Ukraine Invasion Part 12

[MagicFox]

I see the other thread is filling up so starting the twelfth...

Even if NATO did not know whose drone it was, surely they knew it wasn't supposed to be flying over Hungary? Why was a warning not given to Croatia?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60709952.amp

“There was an explosion in the southwestern Jarun district shortly after 23:00 (22:00 GMT). Residents found a crater and wreckage scattered close to student accommodation.“

A bit more detail in this report.

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/ukraine-military-drone-crashes-into-croatian-capital-zagreb

I hope we stop sending foreign aid to India then

@ClaudineClare

OTOH given the tensions in that part of the world and the NATO assets we know are in the area between Ukraine and Zagreb I’ll be honest and the story as described in the MSM smells a bit “off”

So what do you think really happened?

There will be a handful of people who know what happened…they won’t be talking so we’re left with speculation.

The question here is is it credible that an (unknown, so assumed hostile?) object was detected, tracked and allowed to fly across a big chunk of sky heading towards an (unknown) destination carrying an (unknown) payload…and no warning was passed on to anybody on the potential line of flight?

Now my expertise..sorry,….insight in this sort of thing is pretty ancient but even so I’m betting we’ve not got anything like the full story…

And BTW as an aside it’s interesting to see there has been one or two rushing onto the forum seemingly to blame this on NATO with not a word about those who built and fired the drone in a westwards direction in the first place….

notimagain you are being a bit opaque (or maybe I am being thick!) as I still don't understand what you are trying to imply? Is it that the drone was fired deliberately to hit the target it hit? Why would that happen? An attempt to escalate the conflict? By whom?

@cakeorwine

No nomb was dropped. Apparently both places have a town with a very similar name and co ordinates were likely put in for the wrong down. The drone ran out of fuel and crashed

That sounds unlikely. I would hope that the military are more careful than that.

Unfortunately the cock up theory sounds most plausible here. Ordinary people would be truly and rightly horrified to discover that the military like any other activity do screw up and make mistakes.

Except that right now in the fog of war mistakes can take us all in an unforeseen and unwanted direction.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegianrockett_incident

The Croatia drone story is about how it got missed first and foremost.

If there is a rational explanation (they stuck the wrong coordinates in because there's one with a similar name in Ukraine) then go with it. Incompetence rather than malice - Hanlon's Razor.

Simply because does NATO really want ramp up the war based on a drone that accidentally went the wrong way, and never actually caused any damage / harm? That would be beyond ridicilous.

This is by definition, one of those situations where due diligence, careful consideration and cool heads really are appropriate rather than going 'shit fire up the nukes boys'.

That is the very definition of accidental war.

Instead, there is a very real wakeup call there - to prevent a possible real attack going unseen. Thats actually of value to the West and to the detriment to Russia.

If the story about asking China for arms, and notably drones, is true then I also think this story is relevant.

Turkey has been supplying Ukraine with drones (Turkey being a NATO member and having disputes with Syria over Russia means it is unlikely to be too keen on supplying Russia too even though its willing to not get involved in sanctions and will probably be almost 'allowed' by the US due to those drones). The drones have apparently been really successful for the Ukrainians. The Russians will be noting this success as its hurting.

It also suggests that at least some of the drones that Russia have got, are a bit shit. Noting that this one didn't actually explode.

Honestly, those saying 'but the Russians did this and we did NOTHING' really are missing the point here.

I think its been established its a Soviet drone and that the Ukrainians have denied its theres, so the assumption is its Russian. But equally they haven't claimed it either. If they were wanting to hit NATO deliberately, I think they'd a) have a better target b) make some noise about it even if were to go 'wasn't us gov, its those Ukrainian Nazis making a pretext to involve NATO, aren't we so hard done by'

If we are going to enter the war, I think I'd struggle with the motive if it were 'drone hit our land, might have been going the wrong way, ran out of fuel and didn't explode' over and above 'genocidal behaviour on Ukrainian soil'. And I don't think it would win any propaganda war on moral cause and public support to say the least.

@ClaudineClare

notimagain you are being a bit opaque (or maybe I am being thick!) as I still don't understand what you are trying to imply? Is it that the drone was fired deliberately to hit the target it hit? Why would that happen? An attempt to escalate the conflict? By whom?

Sorry, yes I’m deliberately being opaque.

Fundamentally I’m cautioning any idea that the Press (anywhere) get given anything like a chapter and verse accurate account of events like this…

That’s not necessarily down to aspects such as the risks of the conflict being escalated, it can simply be that anything other than very limited disclosure could reveal way too much about detection capabilities, response times, warnings systems are at a national and even a local level….

Result is press get given a broad brush story that will just about do for public consumption but scratch the surface and it’s ……

On the drone it is still inconclusive whether it was Russian or Ukrainian mainly because it made a bit of a mess when it crashed. But the fact that parachutes were deployed before it crashed would indicate it was Ukrainian as only the Ukrainians have a type drone that cannot land but uses parachutes to come down.

Another key question is how the hell an old un stealthy drone can cross Hungary and Romania for an hour without being picked up by the respective countries radars. But it's understandable that the Croatians are pissed off.

