Posted on 02/24/2024 5:59:01 AM PST by SpeedyInTexas
More than 20% of the territory of Ukraine is contaminated with explosive objects
As a result of the large-scale invasion of Russia, 128,000 sq. km of land and 14,000 sq. km of the water area of Ukraine is contaminated with explosive objects.
12JAN2024 What gunners don't have in abundance are howitzer barrels. And there's evidence the Russians are maintaining their best guns ... by dismantling their worst guns.
A howitzer barrel usually is good for a few thousand shots before its steel becomes brittle or bends. If an artillery battery doesn't replace worn-out barrels in time, it risks catastrophic accidents as shells explode inside their guns. Something we've seen many, many times on both sides of Russia's 23-month wider war on Ukraine.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1842510222948016242
1 min video
“Mossad’s pager operation: Inside Israel’s penetration of Hezbollah”
“New details emerge of Israel’s elaborate plan to sabotage Hezbollah communications devices to kill or maim thousands of its operatives.”
” In the initial sales pitch to Hezbollah two years ago, the new line of Apollo pagers seemed precisely suited to the needs of a militia group with a sprawling network of fighters and a hard-earned reputation for paranoia.
The AR924 pager was slightly bulky but rugged, built to survive battlefield conditions. It boasted a waterproof Taiwanese design and an oversized battery that could operate for months without charging. Best of all, there was no risk that the pagers could ever be tracked by Israel’s intelligence services. Hezbollah’s leaders were so impressed they bought 5,000 of them and began handing them out to mid-level fighters and support personnel in February.
None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb. And even after thousands of the devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria, few appreciated the pagers’ most sinister feature: a two-step de-encryption procedure that ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated
None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb. And even after thousands of the devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria, few appreciated the pagers’ most sinister feature: a two-step de-encryption procedure that ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated.
As many as 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members — most of them rear-echelon figures — were killed or maimed, along with an unknown number of civilians, according to Israeli, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials, when Israel’s Mossad intelligence service triggered the devices remotely on Sept. 17.
As an act of spy craft, it is without parallel, one of the most successful and inventive penetrations of an enemy by an intelligence service in recent history. But key details of the operation — including how it was planned and carried out, and the controversy it engendered within Israel’s security establishment and among allies — are only now coming to light.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/05/israel-mossad-hezbollah-pagers-nasrallah/
“Also invisible was Mossad’s remote access to the devices. An electronic signal from the intelligence service could trigger the explosion of thousands of the devices at once. But, to ensure maximum damage, the blast could also be triggered by a special two-step procedure required for viewing secure messages that had been encrypted.
“You had to push two buttons to read the message,” an official said. In practice, that meant using both hands.
In the ensuing explosion, the users would almost certainly “wound both their hands,” the official said, and thus “would be incapable to fight.””
“The first part of the plan, booby-trapped walkie-talkies, began being inserted into Lebanon by Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained oversized battery packs, a hidden explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications.
For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, the officials said, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive. In an irony that would not become clear for many months, Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.”
THIS IS THE WAY
“Ukraine’s Donbas Strategy: Retreat Slowly and Maximize Russia’s Losses”
“The idea is to use rope-a-dope tactics, letting Russian forces pound away until they have exhausted themselves. It’s far from clear if the Ukrainian strategy will succeed.”
“Throughout the year, Ukraine has lost a series of cities, towns and villages in its eastern Donbas region to Russia, typically withdrawing its troops after hard-fought battles that sometimes lasted for months.
Marinka was the first to fall, a sign in January that Russia had regained momentum on the battlefield. Then came Avdiivka, an industrial city where Ukrainian soldiers had hunkered down in a dense maze of trenches and bunkers. Finally, this past week, Ukraine retreated from Vuhledar, a mining town perched on high ground that was a linchpin of Ukrainian defenses in the southeast.
To outside observers, Ukraine’s slow but steady retreat from the Donbas region, the main theater of the war today, may seem to signal the beginning of the endgame, with Moscow firmly gaining the upper hand on the battlefield, leveraging its overwhelming advantage in manpower and firepower.
But Ukrainian commanders and military experts dispute that, saying that a more crucial fight is unfolding in the region that goes beyond simple territorial gains and losses. It is now a war of attrition, they say, with each side trying to exhaust the other by inflicting maximum losses, hoping to break the enemy’s capacity and will to continue the war.”
