Will Putin Invade Ukraine?

[Cassia]

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Speaking of, a drone crashed not far from one of Vlad's estates in Moscow.  Tick Tock.

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Also, a Challenger tank was officially destroyed - the first time in this conflict.

It hit a mine, was hit by Russian artillery, and was finished off by a Lancet drone.  Its 6 crew members survived, which imo is a testament to Western engineering.  They would be dead right now if they were in Soviet crap.

Losses like this are bound to happen.  It's why the Ukrainians need a lot more than what they already have.

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36 artillery.  Silencing those guns piece by piece.

[Unbeliever]

Hurray for our team! 🫡

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Russia tries to protect its planes...with old car tires.

Cope cages, meet cope goodyear blimp.

Again, I'm no combat expert, but I'm pretty sure rubber - especially donut-shaped rubber - isn't effective armor.  *demonstrates by putting his whole arm through the hole*  I guess the motto behind this one is that some armor > no armor.  But airplanes are designed with certain specifications in mind, so duct-taping a bunch of stuff on it is likely to interfere with its normal operations.

Now, I get the idea.  Some type of standoff armor to cushion the blow, which to be fair, Ukraine does this too.  But it's more like a bunch of netting at least several feet from the vehicle and that's against a very specific type of drone attack (Lancet) and... -and this is important- ...there's footage of this stuff actually doing the trick.

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HIMARS strike.

You can tell by the central explosion with lots of little tungsten balls spreading out like fireworks.  The tungsten balls finish off whatever the central explosion didn't destroy.  It has a much larger damage circle than one might expect - even tough materials get turned into swiss cheese by those little tungsten balls.

The target was a warehouse storing missiles used by Ka-52 Russian attack helicopters.  As normal, the Ukrainians are tying to starve the guns.

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37 artillery.  Nice work.

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US intelligence believes that Ukraine can break through Russia's two remaining fortification lines by the end of the year

After three months of slow progress, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is gaining momentum. "Had we had this conversation two weeks ago, I would have been slightly more pessimistic. Their breakthrough on that second defensive belt...is actually pretty considerable," Trent Maul says.

Maul says two critical variables are extremely important: Ukraine's ammunition supply, vital to support the artillery that ensures the advance, and the weather in the fall.

Sergey Surovikin, the Russian general who built the defence lines, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner mercenaries have achieved Russia's most tangible successes in the past year, are both out of action, the former fired, and the latter killed in a plane crash.

Such a shame.

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Unrelated: Russia's dragon's teeth poorly deployed, basically a joke

Russia's infamous "dragon's teeth" defenses were mocked by a Ukrainian former commander, who said they were easily breached by Ukraine's tanks.

"Why these pyramids were built, to be honest, is a mystery to me," said Dykyi. "The only rational explanation is that someone simply gobbled up the budget. Because there is absolutely no use from them as they don't stop tanks," he said.

"If you remember, maybe several years ago it was fashionable to put so-called energy pyramids on the tables, which were supposed to protect against negative energies. The use of these concrete pyramids is exactly the same."

Apparently, the dragon's teeth weren't buried properly and in some cases, the line took less than a day to breach.  Which is mystifying, because the rest of the Surovikin Line is actually pretty well-designed.  It's like the saying, "Man makes plans, but Private Conscriptovich laughs"

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This is fun to look at between videos of Ukrainians marching with Russian POWs in tow.

It's true that there is a cultural link - they both use the same brand of blue tape, though the Russians seem to prefer it tying their hands while the Ukrainians like it more as an armband.

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It's one thing to read about this stuff, but it's quite another to see this stuff and really take in the reality of it.

This is probably the dumbest thing Russia has done in the entire war.  It looks like they put Oscar the Grouch in charge of the airfield.  It makes the Russian airforce look like a joke.  If I were in their shoes, I'd be mortified of photos like this going public.  This is one of those take-to-the-grave sorts of mistakes.

How do the pilots even fly these things??