[Mentalist]

And Rammstein is tomorrow.

They really are idiots.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 15 November 2022 - 12:21 AM, said:

Werthead, on 14 November 2022 - 11:43 PM, said:

Part of the lack of clarity might be down to half of the accounts covering the war being instead bamboozled by the Russian soldiers stealing a raccoon from Kherson Zoo for no apparent reason.

I think America might have several raccoons it can send to replace the stolen animal after the war but...that's extremely odd.

It's another meme in the making. Now UAF is blitzing Crimea to get the stolen Kherson Zoo animals (the racoon foremost) back.

One of the Russian voenkors wrote about the retreat: "the only good news is that one of my friends stole a racoon from the zoo"

Since the trash panda isn't native to Europe, it's typically seen as a cute, exotic animal. There's a Soviet cartoon about a baby racoon mastering his fear of his reflection in the pond;
Additionally, a few racoon gifs were popularized by censor.net forums, basically being synonymous with any good news.

So it's a bewilderment, followed by anger whenever Ukrainians hear about a stolen animal. Just another reason to accuse the orcs of being savages and stealing everything they can carry and destroying whatever they can't steal. They took all the ambulances, fire trucks, trolleybused, and even a children's train from Kherson. They pillaged the archives, the museums, and even exhumed Potemkin's ashes.
And they also stole the animals from the zoo. And that's something that's a lot easier to get everyone to emphasise with.

[Primateus]

Werthead, on 15 November 2022 - 07:01 PM, said:

A Russian missile has overflown Ukrainian territory and detonated in Poland, killing 2 people. Poland is calling an emergency security meeting, NATO is on alert.

This is one of the scenarios that has been discussed ad infinitum since the war started, as long as it wasn't a direct attack I don't think an immediate Article 5 retaliation is on the cards, but I suspect a lot of aid and things that had been blocked for Ukraine will now start rolling forwards.

I can, and would, believe that Russian missile guidance is that bad, Russian missile operators are that inexperienced and that they were aimed at Ukraine.

Russians probably won't admit to being that bad, though.

[Mentalist]

Primateus, on 15 November 2022 - 08:06 PM, said:

Werthead, on 15 November 2022 - 07:01 PM, said:

A Russian missile has overflown Ukrainian territory and detonated in Poland, killing 2 people. Poland is calling an emergency security meeting, NATO is on alert.

This is one of the scenarios that has been discussed ad infinitum since the war started, as long as it wasn't a direct attack I don't think an immediate Article 5 retaliation is on the cards, but I suspect a lot of aid and things that had been blocked for Ukraine will now start rolling forwards.

I can, and would, believe that Russian missile guidance is that bad, Russian missile operators are that inexperienced and that they were aimed at Ukraine.

Russians probably won't admit to being that bad, though.

No, they deny shooting everything in the area.

[Werthead]

One military analyst saying he thinks the missile debris is suggestive of an S300, which would be interesting. That would have to be fired from SW Belarus to be in range of the area, so they'd be looking at whether that was possible and whether Russia was using S300s in ground attack mode today (they're not really good at it, being primarily an AA weapon, lending credence to the misfire idea).

Some Russian claims it was a Ukrainian S300 operating in air defence mode, although if so it somehow managed to roar off in completely the wrong direction. Not impossible as we have seen S300s misfiring on the Russian side a lot (including one that managed to blow up its own launcher), but it does seem unlikely. Oddly, the Russians seem to forget their own claims to have destroyed every S300 in the Ukrainian inventory in the opening weeks of the war (about four times over).

Of course, that's based on one guy not even on the ground looking at a bunch of photographs on Twitter, hardly a forensic done deal, and this might turn out to be a completely different missile.

Fairly restrained, moderate response from Poland so far. They've spoken to Ukraine and the US directly and are consulting with allies, and have moderately increased their military alertness, which was high anyway.

[Macros]

Mentalist, on 15 November 2022 - 07:02 PM, said:

And Rammstein is tomorrow.

They really are idiots.

The band or the place?

[Mentalist]

It appears it was our anti-air missile.

The border in that area bends eastward and then NNW again as it largely follows the Western Buh river, creating a pocket of Polish territory. I suspect the orcs were guiding their missile along the river to hit targets close to the border (there's a few eligible ones there)

NATO is reading the situation correctly, at least: this is still directly caused by the Ruscists missile barrage that prompted the anti-air response in the 1St place.

