At such a remove from the actions in a vast country with no free news services, it’s hard to definitively say what’s going on with the Russian coup. So here are a variety of “state of play” snippets from various sources (Suchomimus’s discord, MSM, YouTube, Twitter, other social media, etc.). Some of these are rumors that may later turn out to be false, so treat with as many grains of salt as you deem necessary.
Wagner Group forces under Yevgeny Prigozhin continue their open rebellion against Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
They evidently took full control of Rostov-on-Don without firing a shot, and reports are that many Russian regular soldiers there have gone over to their side.
Wagner forces headed for Moscow.
Reports of Russian aircarft hitting Russian gas and ammo depots along the way to deprive Wagner of them.
None of Prigozhin’s statements seem to directly attack Russian dictator for life Vladimir Putin.
There are reports of Wagner shooting down at least one (and possibly two) Russian helicopter over Voronezh, where small arms clashes have been reported.
Unconfirmed reports of unrest in Belarus, with soldiers there being tired of living under Putin’s thumb.
Reports that Putin-ally leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko flew out of the country, switched off his plane’s transponder, and turned it on again when he was over Turkey.
Chechen strongman and bought Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov has evidently announced he’s opposing Wagner’s coup.
There are persistent rumors that Prigozhin wouldn’t have launched this coup without at least some support among powerful Russian oligarchs and command elements of the Russian military.
Here are some update videos. From Peter Zeihan on the Ukraine war:
I think Zeihan is too optimistic about the hole Ukraine put in the Chongar bridge, and I think Russians will try to at least run supply trucks around it and hope it doesn’t collapse.
From Suchomimus:
Wagner reportedly has 25,000-50,000 men, plus tanks on transporters and anti-aircraft systems. “This isn’t a ragtag army.”
Russia was “also building defensive positions near Serpukhov, 100 kilometers away from Moscow. So far the troops based around Moscow look like they do remain loyal to Putin.”
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced a deal late on Saturday that Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin would depart for Belarus in return for being spared prosecution, after an abortive rebellion in which his troops made a dash for Moscow.
The announcement, carried by the Tass news agency, came shortly after embittered warlord Prigozhin announced his men were turning back from Moscow to avoid a devastating civil conflict. In a voice recording posted to his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said his troops would turn back after advancing within 200 kilometers of the capital.
It was the culmination of an extraordinary day, in which Putin had accused the Wagner group of âtreasonâ and said that their uprising risked tipping Russia into civil war.
Prigozhin, smarting over the Kremlinâs handling of the war in Ukraine, announced early on Saturday that his mercenaries had seized the major southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, a logistics hub for Putinâs war, and threatened to push on to Moscow. Wagner forces also appeared to be well established in the city of Voronezh, 500 kilometers south of the capital.
Well, that’s a disappointment to all of us who thought it would allow Ukraine to liberate itself from a distracted Russia.
Prigozhin’s coup didn’t even last the three days of the 1991 Soviet coup…
he owner of the Wagner private military contractor made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russiaâs defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by calling for the arrest of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin was taking the threat, security was heightened in Moscow and in Rostov-on-Don, which is home to the Russian military headquarters for the southern region and also oversees the fighting in Ukraine.
While the outcome of the confrontation was still unclear, it appeared likely to further hinder Moscowâs war effort as Kyivâs forces were probing Russian defenses in the initial stages of a counteroffensive.
Prigozhin claimed early Saturday that his forces had crossed into Russia from Ukraine and had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and that his forces âarenât fighting against children.â
âBut we will destroy anyone who stands in our way,â he said in one of a series of angry video and audio recordings posted on social media beginning late Friday. âWe are moving forward and will go until the end.â
He claimed that the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, scrambled warplanes to strike Wagnerâs convoys, which were driving alongside ordinary vehicles. Prigozhin also said his forces shot down a Russian military helicopter that fired on a civilian convoy, but there was no independent confirmation.
