Kathy Boudin, who spent decades in prison for her part in the deadly 1981 Brink’s armored truck heist as a member of the radical militant group Weather Underground, died of cancer at the age of 78 in New York on Sunday.
For those too young to remember, the Weather Underground was a radical communist terrorist organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the American government.
In October, 1981, Boudin and members of the group teamed up with the Black Liberation Army for the robbery to help fund their anti-government campaigns.
The Black Liberation Army was a radical, black nationalist communist terrorist organization that also sought the violent overthrow of the American government. They may have killed as many as ten police officers across the country. Remaining members of both the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army would later join forces as the May 19th Communist Organization, under which banner they would carry out a series of terrorist bombings through 1985.
They targeted a Brink’s armored truck, which they held up in Rockland County, making out with $1.6 million.
During the robbery, gunmen killed Brink’s security guard Peter Paige before transferring the money to a U-Haul truck a mile away, where a 38-year-old Boudin sat in the cabin.
The truck was stopped by police at a roadblock, where Boudin — unarmed — immediately surrendered. Gunmen in the back of the truck popped outside and began firing on the officers, killing two policemen —Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly Brown.
She pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and second-degree murder in the death of Paige in 1984.
She spent 22 years in prison before she was paroled for good behavior in 2003.
The armored car holdup fell into a period in New York history after the death penalty for killing a police officer had been ruled unconstitutional by the New York supreme court, before Republican Governor George Pataki signed legislation restoring it in 1995.
Was Boudin shunned by civil society after her release?
She was not.
After jail, she was hired by Columbia School of Social Work Associate as an adjunct professor in 2008. She was hired as a full-time professor in 2013, lecturing about issues facing convicts and their families when a person is released from prison.
Help kill two cops and a security guard and get tenure.
Boudin was the mother of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin…
The Soros-backed soft-on-crime DA facing a recall election for that city’s spiraling crime rate.
who last year successfully lobbied former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to commute the sentence of his father, David Gilbert — who was also a member of the Weather Underground who was imprisoned for his role in the stick-up.
Gilbert, who served as a getaway driver, was serving a sentence of 75 years to life in prison with no possibility of parole until 2056. Gilbert is among the last surviving people involved in the robbery.
Judith Clark, another former Weather Underground member, served 35 years of a 75-years-to-life sentence for her role in the robbery at a mall in suburban Rockland County before her sentence was commuted by Cuomo in 2016. She was paroled in 2019.
Andrew Cuomo, always willing to shower mercy on cop-killers, just not on elderly nursing home residents.
The Democratic establishment is always willing to forgive and lionize radical cop killers, as long as they’re on the left. “No enemies on the left.”
With Ukraine in the news, it’s a hood time to look back on how horribly Ukraine suffered under Soviet Communism, especially in Stalin’s 1930-33 terror famine, the Holodomor. Here’s a video that covers the history of the Ukraine up to and through the Holodomor.
More information on the Holodomor can be found in Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Conquest estimated that for the entire Collectivization/”De-Kulakization”/Holodomor period (including the Soviet suppression of the Kazakhs and the Crimean Tartars, etc.) some 14.5 million died due to the actions of the Soviet government.
Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice discussing historical atrocities, including the East German concentration for children were the guards were allowed to rape their child charges as a matter of choice.
Tucker Carlson digs into traffic death statistics and discovers that a huge jump in deaths occurred in 2020, despite the lockdowns. Turns out the deaths were among black Americans, because police stopped making traffic stops on black Americans in the wake of the Antifa/BLM riots.
There was also a jump in black deaths from crime, for the same reasons (as well as pushes to defund the police). “Same reason, same effect…Less law enforcement means more crime.”
He covers how Chicago under Lori Lightfoot has stopped enforcing the law. The same people who scream about “gun violence” refuse to prosecute convicted felons despite repeated gun law violations. Recidivism in Illinois is twice the rate it is in sane states like Texas.
He also covers how Soros-back LA DA George Gason has done “so much in so little time to destroy the city,” and how a mother of six was gagged and murdered by a repeat offender who had been let out after committing two other murders.
“George Soros has paid people just like George Gason, and Chicago, Alvin Bragg now in Manhattan, and others.” Thousands of Americans have died as a result.
“Who is benefiting from this slaughter?”
Black Americans cite crime as their top issue, but racism and “equity” is near the bottom.
“In San Francisco, the lunatic, equity-mongering DA there Chesa Boudin is facing a recall, which could succeed.” Thanks to the open-air drug markets, drug overdoses in San Francisco are twice as numerous as Flu Manchu deaths.
The U.S. attorney’s office is even to refuse to charge criminals in D.C. who stole a puppy at gunpoint.
“Most of the dead come from the very group political leaders say they’re protecting.”
Stagflation is back, scammers continue to loot taxpayer money from the federal government, Team Global Warming continues it’s perfect losing streak, and dispatches from a deadly accordion war. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The U.S. economy shrunk by 1.4% in Q1. “Unexpectedly!” So now we’ve got stagnation to go with that soaring inflation, a key ingredient in the Biden Administration’s Welcome Back Carter cosplay. One more quarter of decline and the recession is officially at hand…
In June, the FBI got a warrant to hunt through the Google accounts of Abedemi Rufai, a Nigerian state government official.
Hello, I am Prince Abedemi Rufai. You are probably surprised by this email…
What they found, they said in a sworn affidavit, was all the ingredients for a “massive” cyberfraud on U.S. government benefits: stolen bank, credit card and tax information of Americans. Money transfers. And emails showing dozens of false unemployment claims in seven states that paid out $350,000.
