[Werthead]

Belarus has concentrated significant numbers of troops and material along the border with Ukraine, under the guise of exercises. They've done this several times before and it hasn't come to anything.

However, Ukraine has issued a warning to the government of Belarus, informing them that if Belarusian forces cross the border, Ukraine would launch a massive attack against Belarusian military targets across the entire country, using drones, aircraft and cruise missiles.

[Werthead]

The Gazpromneft refinery in Omsk, the largest in Russia, was hit by multiple drones this morning and is partially on fire. It doesn't seem to be a catatrophic blaze, yet.

The fire at Proletarsk is now in its ninth day and a vast area of housing around the refinery has now been evacuated. The main roads around the facility are closed, forcing drivers to take to dirt roads. The fire reached and burned down a United Russia campaign poster, which had Putin's face on it and the legend "STABILITY!"

Russia launched one of its largest strikes on Ukraine, with well over 100 missiles and Shahed drones in the air. Ukraine shot down a large number, but there was significant damage in several Ukrainian cities and several energy infrastructure facilities. In particular, Russia targeted the Vyshorod damn, which could have caused catastrophic damage to Kyiv. Fortunately several of their missiles crashed into the reservoir behind the dam rather than the structure itself.

After Pavel Durov's arrest, all Russian military and government officials have been ordered to delete all messages on the Telegram platform. Russian military personnel are saying they can't do that, as they are passing on operational information and orders using Telegram and they have no alternative. Putin has ordered Russia to deploy a replacement messaging app "within days," which is not technically possible. Russian officials are saying they need Chinese tech to do this, but Russian law prevents them from giving access to Russian state secrets to the Chinese.

Some signs of the US and its allies moving towards allowing Ukraine unrestricted use of weapons systems. In particular, some US sources have acknowledged that Ukraine taking more territory in Kursk (and possibly elsewhere) could be a critical precondition to forcing Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian ground robots have been spotted in several areas of the front, disguised as logs (this seems to be a growing trend). The Russians spotted one running around and managed to destroy it with artillery.

Ukraine seems to have deployed replica Orlan drones. They wait until Russian drones are returning to base, slip in an replica Orlan with the returning group, and then either trace them to their base and destroy it with missiles and artillery, or detonate an internal explosive (Orlans aren't massive, so I assume this is of limited utility).

[Werthead]

The Proletarsk fire might be coming under control, but the place has been utterly wrecked. One Russian employee filming the ruins said, "This took 15 years to build and one week to waste it," and seemed to think it would be impossible to rebuild it in anything approaching a reasonable timeframe.

A wild story that German intelligence uncovered evidence of Russia planning a drone attack on German airbases hosting US planes, and Germany and the US have sent warnings to Russia what the consequences of that would be (basically full NATO intervention in the war in Ukraine). Not sure I buy that, as it sounds suicidally insane.

Ukraine has successfully tested a ballistic missile of its own design, but unclear on its range or capabilities.

Omsk Refinery is currently running at less than 50% capacity after Ukraine's attack.

Unconfirmed reports of a Ukrainian attack on a border post in Belgorod Oblast, leading to fears of a second border incursion.

Ukraine has deployed helicopters in a drone-hunting role. They have proven to be effective in shooting down Shaheds.

F-16s were used today and yesterday to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Deranged Russian claims of a massive maritime landing on Crimea by Ukrainian forces is possible, and maybe imminent. I don't think that's a plausible plan at this time.

Ukrainian drone strikes on bridges in Rylsk, north of the current front in Kursk.

[Werthead]

The delta symbol for the Ukrainian Kursk operation has been daubed on the exterior walls surrounding the Kursk nuclear power plant. Unclear if Ukrainian scouts have reached the area or if locals did it for a laugh or the Russians did it themselves for some reason. Ukraine has restricted access to the area to anyone but military and technical personnel.

Russia has restricted travel along the E38 highway after Ukrainian drones started hitting military vehicles along its length. A Russian van was destroyed on a bridge near Rylsk, possibly getting in the way of an attempt to destroy the bridge itself. The E38 links Rylsk all the way east to Kursk city, running by the nuclear power plant.

The first batch of F-35s will be delivered to Poland in December.