And despite Prigozhinâs statements that Wagner convoys had entered Rostov-on-Don, there was no confirmation of that yet on Russian social networks. Videos showed heavy trucks blocking highways leading to the city, long convoys of National Guard trucks were seen on a road outside Rostov-on-Don and armored vehicles were roaming the streets.
Prigozhin said Wagner field camps in Ukraine were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from Gerasimov following a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.
Seems insane on the surface, but people are bandying about the idea that 97% of the Russian army is invested in Ukraine.
"The Head of General Staff is not calming down: a mistake of any African dictator is to deal air strikes at civilian areas. Right now in the air are two planes numbered 523 and 546 that are trying now to deal these strikes.
Update 3: Random non-coup observation: Reporting from Ukraine hasn’t updated in two days. I don’t treat that guy as gospel, but I don’t think he’s missed a posting day since shortly after the war began.
Busy as hell and I have a cold, but I soldier on. LinkSwarm! Russian coup! Texas! Pedophiles! Portland! Braaaaiiiinnnnnns!
I cover the world!
“The owner of the Wagner private military contractor made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russiaâs defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by calling for the arrest of Yevgeny Prigozhin…Prigozhin claimed early Saturday that his forces had crossed into Russia from Ukraine and had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and that his forces ‘arenât fighting against children.'” Unconfirmed reports of fighting elsewhere in Russia. Developing…
ï»ż
The City of Dallas is requiring employees to undergo taxpayer-funded transgender reeducation training any time one of their co-workers comes out as âtransgender.â
According to internal documents obtained from the City of Dallas by The Dallas Express, ânon-transitioningâ employees are being forced to undergo reeducation training âto support an inclusive and productive workplace environment for all employees.â
The City of Dallasâ âgender transition toolkitâ explains that a transitioning employee should find a âtrustedâ supervisor or manager as a âfirst point of contactâ to help them through their workplace transition.
The document includes a list of gender terms and definitions. It then moves on to require employees to work with gender-confused co-workers, allowing the âtransitioningâ employee to use whichever bathroom or locker room at work they feel most comfortable with, ignoring the comfort of other employees.
Speaking of pedophiles: “A former CNN television producer who had pleaded guilty to luring a 9-year-old girl into illegal sexual acts was sentenced Tuesday to more than 19 years in prison and an additional 15 years of supervised release during a U.S. District Court hearing in Vermont. John Griffin of Stamford, Connecticut, pleaded guilty in federal court in December to using interstate commerce to entice and coerce the girl to engage in sexual activity at his Vermont ski house.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
In the summer of 2020, Portland, Oregon, became the poster child for American urban disaster zones. During the day, tens of thousands of citizens protested peacefully against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But everything changed after dark. Nonviolent demonstrators with jobs, school assignments, and kids to raise went home; hundreds of anarchists swarmed in to take their place and waged a low-grade insurgency against the city. They fought pitched battles with the copsâthrowing rocks, frozen water bottles, fireworks, buckets of excrement, and even Molotov cocktails. They attacked coffeehouses, immigrant-owned restaurants, mom-and-pop retail stores, banks, museums, churches, bus stops, and the Multnomah County Democratic Party headquarters with baseball bats, crowbars, and hammers. Most were military-age white males wearing all-black clothing and hiding their faces. The violence kept up, night after night, week after week, and month after month, into the winter, long after the rest of America had calmed down. My city had become the most politically violent place in the country, and I got worried e-mails from people I knew around the worldâeven in the Middle East!âasking me if I was okay and why on earth this was happening.
A crime wave followed. Shootings and homicides exploded 300 percent between 2019 and 2022, robberies rose 50 percent in 2022 alone, vehicle thefts hit record highs, and work-order requests for graffiti removal shot up 500 percent between 2020 and 2022. The City of Roses suffered 413 shootings in 2019 but 1,306 in 2022 and nearly twice as many homicides as San Francisco, though Portland is only three-fourths its size. Meantime, statewide crime actually declined from 2019 to 2021.
