Update from Romania:
The far-right AUR ended up losing seats in the parliamentary election, not winning them. The social democrats won and will likely form a centrist/moderate coalition of some sort.
The real story of their election cycle was not a rise of far-right, but rather a splintering of the existing parties. A dozen or so new parties were formed between the last election and this one, many of them splitting from existing parties. The number of parties in the parliament went from 6 to 10. High voter turnout was also a story, which in Romania means 52%. (Typically the parliamentary elections have been around 40%.)
In short: Romanian politics are in an interesting turmoil, and we don't know what's going to happen with that presidential election, but it's not interesting in a way that really matters to people outside Romania.
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The Ukrainian Air Force reports on a drone attack overnight. Out of 78 Shahed drones launched, 32 were shot down and 45 were supressed by electronic warfare. One more drone remains in the air. https://twitter.com/user/status/1863135232687317235
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Warfronts (formerlu know as Warographics released this excellent summary on what happened in Aleppo, and there's a lot of really interesting stuff in it.
- HTS, the rebel group mainly responsible for taking Aleppo, has been putting in a lot of work to shed their image as terrorists and Islamic radicalists, doing things like helping civilians get their water and electricity back after the fighting, clearing rubble from the streets and giving proclamations to local shia-muslims that the HTS (sunnis) don't mean any harm to them.
As a personal opinion, I think the West is much too eager to slap the "islamist terrorist" label on various armed and political groups in the Middle-East, but of course since there is no obvious definition, there's a lot of subjectivity involved. In chaotic times people tend to turn to religion, and religion has always been used as a way to "other" the opposition in wars... but there really is no obvious line between that being a real motivation and it being simply rhetorical.
That said You can't be good and win wars. I'm not saying the HTS are fine now, I'm just saying them winning is not necessarily a bad thing.
In any case, the HTS is primarily backed by Turkey (not consistently, though), but also to some extent Ukrainian special forces which are known to operate in the area... and when I listened to the breakdown of the tactics and equipment used in the attack, it sounded to me like those were obviously influenced by Ukrainian tactics. Which would make sense, because Syrian government forces are heavily influenced by Russian tactics and strategy. Whether Ukrainians have been directly involved in this particular operation or not is anyones guess, influences can move indirectly too.
Things that did catch my ear was that the use of drones and even home-built cruise missiles by the rebels is at this point barely worth mentioning. Drones are at this point just a basic tool of probably most fighting forces in the world, which is crazy considering that early 2022, just 2,5 years ago, they were still considered a novelty and there was still a lot of skepticism around their true utility in the battlefield.
Last edited by Itse; 12-04-2024 at 04:45 AM.
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The brief Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia was less than two years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Azeri Bayraktars wrecked the Armenian air defense and gained them air superiority over the battlefield. This was the first time I recall drones playing a significant part in determining the outcome of a war, and I'm sure other countries in the region paid very close attention.
Last edited by BloodFetish; 12-04-2024 at 11:10 AM.
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The brief Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia was less than two years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Azeri Bayraktars wrecked the Armenian air defense and gained them air superiority over the battlefield. This was the first time I recall drones playing a significant part in determining the outcome of a war, and I'm sure other countries in the region payed very close attention.
Yup. Russo-Ukrainian war has been the large scale breakthrough of drones, but it wasn't where it all started.
Houthis in Yemen have been one very notable group making their own drones and using them attacks since 2016.
These 2019 attacks on Saudi Arabian oil fields were I think the most high profile case, and possibly the first internationally high profile case of drones showing their potential. What was so notable here was that Saudi Arabia had a Patriot battery protecting those oil fields, but that was to some extent unable to target the low flying drones, and the rest of the air defense was just overwhelmed by the number of cheap drones.
The fact that Houthis scored such a clear W with relatively cheap drones against a high quality air defense had quite a lot of people taking notice and realizing the "disruptive" potential of this technology.
EDIT:
...and really, the extent to which it has been disruptive is kind of incredible.
Houthis have managed to successfully disrupt the Red Sea trade route with the help of air and sea drones (combined with more traditional missiles) for over a year now, despite an international attempt to secure the route with billions of dollars of air and naval power.
The disparity of the forces at play there is just ridiculous.
Last edited by Itse; 12-04-2024 at 11:10 AM.
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Ukraine's Air Force reported on a drone attack overnight. Out of 50 Shahed drones launched, 29 were shot down and 18 were supressed by electronic warfare.
#2 on my list of people in the russian government l want to see swinging from the gallows.
Exhibit A as to why there's no deal to be made with those clowns. How do you even begin to lay the foundation of some kind of deal when the only thing leaving their mouths are filthy lies.
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- In short, the Romanian constitutional court annulled the first round of the presidential elections (not the parliamentary election), basically because Romanian intelligence services had discovered "a massive influence campaign" by Russia.
Reasons stated include things like 25,000 TikTok accounts activating two weeks before the election, pushing the pro-Putin candidate. On it's own this of course wouldn't be a legal reason to annull an election, but Romania has a law stating that "election content" must be marked as such. (There's a lot more to it, including payouts to influencers and cyberattacks etc, but it still seem like Russias social media campaign is a central part of the argument.)
Definitely an interesting precedent, which I think a lot of countries will look at, and since the Romanian security services released their findings to the public, it gives a chance for people to dig into what Russia did.
Election interference is a growing problem all over the world, and I think countries will be looking hard into ways to do something about it, both legally and technologically.
Last edited by Itse; 12-06-2024 at 02:05 PM.
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- In short, the Romanian constitutional court annulled the first round of the presidential elections (not the parliamentary election), basically because Romanian intelligence services had discovered "a massive influence campaign" by Russia.
Reasons stated include things like 25,000 TikTok accounts activating two weeks before the election, pushing the pro-Putin candidate. On it's own this of course wouldn't be a legal reason to annull an election, but Romania has a law stating that "election content" must be marked as such. (There's a lot more to it, including payouts to influencers and cyberattacks etc, but it still seem like Russias social media campaign is a central part of the argument.)
Definitely an interesting precedent, which I think a lot of countries will look at, and since the Romanian security services released their findings to the public, it gives a chance for people to dig into what Russia did.
Election interference is a growing problem all over the world, and I think countries will be looking hard into ways to do something about it, both legally and technologically.
Its all about Dictatorship. You know how you eliminate Election Tampering? Eliminate Elections.
Problem. Solved.
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This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
The World Ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. - Flames Fans
If you thought this season would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
URBAN SKY DIVING CLUB: reports that Alexy Davydov, former deputy mayor of Krasnoyarsk, “fell” out of a window on the 11th floor of the Investigative Committee Building during an inquiry.
Deputy Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna said "Lowering the age of conscripts in Ukraine is impossible due to the lack of a planning, training, and equipping system for brigades.
Just curious since it seems to have dropped out of the headlines.
How did the North Koreans fare?
Several of the prominent YT-based, pro-Ukraine daily commentators have been suggesting that the Russians have tried to incorporate NK soldiers as ethnic Buryats into their units to conceal their presence near Kursk, and that the communication and movements around training the new troops have provided opportunities for targeted strikes to disrupt training and kill some/many of the NKs. Hard to be sure, though, how much firm evidence is backing up the claims (as much as I want to believe it's all true), so perhaps best taken with a few grains of salt.
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