Rufai was arrested in May at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he prepared to fly first class back to Nigeria, according to court records. He is being held without bail in Washington state, where he has pleaded not guilty to five counts of wire fraud.
Rufai’s case offers a small window into what law enforcement officials and private experts say is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated against the U.S., a significant part of it carried out by foreigners.
Russian mobsters, Chinese hackers and Nigerian scammers have used stolen identities to plunder tens of billions of dollars in Covid benefits, spiriting the money overseas in a massive transfer of wealth from U.S. taxpayers, officials and experts say. And they say it is still happening.
Among the ripest targets for the cybertheft have been jobless programs. The federal government cannot say for sure how much of the more than $900 billion in pandemic-related unemployment relief has been stolen, but credible estimates range from $87 billion to $400 billion — at least half of which went to foreign criminals, law enforcement officials say.
Those staggering sums dwarf, even on the low end, what the federal government spends every year on intelligence collection, food stamps or K-12 education.
Keep in mind, this is just one government program.
Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations.
Biden Administration creates unconstitutional Ministry of Truth to fight “disinformation,” i.e. truth and opinion that hurts Democrats. This is the lunatic running it:
For 20 Years, This Prosecutor Had a Secret Job Working For the Judges Who’d Decide His Cases.”
One of Ralph Petty’s victims is trying to hold him accountable, but she will have to overcome prosecutorial immunity.
Ralph Petty worked as an assistant district attorney in Midland County, Texas, for 20 years. Like any prosecutor, he fervidly advocated for the government. But he wasn’t just any advocate, because he wasn’t just a prosecutor. Each night, Petty took off his proverbial DA hat and re-entered the courthouse as a law clerk for the same judges he was trying to convince to side with him by day.
“A married English teacher at Langham Creek High School was arrested after allegedly sleeping with a 15-year-old student.” Spoiler for those thinking of clicking through for the pic: She’s no prize.
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Bold new architecture project becomes ugly and nonfunctional.
In Kurokawa’s original plan, the Nakagin capsules were meant to be replaced every twenty-five years with updated iterations. That didn’t happen, in part because of the funding that would have required. Each capsule would have cost, according to some estimates, almost nine million yen, or about seventy thousand dollars, to repair. A single capsule couldn’t be removed without removing all those above it, so all units would have to be vacated and updated at once. Over time, the building fell into disrepair. Concerns about asbestos made the towers’ ventilation system unusable, and residents complained about mold and incessant leaks during rainstorms. The owners’ association first voted to sell the building to a developer, in 2007, but the firm soon filed for bankruptcy, throwing the building’s fate into uncertainty. Kurokawa, who had pushed for renovations, died that same year. By 2010, the towers’ hot water had been shut off. The building had become more a work of art than the dynamic architecture that Kurokawa envisioned.
“New York Democrats Aim To Tax Ammo To Fund Anti-Gun Research….New York Senate Bill S8415, which would add an arbitrary 5-cent tax per round of ammunition larger than .22 Caliber. Rounds smaller than .22 Caliber would be subject to a 2-cent tax per round. According to the bill, the tax revenue would go to the state’s Gun Violence Research Fund.” That would be unconstitutional with a capital “un.”
Lake Mead hit by megadrought. “After nearly half a century, the first intake is out of service and can no longer draw water. Water levels at the lake hit record lows this week, falling to 1,056 feet. Luckily, SNWA has two other intakes at much lower levels that are still operational.”
Sometimes serendipity writes your blog post for you. I literally had just finished watching this video about U.S. Switchblade drones being sent to Ukraine when an NRO article on the same topic showed up in my in-box.
It’s an interesting video, but the title is false advertising, as it says nothing about how effective the drones are against helicopters.
Basically there are two variants of the Switchblade drone:
The Switchblade 300: Range 10 km, Endurance 15 min, Weight 5.5 lb (2.5 kg), Speed Cruise: 63 MPH, Dash: 100 MPH and it fits inside rucksack (includes payload, launcher, transport bag), launches from a tube like a knee-mortar, cost of $6,000.
The Switchblade 600, a much larger loitering drone designed for harder targets (including armor) with a 1.8 meter launch tube:
Switchblade 600 represents the next generation of extended-range loitering missiles, delivering unprecedented RSTA support and featuring high-precision optics, over 40 minutes of loitering endurance, and an anti-armor warhead for engaging larger, hardened targets at greater distances.
As an all-in-one, man-portable solution, Switchblade 600 includes everything required to successfully plan and execute missions and can be set up and operational in less than 10 minutes. Equipped with class-leading, high-resolution EO/IR gimbaled sensors and advanced precision flight control, Switchblade 600 empowers the warfighter with quick and easy deployment via tube-launch, and the capability to fly, track and engage non-line-of-sight targets and armored vehicles with precision lethal effects without the need for external ISR or fires assets.
Patented wave-off and recommit capability allows operators to abort the mission at any time and then re-engage either the same or other targets multiple times based on operator command.
Whether it’s from fixed defensive positions, combat vehicles with integrated organic precision fire, or air-launched applications, Switchblade 600 provides field commanders with a multi-mission loitering missile system capable of multi-domain operations.
No cost given for the Switchblade 600, but reportedly lower than the Javelin’s $250,000, and it has much greater range.
Both are suicide drones, diving into their targets.
When he was a young teenager, Wahid Nawabi would go to the roof of his family’s home in Kabul and watch the Soviet helicopters flying in the distance.
For most of his childhood, Afghanistan had been peaceful and increasingly prosperous. But that all changed after the nation’s democratic government was overthrown by Marxist military officers in 1978 in the Saur Revolution. In December 1979, the Soviet troops invaded, plunging the country into what has become 40 years of war, violence, and instability.