Ukraine has simultaneously struck an Russian oil depot in Kirov Oblast, 1100km from Ukraine, and the Atlas oil depot in Rostov Oblast, apparently burning the facility to the ground, and hit the Ryazan power station in Novomichurinsk hard, SE of Moscow.

A Russian Su-25 was shot down over the front with Ukrainian MANPADS.

About 50% of the population of Pokrovsk has been evacuated, some frustration that more people are refusing to leave. Russian forces are about ten miles from the city. The speed of the Russian advance has slowed in recent days as Ukraine started hitting the flanks of the advance hard and Russia started trying to beef up the flanks of what was turning into an overexposed salient. If Russia can flatten the bridgehead they can start trying to advance again.

France and Britain are bringing additional pressure to bear on the US and Germany over allowing long-range weaponry to hit military targets in Russia. Apparently the US wants to use this as a bargaining chip to bring Russia to the negotiating table, but they seem to be having no luck with that so far.

Belarusian vehicles on exercise near the Ukrainian border have a large, stylized "B" written on them, similar to the Z used in the initial days of the invasion, raising fears of a Belarusian intervention in the war.

[Cause]

Werthead, on 28 August 2024 - 07:41 PM, said:

France and Britain are bringing additional pressure to bear on the US and Germany over allowing long-range weaponry to hit military targets in Russia. Apparently the US wants to use this as a bargaining chip to bring Russia to the negotiating table, but they seem to be having no luck with that so far.

I have never negotiated an international ceasefire but I’d think raining rockets on Russia and offering to stop in exchange for peace would be more effective then give us peace or we may fire rockets. What do I know.

[Werthead]

The Atlas fuel depot in Rostov is still on fire. They seem to be writing off saving the facility.

The ex-deputy Russian defence minister, Pavel Popov, has been arrested for fraud. He is one of Shoigu's inner circle.

One of Ukraine's new F-16s has been lost in an accident during landing. That's not great news, and a reminder that even with the months of training they had, Ukraine's pilots had a relative crash programme.

On the official maps, Ukrainian forces are still a fair way off (15km+) from Kurchatov, the town where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, but residents in Kurchatov have been filming, with explosions and small arms fire clearly audible in the distance. Some residents want to flee but they've been told to stay put.

Ukraine's new cruise missile reportedly has a maximum range of 700km.

Belarus shot down a Russian drone that accidentally crossed into their territory last night.

[Werthead]

Chinese state banks have started shutting down transactions with Russia on a larger scale as the threat of secondary sanctions from the US spikes.

India has offered to host the next Ukrainian peace summit. Ukraine has received the news positively.

Russian troops in Burkina Faso have been withdrawn and are likely to be sent to Kursk.

The Proletarsk oil depot in Rostov is still burning twelve days after being hit. The Atlas oil depot, not too far away, is still burning after three days.

Putin is visiting Mongolia next week, having worked out a deal so he will not be arrested. This may cause problems with Mongolia's place in the International Criminal Court system, as an ICC member cannot ignore an arrest warrant from the ICC. Putin's visit is also likely a reminder to China and other Asian countries of Russia's victory, helped by Mongolian troops, in the Khalkhin-Gol campaign of 1939.

Russian police are being encouraged to "convince" arrested personnel to sign up to go to fight in Ukraine, with cash rewards and a waiver for themselves being mobilised.

The Russian government has been accused of exerting propaganda influence on Russia's popular fortune teller market, convincing fortune tellers to tell the tens of thousands of mothers, wives, children etc who contact them every week that their male relatives are still alive when they have been killed in battle.

A tower block in Kharkiv was hit by a Russian glide bomb, killing four including a 14-year-old girl. Kyiv is using the incident to ramp up the growing pressure to be allowed to use long-range weapons to hit Russian airfields.

Ukraine has deployed three robot ground systems: Termite for transport and evacuation, Shablya for combat (it is equipped with an apparently recoiless machine gun) and Lyut, which is a smaller ground model used to set up ambushes. Ground drones are becoming more popular as they are much harder to spot, especially in forested areas, can be camouflaged, and are more resistant to EW.

Ukraine seems to be hardening defensive positions around Pokrovsk, repulsing 58 attacks on that front in one day yesterday. The closest Russian units are about 11km from Pokrovsk.

