Here’s an interesting part:
“Russia’s war in Ukraine has made extensive use of cruise and ballistic missiles to hit targets of military, political and economic importance. Given the underperformance of the Russian Air Force,50 these weapons are vital to the ongoing war effort. Exact stockpiles of these weapons are not available but as the war has progressed Ukrainian officials have noted a downgrading of the weapons systems employed for a range of mission sets, including a reversion to Grad-1
systems off the main axis.51 US assessments note that the Russian military appears to be running low on precision-guided weapons.52 When it comes to prestige weapons systems like the Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile, there is a limit to the proportion of the stockpile Russia can expend against Ukraine without undermining its defence plans against NATO, China and others. Without an assured supply chain to manufacture more, the Russians are having to retain a large proportion of the stockpile, which would restrict their ability to strike Ukraine in the coming months. But here the Russian military industries face a problem, for Russia’s latest weapons are heavily dependent upon critical specialist components manufactured abroad.
The 9M727 cruise missile – fired from the Iskander-K – is an example of one of Russia’s most advanced weapons systems, able to manoeuvre at low altitude to a target and strike with considerable precision. In order to achieve this the missile must carry a computer able to ingest data from various inertial and active sensors and command links and translate these into instructions to manipulate the missile’s control surfaces. The authors physically inspected one of these computers recovered from a crashed 9M727 during fieldwork in April. This computer is roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper and sits inside a heat shield able to withstand the pressure as the missile accelerates and the heat that engulfs the system. The computer must be remarkably robust, its components able to continue to function even as the structure around it is warped by temperature changes. This requires highly specialised materials and components. Of the seven socket attachment points allowing data to be moved through the heat shield, one is of Soviet-era design and manufactured in Russia. The remaining six are all products of US companies. The rails connecting the circuit boards to the computer housing, which must maintain the alignment of the components under immense forces, are similarly of US manufacture. The circuit boards themselves are sourced from the US.53”
Mysterious Russian “soul”. They’re running out of cruise missiles and still fire them at random apartment buildings to terrorize people.
I think this thing some people call “soul” is just stupidity.
Here’s an interesting part:
You are correct — it is actually the most interesting part.
Here is another:
Although Russian weapons are full of Western manufactured components, it is not clear that the companies manufacturing them knew that the Russian military was the end-user. Many components are dual-use technologies. Meanwhile, Russia has established mechanisms for laundering these items through third countries.
Now that undeniable facts, videos, and satellite images are surfacing about the horrendous human atrocities the Russians are committing, I’m thinking that less and less third countries are willing to supply these Western manufactured components to the Russians. And this is why they’re using less of their precious precision guided missiles — they fear that soon they will not be able to replace them.
The hubris of the Russian army to think they can just murder an entire innocent population from the face of the earth and keep it hidden in these days of cameras in every hand — they are under Putin’s spell and actually think they are cleansing the world. This will be their downfall. Soon, all countries — even China and India — will have to turn against Russia and refuse them the materials they need to keep their war machine going.