In 1982, Nawabi and his family fled. Nawabi, then only 14, led his three younger sisters on a harrowing 48-day journey to escape the war-torn country to reunite with their parents in India.
Because of that experience, Nawabi said he feels a personal connection with the more than 5 million refugees who have fled Ukraine in the wake of this latest Russian invasion. Now as an American and as the chief executive of AeroVironment, a leading provider of military-grade fighter drones, Nawabi said he has a moral obligation to aid the Ukrainian defense effort.
“We need to help the Ukrainians get their freedom back,” Nawabi told National Review. “I’ve gone through that experience. It’s heart-wrenching for me.”
Last month, the U.S. government sent 100 of AeroVironment’s Switchblade drones to the Ukrainians, part of a massive weapons package. Switchblades have been described as “kamikaze drones,” because after they lock on to their target, they fly in and explode. The Switchblade 600, which can fly for more than 40 minutes with a 25-mile range, is designed to take down tanks and other armored vehicles. The smaller Switchblade 300, which weighs less than six pounds and can be carried in a backpack, is meant for smaller targets.
He’s also donated 100 Quantix reconnaissance drones to Ukraine.
This also gives me an excuse to link this other NRO piece on how drones are changing warfare.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown the world drones’ power to change the way wars are fought. America should take note.
The most unlikely hero of the war in Ukraine has been a drone — or, to use the Pentagon’s preferred term, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2, a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone that’s 21 feet long with a 39-foot wingspan, can stay aloft for 24 hours at a stretch. It also carries a lethal punch: a “smart” munition that has been taking out Russian armored and supply columns and helping to grind the Russian ground offensive to a halt.
Meanwhile, civilian clubs of Ukrainian drone enthusiasts have weaponized their much smaller, commercially made drones — including Chinese-made DJI machines — by flying them above ridgelines and buildings to conduct reconnaissance on enemy units and send the information back to Ukrainian artillery units and other commanders. According to the Independent, Ukrainian officers have even been traveling to Poland to learn how to do the same thing with their military UAVs.
In short, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is showing the world how drones will change the way wars are fought going forward. The question now is: Will our military realize that UAVs as the airpower weapon of the future, or will the lessons of Ukraine be pushed aside and forgotten?
A lot of U.S. military organizations are getting into drones in a big way, so I’m betting more the former than the latter.
There’s a related issue that needs to be confronted first, however. Why are the Ukrainians relying on drones made in Turkey and China instead of American drones? It’s true that we are planning to provide Ukraine with Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, which are small enough to be carried in a backpack and explode when they hit their target, and training a small number of Ukrainians to use them. But there’s much more in the way of drones that the U.S. could be offering Ukraine, and the fact that we are not explains why we’re still behind in realizing the potential of UAVs as an airpower weapon.
First, our ability to export our best and most valuable drones — e.g., the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper or the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk — is hampered by an international agreement known as the Missile Technology Control Regime, which unaccountably treats unmanned-aircraft technology like ballistic-missile technology. I have written before about how this treaty limits U.S. exports even to allies such as the UAE, who as a result have to rely on Chinese-made UAVs instead.
Second, there is an association in the minds of voters and policy-makers between drones and the war on terror, which has limited the leeway Pentagon strategists have to embrace the full potential of these revolutionary and disruptive weapons. For example, right now the Air Force is planning to retire an entire fleet of one of our best long-range intelligence-gathering tools, the RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 remotely piloted surveillance aircraft, most of which are under ten years old and still in very serviceable shape. The stated reason for their retirement is that they can be shot down by highly advanced anti-ballistic-missile systems. But by flying at altitudes where they are less vulnerable to those systems, they could still serve as the bedrock of an extended intelligence-sharing network, allowing the U.S. and its allies to keep watch over the Black Sea, Iran, the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea, and North Korea. They could even be shared with our NATO allies and Ukraine through a lend–lease agreement designed to create such a network.
In the future, squadrons of armed UAVs have the potential to be used for close air support and full-scale air campaigns against enemy ground forces on a much larger scale than they have been in Ukraine — and for airborne ballistic-missile defense. But right now, NATO should be flying large U.S.-made and fully weaponized UAVs such as the Reaper from Poland into Ukraine and handing the controls over to the Ukrainians.
There’s no question that drones are going to be a big part of future warfare, not least because a drone is a lot cheaper than a tank, a helicopter or a fighter aircraft. I would imagine that in 20-30 years, we’re going to see AI-driven autonomous drone swarms unleashed in a combat area to wreck havoc on enemy units. It takes a while for armies to find the proper middle ground between “We can use planes to drop oats to the horses” and Wild Billy Mitchell’s “Airpower will overwhelm all other military units” advocacy.
The Russo-Ukranian war is giving an awful lot of militaries chances to test out their theories of drone warfare in real combat conditions.
It’s been almost a month since we did the last general Ukraine-Russo War update, so let’s catch up. The biggest change is that Russia has given up on trying to take Kiev and has withdrawn all their forces in the northwest:
And here’s a timelapse map of the ebb and flow of the war:
Keep in mind the usual caveats (the map is not the territory, the difficulty of sifting truth from propaganda, etc.), but it does appear that not much has changed in the overall contours of the war since Russia’s withdrawal from the northwest. But ISW is reporting that Russia has instituted combined arms offenses, something we didn’t see much of during the opening stages of the war, and have reported minor but steady advances by Russian forces.
Here’s a roundup of war news, some of it several weeks old but potentially still of interest.
Storage tanks at a major oil depot in the Russian city of Bryansk exploded early on Monday. Was Ukraine responsible?