Russian sources indicating they are concerned about a Ukrainian thrust through Zaporizhzhia Oblast, anchoring their right flank on the Dnipro and attacking towards Vasilyevka. This would force Russia to abandon the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and would give Ukraine multiple attack vectors into the rear of the land bridge area, connecting Russia to Crimea.

The Shkval unit of former Ukrainian convicts has achieved a tactical victory near Toretsk, capturing multiple Russians in combat and killing a number of others. Whilst the battle was ongoing, Russian artillery started hitting the area despite their troops still being active and asking them to cease fire. Ukrainian forces weathered the bombardment without casualties and were able to withdraw with their prisoners intact.

The Russians were also repulsed in an attack on Kurakhove, losing 17 vehicles in a pitched battle with the 46th Ukrainian Air Mobile Brigade. This was one of Russia's largest tank pushes in a while.

Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his 70th birthday and has awarded him the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, for achievements in developing relations between Belarus and Russia.

Medvedev, bizarrely, broke with Russian propaganda and outlined Russia's primary reasons for trying to seize Donbas: taking rare minerals valued at $7.3 trillion, rich arable land and gaining more ports on the Black Sea. Weirdly, Ukrainian Nazis and NATO were not mentioned.

[Werthead]

No confirmation of Lavrov's alleged death. The Kremlin has confirmed his schedule for this week, confirming multiple public appearances.

At least one of Ukraine's "missing" brigades has been spotted in Pakrovsk, indicating Ukraine has sent in more forces as reinforcements.

Russia tried to mount a large assault today on the Pokrovsk front and ran into very heavy Ukrainian drone rand artillery fire. It looks like they were engaged by the 59th Brigade and lost 12 vehicles and 93 soldiers in a single engagement.

Some indications that Russian conscripts in Kursk are being ordered into battle without body armour or even proper uniforms.

The 80th Galician Air Assault Brigade operating in Kursk has confirmed it has captured four T-80BVMs, two T-72s and a T-90M, all taken from the 4th Tank Division. This is one of the more elite Russian armored units and was rotated from the front into Kursk to regenerate, and was taken by surprise by the attack.

A Swiss thinktank has recommended that the Swiss government integrate its military with those of surrounding nations and begin thinking about a closer alignment with NATO even if full membership remains unpalatable. Similar discussions have been had in Ireland, particularly about the threat to cable-laying operations off the Irish coast which are vulnerable to Russian cutting operations (some of which have been practiced by Russian ships outside Irish territorial waters).

The ICC has clarified that Mongolia has no choice but to arrest Putin, otherwise its continued participation in the ICC may be in doubt.

The successful strike on the Kaputnya oil refinery in Moscow is causing consternation, mainly for how Ukrainian drones managed to penetrate Moscow's air defence zone. Moscow is one of the most heavily-defended cities against air attack in the world, with 22 S-300 and S-400 complexes ringing the city and one confirmed, operational S-500 system (allegedly capable of intercepting ICBMs).

Ukrainian drones did hit Moscow previously, but these seemed to be much smaller drones, some of them launched from maybe inside the air defence zone itself by Ukrainian agents or Russian partisans, and it's been a while since the last successful strike. Long-range drones launched from Ukraine itself penetrating Moscow's defences is more alarming (for the Russians).

This post has been edited by Werthead: 01 September 2024 - 07:52 PM

[Werthead]

Ukraine apparently leaked news of an impending attack on the under-construction Russian fortifications just south of the Kursk nuclear power plant, causing two overzealous Russian conscript units to launch an attack on what they thought were approaching Ukrainian troops. In fact, they ambushed one another and spent an hour exchanging fire, sustaining casualties (fortunately no deaths), before they realised what had happened. The Ukrainians were 10km away the whole time. Russian regular units pulled the conscripts off the front.

Russian forces have advanced on the Toretsk flank, but there have been very heavy battles during the main Pokrovsk front, with the Russians losing multiple vehicles. The engagements in the last 24 hours have been very intense, contributing to almost 1400 Russian casualties in the last 24 hours or so, one of the highest one-day casualty figures of the war. There's also been heavy battles in the Selidove part of this front, where the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade has apparently halted a major Russian push. The Khara-Dag battalion are also in action on the front, and reportedly destroyed 12 Russian vehicles in their first engagement in this sector.