IMO it looks like a cock up on the drone by Ukraine and a cock up by Hungary and Romania on radars.

defbrief.com/2022/03/11/drone-that-crashed-in-croatias-capital-arrived-from-hungarian-airspace/

www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44697/ukrainian-tu-141-strizh-missile-like-drone-appears-to-have-crashed-in-croatia

ClaudineClare

A bit more detail in this report.

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/ukraine-military-drone-crashes-into-croatian-capital-zagreb

Thank you for the link @ClaudineClare
Apart from the question if what on earth it was doing there, it seems worrying is that no warning was given by the countries it crossed over.

Everything about Croatian Drone screams 'cock up' rather than malice. Whose drone it is, is almost irrelevant if thats the case and no harm done.

More of an issue if a cock up does damage.

So are we assuming simply on the basis of press reports that (for example) that the drone was undetected by the likes of Romania and Hungarian Air Defence systems?

Are we also assuming again, based on press reports, that no warning was given to the countries it passed over?

@PestorPeston

The US bit of intelligence had the desired effect. Hang Seng plummeted overnight, the Chinese go into talks significantly weaker.

do you think that the Chinese will refuse to help Russia then?

It's all a game at that level I suppose, but you could imagine the Chinese being very unhappy at the scent of coercion.

I am surprised at India's response.

@notimagain

So are we assuming simply on the basis of press reports that (for example) that the drone was undetected by the likes of Romania and Hungarian Air Defence systems?

Are we also assuming again, based on press reports, that no warning was given to the countries it passed over?

If its been given the wrong coordinates, would the sender even realise? Possibly not, for a variety of reasons.

We have to assume its a) undetected by Romania and Hungry otherwise there's two other explanations b) they knew about it, and made an active decision not to tell anyone Or c) it was spotted but no one knew who to tell - so a NATO internal comms issue.

a and c are definitely more likely than b.

I think what it is safe to say is countries are rightly very very cautious about admitting to the public what their air defence systems can and more importantly cannot detect….especially at the moment.

Such secrecy even causes problems in peacetime - for example one countries reluctance to part with such information initially caused problems with the investigation into the disappearance of MH370….

AFP News Agency @AFP 7m
#BREAKING Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant loses power again: operator

Breaking: Chernobyl. Again.

I wish I didn't keep seeing those words in the same tweet!

@LittleRedYoshi

I actually think we should lift the sanctions if a deal is agreed - if they remain in place then what do we do the next time Putin steps out of line? We need to lift them when we can so that they can remain a deterrent. Lifting them doesn't mean he 'gets away with it' - the damage they've already done to the Russian economy will still take years to recover from.

I saw an article by the former Russian Foreign minister under Yeltsin yesterday. He said that the sanctions on Russia need to stay until Russia has a properly independent press and free and fair elections. He said this is the west's wake up call that they need to stop buying in to the pretence that Russia is anything other than a dangerous rogue state.

We have to assume its a) undetected by Romania and Hungry otherwise there's two other explanations b) they knew about it, and made an active decision not to tell anyone Or c) it was spotted but no one knew who to tell - so a NATO internal comms issue. a and c are definitely more likely than b.

Perhaps …..not sure how much you can learn from the books these days but I’d caution that on the basis of having actually spent half a decade very very much at the sharp end of this specific line of work (Air Defence) I wouldn’t be assuming anything about the drone story as published.

If nobody knows the drones flight path, why do we have to assume it came from Ukraine.

Might be 50years until we know what happened here.

This is a very interesting article. I have wondered about this - whether he might agree to pull out but only with certain conditions agreed with the West and Ukraine but then claim it as a victory and we can do bugger all about it....

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/why-the-west-may-have-to-offer-putin-a-way-out/ar-AAV1Jf7?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

Thanks @pansiesareyellow, an exit ramp is something we have touched on repeatedly on these threads.

The news story about the pregnant woman and her baby dying after the Mariupol hospital attack is so upsetting. So much human suffering, and all for what? All because Putin wants to annexe another country.

@pansiesareyellow Great article!

I think Putin will just keep bombing Ukraine until there is nothing left to defend.
Most pundits think he hasn't even begun to use what he has (conventionally)

Just don't see how any number of assurances will satisfy him or justify to the Russian people the huge loss of life (which sooner or later they will realise has occurred) and if he only wanted bits of Ukraine, he could have taken those relatively easily.
He wants at least half of Ukraine inc Kyiv and all of its coast line and the Ukrainians will never agree to that.

so i suspect the "peace talks" are just PR.

But i never thought Cameron would actually go through with a Brexit referendum, like everyone on here, we want the best outcomes but know very little.

@notimagain

So are we assuming simply on the basis of press reports that (for example) that the drone was undetected by the likes of Romania and Hungarian Air Defence systems?

Are we also assuming again, based on press reports, that no warning was given to the countries it passed over?

My assumption that it was not detected by Hungarian or Romanian radar and no warning was passed to the Croatian Government was no based on press reports but more on the basis that the Croatian Government was understandably pissed off in to statement that neither Hungary or Romania gave it any warning of the approaching drone.