Before you answer, consider first that this is only the latest disaster to afflict Russian critical infrastructure near the Ukrainian border. Another oil depot on Belgorod was targeted by a Ukrainian helicopter strike in early April. Prior to that, Russian railway lines near the border were sabotaged. A Russian missile research center and a chemical plant also recently suffered explosions.
These incidents all appear to fit well with Ukraine’s military strategy.
Bryansk, 62 miles from the Ukrainian border, is beyond the range of most drone systems in Ukraine’s possession. Unconfirmed video from the Bryansk incident indicates the sound of a missile in the terminal attack phase. Considering this noise and Bryansk’s relative distance from Ukraine, short-range ballistic missiles may have been responsible. Regardless, the explosion will disrupt energy replenishment efforts for Russian military forces in Ukraine.
The explosion also dilutes Putin’s credibility in claiming that his war on Ukraine is not a war, but rather a limited “special military operation.” When stuff keeps blowing up in Russian cities, it’s hard to convince the residents of said cities that Russia isn’t at war.
That takes us to Ukraine’s evolving military strategy. With Russia forced to scale back its goals in the conflict, Ukraine has escalated its offensive operations in what’s known as the “deep battlespace.” This involves targeting of Russian logistics and command and control units deeper behind the front lines. Employing Western-provided drones and highly mobile small units, Ukraine is degrading and demoralizing Russia’s war machine.
It’s not a wild leap to expect that Ukraine is now applying these same tactics over the border inside Russia. This is likely a result of British training of the Ukrainian military.
Don’t start none, won’t be none…
More structure hits inside Russia:
Another video of derailed train carrying Russian armor, allegedly just outside of Bryansk pic.twitter.com/D8Nb1mB5Vp
The slickly produced video opens with an unlikely scenario. The year is 2023. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is the president of Belarus. And Belarus has been invited to join the European Union.
“Fantasy? Not at all. The war Vladimir Putin started against Ukraine gives us a unique chance to change history,” the narrator says. “Russia is already losing. And without our bases, railways, and borders, Putin’s defeat will be significantly hastened.”
The video calls on Belarusians not only to demonstrate against the war, but also to deny Russia the assets they need to prosecute it from Belarusian territory. “Blockade the aggressor at bases and supply routes. Deny them food, fuel, and freedom of movement,” it says.
In fact, this is more than a call for action. It is actually describing something that is already happening. Since Putin’s Ukraine War began on February 24, at least 52 Belarusians including 30 railway workers have been arrested on charges of treason, terrorism and espionage for disrupting the movement of Russian troops and military hardware, according to the Belarusian human rights group Viasna.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s autocratic regime in Minsk is so concerned with what has become known as “The Rail War” that it has also declared the Telegram channel of the “Association of Railway Workers of Belarus” an extremist organization.
This railway rebellion is the most dramatic example of how Putin’s war against Ukraine is changing the political dynamic in Belarus. Lukashenka’s slavish submission to Putin, allowing the Kremlin leader to use his country as a staging ground for Russia’s assault on Ukraine, has unnerved and angered this nation of 9.4 million people.
The only thing being Mussolini to Putin’s Hitler is going to get you is being strung up by your heels.
The Ukrainian battlefield of Putin’s War is incredibly lethal. In the sixty days since Putin’s three-to-four day invasion of Ukraine started, Russia has had 1,700 vehicles or major pieces of equipment destroyed and another 1,200 captured. Tanks losses numbered 560 destroyed and 214 captured, while losses of infantry fighting vehicles/armored personnel carriers come to 930 destroyed and 330 captured. These are not estimates; these are floor numbers that have been counted and geocoded. By the same methodology, Ukraine has lost at least 200 tanks destroyed and 70 captured, along with 790 infantry fighting vehicles/armored personnel carriers destroyed and 90 captured. No one really knows how many vehicles have been lost to combat damage or wear-and-tear….
By way of scale, Russia entered the war with about 120 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG)) representing approximately 75% of the Russian Army’s combat power as well as the cutting edge of that power. Keep in mind that this is not a Russian Army affair; there is Naval Infantry from as far away as Vladivostok as well as troops of the Rosgvardiya, or the National Guard of Russia….
The tank losses alone represent all the tanks in 70 BTGs.
This lethality is why the Ukrainian government has been screaming for more weapons from anyone who has them. Not just munitions, like Javelin or Starstreak, but tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery.
Snip.
As incredible as it may seem, Ukraine now outnumbers Russia in the number of tanks on the battlefield.
Thanks to European resupplies, Ukraine’s military now has more tanks on the battlefield than Russia does two months into the war, according to the Pentagon.
The delivery in recent weeks of Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Kyiv from the Czech Republic and other European Nato allies has effectively eroded Russia’s advantage, experts have claimed.
“Right now, the Ukrainians have more tanks in Ukraine than the Russians do, and they certainly have the purview to use them,” an unnamed senior US defence official told reporters on Thursday.
Ukraine’s armed forces have previously claimed Russia has lost more than 680 of its tanks, the majority of which were destroyed, while some changed hands after being found abandoned.
So that’s from the Pentagon. May be true, may not be true. It’s possible Russia has cannibalized other units or (some two months into the conflict) refurbished mothballed tanks.
Talk about timing! This piece, published April 10, argues that Ukrainian anti-ship missiles will make the Black Sea unsafe for Russian warships.
