which pretty quickly fell apart. The US never even joined the League if I recall, they couldn’t get it through Congress despite it being President Woodrow Wilson’s own pet project.

Ultimately it’s easy to get a small power to join an org that basically serves to limit the options of individual countries by applying international law to them. It’s hard to get a large, powerful country to sign up for that same thing. The smaller country gains from joining, but the strong country actually weakens itself by joining.

For space/astronomy news, I recommend Doctor Becky https://youtube.com/@drbecky and Fraser Cain. https://youtube.com/@frasercain

Becky handles mostly astronomy news, Fraser handles mostly space flight news. Both are pretty decent at staying more objective.

Depends if I can get my phone unlocked and call an ambulance or not. Unassisted I’m probably bleeding out, but if I can get to a hospital then I can probably make it. I do wonder how much skin I’ll even have left at this point, considering the sheer number of cuts, scrapes and burns I’ve had, but blood loss should be the only potentially fatal problem needing to be dealt with immediately.

Big if, though, my hands would be a busted up mess. Operating a touchscreen would be a pretty big ask, and I probably don’t have a lot of time fully conscious. I’d also have several broken bones preventing me from going anywhere to find help.

They’re headed in that direction, but not yet. Their pop is 143 mil roughly, and the Ukrainian estimates are a little over 1 mil Russian casualties last I heard.

They could roll in with tanks, if enough pro-Russian parties came into power in the EU. The Baltic countries are not very big. Creating a situation where an Article 5 is called by a small country, but not answered, would be the ideal result.

Let’s also not forget that Putin has only done a very limited amount of mobilization so far.

Yeah, that’s a good point.

Seemed to me that pilot could’ve nailed him any time he wanted. Dude wasn’t exactly moving like Batman out there. If you’re really trying to get him, it’s not like you lose anything if you actually try to hit him and he ducks, you just come back around. No actual benefit to toying with him.

Getting him to surrender is a benefit though. Saves a drone, and gets you a prisoner you can milk for intelligence and maybe swap in the future. Prisoners are an asset, and it is beneficial to collect them when possible.

Yeeesh. I get the impression the drone operator really, really wants this guy to just surrender so he doesn’t have to waste the drone on him, but the guy just won’t…

Gave him every opportunity, while the guy is alone, and just looks lost, confused and hungry.

… does he think that will make more Brazilians have good feelings about Bolsonaro?

Minor quibble, but Rafale does not make a cutting-edge fighter. The US, Russia and China all make 5th gen fighters. France does not yet, they mostly make 4.5. Before long here, the 5’s won’t be cutting edge anymore and we’ll all be on to 6th gen.

Prior to the recent decade, peer on peer warfare was considered pretty unlikely overall, where COIN was the big thing everyone was worried about.

Here in the US anyway. I’m not sure what priorities the British have and how much budget they have to throw at them.

More that “obsolete” doesn’t mean useless. It just means its unable to adequately fulfill all the roles in all of the potential situations that the British may want for their arty. It can still perform a lot though.

Plenty of obsolete things can still be very useful.

You know … at a certain level, I respect the dedication. Go big or go home I suppose.

I’m not sure the cauldron strategy is as viable as it was in the past. This isn’t the Red Army of Stalin’s day, this army retreats en masse when you shatter its lines, as we saw in the Kharkiv offensive a couple years ago.

Do their missiles and big drones have inertial guidance? If not, more jamming systems could work really well.