The homelessness crisis also intensified. The slow-motion collapse of Oregonâs mental-health infrastructure, a dramatic surge of cheap and deadly fentanyl and a far more potent and addictive form of psychosis-inducing meth, and a crippling housing shortage led to the formation of more than 700 tent cities in residential neighborhoods and business districts across the city.
But while itâs too soon to declare that Portlandâs troubles have passed, the worst may now be over. Despite ongoing woes, Portland looks and feels much better than it did in dystopian 2020. The riots stopped, and the crime wave seems to have peaked, with shootings down by nearly 40 percent and homicides down more than 50 percent in the early months of 2023. A sober mood shift has taken over the city. Voters passed a ballot measure to restructure city government, while the three newest elected officials on the city council are steering Portland in a different direction. The city, county, and state are taking steps to reverse the decline.
Portland is suffering a serious livability crisis. Eighty-eight percent of respondents in early 2022 told the Portland Business Alliance that the quality of life is worsening. Portland is hardly the most dangerous city in America: the homicide rate in St. Louis is more than four times higher, with 65 murders per 100,000 people, compared with Portlandâs 15 in 2022. Portlandâs rate peaked at more than double the national average, but of all the cities with higher crime rates than Portland, only Chicago gets as many national headlines. Thatâs probably because Portlandâs increase in crime was the worst in the country. No other cityâs homicide rate rose so spectacularly. And unlike St. Louis, Baltimore, and other notorious hot spots, Portland was recently a destination city that touted its high quality of life as a reason to move there.
Of late, though, rather than attracting new residents, Portland has actually lost population, either to the suburbs or out of state. âIâve never seen money move out of here,â commercial real-estate salesman Stu Peterson told Willamette Week. âNobody ever wanted to leave Oregon. Itâs a beautiful place. Most evacuees are high-wage earners who are fed up with the crime, taxes, and homelessness, in that order. Thereâs an ugly spiral.â Real-estate agent Justin Harnish described a client who left downtown Portland for the suburb of Lake Oswego after she saw a woman stab another woman in the face with scissors.
Accompanying the crime wave is a drastic staff shortage at the Portland Police Bureau. Portland now has fewer than 800 sworn officers, a smaller number than it had decades ago, when the city was barely half the size it is now. And with the surge in violent crime, the police have little time to deal with anything that isnât life-threatening. Prioritizing shootings and other emergencies, theyâre forced to neglect break-ins, stolen cars, vandalism, and just about everything else. The traffic police unit has been defunded, reduced to a single full-time traffic copânot for ideological reasons but because the city has no one to staff that division.
Part of the blame rests with the months of demoralizing anti-cop violence in 2020, but Portland would probably be short of police officers anyway. Every city agency, from fire and rescue to the transportation bureau and the public defenderâs office, faces staff shortages now. And while a shrunken police force didnât cause Portlandâs crime wave on its own, a police department that can barely react to anything but emergency calls aggravates the problem. Criminals behave as though they can get away with essentially anything and commit far more crimes than they would if they were investigated, arrested, and prosecuted swiftly. The Woodstock neighborhood, where Joe Biden won 88 percent of the vote, is considering hiring its own private security force.
Snip.
I spent more time talking to my neighbors that year than I ever had before or have since. A lot of us suddenly became friendlier outside our houses, and we werenât talking about sports and the weather. Residents and business owners alike worried about where things were headed and expressed dismay at the cityâs inability to defend itself. I didnât talk with a single person who thought that everything was okay, that city hall was on top of it, or that the anarchists were not a menace. And nobody could understand why the homeless camps at the elementary school down the street or at the park hadnât been cleared. No, I didnât conduct my own scientific public opinion survey, but it was obvious that regular people were nearing the end of their rope and that the status quo was bound to be upended.
In 2021, thatâs exactly what happened. A tsunami of outrage inundated the mayor, the city council, and the police bureau. Phones rang nonstop. Furious citizens shouted at meetings. Newspaper editors published scathing letters, and journalists at mainstream outlets covered distressed neighborhoods and interviewed disgruntled citizens while largely ignoring the activist set that booed every conceivable solution and told civilians that the problems were in their heads. Lawsuits against the city proliferated. Polls showed city council members languishing on political death row, with approval ratings in the teens.