The way I see it (and I am in good company), the Russians will not only be lucky not to be routed from all their gains made since February 24, but are at serious risk of losing the Donbas—Luhansk and Donetsk—and Crimea, as well as having most of their current army destroyed. Talk of some sort of possible Grand New Russian Offensive in the east seem fantastical to me and others who put the big-picture together: with which troops, and of what quality (what elite unites haven’t sustained significant casualties?), and with what equipment? Will it be the remaining equipment that has already proven ineffective and easily destroyed especially by Ukraine’s western-supplied anti-tank and anti-air missiles? The units shattered and barely functional or not functional that managed to escape from Ukraine’s counteroffensives? Non-shattered but non-elite units that have also been deployed for months and are still exhausted? Conscripts almost finishing their terms? New conscripts who have never seen combat??
Yet as major Russian ground fronts have collapsed, attention is drawn away from an area where, with not much additional assistance from the West or perhaps even with aid already just now promised, Ukraine can easily achieve a resounding victory that would combine massive substantive defeats for the Russians with tremendous symbolism and loss of prestige for Russia in addition to greatly affecting the way ground combat plays out in the south and east.
I am talking about the near-annihilation of the Russian Navy presence in the Black Sea, including almost the entirety of the Black Sea Fleet.
Snip.
Russia has cannibalized its other three fleets (Northern Fleet, Baltic Fleet, and Pacific Fleet) and its one flotilla (the Caspian Flotilla) to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet and support its Ukraine effort, and, with Turkey closing the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to the Mediterranean in early March to incoming military vessels under the 1936 Montreux Convention, that Caspian Flotilla is the only possible source of reinforcements to what is in the Black Sea, coming in though canal from the Caspian Sea, as other possible reinforcements coming in from the Mediterranean are now blocked.
As far as sizable surface ships in the Black Sea, by mid-March there were only twenty-one, according to a “senior defense official”: just twelve naval-combat-focused ships along with nine amphibious assault ships, accompanied by numerous far smaller patrol and support boats and, of course, submarines that are harder to track.
But that total was before the daring Ukrainian strike on the morning of March 24, which mysteriously destroyed a large Russian amphibious ship, the now sunk Alligator class Saratov,docked in the eastern Ukrainian Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk. Two other large amphibious ships, the Caesar Kunikov and Novocherkassk, were damaged and fled the port.
So scratch one, Russia is down now to just twenty major surface vessels.
That is not a large number.
I had finished a version of this section before yesterday’s information that the UK and U.S. would be sending anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. But, for now, keep that low number of major Russian surface ships in mind when considering following:
For starters, as my old War Is Boring editor David Axe notes in detail, Ukraine has been developing its own anti-ship cruise missile, the Neptune, since 2013. It began testing in 2018, and has since tested successfully repeatedly. The system has a range of 174-180 miles (280-300 km) and operates as a sea-skimmer, flying low and close to the water to make it almost undetectable until just before it hits its target. It was scheduled to be deployed this month with a full division of six launchers, seventy-two cruise missiles (more than three for each remaining major Russian surface vessel), and accompanying radar systems. But Russia’s seems to have derailed this timetable, and it is unclear when it will be able to safely deploy its system and have it and its crews be operational. Details are few and far between as Ukraine obviously would want to keep Russia guessing.
Secondly, this must have been part of the discussion over the past month between Ukraine and NATO nations, and taking into account the issues with the Neptunes, NATO has been working to arm Ukraine with anti-ship missiles for weeks. Reports from early April indicated United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been keen to arm Ukraine with anti-ship missiles, that these would most likely be truck-mounted versions of its U.S.-supplied Harpoon missiles, its version having a range of 80 miles (128 km) and also capable of hitting land targets (Ukraine has actually been asking for these for some time).
Snip.
Russian Naval forces are hardly concentrating along the Turkish coast of the southern Black Sea: they are mostly, perhaps virtually all, off the coast of Ukraine to varying degrees in the northern half of the Black Sea or Sea of Azov, trying to offer support and, presumably, debating whether or not to launch amphibious assaults, particularly on Ukraine’s main port in its West, Odesa (the fact that they have not yet shows how confident they are in such an assault’s chances of success; Putin may not care much about throwing his soldiers’ lives away recklessly, but his larger naval vessels are expensive and take time to construct)…
Ukraine would have excellent coverage with many of these systems. For most of these systems, many, perhaps even all, of Russia’s twenty remaining large warships in the region—including Russia’s most powerful naval ship, the Slava class cruiser Moskva—are well within striking range from Ukrainian-controlled territory. Even if Ukraine will receive only Harpoons, though they have much smaller range than the Neptunes, they should effectively prevent any Russian naval assaults if the Russians are smart (but they are not). After such Harpoons would arrive, they would still secure Ukrainian coastline and push Russian naval operating areas far from Ukrainian-controlled coastal territory (unless Russia is stupid and keeps its ships within range, inviting their destruction) all while, presumably, the Neptune rollout, training, and deployment finishes, possibly in just a few weeks if the invasion has not derailed Ukraine’s timetable.
At this crucial moment, when Russia is desperate to turn the tide in the face of its massive failures, the soon-to-arrive unspecified anti-ship missiles have effectively killed any realistic Russian hope of a successful naval assault on Odesa or elsewhere on the Crimea-to-Moldova (where Russia illegally has some military forces in another breakaway region, Transnistria) corridor. These missiles will either prevent any assault from happening or virtually doom any would-be assault. This new round of aid with these anti-ship missiles has, thus, basically closed the gap between the Russians collapsing on three fronts and the Neptunes’ presumed deployment.
If (and hopefully when) Neptunes can be eventually deployed, a large portion of the entire Black Sea, including both the west and east coasts of Russian-occupied Crimea—where many of Russia’s naval vessels are based and resupplied—as well as the Sea of Azov, would be vulnerable.