“Another defeat for Russian forces near Kostiantynivka. The 79th Brigade destroyed 2 tanks and 6 armored vehicles, with another tank rendered inoperable. Twenty attackers will never fight again, while 25 others will return home disabled.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1842866613642543365
“A fire occurred in Kuzminki, Moscow Oblast, likely following an attack by an unidentified drone, according to Russian media. Local residents reported hearing an explosion and automatic gunfire near the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.”
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1842843889595461900
Why Did Russia Just Shoot Down Its Own Fighter-Sized S-70 Hunter Drone Over Ukraine?
The S-70 Okhotnik-B flying-wing unmanned combat air vehicle was shot down by a Russian fighter miles past the front lines and its wreckage could be a big intel win.
https://www.twz.com/air/why-did-russia-just-shoot-down-its-own-fighter-sized-s-70-hunter-drone-over-ukraine
“Difficult times for German industry”
German companies are now investing abroad, to a higher degree than any other advanced country. A lot of business that was built on that Russian oil and especially gas as a feedstock, are going away.
“According to British intelligence, by September 2024, the Russian army’s losses in Ukraine had reached 610,000 people, which exceeds the losses in all Russian wars since World War II. These figures are comparable to the population of such large cities as Vladivostok, Irkutsk or Khabarovsk. Of these, 200,000 were killed, which is comparable to the population of the cities of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk or Pskov. 400,000 more Russians were injured, with one in two of those seriously injured becoming amputees, The New York Times reported earlier.”
“Mobilization => political disaster and the end of Putin?”
This time around (vs. 2022 mobilization), the economic costs and reduced prospects that the population and businesses (e.g., oligarch mafia captains) are feeling is more of an issue.
Putin is no longer the path to prosperity, but to poverty.
A prominent twitter account says Indicted War Criminal Little PUkin’s mother was a prostitute.
Anyone know if that is true?
“A howitzer barrel usually is good for a few thousand shots before its steel becomes brittle or bends.”
Just their rate of fire alone is probably wearing out at least thousand barrels per year. The barrels they are pulling of old storage howitzers probably already have some of their life worn out of them.
Covert Cabal (OSINT analyst on YouTube) has visually confirmed through satellite imagery, that most of the remaining howitzers in open storage have been stripped of their barrels.
As barrels wear, the guns also become increasingly inaccurate, so that is a problem for the Russians as well, as they fire their barrels thousands of rounds past what we would do. It also matters how much propellant they use. Full charge for max range takes a bigger toll on the barrel life.
“A prominent twitter account says Indicted War Criminal Little PUkin’s mother was a prostitute.”
I think it unlikely over the long term, as they had some family connections in the Party, but during the siege of St. Petersburg, all bets are off - those were truly desperate times, with mass starvation.
Jay in Kyiv constantly says it.
Regarding “oligarch mafia captains” and possibilities they might object to Putin’s path to poverty.
Several years ago, a number of important bank, oil, etc. people killed their families with knives, hatchets, etc. and then themselves in places even as far removed as Barcelona, Spain. In that case I remember a surviving son in England swore there was no reason for his father to do any such a thing. After that wave of bloody violence, we next heard about a number of important people practicing flying from upper story windows. More recently I have seen notices of oligarchs having their owe private armies, described on one occasion in the context of Prigozhin’s Wagners and the march on Moscow.
So, now, no longer hearing much about flying lessons from windows, does this mean that if the oligarchs can agree, they might actually move against Putin. Of course criminals have a hard time trusting each other and cooperating, but if our own US Mafia was able to put together an accord, why not Russian mafias. The US Mafia divided territories, had meetings and punished those who rebelled against the whole. It will be fascinating to see how this development evolves.
Kyiv Independent:
“Ukraine may be offered “more concrete steps” regarding its NATO membership during the upcoming Ramstein summit, the Washington Post (WP) reported on Oct. 6, citing an undisclosed diplomat.
Kyiv hopes to secure additional pledges of assistance during the conference on Oct. 12, which will be the last gathering in this format before the U.S. presidential election in early November.
There are concerns that a return of Republican candidate Donald Trump to the White House could spell a reduction of military aid to Ukraine and an obstacle to the country’s NATO aspirations.
According to the diplomat quoted by the WP, NATO members are considering a more definitive proposal regarding the accession, but it will likely fall short of what Kyiv has asked for.”
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