Ukraine

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Russia has fired missiles into Nato territory, killing two. Nothing to see here.

Russia-Ukraine war live: two people killed after Russian missiles cross into Poland, says US intelligence official | Ukraine | The Guardian

Update:

Russia-Ukraine war live: missile strike that killed two in Poland likely an accident from Ukrainian air defence, says Warsaw | Ukraine | The Guardian

[JoeP]

I don't want to be cynical ... OK maybe I do, it's my nature ... but as soon as I saw Biden saying they probably couldn't have come from Russia or been fired by Russia or whatever, I sensed this was a "hey we are in no mood to deal with Nato Article 5 questions at the moment" defusing.

Totally could have been Russia.

Probably isn't though.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Thrad

2/ Prizoghin himself is a former convict – he was sentenced to 13 years behind bars in 1981 for fraud and robbery, including violently attacking lone women to steal their valuables. His prison contacts were invaluable in dealing with a post-Soviet world dominated by gangsters.

— ChrisO (@ChrisO_wiki) November 17, 2022

Interesting

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians of Ukraine | Libraries | The Guardian

Librarians are consistently hard core.

[Ari]

Another Russian Businessman dies from the pre-existing condition of gravity, only days after his travel partner died of a pre-existing condition.

Pavel Antov, Russian sausage magnate, dies after hotel fall in India | CNN Business

[ChuckF]

The BBC piece had a wonderful quote:

Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of Odisha police said Mr Budanov was found to have suffered a stroke while his friend "was depressed after his death and he too died".

Top-notch police work. I have no questions.

[Stephen Maturin]

Another case cleared! Thank you, officer!

show spoiler

[Sock Puppet]

Not a single use of "defenestration."

[Ari]

Welcome to amateur hour in the skies, the US has released footage of a Russian jet attempting to down a drone by dumping fuel on it (fuel dumping for weight reduction isn’t uncommon and thus they can pretend they just oopsy didn’t see the drone) then collided what looks like the underside tail of the jet into one of the drone’s propeller blades, which was very much not on purpose.

The Jet did survive but we won’t get any information out of Russia how badly it was damaged. The whole sequence shows a pilot that doesn’t seem to always know where the drone is while making some seat of the pants flybys that only by luck don’t kill him.

US military video shows Black Sea drone incident

[LarsMac]

Hope we can send that video to his squadron.
His buddies'll be giving him shit over that kinda boo-boo.

[ceptimus]

If you look at a three-view drawing of a Reaper drone, you can see that the V-tail surfaces project up higher than the arc of the propeller. So it would be very difficult and/or lucky for the Sukhoi jet to hit the propeller without also taking out the tail of the drone.

There's the possibility that the jet fighter did hit the V-tail (we don't see the tail in the 'after' part of the released video), but it seems unlikely. as it would most likely have resulted in the drone spinning out of control.

Some people have proposed that the jet didn't actually hit the propeller - just that the drone propeller hit the fuel the jet was dumping - and that was enough to damage the propeller. Certainly, at the speed the propeller rotates, hitting a sufficient volume of liquid would damage it - but this explanation seems unlikely to me: at the speed the drone was flying (about 160 knots cruise speed) I think the fuel would form a thick mist, rather than big bucket-sized dollops. You can see a few spots of fuel on the camera lens / camera dome cover, after the first jet pass - more like raindrops than anything.

After the collision, one blade of the propeller is bent, but the opposite blade is also twisted ninety degrees to its correct flying position. It's possible the drone could have kept flying with just the bent blade (though there would be a great deal of vibration), but with the twisted blade problem, there's no way it could make enough thrust to remain airborne.

Another interesting thing is that the tips of the propeller are clearly painted yellow in the 'before collision' part of the video, but in the 'after collision' part, the yellow cannot be seen (maybe you can just see it if you turn the brightness up). One possible explanation is that the drone changed its flight direction during the 'interference / color bars' part of the video, so that the propeller was being backlit, making the stripes much less visible. Other explanations are that the sprayed fuel and shock of collision washed the yellow paint off the blades (seems very unlikely), or that the video has been created / edited, by CGI, or by splicing the 'after collision' part of the video from a different Reaper drone, with a differently-painted propeller.

[Ari]

The Russian jet is in a right banked turn coming from underneath rising up, and it looks like they put the back right horizontal stabilizer right through the drone’s V. When the footage comes back we see a rolled and snapped blade indicative of a prop strike, although normally it happens against the ground and not another plane. To roll and snap the tip it needs to have contacted something reasonably hard. The prop is also free wheeling in the opposite direction showing it’s lost all power.

The pilot was given a medal for the downing of a US drone, so it won’t be too long before Russia claims the US is slamming their drones into Russian fighters.