A Russian warship that was damaged by an explosion on Wednesday has sunk, Russia’s defence ministry has said.
Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, was being towed to port when “stormy seas” caused it to sink, according to a ministry message.
The 510-crew missile cruiser was a symbol of Russia’s military power, leading its naval assault on Ukraine.
Kyiv says its missiles hit the warship. The United States says it also believes it was hit by Ukrainian missiles.
Moscow has not reported any attack – it says the vessel sank after a fire.
The blaze caused the explosion of the warship’s ammunition, Russia says, adding that the entire crew were later evacuated to nearby Russian vessels in the Black Sea.
How bad is the truth when the lie is “No, we screwed up and sunk our own ship through gross incompetence!”
Ukraine not only shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter, they recovered the long-range targeting system and are turning it over to the U.S. for analysis. And the Chinese use the same system…
Thread: “Where is the Russian Army artillery ammunition they are fighting their “Donbas Set Piece Battle” with?”
Congress is asking the Pentagon whether the Defense Production Act, or DPA, should be invoked to ensure supplies of Javelin anti-tank missile systems, as well as Stinger surface-to-air missiles, continue to flow to Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have used both of these weapons to great effect in their ongoing defense against Russia’s onslaught. At the same time, questions are growing about the U.S. defense industry’s ability to meet increased demand for these missiles, not just from Ukraine, but in the event that the U.S. military needs to acquire more of them quickly during a major future conflict.
“To produce more of the Javelins, Stingers – all the stocks that we are using and diminishing and running low on and our allies, as well – shouldn’t we be applying the Defense Production Act?” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing today.
This is a stupid question. Production for high tech weapons is dependent on a wide variety of high tech components, any of which might be from outside the country, and which might or might not have considerable production lead times. If they used custom, MilSpec chips, the wait time right now is about 26 weeks on average, and the fab may or may not be based in the U.S. Optical components may also have long lead times.
Another day, another Russian general whacked. “The authorities confirmed the death of the deputy commander of the 8th Army, Major General Vladimir Petrovich Frolov. About it informs press office of the governor’s office.”
Russian troops demoralized?
BREAKING: Demoralised Russian soldiers in Ukraine have accidentally shot down their own aircraft, sabotaged their own kit and refused to carry out orders, Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of the UK spy agency @GCHQ, will reveal in a speech in Australia on Thursday. 1/
It seems these Russian soldiers truly thought that. This entire war is being fought on propaganda – for false pretenses. Its not only Putin who doesn’t know what’s going on. This mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said the soldiers were completely unprepared and clueless.
well we’re here to help the Russian speakers snd he said 95% of us speak Russian and we’re fine. They said they heard that the World War II veterans of the town had been beaten in the patriot day and he said au contraire they’re venerated and there’s not very many of them left.
Putin’s call for more troops has not had the desired effect so far of inspiring Russians to enlistment offices. It’s certainly not convincing veterans to return for more of the “special military operation” non-war that Putin’s not winning, even if he isn’t quite losing it yet:
Yelena’s son, Pavel, was serving in the Far Eastern Amur region when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Almost immediately, his unit was sent to the front, and he served almost 40 days in combat. Then his unit was sent back to Russia to regroup, Yelena told RFE/RL’s North.Realities. When his unit was preparing to return to Ukraine, Pavel refused.
“If he doesn’t want to go back, am I supposed to push him, to tell him, ‘Grab your weapon and go,’” Yelena said. “Those who haven’t been there have no right judge those who have.”
Yelena’s son is one of a significant but unknown number of Russian contract soldiers who have refused to either fight in Ukraine in the first place or who have fought and do not want to return.
Lawyer Pavel Chikov, founder of the Agora legal-aid NGO, has written on Telegram that more than 1,000 military personnel and National Guard troops from at least seven regions have refused to go to Ukraine.
Monday’s front pages are dominated by stories of alleged atrocities carried out by the Russian military on civilians in Ukraine.
Under the headline “Horror in Bucha”, the Guardian reports mass graves have been found in the town north-west of the capital Kyiv, as well as evidence of the killing of civilians in the nearby towns of Irpin and Hostomel.
The attacks have led Ukraine’s foreign minister to brand Russia being as being worse than infamous terrorist group Isis, the Metro reports.
The paper says the atrocities were “evidenced in pictures too horrific to print”, including the public execution of handcuffed people and civilians who had been driven over by tanks.
The Daily Mirror leads with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s accusations that the deaths amount to genocide and that the Russian military was attempting an “elimination of the people” of Ukraine.
The paper adds the executions apparently carried out by retreating troops led to 300 civilians being killed in Bucha alone.
The Times reports world leaders have demanded Russian President Vladimir Putin should face more stringent sanctions and be prosecuted for war crimes.
The paper says its reporters visited the sites of two “execution-style” massacres in Bucha, where Russian troops were also accused of rape and of booby-trapping dead bodies with explosives.
Some 280 dead bodies were found littering the streets of Bucha, near Kyiv, after the Russians left. Video is graphic, be aware. pic.twitter.com/DBP4lSaB9e
“Exiled oligarch calls on other Russian tycoons to break with Putin. Mikhail Khodorkovsky says they must denounce the invasion of Ukraine if they want to be above suspicion of collaborating with the Kremlin.” Good luck with that, but I wouldn’t bet the hastily privatized collective farm on it…
Especially when they turn up dead.
