War

Heliflopter

Chill War

Nice. Ukrainian expertise and experience will be much needed in the likely war with China.

Airfare Refunded

Chill Evil, War

Probably a Russian Pantsir-S1 AA system with the 57E6 missile did this. Most likely, it was tuned for a smaller target so it exploded far away enough from the plane that it didn’t immediately bring it down, but damaged it significantly with shrapnel1. If it’d been the missiles from the S-300/S-400s the plane would’ve broken apart mid-air due to the far larger warhead even if the detonation was distant.

We really need to evict Russia from Ukraine and prevent WWIII. It’s not too late. Soon it will be, but it’s not now.

There’s no way to know exactly how damaged the avionics systems and flight controls were, but not sure why the pilot put it down like this as they obviously had some control.

Why was the landing gear extended? I think the procedure if you’re not sure you’re going to make a runway is only try to put the gear down at the last moment as if you have to land on a non-runway it’s more survivable. It might’ve just run out of fuel (tanks pierced by shrapnel) is why the nose-down like that at the end.

Still, though, it got hit by a damn missile. Hard to criticize without knowing more details.

  1. The missile fired was tuned to take down a drone, not an airliner.

Korea See Ya

Chill War

It’s been pretty clear for a while that Russia is starting to run out of equipment. That’s the whole reason they’d use unarmed and unarmored civilian vehicles in assaults, even with as careless with human life as Russia tends to be.

A Wash

Chill Evil, War

Insanity. There are dozens of thousands of Russians dying a month, and for what? So they can rape women and steal washing machines? The ones who survive, that is.

Disdain

Chill War, WTF

To be somewhat fair, they were likely under fire. That said, the Russians do this sort of shit all the time. They do not care about the other soldiers’ lives they serve with in a way that’s hard for me to understand, having served as a paratrooper for five years. We just did not, would never have, treated each other that way.

There is something very diseased in that culture.

Poland

Chill Prediction, War

The Price of Russian Victory: Why Letting Putin Win Would Cost America More Than Supporting Ukraine.

Allowing Russia to defeat Ukraine would cost the United States about seven times more than preventing a Russian victory.

Far more than that. Because if we let Russia win, we’ll be fighting Russia in Poland in 2028 or a bit later. I’d estimate the financial cost of that war at $5 trillion or so. And that’s only the monetary burden; hundreds of thousands to millions will be killed and lives will be disrupted forever.

We should not let that happen. But we probably will.

Low Go

Chill Amusing, War

Damn, Noah, you didn’t have to go that low. But he’s right — though I don’t think Russia has much interest in conquering France. They will stop at Germany. And anyway, France has nukes and there is no doubt in my mind that France will nuke the shit out of Moscow if Russia sends any troops across that border. Putin is certainly aware of that too.

France in general should still be concerned with what happens to the rest of Europe, including Ukraine, than it is. What Russia is likely to do in the future will not be good for Macron’s country at all, even if there is no outright invasion.

Wave All the Meat

Chill Evil, Video, Video (other), War

Open-field disorganized assault with no vehicular support. Alrighty then. What a colossal waste of people and purpose.