Romania is preparing to transfer an additional Patriot battery to Ukraine.

The fire in Proletarsk is out! It took 16 days to extinguish and the oil depot has been pretty much razed to the ground.

Putin has arrived in Mongolia and was greeted by an honour guard. He was not arrested. The ICC is now considering Mongolia's place in the organisation.

Russian Mafia and other criminal organisations have apparently hacked the list of participants in the war who have returned home. They are now extorting and blackmailing them en masse.

Poland is close to agreeing a new defence doctrine that would allow it to shoot down any Russian missile or drone that enters the range of its AA defences along the Ukrainian border.

Unconfirmed reports that Ukraine has deployed new EW systems, which allegedly shut off 25 Shahed drones in mid-flight and saw them tumble out of the sky well short of their targets. 22 cruise and ballistic missiles were intercepted over Kyiv.

In an interesting move, France has agreed to supply Serbia with modern French jets in return for taking possession of Serbia's existing dozen MiG fighters (though not all are believed to be airworthy, but could still be a valid source of spare parts). Ideally the MiGs could then be transferred to Ukraine. It sounds like the French want to take possession of the MiGs in December and transfer their own jets to Serbia at a later date, which the Serbs are debating.

After several slow days, Ukraine has made a breakthrough on the Kursk front north of Sudzha, taking seven villages in short order. Around half a dozen additional Russian POWs were taken.

Having been hyping up the new "Palyanytisa" (a type of Ukrainian bread) missile-drone, the munition has apparently been deployed for the first time to destroy a Russian target in Crimea.

[Tsundoku]

Werthead, on 02 September 2024 - 06:15 PM, said:

Russian Mafia and other criminal organisations have apparently hacked the list of participants in the war who have returned home. They are now extorting and blackmailing them en masse.

Uh, why? How is that blackmail-worthy?

Quote

In an interesting move, France has agreed to supply Serbia with modern French jets in return for taking possession of Serbia's existing dozen MiG fighters (though not all are believed to be airworthy, but could still be a valid source of spare parts). Ideally the MiGs could then be transferred to Ukraine. It sounds like the French want to take possession of the MiGs in December and transfer their own jets to Serbia at a later date, which the Serbs are debating.

Aren't Serbia pretty much part of Russia's cheer squad?

[Werthead]

Tsundoku, on 02 September 2024 - 07:44 PM, said:

Aren't Serbia pretty much part of Russia's cheer squad?

Yes and no. There are both pro-Russia and pro-EU camps in the country and government (the former tends to be more voluble, the latter is quieter but possibly more widespread). Serbia's government is to some degree playing all the ends against the middle to their advantage. They don't really care about what's going on but they do care about leveraging things to their advantage: seeing if Ukraine was enough of a distraction allowing them to try some things in Kosovo and realising it wasn't, now getting advanced French jets in return for junking their old POC Russian jets, and not really caring where they end up.

Serbia has also tied its flag much more to the Chinese mast than the Russian one, cancelling Russian defence contracts worth billions in favour of Chinese ones, which narked the Russians off. But there are still strong cultural and historical ties to Russia, so if Russia looks like they're going to lose, the Serbs will express condolences and tsk at evil NATO but not really do anything else, and if they win, Serbia will throw a street party and see if they can benefit.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 02 September 2024 - 08:16 PM

[Mentalist]

Serbia is in really odd position.

Moscow is openly bankrolling the Serbian Republic within BiH, which gets a veto power on any foreign policy decisions the Bosniaks and the Bosnian Croats might make, effectively blocking any Euroatlantic integration. The BiH Serbs are way more nationalistics and anti-West than Serbia proper, which really wants to join the EU. But Belgrade obviously can't just ignore the Bosnian Serbs, and they are still a factor in domestic politics, to a degree.

Moreover, because Serbia believes that Kosovo was a case of "unlawful secession" it is very much in the "1991 borders are inviolable" camp, which means it can't recognize any of Moscow's puppet states, or the Crimean Anschluss, b/c doing so would mean giving Kosovars more legitimacy.

What you end up with is a weak Moscow ally, that's willing to help for a tidy profit, but ultimately is still looking to the big players like the EU and China for long-term planning.

[Werthead]

A Russian cargo vessel carrying 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate has made an emergency dock at Tromsø, Norway. Apparently the ship ran aground after a storm and limped to the port.