It is not the same report as days ago, Vladislav Avayev on 18th April https://t.co/xWqkRPuiVf
Well, I didn't see this coming: the vice-president of Gazprombank apparently left Russia, joined Ukraine's territorial defense forces, called the war an international crime and claimed that the recent death of former Gazprombank deputy president Vladislav Avayev was a murder. https://t.co/cdHDO30sQf
“Russia’s 331st Guards Parachute Regiment is considered ‘the best of the best’, but BBC Newsnight has been tracing the casualties as the unit battles through Ukraine.”
You know my summary above about how Russia has abandoned Ukraine’s northeast? Well, they reportedly plastered Sumy with an artillery barrage today, so take all generalities with a grain of salt.
I totally want these:
Mriyas and Javelins: new Ukrainian toys. I bought a Mriya for my kid, because every child needs to have a Dream pic.twitter.com/h4hkfMVaEp
Following yesterday’s big news that Twitter’s board voted to accept Musk’s offer, there’s been a wave of reactions, from jubilation to absolute panic. We’ll sample some of those. But first a clarification: Despite the board accepting the bid, there are additional steps before Musk owns Twitter outright.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
As is customary once a company agrees to be acquired, the buyer gets to take a closer look at its books to make sure there aren’t any red flags that haven’t come up via the company’s public filings.
This step in the process isn’t likely to cause any obstacles for the deal, said Angelo Zino, tech analyst at CFRA.
“He’s acquiring this company, not from a financial perspective,” Zino said. “He’s going to do what he wants with it and he’s probably going to look to make significant changes to the business model of the company.”
WHAT SAY COULD REGULATORS HAVE?
Last year, Twitter generated $5 billion in revenue, with $2.8 billion from the U.S. and the rest earned overseas, Zino said. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., or the European Commission in the EU, are among regulatory agencies that may review the proposed Twitter buyout.
The main issues the agencies generally focus on are how the sale of a company could affect competition in an industry, or whether it violates antitrust laws.
These reviews can take months, or longer, but generally represent more of a potential hurdle when two companies in the same industry are combining, or in the case of a single buyer, whether ownership already has a large stake in companies within the same industry.
Neither Tesla, nor Musk’s other company, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, are social media platforms, so antitrust concerns are not expected to arise when regulators review the deal, analysts said.
“We do not expect any major regulatory hurdles to the deal getting done as this soap opera now ends with Musk owning Twitter,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a research note Monday.
WHEN DO SHAREHOLDERS GET TO VOTE?
The deal is expected to close in 2022, subject to the approval of Twitter shareholders. Twitter hasn’t announced the timing of a shareholder vote, though the company’s annual meeting is set for May 25, which could offer a convenient time to poll shareholders.
A company can elect to hold a shareholder vote at any time, even before regulators have finished reviewing a proposed takeover.
Now, let’s tuck into some of the tastier reactions, starting with the man himself:
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— James Lindsay, senior varsity James Lindsay (@ConceptualJames) April 25, 2022
Hey @elonmusk please see to it @twitter stops emailing me the "legal advisory" that by posting artist Bosch Fawstin's striking free expression, anti-Sharia blasphemy "law" cartoon I am in violation of Pakistan's Sharia "provision" against "blasphemy". Congrats & many thanks! pic.twitter.com/O43fdO3yS9
Twitter, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company.
Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.
Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, said, “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO, said, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Mr. Musk. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Given the new management, here’s a short list off all the accounts the new regime should restore/unban:
realDonaldTrump
James O’Keefe III
Project Veritas
The Babylon Bee (there but suspended from Tweeting)
GayPatriot’s first 9 or so accounts
rsmccain
BoschFawstin
Milo
Mike Lindell
Juanita Broderick
OrdyPackard
_wintergirl93
Shaughn_A
nickmon1112
Roadbeer
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Alex Jones
TheRickCanton
George Zimmerman
That’s off the top of my head, with a few suggestions from people on Twitter. If you can think of additional people who need to be unblocked and/or have their Twitter accounts restored, note them in the comments below.
Fallout continues from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ decision not only to push through an anti-groomer law for elementary school children despite Social Justice Warrior/Democratic Media Complex/Disney pushback, but also to push through and sign legislation to strip Disney of special tax breaks and privileges.
I covered some of the fallout in Friday’s LinkSwarm, but here’s some more.
See, it’s important that you not use undeniably accurate terms to describe our enemies because by doing so you may convey truthful information that hurts liberals and, according to our conservative cruise ship betters, that’s not who we are. Well, that’s certainly not who they are, because if there’s one thing they simply cannot accept it is victory. And that includes victory over perverts who what to chat up your young ‘uns in kindergarten.
Accordingly, we are not supposed to call groomers “groomers” anymore because people draw the right conclusions when we do, and that certainly will not do.
If there’s anything the failurecons, who constitute a concentric circle with the Never Trump sissies, hate is winning. And we are winning the world’s easiest argument by taking the position that molesters and those excusing and facilitating them are bad.
David French, who has famously made the conservative case for drag queen story hour, CRT submission, and everything else except conservative success, is very upset with us again for accurately conveying the truth of the Democrat campaign to make the classroom safe for creepy perverts to talk about sex with your kids. Now, normal people, as opposed to Pastor French – who is the very best Christian that David French knows, according to David French – don’t like weirdos trying to steer convos toward genitalia during the limited periods in which adult strangers get to interact with other people’s children, like in school. And only weirdos try to do so. There is literally never any good reason for any non-parent to have a talk with toddlers about sexual topics. None. Zero. Zip.
But the groomers have a bad reason. They want to use the access we grant to schools to indoctrinate your kids into their bizarre world view, and some of them want to molest your kids – wanna speculate on the motive of the mutant who was teaching first graders how Jeffrey Toobin makes a Zoom call?
