Posted on 11/01/2022 11:06:28 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
The small boat speeds toward a much larger ship in the distance, cutting through choppy waves and dodging gunfire, presumably from a helicopter shown hovering above. A now-viral video of its journey ends inconclusively, without showing its fate or what happened to what is suspected to be its intended target: Russia’s strategically important Black Sea Fleet.
The original source of the video and the origin of the vessel it was taken from remain unconfirmed. But military experts say they believe it to be footage from a remote-controlled attack on the Russian naval fleet off the Crimean port city of Sevastopol over the weekend — an attack that Russia said was carried by seven such boats accompanied by air drones, and has accused Ukraine of carrying out with British assistance.
Russia said that it had recovered the wreckage of sea drones used to target its fleet in Saturday’s assault and that the attack was the reason it was suspending a critical deal that had allowed for the export of grain from Ukrainian ports to help alleviate a global food crisis.
British officials have denied involvement, while Ukrainian, American and other Western officials have mostly refused to comment about the video or the attack. But the attack comes a few months after the United States, among other NATO allies, said it was supplying Ukraine with remote-controlled boats, even while, unusually, refusing to give details about that military aid.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
... its journey ends inconclusively, without showing its fate or what happened to what is suspected to be its intended target
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Today’s “journalism”. Who, what, where, when how replaced with speculation.
“Hear me out...it’s like a torpedo, but slow, non-stealthy, non-submersible, with low payload!”
Heh. Pretty good.
The Russians have AK-630’s which are similar in operation to the US Navy’s Phalanx CIWS.
Why didn’t they just vaporize the drone?
Or were they asleep at the switch?
No Kalibr cruise missile launches from Sevastopol in over a week.
Lol…
What are the Ukrainians going to do when Russia turns the lights on you?
copied from another site:
This morning at 4:20 local time the Russian fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol was attacked by nine unmanned aerial vehicles and seven autonomous maritime drones. Earlier a maritime drone that had run aground in Crimea and had been found and pictured.
(photo at #1 pictured here)
During today’s attack a large U.S. drone had flown circles south of Crimea. It likely relayed data from and to the drones.
The maritime drones are British and Russia alleges that British specialists had trained the Ukrainian navy in using them. It also says that British soldiers were involved in the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline.
The Ukrainians published two videos shot by the maritime drones while attacking. One of the video shows extensive gun fire impacts near the drone from a Russian helicopter that is attacking it.
The Russians say that all the aerial drones and 4 of 7 maritime drones were defeated before they could caused damage. They also say that one mine seeking ship was damaged in the harbor. It is possible that the damage is greater than Russia admits.
As a consequence of the attack Russia declared that the deal which allowed for grain exports from Odessa has been suspended. That deal had already been in danger as the ‘west’ had not fulfilled its part of the deal which would have allowed for the export for Russian fertilizer to third parties...”
“But you can put a camera on it and control it with a joystick! How fun will that be?”
“The Russians have AK-630’s...
Why didn’t they just vaporize the drone?”
Well, just go down the checklist and pick an excuse:
* No ammunition
* Weapon wasn’t maintained properly
* Operator was on a smoke break
* Operator was drunk
* Weapon didn’t function as advertised
Probably continue killing Russian invaders, except this time by candlelight.
Marine drones are the most likely explanation for the blast that took down Putin’s beloved Kerch bridge.
“Operator was drunk”
I was about to put that in my post; my money is on that one.
Having gone to Eastern Europe a lot what is striking is the amount of alcohol consumed.
I had to tell my hosts to stop giving me alcohol every night because I wasn’t used to it.
LOL, you're lucky they just gave you alcohol in the evening, and not in the morning.
Don’t even get me started. Below the apartment where I stayed was a bar that opened at 5:00 am. By about 6:30 the patrons would start getting tipsy and loud.
Fortunately they would go off to work by about 7:30. Some of the people who lived there said often workers could not function without some alcohol in their system.
The war in Ukraine clearly has entered a new phase, with Ukraine failing to press its offensive and Russia solidifying its lines of defense and launching counter attacks that are pushing Ukraine out of key strategic areas in Donetsk. It appears that the combination of the murder of Darya Dugina, the sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines, the bombing of the Kerch bridge and the spoiled drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastapol convinced the Russians to step up its military strikes to destroy critical electrical and energy infrastructure that they had previously left intact.
Yet, even while achieving success in systematically turning off the lights and heat throughout Ukraine, Russia is focusing on destroying transformers and key transmission installations rather than blow up nuclear, thermal and water power plants. If those sites are still intact, Russia will face an easier reconstruction task once Ukraine is defeated. It is easier to install new transformers and power lines than it is to build a new nuclear reactor. Right?
The Russian strikes reportedly have eliminated 50% of Ukraine’s ability to supply power and heat, which means life in Kiev, Lviv and Kharkiv will become unsustainable. We are not talking about the inconvenience of being unable to charge your cell phone or watch your favorite show on Netflix or keep your computer battery alive. The loss of power cuts off water supply and degrades the sewer system. As I noted in a previous piece, if your live four or more floors above ground level you will either have to carry buckets of water to the toilet or give up flushing. It also means no heat and the temperatures in Ukraine fall to near 0 Celsius at night. That would be tolerable if you have a fireplace (which most of the apartments in the urban areas do not have). With no radiant heat you must layer up just to avoid hypothermia.
Basic task like shopping require you dress as a cave explorer.
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Here is the bottomline–Ukraine’s military position will continue to erode in the coming weeks while economic conditions in England and the rest of Europe will worsen. The latter will make it impossible to sustain political support to continue sending unlimited financial and military aid to Ukraine.
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