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Quick notes from Andrei + open thread

Dear friends Looks like Hurricane Ian will be even dangerous for the Florida East coast.  So I don’t know how soon we will lose power.  I also am too preoccupied with preparations to write much today. But the few headlines below are, I think, quite amazing. The Americans Declared War On Europe The War On Germany Just Entered Its Hot Phase Swedish experts report explosions at Nord Stream pipeline sites

A chaotic post to start the week: international news, blog news and personal info

Dear friends, This will be a somewhat chaotic post since I am going to mix international news, blog news and personal use.  But first, I want to address something which deeply bothers me: the reaction of some to the recent prisoner exchange.  Specifically, I want to address those who so vociferously opposed it and criticized the Kremlin for agreeing to it.  So in my next paragraph I want to direct

Two short news and some US week-end music

So the two big news of the day are: The liberated areas of the Ukraine have begun to vote on whether to join Russia A major prisoner exchange has taken place between the Kiev and Moscow I don’t see the point of commenting right now about the vote.  But I do have a few things to say about the prisoner exchange and the first one is this: to those who

Russia will mobilize about 1.2% of her mobilizational potential (UPDATED!)

So, after lots of speculation, we now know that the Kremlin has decided to mobilize about 300’000 soldiers from a total mobilizational potential of 25’000’000 soldiers.  That’s just a little over 1% of Russia’s mobilizational potential.  We are talking only about those soldiers who have an official status of “reserves” and all of them will have to undergo a special training before being sent to the Ukraine. A few comments

Short news summary and some week-end music

I begin with the most patriotic people in Russia, the Chechens.  Here is a photo of the latest batch of volunteers which Ramzan Kadyrov is sending to the Ukraine:   Next, one of the favorite techniques used by Ukrotrolls is the mantra “Where is the footage!? Where are the bodies?! Show me the supposed destroyed equipment?!” This is a very effective technique, consider the following: The Russian military has a

Who will run out of resources first?

Today I will keep it very short using my favorite bullet-style points: By most credible accounts, the recent Ukronazi+NATO attack in the Kharkov area was even more costly in KIA/MIA, wounded and lost hardware than the attack towards Kherson.  The combined losses from these attacks are staggering. Yet there are all the signs that the Ukronazi+NATO forces are preparing for even more such attacks. The Ukronazis+NATO seem happy to trade

On the role and importance of PSYOPs for the SMO (warning – long discussion!)

Introduction: the proverbial “fog of war” vs the Internet Listening to all the innumerable opinions and news (the latter mostly fake) about what happened in the past days in the Ukraine, I am getting the feeling that I am observing to quasi non-connected worlds.  The first world is the purely military world and in that world a rather minor incident happened. In this world, it is even possible that the

Open thread, one development and a request

Dear friends, God willing, I will post an analysis tomorrow of what apparently has happened (I will look at at least two main versions) and what is going on today. At this point all I can do is to confirm that overnight the Russians have hit Ukrainian electricity nodes and that much of the Ukraine, especially in the East, is in the dark.  Even “Ze” confirmed this.  BTW – the

Open Thread, one article, a very promising new blog and trolls/bots

Dear friends, I am creating an open thread about the SMO in the Ukraine. As a “primer” I recommend this machine translation of a Russian article: Version one: https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.2ae402df-631d0e24-b263427a-74722d776562/https/vz.ru/news/2022/9/10/1176889.html Version two: https://vz-ru.translate.goog/news/2022/9/10/1176889.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp And, just to clarify, Sivkov (PhD in Military Sciences) is very critical of Putin and the Russian Military and while we can criticize much of what he writes, he is hardly a “flagwaver”. Finally, please pay special attention

Update on the Ukrainian attack towards Kupiansk (and some week-end music)

I am probably going to regret doing this, but I will do it anyway (sigh):  I will post maps.  In fact, I am going to do this three times! First, a video of the Ukrainian advances since their counter-attack: (no sound) Second, here is a map to give you a closer look: And finally a Google map of the area with the actual distance between Balakleia and Kupiansk indicated: So

Some *very* basic stuff about Russian defenses in the SMO

Yesterday I posted a short SITREP about the Ukrainian offensive on Balakleia.  And, sure enough, there are 72 comments on this already!  Many of them show a total misunderstanding of the nature of the SMO (it was a mistake for me to post a map which, obviously, most people cannot make sense of!). So all I propose to do today is to explain something really basic about the concept of

The persecution of Graham Phillips by the UK government

Dear friends About a month ago I wrote about the truly Orwellian persecution of the journalist Graham Phillips by the UK government and I did a short Q&A with Graham himself.  Graham has sent me a number official document regarding his case, I concatenated them into one PDF which I will now share with you: This is a scary, but very interesting read.  One thing is very very clear: Graham’s

Tons of thanks, a SMO update and some beautiful week-end music!

First, my deepest gratitude to you all! I want to begin today’s report by thanking all those of you who have reached out to help me and the blog.  In spite of the hard economic times, many of you have sent donations, offered to volunteer and, last but not least, said prayers for me.  Of course, your donations will help financially, but it is your moral support which most deeply

Now it is my turn to ask for your help

Dear friends, I have been putting this off for as much as I could, but the truth is that I need to make a fundraiser again.  Sorry! This is the price we all have to pay for not having ads, subscription only content, pop-ups, etc.  This blog is 100% financed by 100% volunteer donations.  As for its contents, they are all licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license

Week-end short news + some good music

A few interesting short news first. Does Russia have air superiority over the Ukraine?  See a good answer here: https://sonar21.com/combined-arms-a-look-at-russian-air-ops-in-the-donbas/ Next, speaking of aviation, here is a machine translated Q&A with aerospace officials from Rostekh and  the United Aircraft Corporation about Russian plans to deal with the issue of civilian aviation in Russia: Question: When will we see fully import-substituted SSJ and MS-21 aircraft? Answer: The successful completion of resource

Western ruling elites have Dariia Dugina’s blood on their hands

The murder of Dariia Dugina triggered the now quite predictable reaction from the collective West: total indifference.  This is hardly something new.  The West not only put a Nazi regime in power in Kiev, it supported it by all means possible while that regime did all of the following: Used its armed forces in an internal civil war, which is (was?) banned under the Ukrainian constitution which resulted in about

Ukraine update: Dugina murder and blacklisting of Roger Waters

The FSB confirms: Dariia Dugina was murdered by the SBU (Machine translation) The FSB reported on the identification of the customers and perpetrators of the murder of Daria Dugina. The murder was planned by the Ukrainian special services. The direct perpetrator of the murder was a citizen of Ukraine Natalia Vovk, born in 1979, who left Russia for Estonia on August 21. She arrived in Russia on July 23. It

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