It's really amazing how ingenious and resourceful Ukraine has become. The Pskov attack falls well outside of this range, it will be interesting to know what was used (if done from Ukraine or infiltrated withing Russian borders)
Russia has literally no answer
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It's really amazing how ingenious and resourceful Ukraine has become. The Pskov attack falls well outside of this range, it will be interesting to know what was used (if done from Ukraine or infiltrated withing Russian borders)
Russia has literally no answer
Rumor is Ukraine used a bunch of Australian ultra low cost cardboard disposable drones. They're practically undetectable by radar and have a 5KG explosive payload. Also easy to smuggle into Russia proper by sympathetic partisans and just look like flat pack cardboard boxes during transport.
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Ukrainians using paper airplanes that cost only $4K vs. the $50M per Il-76... so far 3% of the US military budget's wiped out 50% of the Russian military and hardware at this point. Russia's going to have no airforce by the end of this lol.
Last edited by FlameOn; 08-30-2023 at 08:54 AM.
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Is it possible elements within Finland are launching attacks? I'm sure there is a Finn or two out there looking for some revenge.
Ukrainian says the attacks were launched from within Russia. Now whether Fins were involved or not isn't really clear. Hasn't the border between Finland/Russia been closed to tourism for awhile now tho?
Ukrainian says the attacks were launched from within Russia. Now whether Fins were involved or not isn't really clear. Hasn't the border between Finland/Russia been closed to tourism for awhile now tho?
After looking at a map, Estonia would be likelier, I guess.
But I still wonder if there are rogue elements in Finland who want a piece of the enemy and are plotting their own sabotage/attacks.
Rumor is Ukraine used a bunch of Australian ultra low cost cardboard disposable drones. They're practically undetectable by radar and have a 5KG explosive payload. Also easy to smuggle into Russia proper by sympathetic partisans and just look like flat pack cardboard boxes during transport.
Shouldn't we just order a million of these instead of spending billions on fighter jets?
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Rumor is Ukraine used a bunch of Australian ultra low cost cardboard disposable drones. They're practically undetectable by radar and have a 5KG explosive payload. Also easy to smuggle into Russia proper by sympathetic partisans and just look like flat pack cardboard boxes during transport.
This is cool, and good to see in the moment.
I guess my concern is that this seems to be highly obtainable tech for Russia as well. Like, the escalation here is undetectable exploding paper airplanes en masse for both sides.
Hopefully Russia is too corrupt and incompetent to actually facilitate creation and deployment of these, and instead continues to use 60 year old Soviet surplus and human meat waves on the ground.
I guess my concern is that this seems to be highly obtainable tech for Russia as well. Like, the escalation here is undetectable exploding paper airplanes en masse for both sides.
Hopefully Russia is too corrupt and incompetent to actually facilitate creation and deployment of these, and instead continues to use 60 year old Soviet surplus and human meat waves on the ground.
I mean the whole reason Russia invaded is because they believed they were far stronger in all aspects. They had a massive air and naval superiority, can shoot hypersonic missiles from subs and jets from 1000km+ with impunity that could not be intercepted and for which Ukraine is forbidden to fight back against with allied weapons, used cluster munitions, thermobaric weapons from day 1, have used the geneva convention as a checkmark list on what to violate including wearing Ukrainian uniforms. They have launched over 600 Shahed-136 drones which took months before Ukraine could muster a credible defense again them. They have created the largest and most dense landmine area in history with mines undetectable to mine detectors.
Are we really worrying about Russia learning to use cardboard drones?
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After looking at a map, Estonia would be likelier, I guess.
But I still wonder if there are rogue elements in Finland who want a piece of the enemy and are plotting their own sabotage/attacks.
As a Finn, I find that idea extremely unlikely. The types who want to fight actively fight Russians can just go to Ukraine after all. (Where they've been generally well received, as Finnish military training has proven to be pretty good and well suited against Russia. Almost as if this is what our training is aimed at.)
Last edited by Itse; 08-30-2023 at 12:55 PM.
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After looking at a map, Estonia would be likelier, I guess.
But I still wonder if there are rogue elements in Finland who want a piece of the enemy and are plotting their own sabotage/attacks.
No chance of either, the risk of being caught outweighs the small benefit. Has to come from Ukraine or Russia (logically... which isn't always true...). NATO countries aren't going to fly paper bombs into Russia in an attempt to influence the war.
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There is no way for Russia to seal its borders from Ukrainians which is why this war was and is so dumb, Russia's weakness is a combination of hubris and ineptness, I doubt Ukraine is making the same mistakes
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There is no way for Russia to seal its borders from Ukrainians which is why this war was and is so dumb, Russia's weakness is a combination of hubris and ineptness, I doubt Ukraine is making the same mistakes
Amongst others, but yes. This war is so, so stupid.
I grew up around Russians and Ukrainians, they considered themselves family.
If my maternal Grandfather was alive right now he'd be absolutely livid with his countrymen.
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The latest Perun video is very timely for the discussion on F-16:s, and just generally super informative on the air war side.
The whole video is once again well worth the time, but a couple of TL,DW points:
- Ukraine is doing well with what it has, but they're still the clear underdog. Russia just has more of everything, and better pretty much everything, and there's only so much you can do to narrow that gap with clever tactics and innovative use of technology. Ukraine could really use more materiel for this front.
- A key reason Ukraine needs at least some F-16:s ASAP is that they are on their way to running out of SU-24s, currently the only platform Ukraine has that can launch Storm Shadows (and other potential NATO gifts such as French SCALP-EG:s). Those air launched cruise missiles are a key long range strike capability, but every SU-24 is at least 30 years old, a significant portion of them have been lost already, and Russia is spending a lot of energy to knock the rest of them out of the fight. This is a bit of a ticking clock.
So, in the short term Ukraine specifically needs domething to keep firing those Storm Shadows (and potential other NATO weapons), and pilots+supportive structure that are good enough to do that one job.
Last edited by Itse; 09-04-2023 at 02:39 PM.
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In other news, Erdogan has organized a big meeting with Putin (big = a lot of cabinet members present). Obviously full agenda isn't public, Turkey is at least pushing to get Russia back to the grain deal.
Zelenskiy has also fired Ukraine's defense minister for unspecified reasons beyond "a need for new direction". This could be anything really. Maybe it's part of the corruption housecleaning, maybe the war is going poorly, maybe genuine mistakes have been made, maybe there's a key policy disagreement, maybe the current guy is just burned out. Still, not a typical move during a war.