Though most residents still wanted accountability for bad cops and citizen oversight of the police bureau, the complaints were primarily about crime, about how the police hardly ever show up anymore, and about disorder dragging neighborhoods down. Even some of the fashionable middle-class neighborhoods endearingly satirized in the Portlandia comedy series were enduring weekly gunfire.
In the fall of 2022, 82 percent of Portland respondents in an Oregonian poll said that they wanted more cops. If some Portlanders felt overpoliced a few years ago, hardly anyone felt that way after the chaos, with a mere 15 percent saying that they wanted fewer officers in 2021.
Before the city council elections got going in 2022, voters fired repeated warning shots in public opinion surveys. An overwhelming 85 percent of respondents said that they found the city council ineffective, with a clear majority describing it as âvery ineffective.â For a while, it looked as though Portland was gearing up to fire every single official in a landslide election.
Two city council members, Dan Ryan and Jo Ann Hardesty, ran for reelection last year. Ryan managed to defy expectations and win despite the temper in the city, though itâs easy to understand why: he set aside his ideological views and changed with the times. Though he first ran during a special election in early 2020 on a campaign promising to cut police funding, he soon reversed himself. Anarchists vandalized his home seven times because he refused to cut the police budget.
Hardesty didnât fare as well. Pushing bills to defund the police and opposing the cleanup of homeless camps, she put herself wildly out of step with her constituents. Mingus Mapps, a moderate on the council who had easily dispatched the left-wing populist Chloe Eudaly two years earlier, endorsed Hardestyâs challenger, Rene Gonzales, and bluntly said: âIt is time to put ideology aside and elect people who will fight for Portland. I need colleagues who use debate, reason, and logic to solve our many crises.â Gonzales said, âOur once beautiful city is struggling in ways that were unfathomable a short time ago. . . . City hallâs ineffective, ideologically driven policies are ruining the city we used to proudly call home.â Gonzales won, and Portland replaced the city councilâs last progressive firebrand with a centrist. It was the kind of event that marks the end of an era.
Sounds a lot like Austin, except for the sobering-up part. (Also, it’s good to read Michael Totten again. He seemed to disappear from view for several years. Probably because he was writing for The Bulwark…)
Speaking of Portland, the homeless drug addict who said that living on the streets of Portland was “too easy” is now back with her family and getting treatment. They thought she was dead…
Finland’s newly elected parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of National Coalition Party leader Petteri Orpo to become prime minister, as widely expected, ushering in a right-wing government and ending Social Democrat Sanna Marin’s rule.
Orpo will lead a coalition of the conservative NCP, the nationalist Finns, the minority-language Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Democrats, which together won a majority of parliamentary seats in the April 2 election.
The new finance minister will be Riikka Purra, head of the eurosceptic Finns Party, while the NCP’s deputy leader Elina Valtonen will become foreign minister when the government takes office later on Tuesday.
“I warmly thank you for the confidence you’ve shown me,” Orpo told parliament shortly after the vote.
A self-styled fiscal conservative, Orpo campaigned on a promise to reduce the government’s budget deficit by cutting spending while also reducing taxes and seeking to boost private sector job creation.
The new coalition also shifts immigration policy to the right, aiming to cut refugee quotas, raise the bar for work-based visas and make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain citizenship, key priorities for the Finns Party.
Orpo is hardly a bomb-thrower, with previous stints on the boards of the European Investment Bank and the European Stability Mechanism, which are embedded very deep inside the EU’s deep state. Nor will Finland’s new coalition be mistaken for the second coming of Ronald Reagan.
But time and time again we’re told that the EU policies (just like Social Justice policies in the U.S.) are popular, while time and time again EU member states elect government that oppose many of those policies, especially those favoring unlimited Muslim immigration into member countries.
Finally, those who assert that Euroskeptacism goes hand in hand with appeasing Russia will find that they’re mistaken, as Orpo backed Ukraine and Finland joining NATO.