The Norwegians are treating the ship very carefully, as this is the same stuff that blew up in Beirut Port a few years ago. If the cargo exploded where the ship is right now, it would easily level half the city. Emergency repairs are underway and the ship will be towed out of the port to a safer anchorage ASAP. NATO is monitoring the situation. A Norwegian frigate is also on-site and monitoring.

Unconfirmed reports that Ukraine has used its flamethrower drone on a trenchline on the Pokrovsk front, burning dozens of Russian troops to death. No video footage, which makes me think it's not true, but watch this space. Russian Telegram has exploded with rage that treelines, buildings and trenches may have gone from viable cover to deathtraps. The panic is probably misplaced for now unless Ukraine has managed to deploy hundreds of the things. 

The fighting on the Pokrovsk front has become incredibly intense. Russia has lost three turtle tanks, six "garden shed" heavy camouflaged tanks (guys, these things don't work and just slow the tank down, stop it), two T-72s, thee T-80s, a T-64, a T-62 and at least five other tanks that were destroyed so completely the OSINT sources can't tell what they were. Around 22 tanks were lost on 2 September alone, which some are saying is twice the previous record for the conflict, which is unconfirmed. More than 1,000 Russian vehicles have been visually confirmed destroyed in two weeks.

51 Ukrainians killed in Poltava after two Iskander missiles hit the centre of the city. Russian sources claiming they hit a training centre, but the Ukrainians claim that most of the dead are civilians. 219 are injured. Following this attack, Latvia has called for the immediate abolition of all restrictions on Ukraine's use of imported weapons.

Three Ukrainian soldiers were executed by Russian forces after surrendering during a battle in Toretsk. The execution was spotted by a Ukrainian drone.

A fresh Russian push on Chasiv Yar seems to have been halted by the 24th Separate Mechanised Brigade, with heavy Russian losses.

The US has agreed in principle to supply Ukraine with long-range JASSM cruise missiles. These missiles will provide a capacity similar to Storm Shadow and SCALP.

Mongolian protestors in Ulaanbaatar have called for Putin to be arrested and flown Ukrainian flags.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, occupied by Russian forces, only has one main energy connector left intact to link it to the rest of Ukraine's power grid. This solitary lifeline is providing cooling energy for the reactor pools and spent fuel rods. Russia has been augmenting the facility with emergency generators.

Russia has started pressing harder on the Vuhledar front, advancing in three areas and making some small progress despite heavy losses.

The Ukrainians have deployed what is being called a "BMW 5 Series MLRS," which is literally a BMW 5 Series with three 122mm Grad rocket tubes connected to the back (some commentators thinking it was actually a 7 Series). What the vehicle lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in extreme mobility. Commentators raised concerns that the vehicle will be easy to spot from the incompetent way it is parked during firing.

[Werthead]

Ukraine has confirmed their new flamethrower drone is called "Dragon" and have deployed a lot more of them in recent days. They've been hitting Russian-held treelines hard, burning out Russian forces and forcing them to retreat, very successfully. Unconfirmed reports they've also been hitting trenches with them, but footage of that is mostly non-existent.

Ferocious fighting SE of Pokrovsk, apparently with at least one tactical victory and Ukrainian forces pushing the Russian advance back and retaking positions they lost a few days ago. Unclear on the scale of that. Other reports have Russian forces still advancing to the north.

[Werthead]

If I had a penny every time Russia mounted a massed armoured assault on Vuhledar that got completely annihilated in a blizzard of drones and artillery fire with dozens of vehicles left burning, I'd have two pennies. Which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice in two subsequent years.

The Ukrainian Dragon drones - apparently that's an assumed name, others are saying they are called "Dracarys" drones, which is insane - are also going wild. Entire forests being razed to the ground with hundreds of Russian soldiers forced to leave (some apparently were refused permission to retreat and were petrified of being shot, so stayed put and died) treelines across the Donetsk front. They've been thinner on the ground in Kursk so far.

Ukraine has equipped a formerly unarmed, quite small recon drone with, erm, an AK-47, to strafe Russian positions.

Romania has signed off on its Patriot delivery to Ukraine. That should be on its way imminently.