[Mentalist]

So apparently the head of RosAtom who met with the Hungarian MFA dropped a line about "transferring the ZAES (Zaporizhya Atomic Energy Station, aka, the ZNPP) to the IAEA."

So now all the Z-head TG channels are full of panic that Putler's about to cede Enerhodar and a bunch of the Left Bank gains (because via IAEA the control would shift back to UA).

I am skeptical of this new rumour, but that's the new and exciting thing now.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 21 November 2022 - 11:54 PM

[Werthead]

Putin called a meeting with mothers of soldiers serving in the armed forces to hear their concerns.

Several problems here, namely that at least several (and maybe all) of the attendees are regulars who are often seen at pro-Putin rallies, and do not seem to be mothers of soldiers at all. And there's some very weird visual anomalies suggesting that the video might be even deepfaked and Putin wasn't even in the room (which tracks with the table not being 3 miles long).

In related news, Russia has apparently roared up the VPN usage tables from 40th in the world to 4th. For some reason.

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 25 November 2022 - 11:31 PM, said:

Putin called a meeting with mothers of soldiers serving in the armed forces to hear their concerns.

Several problems here, namely that at least several (and maybe all) of the attendees are regulars who are often seen at pro-Putin rallies, and do not seem to be mothers of soldiers at all. And there's some very weird visual anomalies suggesting that the video might be even deepfaked and Putin wasn't even in the room (which tracks with the table not being 3 miles long).

In related news, Russia has apparently roared up the VPN usage tables from 40th in the world to 4th. For some reason.

A bunch of the attending "mothers" were identified as United Russia party functionaries.

[Tsundoku]

Mentalist, on 26 November 2022 - 05:37 AM, said:

Werthead, on 25 November 2022 - 11:31 PM, said:

Putin called a meeting with mothers of soldiers serving in the armed forces to hear their concerns.

Several problems here, namely that at least several (and maybe all) of the attendees are regulars who are often seen at pro-Putin rallies, and do not seem to be mothers of soldiers at all. And there's some very weird visual anomalies suggesting that the video might be even deepfaked and Putin wasn't even in the room (which tracks with the table not being 3 miles long).

In related news, Russia has apparently roared up the VPN usage tables from 40th in the world to 4th. For some reason.

A bunch of the attending "mothers" were identified as United Russia party functionaries.

Now there's a fucking surprise.

Some pundits are saying he looks sick as all hell. Meh, I'll believe it when I see his open casket, and maybe not even then.

[Mentalist]

Tsundoku, on 26 November 2022 - 12:04 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 26 November 2022 - 05:37 AM, said:

Werthead, on 25 November 2022 - 11:31 PM, said:

Putin called a meeting with mothers of soldiers serving in the armed forces to hear their concerns.

Several problems here, namely that at least several (and maybe all) of the attendees are regulars who are often seen at pro-Putin rallies, and do not seem to be mothers of soldiers at all. And there's some very weird visual anomalies suggesting that the video might be even deepfaked and Putin wasn't even in the room (which tracks with the table not being 3 miles long).

In related news, Russia has apparently roared up the VPN usage tables from 40th in the world to 4th. For some reason.

A bunch of the attending "mothers" were identified as United Russia party functionaries.

Now there's a fucking surprise.

Some pundits are saying he looks sick as all hell. Meh, I'll believe it when I see his open casket, and maybe not even then.

I feel the same way about "Putler's on his deathbead" as I feel about "the orcs are almost out of cruise missiles". Neither statement can be relied upon when making plans.

[Werthead]

Boeing has developed a plan to sell the GLSDB bomb to Ukraine. This is a halfway house between current HIMARS ammunition and the ATACMS missile, with a 100-mile range which would dramatically increase HIMARS effectiveness without going as far as ATACMS (with a 185-mile range), the deployment of which is currently on hold pending a further Russian escalation of the conflict (after ATACMS the US has nowhere to go except giving Ukraine outright cruise missiles).

The GLSDB is a bit of bodge job but it's a very effective mid-range weapon which Boeing and other contractors can produce in high quantity and at speed, to meet the massively expanded orders coming in from not just Ukraine, but also Poland, Romania and the Baltics. The US is also starting to finally upramp production of HIMARS and 155mm artillery shells, which was ordered back in the summer but it's taken time to expand the production lines.