For Finland Russiaâs proxÂimÂity is a key geostrategic fact, and the war in Ukraine indiÂcates how the probÂlems assoÂciÂated with Russiaâs aggresÂsive behavÂiour have mateÂriÂalÂized. Russia is definÂing its interÂests in a way that threatÂens peace in Europe and creates inseÂcuÂrity in others. During the past decade, there have been uprisÂings in several of Russiaâs neighÂbors, which the KremÂlin has sought to violently suppress. Russia seeks a new sphere of influÂence and wants to halt the demoÂcÂraÂtic develÂopÂment of other counÂtries. Not NATO, but the peopleâs will to decide for themÂselves seems to be a threat to Putinâs regime.
Finland’s new government, like the old, is firmly in the NATO camp. Funny how fighting the Soviet Union/Russia repeatedly throughout the 20th Century will do that…
It looks like someone took a lawnmower chassis and replaced the mower blade and engine with a mine-laying servo.
#Ukraine: Judging by the video, the main idea is that this UGV "RATEL" is used as a mobile warhead that carries two TM-62 AT mines and whose goal is to be activated under a vehicle or tank. In the video, UGV was successfully tested on an old van. #UkraineRussiaWarïž#Russiapic.twitter.com/JRqtabl4nj
— đșđŠ Ukraine Weapons Warfare (@WeaponsWarfare) April 29, 2023
RATEL is evidently the name of the device, and not connected to the South African Ratel IFV (though it wouldn’t shock me to see those show up in Ukrainian inventories, despite being fairly long in the tooth).
I first saw this mentioned in a Reporting from Ukraine video:
Not a whole lot of information there, either, but he did say “Recent combat footage shows that Ukrainians finally started using mine-laying drones in large numbers. Even though such drones cannot be driven far behind the front lines, they are very effective at mining the roads that go along the front line, especially those that connect Russian positions between the tree lines.”
There’s very little information available on this device online, but speculation on previous prototypes suggested they were trying to lay mines under enemy vehicles, which makes no sense. The Reporting from Ukraine description of them as an area denial weapon makes much more sense.
We think of mines as buried items, but laying them atop roads can take out unwary or distracted drivers, or cause them the to stop to clear the mines (a risky proposition, since they could be designed to explode at any removal attempt, and which subjects stopped targets to possible hostile fire), or to divert around into areas that may have buried mines (and we’ve seen plenty of video from Ukraine of Russian vehicles hitting mines buried to the side while trying to avoid some obstacle).
Summerâs coming. That means sunshine, swimming, cookouts â and blackouts.
Thatâs the warning from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
According to NERC, at least two-thirds of the country is at risk for major power outages this summer.
This extends to most everyone west of the Mississippi except for Texas.
Texas and much of the Midwest will be fine, the report says, so long as we donât experience hot, windless summer days.
Well, thatâs a relief. When do we ever get hot, windless summer days in Texas and the Midwest?
Part of the problem is the steady removal of fossil-fuel plants from the grid.
These plants are supposed to be replaced by renewables â wind and solar â but wind doesnât work on windless days, and solar doesnât keep your air conditioning running on steamy nights.
The Wall Street Journal reports the Environmental Protection Agency has made things worse with new nitrogen-oxides rules from its recently finalized âGood Neighbor Plan, which requires fossil-fuel power plants in 22 states to reduce NOx emissions. NERC predicts power plants will comply by limiting hours of operation but warns they may need regulatory waivers in the event of a power crunch.â
Institute for the Study of War: “Ukrainian forces conducted a limited but still significant attack in western Zaporizhia Oblast on the night of June 7 to 8. Russian forces apparently defended against this attack in a doctrinally sound manner and had reportedly regained their initial positions as of June 8.” Other sources are reporting modest Ukrainian gains.
A comprehensive investigation by the Wall Street Journal and the Stanford Internet Observatory reveals that Meta-owned Instagram has been home to an organized and massive network of pedophiles.