Ukraine claims it has halted the Russian offensive on Pokrovsk and driven it back in some areas. There's some supporting evidence for that, but it seems a bit premature to declare victory right now.

[Macros]

is there any kind of a believable non partisan casualty count for the war to date or just the number each side are throwing about?

[Werthead]

Strelkov is being sent to fight on the front lines. Interesting.

A Russian conscript unit wanted to surrender on the Kursk front, but didn't know how. So they contacted a local "Russian granny" they knew was on good terms with the Ukrainians and she negotiated their surrender.

The Russian Espanola Battalion was being redeployed using buses when they were surrounded by Akhmat soldiers and cars and prevented from moving. The police showed up and negotiated an end to the stand-off, which seemed to have no particularly point or grievance other than the Chechens being arseholes.

Russian forces pointing out even if they manage to evade the "flame strike" from a Ukrainian fire drone, any heavier equipment with them is often destroyed outright, as they can't recover it and the thermite burns it until there is nothing left. In one case an infantry unit spotted the drone incoming and managed to flee, but lost their heavy weapons, ammo and even their communications equipment and laptops, and needed to retreat in order to resupply.

Reports that territory near Niu-York, Toretsk and Selidovo has been retaken by Ukraine. Unclear on the extent of that.

Macros, on 06 September 2024 - 07:14 AM, said:

is there any kind of a believable non partisan casualty count for the war to date or just the number each side are throwing about?

There are multiple intelligence sources working on the Russian casualties by combing local media, social media and Telegram channels across Russia for funeral announcements. These figures suggest the Ukrainian figures are somewhat accurate, though with a lag factor (i.e. Ukraine reports a casualty figure in March and by around September the US and UK come up with a figure that is broadly similar, but months old). This is based on Ukraine intercepting Russian communications on casualties and verifying kills and injuries with drones. Reliability of intercepted Russian communications has dropped over the war but the reliability of drone observations has drastically increased.

Ukrainian casualties are much, much harder to verify. Ukraine itself is not showing footage of them and Russians have been forbidden from filming directly on the front so we are more reliant on Ukrainian official sources, which have been more restrained.

Combining things, it appears that Ukraine has lost around 56,000 KIA, with around 40,000 confirmed and 16,000 missing but most likely dead. There are thousands more in Russian captivity whose status is uncertain. Around 300,000 have been injured.

Russia appears to have lost between 150,000 and 230,000 KIA (so maybe 170,000 with a degree of confidence), with a high ceiling of 400,000 injured.

Take those figures with a grain of salt for now but they appear to be in the ballpark.

[Mentalist]

Macros, on 06 September 2024 - 07:14 AM, said:

is there any kind of a believable non partisan casualty count for the war to date or just the number each side are throwing about?

BBC Russia has counted 60 68k confirmed KIA via obituaries and fresh graves. these do not include those recruited in LDNR, and they estimate that may be as little as 60-70% of true losses in the Russian mainland.

Haven't seen any equivalent UA-focused databases.

EDIT:
It appears the situation around Pokrovs'k is stabilizing somewhat. NGU's Kara-Dag brigade and 93rd Mech were brought in to stabilize the frontline, and we haven't seen any orc advances over the past week or so.

12th Special Purposes NGU Brigade "Azov" managed to counter-attack from Torets'k towards New York (no, not that one), and cleared the NW outskirts, deblocading the UAF forces that were never fully dislodged from there- meaning, the "New York Wedge" is back on the map. Again. There's also some minor pushes N of Kharkiv, to push back the frontline towards the border.

The orcs are pushing towards Vuhledar again, but so far they are mostly focused SW of the city, trying to clear UAF control from the villages S of the Kashlagach river. Until they are able to cross the river, I don't see this as a viable threat to cut off the city. The pushes from the NE are somewhat more worrying, but so far their attempts to grab a hold of the mines around the city haven't amounted to much- the 72nd Mech is holding strong.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 06 September 2024 - 09:02 PM

[Tsundoku]

There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight ...

Russia declares state of emergency near border as Ukrainian drone blows up Putin’s missile dump
Russia has declared a state of emergency near the border after a huge kamikaze drone strike on Vladimir Putin’s missile storage facility.

https://www.news.com...15baf16013ba0c4

[Garak]

What's so special about this one? They've blown up plenty of ammo dumps.