Neither objective is acceptable, and we are going to say so no matter how fussy it makes the sorry likes of David French. Rarely has someone’s surname been so apt. In the current culture war, this surrender flunky is aiming to be the Vichy conservative Marshall Pétain.
Weird how these guys never got upset when the left was lying that we are racist, but are in a tizzy when we accurately observe that the left is pro-pedo.
They want, at best, to excuse perverts. We want perverts hunted for sport.
How much did it cost Disney to go woke? Try nearly $50 billion.
The Walt Disney Company has lost nearly $50 billion dollars in stock market value since the start of March, when executives shifted gears and became more actively involved in politically-charged ideological culture warfare against Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida leadership.
According to the Washington Examiner, the downfall of Disney has been $46.6 billion USD since March 1, which the outlet marks as shortly before the start of their ongoing conflict against the state of Florida.
The latest battle has Disney losing their special self-governing status. Tens of billions of dollars were wiped out of Disney’s stock value since Tuesday, alone. Coincidentally, that was the same day DeSantis announced that eliminating Disney’s “legacy special district” status was on the session agenda.
Some tweets:
The broad middle of this country does not want to see its children groomed by perverts or consumed by transexual madness.
Publix is a bigger employer in Florida than Disney is. Publix is certainly aware of Floridians’ reaction to Disney declaring war on parental rights—and losing $41 billion in shareholder value. I doubt Publix will make the same mistake Disney did pic.twitter.com/v175HjPLaA
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 24, 2022
So why is Russian miltech performing so badly in Ukraine? In addition to some of the reasons we’ve already covered, this video provides additional answers (skip to 1:35 in to avoid the sponsor blather).
Russia has 2.5 to 3 million people in arms manufacturing, “20% of the country’s industrial jobs.”
“We all thought Russia had the military muscle to be able to take over Ukraine in a matter of days. However, the real way to test a country’s military power is not in a parade but a war. And with the invasion of Ukraine we are seeing something that has become the norm in the Russian economy. Something like an Expectation vs Reality meme.”
60% failure rate for some Russian missiles?
“After a month of the Ukraine invasion, we can say it clearly: Russian armament falls far behind the expectations and hype they had created.”
Modernization of the armed forces was supposedly a priority for Putin, with up to 5% of GDP spent on defense.
Russia should theoretically have military equipment better than anyone but the U.S.
One reason they don’t: Attempted capitalism without privately owned arms companies.
“The Soviet military industry was full of unprofitable State enterprises, obsolete factories and, above all, a great deal of corruption.”
The U.S. bids out contracts. The Soviets depended on state monopolies.
“Russia has never embraced free market capitalism.”
According to Vladimir Putin, the problem with communism was not the centralized economy but an economy based on ideological principles. In other words, if you want to improve the efficiency of the system, it is enough to change the managers and put technocrats in charge. Technocrats who have been forged in the bosom of the KGB and who have a pragmatic mentality, totally free of the romanticism of communism or any other ideology. This type of person has a name: “SILOVIKI”. And so, just what was Putin’s formula for bringing his military industry into the 21st century? Very simple: To put Silovikis in all managerial positions. This is how Rostec was conceived in 2007, a conglomerate of companies designed to be the great umbrella of Russian defense. Under this umbrella are more than 700 armaments companies: all of them State-owned. By grouping companies together, a lot of duplication can be eliminated. All following purely technocratic criteria. And who is the CEO of Rostec? None other than Sergey Chemezov, who was a colleague of Vladimir Putin himself when they were both in the KGB offices in East Germany. In other words, a textbook SILOVIKI.
Yes, in this, as in many other areas, Putin is a complete dumbass.
“By acquiring more and more companies, Rostec has ended up consolidating even more monopolies. For example: fighter jets. The United States works with four major manufacturers: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Airbus (Yes, Airbus is European but it also has contracts with Washington). In the case of Russia, practically all fighter jets are manufactured by the same company: UAC which, of course, is under the umbrella of Rostec.”
“Another major Russian defense company is Almaz-Antey. This company does not depend on Rostec but is directly owned by the Russian Ministry of Finance. The CEO of this company is another textbook Siloviki. In this case we are talking about Viktor Ivanov, another former KGB agent. Almaz-Antey is the giant where NPO Novator, the manufacturer of almost all Russian precision missiles, is located. Yes, those very missiles that are proving to be so flawed in the invasion of Ukraine.” Try to contain your shock.
“In 2017, NPO Novator could only produce 60 Kalibr missiles in six months. As you can imagine, these figures are ridiculous if we take into account that, in just one month of war, Russia has launched more than 1,200 missiles.”
I know you’ll also be shocked to learn that Yevgeny Prigoshin, another friend of Putin’s, was in charged of the company responsible for providing expired food to Russian troops. “As Alexei Navalny reported, Prigozhin dodged all public tender systems to become the army’s caterer. Today, Navalny is in jail and Russian soldiers are receiving expired cans of food.”
Russia hasn’t achieved air supremacy because Russia doesn’t have enough precision munitions for its planes to use, which is why they do stupid things like hit hospitals with dumb bombs and fly low enough to be shot down. “Russia’s best planes are dropping like flies because they don’t have adequate ammunition.”
“Are you really saying that the Russians are stupid and have gone to war without ammunition? Well, no: the problem is not that the Russians are stupid. The problem is that a political system with bad incentives generates nothing but failure.”
In closing, he wonders just how well-maintained those nuclear weapons and ICBMs are.
All this accords with what we have observed in Russia’s operation failures, and with what we know about the basic incompetence and economic misallocation of command economies.
(Sorry about the delay in getting this up. BlueHost was down earlier today.)