But what separates this case from most is that Instagram’s own algorithms were promoting pedophile content to other pedophiles, while the pedos themselves used coded emojis, such as a picture of a map, or a slice of cheese pizza.
Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found.
The pedophilic accounts on Instagram mix brazenness with superficial efforts to veil their activity, researchers found. Certain emojis function as a kind of code, such as an image of a mapâshorthand for âminor-attracted personââor one of âcheese pizza,â which shares its initials with âchild pornography,â according to Levine of UMass. Many declare themselves âlovers of the little things in life.â -WSJ
According to the researchers, Instagram allowed pedophiles to search for content with explicit hashtags such as #pedowhore and #preteensex, which were then used to connect them to accounts that advertise child-sex material for sale from users going under names such as “little slut for you.”
Sellers of child porn often convey the child’s purported age, saying they are “on chapter 14,” or “age 31,” with an emoji of a reverse arrow.
Speaking of Meta, they’re threatening to “pull news feeds on its platforms for California residents if the state legislature passes the Journalism Preservation Act.” That act “requires big tech companies to pay news outlets a journalism usage fee.” For once the pedo-coddlers are right: No one should be forced to subsidize failing social justice-infected newsrooms.
Speaking of pedophiles: “Itasca ISD Superintendent Michael Stevens arrested, charged with online solicitation of a minor.” Maybe parents wouldn’t worry so much about educators trying to screw their children if educators didn’t keep trying to screw their children.
This week in Democrats passing unconstitutional laws that strip citizens of rights: “llinoisâs Gov. J. B. âJumbo Burgerâ Pritzker signed himself a whale of a state law yesterday that went into effect IMMEDIATELY. And, immediately, restricted Illinois citizens from pursuing constitutional claims against their state government unless they filed the lawsuits in one of two, Democratic approved, state sanctioned, Democratic counties â Cook or Sangamon.” That’s a prima facie violation of the First Amendment “right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Free New York City crack pipe vending machine cleaned out overnight. “Free crack pipe vending machine” sounds like the punchline to a Norm MacDonald joke from the 1990s, but it’s now evidently the policy of New York Democrats.
North Dakota’s Republican Governor is running for President. Burgum is evidently a billionaire after being an early investor in Great Plains Software, which was sold to Microsoft in 2001. The fact he’s close to Bill Gates doesn’t give me a lot of warm fuzzies, and Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg proved that rich-but-unknown outsiders shoveling money into a Presidential campaign costs you a lot of jack and earn you boatloads of squat. He’s a pretty decent public speaker, but in a blow-dried 80’s executive sense, and he sort of looks like if Richard Belzer had played the Michael Douglas role in Falling Down.
I know nothing more than this. Evidently local media have ignored it as well:
Tweaker idiot takes the 801 bus hostage. All passengers have exited the bus. Driver is in her seat like a mamaluke. APD is nowhere to be found. Viva la leftists. pic.twitter.com/EpwDhrtCUX
— Blastbeat Industries (@BlastbeatATX) June 9, 2023
“Due To High Crime, Mafia Closes Its Chicago Office.” “How are we supposed to conduct respectable business â loan sharking, bribery, racketeering, illegal gambling â with so much crime going on? It’s insane!”
The Ukrainian military has launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces, opening a crucial phase in the war aimed at restoring Ukraineâs territorial sovereignty and preserving Western support in its fight against domination by Moscow.
Ukrainian troops, including specialized attack units armed with Western weapons and trained in NATO tactics, intensified their strikes on front-line positions in the countryâs southeast on Wednesday night, according to four people in the countryâs armed forces, beginning a significant push into Russian-occupied territory.
By “southeast” they mean “Zaporizhzhia,” where most observers have expected the main counteroffensive operational push to come.
Reasons for expressing some skepticism is the MSM source, but everyone has been expecting the counteroffensive to kick off for months. Another reason to assume the counter-offensive is real: Western armor has finally been definitively spotted among Ukrainian forces, including Leopard 2s, Bradleys and French AMX-10s.