[ceptimus]

Not sure about the prop freewheeling / turning backwards. Even when the drone is flying normally, in the 'before impact' part, the propeller appears to be rotating slowly, when, to the naked eye, it would be a blur. This is just a strobe effect to do with the frame rate of the camera - an effect often seen with film or video of rotating propellers, wagon wheels, etc.

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by Ari

...

The pilot was given a medal for the downing of a US drone, so it won’t be too long before Russia claims the US is slamming their drones into Russian fighters.

Sounds about right. Though I bet his Squad buddies still gave 'im shit about it.

[ceptimus]

The incident does highlight the media and regulator hysteria concerning recreational drones. The media often reports that a passenger jet or military plane could be bought down by impact with something like a DJI Mavic or Phantom, that weigh around one or two pounds. But here we see a military jet apparently slamming into a two-ton military drone's propeller, and flying away to land safely back at its airfield.

Recreational multi rotor drones have now been flying for about twenty years, and been very popular for at least half that time: so far, the number of deaths caused by them, worldwide, remains at zero. But regulators have insisted on drone flyers being registered, and hobby drones will soon be legally obliged to carry transponders, revealing not only the drone's location, but also the location of the operator. The regulation is more onerous than that applied to full size gliders and hot air balloons - and indeed, guns and gun owners.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

an effect often seen with film or video of rotating propellers, wagon wheels, etc.

Oh yes when the props are all the same I would agree, but besides the vibrations of having one blade missing a chunk, the frame rate would need to be near a full rotation of the blade, whereas with four equal looking blades it only needs to be near 1/4th a rotation to create the stopped or backwards rolling effect.

I’m not sure what caused the twists to the other blades though, clearly more than a few things happened during the fuzz out, and it’s the only obvious one.

[Ari]

I’m starting to feel sorry for Russia itself as the traumatized prisoners thrown into a war zone as fodder, taught that compassion is weakness and strength comes from violence, are given a refresher on how to kill before being released back onto Russian soil, free men. America treats our troops like kings in comparison to the Wagner group, and just look at the trauma done to our vets.

’He’s really dangerous’: fear as Wagner convict soldiers return from Ukraine | Russia | The Guardian

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by Ari

I’m starting to feel sorry for Russia itself

The furry art community has a number of Russians whose incomes were abruptly cut off by the war sanctions as their income came from comparatively wealthy westerners and the comparatively good art these talented artists can produce. Many have been trying to GTFO, but... work abroad for artists? lol.

I had a throw down with my mom over abusive bullshit directed at Russian athletes in general. Yeah, I don't have time for abuse hurled at random Russians. Esp when there's a home grown resistance inside the country itself.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

I had a throw down with my mom over abusive bullshit directed at Russian athletes in general. Yeah, I don't have time for abuse hurled at random Russians.

And let's not hear the line "Russian athletes can compete if they denounce the war." Sure, and risk state pressure on their family, friends, trainers, etc still in Russia.

[JoeP]

Belarus extradites father of Russian girl who drew anti-war pictures | Russia | The Guardian

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

cool, cool

Russians shooting at rescuers in flooded areas, Zelenskyy says – POLITICO

[Ari]

Given how Russia has acted so far, I expect they will destroy everything and salt the fields as they retreat. They seem pretty consistent in doing the most desperate thing while claiming to be the victim.

I also expect we will see a larger scale retreat. Russia’s strategy has been to burn lots of resources creating lots of short term gains in the presumption they could then capitalize on those short term gains to drive forward, creating a ton of rapid gains that result in a victory, which has utterly failed. Russia seems built for the long haul against an invasion, but as the aggressors it’s just a cluster fuck.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by Ari

salt the fields as they retreat

That's basically what this dam destruction does. It will take years to rebuild after the area is secured, and massive areas of productive fields will revert to the drought-prone marginal land it used to be.

The ministry said that in 2021 - before Russia's full-scale invasion - these systems provided irrigation on 584,000 hectares from which farmers harvested about 4 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds.

That represented about 4% of the country's output

Ukraine warns over impact of Kakhovka dam collapse on farmland | Reuters

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

How Ukraine's dam collapse could become the country's 'Chernobyl' https://t.co/KWPP4aIaKA

— TIME (@TIME) June 12, 2023

[Stephen Maturin]

Meanwhile, on Russian soil . . .

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group appears to be threatening an armed rebellion against Russia's military leadership, after accusing it of deliberately shelling his forces on Friday.

Wagner's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in an audio message on Friday claimed his forces would now punish Russia's defense minister and chief of general staff, telling other units to stand down and not offer resistance.

"There are 25,000 of us and we are coming to sort things out. ... Those who want to join us, it's time to finish with this mess," Prigozhin said.