[Werthead]

It's hard to get a real handle on it, of course, but there's some unofficial polling suggesting that around 55% of Russians now favour an end to the war and less than 25% favour its continuation. Even fewer support any kind of escalation.

That seems about right, with a big jump in opposition to the war since the conscription started (as you'd expect). But, people taking part in anonymous polls is one thing, actually transferring that to hard action is another.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 01 December 2022 - 12:07 AM

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 01 December 2022 - 12:07 AM, said:

It's hard to get a real handle on it, of course, but there's some unofficial polling suggesting that around 55% of Russians now favour an end to the war and less than 25% favour its continuation. Even fewer support any kind of escalation.

That seems about right, with a big jump in opposition to the war since the conscription started (as you'd expect). But, people taking part in anonymous polls is one thing, actually transferring that to hard action is another.

Important to note that "ending the war" does not necessarily equate to "give Ukraine their land back"- especially Crimea. Russians typically want the war to end, but how their government ends it, is entirely up to them. I.E, if carpet bombing runs can force Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations, then that will be "a good development".

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'regional governor has been backed by the State Duma after saying the “descendants of African-American slaves” are to blame for the country’s growing crisis.

Vadim Shumkov, governor of the Kurgan region, said Russian society was collapsing [...] and it can all be traced back to the popularity of Black American stars in the music industry.

[...] Shumkov described a gaping hole of emptiness at the center of Russian culture[...]

[...] “Many of our children… are already growing up without knowing or remembering their kindred tribe,” he lamented, claiming that they are instead “singing songs written by the descendants of African-American slaves, often playing the ape and imitating the habits and language, brimming with, frankly, second-rate quasi-cultural vulgarity. Clinging to this secondariness, being proud of it.”

“Hence the growth of overt spiritual emptiness, depression, suicides. The lack of meaning in life,” [...]

[...] claiming that a “neglect of native culture” has led to a biblical Cain and Abel situation, with brothers pitted against brothers by “foreign ‘well-wishers’” who see them as “expendable.”'

Governor Vadim Shumkov Blames Russian Crisis on U.S. Music Made by ‘Descendants of African American Slaves’

[Mentalist]

Defenseless orcish airfields hosting strategic bombers (including the nuclear ones) in Saratov and Ryazan' (so, like 400-600 km from the border) were dishonorably attacked by unidentified drones.
6 peaceful strategic bombers that intended to launch cruise missiles at Ukrainian civilian infrastructure are reported to be in various states of damage/destruction. Orcs are in a bit of shambles that their primary deterrence spots are quite vulnerable to spontaneous combustion.

To be continued.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 05 December 2022 - 06:21 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 05 December 2022 - 06:12 PM, said:

Defenseless orcish airfields hosting strategic bombers (including the nuclear ones) in Saratov and Ryazan' (so, like 400-600 km from the border) were dishonorably attacked by unidentified drones.
6 peaceful strategic bombers that intended to launch cruise missiles at Ukrainian civilian infrastructure are reported to be in various states of damage/destruction. Orcs are in a bit of shambles that their primary deterrence spots are quite vulnerable to spontaneous combustion.

To be continued.

'There is speculation Kyiv has developed a strike drone with an astonishing 1,000km range. [...] If accurate, this means much of European Russia is now in reach. And that the asymmetric advantage Moscow has enjoyed this year – the ability to launch cruise missiles safely from deep inside Russia itself – is under threat.

“We attack where they are weak and defend where they are strong,” [...]

[...] Naval analysts said they believed Ukraine had developed an ingenious and lethal sea drone. Its components included a modified jet-ski and a remotely controlled camera[...] Plus explosives, attached to the front.

[...] Further surprises can be expected.'


Strikes deep inside Russia highlight Ukraine’s tactical ingenuity

[Mentalist]

Oil depot on fire this morning in the Kursk Airbase. That's only 150 km from the border, so pretty minor news.

This is how the orcs will get conditioned to the idea that military targets within Russia proper are, in fact, fair game.

[Werthead]

Looks like a ramping up of attacks around Melitopol. Interesting to see if this is just business as normal, keeping the Russians pinned down, or part of a wider offensive (or even a Kherson-style feint whilst attacking elsewhere).

This post has been edited by Werthead: 11 December 2022 - 11:14 AM