“More worryingly was what we saw with the tactics of the armored group. Grouping vehicles closer together like that is just asking for trouble.” But Suchomimus notes we saw some stumbles like trhis at the beginning of the very successful Kherson offensive as well.
The US, and Ukraine are discussing sending 41 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) F/A-18A/B Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine, rather than scrapping them as planned.
Since the US recently granted permission for other Western allies to supply Kyiv with advanced fighter jets, Washington is open to the idea of gifting Ukraine retired RAAF F/A-18 fighter jets, Euromaidan Press reports.
Seventy-five F/A-18A/Bs were acquired by the RAAF from 1985 to replace the ageing Mirage III fighter which had been in service since 1963. The first two aircraft were produced in the US, with the remainder assembled in Australia at Government Aircraft Factories.
Giving them to Ukraine rather than scrapping them makes sense. Australia can’t use them, as they’re transitioning to F-35s, and the U.S. can’t use them since they’ve already transitioned both carrier-based and Marine F/A-18s to the much beefier F/A-18E/F Super-Hornets.
The F/A-18 was originally designed as a carrier plane, but several militaries around the world use them as all-purpose fighter aircraft.
Will Ukraine be able to make use of them? Sure! Just like the F-16s that Ukraine may get sometime, F/A-18A/Bs are reasonably modern fighter aircraft that can more than hold their own against any but the very most modern Russia jet fighters aircraft. (Maybe the Su-57 is better, just like it appears on paper; but a lot of Soviet and Russian gear that looks great on paper turns out to be crap.) One of the first rules of warfare is that you can’t beat something with nothing.
But, as with the F-16, it’s going to take a lot of training before even experienced fighter jet pilots would be cleared to fly F/A-18s in combat. Probably at least six months of type trying in simulators and tandem and solo flying. Maybe more, because Soviet/Russian jets are so different from U.S. jets, maybe less Because War. In any case, it will be too late to take part in the vaunted Spring Counteroffensive, which may or may not be going on right now.
But the way this war has dragged on, there’s a good chance Ukraine will still need them by 2024…
Russia is doing what it always does: Lying about its battlefield achievements. Recently they claimed to have taken out a Patriot missile defense system sent to Ukraine. YouTuber Suchomimus has looked into their claims by comparing them with several relevant satellite images of the site and determined: Not so much.
Update on “the May airstrike in which Russia claimed to have hit two Patriot SAM launchers: we’ve had some newly released satellite imagery which does show signs of damage at the air base in question. However, is not as it seems.”
Satellite images show that one of the two impact craters were present before the Patriot system was installed.
A time sequence shows that the other crater was not in any of the locations where newly dug emplacements showed where new Patriot equipment was stationed.
The U.S. admitted that a Patriot was damaged by the attack, very possibly from shrapnel, but that it was minor and quickly repaired. Satellite image analysis supports this claim.
“While these satellite images are interesting, and they do confirm an impact at the airport, they don’t show evidence of a destroyed Patriot.”
We’ve already covered why Russia’s T-14 Armata tank isn’t all that. Here’s a somewhat more balanced look from David Willey of The Tank Museum:
The first ten minutes covers the basics of Soviet tank design (the philosophy of favoring firepower over just about everything else, and how political rivalries led to various Soviet tank designs). Then he goes into the details of the Armata.
Much of the Armata comes from the abandoned T-95 project. “Although the T14 is looked at as new, it actually relies on systems and ideas from some much earlier projects.”
“The smoothbore 2A821M 125mm cannon is an upgrade from the weapon on the T-90. Russian sources claim its muzzle energy is far greater compared to the Rheinmetall 120mm gun.”
The unmanned turret means no need for a fume extractor.
Theoretical fire rate of 10-12 rounds a minute. I suspect this is highly optimistic and the fire rate is probably the slower one round every ten seconds we already covered.
“The new Vacuum One armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding-sabot round is fitted with a 90cm [900mm] long rod penetrator. That’s unusually long. It is said to be capable of penetrating one meter of rolled homogeneous armor at about 2000 meters.” That is quite long. The rod penetrator on the U.S. M829 APFSDS round is 684mm long. Western consensus seems to be that the Vacuum One and Vacuum Two penetrator cores are made of depleted uranium or tungsten.
“The A853 engine was a copy of a German x-shaped engine from the war years…the A853 was not however a reliable product, and from all reports it seems to have had major issues.”
When working, it theoretically has twice the horsepower of a T-72 engine and capable of reaching 56 miles and hour with a range of 500 kilometers.
“The T14 has new 70 centimeter diameter road wheels, and an electronically adjustable suspension system on at least the first two road wheels, and possibly the last ones, and [that’s] called an active suspension system but is fitted over a main torsion bar suspension. It also has rubber-blocked tracks.”
The Armata’s sealed crew compartment will have air conditioning, which was introduced in Russian tanks with the T-90M in 2016. (Starting with M1A2 SEPv2, the Abrams has cooling, but it’s mainly geared toward cooling the electronics.)
Digital screens with remote cameras.
“The gunner can see his target, but he can also choose through those screens a relevant ammunition type.”
“The chassis and turret are equipped with a ‘Malachit’ dual explosive reactive armor system, and on the front sides and the top there’s stealth coatings.” Assuming the ERA is actually there and not fake, as on so many captured and destroyed Russian tanks in Ukraine.
“The active protection system has a radar to detect and tract incoming anti-tank munitions it states a maximum speed of incoming interceptable target is 1700 meters a second, or Mach 5.” Let’s just say I have grave doubts that it actually works. The Pentagon went with Israel’s Trophy active protection system over Raytheon’s homegrown Quick Kill system for M1A2 SEPv3, and Raytheon is good at developing reliable, high tech weapons. Unlike Russia.
“The top of the vehicle is still vulnerable to top attack munitions.” So much for defense against Javelin. Which first entered service in 1996.
“However, on closer inspection a number of these technologies and features are not fitted to some of the vehicles. Some you can see there’s covers where the technology or that piece of equipment should be on others is fitted for, but not with.” And that was on parade demonstration vehicles before sanctions. Odds that Russia would have enough parts to fully equip high tech parts to all Armatas supposedly in Ukraine would appear to be slim.
Though reusing a lot of features from the abandoned T-95 project, “the new T14 tank is a radical departure in sense of its scale, its layout, its design features and technology from that era of evolutionary Soviet-designed vehicles.”
“Originally intended to replace all Russian army tanks, the Russian military had planned to acquire about 2,300 T-14s between 2015 and 2020…but by 2018, delays were announced until at least 2025. Subsequently announcements indicated the apparent cancellation of the main production run.” In between it announced it was going to build 100 of them, though that number may have included other armored vehicles using the same platform.
“The [Russian] Deputy Minister of Defense said, quote, there is currently no need to mass produce the Armata when it’s older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain effective against American, German, and French counterparts.” Here the Deputy Minister of Defense is engaged in a time-honored Russian rhetorical device known as “lying his ass off.”
“The gradual tightening of sanctions, and then with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the problem of sourcing the essential microelectronics has come to the fore. Russian industry has been critically dependent on foreign microelectronics and associated technologies. These are no longer available due to sanctions.”
“The sights from France and other components are no longer available.”
“Other issues come into play that affect the wider Russian defense industries. One is the perennial Russian problem of corruption. Since 2011, a staggering 72,000 officials have appeared before the course on corruption charges.”
“The mythic way many Russian military systems and products have been promoted and sold has met a crushing reality in Ukraine.”
Even though there may only be 20 test vehicles available, there is an expectation they will make appearance in the battle. A British ministry defense statement said, and I quote, any T-14 deployment is likely to be a high-risk decision for Russia. 11 years in development, the program has been dogged with delays reduction in planned Fleet size and reports of manufacturing problems. If Russia deploys a T-14 it will likely primarily be for propaganda purposes. Production is probably only in the low tens, while commanders are unlikely to
trust the vehicle in combat.
So even a balanced, objective analysis of the T-14 Armata isn’t particularly optimistic about its chances in combat.
